D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

[Neonchameleon]

I think this is a bit pedantic: if you create a fantasy world where every person can walk on air as easily as walking on land, it isn't magical to them, but it's still magical to us. It might not be what the game even defines as magic (susceptible to detect magic, dispel magic, anti-magic, etc.) but I think if you took the idea the on this planet everyone can effectively fly and asked anyone on the street, nobody would say that's "normal", no matter how normal it is to the inhabitants of that world.

I don't think it's pedantic in the slightest. In e.g. Hollywood action movies we expect the characters to be able to go above and beyond what normal real world humans can do, and to be able to do things that real humans can't without multiple takes, stunt doubles, or CGI. And normally at no point is a reason given in a lot of them for why they are larger than life. One isn't needed - that's just the was the world works in that setting.

What to me you are asking for is to bullet proof settings to a level CinemaSins would find nothing to object to when I want fighters that go above and beyond what a mundane human could do in the real world.

People who have anger management problems don't become highly resistant to mortal blows. People who study aestheticism and martial arts don't become immune to poison and disease or speak all known languages. Park rangers don't instictively know the type of number of every creature in a 1-mile radius. We explain that stuff by saying it's beyond normal human capabilities. Call it supernatural powers. Call it psionics. Call it mythic blood. Call it "magic and you ain't gotta explain $#!&" but you gotta explain it somehow, no matter how mundane it is to them, it's not to US and its our disbelief that needs suspending.

Dragons and giants can't exist thanks to the square-cube relationship. Do you want to go page by page through the monster manual looking for monsters each of which needs explaining?

Or can you accept that the laws of physics in the D&D world are not the same as those in the real world - and rather more resemble those of a Hollywood action movie than they do this world. And when I want a high level character to behave entirely in line with the physics of a setting in which giants can walk and aren't explicitly magical creatures then you have your explanation. We are not in the real world - we are in a world that is larger than life. And if my character is capable of $ridiculousholywoodstunt like kicking a steel door off its welded to the wall hinges or holding three people by one hand and themselves off the edge of a cliff by the other that's because these are not real world characters, they are characters in which giants happen and in which all damage above 0hp is basically cosmetic?

Out of curiosity how do you suspend your disbelief when an orc with an axe scores a critical hit on an unarmoured person and that person survives and doesn't even need much time in recovery? And if you can swallow that camel why are you straining at gnats here?

 

[Mort]

How else would you describe things that lie outside the normal rules of nature, other than as magical?

The "rules of nature" might differ on the adventuring world. in Greyhawk/Forgotten Realms, oozes, giants, rocs, etc. are part of the natural order - they exist in the nature of the world and are not repelled by an antimagic zone or dispelled by a dispel magic. You absolutely cannot apply what is natural IRL to what is natural in any given gaming world!

 

[Guest 7034872]

First, I don't really care what casters have at this point. Balance can come later, but the current and most important facet is getting martials, fighters especially an opportunity to do something interesting and fantastic things.

You know, the more I think about this, the more I come around to your position, Vaalingrade. Simply giving Fighters and other blade-swingin' martials magical abilities would be dumb and even contrary to the whole point. The idea is to give Fighters important abilities that no one else gets to have, not to balance the classes out by giving everyone all the same stuff through various back-door systems.

My whole reason for noping out of Strixhaven earlier was because it gives healing abilities to wizards, which is a no-no as old as the game itself. Well, why was that such a big deal to me? It was a big deal because once we cross that line, I no longer have any decent answers I can give to a miffed player who comes to me and asks, "So why do we even have Clerics or Druids anymore?" The entire idea of character classes is that each one gets party-essential skills and abilities that other classes flatly do not get. My hunch is this is why so many old-timers have taken a disliking to 5e Bards: they get to do too much of everything.

Also, the beauty of the broken system that is 5e is that the caster can never gain feats of class features, so even if they're a dragon, they can't grab a goblin by the legs and beat his buddies with him. You know, if the fighter would ever be allowed to have the kind of fun.

Exactly. So even though I admit we're once again some distance from Asisreo's actual original question about all this stuff, here're a few notions I'm playing with--you tell me if this is the sort of thing you have in mind for what would help:

1. You know that Battle Master maneuver, Lunging Attack? Seems a pretty weak one if you ask me. But suppose we strengthen it and rename it "Desperate Lunge?" Desperate Lunge would read "When you make a melee weapon attack on your turn, you can expend one superiority die to triple the speed of your assault whereby any successful hit automatically becomes critical. Attacks against you will have advantage until your next turn, though." I would use that if I were playing a Battle Master.
2. Feats like Martial Adept and Sentinel are really, really good (IMO). Fighters already gain extra ability score improvements much faster than other classes, which I figured were meant to enable some of these feats at a lower cost. But I think maybe the cost is still too high, so what if all Fighters (and maybe Barbarians) start right off with one of those two? And maybe they even get the other one (they choose which order) for free at a certain level. That might help.
3. And then for out-of-combat abilities, you could have Fighters gain automatic substantial bonuses on intimidation checks. I mean, it has never made a stitch of sense to me that lumbering, 7'-tall scarred bruisers with 5'-long greatswords on their backs get no special bonuses for intimidation. Heck, I'd give them advantage on all such checks as soon as they walked into the room.

Are these the sorts of things you have in mind?

 

[Remathilis]

I don't think it's pedantic in the slightest. In e.g. Hollywood action movies we expect the characters to be able to go above and beyond what normal real world humans can do, and to be able to do things that real humans can't without multiple takes, stunt doubles, or CGI. And normally at no point is a reason given in a lot of them for why they are larger than life. One isn't needed - that's just the was the world works in that setting.

