D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Pedantic]

My favorite thing about the 5e paladin is that it gets maybe the most power from maybe the flimsiest source. They swear an oath.

Maybe it's to some powerful being, but for 5e, it could just be to "the cause of justice itself"

Like..they get spellcasting and a bunch of supernatural stuff from being just like super conscientious.

When you really get down to it, they're closer to being psychic warriors manifesting the power of their convictions rather than holy warriors rewarded with power for their faith.

Edit: and to be clear I'm not opposed to this exactly. Just find it funny how easily the paladin gets let off the narrative justification hook.

Nothing flimsy about that. My favorite take on that was a 3PP death knight. The subclass had rules for replacing an existing subclass and required that you die before taking it.... because you took an oath, and death isn't an excuse.

Manifested force of conviction is a well established fantasy trope.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Nothing flimsy about that. My favorite take on that was a 3PP death knight. The subclass had rules for replacing an existing subclass and required that you die before taking it.... because you took an oath, and death isn't an excuse.

Manifested force of conviction is a well established fantasy trope.

I mean..so is force of arms...but, letting that slide.

Where does the power come from?

In the trope, typically there is some link to a deity or some other supernatural power source somewhere along the line.

You swear an oath to..something.

That's not how 5e plays it. By 5e standards wedding vows could provide enough narrative heft to make you a half-casting crusading warrior.

EDIT: again to be clear, I don't actually have an issue with what 5e has done. The class is more defined by its mechanics than by its underlying description. That is perfectly cromulent to me. I just think it's an interesting contrast to how the fighter is regarded.

 

[Pedantic]

I mean..so is force of arms...but, letting that slide.

Where does the power come from?

In the trope, typically there is some link to a deity or some other supernatural power source somewhere along the line.

You swear an oath to..something.

That's not how 5e plays it. By 5e standards wedding vows could provide enough narrative heft to make you a half casting crusading warrior.

That's kind of missing the point of a supernatural power source. The how/what of magic is necessarily arbitrary; to pick a popular fiction example, Sanderson has people swallowing random, often poisonous metals (and actually, come to think of it, swearing magical oaths in the Stormlight Archives). Common tropes include "gathering some intrinsic power generated from the wider universe" to "drawing specific runes" to "burning your lifeforce" to "everyone has an extra internal battery for this stuff, you just have to be trained to do something with it."

Personally I'd love a more solid magical monism or maybe dualism, let's get a few essential systems/norms in place that are expressed in different ways, but it's not actually that important. I don't really care what's empowering a paladin to do stuff normal people can't do, but having that explicit edge lets us write techniques for them with arbitrary limitations because we aren't beholden to the mundane action resolution system anymore.

The problem with the fighter is that it's defined in opposition to a power source. As soon as you tell me "actually it turns out advanced halberd forms are effectively somatic components" then our options expand. The Fighter as an archetype isn't an excuse to do those things; it's instead exactly the opposite, it's just a list of norms they aren't allowed to break before someone gets mad, and an extra helping of fairly arbitrary and slippery limitations on how any techniques they deploy should work to keep them within "mundane" norms.

 

[Gammadoodler]

That's kind of missing the point of a supernatural power source. The how/what of magic is necessarily arbitrary; to pick a popular fiction example, Sanderson has people swallowing random, often poisonous metals (and actually, come to think of it, swearing magical oaths in the Stormlight Archives). Common tropes include "gathering some intrinsic power generated from the wider universe" to "drawing specific runes" to "burning your lifeforce" to "everyone has an extra internal battery for this stuff, you just have to be trained to do something with it."

Personally I'd love a more solid magical monism or maybe dualism, let's get a few essential systems/norms in place that are expressed in different ways, but it's not actually that important. I don't really care what's empowering a paladin to do stuff normal people can't do, but having that explicit edge lets us write techniques for them with arbitrary limitations because we aren't beholden to the mundane action resolution system anymore.

The problem with the fighter is that it's defined in opposition to a power source. As soon as you tell me "actually it turns out advanced halberd forms are effectively somatic components" then our options expand. The Fighter as an archetype isn't an excuse to do those things; it's instead exactly the opposite, it's just a list of norms they aren't allowed to break before someone gets mad, and an extra helping of fairly arbitrary and slippery limitations on how any techniques they deploy should work to keep them within "mundane" norms.

