Don't disagree there, but I think that in part has to do with how relatively one-dimensional a lot of design choices for martials are.
Druids or Clerics through subclasses and spell choices can be blasters, healers, frontliners, or lean into support roles.
Contrast with Barbarians who honestly are going to kind of end up being the same character (at least in broad strokes) regardless of what subclass you pick (and instead your choice is more like an addendum 'but with claws', 'but with bonus radiant damage', 'but extra tanky').
IMO that's an area WOTC should maybe look into in the future. Providing more varied options that allow people to diversify their characters, without necessarily mandating that the things people like about existing classes get taken away in the process.
Especially at higher levels of play, where both disparities widen and player counts rapidly drop. Clearly the part of the game that needs the most work.
I've started a whole thread about this very issue a couple weeks ago. For some reason, didn't catch people's interest. Maybe delivery was too convoluted or change was too radical. In short, I suggested that each subclass should have a clear direction, and no two subclasses within the same class should have the same role. A barbarian could be support - a warlord that inspires his allies and demoralizes foes; a beastmaster, synergizing with pet and using it in and out of combat for scouting and the like; or be a one-third-caster or even half-caster with primal magic.
There is fundamentally nothing wrong with magic items or potions or the like as part of the solution.
Depends on how much those magic items are worth. One reason 5e is the way it is re: magical equipment is because of a specific pushback against how important magic items were to solving problems in earlier editions. Pathfinder 2, as another example, took the game in the other way and made magic gear super important (to the point where a high level fighter can lose like 50-70% of their damage output without their magic sword) and it's definitely been a point of contention with the system among various groups I've spoken to.
Magic items can be a cool solution, but there's also an easy tipping point someone can hit where they stop feeling heroic and start feeling like they're just someone being carried by a bunch of magic items.
Fair enough. I know that I feel a bit annoyed when having the appropriate magic item for your defenses and attacks to match up with the math of the game is annoying as heck. Or having to take specific feat taxes. And then there's the flying issue. I remember people complaining that martials objectively needed to either be archers or having flying items at some point in their career.
Needing more equipment to fill out the combat math is annoying, but would equipment designed to handle exploratory necessities be a bad thing?
... Ultimately, imo, the disconnect here is that on one side we have a very strongly held belief among many players that outside damage and hp, martials should be as unextraordinary as possible. Any efforts or suggestions to give martials superhuman or herculean abilities at any level is met with very strong pushback (with the sometimes exception of the monk, because ki is basically magic. Barbarians also get to be magic, but their magic is very heavily curated to be as inoffensive as possible too). On the other hand, the generally held belief is also that magic users should be extremely extraordinary. Hardly anyone is a strong or versatile (or athematic and conceptually bland) as a D&D wizard. Their abilities to solve problems is iconic, especially at higher levels and when those abilities are pared down, people get annoyed.
You can't really reconcile these ideas at all. Instead, the player base has had the problem solved in a different way for decades: by choosing to basically wholesale give up on high level D&D entirely. Not a perfect solution, but it does get rid of many of the most significant problems (it also makes the whole debate feel a bit silly, since we argue over the sanctity of something nobody actually wants to bother with).
That is definitely a major part of the issue of the caster-martial divide. The enforced mundanity.
Not really sure I would suggest that people gave up on high level play because of that though. At least not entirely - higher level martials just get more damage, and that's not all you need, . High level play (levels 11+) involves a tonal shift as you leave tier 2 games and enter tier 3 and 4. This isn't just a D&D thing, but something tied to TTRPGs as a whole. Tier 1 involves nomadic wanders or street-level adventurers handing small, local problems, tier 2 involves city-state level ones. The jump from tier 1 to tier 2 is fairly natural. Everything is within easy travel distance, dungeons and the like are relevant to handle on your own, etc.
With tier 3 games, you start to handle things on national level and touching on a global level. Its one thing to deal with the mayor of a city or a govenor of a state. Its another when dealing with the fantasy equivalent of the President of the United States or the European Union. The things you need to deal with are over large areas, so you need communication lines and fast transportation and organizations to handle them. The scope and challenges are just fundamentally different to the point that its no longer the same game - kingdom building becomes more relevant than monster hunting.
Or you could go eff off and start journeying across the planes. Which, well, basically requires you to give up on all the stuff you invested in during low and mid level play. There needs to be a compelling reason for your party to be hitting the elemental planes or whatever, and a compelling story to tell out in the planes away from the Material.
Tier 4 just deals with god level issues. The scope of epic games is literally cosmic.
We could spend a lot of time talking about the challenges of high level play, and how its a problem even for groups of all casters (who have the potential to get all the tools for dealing with high level play, whereas martials or even half-casters struggle to get the necessary tools). While high level play certainly exasperates the martial-caster divide, it also just fundamentally causes narrative issues because of the innate shift of themes and tone.
