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

[CreamCloud0]

That's not at all what I said. I mean if you're going to give fighters something not at all their thing like climbing in order to keep up, why not flying? Why not give them the ability to phase through walls?

I don't wonder why they don't keep up because of flying. That's your Strawman of my argument. My argument is that you can give them things that allow them to keep up, but it ain't gonna be climbing and jumping. It's going to be supernatural things or they aren't keeping up. They're just getting a little bit better and all the same complaints are going to happen.

So no fighter is accurately shooting arrows at every creature in a 20 foot radius in under 6 seconds without it being supernatural, let alone throwing axes. Aaaaand, that's not going to come close to matching a fireball. 8d6 to every creature in a 20 foot radius > than 1d8(maybe) to every creature in a 20 foot radius.

So your idea of a high level fighter ability is a far weaker ability than a 3rd level wizard spell. And it's going to be supernatural in origin even at that. You might as well embrace the supernatural aspect and go greater than 1d8(maybe, since you have to roll to hit).

Wow. Breaking something that long up into multiple sentences will help a lot in understanding what you are saying.

Goading Strike is clearly supernatural since it you have to make a wisdom save or have your willpower overcome and be forced against your will to attack the fighter or suffer disadvantage on attacks. If it wasn't supernatural, it wouldn't be anywhere close to reliable.

Or not. Ignoring your Strawman that I claimed it was Charm Person and your subsequent response to the fictional argument, I said it would have to be some sort of mind control to be able to be performed reliably. There are no mundane words that could ever cause me to attack someone OR suffer disadvantage if I try to punch someone else. That applies to the vast majority of people, especially strangers for whom the fighter has no known personal information.

I don't know what "naff" is with regard to jumping. There are other alternatives, though, that fighter could get within the rules. The skill for jumping already allows people to jump farther than their base strength in distance, but it doesn't clearly specify how. Fighters could get a bonus to those rules and therefore jump farther, and potentially much farther. However, jumping 20 feet into the air isn't mundane, no matter how mundane normal jumping is.

The world record standing high jump is 5'7". The running high jump world record is 8'0.46". Jumping 20 feet into the air 20 feet is quasi-magical.

Not only that, but jumping 20 feet or even 100 feet isn't going to solve the issue. The issue with martials is utility and jumping isn't anywhere close enough to being the kind of utility required.

i can't bother responding to everything you've thrown at me here so i'm just going to select a few choice bits
-'i don't imagine fighters to climb' is a really sad take IMO, couldn't be hercules or conan or link barehand climbing up the side of a mountain or up some ruins
-continuing in the vein of DnD turning basic martial capabilites into spells because they're cowards who can't imagine martials being compentent i was imagining something more along the lines of conjour barrage and volley
-goading strike isn't mindcontrolling them to attack the fighter, the fighter hit them, it's a challenge, it's 'fight me you coward' and a save to not be a gullible fool, you're already worked up in the heat of battle and someone just smacked you around, coolheaded rational thoughs aren't what people are bringing to the table when the ability is being used.
-i'm the one bringing charm person into this not you, it's a single target, first level spell with a wisdom save, i found it pretty comparable to the mechanical strength of goading strike, i was emphasising the complete lack of scalling of the fighter's abilities
-to compare to spells again, if maneuvres were spells the wizard at 15th level would have 9 1st level spells they can't upcast and have aproximately 12 uses between them all per long rest(4+2 short rest refreshes) and that's presuming you've used all of them before you rest again
-jumping is still jumping, and these are legendary heroes

 

[Minigiant]

Actually those arrows go straight to the hit points, not the chest.

Lousy abstract system...

Yeah your fighter dodges 20 arrows in field plate.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah your fighter dodges 20 arrows in field plate.

Or they bounce off the armor.

Lousy lack of damage reduction...

 

[Oofta]

Yeah your fighter dodges 20 arrows in field plate.

If you're in good quality field plate, an archer would be lucky to do anything but scratch your armor.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure. A Miner's pick is an item in the PHB. No rules attached to it, but lets assume that against a stone wall, it has the stats of a war pick (1d8 piercing). We can also assume that since its built to chip through stone, it will deal its full damage to the wall. (Unlike trying to chip through the wall with a dagger or spear). Already, we've relied on the DM to make two judgement calls (the damage of a miner's pick and its usefulness against stone) and it is extremely possible the DM rules any number of ways against us (1d4 damage, wall has resistance against piercing, non-proficiency to hit due to it being an improvised weapon, etc).

Now lets look at the attacking an object rules: Stone is AC 17. Reasonable, but it does mean that a fighter will miss (or more appropriately, fail to do damage) at least a few times. Object hp is based on Size and fragility, and I think in this case a stone wall is resilient and will have 5d10 (ave 27) hp. Technically, a huge item can have a threshold (minimum damage needed to actually harm it) but we're assuming a pickaxe is built to smash stone and we can ignore threshold for now.

Now, we haven't addressed the fighter's level yet, but since the wizard just cast Passwall (a 5th level spell) lets assume the fighter is 9th level (the minimum to cast 5th level magic). He has two attacks per round. If our DM is using the generous interpretation, we do 1d8+Str per hit. Let's assume that come 9th level, our fighter has a 20 Str (not unreasonable) so he has +9 to hit and does 10 damage (average per hit). He has a 65% chance per hit toof dealingamage. Lets say he missed one out of every four attacks (actually better odds, but I like easy math). So round 1, he deals 20 damage, round 2 10 damage, round 3 20 damage, etc.

