D&D 5E Rule of Three: 7 Feb. 2014

[Derren]

Caesar
Genghis Khan
Alexander The Great
Cao Cao
Sun Tzu
Bruce Lee


In one way or another, these names (and this is by no means anywhere close to being a comprehensive list) quite literally defined parts of the world we live in due to their mastery over martial concepts. In some cases, the things we believe; the things we think; our culture -even today- is defined by the history some of those names carved. ...and I'm only limiting my choices to real world history. If I start to consider literature, movies, and entertainment, names like Kull The Conqueror; Conan, Barristan Selmy, King Arthur, and various others come to mind. Heck, even D&D's lore itself has heroes who are known for their martial abilities; Drizzt Do'Urden, Sturm Brightblade, and Lord Soth were of great martial prowess.

(Though, admittedly, Soth doesn't exactly fit into my list since he was also a death knight; still he was a renowned knight already before gaining his other powers.)

None of them achieved greatness by personal martial skill but through their charisma and intelligence (military strategy). Of course history would be different if Caesar would have been able to fight off Brutus, but still its not his sword arm which made him famous. (And I don't see how Bruce Lee changed the world).
And you do not need to be a fighter to be a good tactician and/or politician.

 

[Wulfgar76]

This concerns me:

"when you reach 18th level as a fighter, we want you to feel like you can stand in front of the dragon in defiance with the ability to live through whatever the dragon throws at you."

A fine theory, but in my experience with past editions this means instead of being able to go toe-to-toe with a dragon, it means being able to slap the dragon around like a spoiled child.

 

[Argyle King]

None of them achieved greatness by personal martial skill but through their charisma and intelligence (military strategy). Of course history would be different if Caesar would have been able to fight off Brutus, but still its not his sword arm which made him famous. (And I don't see how Bruce Lee changed the world).
And you do not need to be a fighter to be a good tactician and/or politician.

Bruce Lee fits the list because he partially redefined what people thought of when they considered the image of what a strong man was.

Genghis Khan had to fight to reclaim what was stolen from him when his father was murdered. In many cases, personally fighting to do so. Likewise, it wasn't uncommon for him to lead from the front.

That's just a small example, I could go into further detail about the others. Besides, there's far more involved in combat than simply swinging a sword; for many of the people on that list, they made their names because their mental grasp of warfare went beyond the length of their own arms. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find it an unusual concept to play a warrior who isn't just some dumb meathead; I likewise don't find it to be an unusual request for D&D to make it possible to play a fighter without feeling as though I'm little more than a sidekick to the guys who get kewl powerz. I especially don't see either of those as being unusual when I consider that the warlord class has (supposedly) been ditched in favor of simply rolling that concept into the fighter class.

 

[Derren]

Genghis Khan had to fight to reclaim what was stolen from him when his father was murdered. In many cases, personally fighting to do so. Likewise, it wasn't uncommon for him to lead from the front.

That's just a small example, I could go into further detail about the others. Besides, there's far more involved in combat than simply swinging a sword; for many of the people on that list, they made their names because their mental grasp of warfare went beyond the length of their own arms. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find it an unusual concept to play a warrior who isn't just some dumb meathead; I likewise don't find it to be an unusual request for D&D to make it possible to play a fighter without feeling as though I'm little more than a sidekick to the guys who get kewl powerz. I especially don't see either of those as being unusual when I consider that the warlord class has (supposedly) been ditched in favor of simply rolling that concept into the fighter class.

But Genghis is not famous for that, but for conquering nearly all his way to the Atlantic. And that he did not do with his sword arm. Martial skill helped him and some of the others in the beginning, but later it became more and more unimportant. Napoleon wasn't considered to be "worth" 40.000 men on the field because of his martial abilities.

And you do not need to be a very good fighter to be a good tactician. A military background certainly helps and that includes combat practice, but there is no real correlation between personal martial skill and tactics.
In D&D terms, why should only the fighter being smart and intelligent enough to lead armies? To use your list above, who of those people were famous because of their combat skill? Caesar was first and foremost a politician, Genghis Kahn was more known for being able to drive his army further than anyone has ever done so and so is Alexander. I confess I do not know Cao Cao and Sun Tzu became famous for writing a book. What has that to do with being a fighter?

So where are the "martial superheroes" of our world? Hector and Achilles play second fiddle to Odysseus, Miyamoto Musashi is known for writing a book, but has overall less impact on the world as for example Sun Tzu had. If you go into the modern world there are of course several highly decorated heroes and sometime also widely known ones like the Red Baron, but in the end their overall effect on the world is pretty small, if not totally limited to news stories and movie deals.

 

[Thyrwyn]

None of them achieved greatness by personal martial skill but through their charisma and intelligence (military strategy). Of course history would be different if Caesar would have been able to fight off Brutus, but still its not his sword arm which made him famous. (And I don't see how Bruce Lee changed the world).
And you do not need to be a fighter to be a good tactician and/or politician.

It is noteworthy that you completely ignore the mythic and literary figures. Odd, since it is a pretty good bet that D&D was more heavily influenced by Conan and King Arthur than by any historical figure. Unless you are going to argue that Genghis Khan was a spell caster. . .

 

[Argyle King]

But Genghis is not famous for that, but for conquering nearly all his way to the Atlantic. And that he did not do with his sword arm. Martial skill helped him and some of the others in the beginning, but later it became more and more unimportant. Napoleon wasn't considered to be "worth" 40.000 men on the field because of his martial abilities.

