If it is purely flexibility that is the issue, wouldn't just giving all martials a feat /ASI every 2 levels instead of every 4 levels essentially solve this?
The equivalent of spellcasters is "you get a feat every level, and you can change it every long rest, and we introduce a whole bunch of new higher level feats".
If it is purely flexibility that is the issue, wouldn't just giving all martials a feat /ASI every 2 levels instead of every 4 levels essentially solve this?
The equivalent of spellcasters is "you get a feat every level, and you can change it every long rest, and we introduce a whole bunch of new higher level feats".
No because spellcasters have limited spellslots and spell preparations whereas most feats are always on abilities. Are you assuming a spellcaster can take a full rest at the start of every single encounter? Because that is a unrealistic bar to set your standard at.
If it is purely flexibility that is the issue, wouldn't just giving all martials a feat /ASI every 2 levels instead of every 4 levels essentially solve this? Players can then choose whether they want to say simple and just max out their stats and pick passive feats, or if they want tons of combat options, or if they want tons of utility options.
interesting, I don't know if that would cause any problem, such as the danger of having many stats maximized before level 20 (because of the limit and certain magic objects), but how would you do this with the particular cases of the warrior and the rogue, these have from before more "SO" than the other classes (2 plus the warrior and 1 plus the other.)
an option to that question and maintaining your proposal: that in the levels where they already received the extra "ASI", it is that they receive it double or improved ("ASI" together with +1 in a statistic), and/or that these 2 classes receive them double the benefits of levels 19 and 20 (or just adding +1 to a stat, max 20 and 30 respectively), these are to further reward these physical classes if they remain monoclass.
Edit: maybe, that all martial, in addition to mastering weapons, improve their "ASI" levels with +1 in additional stats, so they gain +3 or +1 more feat, and by ensuring +1 in stats they are more likely to choose a feat on many "ASIs", without creating friction with the additional "ASIs" of those 2 classes.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Why? Pretty much the only genres that have D&D-scale magic (fast and powerful; sword and sorcery magic is potent but slow) and assumes a warrior can be a match for a magician are superhero and manga/manhau.
let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
Do the martials still get the drawback that if a creature succeeds their save against the persuasion they know they've been artificially manipulated and are likely to turn hostile? I don't know why these things need to be mechanically defined? Why do I need a list of things on my character sheet? If I want to shatter a stone wall as a barbarian, I just say I use my maul to recklessly smash through the wall and my DM lets me roll an attack to do that. If I want to persuade someone to do something for me I RP my argument and roll the check against a DC depending on how good my argument was. If I want to intimidate someone into doing something I describe how I threaten them with my giant axe and roll my check if the DM deems it necessary. A persuasion or intimidation check doesn't have a time limit, and on average it is more likely to succeed than a saving throw ability.
I've played a warlock with Suggestion for 10 levels and only cast it once when all our attempts to persuade someone failed, because skills are better than spells. Why magically manipulate someone for 1 hour, when you could make a friend for life?
Do the martials still get the drawback that if a creature succeeds their save against the persuasion they know they've been artificially manipulated and are likely to turn hostile?
Yes? Most manipulation is actually fairly obvious.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Then don't pick those ones.Take the one that turns your attacks into siege damage that doubles its damage vs objects or whatever.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Then don't pick those ones.Take the one that turns your attacks into siege damage that doubles its damage vs objects or whatever.
By "a bit much" I meant "those options probably shouldn't exist." Jumping as a substitute for overland travel is a bit cartoonish.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Why? Pretty much the only genres that have D&D-scale magic (fast and powerful; sword and sorcery magic is potent but slow) and assumes a warrior can be a match for a magician are superhero and manga/manhau.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Why? Pretty much the only genres that have D&D-scale magic (fast and powerful; sword and sorcery magic is potent but slow) and assumes a warrior can be a match for a magician are superhero and manga/manhau.
You answered your own question I think
No, but you answered. The core problem is that balancing martials vs mages requires either taking a large nerf bat to mages or having superhero level martial characters, you simply can't do it with people who are limited to 'realistic'.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Then don't pick those ones.Take the one that turns your attacks into siege damage that doubles its damage vs objects or whatever.