What to me you are asking for is to bullet proof settings to a level CinemaSins would find nothing to object to when I want fighters that go above and beyond what a mundane human could do in the real world.

Dragons and giants can't exist thanks to the square-cube relationship. Do you want to go page by page through the monster manual looking for monsters each of which needs explaining?

Or can you accept that the laws of physics in the D&D world are not the same as those in the real world - and rather more resemble those of a Hollywood action movie than they do this world. And when I want a high level character to behave entirely in line with the physics of a setting in which giants can walk and aren't explicitly magical creatures then you have your explanation. We are not in the real world - we are in a world that is larger than life. And if my character is capable of $ridiculousholywoodstunt like kicking a steel door off its welded to the wall hinges or holding three people by one hand and themselves off the edge of a cliff by the other that's because these are not real world characters, they are characters in which giants happen and in which all damage above 0hp is basically cosmetic?

Out of curiosity how do you suspend your disbelief when an orc with an axe scores a critical hit on an unarmoured person and that person survives and doesn't even need much time in recovery? And if you can swallow that camel why are you straining at gnats here?

I have an easy answer to all this stuff: ITS MAGIC. Dragons and giants exist because magic. The whole world is suffused with magic. Really talented people learn to use it to do extraordinary things. They call it psionics or ki or rage or divine power or bloodlines or spellcasting or artifice, but it's all magic. Y'all are acting like "magic" is the enemy. It not. The whole bloody game runs on magic. If you just allow the fighter to be magical too, you've solved the problem.

PC: 1: My fighter jumps from one tower to the next.
PC 2: How can your character jump that far? It's farther than the world record!
PC 1: Magic. My fighter <insert rationale here>
PC 2: Oh. Cool.

See, how simple was that? You can call it Martial Power, or whatever Book of Nine Swords called it. It doesn't take much. But it's still some type of magical/supernatural ability.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And move things telekinetically and create protective barriers.

not perfect but easy.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I have an easy answer to all this stuff: ITS MAGIC. Dragons and giants exist because magic. The whole world is suffused with magic. Really talented people learn to use it to do extraordinary things. They call it psionics or ki or rage or divine power or bloodlines or spellcasting or artifice, but it's all magic. Y'all are acting like "magic" is the enemy. It not. The whole bloody game runs on magic. If you just allow the fighter to be magical too, you've solved the problem.

PC: 1: My fighter jumps from one tower to the next.
PC 2: How can your character jump that far? It's farther than the world record!
PC 1: Magic. My fighter <insert rationale here>
PC 2: Oh. Cool.

See, how simple was that? You can call it Martial Power, or whatever Book of Nine Swords called it. It doesn't take much. But it's still some type of magical/supernatural ability.

Yes, magic is an easy out to any 'why' question in D&D. But all you're really doing by answering a question with "it's magic" is saying "it just is. Shut up" with nicer words.

Consider the difference between "I jump really far"..and "I magically jump really far"

The only thing the second statement tells you that the fist one doesn't is that you don't have to worry about the why. You gain exactly zero incremental information about the mechanics of the jump.

Edit: fun game.. swap out "magically" for "heroically". Provides the same level of justification without magic.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have an easy answer to all this stuff: ITS MAGIC. Dragons and giants exist because magic. The whole world is suffused with magic. Really talented people learn to use it to do extraordinary things. They call it psionics or ki or rage or divine power or bloodlines or spellcasting or artifice, but it's all magic. Y'all are acting like "magic" is the enemy. It not. The whole bloody game runs on magic. If you just allow the fighter to be magical too, you've solved the problem.

The problem is that something that explains everything explains nothing. "Pushing themselves to the limit for the world and the world is magic" means something very different for the character to "casting a spell and spells are magic". To me "It's magic" is the meaningless part - the question is how/why. And what I object to is fighters being forced to cast spells to be larger than life.

 

[DND_Reborn]

New / Revised attempt at the Fighter Class here:

D&D 5E - Another Fighter: the "Heroic" Fighter

So, here is yet another attempt (or revision from prior attempts) at a "heroic" fighter class. By "heroic" I mean things that are feasible by real world standards, even if they really stretch the bounds of plausibility. While extreme potentially, they are not meant to be "super heroic", but can...

www.enworld.org

Feedback welcome!

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, magic is an easy out to any 'why' question in D&D. But all you're really doing by answering a question with "it's magic" is saying "it just is. Shut up" with nicer words.

Consider the difference between "I jump really far"..and "I magically jump really far"

The only thing the second statement tells you that the fist one doesn't is that you don't have to worry about the why. You gain exactly zero incremental information about the mechanics of the jump.

Edit: fun game.. swap out "magically" for "heroically". Provides the same level of justification without magic.

Magic is a thing in d&d worlds though just like computers are in ours. If something acts like it has some form of microprocessor doing the computational lifting that makes something appear to be automated it's still computerized even if the computer is an embedded microcontroller or a pressure sensor that connects a circuit linked to a motor or something because the distinction is only relevant in the most extreme cases if it's not and it will still probably suffer from many of the difficulties a computerized system would like power failures & such.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Magic is a thing in d&d worlds though just like computers are in ours. If something acts like it has some form of microprocessor doing the computational lifting that makes something appear to be automated it's still computerized even if the computer is an embedded microcontroller or a pressure sensor that connects a circuit linked to a motor or something because the distinction is only relevant in the most extreme cases if it's not and it will still probably suffer from many of the difficulties a computerized system would like power failures & such.

The difference is that a computer does a specific thing..it computes.

'Magic' doesn't doesn't have a defined mechanism. It is, explicitly, a supernatural/mysterious way to do the impossible..and that's it.

In the context of fantasy worldbuilding, it's a get out of jail free card. Yeah it works, but let's not act like it means anything.