(It should be worth noting that the rules for attacking objects are barely guidelines, and they don't match up with similar rules, such as in Wall of Stone. Because of this, we've had to rely heavily on DM fiat to even get this far).

So if our DM is nice and giving us all the best case scenarios, we get through the wall in two rounds. Three if we assume it takes a round to pull the pickaxe from your pack. If the DM is less than kind (lower damage, no prof to hit, high HP rolls on the stone) it takes more.

Is all of that equal to a 5th level spell?

I don't think that the 5d10 hit points isn't for something as solid and thick as a wall. While a wall is technically an object, it's also a structure and structures are stronger. It's for something like a cart or large window. Basically an object. A wall would likely use the Huge and Garguantuan object rules as it's not to the level of a castle wall.

The object rules also state to use common sense when figuring out success and damage.

No fighter, 9th level or otherwise, is getting through a 6 inch thick stone wall in 12 to 18 seconds. Even with 4 attacks and using all of his Action Surges it wouldn't be possible.

Looking at the DMG a 10x10x5(thick) wall made up of razorvine(a plant) has 25 hit point and is immune to bludgeoning and piercing damage. A plant! Stone would be much harder to destroy.

The walls of a Daern's Instant fortress are adamantine and have 100 hit points and complete immunity to non-magical damage, but it doesn't give the thickness.

The wall of stone spell is 6 inches thick and has 30 hit points per 10x10 panel, but as a spell we don't know if that matches normal stone or not.

So basically like most things 5e, we have some pretty large inconsistencies. a 10x10x6 plant has 25 hit points, but a 10x10x6 Wall of Stone spell has 30.

What I would do for my game is give a solid stone wall 25 hit points per inch of thickness and the AC of 17 and resistance to the damage(no damage from something not designed to break stone) and then go from there. That 9th level fighter would still get through it a whole faster than in real life, but it will still take a while to get through the effectively 300 hit points of the wall.

 

[Minigiant]

If you're in good quality field plate, an archer would be lucky to do anything but scratch your armor.

Those are hits, sir. Arrows bypassing armor.

 

[Voadam]

Those are hits, sir. Arrows bypassing armor.

Hits = hit point damage in D&D which could be narratively mere scratches or even just the hero using some fatigue to dodge.

 

[Minigiant]

Hits = hit point damage in D&D which could be narratively mere scratches or even just the hero using some fatigue to dodge.

Yes.
A fighter in plate armor with 100 HP can dodge 20. arrows in 6 seconds.

 

[Maxperson]

i can't bother responding to everything you've thrown at me here so i'm just going to select a few choice bits
-'i don't imagine fighters to climb' is a really sad take IMO, couldn't be hercules or conan or link barehand climbing up the side of a mountain or up some ruins

Conan had rogue levels and I didn't say they didn't climb at all. I said climbing isn't their thing the way it is for a rogue or ranger. There's a pretty big difference between "I climb when I have to and am decent at it due to my athletic ability" and "I climb for a living and am an expert at it."

-continuing in the vein of DnD turning basic martial capabilites into spells because they're cowards who can't imagine martials being compentent i was imagining something more along the lines of conjour barrage and volley

What? I don't understand this. What basic martial abilities have been turned into spells? What does that have to do with being brave?

-goading strike isn't mindcontrolling them to attack the fighter, the fighter hit them, it's a challenge, it's 'fight me you coward' and a save to not be a gullible fool, you're already worked up in the heat of battle and someone just smacked you around, coolheaded rational thoughs aren't what people are bringing to the table when the ability is being used.

Goading is mind control because it FORCES a specific course of action and penalty for not engaging in it. Over words which have no force to do any of that if they are mundane. There are no mundane words you or any fighter can come up with that would make me attack you or penalize me for not doing so. I control me. To overcome that you would need magic of some kind.

-i'm the one bringing charm person into this not you, it's a single target, first level spell with a wisdom save, i found it pretty comparable to the mechanical strength of goading strike, i was emphasising the complete lack of scalling of the fighter's abilities

Charm Person is still mind control magic to do what it does, but you are correct that Charm Person isn't very powerful. Goading strike is actually more powerful than Charm Person, as Charm Person couldn't get someone to attack you or anyone else unless they were already likely to do so. Goading Strike is closer to Suggestion, but even suggestion isn't as powerful since it can't people to do things that are obviously deadly to it, like attacking the goading fighter. So goading strike is stronger mind control than even a 2nd level mind control spell.

-to compare to spells again, if maneuvres were spells the wizard at 15th level would have 9 1st level spells they can't upcast and have aproximately 12 uses between them all per long rest(4+2 short rest refreshes) and that's presuming you've used all of them before you rest again

Right. The Maneuvers should scale I think. The increased die doesn't cut it for keeping up.

-jumping is still jumping, and these are legendary heroes

I agree. They should get legendary things. Those things will just typically be beyond the mundane and into the supernatural.

 

[Voadam]

Yes.
A fighter in plate armor with 100 HP can dodge 20. arrows in 6 seconds.

So Stormtroopers are not bad shots, Han Solo is just a high level action hero martial fighter.