By "a bit much" I meant "those options probably shouldn't exist." Jumping as a substitute for overland travel is a bit cartoonish.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Why? Pretty much the only genres that have D&D-scale magic (fast and powerful; sword and sorcery magic is potent but slow) and assumes a warrior can be a match for a magician are superhero and manga/manhau.
You answered your own question I think
Being able to throw a fireball from your hands is cartoonish. A couple of people have made the point that there is only two ways to balance casters and martials. One accept the outlandish. Martials are Vin Deisel with white T shirts that never get dirty. They can jump from a 75mph vehicle flying through the air and take no damage because they rolled with it (T shirt still perfectly white). Or two nerf the crap out of magic. Give most spells cast times that are longer than a single action. DM: Bill it’s your turn what are you going to do?
Bill: I CAST FIREBALL!!
DM: Okay you start to cast fireball. That’s a two action spell so you can finish casting it on your next turn. Until then you are concentrating on it, so try not to get hit.
DM: Oh the goblin attacks you with 14 to hit.
Bill: Hit my AC is 14
DM: that’s 8 damage give me a DC 10 concentration check
Im pretty sure you already get that this would upset a huge chunk of the community. It would bring magic to martial balance, but any intelligence 10+ creature would always attack the guy casting a spell if they could. Also this wouldn’t work for one dnd at all. This would be a different system all together.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Then don't pick those ones.Take the one that turns your attacks into siege damage that doubles its damage vs objects or whatever.
By "a bit much" I meant "those options probably shouldn't exist." Jumping as a substitute for overland travel is a bit cartoonish.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Why? Pretty much the only genres that have D&D-scale magic (fast and powerful; sword and sorcery magic is potent but slow) and assumes a warrior can be a match for a magician are superhero and manga/manhau.
You answered your own question I think
Being able to throw a fireball from your hands is cartoonish. A couple of people have made the point that there is only two ways to balance casters and martials. One accept the outlandish. Martials are Vin Deisel with white T shirts that never get dirty. They can jump from a 75mph vehicle flying through the air and take no damage because they rolled with it (T shirt still perfectly white). Or two nerf the crap out of magic. Give most spells cast times that are longer than a single action. DM: Bill it’s your turn what are you going to do?
Bill: I CAST FIREBALL!!
DM: Okay you start to cast fireball. That’s a two action spell so you can finish casting it on your next turn. Until then you are concentrating on it, so try not to get hit.
DM: Oh the goblin attacks you with 14 to hit.
Bill: Hit my AC is 14
DM: that’s 8 damage give me a DC 10 concentration check
Im pretty sure you already get that this would upset a huge chunk of the community. It would bring magic to martial balance, but any intelligence 10+ creature would always attack the guy casting a spell if they could. Also this wouldn’t work for one dnd at all. This would be a different system all together.
What's funny is earthdawn has some outlandish "martials" and the spell casting can take multiple turns to cast anything past the simple spells. The outlandish martials is baked into the system as they use magic to enhance their normal actions.The spell casting more complex spells require threads to be tied to your spell prep matrix, which is an action, once the threads are tied you can finally cast the spell. Potentially you can tie multiple threads in a single action but it gets fairly hard and spells can get up to 3+ threads.
Really fun game. but its not D&D.
Edit to add back in 2e the Lankmar setting the cast time was rounds to cast which made mages useless in a fight. I still played one and it was a blast. It wasn't balanced at all as mages kind of sucked but you can have fun in adversity.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Then don't pick those ones.Take the one that turns your attacks into siege damage that doubles its damage vs objects or whatever.
By "a bit much" I meant "those options probably shouldn't exist." Jumping as a substitute for overland travel is a bit cartoonish.
Why, you can dimension door for 400 feet, why shouldn't someone have the ability to leap that far twice a short rest like a warlock can dimension door twice a short rest. You want a magic infused martial you take the great leap, you don't want a magic infused martial you don't.
Martials are Vin Deisel with white T shirts that never get dirty. They can jump from a 75mph vehicle flying through the air and take no damage because they rolled with it (T shirt still perfectly white).
