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

[Micah Sweet]

So there is a way for mundane fighters at 20th level to work with supernatural ones....but I bet most players would balk at.

Its what Buffy the Vampire Slayer uses in that system. Effectively the mundane fighters get "plot points" or something that lets them adjust the narrative of the story.

Oh we are facing Ultranoth and 3 of this hencemen, well... (spends a plot point), the 3 henchman fall into a trap that I had set ahead of time!


So basically, on paper the supernatural guy is way stronger than the mundane one. But....behind the scenes the mundane guy gets to shift things in his favor, so they are both contributing "relatively equally". Its how in Buffy you can have a slayer in the same party with a bunch of regular people and still have decent balance.

True, you can always go narrative, it that's what floats your boat.

 

[Corinnguard]

With all of the martials complaining, I'm wondering if at some point in some world all the magic items makers would ever just decide to crank out more armors and weapons.

This probably would happen in a setting like Eberron where you have magewrights mass-producing such things.

 

[Cadence]

They do, in TSR editions.

This probably would happen in a setting like Eberron where you have magewrights mass-producing such things.

Ack, I meant all decide to not crank out more!

 

[Micah Sweet]

In 1e the treasure tables were weighted to deliver more weapons, armor &c than, say, staves of the magi.
Most magic items had class based restriction on who could use them, too. So not a matter of banning.

The result was the fighter-types would have several magical swords (more often than not, longswords, that was also randomly skewed), sometimes swapping them because a Flame Tongue worked better on some monsters than a +2 or whatever. But, while I never saw it the circles I gamed in, there seemed to be a deep asumption that PCs would acquire henchpersuns who both liked getting the odd +1/+2 vs giant weasel longsword, and were slightly more useful with one...

Yeah! Bring back henches!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Trouble is, there is a gradual push for even 1st level characters to be more and more powerful.

I would strongly advise we push back.

 

[Guest 85555]

For D&D generally no, but it depends on what is being emulated. For other RPGs it depends on things like what genre you are shooting for or if it is more historical realism that is the aim.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Other way around.
In old school D&D...
Wizards and other arcanists couldn't use most armors and had limited weapons.
Clerics were limited to blunt weapons.

So when a flame tongue, +5 battle axe, vorpal long sword, or frost brand drops.

If you made mundane characters run like 1e, you'd have to ban most subclasses of the caster classes and return alignment limits to the half casters.

Sounds...just awful.

 

[Minigiant]

Captain America would still be Captain America without his shield. A high level fighter is still a high level fighter without magic items, although at the highest level I assume most PCs will have magic items. I fail to see why you're so hung up on his shield, in the MCU version Sam Wilson is able to pick up the shield and use it after a quick montage. Yes, he had to "attune" to it, but that would be true in D&D.

I honestly don't know what you're getting at with any of this.

That's a dodge.

The hang up is not on the shield,. It's on him being able to throw and return the shield as well as having a good unarmed, melee, and long ranged attack.

If you say "Shield throwing is magical" then you are mandating the DM to hand out a backpack of magic items to mundane characters.

If you say "Shield throwing is not magical" then you are mandating the Designers to hand out a backpack of feats, maneuvers, or class features to mundane characters.

 

[Minigiant]

What "unfun" rules are you referencing? I'm curious how you were able to objectively determine what rules are unfun for everyone.

wait for it.

Sounds...just awful.

Answered your question, didn't I?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I made a comment in another thread once, saying that a taunt ability that forces enemies to attack you if they fail a will save is a perfectly viable design for a non-magical ability. It spawned a fairly heated discussion. Apparently some people think it's not possible to trick people without using magic.

Not under any and all circumstances, no.