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

[Oofta]

I want a class (it doesn't have to be called fighter) with more bells and whistles, with closer to the abilities of the casters without them being spells.

But doesn't that become something like the rune knight? You get to carve runes on some of your equipment and then can do fun things like give their target fiery shackles once per short rest or grow to giant size.

 

[HammerMan]

The posts about exploration and social being (relatively) inconsequential confuse me. Has no one ever run/played a session with zero combat but high stakes? I wouldn't say they're common at my table, but I would estimate they happen at least once in any a campaign and are incredibly fun for me (oftentimes, not so much for whoever is playing the fighter though).

I would say 1 out of 5 or 6 sessions is a no combat at all and 3/4 of the ones that have combat also have at least 1 non combat (be it social exploration or something between)

At our table, a potential discovery (exploration) or tense negotiation (social) can have a more dramatic impact on the outcome of a campaign than all of the combat encounters combined. Is that atypical?

I have had entire campaigns hindge on finding things guarded by nothing, or be about finding out who/where the big bad is...

 

[Mort]

Do a decent amount of damage, comparable most of the time to the wizard when averaged out.

That's combat, and the fighter is supposed to be good at that. Plus ALL classes are good at combat.

Take blow after blow and remain standing.

Again combat, and they're not THAT much better than the wizard at getting hit. Assuming the same constitution a 5th level fighter is going to have 12 more HP than the wizard. That's not nothing but it's only a few more hits, not that dramatic.

Stop enemies either by blocking the way or with sentinel, grapple. Shoving enemies back, knock them prone, jump across a chasm to hold a door closed, lift the portcullis and then holding it so the group can escape.

5e has made this harder - a fighter will stop exactly 1 opponent per round with sentinel and grapple has some costs associated (namely losing your own mobility and effectiveness against others). Further, a fighter doing this is ALSO expending resources - they're right in the thick of it expending HP -and they don't have THAT many extra to spare.

And even then, a high strength wizard COULD do this, with a proper wizard subclass the even have more than 1 attack.

The later stuff is just a high strength and a good athletics skill. A wizard could be just fine on that front, if the player chooses to do so. It's not common, but why not? And then he's a full caster on top of that.

 

[Fanaelialae]

But doesn't that become something like the rune knight? You get to carve runes on some of your equipment and then can do fun things like give their target fiery shackles once per short rest or grow to giant size.

IMO, no.

Current subclass features just don't have sufficient oomph for that kind of thing. You could certainly make a subclass that had such features, but they'd be clearly better than any other subclass for that class, by a pretty obvious margin.

 

[HammerMan]

But doesn't that become something like the rune knight? You get to carve runes on some of your equipment and then can do fun things like give their target fiery shackles once per short rest or grow to giant size.

i want multi tiered abilities that control narrative like spells. I want things that in and out of combat have abilities to choose from and if I make 3 different members of the same class I can choose different abilities (the way I can make 3 diffrent wizards, choose 6 +2 per level spells and not duplicate at all if I want...)
Also the rune knight is still magical. I want a strong leader of men with little to no magic. I want my narritive abilities to be non magical.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Where does this expectation come from? Previous editions? The tone from previous, more mundane adventures that occur before the high-level things? Or from the way the book is written? Personally, from the way the book describes high-level adventures, I can understand why people expect all characters are assigned powers that seem to scale appropriately to the danger at-hand.

I think all sorts of places.

• Fantasy literature being one (Conan is the hero of the story, not a supporting character, and does so without any 'superhero' abilities).
• Also, action movies where Wesley or John McClane or whomever Ahnold is playing effect the situation without abilities which defy a semblance of reality (if not probability).
• Also the early versions of the game (or people's memory thereof) where high level fighters were powerful (it should be mentioned that this had no small part to do with magic users still being tissue-paper flimsy at high levels and the fighters having a bunch of magic gear which let them fly or decapitate enemies or sometimes even shoot fireballs out of their swords 3/day or similar).
• Or even Chainmail itself where a Superhero (8th level fighter, in effect) could waltz through a battlefield cutting a deadly swath while being immune to dragon fear and the most spell resistant normal army unit.
• Other game systems (particularly the point-buy ones) where, for the resources it takes to be good at spellcasting in even a couple of key areas, you can also make a polymat warrior-skills expert who can actually do many many things and contribute meaningfully at least as much as the caster (even though the caster still has things the non-caster can't do).

I'll add my own Subsection:
Whenever there is an out-of-combat scenario, there is a magical answer that requires a caster, uses a spell slot, but works (often completely, and with broad application). There is also (sometimes) a non-magical answer that is limited (usually to Guy at Gym levels), requires a roll, and has the option of being detrimental if you fail to make the roll.

Counter(#1): there aren't that many 'fail catastrophically' rules in the book, that's mostly DMs doing that themselves.

Counter-counter: yes, but DMs keep doing it, and a more rigorous OOC resolution model (or moving spellcasting into the same model) would increase parity

Counter(#2): those spells take up memorization room and spell slots. If that's not a constraint on your caster, your DM needs to make more (and varied) encounters per rest scenario

Counter-counter: we're back to blame distributing instead of building a framework that solves the issue. Given that we're looking for guidelines or DM's aids or alternate rules rather than taking anything from the people who already have a system that works for them, this seems unhelpful for no reason.

Counter (3#): The open-ness and vagueness of the non-magical resolution system is as much benefit as limitation. The skilled non-magical character can do anything they can convince their DM the skill allows, while the spell descriptions are absolute limits on what the magic can do.

Counter-counter: like #1, DMs just seem not to give that greater flexibility (or give casters as much leeway). If you find the DM that lets your fighter use athletics to turn (for example) a medieval construction site into a donkey-kong like obstacle course for your enemies, this works out for you. For the person whose DM makes you roll to quietly close a box-lid, they are SOL. Again, just asking for in-book guidance and DM aids takes nothing away from those who don't see a problem.

 

[HammerMan]

Again combat, and they're not THAT much better than the wizard at getting hit. Assuming the same constitution a 5th level fighter is going to have 12 more HP than the wizard. That's not nothing but it's only a few more hits, not that dramatic.

a fighter and wizard with the same stats just swap str and int (so the wizard starts with 15 int 10 str and the fighter with 15 str 10 int) is the perfect example of this... the fighter gets on average 2hp per level more... meaning the biggest gap is at 20th level of 40hp.

 

[Mind of tempest]

But doesn't that become something like the rune knight? You get to carve runes on some of your equipment and then can do fun things like give their target fiery shackles once per short rest or grow to giant size.

it solves the problem by becoming part wizard we can all at least agree making the fighter a half caster is not what any of us want.

 

[HammerMan]

it solves the problem by becoming part wizard we can all at least agree making the fighter a half caster is not what any of us want.

the most interesting fighter subclasses add magic...

 

[Asisreo]

I want a class (it doesn't have to be called fighter) with more bells and whistles, with closer to the abilities of the casters without them being spells.

What type of bells and whistles? I assume "without spells" means without magic in general. So a large list of descriptions and effects that aren't useful in-combat, but very useful outside of combat?

And I assume they work similarly to spells in that they don't require a roll to successfully use it.

Okay, that's what you want and it's fair to want something in a game that you supposedly enjoy. But what does this have to do with "disparity" or "imbalance?"

I want healing to be back where it belongs in the "necromancy" school of magic, but I don't think it causes any sort of practical issue in-game, for example. It might have an interaction with necromancy wizards with access to multiclassing, feats, or a magic item but that doesn't mean there's a balance issue with it.