I much prefer things like this that are, shall we say, 'mundanely fantastic' -- not realistically something you or I could do, but something that is almost realistic -- as opposed to being blatantly fantastical, like jumping 400ft, or swinging your non-magical sword so fast it ignites the air, or things of that nature. And even better, the mundanely fantastic things are much easier to implement, too; an idea I have had kicking around in my brain recently was simply giving all martials a way to interact with skill checks, not simply the experts, and before you say it, no this is not going to step on the experts toes.
The idea is as follows: give all martial characters Stamina points, possibly based on their proficiency bonus, but most probably would gain one for every x levels in a martial class. For the Monk and the Barbarian, these would replace Ki and Rages/day respectively, and Fighters would be able to spend stamina to use Action Surge or Second Wind. The use of these abilities would be limited by your stamina pool, but other than that would function in broadly the same way as before. (Monks may need to have more stamina that the others because they are starved for Ki as it is. May have to workshop how they interact with Stamina, but I don't particularly want to give them two pools of points as that seems needless complicated and hard to keep track of.)
However, you also gain the ability to spend stamina on Feats of Strength (FoS), which would be roughly shared between all three classes (maybe some FoS would be unique to a specific class. I haven't thought incredibly deep on this) and allow the Martial character to pull off action-movie-esque actions in a structured way, with new options coming online as you gain levels.
For example:
Peerless: When you make a check using Strength, Dexterity or Constitution you may spend x amount of Stamina points to treat the skill check as if the die had rolled a 20.
Relentless Endurance: You may spend y amount (or all of your remaining?) Stamina to clear 1 level of exhaustion. (make berserker barbarians great again!)
I can do this all day: You may spend z amount of Stamina to be reduced to 1 hitpoint when you would otherwise fall unconscious.
Shock-Absorbent Skeleton: When you take fall damage, you may spend k amount of Stamina to gain resistance to the fall's damage.
Obviously the names are rubbish and the amount of Stamina to perform each would need tuning (although, if most of them cost 1 stamina and you had stamina roughly equal to your proficiency bonus, fighters at least would be able to use their usual amount of action surge/second wind/indomitable and have one or two stamina spare for feats of strength), but does anyone agree with this idea? I feel like this is a healthy two sixths of the way between gritty realism and the fantastic, and provides a system in which martial characters can progress towards the fantastic as they grow.
I much prefer things like this that are, shall we say, 'mundanely fantastic' -- not realistically something you or I could do, but something that is almost realistic.
Really the only way of doing something that looks plausible is by giving the character plot power -- you have the ability to declare convenient coincidences.
I feel like you either didn't read or simply ignored the rest of my post, where I specifically gave an example of a rule-based system that would allow martial characters to perform the said mundanely fantastical actions.
I feel like you either didn't read or simply ignored the rest of my post, where I specifically gave an example of a rule-based system that would allow martial characters to perform the said mundanely fantastical actions.
In theory this is viable, but working off a resource pool is already kinda the signature thing of Monks in this iteration. Plus half of your examples seem a bit overpowered- turning a check into a 20 and tanking a hit. The other two go the other direction and are pretty niche- exhaustion is already a rarely used mechanic (and berserkers will be getting a reprieve with the new rules already) and spending a fairly finite resource with a lot of different applications to stop fall damage vs a caster using a 1st level slot really doesn't make the martial option seem worth taking or using.
Honestly, as I've said before, I don't think martials need this kind of extended "power" spread as a core feature: by definition, a martial class is one that is oriented on physical combat. Trying to give them something approaching caster or expert level utility on top of it is giving them a second slice of the pie. Feats already seem to be getting a tune up, and so long as those continue to skew more in favor of martial builds, that's already going to cover them pretty well. Fighters and Monks already build up a lot of attack rolls, which can be augmented by magic items a lot better than most spells. Barbarians trail a little on the rolls, but they already soak physical damage like a boss monster and boost their damage on hit. There's also magic armor, with Fighters in particular getting access to some major stuff (armor of invulnerability, efreeti chain, dwarven plate mail, etc). Really, I feel like the "martials are horribly inferior to casters" argument ignores a lot of the force multipliers that martials have access to.
