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

[Minigiant]

Captain America does effectively have a magic shield. He can't do the throw/return with anything else. Take away his shield and he's just a champion fighter.

That's where I disagree.
The shield is magical. It's a +X magical throwing shield.
However it returns because of Captain America because he trained with it and has the combat knowledge to make it ricochet and/or return.

But the question doesn't care about that aspect.
The question is:

"Are DMs mandated to give mundane characters rare or better magic items that complete their archetype?"​

The answer to that question, helps answer the OP question.

 

[Pedantic]

That's where I disagree.
The shield is magical. It's a +X magical throwing shield.
However it returns because of Captain America because he trained with it and has the combat knowledge to make it ricochet and/or return.

But the question doesn't care about that aspect.
The question is:

"Are DMs mandated to give mundane characters rare or better magic items that complete their archetype?"​

The answer to that question, helps answer the OP question.

That's the argument that the answer to the OP has historically been yes, but the only supported high level Fighter archetype was "lucky sword finding guy." It's a very D&D solution to the problem.

 

[Corinnguard]

"Are DMs mandated to give mundane characters rare or better magic items that complete their archetype?"

I think it depends on what the player has done, and what benchmarks the player has met to earn such items. It also depends on whether such magic items are in the adventure.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's where I disagree.
The shield is magical. It's a +X magical throwing shield.
However it returns because of Captain America because he trained with it and has the combat knowledge to make it ricochet and/or return.

But the question doesn't care about that aspect.
The question is:

"Are DMs mandated to give mundane characters rare or better magic items that complete their archetype?"​

The answer to that question, helps answer the OP question.

That is a good question. My answer would be ’no’, I don’t like characters being item dependent that way. I’d rather have a shield-throwing feat or some such to represent a character similar to Captain America. But if the answer is ’yes’ then that should actually be baked in the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly this. It is an easy and simple answer, and allows those who don't want mythic martials to have it by just capping the campaign at certain level.

I'm good with a mythic martial option from level 1, but for the mundane, you can move to supernatural at a certain point of progression, as long as you are explicit about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But nor James Bond, Spartacus or even Conan are even close to a 20th level D&D character.

20 levels is too many IMO for any class. They're just not relatable, and impossible to describe without being explicitly supernatural anyway (WotC didn't even try in 5e).

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is a concept of a "20th level mundane".

The issue is, what I've said often, fans of mundanes would not like what that concept looks like.

What does it look like? Are there any examples in all of literature and pop culture? I sure haven't seen them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A champion or a battlemaster fit the bill, and they look good to me

Not at level 20, unless all you care about is damage/hit point math.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If we are expecting to level martial characters up to 20... then there will be a transition from one to the other somewhere along the line. The whole reason for having levels is to see a character evolve and get better over time. And in a fantasy world of magic, I see absolutely no reason to keep a mundane martial character mundane over 20 levels. To me that seems pointless.

I equate it to the types of adventures that PCs go on. At a certain point, continuing to do the exact same adventures at level 17 that you were doing at level 3 is pointless and a waste of time. Your levels are epic tier... your adventures and stories should be epic as well. Otherwise it just seems lame. Like back in 4E when someone would write so-called "Epic Level" adventures for characters at like Levels 22-25, but whose plots were merely just protecting a village from some invading monster. Sure the monster was statted to be like a CR 30... but narratively the entire premise and plot was exactly the same things PCs would do back in levels 1-5. So being an Epic level character was meaingless to the adventure, other than changing the monster that showed up. What the heck is the point? Why bother? Just keep playing levels 1-5 if all the stories you want to do are ones that affect characters back in levels 1-5.

Once PCs get up to levels 15, 17, 20 etc... I think they SHOULD start kingdom building and plane-hopping and the like. To give us stories that only make sense when applied to characters that have the experience and reputation and knowledge that comes from being levels 15, 17, 20. And looking at it through that lens, there's no reason in my mind why a Fighter should be stuck as the same mundane swordsman they were 10 levels prior, except that their "numbers are bigger".

Bigger numbers that do nothing other than just being bigger is a waste of time, space, and creativity.

This is why I prefer versions of D&D that use the domain game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1) There should be mundane origin martial characters at low-level.
2) There should be supernatural origin martial characters at low-level.
3) There should be no mundane characters at high level, even if the high-level martial's supernatural ability is simply resilience to an incredible degree. High-level is supernatural by definition.

As long as provide an explanation for the character's supernatural feats, yes.