D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Chaosmancer]

I am not casting shade on anyone. I am pointing out that players purposely build these classes to be good at combat and that is why those characters are only good at combat.

So... building a fighter to be good at combat, means that they can only be good at combat. And that is because of the players, not because of the game design.

I know they will because I play a lot of games at high level.
Pick any 10 in order and you will find the same.

At high level most monsters that matter will have resistances, immunities and legendary resistance.

Descent into Avernus, at level 3 MOST enemies you are facing have magic resistance. That is at level 3.

Let's look at another published adventure, Dungeon of the mad mage:

Level 15:
Enemies with significant condition immunities, Legendary Resistance or Magic Resistance: Ghost, Death Tyrant, Living Unseen Servant, Adult White Dragon, Stone Golem, Vampire, Nycaloth
Enemies without those things: Lava Children Skeletons, Drow, Mephits, Mage (and the Mage that is has counterspell)

Level 16:
Enemies With: Crystal Golems, Adult Red Dragon, Mind Flayers
Enemies without: various Githyanki, Young Red Dragons

Level 17:
Enemies with: Neothilid, Mind Flayers, Scaladar
Enemies without: Githyanki, Orogs, Troglodyte, Vetran, Dueregar, Grimlocks

Level 18:
Enemies with: Bronze Shadow Dragon, Death Knight, Vampires, Shadow Assasins
Enemies without: Vampire Spawn, Swarm of Rats, cloaker

Of note, there are things that don't have these, but you should roll over most of those creatures at this level and you are not using your powerful spells for them.

So... you are making my point for me?

I mean, you are literally sitting here telling me that are level 15 the party is facing SKELETONS, CR 1/4 skeletons. Level 18 has the very scary CR 5 Vampire spawn, surely a terrifying fight.

Heck, you are listing CR 5 Mindflayers as something with "significant condition immunities, Legendary Resistance or Magic Resistance". Yes, they have magic resistance, they are also melee monsters (other than their mind blast they have no ranged options innately), a strength of +0 and a DEx of +1. Even with advantage, Web from a 17th level wizard should have a DC of 19, they are just not going to be able to resist that.

I mean seriously, that level 17 list doesn't have a single monster with a CR higher than 10. So... why does the legendary resistance matter? You keep acting like the party is only ever going to face foes with high saves and legendary resistance, then offer a list that showcases that the majority of enemies... won't have those things.

If you are not immune to restrained and you fail the save. Web is a good spell, I am not saying it isn't. But it is highly situational and at high level being restrained is not nearly as bad for an enemy as it is at low level.

Wut? How is "Not being able to move, all attacks against you have advantage, all of your attacks have disadvantage, you have disadvantage on dex saves"... not very bad for a lot of enemies?

A high level Rune Knight with athletics proficiency can fairly reliably put a huge Dragon prone and grappled in a single turn. As far as conditions, this is generally better than being restrained in a web, the Dragon can't use Legendaries to stop it because it is a contest and the Dragon needs to make a strength check which he will likely fail to try and get out of it. It also takes effect immediately instead of waiting until the Dragon's turn and the RK can move the Dragon wherever he wants and he does not need to retain concentration.

To compare these:

Against Web an Adult Blue Dragon has a 40% chance to fail a DC18 Dex save and a 50% chance to make the DC 18 Strength Check if he fails and that is if he chooses not to use a legendary.

The same Dragon has over a 90% chance of failing at least 2 of 3 strength contests against a +10 with advantage. Once his is grappled and proned the chance he can break free with an action is less than 20%. He can't use a Legendary against this either. To add incult to injury over half the time the Fighter will do it in 2 of his 3 attacks and be able to pound him with advantage using his 3rd attack.

So... 40% chance to restrain the dragon, preventing all melee attacks against the party. For the cost of a 2nd level spell, at 17th level. Which then would necessitate a full action and no attacks from the dragon to have a 50/50 shot of breaking free (can't legendary resistance that).

In exchange, the fighter has triggered their bonus action which is much more limited, gave up two of their three attacks, is locked in melee with the dragon, and can only attack if they have a hand free. This means that they are not using a shield, so, without assuming magical weapons they have an AC of 18. Adult Blue Dragons have +12 to hit, and even if they still have disadvantage they only need to roll a 6, on three attacks. Add in all the ways the dragon has to knock the fighter prone or blind them... the dragon can even that fight up pretty easily. And in exchange, he can't move, but he also is harder to target with ranged attacks, meaning everyone has to get into melee with him. Which means he can do the same things to them that he can do to the fighter.

