D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Chaosmancer]

I've been thinking it over the last day. If it were me, and I were doing the settling flavor from scratch and had a fair bit of license to rework mechanics too, here's what I think I'd lay out.

Everyone uses magic. Magic is omnipresent and foundational in a fantasy world, just like everyone on Earth uses technology. The difference is between internal and external magic. Spellcasters use external magic to shape spells that alter the world around them, throwing fireballs and twisting space. Martial warriors use internal magic to enhance themselves, becoming able to punch through walls or parry boulders with a dagger. And some stuff blurs the line, like assassins who can meld with the shadows to slip through cracks.

There's no dichotomy between "magical" and "mundane" because no one and nothing is mundane. Dispel Magic becomes Dispel Enchantment, and Antimagic Field is like an ECM jamming field that shorts out spells with effecting anything else.

Agreed 100%

 

[Minigiant]

See, here is the real problem. According to what you just wrote, that +1 damage and accuracy feat is what you want. Other posters (and myself) think that would be a waste of our time as a feat.

Sure, you can say "give us more mastery feats!" but without knowing what those feats do, it is pointless.

Additionally, Prof + Fighting style + Feat.... is level 1. You want to demonstrate a high level martial character with a something they can accomplish at level 1. Sure, fine, the martial will need even more feats to get multiple of these fighting styles and mastery feats, but there is a factor you aren't considering... very few people will bother.

A low strength, high dex archer build is never going to bother with GWM and PAM. A low dex, high strength two-weapon build is never going to bother with archery feats, and is likely not to bother with one-handed weapon feats. Because the majority of the time... they won't be using those abilities. You could give fighter's every single fighting style, and since most of them are incompatible with each other, mostly this will not raise their power level AT ALL.

I didn't say the fest was good.

I just said what 5e considers mastery.

I wasn't talking about the specifics but quantity and quality.

How many fighting styles should the greatest knight in the kingdom have mastered?

How many skills should the greatest thief in the empire have mastered?

How mastering the sword and pistol how many skills do you expect the captain of the greatest pirate fleet in the East sea have also mastered?

And do any of they need to be supernatural?

Because in most movies, books, epics, TV shows, cartoons, anime, and myths, the Greats that are Mundane typically master at least 2 fighting styles and two skills at the minimum.

And that's before you get to the point of grandmastery which usually does not exist in D&D at all.

This is because most games in the D&D sphere do not have a real sense of progression that can be felt in their lore nor mechanics due to the desire of the designers and parts of the community who prefer it to be loose, undefined, and simple

This thread is about stealing the progression of monsters to substitute for the lack of progression in Martial prowess.

 

[Minigiant]

Why is proficiency in history checks (all that would be required to know ancient Hobgoblin History) be something that only a high level fighter can do? And why isn't it something that the Wizard can't do better (higher Int score)

Dodging a dragon's claw is... having high enough AC. Shooting their eye, well... what do you want that to do? Just deal damage? Then this isn't locked to high level play. Blind the enemy? Okay, now we need to talk balance.

Because if you study something you wouldn't know more about That topic then even a smarter person who did not study it.

An idiot who plays D&D with no more about D&D than a genius who does not know about D&D.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Because until we do we aren't allowed to even discuss the possibility changing anything.

Is magic supernatural from the perspective of the people of a fantasy world? No, it isn't. Magic is a skill that anyone can learn by studying the right math. Elves, Genasi, Gnomes... all of them can cast magic. They are also "ordinary people" so...are we going to say that no "ordinary person" can use minor illusion? Then we have presupposed that no Gnome is an ordinary person, which is a bad pre-supposition.

Yet, we have no problem defining magic as supernatural... because it is supernatural from our perspective. Even though it is nothing but a learned skill that many many people just can figure out on their own.

Fair enough. In that case, the coding of supernatural or mundane has no value from any frame of reference.

It's either so ubiquitous in the setting and so invisible to the setting participants as to provide no actionable information for the PCs or players.

Orr..

It's going to vary from setting to setting and character perspective to character perspective.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I 100% agree. This is why I'm pushing Minigiant for more than "mastery means feats". I can give feats that say the word mastery, but if they aren't giving us interesting and useful abilities, then I don't see how they are going to take a character from "that is a level 4 concept" to "that is a level 17 concept".

What's keeping feats from doing this?

 

[Minigiant]

What's keeping feats from doing this?

People who argue that some actions must be supernatural.

For example I could see high level combat fears that allow for "Save or Suck" effects via the expenditure of HD.

Or high level skill feats to make distilled poisons that deal more damage and bypass poison resistance. Assassins making stronger poisons without magic is a common fantasy trope.

Or a warrior rolling Medicine to analyze a foes's body to give them a temporary damage boost or a Charisma check bonus from psychoanalysis.

Or just adding your Athletics bonus as a mod to your jump flat without a roll.

Or replacing History for any intelligence check as you use your wealth of historic knowledge to remember bits and pieces of any past that isn't a close secret.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Rather than adding a magic tag to abilities within any of the character classes, it seems we could put a warning somewhere..maybe on the first page of the character creation section of the book in big bold letters..

"Characters created using the following rules are intended to be used as adventurers in a fantasy roleplaying game.

[insert dictionary definitions of fantasy and adventure]

As such characters will often encounter fantastical challenges, the abilities herein will often include fantastical ways to address such challenges..

[insert dictionary definitions of fantasy and adventure]

All player characters should be assumed to be fantastical in one way or another, because they are..

..again..

adventurers in a fantasy roleplaying game.

[insert dictionary definitions of fantasy and adventure]"

Now..would this be insulting to the intelligence of people who were already familiar with the definitions of fantasy and adventure and were already expecting that their characters might be fantastical in some way?

..yes..

Would they wonder why such a reminder was necessary?

..also yes..

Edit: But at least they'd have somewhere to point to anytime someone asks how a PC is able to do something cool when "in the real world" such coolness is impossible.

That particular phrasing seems unnecessarily aggressive. Hopefully if such a thing is ever presented it would be tactful.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

One thing I do really dislike about the jumping rules is that there is zero guidance on how the athletics check affects the jump. That lack of guidance devastates any ability to go beyond them.

I have homebrewed an answer before in the past, just so players can have an understanding of what is possible.

I’ve gamed with my DM for 30 years and just trust him. Not sure what he does in his end

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

What's keeping feats from doing this?

Nothing

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I've been thinking it over the last day. If it were me, and I were doing the settling flavor from scratch and had a fair bit of license to rework mechanics too, here's what I think I'd lay out.

Everyone uses magic. Magic is omnipresent and foundational in a fantasy world, just like everyone on Earth uses technology. The difference is between internal and external magic. Spellcasters use external magic to shape spells that alter the world around them, throwing fireballs and twisting space. Martial warriors use internal magic to enhance themselves, becoming able to punch through walls or parry boulders with a dagger. And some stuff blurs the line, like assassins who can meld with the shadows to slip through cracks.

There's no dichotomy between "magical" and "mundane" because no one and nothing is mundane. Dispel Magic becomes Dispel Enchantment, and Antimagic Field is like an ECM jamming field that shorts out spells with effecting anything else.

Yes, that is works great for a fantasy setting, but D&D has for long time been used for more than fantasy