Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Youre All Wrong. Its Not A Martial vs Caster Situation
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Muh" data-source="post: 9592436" data-attributes="member: 7042567"><p>The reason why these discussions become so incredibly frustrating is because some people see a problem that other people argue don't exist, and heck we've seen the exact same thing play out even back in 3.0 and 3.5 with the same kind of arguments by, quite possibly, the same people debating whether or not the system is balanced, and this was back in the days when a druid's pet was stronger than the fighter and monk was a tier 5 class.</p><p></p><p></p><p>So I'm starting to see the problem. You see skills as useful. I don't. Skills, in D&D, are basically trash, because the system doesn't establish a baseline for what you can do with them. This is why it is almost always better to have a spell that definitely can solve some particular categories of problems, vs having a skill that might quite possibly work in the right kind of weather and with an agreeable GM.</p><p></p><p>I have shown already, though possibly not in this thread, not sure, that D&D isn't a marathon. It's a drag race. Therefore spell slot limitations become less and less of a problem.</p><p></p><p>At low levels? Sure, I agree that casters are absolutely not out of hand at that point, but as their number of slots increase the system becomes more and more tilted in their favour.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Wish and Simulacrum are spells I pretty much ignore because they are outliers and they only become available at the levels where martials are so outclassed that any potential difference they create is basically irrelevant.</p><p></p><p>Survivor is cool, but it has the same problem a lot of martial abilities have, it isn't an "actionable" ability. Something that you can go and actively use.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm perfectly fine with different classes having different abilities. My problem is simply that martials have fewer abilities.</p><p></p><p></p><p>No comment on the monk issue. They do have some cool stuff.</p><p></p><p>I think it shows one of the issues though in how martial abilities are so very spread out among classes and subclasses. Whenever a spell is introduced it's added to a pool that becomes available to some spellcasting class at some point. By contrast whenever a martial ability is introduced it either needs to be attached to a very specific subclass, or they need to create a specific subclass to support it.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's not what I want. I want martials to be <em>competent</em> at high levels. They don't need to be able to do the exact same things that casters do. I want them to have their own unique martial flavour. They obviously need weaknesses.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Right, sorry, the post you're replying too wasn't finished. I started writing that bit while being distracted and posted without finishing it.</p><p></p><p>So my example was going to be this. It's for sure possible to be creative in the system as it is, anyone who says you cannot is obviously wrong (unless you have a weird kind of "no fun allowed" game master), but one problem that appears is that in order to be creative you need something to act upon.</p><p></p><p>So if you have, say, a fighter, all that they can act upon as an outlet for creativity is themselves, but if you have a wizard, they can also use their spells.</p><p></p><p>So a few examples of what I mean regarding creative uses of things.</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can a spell that does fire damage be used to set fire to things?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can a spell that does cold damage be used to freeze water?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can a spell that does lightning damage do electric damage to multiple creatures in water as an AoE?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Can you use a dimension door to teleport someone <em>else</em>?</li> </ul><p>These are just creative applications of spells. Some of them or all of them might be shut down by a GM, but they may also be perfectly fine with them... What I'm saying here is that spells also open up creative play and they do so by being tools that can do things no other tools can do. There's no way for a martial to instantly create fire, for example.</p><p></p><p>Note that my main objection with the design of D&D is not, in fact, that what I just mentioned above is possible. The above just illustrates how, if you have a GM that is unbiased not in favour of either class, and they enable creativity, then that will benefit casters more than it will benefit martials because casters have tools that very open to creative uses.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Muh, post: 9592436, member: 7042567"] The reason why these discussions become so incredibly frustrating is because some people see a problem that other people argue don't exist, and heck we've seen the exact same thing play out even back in 3.0 and 3.5 with the same kind of arguments by, quite possibly, the same people debating whether or not the system is balanced, and this was back in the days when a druid's pet was stronger than the fighter and monk was a tier 5 class. So I'm starting to see the problem. You see skills as useful. I don't. Skills, in D&D, are basically trash, because the system doesn't establish a baseline for what you can do with them. This is why it is almost always better to have a spell that definitely can solve some particular categories of problems, vs having a skill that might quite possibly work in the right kind of weather and with an agreeable GM. I have shown already, though possibly not in this thread, not sure, that D&D isn't a marathon. It's a drag race. Therefore spell slot limitations become less and less of a problem. At low levels? Sure, I agree that casters are absolutely not out of hand at that point, but as their number of slots increase the system becomes more and more tilted in their favour. Wish and Simulacrum are spells I pretty much ignore because they are outliers and they only become available at the levels where martials are so outclassed that any potential difference they create is basically irrelevant. Survivor is cool, but it has the same problem a lot of martial abilities have, it isn't an "actionable" ability. Something that you can go and actively use. I'm perfectly fine with different classes having different abilities. My problem is simply that martials have fewer abilities. No comment on the monk issue. They do have some cool stuff. I think it shows one of the issues though in how martial abilities are so very spread out among classes and subclasses. Whenever a spell is introduced it's added to a pool that becomes available to some spellcasting class at some point. By contrast whenever a martial ability is introduced it either needs to be attached to a very specific subclass, or they need to create a specific subclass to support it. That's not what I want. I want martials to be [I]competent[/I] at high levels. They don't need to be able to do the exact same things that casters do. I want them to have their own unique martial flavour. They obviously need weaknesses. Right, sorry, the post you're replying too wasn't finished. I started writing that bit while being distracted and posted without finishing it. So my example was going to be this. It's for sure possible to be creative in the system as it is, anyone who says you cannot is obviously wrong (unless you have a weird kind of "no fun allowed" game master), but one problem that appears is that in order to be creative you need something to act upon. So if you have, say, a fighter, all that they can act upon as an outlet for creativity is themselves, but if you have a wizard, they can also use their spells. So a few examples of what I mean regarding creative uses of things. [LIST] [*]Can a spell that does fire damage be used to set fire to things? [*]Can a spell that does cold damage be used to freeze water? [*]Can a spell that does lightning damage do electric damage to multiple creatures in water as an AoE? [*]Can you use a dimension door to teleport someone [I]else[/I]? [/LIST] These are just creative applications of spells. Some of them or all of them might be shut down by a GM, but they may also be perfectly fine with them... What I'm saying here is that spells also open up creative play and they do so by being tools that can do things no other tools can do. There's no way for a martial to instantly create fire, for example. Note that my main objection with the design of D&D is not, in fact, that what I just mentioned above is possible. The above just illustrates how, if you have a GM that is unbiased not in favour of either class, and they enable creativity, then that will benefit casters more than it will benefit martials because casters have tools that very open to creative uses. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Youre All Wrong. Its Not A Martial vs Caster Situation
Top