D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Chaosmancer]

You know, it Bruce failed at what he was trying to do as often as someone with Expertise does, Bane would be out of a job and we'd all be stuck with Azreal.

He has hot dice.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The issue with D&D is their poster boy for a Mundane Martial is a Clumsy Dumb Slow but Strong Tank. Unless you remove some of the negatives, you lock yourself into the archetype needing or being supernatural.

Is that the actual poster boy? Or is that the projection people put upon it?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I just want the "Snipe you for XDX bonus damage at 1000 feet away" like the high level nonsupernatural martials of various media.

Best you can do is 600 ft away with a Rogue. No weapon in DnD has a longer range. You want to reach out and touch someone from further, cast a spell.

And frankly, with how much people complain about the longbow having too great of a range, you are never going to convince people to double it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's the core issue.
I don't think that is the limit for nonsupernatural combat skill.

Honestly, I could care less about increasing damage or accuracy for martials. Neither of those is where they are hurting.

Hawkeye is also a master in swordmanship, improvised weapons, and unarmed combat.

So is every fighter, ranger, paladin, ect ect ect.

Those classes represent characters who have mastered bows, crossbows, axes, poleaxes, hammers, polehammers, spears, long spears, and a dozen different sword styles, along with club, staff, mace. morningstar, blow pipe, whip, and dagger combat. Yes, they also are all masters of improvised weapons and trained in unarmed combat.

Maybe because of Ronin you could convince me Hawkeye deserves a whole TWO fighting styles, could maybe get me with three of them.... Take the fighting style feat twice. Done. He has a fighting style for unarmed combat, dueling, and archery. Is your 4th to 5th level fighter feeling like a man who can take on Demogorgon?

You keep forgetting how LOW the bar is. Mastering a weapon style is a low-level feat. A 5th level fighter who took the fighting style feat twice, and went battlemaster is a BETTER fighter than hawkeye, who has mastered MORE weapons than Hawkeye.

 

[Minigiant]

You can only take Skill Expert and Fighting Initiate once each.
Combat and noncombat aspects complete for feats and most editions give limited feats or require using many feats to excel.
And in 5e, it competes with your ASI too.

There are artificial non-genre limitations on horizontal growth for the sake of "simplicity".
Only 6 ASI/feats for your level 16 fighter. The class that gets the most. Why only six?

That's why everyone jumps straight into magic and supernatural. Because the limitations are off or lower. And you get more customizable slots if you go magic.

 

[Minigiant]

So is every fighter, ranger, paladin, ect ect ect.

Those classes represent characters who have mastered bows, crossbows, axes, poleaxes, hammers, polehammers, spears, long spears, and a dozen different sword styles, along with club, staff, mace. morningstar, blow pipe, whip, and dagger combat. Yes, they also are all masters of improvised weapons and trained in unarmed combat.

Maybe because of Ronin you could convince me Hawkeye deserves a whole TWO fighting styles, could maybe get me with three of them.... Take the fighting style feat twice. Done. He has a fighting style for unarmed combat, dueling, and archery. Is your 4th to 5th level fighter feeling like a man who can take on Demogorgon?

You keep forgetting how LOW the bar is. Mastering a weapon style is a low-level feat. A 5th level fighter who took the fighting style feat twice, and went battlemaster is a BETTER fighter than hawkeye, who has mastered MORE weapons than Hawkeye.

Proficiency is not mastery.

That's core issue pushing the Supernatural Martial.

Because D&D is almost always completely designed around low levels. It's designed to created town guards, skirmish vets, and low scoundrels. The early class chassis is designed around though. Then you hit level 10 or so and run into big giants, demons, and dragons. But you are still running a town guard just with higher numbers.

So you say "My high level town guard is supernatural and can catch the giant's boulder" in lieu of actual features and to explain the situation.

Instead of "My warrior is so good at combat, a clumsily thrown boulder isn't going to hit him if he sees it coming"
"What about 3 boulders?"
"What ABOUT 3 boulders? I spent downtime sparring 5 v 1 with a fey princess's royal guards who have permanent glamors. That's a ROCK!"

 

[Tonguez]

You can only take Skill Expert and Fighting Initiate once each.
Combat and noncombat aspects complete for feats and most editions give limited feats or require using many feats to excel.
And in 5e, it competes with your ASI too.

There are artificial non-genre limitations on horizontal growth for the sake of "simplicity".
Only 6 ASI/feats for your level 16 fighter. The class that gets the most. Why only six?

That's why everyone jumps straight into magic and supernatural. Because the limitations are off or lower. And you get more customizable slots if you go magic.

Very much this and although it isnt a perfect comparison if you think of Spells as "Feats of Magic" then a level 16 Wizard gets 22 Spell slots with which to do cool stuff, compared to the Fighters measly 6 feats. Its quite ridiculous really, doubling the number of feats a fighter could get (even if constrained by Fighting style or Manouveres) would be something...

 

[Ancalagon]

I've been thinking about a way to quantify this. Ok, my PC can beat up a giant. So what, what's a giant anyway? We don't know.