And you do not need to be a very good fighter to be a good tactician. A military background certainly helps and that includes combat practice, but there is no real correlation between personal martial skill and tactics.
In D&D terms, why should only the fighter being smart and intelligent enough to lead armies? To use your list above, who of those people were famous because of their combat skill? Caesar was first and foremost a politician, Genghis Kahn was more known for being able to drive his army further than anyone has ever done so and so is Alexander. I confess I do not know Cao Cao and Sun Tzu became famous for writing a book. What has that to do with being a fighter?

So where are the "martial superheroes" of our world? Hector and Achilles play second fiddle to Odysseus, Miyamoto Musashi is known for writing a book, but has overall less impact on the world as for example Sun Tzu had. If you go into the modern world there are of course several highly decorated heroes and sometime also widely known ones like the Red Baron, but in the end their overall effect on the world is pretty small, if not totally limited to news stories and movie deals.

At what point did I suggest that only the fighter should be able to lead armies? I didn't.

I'm simply saying the following two things: 1) There certainly are people who made an impact on the world due to martial prowess; many of those people listed above never would have gone on to conquer had they died before getting to that point, and 2) the idea that a game is somehow more fun if one class gets awesome reality shaping abilities without really having any drawbacks while the people sitting at the same table get to say "I swing my sword... oh wait! I'm high level, I get to swing my sword, again!" for every battle is ridiculous to me.

Heck, I'm not even suggesting that the second part of #2 isn't fun; it can be pretty cool to hack through a group of monsters. However, I am suggesting that it isn't fun when you're sitting at a table and the group has to politely ask the player of the wizard to not do anything for a few rounds so as to allow them to participate in the game while you're stuck just saying "I swing my sword again." I'd like to believe I'm not alone in feeling that adding a little bit more cost than what has traditionally been involved with high level spells in the past would improve the quality of the D&D experience. By all means, throw fireballs, zap things with lightning, turn people to stone, but there should -in my opinion- be a counterbalance to that.

Oddly, the D&D fiction seems to agree there should be some counterbalance to that as well; in spite of the fact that the mechanics I'm most familiar with never seem to support that. Page after page of fluff talks about how difficult it is to learn magic; how trying it is to wield cosmic powers through a mortal vessel. Yet, I don't believe I've ever seen that be supported in the editions of D&D I am most familiar with (which would be 3rd, 4th, and Pathfinder.) I'd like to see it supported; it makes sense to me that it would be.

 

[Manbearcat]

We have a recent 582,346 page thread vehemently debating the reality of Linear Fighters/Quadratic Wizards in pre-4e D&D. One side argues that it exists and is a detriment to play. The other side exists that it is nonexistent. Both sides utterly committed to their position. Of course this is just one (mega) thread of many on the subject.

Then we have this thread where the 3rd rail of the LF/QW debate, again utterly committed, makes itself known; "LF/QW is a not only a real thing, but it is a canonical feature of D&D rather than a bug (working as intended). "

3 mutually exclusive positions:

1) LF/QW is pervasive, unintended, malignant and must be undone.
2) LF/QW is a tempest in a teapot.
3) LF/QW is pervasive, intended and mandatory for canonical D&D.

Human perception is so unhinged. How in the world did the WotC designers successfully pitch the lofty notion that one, modular ruleset chassis would not just appease, but please all of the deep divisions of D&D. We cannot even carve out the same perception with respect to the nature of the the existence of something that appears completely, and innocuously, self-evident to all three groups.

 

[Wrathamon]

I am in the Fighter shouldn't be dusted by a wizard camp.

I dont want to play the game of everyone is keeping the wizard alive so he can be super powerful in a year game.

 

[Wrathamon]

We have a recent 582,346 page thread vehemently debating the reality of Linear Fighters/Quadratic Wizards in pre-4e D&D. One side argues that it exists and is a detriment to play. The other side exists that it is nonexistent. Both sides utterly committed to their position. Of course this is just one (mega) thread of many on the subject.

Then we have this thread where the 3rd rail of the LF/QW debate, again utterly committed, makes itself known; "LF/QW is a not only a real thing, but it is a canonical feature of D&D rather than a bug (working as intended). "

3 mutually exclusive positions:

1) LF/QW is pervasive, unintended, malignant and must be undone.
2) LF/QW is a tempest in a teapot.
3) LF/QW is pervasive, intended and mandatory for canonical D&D.

Human perception is so unhinged. How in the world did the WotC designers successfully pitch the lofty notion that one, modular ruleset chassis would not just appease, but please all of the deep divisions of D&D. We cannot even carve out the same perception with respect to the nature of the the existence of something that appears completely, and innocuously, self-evident to all three groups.

love this post

And, when they tried to appease one group, it caused people to play another companies game, so they gave into the other group ... hoping to appease the former to stick around.

 

[dd.stevenson]

We have a recent 582,346 page thread vehemently debating the reality of Linear Fighters/Quadratic Wizards in pre-4e D&D. One side argues that it exists and is a detriment to play. The other side exists that it is nonexistent. Both sides utterly committed to their position. Of course this is just one (mega) thread of many on the subject.

Then we have this thread where the 3rd rail of the LF/QW debate, again utterly committed, makes itself known; "LF/QW is a not only a real thing, but it is a canonical feature of D&D rather than a bug (working as intended). "

3 mutually exclusive positions:

1) LF/QW is pervasive, unintended, malignant and must be undone.
2) LF/QW is a tempest in a teapot.
3) LF/QW is pervasive, intended and mandatory for canonical D&D.

Human perception is so unhinged. How in the world did the WotC designers successfully pitch the lofty notion that one, modular ruleset chassis would not just appease, but please all of the deep divisions of D&D. We cannot even carve out the same perception with respect to the nature of the the existence of something that appears completely, and innocuously, self-evident to all three groups.

Their first step was to assert that the current crop of messageboard posters were an unimportant, unrepresentative demographic that they could well afford to overlook.