I've started a whole thread about this very issue a couple weeks ago. For some reason, didn't catch people's interest. Maybe delivery was too convoluted or change was too radical. In short, I suggested that each subclass should have a clear direction, and no two subclasses within the same class should have the same role. A barbarian could be support - a warlord that inspires his allies and demoralizes foes; a beastmaster, synergizing with pet and using it in and out of combat for scouting and the like; or be a one-third-caster or even half-caster with primal magic.
Well, you did make a few good points, but you kinda lost me when you suggested capping the number of subclasses. Clear direction with subclases is good. Having princess style warlords as a subclass would be good.
But having a complete lack of overlap? Nah. And making 1/3 casters was a bit of a failed experiment. There's a reason we haven't seen more since the core - Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster and Elemental Monk have massive issues.
Generally speaking, when people pick a class and subclass, they are looking to fulfill a specific class fantasy. Not a role. And they want features that embody that fantasy. The game can definitely be a lot bolder with the subclasses, and what they can do, but we shouldn't abandon that there should be over arching themes behind each of them
Well, you did make a few good points, but you kinda lost me when you suggested capping the number of subclasses. Clear direction with subclases is good. Having princess style warlords as a subclass would be good.
But having a complete lack of overlap? Nah. And making 1/3 casters was a bit of a failed experiment. There's a reason we haven't seen more since the core - Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster and Elemental Monk have massive issues.
Generally speaking, when people pick a class and subclass, they are looking to fulfill a specific class fantasy. Not a role. And they want features that embody that fantasy. The game can definitely be a lot bolder with the subclasses, and what they can do, but we shouldn't abandon that there should be over arching themes behind each of them
Well, I did suggest that some features at lower tiers should've been available to several subclasses. Like, say, access to beast-related spells could be available to both beastmaster barbarian subclass and totem warrior subclass, while some features from the current path of the beast could be available to beastmaster and berserker. And yes, I mostly agree about 1/3 casters. Arcane trickster was good only because of utility. And it wouldn't kill the game if they were half-casters.
I'd argue against fantasy being the main reason. Fantasies are limitless, and very subjective. Mechanical implementations are limited. And IMO, mechanics always come before fantasy. You can always come up with all kinds of explanations and imaginary VFX that happen when you use your features in game - but you have to have these features, functional, powerful, and balanced features, first. The engine and chassis is more important than the paint job. You, as a player, first decide what you want to do, and only then how. And the system I suggested offered a more freeform customization once you choose your subclass, to fit more fantasies.
Feel free to argue against class fantasy, but, iirc, its pretty much what Mike Mearls has said in the past, and that was based on their surveys and feedback systems. So, I'm going to have to just stridently disagree with that view in its entirety, bottom up to the very top.
Feel free to argue against class fantasy, but, iirc, its pretty much what Mike Mearls has said in the past, and that was based on their surveys and feedback systems. So, I'm going to have to just stridently disagree with that view in its entirety, bottom up to the very top.
The first character I played in 5e was GOO warlock - exactly because it was my favorite class fantasy (big fan of HPL)... the actual experience was frustratinig, if not miserable. That left a scar.
Oh, don't get me wrong. Mechanics are important, yes. They're not more important than the trope they're supposed to support, but you do need both. Its like.... in writing, music, or pretty much in any of the arts, there's always going to be structure to them. Patterns and rules to follow. They teach you ways to make a good story, or song, or whatever, and then you learn times when its best to step away from the guidelines for the sake of the art.
Rules and mechanics give structure to the game world we tell our characters stories in. It gives us common ground to interact and interface with the world as players. But at the heart of it all? This is still a cooperative story we're telling. The story, having fun, those come first.
And people, in general, love their tropes. Iconic character archetypes. Which, contrary to your comment earlier, actually aren't infinite - there's actually more than a fair amount of resistance to things that are too different or vary too far from the tropes. Tropes exist for a reason. And breaking tropes exist to provide exceptions that shine even brighter because tropes exist.
If you want to talk more about warlocks, the failure of their mechanics and their themes they're supposed to support, and the assumptions that the devs had that just failed in reality, I could post a rather lengthy rant / analysis in the warlock thread going on here. But this is not the appropriate place for that.
I strongly and viscerally disagree with the oft-repeated notion that people abandon high-level D&D because high-level D&D stops being a fantasy adventure game and starts being a bad rendition of Civilizations. No, you do not have to 'tonal shift' into never taking up your sword again and spending all session every session playing politics once you get past level 12. A DM can still provide relevant combat challenges and keep the game in the tone of "a band of specialists dealing with problems the average citizen cannot". Tier 4 play is hardly 'Cosmic' in scope. I've played Cosmic games, so-called "Anime Level" RPG storylines, and lemme tell ya - the only thing a twentieth-level D&D character could reasonably threaten some of those "Anime Level" characters with is Wish.
