Why Shouldn't Martial Characters have powers?

[Nifft]

But he falls as soon as he realizes he's running on air!

Except when he makes the joke about law school, after someone else falls.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Wormwood]

If 4th Edition is based on this as its cornerstone, all I can say is "Hallelujah" and God be praised.

And they make fun of me for being a fanboy!

(of course...you're absolutely right. But that's beside the point!)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Huh?

D&D has always assumed quite a magic-rich world as it's baseline.

Point #1: Spellcasting PC classes have been in the majority.
Point #2: Magic items have been quite common
Point #3: Magic has never cost anything more than spell slots, a resource that is added to certain characters.
Point #4: Otherwise mundane characters cannot learn magic unless they have the proper training, which is just a multiclass away.
Point #5: Monsters requiring magic items to harm have been common
Point #6: "Ancient Empires" have left behind buckets of items.
Point #7: 1st-level characters can cast magic.

Etc, etc, etc. In fact, when you change the mechanics of magic to be rare and powerful and costly, it has a marked effect on the game world -- imagine FR done through the lens of Call of Cthulu style magic (it's a lot of fun!).

If you think magic is somehow rare or difficult in D&D, you're going directly against what is suggested in the rules for every edition of the game.

Now, it can still be special and nifty. I once did a DMG demographic extrapolation for an "average" D&D character, and found out they might be familiar with some low-level bard magic worked nearby. But something like a Fireball would still be pretty shocking, and a Meteo Swarm would be freakin' apocalyptic.

 

[Mercule]

Maybe in pulp fantasy, but not necessarily in D&D; look at magic as technology Eberron or psionic land Dark Sun.

Eberron and Athas are settings that use the D&D system, but they do not define D&D. If you look back twenty-five years, the core of D&D was Greyhawk or homebrews that had similar assumptions. It may be possible to use the D&D system for a setting that is "infused with magic", but that isn't what D&D is.

I honestly have no issue with D&D expanding in scope to include Eberron, Athas, Planescape, etc. I think it's great. The kernal of pseudo-Medieval pulp fantasy needs to remain a part of it. Not as something that can be accomplished by trimming a bunch of material from the PHB, but as part of the default build.

Yes, monks were in the 1E PHB. They can fit into that pulp mold, even. The swordsage can stay. All I want is the option of running a game that doesn't require heavy FX to be competitive at the higher levels.

 

[AllisterH]

Yes, monks were in the 1E PHB. They can fit into that pulp mold, even. The swordsage can stay. All I want is the option of running a game that doesn't require heavy FX to be competitive at the higher levels.

But that's the core assumption of D&D since the 1E PHB. Strip a 20th level fighter of his magical gear and do the same to the wizard and even in 1E, that fighter is just plain screwed. Hell, there's a good chance that a regular 10th level fighter with magical gear would be a more effective team member than the 20th level non-magical gear fighter.

This paradigm has been true since 1E was released....

 

[JDJblatherings]

Point #1: Spellcasting PC classes have been in the majority.
Point #7: 1st-level characters can cast magic.

OD&D, 3 base classes, 1 could cast spells at 1st level.
BECM D&D, 7 base classes, 2 could cast spells at 1st level.
AD&D (PHB only), 11 base classes, 4 could cast spells at 1st level.
2E, 8 base classes, 2 could cast spells at 1st level
3E (PHB only), 11 classes, 5 could cast spells at 1st level.

 

[glass]

It's coming from people answering the question asked in the first post.

No it isn't. The original post you conveniently quote mentioned 'superhuman', not 'wuxia' or 'anime' or magical.


glass.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm just wondering where this stance comes from.

Sanity.

There are already games out there, like Ars Magica and Exalted, where everyone is a wizard. Being a rogue or swordsman should be something to be proud of, not a day job for Goku.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, when you use those definitions, I think the conversation would be better suited to a different set of terms (since Mundane has negative connotations and Mystical has different definitons that conflict with yours), but I guess I will use your terms and defnitions for now.

Mundane doesn't have negative connotations for me in this sense. I'd be happy using other terms.

First, I need to ask for clarification. When you say "laws of physics", are you just referring to basic principles like conservation of energy, gravity, etc, or are you also referring to the real world physical limits of the human body? In other words, can a person cut through a tree trunk twice with two cuts of a sword, in less than 6 seconds, and still be "mundane"?

I don't think that there is an objective answer to this.

I assume that you are not talking about a sapling, so I would answer that for me this would be something more than mundane, something less than mystical. It would fall into a grey area. In one of the Tarzan novels, Tarzan throws a spear at a charging rhino, killing it. The spear passes almost through its body. This is another grey area for me; it certainly seemed jarring when I was reading the book.

I agree with you that "there is a wide gap between what is actually possible, and what people are willing to believe is possible. Often people are willing to accept far more than what is possible, and sometimes people do not accept what is actually quite possible." I was actually trying to say something of that nature.

One of the things I didn't bring up at all is the existence of that grey area. For instance, in some anime, I take the hyperkinetic activity to be shorthand for how it feels to be in battle....not unlike the combat scenes in Gladiator. Nor do I mind the idea that some warriors become something more than human through their dedication and willpower. I just want more than one path, some of which better represent a mundane warrior, and others a mystical warrior.

"uspension of disbelief is very important, and that is has ties to the real world. However, these ties only exist when mediated through human perception of the real world, and human imagination." might end up in my .sig.

My world is "middle magic" -- neither grim n' gritty nor Wahoo! 24/7. It has a place both for the mystic warrior (paladins, totem warriors, bear warriors, dervishes) and the mundane (fighter, non spellcasting ranger, some rogue builds). Mundane characters sometimes dabble in the mystical, and mystical characters sometimes dabble in the mundane. That's a good fit for the type of game I enjoy running.

I hope that something like this is possible in 4e. And, as I said earlier, it seems likely to me that it will be. If anything, the wizard is beating up the warrior and taking his stuff (arcane strike, for example).


RC

 

[Goken100]

1. Because there is the idea that magic is somehow left to characters that are trained and experienced in magic, and that learning to swing a sword around and wear armor doesn't inherently grant you the power to make magical attacks and send energy beams from your sword (despite it looking cool in a video game).

2. Setting portability. Not every D&D game is set in a high-magical world where everybody and their brother has magical powers. One of my favorite D&D games to run was a very-low-magic quasi-historic game set during the 3rd Crusade (largely using the old AD&D 2e Crusades Historical Reference book). Only one PC had any spellcasting (a Paladin, so Paladin abilities and spells was all they had). If every single class in the PHB has spellcasting, supernatural, or spell-like abilities it gets very hard to play a campaign like that without completely rewriting the system.

3. Because traditionally sources like Lord of the Rings and Arthurian legends are a source for inspiration for fighters in D&D, and Aragorn and Boromir, and Lancelot and Arthur had incredible skill, but what they could do was still bounded in the realm of the physically possible and not supernatural (unless their weapon itself was supernatural), and they were more about raw physical skill and martial prowess than using magic they'd learned to devastate their foes.

What he said.

I'm particularly concerned with #2. Pick up any fantasy novel and you'll find a character that can be modeled with the 3.X Fighter. If this continues to be true in 4E, I'm happy.