D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Minigiant]

Yes. Its a failing of the edition that they limit magical items so much, and Fighters absolutely should get more of them, and be better at swinging them at critters and cutting off their heads.

If it were up to me, there'd be Block and Parry actions.

The Fighter would get Extra Attack, Extra Block, Extra Dash, and Extra Dodge

The Block action adds you +1 to AC and Strength saving throws and adds +1 more holding a shield but halves your speed.
Extra Block (X) adds +X to AC and Strength saving throws and adds +X more holding a shield.

The Parry action adds your proficiency bonus to your AC versus the next melee attack that hits you.
Extra Parry (X) adds it you the next X attacks

Extra Dash adds +X feet to your speed when you dash

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yes. Its a failing of the edition that they limit magical items so much, and Fighters absolutely should get more of them, and be better at swinging them at critters and cutting off their heads.

Not limiting; empowering the DM to make magical items SPECIAL again!

 

[Scribe]

Not limiting; empowering the DM to make magical items SPECIAL again!

 

[FireLance]

I previously posted this to another thread, but I think it's also relevant to the conversation here.

This is just a germ of an idea which has slowly crystallized after reading through several martial vs. caster threads.

I recall someone commented that martial PCs need magic items to balance high-level caster abilities. So, why not ensure that martial PCs can always gain the benefits of possessing magic items as they gain levels? Something like:

• Every PC gets up to 6 attunement slots as they level up: an Uncommon slot at 4th level, a second Uncommon slot at 7th level, a Rare slot at 10th level, a second Rare slot at 13th level, a Very Rare slot at 16th level, and a Legendary slot at 19th level.
• Each slot can be used to attune to a magic item of the stated rarity or lower.
• ALL magic items require attunement, or they only function as a non-magical item
• Martial PCs gain an ability called Martial Attunement which allows them to use an attunement slot to attune to a mundane item and have it grant them the same benefits as if it was a magic item of the same rarity as the slot
• If you prefer more mundane martial PCs, this could mean attuning to weapons, a shield, and a suit of armor to grant (non-magic) bonuses to attack rolls, damage rolls, and AC, or a cloak (perhaps made of a special material) to grant bonuses to saving throws
• If you prefer more explicitly supernatural PCs, the items could grant giant strength, flight, invisibility, ESP, etc.
• If you also want to scale back full casters, 6th or higher level spells could require spellcasters to attune to them before they can be cast. 6th and 7th level spells require a Rare or higher attunement slot, and 8th and 9th level spells require a Very Rare or higher attunement slot. This means a high-level spellcaster can only have up to 4 spells of 6th or higher level that they can cast at any one time, and doing so means they can only attune to 2 Uncommon magic items.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The AD&D MM says that a Red Dragon is 48' long.

True, and it’s a fair point. That’s quite similar to Beowulf’s foe.

But even within AD&D, you can find larger dragons (like the Cloud Dragon from MM2), and by 3Ed, you had red dragons with 40‘ wingspans and 80’ lengths.

I’ll also note that Smaug was probably bigger…but we don’t know by how much:

Smaug's actual size is unknown as it is never explicitly mentioned in The Hobbit, and illustrations by Tolkien, Alan Lee, and John Howe greatly vary in size in each portrait while the size of the Front Gate of the Dwarven kingdom in illustrations seems similar to what was depicted in the live action films. In The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, Smaug is said to be about 18 meters (59 feet) in length, but this is to be considered non-canonical. Other sources, for the film, name Smaug as being 130 meters (427 ft) in length, which is greater than two jumbo jets.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Like the one-shot kill of the Arrow of Slaying or Vorpal Sword or dismemberment courtesy of the Sword of Sharpness.

Those are all explicitly magical.

 

[Tonguez]

I previously posted this to another thread, but I think it's also relevant to the conversation here.

This is just a germ of an idea which has slowly crystallized after reading through several martial vs. caster threads.