JRPGs have been telling stories about bands of specialists taking on powerful high-level threats for decades. Why can't people borrow some of those ideas instead of defaulting to crappy Sim City politics simulators?
Still, at low levels, having to remember all their maneuvers and keep track of their superiority dice is going to be pretty complicated, especially for newer players, even if those maneuevers that they spent the time and work choosing are some of the simpler ones. Just because you feel that maneuvers are cool, doesn't mean people should take away the "Simple class" in D&D away from new players who need it. There are other ways to implement Superiority, which I honestly think is a cool mechanic, into the game, without taking the option of playing a simple class away from all players. Having a class like fighter there can be a great help for people learning how to play the game, and making an unnecessary change to the base fighter class to "Make it cooler!" Isn't a very good justification for removing that.
Give them 2 maneuvers at level 1, anyone capable of rolling dice can remember 2 things.
People were talking about giving fighters much more maneuvers than that, and secondly, they'd have to read the whole list of maneuvers and pick two. They'd also have to remember when to use both of them, how they work, what type of die they have for their maneuvers, and how many die uses they have left. In short, having two maneuvers means remembering much more than two things.
Yes I expect the person playing the fighter to be a functioning human being.
I strongly and viscerally disagree with the oft-repeated notion that people abandon high-level D&D because high-level D&D stops being a fantasy adventure game and starts being a bad rendition of Civilizations. No, you do not have to 'tonal shift' into never taking up your sword again and spending all session every session playing politics once you get past level 12. A DM can still provide relevant combat challenges and keep the game in the tone of "a band of specialists dealing with problems the average citizen cannot". Tier 4 play is hardly 'Cosmic' in scope. I've played Cosmic games, so-called "Anime Level" RPG storylines, and lemme tell ya - the only thing a twentieth-level D&D character could reasonably threaten some of those "Anime Level" characters with is Wish.
JRPGs have been telling stories about bands of specialists taking on powerful high-level threats for decades. Why can't people borrow some of those ideas instead of defaulting to crappy Sim City politics simulators?
I have always heard from people it was the area where the martial/spell caster divide became too pronounced so it no longer became fun for a large part of the group.
Oh, don't get me wrong. Mechanics are important, yes. They're not more important than the trope they're supposed to support, but you do need both. Its like.... in writing, music, or pretty much in any of the arts, there's always going to be structure to them. Patterns and rules to follow. They teach you ways to make a good story, or song, or whatever, and then you learn times when its best to step away from the guidelines for the sake of the art.
Rules and mechanics give structure to the game world we tell our characters stories in. It gives us common ground to interact and interface with the world as players. But at the heart of it all? This is still a cooperative story we're telling. The story, having fun, those come first.
And people, in general, love their tropes. Iconic character archetypes. Which, contrary to your comment earlier, actually aren't infinite - there's actually more than a fair amount of resistance to things that are too different or vary too far from the tropes. Tropes exist for a reason. And breaking tropes exist to provide exceptions that shine even brighter because tropes exist.
If you want to talk more about warlocks, the failure of their mechanics and their themes they're supposed to support, and the assumptions that the devs had that just failed in reality, I could post a rather lengthy rant / analysis in the warlock thread going on here. But this is not the appropriate place for that.
You're right that telling a story is the heart of it, but bad mechanics have a tendency to affect the story and its perception in a negative way. Functional mechanics is the reason we're here and not on Pathfinder forum.
By all means, if you haven't contributed to the warlock rework potential thread, do so. That thread was created for a good reason.
Then is it safe to assume that you are also fine with the disparity between fighters and fullcasters such as wizards? Buffing fighter so that it is on par with casters will require adding complexity to them.
The martial-caster divide is predicated upon several issues, including:
marital classes being limited to things they could do in reality while magic can do anything,
that only casters get the tools to counter another caster, while anyone can counter a martial
casters get tools to interact with all three pillars while martial characters tend to be combat focused; and even when they do get tools, they're often related to rolling skills while spells get to bypass the need for skills entirely (fly, teleport, knock, divinations).
Adding complexity to Fighter combat options is not going to magically fix this - or has the more complex monk class solved the issue? No?
Let me give you an example - I like the Beyond the Witchlight story. I like being able to get through it without combat, I think that's a fun change from the usual D&D story (And I do think the Fighter should be given skills to interact with this kind of story). That said - there's a few locks and doors that just... say you cannot lock pick them, and you cannot break them. There's a cage that, by all rights, you should be able to open? The book flat out says you cannot. They allow you to use the Knock spell, but actually use mundane skills? Out right forbidden with no skill check permitted. Even the Arcane Lock spell only increases the DC.
