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

[Crimson Longinus]

Not a person in this thread said the fighter cannot hit someone 100 feet away.

the whole argument is on How.

Have you tried using a bow?

 

[AnotherGuy]

My favorite is...

Midgard Dwarf from 3.5e

"Master Smith
Midgard dwarves gain Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wonderous Item, and Forge Ring as bonus feats. They are considered to possess the prerequisites necessary to craft any magic item of those types, even if they do not otherwise meet the requirements or have the ability to cast the necessary spells."

Norse dwarves for the win! I'll take one Mjolnir and one Gungnir to go please. Oh, and toss in a Ring of Multiple Wishes.

D&D Designers!
The bane of all DMs everywhere.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A quest.
A blacksmith.
A noble patron.
A mysterious benefactor.

All of those are story rewards and/or actions. Are you saying the class should require the DM, regardless of circumstance, to just make this part of the game as soon as they hit the requisite level?

 

[CreamCloud0]

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

that's fair, it's kind of ambiguous, but can you appreciate the essence of the example that i was getting at? of extraordinary results of an entirely mundane process.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I played and ran 4e for well over a year, and it sure felt true to me. AEDU was poison to my game.

Whatever your subjective impressions, the classes of 4e did not deliver the exact same mechanical abilities to different classes at each level, just "looking different." AEDU gave them roughly the same number of 'powers,' each class's power list was prettymuch unique. Some classes ultimately had more powers than 5e has spells in the PH. The Fighter and Wizard both topped 400, I've never found a fighter exploit that was mechanically identical to any wizard spell. All Fighter attack exploits, for instance, are weapon powers, while all wizard attack exploits are implement powers.

Now 4e and 5e both progressed everyone along the d20 in terms of bonus at basically the same rate, 1/2 level in 4e, proficiency in 5e, but that's not nearly the same thing.

The "sameyness" of WotC editions is mostly outside the fiction, in the abstract mechanics that could be said to be, metaphorically, "invisible to the characters themselves." Things like 3e putting all classes on the same exp progression, which 5e retained, or 4e putting everyone on the same attack bonus progression, which 5e retained, or 5e letting any race be modeled by a "custom lineage." I'm sure there are many other examples.

Admittedly, other sorts of sameness are very clearly fiction-impacting. Like the 3e and 5e Sorcerers having no unique sorcerer-only spells. Or, indeed, any spell appearing on two or more class lists at the same level.

 

[Scribe]

All of those are story rewards and/or actions. Are you saying the class should require the DM, regardless of circumstance, to just make this part of the game as soon as they hit the requisite level?

The DM can work with the Player, as little or as much as they like to incorporate what could (should?) be a milestone in the character's progression.

Players can describe how they are set up, where they come from, their background, whatever. "So Bob, nice Sword, where did it come from?"

"Its a family heirloom, I dont know how it got here, but it was wrapped at the foot of my bed this morning."

Whatever.

Fluff it out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

that's fair, it's kind of ambiguous, but can you appreciate the essence of the example that i was getting at? of extraordinary results of an entirely mundane process.

I would want your explanation in the book, but otherwise, sure.

 

[Oofta]

Just like "Come and Get It" was purely mundane because the designers said it was. Right.

Technically they never said fighter powers were mundane. They said they had a "martial" power source. After a while I just accepted that the martial power source was just as supernatural as any of the others because otherwise so many of the limitations and effects make no sense. We weren't playing the action movie version of D&D for fighters, we were playing the anime or video game version of fighters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whatever your subjective impressions, the classes of 4e did not deliver the exact same mechanical abilities to different classes at each level, just "looking different." AEDU gave them roughly the same number of 'powers,' each class's power list was prettymuch unique. Some classes ultimately had more powers than 5e has spells in the PH. The Fighter and Wizard both topped 400, I've never found a fighter exploit that was mechanically identical to any wizard spell. All Fighter attack exploits, for instance, are weapon powers, while all wizard attack exploits are implement powers.

Now 4e and 5e both progressed everyone along the d20 in terms of bonus at basically the same rate, 1/2 level in 4e, proficiency in 5e, but that's not nearly the same thing.

The "sameyness" of WotC editions is mostly outside the fiction, in the abstract mechanics that could be said to be, metaphorically, "invisible to the characters themselves." Things like 3e putting all classes on the same exp progression, which 5e retained, or 4e putting everyone on the same attack bonus progression, which 5e retained, or 5e letting any race be modeled by a "custom lineage." I'm sure there are many other examples.

And all of those things would have been better off with different systems, like in the TSR editions, IMO.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

All of those are story rewards and/or actions. Are you saying the class should require the DM, regardless of circumstance, to just make this part of the game as soon as they hit the requisite level?

If one wanted a fighter subclass that gets free items, and we don't want this to be just a narrative mechanic, then it should be some sort artificer-lite. Runesmith or something, a warrior who makes their own weapons.