Why Shouldn't Martial Characters have powers?

[AllisterH]

We need classes for those who don't want their characters to be magic-users in different clothing.

The problem though is how do you balance that with magic? I mean, as soon as you get to level 5, you hit flight and you can be invisible at the same time. Without magic, the guy who focused on being a melee specialist is just simply *BONED*.

My problem with this discussion is that I don't think Conan, Aragorn and Arthur WERE high-level characters. I think you can duplicate them in using the E6 modification to the rules and they'll be as impressive as the equivalent-levelled wizard in such a system but in standard D&D? Never.

Even with the different XP tables in 1e/2e, did anyone honestly think a 18th level fighter (without the use of magical items which I agree basically turn him into Green Lantern...good analogy) was a match for a 16th level wizard?

I stand by my statement when this discussion always comes up (Fighter/ magical or not). Gygax should;ve NEVER allowed magic in the hands of players in the form of clerics/wizards.

 

[FourthBear]

I think it can be done. Give a high level fighter tons of hit points and high saves to protect him from spells. Now give him the ability to blow thru magical defenses. And to really even things out, give him the ability to coup de grace an aware opponent.

I think that given the designer's statements and Mike Mearls' previous work, I do think that abilities such as you describe likely in the cards. I think that 4e will probably do a better job than previous editions at balancing classes at high levels and reducing the need for magic items. But I have to admit that I don't think it will eliminate either of the issues. Magic simply gives too many abilities that qualitatively and dramatically change a character's scope of actions.

Martial Power: Tightly and narrowly defined abilities around melee and missile combat techniques, coupled with some defensive options
Arcane Power: Flight, teleportation, shape-changing, mind control, etherealness, planar gates, summoning monsters, invisibility, illusions, enhancement of attributes, divination, pretty much any imaginable super power AND increased melee and missile combat ability

 

[frankthedm]

The problem though is how do you balance that with magic?

You make Magic a threat to the wielder. Use it to roast a mook and you'll be safer tha if you meleed with him and risked his counter attack, but try to blow up mountains on a whim and Magic makes you a stain roughly the size of said mountain.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If you remove lava you can add that a high level fighter can jump down two 60 ft cliffs in a row and be able to keep going afterwards. You can also add different kinds of explosions and the fact that the fighter could be blind sided by a lion without the possibility of being killed or maimed; that is outside human prowess and skills.

Falling rules? Easier to fix than rewriting a class.

Explosions? Depends very much on what the "explosion" means.

Charging lion? Depends very much on what "blindsided" means. D&D has a pretty flexible "real world" definition to its rules, and the surprise attack that doesn't kill you might well indicate that you weren't really blindsided and got out of the way. Hit points can represent fatigue, exertion, and sheer luck as well as the ability to take damage.

Even if someone is armed with a weapon capable of hurting an elephant, like a big axe or spear, I don't think it's possible in the real world for anyone to defeat a healthy, full grown elephant one on one. I just can't see how that would happen.

Again, I'd lay odds on the elephant, but it isn't a physical impossibility.

People have done a lot of things in real life that might strike one as unlikely if they had happened in fiction or in a game. The world record fall without serious injury is a lot farther than 60 feet, for instance. I can recall one case where a man was attacked by a grizzly and killed it with a broken arrow held in one hand (and survived), and another case where a hunter got too close to a swan's nest and was beaten to death by the bird's wings.

And, of course, when people speak of verisimilitude, they are talking (as frankthedm wisely notes) about the inherent rules of the fantasy world, not the inherent rules of the real world. The real question is, IMHO, how close is the fantasy world to the real world? For some, "Everyone can fly" is close enough. For others, "being really good with a sword means you can defy gravity" is way too far.

As Henry pointed out, you can have nifty, useful abilities that do not shatter world assumptions, and are not simply magical powers. I have no problem with this sort of thing at all (and it is part of my homebrew 3.X). I have no problem with options that allow characters to be good at a sword and defy gravity.

I want a game that allows for characters like Conan, Tarzan, Solomon Kane, Beowulf, Fafrid, Indiana Jones, Doc Savage, and their ilk, as well as more mystically-oriented characters. I was able to tweak 3.X into that game. The question for me is, how much work will it be to do the same with 4.0?

RC

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Aragorn commanded an army of the undead. Why do people think he had no kewl powerz?

Cheers, -- N

He also lived to be 210 years old, and his supernatural healing abilities were what convinced the regular people of Minas Tirith that he was indeed their returned King.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I guess, if I could pick a mental image for high-level martial characters, it would be "300". I may be missing something, but I don't recall any flaming weapons or fairy-prancing. There were a lot of extremely unlikely defenses, attacks, and feats of endurance, though. That's the feel I want from my epic fighters.