I honestly don't think martial classes are any less effective than casters. I do think they are more boring in combat, and that is what I think they should fix by design. But as far as effectiveness, at the end of the day, I see them head-to-head. The casters, yes, can change a fight with a specific action. They are more like a boxer going for a KO. Instead, the martial classes are a boxer who is going to win on points.
Another thing to keep in mind here is the metagame. Many DMs just don't know how to deal with casters. They throw the monsters to hit the front, and that's it. There the caster will always have an advantage, since they will stay in a relatively safe position while the martial classes eat all the aggro. if the DM uses his resources wisely, and doesn't treat all bad guys like idiots, casters suffer as well. Which makes the fights much more interesting. Ambush casters from behind, cast silence in their zone, put a damaging area on them, block their vision, split them up, make them spend their resources, etc... And you'll be balancing the class metagame without the need for any design changes.
In theory this is viable, but working off a resource pool is already kinda the signature thing of Monks in this iteration. Plus half of your examples seem a bit overpowered- turning a check into a 20 and tanking a hit. The other two go the other direction and are pretty niche- exhaustion is already a rarely used mechanic (and berserkers will be getting a reprieve with the new rules already) and spending a fairly finite resource with a lot of different applications to stop fall damage vs a caster using a 1st level slot really doesn't make the martial option seem worth taking or using.
Honestly, as I've said before, I don't think martials need this kind of extended "power" spread as a core feature: by definition, a martial class is one that is oriented on physical combat. Trying to give them something approaching caster or expert level utility on top of it is giving them a second slice of the pie. Feats already seem to be getting a tune up, and so long as those continue to skew more in favor of martial builds, that's already going to cover them pretty well. Fighters and Monks already build up a lot of attack rolls, which can be augmented by magic items a lot better than most spells. Barbarians trail a little on the rolls, but they already soak physical damage like a boss monster and boost their damage on hit. There's also magic armor, with Fighters in particular getting access to some major stuff (armor of invulnerability, efreeti chain, dwarven plate mail, etc).
Those are both valid points.
Regarding the viability of the system; it's definitely not perfect because I came up with it on the spot. Are resource pools the monk's signature thing? I thought they were just a basic fact of the game honestly: you can't have everyone do everything all the time, so people have a limited resource that they spend to do things. I suppose you could say that resource pools are unique to monks if we are focusing solely on the base classes within the warrior group, because spells are most certainly a resource pool, and spells are definitely the defining feature of five separate classes. But, if you'll bear with my stretching of definitions here, barbarians also have a 'resource pool,' they just only have one option to spend it on, their rage; and Fighters have three resource mini-pools, one for second wind, one for action surge, and one for indomitable.
My thought process was a bit like as follows:
These three classes all have resources pools, two of which are tied to proficiency bonus (roughly in the case of fighter) and one to class level
Wouldn't it be cool if martial characters had more reason to multi class with other martial classes
Martial characters sometimes feel like they are lacking the options/strategic value/propensity for awesome moments that casters have
Hey, these classes could have a shared resource pool, p1, to encourage p2, and give them more optional usable abilities, because people want to do p3.
Now that may be a faulty chain of reasoning, and I may just be projecting my wish to be able to make a martial character who has to make choices when they do things, but I like to believe my reasoning is fool proof, because this is the internet and that's what we do here... (I'm definitely not projecting again, trust me)
You are right though, two of the options are very good and two are decidedly less good upon reflection. Honestly I was just thinking of action movie / fantasy novel tropes that I like and tried to express them as mechanics. It may not have worked; I'm not a game designer. However, it does still serve as an example of the kind of things I'd like to see my characters be able to do, and they can certainly be balanced by altering the level they become available and how costly they are to use.
