D&D 5E What martial options would make those characters feel equal to casters?

[ph0rk]

A lot more skills would be a start, and doses of expertise. Some better rules or guidelines for using some of those skills in the social and exploration pillars.

Imho fighters should get about half the doses of expertise rogues get. Expertise in a tool should remain the domain of rogues (the artificer horse has already left the barn).

Magic resistance: the kind that scales to things like breaking walls of force/force cages. Like indomitable but better.

A fully mundane character (so, no EKs, etc) should be more resistant to magic than those that mess around with it.

Initiative: characters that rely on their reflexes for everything should have much better reflexes than characters that have a brain full of spells.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Q. "What martial options would make those characters feel equal to casters?"

A. Spells.


....you're welcome.

 

[Stormonu]

I think a good place to start is the Battlemaster - those playing a champion are probably happy with a simple fighter anyway.

If the Battlemaster’ s maneuvers were expanded to include inflicting conditions (and still dealing damage), sure-fire crits, compiling multiple attacks into one massive attack and ”bursts” of insight that affected movement, saving throws, AC and other physical buffs (converted from buff spells to Olympic-level abilities), that would go a long way for filling in the gaps of “duh, me hit things” for the martials.

Of course, you could expand these resources for other characters, with the biggest being barbarian getting some of these abilities. Rangers and Paladins might have narrower access to these as they already have spells to replicate some of the abilities that we’d be adding to the fighter.

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you know 3.5 Ed. sourcebook "Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords"? It introduced the martial adept classes, with a special game mechanic, the martial maneuvers. These were special powers in the middle between at-will and once-encounter. Once used they were "spent" needed a special action to "reload". But the game mechanic was too complex to can be used with enemy nPCs, as for example a hobgobling squad. I suggested a lot of times an updated version, but I understand if it arrives, it will be years after the psionic handbook.

There was an updated version of Book of 9 Swords. It was called D&D 4th edition and the backlash against it was so severe, I doubt WotC will revisit the concept any time soon.

 

[Asisreo]

My appearance in this thread isn't for the overall debate, that's what the other thread is for.

I'm here to help push the discussion along in a productive manner.


Now then, if you want codified abilities and features that work as "guaranteed" as spells do, you'll have to put your foot down.

WoTC made a decision that spells will have powerful effects and limitations that the audience just has to accept. Designing this martial subsystem means you'll have to do the same.

In this thread, we're designers and designers can't please everybody with all decisions. Hulk has always been stronger than Captain America, so making a system where both are relevant will leave either Hulk weaker than he should be or Captain America stronger.

So we need to ensure we're not indulging in fantasies which are too strong or weak in relation to others.

Now, here, we want to be high-fantasy heroes. These heroes range from demigod to chosen ones. Either way, they usually gain divine enhancements to their strength, speed, and skill. If we'd create a sample technique, it would look like this:

"Whenever you attempt to lift any object no heavier than 2 tons, you automatically succeed."

Some won't like the direction, others will. Its your job, though, as the designer to make the big-boy decisions and present it to your audience.

 

[Undrave]

Here is some of the issues I consider needing fixing.

Combat : I think @Cap'n Kobold covered the most important points regarding single target damage and conditions. What I think is more glaring is the fact that Martial don't tend to get NEW OPTIONS as they level up. They get better at stuff they were already doing at level 1-3. A Battlemaster's maneuver options are the same at level 3 than at level 15 and you just end up choosing stuff you rejected in previous levels instead of picking fresh new options. The same occurs in the other pillars of play. Unless you have spells, you don't get new tools.

Social: Fighter and Barbarian get pigeonholed into the intimidate skill, the WORST skill in the game. It's the one skill that tends to make things worst, regardless if you roll well or not! If you start intimidating someone, they're not going to like you even if you're effective. And they're more likely to lie to you to make you go away!

The problem you have to overcome is the attitude that if a martial character can do it, anyone should be able to. The whole "why can't my Bard dress up as a fighter and get the same bonuses?" "Rogues shouldn't be able to be better at Arcana than Wizards!" and so on.

That problem too! Martial characters are too often seen as some sort of baseline for what a character can do, even though they already have unique abilities! People think any random Town Guard is a level 5 Fighter or something. That kind of attitudes needs to go away. Fighters aren't just any run the mill soldier or town guard and the game doesn't do a good job of making you sound like something different the nyou take the class.