Sure, the dragon is going to lose the fight. But it is CR 16 vs a level 18 party. Of course it should lose that fight!

Also, sidenote, +7 vs +10 with advantage is rough for them, but I'm not sure it is 90% chance to fail. And, if you just give the dragon athletics proficiency that becomes +12 vs +10 with advantage, and that is much more even.

I am never a footnote, but niether do I get jealous and upset because someone else has a stronger character. You be You, let me be me.

I can play any class RAW to 20th level and be effective, why should I worry about if another character at the table is better than me?

I mean it is a team game anyway, having someone else who is more powerful makes the entire party more powerful.

If casters are always, by design, more powerful. What is the point of the martial characters?

It depends on what you mean by caster.

I have not seen full casters take over in 10 years of playing 5E and I see as many non-full casters now as I did in the beginning even though the gap at most levels has widened

If by "caster" you are including the Monk, Rogue or Fighter that gets a spell through a race option, then sure casters have taken over the game, but I don't see a problem with that as lots of people are still playing those non-caster classes.

Also you seem to be ignoring that this is very specific to level and class. Wizards are overall the strongest characters in the game, but they are not the strongest at every level.

So what? Being weaker at one specific level doesn't mean that they aren't stronger the rest of the time. And, again, the problem is generally indicated at higher levels, not things like level 3 or 4 where casters are much less capable.

I think this is just petty. It is pouting. It is like playing a game of basketball with your friends and being angry that your teamate can dunk and you can't.

No, it isn't like that. Because even if they can dunk, a basketball team doesn't have dedicated roles. They aren't just better than me, they are better than me at all the things I built my character to be good at. Simply because of their access to magic. And my only solution currently is to either work on homebrew, or alter my character concept by getting magic.

It isn't petty or pouting to be frustrated that the game isn't better designed to make this less likely to happen.

Why when feats are available?

Because they are optional.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And I don't disagree. But I do have to wonder why it's ok to have a clear supernatural explanation for 11 of the 13 classes doing supernatural things, but not ok to have such an explanation for the other 2 classes doing supernatural things?

I don't understand why it is okay for classes to be printed with abilities, and explanations be added later, but then you NEED to CLEARLY explain EVERY SINGLE new ability you want to add to those two classes in particular... just because they don't say "we are magic" on the cover.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And yet...


I notice 'planning' disappeared from this right quick and got replaced by a lot of fantastic things carefully positioned to all be clearly supernatural when my argument is the constant attempts to recontextualize fantastic but not supernatural things as supernatural including such things as being hyperbolically good at planning and 'written as competent'. This tangent comes from someone trying to call Batman's ability to defeat powerful foes through careful planning 'supernatural' because they consider being written as competent to be 'reality warping'.

Because "planning" is too vague. What do you mean by that?

Do you mean planning as in "Oh, I'm going to pack a crowbar, just in case"? That isn't supernatural. That isn't even an ability. That is just packing what you might need. I do that on every character.

Do you mean planning as in "Oh, we need a crowbar, of course my character would have predicted that need, and so I am going to retcon that I was carrying a crowbar all this time"? Well... that gets fuzzy. The action in the reality of the story would be that you packed the crowbar, but from the player perspective, you didn't pack it, it just appeared in your pack. This is the meta-currency

Do you mean planning as in "Oh, this door needs forced open, well, of course my character predicted that and has his automatic door opener 3000 which can list any size door through the application of hydraulics fit into a tiny palm-sized cube!" Well... at that point you are approaching supernatural. That isn't even a thing that existed in the world until you needed it.


That's why I dropped it. My own "Batman's planning is supernatural" came when pointing out that Batman has created a secondary personality, hidden in his mind, to react and control his thoughts and body, if under mental attack. That action of creating a second mind inside your brain is supernatural to me. Planning isn't.

This is not a good thing. There is a concentrated effort going on for some reason to erase the concept of the non-supernatural, non-magical fantastic and replace it with a flat, bland label of 'magic'. Nothing can be interesting and beyond (or even equal to) what is currently possible on Earth without being shoved into a very specific purview of 'magic', ignoring a vast spectrum of the fantastic because that's all there ever is in D&D anymore: magic and 'whatever doesn't matter'.

