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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7072905" data-attributes="member: 57112">So it's okay for wizards to be left doing nothing but "fire crossbow... fire crossbow... fire crossbow" all game, but not fighters? I still don't see how any of this is limiting to so-called martial characters at all. Yes, I would admit it would be nice for the Battlemaster to have a "signature maneuver"; an at-will maneuver without the superiority die (or bonus damage). But that only solves problems for a specific archetype.Of course, it's a problem that doesn't need resolution. because you don't need explicit powers to do things! Trip that orc! Shove that bandit! Taunt that person you disagree with on the internet! The world is your oyster!When the request is that characters without supernatural powers should have comparable power and versatility to characters with supernatural powers, yes I think the term "martial" becomes a little pedantic. Martial characters, even relatively low level ones, are capable of superhuman feats. The notion that such feats should come from natural talent (but not natural magical talent! Or icky psionics!) is a little pedantic, yes. 4e did it by extremely limiting the scope of supernaturally powered characters' abilities and ironing away any real differences in class design. I was not a fan of that approach, not because of what it did to martial characters, but because of what it did to casters. 5e did it by giving otherwise "martial" characters access to supernatural abilities themselves. I find that to be a rather elegant approach, particularly in a game in which power sources aren't so needlessly siloed.I don't really understand how this applies at all. In 5e a fighter still fights. A rogue still makes with the stabby-stabby. A wizard doesn't suddenly become not magical when she brains a kobold with a quarterstaff. Why does a fighter become suddenly not martial when they can cast jump on themselves? This is what I mean when I talk about senselessly siloing power sources. Every character is martial. Most are also supernatural in some way.My point is that they actually couldn't. My point is that everything that was a martial "power" was something every martial character (every character at all, actually) could do in any previous edition. Sometimes a 3.X character would need a feat to do it, but that's part of the problem with that game's design too.My point is that a fighter could do those things in AD&D as much as they could in 4e or 5e. The only difference is that in 4e a DM could say "sorry, your character doesn't have that power." Source was extremely limiting in 4e design, especially when it came to martial characters. Other power sources could do whatever the hell they wanted, but every martial power had to pass the smell check of "but does this seem too supernatural?" In 5e they realized that every character was martial and that every character should have access to supernatural abilities if they wanted them. They moved away from primary role niche protection fairly early on in 4e (arguably before they even quite figured out what a "controller" was really supposed to look like) as classes got more and more powers that blurred role-lines and introduced secondary role possibilities. But power source was a strict limitation. Maybe not as much mechanically, but in terms of flavor. And that's what we're talking about here; enforcing a strict idea of what a "martial power" ought to look like, what it ought to be able to do, and it ought to match the efficacy and/or versatility of any other power source. 5e just says "if you want magic, have some magic. If you want something like a 4e martial character, here's a battlemaster." It's not a perfect solution, but then 4e-style tactical combat abilities don't play as well in a combat system in an edition that does not have exact positioning as a default assumption (ie, 5e).I have to admit not knowing what C&GI is a reference too. Google only gives me a bunch of references to Selena Gomez which makes even less sense to me.</blockquote>

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