The same with the idea that real world professional athlete are Epic. Epic martial characters should be BETTER than real athletes... but they're not! The maximum distance a 5e character can cover with a standing long jump is 10 feet. 11 feet if they're a Barbarian with 22 STR. Note that the game doesn't give you any penalty for your gear so it doesn't enter in the calculation. The world record for the standing long jump is a little under 12 ft 3 in. A level 20 DnD hero should be able to overcome that limit as a basic ability.

Exploration: The biggest disparity when it comes to overcoming obstacles is in narrative control. Spells are discreet options with a reliable result. You need food in the wilderness? You know what Goodberry costs and what it results in. You don't have a spell? Time to roll and pray for a good result! Martial always have to improvise and use creativity to do anything but the classes with spells are not only perfectly able to do the same, they get more tools to be creative with (like Mage Hand alone!). That said, the Rogue is a great example of this with their later ability to just Take 10 whenever on certain skills. This is the sort of things other martial classes need.

I don't think it should be out of line for Fighters and Barbarians to be able to trade their Hit Dice for extraordinary effort, for exemple, or the Fighter be able to trade their Action Surge to perform an incredible feats of strength.

Especially considering how RARELY the skills given to Fighters and Barbarians types actually come into play. Especially as the game goes on and casters gain more and more reliable options.

 

[overgeeked]

So I'm curious: without handicapping casters (which is an option but one I think can be explored separately)

I think there's no really workable ways to balance the two without reducing the power of casters. Because without reducing the power of casters, anything you can do to boost martial characters without outright giving them spells too would be in-game things like boons or favors...which casters would have access to as well.

what could we add to martials to give them a similar level of effectiveness and flexibility? This thread is meant to be brainstorming, and I welcome any thoughts on the matter. I'll kick off in a response below, which hopefully will be the first one but given the rate I type might not be.

The easiest way, I think, is to give martial characters boons, contacts, favors, etc that would be the equivalent of spells. Like a token given to you that lets you teleport to a specific location once per day (teleportation circle). But, as always, casters will have access to those as well, unless they're arbitrarily restricted to non-casters.

Giving martial characters damage boosts misses the point. Doing 20d10 damage is nice, but it's nothing compared to teleporting across existence or raising the dead. I honestly think 4E nailed the balance because they split non-combat spells out, made them rituals that anyone could access (with a feat), and then balanced casters powers against non-casters powers. It's kind of a cheat, but it worked. Short of doing that again, I don't see how you can balance raising the dead and wish with a few extra dice of damage or extra hit points.

 

[Faolyn]

Have you seen the combat maneuvers in Level Up? Even if you don't use anything else from LU, you could probably give them to your martials quite easily.

 

[NotAYakk]

I'd hold that "more mechanical ways to hit something with a weapon" is not a way to make martials and spellcasters feel on par.

So focusing on combat maneuvers, or spending effort on them, is a trap.

You end up going to "one hit one kill" or "target loses" martial characters, or spellcasters still outshine.

Glance back at 4e. Martial characters got piles of things to do even in combat that where not "hit something in a different way". Of course, 4e had a tactical positioning system and too many small fiddly bonuses, which slowed combat down, but not all of their abilities where purely tactical positioning and small fiddly bonuses.

But really, you can "balance" martials with 5e spellcasters with M0ar DaMaGe anyhow. So adding a complex maneuver system isn't needed. I mean, it doesn't hurt, but it is fixing the wrong problem.

It is having meaningful and mechanical ways to shape the narrative that non-spellcasters are lacking mechanics for.

 

[Undrave]

I'd hold that "more mechanical ways to hit something with a weapon" is not a way to make martials and spellcasters feel on par.

So focusing on combat maneuvers, or spending effort on them, is a trap.

You end up going to "one hit one kill" or "target loses" martial characters, or spellcasters still outshine.

Glance back at 4e. Martial characters got piles of things to do even in combat that where not "hit something in a different way". Of course, 4e had a tactical positioning system and too many small fiddly bonuses, which slowed combat down, but not all of their abilities where purely tactical positioning and small fiddly bonuses.

But really, you can "balance" martials with 5e spellcasters with M0ar DaMaGe anyhow. So adding a complex maneuver system isn't needed. I mean, it doesn't hurt, but it is fixing the wrong problem.

It is having meaningful and mechanical ways to shape the narrative that non-spellcasters are lacking mechanics for.

Skill Powers!