A game is a system of rules and limits, there has to be some control. Without it we are just standing around telling each other stories that don’t even match up in tone or theme. If you want to have Goku next to your medieval knight that’s cool for your story, but it will literally break the game.
The moment you have a wizard next to your medieval knight you've broken the game. If you're going to have wizards killing people with giant rocks from heaven you're no longer in the scope of a 'medieval knight', you're in the scope of Heracles redirecting major rivers to clean the Augean Stables.
So Merlin and King Author aren’t from the same fantasy setting? I just leaned something new.
Merlin is by no means a D&D wizard.
The sword and sorcery standard for how magic works, which the Arthurian myth cycle basically obeys, is that doing anything impressive takes substantial time and elaborate preparation, and often has substantial prerequisites as well to make it work at all, all of which means the plucky martial heroes are important to either disrupt it or accomplish the prerequisites, depending on whether the wizard is a villain or a hero. If wizards can do anything significant spontaneously, it's pretty near cantrip level.
But you do admit they are from the same fantasy. Okay glad you accept your mistake. The original aregument didn’t specify D&D wizard. Your words:
The moment you have a wizard next to your medieval knight you've broken the game.
If this is all your guys takes on this, then we might as well just delete all non-fullcaster classes right now. If "Magic breaks the world such that is doesn't make sense for martials to exist along side them" is the accepted interpretation of D&D magic then just get rid of martials all together. You have said it yourselves, martials don't make sense therefore get rid of martials.
If you think every spellcaster in Dr. Strange then why are we even discussing buffing martials? Dr. Strange could handily destroy any other superhero no matter how "powerful" they might be, because he freaking trapped a god in a time loop! So if that is your standard then I give up, you'll never ever be happy until there is no game at higher levels because what even is the point? There is no challenge if everyone can just cast Wish every day and now the entire reality is one where every person has hotdogs for fingers, or everyone is reduced to being a sentient rock. Just go play a rules-less make believe where anyone can do anything.
It is not us that put up the weird restrictions its the martial players where whenever a spell caster does anything at all magical it breaks things for them as they solved a problem with magic. They had to roll to climb the hill the wizard just levitated. I've seen people complain about plane shift and not for the one save banish but because how dare the spell caster transport the party to the adventure. Same with freaking water breathing. Oh no the wizard solved our drowning problem that is broken, my con of 16 ability to hold my breath for a ludicrous time is now trivialized. Like I said earlier its not the numbers, a fighter can knock out great numbers in damage etc in a fight and even if that was quadrupled martial characters would still complain because the spell caster cast dimension door to cross the ravine. So go ahead play in your magicless fantasy world.
Water Breathing is not changing the nature of the reality, plane shift is just a "spend a 7th level spell slot to continue the adventure" button. Same for Teleport though with the added bonus of chance to fail and ending up teleporting the whole party inside a Roc nest -> yes this happened in our campaign and yes it was super fun! Our casters spent both their 7th level spellslots just to get us back where we started, with a ton more bumps, bruises, and Roc-claw-marks.
I don't get this whining over utility casting, do you really want to RP walking for 3 months across the continent as level 15 adventurers? And how is a caster having to save their most powerful spells to do something as basic as be a shuttle bus or provide food, water, and shelter to the party game breakingly powerful?
I am a martial player (The classes I have played the most are: Rogue, Paladin, Monk, Barbarian), and I find myself arguing against all the spellcaster lovers trying to turn the martials into knock-off casters all the time.
So you want to play a mundane character in a high fantasy game and tell the player who plays a high fantasy character in a high fantasy game they are wrecking the game.
A game is a system of rules and limits, there has to be some control. Without it we are just standing around telling each other stories that don’t even match up in tone or theme. If you want to have Goku next to your medieval knight that’s cool for your story, but it will literally break the game.
The moment you have a wizard next to your medieval knight you've broken the game. If you're going to have wizards killing people with giant rocks from heaven you're no longer in the scope of a 'medieval knight', you're in the scope of Heracles redirecting major rivers to clean the Augean Stables.
So Merlin and King Author aren’t from the same fantasy setting? I just leaned something new.
Merlin is by no means a D&D wizard.
The sword and sorcery standard for how magic works, which the Arthurian myth cycle basically obeys, is that doing anything impressive takes substantial time and elaborate preparation, and often has substantial prerequisites as well to make it work at all, all of which means the plucky martial heroes are important to either disrupt it or accomplish the prerequisites, depending on whether the wizard is a villain or a hero. If wizards can do anything significant spontaneously, it's pretty near cantrip level.
