D&D 5E Should martial characters be mundane or supernatural?

[Baron Opal II]

The problem isn't that goading should work under some circumstances. Want to goad an NPC in a bar? Give me an intimidation check.

It's supernatural if it works, or has a decent chance to work, under any and all situations. Want to goad an ooze? Good luck with that unless it's a supernatural ability. Which is the problem I had with 4E fighters until I just accepted that all fighters were supernatural in that edition.

Good point. I had not considered someone trying to goad a non-sentient creature. If you stab a creature guided by tropisms it is either going straight toward or away from you.

And I'm sure alcohol plays no small part in that, as does the taunter knowing the weakness of the one he is taunting. A sober complete stranger will rarely be affected like that. Certainly nowhere near as reliably as the battlemaster ability.

I certainly agree that it would take a strong cold reader to invoke a confrontational anger in a random person in this day and age. You would have to infer a lot from the context of the encounter and location, and most likely the target would just leave. For the purposes of the game, I'm willing to extrapolate what I've seen to a more general case for the fighter class.

 

[Pedantic]

Nothing ever is. People have their opinions and hold them even in the face of contradictory evidence. There’s been studies on this. People don’t change their minds.

But it's not even engaging with the argument. We should be probing the aesthetic that defines "mundane" until we have a clear set of design goals, which then gets added to the pile on top of balance and fun and everything else.

We can't pretend it doesn't exist, and calling for it to stop existing hasn't helped, and my preferred "stop trying to support it at all" solution is clearly equally unviable. If it's insufficient to label things "mundane" and there's enough people who demand mundane classes, then it's just a design constraint, and now you have to figure out precisely what kind of taunting abilities you can write without violating whatever the norms are.

 

[overgeeked]

But it's not even engaging with the argument. We should be probing the aesthetic that defines "mundane" until we have a clear set of design goals, which then gets added to the pile on top of balance and fun and everything else.

We can't pretend it doesn't exist, and calling for it to stop existing hasn't helped, and my preferred "stop trying to support it at all" solution is clearly equally unviable. If it's insufficient to label things "mundane" and there's enough people who demand mundane classes, then it's just a design constraint, and now you have to figure out precisely what kind of taunting abilities you can write without violating whatever the norms are.

You can’t design by committee. Whatever WotC seems to think. You’re literally never going to get a random sample of D&D nerds on the net to agree to much of anything, but especially not aesthetic terms. Design the game you want to play and hopefully there will be enough other people who enjoy it, too. The rest is just hot air and farts in the wind, to steal a phrase.

 

[Remathilis]

Well goading in 5e requires a weapon attack hit so that's not a problem. So that's one.

So. How about a maneuver that doesn't have a secondary effect and just rolls the superiority dice 3 times to damage if you stand still and have advantage to the attack.

AKA sniping.

If a fighter wants to snipe like that, he can take 5 levels of Rogue and use the Aim feature from Tasha's.

 

[Vaalingrade]

But it's not even engaging with the argument.

People engage in arguments here instead of slamming word walls at each other like literary earthbenders?

 

[Minigiant]

If a fighter wants to snipe like that, he can take 5 levels of Rogue and use the Aim feature from Tasha's.

Nah.
Fighter is master of weapons.
Longbow is a weapon.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Nah.
Fighter is master of weapons.

Except light weapons, which is the rogue's thing.

And Ranged weapons. Also rogue and the ranger is there too, I guess.

 

[Remathilis]

Nah.
Fighter is master of weapons.
Longbow is a weapon.

And we're back to the fighter eating the rogue's lunch.

 

[Scribe]

And we're back to the fighter eating the rogue's lunch.

And the poor Ranger.

 

[Tony Vargas]

5e did make it fairly seamless for a fighter to go all in on DEX (and better at ranged) instead of all in on STR (and better at melee). It 'wastes' weapon & armor proficiencies, but it's not like you can ever wear every armor & wield every weapon you have proficiency with at once.