Adding complexity to the martial classes isn't going to fix this issue until we stop having crap that outright spits in the face of non-magical characters.
You are reversing the cause and effect in my statements. Adding complexity is an effect of bringing martials up to par with casters, not the cause. I am not saying just adding complexity will solve it, but the stuff added to solve it will add complexity as a side effect.
Some of the combat imbalance issues between martials and casters don't necessarily need to be solved by adding more complexity. I listed several other ways to help bridge that gap earlier on this thread. For example, raising a martials AC, HP, attack bonus, and damage. Yes, these can all be done in more unnecessary complicated ways, but that's my whole literal point, you don't need to add complexity to make these changes. The people advocating for Superiority to help make fighters more powerful seem not to have realized that there are so many other ways to do so, without the complication of Superiority. So yeah, some complexity will need to be added, but most of it will not need to be for combat reasons. And the complexity of Superiority is not merited to help solve these changes, since its' effects can be replicated in similar ways. Maybe how cool Superiority is is a justifiable reason to add that complexity to another martial class, but by putting it in the main fighter class, you prioritize giving the cool mechanic a bigger role in D&D, over beginners having a fun and easy option to play. And you don't even need to prioritize, you could have Superiority play a bigger role in another class.
So in short, no; Bridging the "combat gap" between martials and casters will not need to be done by adding much more complexity to fighters, and Superiority is certainly an unnecessary complex step to do so, "But outside of combat..." This conversation is not about outside of combat, Superiority does nothing outside of combat. A bit of complexity may need to be added, but only for a completely different sake and purpose than Superiority. Superiority is completely irrelevant to martials outside of combat, which is the only place where some complexity actually needs to be added for fighters.
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As I understand it, the issue being talked about here isn't just making fighters "more powerful". The issue is also making them generally more "interesting".
Which is why complexity tends to be used as an approach, because it allows fighters to not just hit harder, but to generally do more and have more tricks.
I'm not reversing cause and effect, I'm flat out disagreeing with you. Complexity does not, cannot, bring martials to the caster level.
Complexity only offers various options. Some of those options will be stronger than the average, some will be weaker. When taken as a whole, its generally a wash. The perception of "complex classes being stronger" comes from the ability to cherry pick the strongest abilities while ignoring the weaker. Its all about rewarding system mastery.
System mastery might allow one to make martial characters stronger in combat than a simple martial character. But system mastery will never offer marital characters the equivalent of Leomond's Tiny Hut spell for shelter, Save or Die effects like Hold Monster, Fly or Arcane Eye for exploration abilities from a position of complete safety. System mastery of a complex martial character will never let them open those Feywild cages when a wizard can. Martials are effectively limited to mundane abilities, whereas magic users can literally do anything.
That is the ultimate problem. No matter how much complexity you offer a martial character, if those options do not allow a level 11+ warrior to compete with an 11th level cleric's abiilty to wipe out an entire desecrated temple of fiends and undead with the casting of a single spell, then the caster-martial divide remains.
What is being offered is important here, not how complex that offering is.
I'm not reversing cause and effect, I'm flat out disagreeing with you. Complexity does not, cannot, bring martials to the caster level.
Complexity only offers various options. Some of those options will be stronger than the average, some will be weaker. When taken as a whole, its generally a wash. The perception of "complex classes being stronger" comes from the ability to cherry pick the strongest abilities while ignoring the weaker. Its all about rewarding system mastery.
System mastery might allow one to make martial characters stronger in combat than a simple martial character. But system mastery will never offer marital characters the equivalent of Leomond's Tiny Hut spell for shelter, Save or Die effects like Hold Monster, Fly or Arcane Eye for exploration abilities from a position of complete safety. System mastery of a complex martial character will never let them open those Feywild cages when a wizard can. Martials are effectively limited to mundane abilities, whereas magic users can literally do anything.
That is the ultimate problem. No matter how much complexity you offer a martial character, if those options do not allow a level 11+ warrior to compete with an 11th level cleric's abiilty to wipe out an entire desecrated temple of fiends and undead with the casting of a single spell, then the caster-martial divide remains.
What is being offered is important here, not how complex that offering is.
That's actually why I mentioned earlier in this thread that you can have a party of just casters and still be able to go through the game without too much trouble, but a party of just martials will often struggle.
Casters simply have tools at their disposal that martials could only dream of having barring magic items, feats, or blessings from the gods or something.
@Crawling Chaos - Ah sorry, was responding to Mana there. Didn't feel like struggling with quote blocks. My fault for not being clearer with my replies.