I have not asked for magic AT ALL. There is no conspiracy to push for magic. Supernatural and magic are two different things as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because you are relating that concept to people who appear to be humans. If they aren't humans, you should say so.

They are not earth humans. We already previously established that. The vast majority of humans in DnD have trace amounts of fantasy bloodlines in them, giving them plenty of room to be supernatural, just like orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves, gnomes, dragons, fiends and celestials.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And you seem to never have enemies that make their saves.

Of course they can make their saves. And fighter's can miss attacks.

It is not an encounter ender. It is a turn ender. Further if you damage them they are no longer charmed, so the encounter will never end with the enemies in that state unless you can kill them from max to 0 in one round, and if you can do that then you could have done it without casting the spell anyway since it does not give advantage on attacks

Oh, is this just a terminology thing? Have you never experienced where a fight went from "this looks fairly evenly matched" to "Okay, the party is going to win this, it is just a question of if I can deal some damage first". I consider that ending an encounter, once you have set it up so that victory is inevitable, the fight is over. The rest is mop up.

Ok do you not understand "encounter ender". If they run away (and you don't chase them) the encounter is over. It ended the encounter, which was the whole point in this whiteroom.

I rarely see HP turn an encounter into a cake walk. When it does it is usually because everyone failed (and in that case it is an encounter ender).

Running away doesn't end an encounter, in my mind, because it just takes all those enemies and moves them to other encounters.

Martial characters win more than half the fights IMO and it is actually rare a spell wins it in one action. Severely degrade the enemy, steal actions or control them sure, but actually end it - I think that is rare.

Also you are discounting things like Menacing Attack - hit a melee enemy with menacing attack from range and it is going to be roughly as effective as Tasha's hideous Laughter, while also doing damage. It also generally bypasses magic resistance (although some DMs don't do this).

Menacing attack gives fear for 1 round, also on a save. It is only roughly as effective as THL if you assume it only lasts a single round, and that the enemy being prone doesn't add anything to the effect.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is always the crux of your arguments. I can't comment on your games, but I have a LOT of experience with 5e, and I just don't find that martial characters are overshadowed by casters. Especially in combat, which is where much of the conversation has been focused. It is far, far more common for combat to be dominated by martial characters, who between damage dealt and damage taken are much more reliable than casters.

I have consistently tried to move the conversation to out-of-combat utility. But then people say that doesn't matter, because martials do more damage in combat. Or they only want to focus on giving martials more combat abilities.

Spell casters do have the potential to disrupt the normal sequence of events in combat, and when this happens it is memorable, so I think we tend to overestimate how frequently it happens. But this dependent on a number of factors: skill in game play, having the right spells chosen, and pure luck. In my experience, it is just as likely for casters to have a minimal impact on combat. That is much less often the case with martial classes.

As well, martial classes are less resource dependent, so the longer the combat goes, or the more consecutive combats are faced, the more dominant they become.

But, again, damage dealing doesn't disrupt the flow of combat. It is memorable, because it is effective. A fighter might deal the most damage in the fight, but quite often it is increased by the casters, made easier by the casters, or made possible by the casters.

And if Casters could not contribute significantly to combat, then it would be fine, but they CAN, they DO, and they often can do so in ways impossible for martials to match. Then they ALSO dominate outside of combat, in ways impossible for martials to match.

For another thread, I broke down the total damage dealt over all three seasons of Critical Role by that point (it's a handy resource since folks keep every stat imaginable and there are hundreds of games spanning well over a thousand hours of play at this point). The top damage dealers are all martial classes. The only caster who comes close is Caleb, a wizard who specializes in fire magic, and even there, when you break down his damage it is heavily concentrated into a few fights against multiple foes where his AoE spells were at maximum effectiveness.

Outside of combat, casters offer great versatility, particularly at higher levels and when the party has time to rest and prepare for a situation. In my experience, this is more where they thrive, but other classes are not being sidelined. In my games, most scouting is still being done by rogues and rangers, for example.

I find that your arguments about the dominance of casting classes always feel extremely hyperbolic. There is a great difference between what you describe and what I experience, or see happening in actual play shows, etc.. To the contrary, I find fighters, for example, to be a highly popular class that players very much enjoy specifically because they can be relied on to have an outsized impact on most battles.

Edit: also, hold person: highly overrated spell, IMO. Heat metal is a way more effective way to deal with most big, tough humanoids, and Maximillian's Earthen Grasp is way more reliable for dealing with the quick and clever ones, plus can target all kinds of creatures. Or just use web.