As for whether it's needed; I think it's kind of dubious to say that martials excel at combat and therefore cannot have the utility of an Expert or a Mage, because are the Mages and Experts not fairly aligned with the Warriors in terms of DPR? Do the mages not exceed the warriors in terms of DPR at some point? Some people argue that they are and do; I don't have any concrete evidence either way, but my anecdotal experience tells me that everyone is roughly even, especially so once you remove the Great Weapon Master and Sharp-Shooter optimisers from the mix. So why is it then that the Mages and Experts are allowed to have utility as well as damage, but if the warriors have even limited utility it's giving them 'a second slice of the pie' and stepping on the other group's toes? You could argue that it's because the Mages at least have to spend resources to consistently output high damage (I believe that statement in itself is debatable, because cantrips scale just as well, if not better than attacks [I know you brought up force multipliers, I'll get there later]), but then why could a Warrior not sacrifice their resources for utility purposes? That seems like a balanced trade to me.
It is a good point that feats do seem to be getting an improvement, and that does tend to favour Fighters at least more than it would a Wizard. The problem I have always had with Feats is that as a martial character sometimes, (almost always in my experience,) you feel like you have to sacrifice the flavour feats for the combat feats or vice versa, and on top of those juggle them with ASIs to increase all the relevant ability scores; the Mages on the other hand usually are free to take an ASI in their casting stat, War Caster if they think it's needed, and then whichever flavour feats they want. And sure, you get more as a Warrior, but you also want more, and I think because of that people often sacrifice the flavour feats because they don't want to feel inept in combat, because that is the one place they are supposed to be good at.
Now for Force Multipliers: It's true that magic items do provide significant benefit to Martial characters, however Martials have also lost their biggest and by far most reliable (magic items cannot be guaranteed to anyone other than the Artificer or the Forge Cleric) force multiplier going into one DnD, the aforementioned -5 / +10 tradeoff feats. And on top of that, the Mages also get plenty of benefit from magic items; staves, wands, robes, scrolls, Circlets of Intellect, Pearls of Power, Rings of Spell Storing -- they all provide just as much benefit as the + X weapon and armour the martials get. Beneficial Magical Items are hardly unique to the Fighter, and they hardly benefit the Fighter drastically more than the Wizard.
Really, I feel like the "martials are horribly inferior to casters" argument ignores a lot of the force multipliers that martials have access to.
You may well be right. My personal grievances with the Martial / Magic divide aren't necessarily with the damage, its with the level of depth, strategy and utility each side brings to the table, but I must admit it is very easy to view things in the vacuum of 'What does the Players Handbook say I can do?', and in that light the Martials probably seem further behind than they do at the table.
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The equivalent of spellcasters is "you get a feat every level, and you can change it every long rest, and we introduce a whole bunch of new higher level feats".
No because spellcasters have limited spellslots and spell preparations whereas most feats are always on abilities. Are you assuming a spellcaster can take a full rest at the start of every single encounter? Because that is a unrealistic bar to set your standard at.
interesting, I don't know if that would cause any problem, such as the danger of having many stats maximized before level 20 (because of the limit and certain magic objects), but how would you do this with the particular cases of the warrior and the rogue, these have from before more "SO" than the other classes (2 plus the warrior and 1 plus the other.)
an option to that question and maintaining your proposal: that in the levels where they already received the extra "ASI", it is that they receive it double or improved ("ASI" together with +1 in a statistic), and/or that these 2 classes receive them double the benefits of levels 19 and 20 (or just adding +1 to a stat, max 20 and 30 respectively), these are to further reward these physical classes if they remain monoclass.
Edit: maybe, that all martial, in addition to mastering weapons, improve their "ASI" levels with +1 in additional stats, so they gain +3 or +1 more feat, and by ensuring +1 in stats they are more likely to choose a feat on many "ASIs", without creating friction with the additional "ASIs" of those 2 classes.
1. While I think the martial caster divide exists I do think its getting more than a bit over stated in this thread.
2. I kind of think this mundane martial concept is a farce. You can choke out a dragon in your underoos while wading through lava. You are not mundane.