The martial/caster divide will never be solved by D&D. The closest Wizards ever got to doing so was in 4e, and while I'm not personally familiar with that system I've heard that it was an absolutely phenomenally well balanced game wherein the martial/caster divide was narrower than it's ever been...by granting martial characters a suite of powers and abilities similar in many ways to spellcasting. People hated it, complained that everything felt same-y, and threw the system away.
People do not want to solve the martial/caster divide. I've played in systems where there was no such divide, and they accomplished it by limiting spellcasters to the equivalent of third-level spells or less. And not the good third-level spells at that - spellcasters were prevented from learning any method to significantly alter the balance of gameplay and had to get by with a bevy of minor-at-best tricks and basic magical attacks no more effective than a shot with a bow or gun. In exchange, spellcasters got to learn martial skills as well, if not to the extent of a Dedicated Warrior, and were expected to hold their own in mundane combat via mundane means.
D&D people would scream. Scream. Spellcasters are all supposed to be absolutely useless in fights without their spells, unable to wear armor or wield weapons because MAJIK, and no one will hear it any other way. And they will also not hear of their martials gaining any sort of "spell-like ability", whether it be an actual supernatural phenomenon or simply advanced applications of martial technique/prowess. Given that spellcasters in D&D gain more power through magic than in virtually any other system out there, and that pure martials are allowed exactly zero percent of that vastly increased cap?
The martial/caster divide is forever, and no one will ever fix it.
This thread isn't about fixing the martial/caster divide. This thread is about an idea to make fighters more fulfilling, engaging, and rewarding to play. Superiority is such a phenomenal system because with Superiority Wizards managed to do what 4e couldn't and award martial characters a way to encroach, however lightly, on the practical side of spellcasting. Each maneuver can impact the battlefield in different ways, mess with enemies and allow the fighter to exert control in a way Basic Bonk will never be able to. They can Push more effectively than telekinetic characters, they can inflict fear and rage (goading attack) effects, they can Maneuver their allies out of danger, and after Tasha's Cauldron they can utilize Superiority in social and exploration-y ways as well via Ambush, Tactical Assessment, or Commanding Presence. Those are rudimentary, but the point is that the system allows martial characters with access to it to mimic the versatility of spellcasters and go beyond Basic Bonk, and do so in a way the D&D community has overall accepted. Even here, people aren't complaining that Superiority doesn't feel like D&D or like the way martial characters should work, people are complaining that fighters (as well as barbarians, and rogues, and monks, and....) don't deserve/merit being anything but Basic Bonk.
Superiority is how you narrow the divide. if you'd rather keep Basic Bonk over narrowing the divide? Sure, argue that point I guess. But then you get no complaints at all when you can't get martials to stick around in a high-level game because Basic Bonk is simply unsatisfying at those levels regardless of however grossly inflated their damage numbers get.
The martial/caster divide will never be solved by D&D. The closest Wizards ever got to doing so was in 4e, and while I'm not personally familiar with that system I've heard that it was an absolutely phenomenally well balanced game wherein the martial/caster divide was narrower than it's ever been...by granting martial characters a suite of powers and abilities similar in many ways to spellcasting. People hated it, complained that everything felt same-y, and threw the system away.
4e "balanced" the classes by unifying the structure of all abilities. They were all either at will, basically think cantrips, encounter powers, used once per encounter, or daily, used once a day. Every class got this, a warriors basic attack would be an at will that was like hit for weapon damage and X. That being said I don't feel it was as balanced as its proponents claim. They had roles for classes. Striker, defender, controller, and leader. Some classes would have a major in one roll and a minor in others, but for the most part they were designed around a role. The thing is the roles were not balanced. You absolutely did not need a controller in your party you could get by fine without one, in fact many times you'd just be better off with another striker. The other 3 you'd really want in your party, but strikers were the most necessary.
In that edition though martials had cool abilities, and while there was a complaint of wanting a basic fighter I don't think that was what the big issue with the game was for most. The powers being set up so much around at will, encounter, daily made it feel too gamey for most. One thing they did which I'd like them to bring into 5.5/6e is many of the non combat magic effects were ritual spells, rituals were not on your class list, they took knowing the appropriate skill(arcana/divine/nature) and paying the money to learn the specific ritual, any class could use them. So like dimension door might be a encounter power(I forget) but teleport would be a ritual. Now personally I'd just make rituals a tool proficiency, maybe some classes get it at default but I'd let any class take just have the stat that is tied to the ritual tool proficiency listed in each ritual and heck throw in some physical stats.
Now personally I'd just make rituals a tool proficiency, maybe some classes get it at default but I'd let any class take just have the stat that is tied to the ritual tool proficiency listed in each ritual and heck throw in some physical stats.
