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

[Baron Opal II]

nvm

 

[Remathilis]

On the other hand, wizards are the literal masters of the arcane, and educated sages of things magical. It's seems odd that some uneducated street rat would far outstrip them at the one thing they are known for being the best at.

Yup. And he can know more about religion than clerics so let's give them expertise in that. Or they know more than a druid in survival, nature and animal handling, so let's give expertise to druid as well. And it's not fair fighter and barbarian aren't masters of athletics, better give expertise to them too. What about monks and acrobatics? Expertise! Paladins and diplomacy? Expertise. Warlocks and deception and intimidation? Better give them expertise.

Huh, I guess everyone is getting expertise. What makes a rogue so good at skills now? I guess they have reliable talent...

Now wait, wizards are the literal masters of the arcane, why would a street rat have more reliable access to arcane knowledge than the one thing they are best at?

And the song goes on ...

 

[Maxperson]

It’s still possible for someone without the practical skills to be more learned in the theory of a subject than someone who actually does the things they know about, consider a physically fit athlete vs their nutritionist/personal trainer who might live on burgers and take out

And being a rogue implies nothing about your background and upbringing, a rogue could just as much of been a scholar or a noble previously as an urchin or charlatan and vice-versa for the wizard

Right, because street people with no degrees are the experts who push science forward.

Rogues are primarily lower class people. While a few might have a different background, all rogues are better than the premier experts. That's bupkis.

 

[Maxperson]

Wizards’ spell acquisition isn’t tied to Arcana at all. A wizard without proficiency is perfectly viable.

And a rogue with expertise in Arcana is not an uneducated street rat. At worst, they’re an educated street rat.

No. That's simply not true. I can make an uneducated street rat, pick arcana and then expertise and be better than a wizard.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No. That's simply not true. I can make an uneducated street rat, pick arcana and then expertise and be better than a wizard.

But why would you pick skills that do not make sense for your character concept?

 

[Pedantic]

Yup. And he can know more about religion than clerics so let's give them expertise in that. Or they know more than a druid in survival, nature and animal handling, so let's give expertise to druid as well. And it's not fair fighter and barbarian aren't masters of athletics, better give expertise to them too. What about monks and acrobatics? Expertise! Paladins and diplomacy? Expertise. Warlocks and deception and intimidation? Better give them expertise.

Huh, I guess everyone is getting expertise. What makes a rogue so good at skills now? I guess they have reliable talent...

Now wait, wizards are the literal masters of the arcane, why would a street rat have more reliable access to arcane knowledge than the one thing they are best at?

And the song goes on ...

I mean, it's a weird line to draw from "% chance to succeed at climbing, moving silently, hiding in shadows, hearing stuff, detecting secret doors, etc." to "the best at leveraging the generic competency system." If anything, this should be conceived as the rogue having a significant bonus to a quite specific set of skills, or some unique mechanics to reroll or auto-succeed such checks. I'm not sure "master of a unique domain of mundane expertise" actually fits comfortably on the rogue chassis; that feels like it should be some kind of Sage or Adventurer or something else class that doesn't have the Thief baggage and/or sneaky Dexterity combatant focus.

 

[Oofta]

But why would you pick skills that do not make sense for your character concept?

Because you want to "win" the game?

If I had a street urchin with expertise in arcana, I'd make up a story about an old drunken wizard who loved to discuss theory in exchange for a drink or two until they passed out. While I never had time to actually learn spells and the wizard long ago lost his spell book, my character was fascinated by the topic and was a quick study. Meanwhile I had to eat so we never got past lore and concepts.

Or a dozen different stories if I wanted to justify my knowledge. As a DM if anyone expressed having an issue with this (it's never come up) I'd consider always giving wizards advantage on their arcana checks. On the other hand, as a software and database developer, I can guarantee that a lot of people that did development work didn't really understand the fundamentals of what was going on in the background. Not that they were necessarily bad coders, but they learned by copying others and reading blogs but don't know diddly about how a computer program stores variable data (a pointer is pushed onto a stack which indicates where the data is in the heap unless it's a fixed size) and didn't care.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Wizard: while you studied the blade i studied the ultimate arcane forces
Rogue: actually i also studied arcana
Wizard: but, i'm a Wizard, i obviously must be more educated in the subject than you lowly street plebian
Rogue: i was awarded the highest possible grades in the subject, Expertise grade
Wizard: ...i only ranked as proficiency level...

 

[Maxperson]

Yup. And he can know more about religion than clerics so let's give them expertise in that. Or they know more than a druid in survival, nature and animal handling, so let's give expertise to druid as well. And it's not fair fighter and barbarian aren't masters of athletics, better give expertise to them too. What about monks and acrobatics? Expertise! Paladins and diplomacy? Expertise. Warlocks and deception and intimidation? Better give them expertise.

Huh, I guess everyone is getting expertise. What makes a rogue so good at skills now? I guess they have reliable talent...

Now wait, wizards are the literal masters of the arcane, why would a street rat have more reliable access to arcane knowledge than the one thing they are best at?

And the song goes on ...

Rogue expertise should have been limited to the traditional rogue skills.

 

[Irlo]

No. That's simply not true. I can make an uneducated street rat, pick arcana and then expertise and be better than a wizard.

You and I have very different ideas about what proficiency and expertise represent. To me, they represent training and education.