I recall someone commented that martial PCs need magic items to balance high-level caster abilities. So, why not ensure that martial PCs can always gain the benefits of possessing magic items as they gain levels? Something like:

• Every PC gets up to 6 attunement slots as they level up: an Uncommon slot at 4th level, a second Uncommon slot at 7th level, a Rare slot at 10th level, a second Rare slot at 13th level, a Very Rare slot at 16th level, and a Legendary slot at 19th level.
• Each slot can be used to attune to a magic item of the stated rarity or lower.
• ALL magic items require attunement, or they only function as a non-magical item
• Martial PCs gain an ability called Martial Attunement which allows them to use an attunement slot to attune to a mundane item and have it grant them the same benefits as if it was a magic item of the same rarity as the slot
• If you prefer more mundane martial PCs, this could mean attuning to weapons, a shield, and a suit of armor to grant (non-magic) bonuses to attack rolls, damage rolls, and AC, or a cloak (perhaps made of a special material) to grant bonuses to saving throws
• If you prefer more explicitly supernatural PCs, the items could grant giant strength, flight, invisibility, ESP, etc.
• If you also want to scale back full casters, 6th or higher level spells could require spellcasters to attune to them before they can be cast. 6th and 7th level spells require a Rare or higher attunement slot, and 8th and 9th level spells require a Very Rare or higher attunement slot. This means a high-level spellcaster can only have up to 4 spells of 6th or higher level that they can cast at any one time, and doing so means they can only attune to 2 Uncommon magic items.

Hmmm I kinda like that especially having a weapon (or armour) that evolves with me, so I could take my Masterwork Katana and at level 4 attune myself to it as a +1 Sword of Vengeance, thus begining my long journey on the road to Meifudo, then at level 19 - via a ritualistic training montage -I reattune the same Katana as a +3 Vorpal ‘Executioners’ Katana …

nice

 

[Aldarc]

The argument I'm making is that in nearly every case of a warrior defeating epic enemies, they have a magical powerful weapon to help them. That's no different with Beowulf. Hrunting guaranteed success against all enemies except Grendel's mother. And for that, he used a different ancient powerful sword. So I'm not sure what you're trying to argue against.

I don't think that you are entirely wrong with your assessment, though I would say that there is a fine line between a masterwork weapon and a magical one. I only had a minor quibble with Hrunting being on the list.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Those are all explicitly magical.

The items are magical. The mechanics don't need to be.

Worlds Without Number has the Execution Attack action that functions (mechanically) quite similarly to an arrow of slaying. But there's nothing mystical going on. The warrior sets up and executes a kill shot.

How many foes does Conan decapitate. Was he using a Vorpal/Sharpness sword every time?

There's nothing explicitly magical about one-shotting/decapitating a foe.

 

[Oofta]

I previously posted this to another thread, but I think it's also relevant to the conversation here.

This is just a germ of an idea which has slowly crystallized after reading through several martial vs. caster threads.

I recall someone commented that martial PCs need magic items to balance high-level caster abilities. So, why not ensure that martial PCs can always gain the benefits of possessing magic items as they gain levels? Something like:

• Every PC gets up to 6 attunement slots as they level up: an Uncommon slot at 4th level, a second Uncommon slot at 7th level, a Rare slot at 10th level, a second Rare slot at 13th level, a Very Rare slot at 16th level, and a Legendary slot at 19th level.
• Each slot can be used to attune to a magic item of the stated rarity or lower.
• ALL magic items require attunement, or they only function as a non-magical item
• Martial PCs gain an ability called Martial Attunement which allows them to use an attunement slot to attune to a mundane item and have it grant them the same benefits as if it was a magic item of the same rarity as the slot
• If you prefer more mundane martial PCs, this could mean attuning to weapons, a shield, and a suit of armor to grant (non-magic) bonuses to attack rolls, damage rolls, and AC, or a cloak (perhaps made of a special material) to grant bonuses to saving throws
• If you prefer more explicitly supernatural PCs, the items could grant giant strength, flight, invisibility, ESP, etc.
• If you also want to scale back full casters, 6th or higher level spells could require spellcasters to attune to them before they can be cast. 6th and 7th level spells require a Rare or higher attunement slot, and 8th and 9th level spells require a Very Rare or higher attunement slot. This means a high-level spellcaster can only have up to 4 spells of 6th or higher level that they can cast at any one time, and doing so means they can only attune to 2 Uncommon magic items.

You don't really need all that many items for the fighter to make a big difference. Magic items tend to benefit fighters more than they do wizards in my experience. After all you can have magic weapons, armor, shields all without attunement. Something like Winged Boots or Girdles of Giant Strength, while they are attunement, do make a pretty big impact.

I have been in campaigns where we increased the number of attunement slots as PCs gained levels, it's certainly an option. I haven't find it necessary for balance though, there are other ways of handling it. But that's another thread.