3. I think the best way to handle that is follow the 5e warlock model they get their base attacks like eldritch blast. Have some moves to increase base effects and provide low level outside abilities mimicking invocations, 2 big moves per short rest, 11+ start adding in once per day super maneuvers. do this for all martial and I'd put rogues on this list have access to. Have some be obviously super natural like a rogue can dart around a battlefield striking every enemy within 30 feet of their start location with a paralyzing strike, while others are just I bonk you with a stick harder. Like their lightning bolt could be an ability to run straight down a line moving through enemy spaces with acrobatic flourishes, not getting attacks of opportunity and doing 8d6 to everyone in the path. Let the player decide which ones they want. Make sure the maneuvers include out of combat abilities, allow their leaps to go past their movement leaping 400 feet in a single action, let them shatter stone walls, apply charm like effects with persuasion, sleep effects with intimidate. Theme their maneuvers like martial effects, some will clearly be beyond human capability some will be within a range those who want their mundane martial can accept. Like for a mass suggestion its an intimidating glare, those who fail their save take the course of action suggested for x duration.
I like the idea, though 400ft leaps and mass suggestion staredowns might be a bit much without a spell or subclass feature behind them
Why? Pretty much the only genres that have D&D-scale magic (fast and powerful; sword and sorcery magic is potent but slow) and assumes a warrior can be a match for a magician are superhero and manga/manhau.
Do the martials still get the drawback that if a creature succeeds their save against the persuasion they know they've been artificially manipulated and are likely to turn hostile? I don't know why these things need to be mechanically defined? Why do I need a list of things on my character sheet? If I want to shatter a stone wall as a barbarian, I just say I use my maul to recklessly smash through the wall and my DM lets me roll an attack to do that. If I want to persuade someone to do something for me I RP my argument and roll the check against a DC depending on how good my argument was. If I want to intimidate someone into doing something I describe how I threaten them with my giant axe and roll my check if the DM deems it necessary. A persuasion or intimidation check doesn't have a time limit, and on average it is more likely to succeed than a saving throw ability.
I've played a warlock with Suggestion for 10 levels and only cast it once when all our attempts to persuade someone failed, because skills are better than spells. Why magically manipulate someone for 1 hour, when you could make a friend for life?
Yes? Most manipulation is actually fairly obvious.
Then don't pick those ones.Take the one that turns your attacks into siege damage that doubles its damage vs objects or whatever.
By "a bit much" I meant "those options probably shouldn't exist." Jumping as a substitute for overland travel is a bit cartoonish.
You answered your own question I think
No, but you answered. The core problem is that balancing martials vs mages requires either taking a large nerf bat to mages or having superhero level martial characters, you simply can't do it with people who are limited to 'realistic'.
Being able to throw a fireball from your hands is cartoonish. A couple of people have made the point that there is only two ways to balance casters and martials. One accept the outlandish. Martials are Vin Deisel with white T shirts that never get dirty. They can jump from a 75mph vehicle flying through the air and take no damage because they rolled with it (T shirt still perfectly white). Or two nerf the crap out of magic. Give most spells cast times that are longer than a single action.
DM: Bill it’s your turn what are you going to do?
Bill: I CAST FIREBALL!!
DM: Okay you start to cast fireball. That’s a two action spell so you can finish casting it on your next turn. Until then you are concentrating on it, so try not to get hit.
DM: Oh the goblin attacks you with 14 to hit.
Bill: Hit my AC is 14
DM: that’s 8 damage give me a DC 10 concentration check
Im pretty sure you already get that this would upset a huge chunk of the community. It would bring magic to martial balance, but any intelligence 10+ creature would always attack the guy casting a spell if they could. Also this wouldn’t work for one dnd at all. This would be a different system all together.
What's funny is earthdawn has some outlandish "martials" and the spell casting can take multiple turns to cast anything past the simple spells. The outlandish martials is baked into the system as they use magic to enhance their normal actions.The spell casting more complex spells require threads to be tied to your spell prep matrix, which is an action, once the threads are tied you can finally cast the spell. Potentially you can tie multiple threads in a single action but it gets fairly hard and spells can get up to 3+ threads.
Really fun game. but its not D&D.
Edit to add back in 2e the Lankmar setting the cast time was rounds to cast which made mages useless in a fight. I still played one and it was a blast. It wasn't balanced at all as mages kind of sucked but you can have fun in adversity.