Ok, so how about this? How many town gards can my PC beat up before being killed? A melee fight, there is an infinite number of town guards surrounding me, and I'm large so I'm taking more attacks - but I am too strong to grapple effectively. There is no flanking.

Because of his size, 12 guards can attack him/turn. They need a 17 to hit, and are wielding their spear 1 handed. They are doing 1.075 dmg/turn/guard, or 12.9 dmg/round to my PC. It will take them 4 rounds to chew through my temp HP. Then due to my regeneration (which alas don't heal temp HP) it would take them 11 more rounds to bring me down. In the meantime, I've killed about 30 guards - I'm "wasting" a lot of damage because I'm "overkilling" the guards, each blow is "too" strong.

Has anyone ever been able to bring down 30 soldiers in a melee? Is that possible?

 

[Ancalagon]

One thing I absolutely think would help is getting back to basics and looking at the environment.

True Fact! There is no roll for climbing a normal climbable surface. The rules state that climbing rolls can be made in extreme conditions. So, let's say the rogue/fighter wants to run into an alley and free-hand climb a three story house... Well, they can climb at half movement speed, and as long as there is no time limit, they can just do that. It would take them six seconds to clamber up that building if they dashed.

True Fact! Baseline high Jump rules allow a character with a 16 strength to jump and their feet clear a six foot height. A fighter/rogue with a high strength (or using the thief dex abilities) can casually jump over the head of most humanoids. Additionally, a 16 strength fighter can reach a ledge that is (on average) 14.745 ft above them. This means that they can trivially, without rolling or major exertion, run up to a two story house, jump, grab the edge of a window, and pull themselves up it.

These are feats of level 1 characters. A level 3 Rogue Thief should be able to, in a single span of six seconds, run into an alley, jump up and grab a second story window, kick off that to land on a third story balcony across the alley, then proceed to climb up the ivy on the side of the building to a height of approximately the 7th story of the building.

There are two things that should be added to this.

1) Let Fighter/Rogues add their proficiency to their jumps and adjust long-jump distances as well as fix the weirdness of its interaction with movement speed (you shouldn't only jump 5ft instead of the 30 you should clear, just because you ran up first). I like the idea of calculating sets of 5 ft based off their bonuses (so a fighter with a +4 strength and +3 prof jumps 35 ft) and leaving non-martials with the strength score method.

2) Let Martial Characters destroy the environment more. Right now, a 20th level fighter with a normal warhammer is potentially destroying a stone wall in three to four swings... the exact same that a 1st level fighter might accomplish. And that is even if the DM allows it, and that is even if the players think of it. A DM might allow an Ogre to charge through a wooden wall in a dramatic flair to attack the players, but they almost never allow the players to bust through walls or destroy floors or ceilings in the same manner.

How many fighter/rogues have been allowed to stab an enemy through a wooden wall? Or pull the classic of reaching through a wall to grapple an enemy? Wooden walls and doors should not make you safe from a mid-to-high level fighter. Hiding inside a wagon shouldn't make you safe from the rogue shooting you through the wagon's walls. These people live in a world that is destructible, let them feel like they are capable of shattering wood and cracking stone with ease.

And, after you implement such rules REMIND the players. Your rogue isn't used to thinking of the fact that they can jump OVER the knight's head to escape, your fighter isn't used to seeing a barred wooden door and realizing it isn't actually an obstacle that can stop them. And once you have players who are used to thinking in this way, then you are going to see a change in how those classes feel to those players.

I like this.

The mutagenist subclass has, on top of strong offence/defence, a high mobility. You get a +5 feet/spell slot level (and remember, warlock-style casting). So at level 9, my speed is 55 in hulk form. and my jump distances are doubled.

It is such a good feeling being powerful and fast. It wouldn't take a ton of effort to make martials feel more powerful.

If you really want a mountain thrower, play Exalted (2nd ed is the only one I can really comment). Buuuuut exalted is complicated, and 5e is almost a superhero game already. I'm calling my PC a "hulk" because that's exactly what he is.

 

[Ancalagon]

I’m with you and understand how you might feel that way having never heard these suggestions, but I’ve heard them enough such that they don’t appear to be ‘fringe’ or ‘extreme’.

There is a possibility that I'm being misquoted/misremembered/misunderstood.

I've been trying to point out that full casters' real power is not the damage they can do or the foes they can trap with a well place control spells. It's the impact they can have on the story, the plot, the world. The evil warlord resides on a fortress on top of a cliff? Fine we'll fly to the top (or something similar), thus bypassing several encounters and traps and fighting the big boss fresh. And this is a petty, facile example. It can be a lot more profound than that.

This is something that needs a lot of thought and care. But it would be cool if martials had supernatural "martiallish" powers that could also impact the plot, perhaps in different ways. But I do agree that this should be limited - they aren't wizards, after all.
But perhaps things like diverting a river, or causing a great heard of buffalos to stampede over an enemy army ... that could be interesting no?