But you do admit they are from the same fantasy. Okay glad you accept your mistake. The original aregument didn’t specify D&D wizard. Your words:
The moment you have a wizard next to your medieval knight you've broken the game.
Their mistake? Did they really need to specify they were talking about a D&D wizard when they said it would break the game? They were saying that if you put an ordinary medieval knight next to a wizard as this game defines it, that dynamic is broken from the get-go.
Well good thing this game doesn’t have ordinary medieval knights as a build option.
A game is a system of rules and limits, there has to be some control. Without it we are just standing around telling each other stories that don’t even match up in tone or theme. If you want to have Goku next to your medieval knight that’s cool for your story, but it will literally break the game.
The moment you have a wizard next to your medieval knight you've broken the game. If you're going to have wizards killing people with giant rocks from heaven you're no longer in the scope of a 'medieval knight', you're in the scope of Heracles redirecting major rivers to clean the Augean Stables.
So Merlin and King Author aren’t from the same fantasy setting? I just leaned something new.
Merlin is by no means a D&D wizard.
The sword and sorcery standard for how magic works, which the Arthurian myth cycle basically obeys, is that doing anything impressive takes substantial time and elaborate preparation, and often has substantial prerequisites as well to make it work at all, all of which means the plucky martial heroes are important to either disrupt it or accomplish the prerequisites, depending on whether the wizard is a villain or a hero. If wizards can do anything significant spontaneously, it's pretty near cantrip level.
But you do admit they are from the same fantasy. Okay glad you accept your mistake. The original aregument didn’t specify D&D wizard. Your words:
The moment you have a wizard next to your medieval knight you've broken the game.
Their mistake? Did they really need to specify they were talking about a D&D wizard when they said it would break the game? They were saying that if you put an ordinary medieval knight next to a wizard as this game defines it, that dynamic is broken from the get-go.
Well good thing this game doesn’t have ordinary medieval knights as a build option.
In a recent UA reveal, Jeremy Crawford described the Fighter's identity as "wearing heavy armor and wielding martial weapons."
Yeah, Jeremy Crawford described fighters as just about as close to ordinary medieval knights as possible without discussing their roots in medieval nobility.
So what you're basically saying is that if someone wants to play a mundane character, they should look for another game system?
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of there being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If this is all your guys takes on this, then we might as well just delete all non-fullcaster classes right now. If "Magic breaks the world such that is doesn't make sense for martials to exist along side them" is the accepted interpretation of D&D magic then just get rid of martials all together. You have said it yourselves, martials don't make sense therefore get rid of martials.
If you think every spellcaster in Dr. Strange then why are we even discussing buffing martials? Dr. Strange could handily destroy any other superhero no matter how "powerful" they might be, because he freaking trapped a god in a time loop! So if that is your standard then I give up, you'll never ever be happy until there is no game at higher levels because what even is the point? There is no challenge if everyone can just cast Wish every day and now the entire reality is one where every person has hotdogs for fingers, or everyone is reduced to being a sentient rock. Just go play a rules-less make believe where anyone can do anything.
It is not us that put up the weird restrictions its the martial players where whenever a spell caster does anything at all magical it breaks things for them as they solved a problem with magic. They had to roll to climb the hill the wizard just levitated. I've seen people complain about plane shift and not for the one save banish but because how dare the spell caster transport the party to the adventure. Same with freaking water breathing. Oh no the wizard solved our drowning problem that is broken, my con of 16 ability to hold my breath for a ludicrous time is now trivialized. Like I said earlier its not the numbers, a fighter can knock out great numbers in damage etc in a fight and even if that was quadrupled martial characters would still complain because the spell caster cast dimension door to cross the ravine. So go ahead play in your magicless fantasy world.
Water Breathing is not changing the nature of the reality, plane shift is just a "spend a 7th level spell slot to continue the adventure" button. Same for Teleport though with the added bonus of chance to fail and ending up teleporting the whole party inside a Roc nest -> yes this happened in our campaign and yes it was super fun! Our casters spent both their 7th level spellslots just to get us back where we started, with a ton more bumps, bruises, and Roc-claw-marks.
I don't get this whining over utility casting, do you really want to RP walking for 3 months across the continent as level 15 adventurers? And how is a caster having to save their most powerful spells to do something as basic as be a shuttle bus or provide food, water, and shelter to the party game breakingly powerful?
I am a martial player (The classes I have played the most are: Rogue, Paladin, Monk, Barbarian), and I find myself arguing against all the spellcaster lovers trying to turn the martials into knock-off casters all the time.
So you want to play a mundane character in a high fantasy game and tell the player who plays a high fantasy character in a high fantasy game they are wrecking the game.