Why, you can dimension door for 400 feet, why shouldn't someone have the ability to leap that far twice a short rest like a warlock can dimension door twice a short rest. You want a magic infused martial you take the great leap, you don't want a magic infused martial you don't.
I much prefer things like this that are, shall we say, 'mundanely fantastic' -- not realistically something you or I could do, but something that is almost realistic -- as opposed to being blatantly fantastical, like jumping 400ft, or swinging your non-magical sword so fast it ignites the air, or things of that nature. And even better, the mundanely fantastic things are much easier to implement, too; an idea I have had kicking around in my brain recently was simply giving all martials a way to interact with skill checks, not simply the experts, and before you say it, no this is not going to step on the experts toes.
The idea is as follows: give all martial characters Stamina points, possibly based on their proficiency bonus, but most probably would gain one for every x levels in a martial class. For the Monk and the Barbarian, these would replace Ki and Rages/day respectively, and Fighters would be able to spend stamina to use Action Surge or Second Wind. The use of these abilities would be limited by your stamina pool, but other than that would function in broadly the same way as before. (Monks may need to have more stamina that the others because they are starved for Ki as it is. May have to workshop how they interact with Stamina, but I don't particularly want to give them two pools of points as that seems needless complicated and hard to keep track of.)
However, you also gain the ability to spend stamina on Feats of Strength (FoS), which would be roughly shared between all three classes (maybe some FoS would be unique to a specific class. I haven't thought incredibly deep on this) and allow the Martial character to pull off action-movie-esque actions in a structured way, with new options coming online as you gain levels.
For example:
Obviously the names are rubbish and the amount of Stamina to perform each would need tuning (although, if most of them cost 1 stamina and you had stamina roughly equal to your proficiency bonus, fighters at least would be able to use their usual amount of action surge/second wind/indomitable and have one or two stamina spare for feats of strength), but does anyone agree with this idea? I feel like this is a healthy two sixths of the way between gritty realism and the fantastic, and provides a system in which martial characters can progress towards the fantastic as they grow.
Really the only way of doing something that looks plausible is by giving the character plot power -- you have the ability to declare convenient coincidences.
I feel like you either didn't read or simply ignored the rest of my post, where I specifically gave an example of a rule-based system that would allow martial characters to perform the said mundanely fantastical actions.
In theory this is viable, but working off a resource pool is already kinda the signature thing of Monks in this iteration. Plus half of your examples seem a bit overpowered- turning a check into a 20 and tanking a hit. The other two go the other direction and are pretty niche- exhaustion is already a rarely used mechanic (and berserkers will be getting a reprieve with the new rules already) and spending a fairly finite resource with a lot of different applications to stop fall damage vs a caster using a 1st level slot really doesn't make the martial option seem worth taking or using.
Honestly, as I've said before, I don't think martials need this kind of extended "power" spread as a core feature: by definition, a martial class is one that is oriented on physical combat. Trying to give them something approaching caster or expert level utility on top of it is giving them a second slice of the pie. Feats already seem to be getting a tune up, and so long as those continue to skew more in favor of martial builds, that's already going to cover them pretty well. Fighters and Monks already build up a lot of attack rolls, which can be augmented by magic items a lot better than most spells. Barbarians trail a little on the rolls, but they already soak physical damage like a boss monster and boost their damage on hit. There's also magic armor, with Fighters in particular getting access to some major stuff (armor of invulnerability, efreeti chain, dwarven plate mail, etc). Really, I feel like the "martials are horribly inferior to casters" argument ignores a lot of the force multipliers that martials have access to.
I honestly don't think martial classes are any less effective than casters. I do think they are more boring in combat, and that is what I think they should fix by design. But as far as effectiveness, at the end of the day, I see them head-to-head. The casters, yes, can change a fight with a specific action. They are more like a boxer going for a KO. Instead, the martial classes are a boxer who is going to win on points.