Sure, give martials absolutely zero combat improvements, I'm fine with that. Again, my bigger concerns are always about out-of-combat utility.

But then people say that doesn't matter, because casters can't cast enough spells to matter in combat and out of combat, except... I have seen them do exactly that. I have seen them use their magic be better at exploration, then use it to solve combats, then come back to town and their magic is more effective at social to.

I could be a little hyperbolic, I'm sure all the games and the various dice luck changes, but I don't think there is really any good reason not to let fighters get better out of combat.

 

[Chaosmancer]

We all understand it’s a fantasy game. I think everyone is pretty comfortable with martial characters doing stuff that actual human beings could not, like tanking a dragon. That doesn’t mean that anything goes. In most fantasy novels the protagonist can’t leap over mountains and cleave boulders. That stuff is coming more from the superhero genre, and does not fit the flavour that has been successful in D&D for fifty years. It’s a different game.

And most fantasy stories don't involve fighting a god who is rewriting reality (Vecna) or slaying a multiversal dragon who can see into alternate realities (Fizban's).

Heck, I've read fantasy stories where a hellhound, a dog that breathes fire, is a deadly threat. Most DnD characters level out of that pretty quickly.

So yeah, we are looking at the high-end of the scale. Just like 2e did when it let people become literal gods. So different from being as strong as a giant, to be a god in charge of planets.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Because "planning" is too vague. What do you mean by that?

Ask the guy who decided it was supernatural.

Apparently it's because it is the result of writer fiat, which they believe is a form of reality warping.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ask the guy who decided it was supernatural.

Apparently it's because it is the result of writer fiat, which they believe is a form of reality warping.

And by writer fiat, they were talking about the metacurrency route. Which, if you tell me someone has the in-universe ability to reach into a pouch and pull out any item they might need for any situation... well... that is explicitly a superpower and a form of reality warping.

Now, I agree with you, that is not exactly how Batman is portrayed, but again, the "ability" to pack items you might find useful is... so basically generic it isn't even worth mentioning.

However, since no player is capable of perfectly predicting what scenarios they will encounter, then UNLIKE Batman, they either must carry everything, or you have to set-up the ability for the character to retcon their inventory. Which, is either hand-waved as a meta-conceit, or is a supernatural ability similar to things like The Mask.

So, since I didn't know which version of 'planning' you were angry about, I didn't focus on it. Because one version isn't an ability, one version is hand-waved and retconned with "of course I did that" and the other is pure supernatural reality warping.

Edit: To be more succinct. Players aren't hyper-geniuses who only operate in a small area, and can therefore prepare special tools for every encounter, and know which encounters are most likely to happen. So, some consideration has to be given on when the decision to have an item takes place

 

[Clint_L]

And most fantasy stories don't involve fighting a god who is rewriting reality (Vecna) or slaying a multiversal dragon who can see into alternate realities (Fizban's).

Those are pretty specific examples, but fighting a BBEG with vast powers and saving the world is basically THE fantasy trope. I prefer my fantasy to have much more local stakes, mind you, so my campaigns don't usually go that big. But one party is about to take on a sea giant with his pet kraken - that's pretty heroic. And the other is actually about to start into the new Vecna campaign.

Heck, I've read fantasy stories where a hellhound, a dog that breathes fire, is a deadly threat. Most DnD characters level out of that pretty quickly.

So yeah, we are looking at the high-end of the scale. Just like 2e did when it let people become literal gods. So different from being as strong as a giant, to be a god in charge of planets.

What can I say? Most folks seem to not see D&D as a game for Goku-style fighters. If that is your taste, that's totally cool, but you need to do some serious home-brewing to make that happen.

I'm not discounting your taste or experience, but you seem to be very clearly in the minority. Most folks watch a show like Dimension 20 or Critical Role and see pretty much what happens at our tables: people playing a wide array of characters, all of them contributing, all of them with regular opportunities to be the hero. There just isn't a widespread crisis of non-spell casters struggling.

In my school campaign right now, there is a cleric, an artificer, a rogue, a barbarian, a fighter, and a paladin. No one is expressing feeling short-changed or unhappy with their choice. My home campaign, with a druid, artificer, monk, and barbarian, the same. We have a player returning, and are really hoping that he will play something like a wizard, actually, since we could use more variety.