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

[Micah Sweet]

Well If I really had to put it into words, it’s stuff us regular real world people could do, but if you removed the limitations of the real world and of our bodies and tools, if you could just keep increasing your skill higher and higher.

Edit: I recall a scene in discworld-reaper man, where DEATH is making himself a new reaper’s scythe out of a plain old battered farmyard one, he starts sharpening it on whetstones and the like but he keeps using finer and finer materials to sharpen it until he’s using silk from a wedding dress, a spiderweb and finally the light of the breaking dawn to hone an edge to the blade that is not only sharp, but possesses the idea of sharpness that cuts past the physical edge of the blade, he wasn’t capable of doing that because he was DEATH but because he was really really good with handling scythes and had the knowledge and the skill.

See, I always assumed it was because he was DEATH. Different interpretations I suppose.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It occurs to me the answer is simple.

Should martial characters be mundane or supernatural?​

No.​

Because those are extremes, and the vast majority of martial concepts exist between them. I didn't say it was a useful answer, just a simple one.

But, I'm probably being pedantic (not @Pedantic) just regular pedantic

 

[Minigiant]

If there was a single class called the Martial class, you would most certainly be right. Such a class could not be designed to be both mundane or supernatural with or without magic items. The word, however, is an umbrella term that covers classes such as the Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger and Rogue. With the exception of the Fighter and the Rogue, most of these classes have something supernatural. A Barbarian can pull off something supernatural whenever they rage. A Monk can use Ki to do something supernatural. The Ranger and the Paladin can tap into the primal or the divine to cast spells. The Fighter and the Rogue are mundane, but they can push themselves to the best they can be through training and skill. So some martial classes can be one or the other.

The OP's question could have been a little more specific.
Is a Barbarian, mundane or supernatural?
Is a Fighter, mundane or supernatural?
etc.

My point was that magic items are involved.

Few say that martial classes cannot perform supernatural acts. It's just that some say those acts should be powered by magic items and the martial to be mundane and nonmagical.

Which is fine.

But then some of this group then also say the DM isn't expected to hand out magic items.

If the martials are supposed to be decked out with magic items, then magic items is an assumption.

 

[Retros_x]

I think even in Tier 1 they kinda start as mystic. Barbarians getting stronger when angry is for example kinda mystic. Fighters can probably also get angry and full of adrenaline in a fight, but it doesn't make them somehow twice as durable as normal. Also magic users already use spells on Tier 1, so they are definitely mystical already, the martials should be on a same level. At least they should be much stronger than a normal NPC soldier that just grabbed a knife and got a bit of a base training. I mean there is a reason why not everybody runs around looting dungeons.

The explanation for it doesn't really matter. Beowulf was already put as an example here - There is no explanation why Beowolf is able to do his heroic deeds. A lot of hero mythologies are not having explanations, why would we need it here. IMO DnD leans heavily in this heroic fantasy. Sure you can play a grim dark "realistic" campaign, but here the whole framework kinda falls apart.

 

[Oofta]

Sure, but if he's chopping mountains in half with a sword stroke in order to match Wish, then he's engaging in a supernatural act. That is never going to be mundane. It's okay if he trained highly through mundane means and transcended, but he did transcend into the supernatural.

Which, quite frankly I don't want for D&D. Feels like an entirely different kind of game, which is neither good nor bad.

I know everybody brings up wish, but I don't remember the last time I saw anyone actually cast it. I've seen Meteor Storm a handful of times, but that's pretty situational.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If the martials are supposed to be decked out with magic items, then magic items is an assumption.

That would need to be, like, a class assumption, not a game assumption. Like, say, at a certain level the caster class gets to take out a whole encounter's worth of enemies in one action, at that same level, the martial class gets a magic item that allows something similar (just with fight choreography and stage blood, rather than chanting, finder-wiggling, and post-production CGI)

 

[Minigiant]

That would need to be, like, a class assumption, not a game assumption. Like, say, at a certain level the caster class gets to take out a whole encounter's worth of enemies in one action, at that same level, the martial class gets a magic item that allows something similar (just with fight choreography and stage blood, rather than chanting, finder-wiggling, and post-production CGI)

It would be a game assumption as the caster can wield the magic item as well.

You would have to design the game around the fact that only martials can use those items. Like 1e and 2e.

 

[Pedantic]

If it's a spell, then fine. Not clear from the discourse that magic was involved.

To be clear, I'm translating for clarity. I imagine the ability would be called a sword technique, maybe a maneuver, but the explanation is quite clearly "doing combat related supernatural thing you learned because that's what sword masters teach at the high levels."

 

[Oofta]

It would be a game assumption as the caster can wield the magic item as well.

You would have to design the game around the fact that only martials can use those items. Like 1e and 2e.

In my games the casters and martial types have roughly equivalent rarity items. It works just fine.

 

[Minigiant]

In my games the casters and martial types have roughly equivalent rarity items. It works just fine.

I am not talking about rarity