Making the Ritual Caster Feat a first level feat and tie in the Tool Proficiency with it
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I've started a whole thread about this very issue a couple weeks ago. For some reason, didn't catch people's interest. Maybe delivery was too convoluted or change was too radical. In short, I suggested that each subclass should have a clear direction, and no two subclasses within the same class should have the same role. A barbarian could be support - a warlord that inspires his allies and demoralizes foes; a beastmaster, synergizing with pet and using it in and out of combat for scouting and the like; or be a one-third-caster or even half-caster with primal magic.
Fair enough. I know that I feel a bit annoyed when having the appropriate magic item for your defenses and attacks to match up with the math of the game is annoying as heck. Or having to take specific feat taxes. And then there's the flying issue. I remember people complaining that martials objectively needed to either be archers or having flying items at some point in their career.
Needing more equipment to fill out the combat math is annoying, but would equipment designed to handle exploratory necessities be a bad thing?
That is definitely a major part of the issue of the caster-martial divide. The enforced mundanity.
Not really sure I would suggest that people gave up on high level play because of that though. At least not entirely - higher level martials just get more damage, and that's not all you need, . High level play (levels 11+) involves a tonal shift as you leave tier 2 games and enter tier 3 and 4. This isn't just a D&D thing, but something tied to TTRPGs as a whole. Tier 1 involves nomadic wanders or street-level adventurers handing small, local problems, tier 2 involves city-state level ones. The jump from tier 1 to tier 2 is fairly natural. Everything is within easy travel distance, dungeons and the like are relevant to handle on your own, etc.
With tier 3 games, you start to handle things on national level and touching on a global level. Its one thing to deal with the mayor of a city or a govenor of a state. Its another when dealing with the fantasy equivalent of the President of the United States or the European Union. The things you need to deal with are over large areas, so you need communication lines and fast transportation and organizations to handle them. The scope and challenges are just fundamentally different to the point that its no longer the same game - kingdom building becomes more relevant than monster hunting.
Or you could go eff off and start journeying across the planes. Which, well, basically requires you to give up on all the stuff you invested in during low and mid level play. There needs to be a compelling reason for your party to be hitting the elemental planes or whatever, and a compelling story to tell out in the planes away from the Material.
Tier 4 just deals with god level issues. The scope of epic games is literally cosmic.
We could spend a lot of time talking about the challenges of high level play, and how its a problem even for groups of all casters (who have the potential to get all the tools for dealing with high level play, whereas martials or even half-casters struggle to get the necessary tools). While high level play certainly exasperates the martial-caster divide, it also just fundamentally causes narrative issues because of the innate shift of themes and tone.
Well, you did make a few good points, but you kinda lost me when you suggested capping the number of subclasses. Clear direction with subclases is good. Having princess style warlords as a subclass would be good.
But having a complete lack of overlap? Nah. And making 1/3 casters was a bit of a failed experiment. There's a reason we haven't seen more since the core - Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster and Elemental Monk have massive issues.
Generally speaking, when people pick a class and subclass, they are looking to fulfill a specific class fantasy. Not a role. And they want features that embody that fantasy. The game can definitely be a lot bolder with the subclasses, and what they can do, but we shouldn't abandon that there should be over arching themes behind each of them
Well, I did suggest that some features at lower tiers should've been available to several subclasses. Like, say, access to beast-related spells could be available to both beastmaster barbarian subclass and totem warrior subclass, while some features from the current path of the beast could be available to beastmaster and berserker. And yes, I mostly agree about 1/3 casters. Arcane trickster was good only because of utility. And it wouldn't kill the game if they were half-casters.
I'd argue against fantasy being the main reason. Fantasies are limitless, and very subjective. Mechanical implementations are limited. And IMO, mechanics always come before fantasy. You can always come up with all kinds of explanations and imaginary VFX that happen when you use your features in game - but you have to have these features, functional, powerful, and balanced features, first. The engine and chassis is more important than the paint job. You, as a player, first decide what you want to do, and only then how. And the system I suggested offered a more freeform customization once you choose your subclass, to fit more fantasies.
Feel free to argue against class fantasy, but, iirc, its pretty much what Mike Mearls has said in the past, and that was based on their surveys and feedback systems. So, I'm going to have to just stridently disagree with that view in its entirety, bottom up to the very top.
The first character I played in 5e was GOO warlock - exactly because it was my favorite class fantasy (big fan of HPL)... the actual experience was frustratinig, if not miserable. That left a scar.
Oh, don't get me wrong. Mechanics are important, yes. They're not more important than the trope they're supposed to support, but you do need both. Its like.... in writing, music, or pretty much in any of the arts, there's always going to be structure to them. Patterns and rules to follow. They teach you ways to make a good story, or song, or whatever, and then you learn times when its best to step away from the guidelines for the sake of the art.
Rules and mechanics give structure to the game world we tell our characters stories in. It gives us common ground to interact and interface with the world as players. But at the heart of it all? This is still a cooperative story we're telling. The story, having fun, those come first.