The only problem I have with this is that the Spartans in "300," awesome and over-the-top as they seem to our mundane eyes, are really on MID-level fighters. In 4e terms, I think they'll be excellent examples of what fighters can be the 'paragon' levels - levels 10-20. Most cinematic fantasy heroes are in this same range, including the movie versions of Aragorn and Legolas and Conan and Achilles. I can maybe see Beowulf at the extreme upper end of this range.

But an epic fighter (or a high-teens fighter in 3e) is beyond that level. He's not really a "fantasy novel" character any more, he's a "mythic" character. He's on par with the Achilles of the original epic: LITERALLY (and magically) invulnerable except for his one weak point. Or Heracles, who briefly takes the load of THE ENTIRE WORLD off a titan's shoulders. As awesome as Leonidas is, he's not going to be hoisting planets, and he can still be killed by someone who bypasses or overwhelms his skill.

Eventually, you hit that point where fighters, like all other PCs, are mythic characters or superheroes. They pass through Gritty, Pulp and Action Movie and hit a level where what they're doing is not even remotely related to what actual humans do. HOW they go about doing their demigodly deeds matters less than the fact they're doing them.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In earlier editions it was...

Wizard: "wow, I'm a 17th level wizard and now I can call a swarm of meteors, kill with a word and become anything I want, what new things can you do as a level 17th fighter?"

Fighter: "Nothing really, just swing my sword slightly better"

That's why I'm completely in support of fighters having powers. Really I think at 17th level a fighter should be able to move 60 feet and attack everything in his path of movement, or he should be able to strike a massive blow that does 3d6 damage from bleeding 5 rounds after the strike, or be able to boost his Str, Dex and Con by +8 for a few rounds, so that they don't seem left behind in the dust by the wizard.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Aragorn commanded an army of the undead. Why do people think he had no kewl powerz?

Cheers, -- N

Yes, but he used an artifact (Stone of Erech) to do that, and it was a limited-use power: Corsairs of Umbar, Battle of Pelanor Fields.

RC

 

[Mallus]

If everyone has special, cool superhuman powers, then those powers... aren't special at all. Thanks, I played Earthdawn, and the fact that every single PC was highly magical with flagrant powers made all the powers mean less...

What about superhero games?

It's my experience that uninteresting implementations of powers/special abilities are uninteresting (look, up in the sky, it's Captain Tautology!). That every character has some form of extraordinary ability doesn't, well shouldn't, make any specific ability more or less interesting during play.

We need classes for those who don't want their characters to be magic-users in different clothing.

I think you'd need a different game system. In D&D, everyone relies on magic, eventually. And by 'eventually' I mean 'as soon as they find/can afford it'. This is one of the most consistent features throughout the various editions.

It doesn't make much difference to me if one character flies by mumbling a few words and gesticulating wildly while another flies by knocking the heels of his enchanted boots.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I want a game that allows for characters like Conan, Tarzan, Solomon Kane, Beowulf, Fafrid, Indiana Jones, Doc Savage, and their ilk, as well as more mystically-oriented characters. I was able to tweak 3.X into that game. The question for me is, how much work will it be to do the same with 4.0?

As much as I like every one of the characters you're talking about, RC, to me none of them work now, or have ever worked, as high-level D&D characters.

If I'm playing a game with a shallower power curve (say, one that starts Pulp and ends Pulp, like Spirit of the Century or Pulp HERO), then that's fine. I actually prefer such games, and dislike the Chump/Skilled Mortal/Pulp Hero/Minor Super/Mythic or Superhero progression of D&D, but it's there and it seems to be at least a fairly popular aspect of the system.

Doc Savage and Beowulf are probably the highest power-level characters on that list, and frankly, a 20th level fighter would rend them without even blinking. A 20th level fighter is Heracles or Achilles or Cuchulain, and even a peak-level human remotely grounded in the 'real world' is nothing but a speedbump to him. By the same token, that 20th level fighter would have been a speedbump to Doc Savage or Beowulf (or even Indy, probably the weakest character on that list) at 1st level, because he wasn't anywhere close to a pulp hero's power level, or frankly to an average real-world warrior's.

On Mars, compared to the lower-gravity, lower-muscle-mass opponents he faces there, John Carter is MAYBE on a level where he rates as a threat. He's about the closest literary (as opposed to mythic) figure I can think of to a 20th level fighter, because he does in fact wipe out armies (of monsters, no less), defeat every single opponent he faces, conquer a planet purely by being faster, stronger, more cunning and a better fighter. But John Carter pulls off feats that, if a character on an Earth-like planet did them, would be 'anime' or 'wuxia' or at least 'mystical' - his superleaping is better than most comic book superheroes, albeit it's explained by his environment. Later in life, he even has quasi-mystical powers.

Wanting D&D to allow for pulp and/or sword and sorcery heroes, at least out of the box, would require it to be a pulp and/or sword and sorcery game out of the box. It isn't. It passes briefly through that power level around levels 4-12, but outside of that, it's either grim n' gritty (1-3) or fantasy supers/mythic (13+).