Another thing to keep in mind here is the metagame. Many DMs just don't know how to deal with casters. They throw the monsters to hit the front, and that's it. There the caster will always have an advantage, since they will stay in a relatively safe position while the martial classes eat all the aggro. if the DM uses his resources wisely, and doesn't treat all bad guys like idiots, casters suffer as well. Which makes the fights much more interesting. Ambush casters from behind, cast silence in their zone, put a damaging area on them, block their vision, split them up, make them spend their resources, etc... And you'll be balancing the class metagame without the need for any design changes.
Those are both valid points.
Regarding the viability of the system; it's definitely not perfect because I came up with it on the spot. Are resource pools the monk's signature thing? I thought they were just a basic fact of the game honestly: you can't have everyone do everything all the time, so people have a limited resource that they spend to do things. I suppose you could say that resource pools are unique to monks if we are focusing solely on the base classes within the warrior group, because spells are most certainly a resource pool, and spells are definitely the defining feature of five separate classes. But, if you'll bear with my stretching of definitions here, barbarians also have a 'resource pool,' they just only have one option to spend it on, their rage; and Fighters have three resource mini-pools, one for second wind, one for action surge, and one for indomitable.
My thought process was a bit like as follows:
Now that may be a faulty chain of reasoning, and I may just be projecting my wish to be able to make a martial character who has to make choices when they do things, but I like to believe my reasoning is fool proof, because this is the internet and that's what we do here... (I'm definitely not projecting again, trust me)
You are right though, two of the options are very good and two are decidedly less good upon reflection. Honestly I was just thinking of action movie / fantasy novel tropes that I like and tried to express them as mechanics. It may not have worked; I'm not a game designer. However, it does still serve as an example of the kind of things I'd like to see my characters be able to do, and they can certainly be balanced by altering the level they become available and how costly they are to use.
As for whether it's needed; I think it's kind of dubious to say that martials excel at combat and therefore cannot have the utility of an Expert or a Mage, because are the Mages and Experts not fairly aligned with the Warriors in terms of DPR? Do the mages not exceed the warriors in terms of DPR at some point? Some people argue that they are and do; I don't have any concrete evidence either way, but my anecdotal experience tells me that everyone is roughly even, especially so once you remove the Great Weapon Master and Sharp-Shooter optimisers from the mix. So why is it then that the Mages and Experts are allowed to have utility as well as damage, but if the warriors have even limited utility it's giving them 'a second slice of the pie' and stepping on the other group's toes? You could argue that it's because the Mages at least have to spend resources to consistently output high damage (I believe that statement in itself is debatable, because cantrips scale just as well, if not better than attacks [I know you brought up force multipliers, I'll get there later]), but then why could a Warrior not sacrifice their resources for utility purposes? That seems like a balanced trade to me.
It is a good point that feats do seem to be getting an improvement, and that does tend to favour Fighters at least more than it would a Wizard. The problem I have always had with Feats is that as a martial character sometimes, (almost always in my experience,) you feel like you have to sacrifice the flavour feats for the combat feats or vice versa, and on top of those juggle them with ASIs to increase all the relevant ability scores; the Mages on the other hand usually are free to take an ASI in their casting stat, War Caster if they think it's needed, and then whichever flavour feats they want. And sure, you get more as a Warrior, but you also want more, and I think because of that people often sacrifice the flavour feats because they don't want to feel inept in combat, because that is the one place they are supposed to be good at.
Now for Force Multipliers: It's true that magic items do provide significant benefit to Martial characters, however Martials have also lost their biggest and by far most reliable (magic items cannot be guaranteed to anyone other than the Artificer or the Forge Cleric) force multiplier going into one DnD, the aforementioned -5 / +10 tradeoff feats. And on top of that, the Mages also get plenty of benefit from magic items; staves, wands, robes, scrolls, Circlets of Intellect, Pearls of Power, Rings of Spell Storing -- they all provide just as much benefit as the + X weapon and armour the martials get. Beneficial Magical Items are hardly unique to the Fighter, and they hardly benefit the Fighter drastically more than the Wizard.
You may well be right. My personal grievances with the Martial / Magic divide aren't necessarily with the damage, its with the level of depth, strategy and utility each side brings to the table, but I must admit it is very easy to view things in the vacuum of 'What does the Players Handbook say I can do?', and in that light the Martials probably seem further behind than they do at the table.