And people, in general, love their tropes. Iconic character archetypes. Which, contrary to your comment earlier, actually aren't infinite - there's actually more than a fair amount of resistance to things that are too different or vary too far from the tropes. Tropes exist for a reason. And breaking tropes exist to provide exceptions that shine even brighter because tropes exist.
If you want to talk more about warlocks, the failure of their mechanics and their themes they're supposed to support, and the assumptions that the devs had that just failed in reality, I could post a rather lengthy rant / analysis in the warlock thread going on here. But this is not the appropriate place for that.
I strongly and viscerally disagree with the oft-repeated notion that people abandon high-level D&D because high-level D&D stops being a fantasy adventure game and starts being a bad rendition of Civilizations. No, you do not have to 'tonal shift' into never taking up your sword again and spending all session every session playing politics once you get past level 12. A DM can still provide relevant combat challenges and keep the game in the tone of "a band of specialists dealing with problems the average citizen cannot". Tier 4 play is hardly 'Cosmic' in scope. I've played Cosmic games, so-called "Anime Level" RPG storylines, and lemme tell ya - the only thing a twentieth-level D&D character could reasonably threaten some of those "Anime Level" characters with is Wish.
JRPGs have been telling stories about bands of specialists taking on powerful high-level threats for decades. Why can't people borrow some of those ideas instead of defaulting to crappy Sim City politics simulators?
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Yes I expect the person playing the fighter to be a functioning human being.
I have always heard from people it was the area where the martial/spell caster divide became too pronounced so it no longer became fun for a large part of the group.
You're right that telling a story is the heart of it, but bad mechanics have a tendency to affect the story and its perception in a negative way. Functional mechanics is the reason we're here and not on Pathfinder forum.
By all means, if you haven't contributed to the warlock rework potential thread, do so. That thread was created for a good reason.
You are reversing the cause and effect in my statements. Adding complexity is an effect of bringing martials up to par with casters, not the cause. I am not saying just adding complexity will solve it, but the stuff added to solve it will add complexity as a side effect.
Some of the combat imbalance issues between martials and casters don't necessarily need to be solved by adding more complexity. I listed several other ways to help bridge that gap earlier on this thread. For example, raising a martials AC, HP, attack bonus, and damage. Yes, these can all be done in more unnecessary complicated ways, but that's my whole literal point, you don't need to add complexity to make these changes. The people advocating for Superiority to help make fighters more powerful seem not to have realized that there are so many other ways to do so, without the complication of Superiority. So yeah, some complexity will need to be added, but most of it will not need to be for combat reasons. And the complexity of Superiority is not merited to help solve these changes, since its' effects can be replicated in similar ways. Maybe how cool Superiority is is a justifiable reason to add that complexity to another martial class, but by putting it in the main fighter class, you prioritize giving the cool mechanic a bigger role in D&D, over beginners having a fun and easy option to play. And you don't even need to prioritize, you could have Superiority play a bigger role in another class.
So in short, no; Bridging the "combat gap" between martials and casters will not need to be done by adding much more complexity to fighters, and Superiority is certainly an unnecessary complex step to do so, "But outside of combat..." This conversation is not about outside of combat, Superiority does nothing outside of combat. A bit of complexity may need to be added, but only for a completely different sake and purpose than Superiority. Superiority is completely irrelevant to martials outside of combat, which is the only place where some complexity actually needs to be added for fighters.
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HERE.As I understand it, the issue being talked about here isn't just making fighters "more powerful". The issue is also making them generally more "interesting".
Which is why complexity tends to be used as an approach, because it allows fighters to not just hit harder, but to generally do more and have more tricks.
EDIT - This is a reply to Mana, above.
I'm not reversing cause and effect, I'm flat out disagreeing with you. Complexity does not, cannot, bring martials to the caster level.
Complexity only offers various options. Some of those options will be stronger than the average, some will be weaker. When taken as a whole, its generally a wash. The perception of "complex classes being stronger" comes from the ability to cherry pick the strongest abilities while ignoring the weaker. Its all about rewarding system mastery.
System mastery might allow one to make martial characters stronger in combat than a simple martial character. But system mastery will never offer marital characters the equivalent of Leomond's Tiny Hut spell for shelter, Save or Die effects like Hold Monster, Fly or Arcane Eye for exploration abilities from a position of complete safety. System mastery of a complex martial character will never let them open those Feywild cages when a wizard can. Martials are effectively limited to mundane abilities, whereas magic users can literally do anything.
That is the ultimate problem. No matter how much complexity you offer a martial character, if those options do not allow a level 11+ warrior to compete with an 11th level cleric's abiilty to wipe out an entire desecrated temple of fiends and undead with the casting of a single spell, then the caster-martial divide remains.