The how or what of magic may necessarily be arbitrary, but as a result, if we consider it to be important, it must also be explicit.

And for the Paladin in 5e, it isn't..
Or rather it is exactly as explicit as any potential extraodinary martial ability.

If you look at the Oaths' relationships with the abilities conferred upon the Paladin class and subclasses, there is nigh on zero relationship between the two.

The Oaths, functionally, are not either a how or a what. The true arbitrary source of Paladin's supernatural abilities is that of generous game designers who granted them supernatural mechanics unconnected from (and in some cases in spite of) the class's expressed narrative justification.

And this is fine. I wish more classes could benefit from this power source.

Edit: though I do wish there were more connection between Oaths and powers.

 

[Pedantic]

The how or what of magic may necessarily be arbitrary, but as a result, if we consider it to be important, it must also be explicit.

And for the Paladin in 5e, it isn't..
Or rather it is exactly as explicit as any potential extraodinary martial ability.

If you look at the Oaths' relationships with the abilities conferred upon the Paladin class and subclasses, there is nigh on zero relationship between the two.

The Oaths, functionally, are not either a how or a what. The true arbitrary source of Paladin's supernatural abilities is that of generous game designers who granted them supernatural mechanics unconnected from (and in some cases in spite of) the class's expressed narrative justification.

And this is fine. I wish more classes could benefit from this power source.

Edit: though I do wish there were more connection between Oaths and powers.

Oh sure, I'm down for more flavorful mechanics any day, and I do miss a connected set of thematic classes. Let's go do Incarnum again, bring on the Magic of Blue.

I'm saying you're focusing on the wrong thing though. It's the magic that's important, not the "where does the magic come from." Don't get me wrong, I would write actual bargains with actual costs into my warlock pacts and oath specific powers into the paladin in a heartbeat, those are better expressions of the theme and more interesting than what we have. But any magical ability benefits from being able to conveniently align its mechanical and narrative expressions, and isn't fettered by whatever expectations of a mundane resolution system players expect.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Oh sure, I'm down for more flavorful mechanics any day, and I do miss a connected set of thematic classes. Let's go do Incarnum again, bring on the Magic of Blue.

I'm saying you're focusing on the wrong thing though. It's the magic that's important, not the "where does the magic come from." Don't get me wrong, I would write actual bargains with actual costs into my warlock pacts and oath specific powers into the paladin in a heartbeat, those are better expressions of the theme and more interesting than what we have. But any magical ability benefits from being able to conveniently align its mechanical and narrative expressions, and isn't fettered by whatever expectations of a mundane resolution system players expect.

I think I'd alter your statement.

It's not "where the mechanics come from" that's important..it's the mechanics that are important.

If we don't care about where magical supernatural abilities come from, why should we care about where nonmagical supernatural abilities come from?

 

[Vaalingrade]

The how or what of magic may necessarily be arbitrary, but as a result, if we consider it to be important, it must also be explicit.

We could just... like stop doing that and everyone would be better off.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The problem with the fighter is that it's defined in opposition to a power source. As soon as you tell me "actually it turns out advanced halberd forms are effectively somatic components" then our options expand. The Fighter as an archetype isn't an excuse to do those things; it's instead exactly the opposite, it's just a list of norms they aren't allowed to break before someone gets mad, and an extra helping of fairly arbitrary and slippery limitations on how any techniques they deploy should work to keep them within "mundane" norms.

The fighter ISN’T defined in opposition to a power source.

The fighter class is a catch-all: it includes all characters that are good at fighting and don’t fall into the categories rogue, barb, ranger or monk.

If the fighter WERE defined in opposition to a power source, half of the 5e subclasses wouldn’t exist. No Eldritch Knights, no Rune Giants, no Echo Knights, no Arcane Archers, no Psi Warriors.

It feels like you personally don’t like certain types of fighters, so you are using a definition that excludes them… and also excludes half of the existing published subclasses.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would say where the magic comes from is very important, to the point that I don't want it if there's no answer to that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think I'd alter your statement.

It's not "where the mechanics come from" that's important..it's the mechanics that are important.

If we don't care about where magical supernatural abilities come from, why should we care about where nonmagical supernatural abilities come from?

Who says we don't care?