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

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, what's wrong with fantasy worlds just having a narrative of "Some people are given hidden blessings by the gods. These people can grow in stature, skill, and will from risk. danger and exposure to the evils of the world to grow into people who can challenge the gods themselves".

You don't even need that.

D&D provably has adamantine as an element and depending on what you believed either mithral as it own thing as an element, or aluminum in easily located and mined form. These would be trace elements that would find their way into the food chain, meaning nothing about D&D's biosphere and biomechanics would be remotely like Earth's because everything's cells at plant level and above is laced with supermetal.

 

[Cadence]

I can almost picture a base book going from levels (say) 1-10, and then two secondary books, one for games that want to plateau out e6 style and one for those that want to go up to 20.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I mean, what's wrong with fantasy worlds just having a narrative of "Some people are given hidden blessings by the gods. These people can grow in stature, skill, and will from risk. danger and exposure to the evils of the world to grow into people who can challenge the gods themselves".

That's fine too. I'm not proposing that exotic exposure should be the only mechanism by which folks can achieve power, just that it's already there and the "human max potential" argument just kind of ignores it.

 

[mamba]

It's at least a part of it. If the intended play experience is exotic, and your DM willfully goes against that intent, there will be dissonance.

things can be exotic without becoming a Marvel movie

I think it's mostly healthy to generalize for an experience outside of what might occur at a table where the DM is actively engaging in sadism.

I have no idea what you are referring to, but I guess I agree

 

[Eric V]

might as well do that for all casters too then, instead of giving them free slots

???

Why? This would be a clear distinction between sorcerers and wizards (which might be helpful since going to neo-Vancian has blurred the reason for the distinction); one gets their power from their own physical selves, the other through being a big nerd, and the mechanics would actually reflect this.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I am not worried about how they got them, I am not interested in them turning into Thor or The Hulk. The solution is not to make everyone a superhero, the solution is for no one to be one.

There already is a Marvels TTRPG if that is what you are looking for…

Sure. We disagree. Neither of our positions has any particular logical virtue.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A human that has bathed in the blood of fey, fiends, dragons, demons, maybe even gods by level 20. Who has been exposed to all kinds of elemental energies and magical effects. Who has used and been wounded by a wide assortment of magical objects. A human who has consumed a wide array of magical potions or alchemical elixirs. Or who may have been killed and brought back to life or reincarnated. A human who may have ventured into Heaven and Hell.

Like this just isn't Bob the security guard whose only life experience is protecting a mall.

One particularly amusing way I heard of a DM conceptualizing level gain (and thus humanoids with massively growing hp totals, but "meat" hp) was The Full Highlander. Any monster worth fighting had some mystical power flowing through it, like the Force or a xianxia primordial spirit or whatever, and when you killed it, you Took it's Quickenning! Lightning bolts & everything.

 

[overgeeked]

Well, since we're discussing hypothetical changes to how baseline 5e works, there are certainly potential changes that could increase buy-in among segments of the current holdouts. So I think this topic has relevance beyond current 5e supporters.

I think they’re increasingly irrelevant to the future of the game and trying to appeal to them is part of the problem. This is why I keep mentioning bewer fans and their touchstones.

And, for the thread in general, we don’t need to worry about mundane or supernatural martials. We just need rough mechanical parity between martials and casters.

 

[TwoSix]

I can almost picture a base book going from levels (say) 1-10, and then two secondary books, one for games that want to plateau out e6 style and one for those that want to go up to 20.

Something I’ve advocated for years.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure.

The point is that whatever capabilities the martials could end up with, they have already been adequately justified by what the martial has already experienced.

We don't need to worry about "how supernatural" those capabilities might be or the specifics of how they got them.

I really think you do.