What is being offered is important here, not how complex that offering is.
That's actually why I mentioned earlier in this thread that you can have a party of just casters and still be able to go through the game without too much trouble, but a party of just martials will often struggle.
Casters simply have tools at their disposal that martials could only dream of having barring magic items, feats, or blessings from the gods or something.
@Crawling Chaos - Ah sorry, was responding to Mana there. Didn't feel like struggling with quote blocks. My fault for not being clearer with my replies.
The martial/caster divide will never be solved by D&D. The closest Wizards ever got to doing so was in 4e, and while I'm not personally familiar with that system I've heard that it was an absolutely phenomenally well balanced game wherein the martial/caster divide was narrower than it's ever been...by granting martial characters a suite of powers and abilities similar in many ways to spellcasting. People hated it, complained that everything felt same-y, and threw the system away.
People do not want to solve the martial/caster divide. I've played in systems where there was no such divide, and they accomplished it by limiting spellcasters to the equivalent of third-level spells or less. And not the good third-level spells at that - spellcasters were prevented from learning any method to significantly alter the balance of gameplay and had to get by with a bevy of minor-at-best tricks and basic magical attacks no more effective than a shot with a bow or gun. In exchange, spellcasters got to learn martial skills as well, if not to the extent of a Dedicated Warrior, and were expected to hold their own in mundane combat via mundane means.
D&D people would scream. Scream. Spellcasters are all supposed to be absolutely useless in fights without their spells, unable to wear armor or wield weapons because MAJIK, and no one will hear it any other way. And they will also not hear of their martials gaining any sort of "spell-like ability", whether it be an actual supernatural phenomenon or simply advanced applications of martial technique/prowess. Given that spellcasters in D&D gain more power through magic than in virtually any other system out there, and that pure martials are allowed exactly zero percent of that vastly increased cap?
The martial/caster divide is forever, and no one will ever fix it.
This thread isn't about fixing the martial/caster divide. This thread is about an idea to make fighters more fulfilling, engaging, and rewarding to play. Superiority is such a phenomenal system because with Superiority Wizards managed to do what 4e couldn't and award martial characters a way to encroach, however lightly, on the practical side of spellcasting. Each maneuver can impact the battlefield in different ways, mess with enemies and allow the fighter to exert control in a way Basic Bonk will never be able to. They can Push more effectively than telekinetic characters, they can inflict fear and rage (goading attack) effects, they can Maneuver their allies out of danger, and after Tasha's Cauldron they can utilize Superiority in social and exploration-y ways as well via Ambush, Tactical Assessment, or Commanding Presence. Those are rudimentary, but the point is that the system allows martial characters with access to it to mimic the versatility of spellcasters and go beyond Basic Bonk, and do so in a way the D&D community has overall accepted. Even here, people aren't complaining that Superiority doesn't feel like D&D or like the way martial characters should work, people are complaining that fighters (as well as barbarians, and rogues, and monks, and....) don't deserve/merit being anything but Basic Bonk.
Superiority is how you narrow the divide. if you'd rather keep Basic Bonk over narrowing the divide? Sure, argue that point I guess. But then you get no complaints at all when you can't get martials to stick around in a high-level game because Basic Bonk is simply unsatisfying at those levels regardless of however grossly inflated their damage numbers get.
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4e "balanced" the classes by unifying the structure of all abilities. They were all either at will, basically think cantrips, encounter powers, used once per encounter, or daily, used once a day. Every class got this, a warriors basic attack would be an at will that was like hit for weapon damage and X. That being said I don't feel it was as balanced as its proponents claim. They had roles for classes. Striker, defender, controller, and leader. Some classes would have a major in one roll and a minor in others, but for the most part they were designed around a role. The thing is the roles were not balanced. You absolutely did not need a controller in your party you could get by fine without one, in fact many times you'd just be better off with another striker. The other 3 you'd really want in your party, but strikers were the most necessary.
In that edition though martials had cool abilities, and while there was a complaint of wanting a basic fighter I don't think that was what the big issue with the game was for most. The powers being set up so much around at will, encounter, daily made it feel too gamey for most. One thing they did which I'd like them to bring into 5.5/6e is many of the non combat magic effects were ritual spells, rituals were not on your class list, they took knowing the appropriate skill(arcana/divine/nature) and paying the money to learn the specific ritual, any class could use them. So like dimension door might be a encounter power(I forget) but teleport would be a ritual. Now personally I'd just make rituals a tool proficiency, maybe some classes get it at default but I'd let any class take just have the stat that is tied to the ritual tool proficiency listed in each ritual and heck throw in some physical stats.
Making the Ritual Caster Feat a first level feat and tie in the Tool Proficiency with it
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