Not sure how you reached this conclusion from my post, since I was saying that high level utility magic is totally fine with me as a player who prefers martial characters.
But to be explicit here, 1/3 of the game (levels 14+) is almost never played, the prewritten campaigns don't cover it, surveys suggest almost no tables play at it. In my own anecdotal experience it isn't that players get bored and don't want to play to high levels, it is that a lot of DMs don't want to run the game at those levels. Even in my campaign the reached level 17, the DM did a lot of batch level ups so that we only played a handful of sessions at level 14+ before the campaign was over. That suggests there is a serious problem with the game.
Now then, we don't have stats on this, but let me ask you, do you think DMs and writers avoid levels 14+ because of high level Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues? Who at those levels just hit a bit harder and can survive a bit more punishment than they could at lower levels? Or do you think, maybe, just maybe, its the high level Wizards, Sorcerers, and other casters who can just delete enemies from the game with a single spell?
If this is all your guys takes on this, then we might as well just delete all non-fullcaster classes right now. If "Magic breaks the world such that is doesn't make sense for martials to exist along side them" is the accepted interpretation of D&D magic then just get rid of martials all together. You have said it yourselves, martials don't make sense therefore get rid of martials.
If you think every spellcaster in Dr. Strange then why are we even discussing buffing martials? Dr. Strange could handily destroy any other superhero no matter how "powerful" they might be, because he freaking trapped a god in a time loop! So if that is your standard then I give up, you'll never ever be happy until there is no game at higher levels because what even is the point? There is no challenge if everyone can just cast Wish every day and now the entire reality is one where every person has hotdogs for fingers, or everyone is reduced to being a sentient rock. Just go play a rules-less make believe where anyone can do anything.
It is not us that put up the weird restrictions its the martial players where whenever a spell caster does anything at all magical it breaks things for them as they solved a problem with magic. They had to roll to climb the hill the wizard just levitated. I've seen people complain about plane shift and not for the one save banish but because how dare the spell caster transport the party to the adventure. Same with freaking water breathing. Oh no the wizard solved our drowning problem that is broken, my con of 16 ability to hold my breath for a ludicrous time is now trivialized. Like I said earlier its not the numbers, a fighter can knock out great numbers in damage etc in a fight and even if that was quadrupled martial characters would still complain because the spell caster cast dimension door to cross the ravine. So go ahead play in your magicless fantasy world.
Water Breathing is not changing the nature of the reality, plane shift is just a "spend a 7th level spell slot to continue the adventure" button. Same for Teleport though with the added bonus of chance to fail and ending up teleporting the whole party inside a Roc nest -> yes this happened in our campaign and yes it was super fun! Our casters spent both their 7th level spellslots just to get us back where we started, with a ton more bumps, bruises, and Roc-claw-marks.
I don't get this whining over utility casting, do you really want to RP walking for 3 months across the continent as level 15 adventurers? And how is a caster having to save their most powerful spells to do something as basic as be a shuttle bus or provide food, water, and shelter to the party game breakingly powerful?
I am a martial player (The classes I have played the most are: Rogue, Paladin, Monk, Barbarian), and I find myself arguing against all the spellcaster lovers trying to turn the martials into knock-off casters all the time.
So you want to play a mundane character in a high fantasy game and tell the player who plays a high fantasy character in a high fantasy game they are wrecking the game.
Not sure how you reached this conclusion from my post, since I was saying that high level utility magic is totally fine with me as a player who prefers martial characters.
But to be explicit here, 1/3 of the game (levels 14+) is almost never played, the prewritten campaigns don't cover it, surveys suggest almost no tables play at it. In my own anecdotal experience it isn't that players get bored and don't want to play to high levels, it is that a lot of DMs don't want to run the game at those levels. Even in my campaign the reached level 17, the DM did a lot of batch level ups so that we only played a handful of sessions at level 14+ before the campaign was over. That suggests there is a serious problem with the game.
Now then, we don't have stats on this, but let me ask you, do you think DMs and writers avoid levels 14+ because of high level Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues? Who at those levels just hit a bit harder and can survive a bit more punishment than they could at lower levels? Or do you think, maybe, just maybe, its the high level Wizards, Sorcerers, and other casters who can just delete enemies from the game with a single spell?
its not so simple, a lot of games just die before reaching that level. Not necessarily out of hate, but its a lot of sessions. the only way you play high level generally is if people skip levels. And, there is a LOT less content, most people use prebuilt content. Or they remix or copy paste prebuilt content. There is very little support currently for high end stuff.
So what you're basically saying is that if someone wants to play a mundane character, they should look for another game system?
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of their being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
Yes "mundane" here means that it doesn't use magic, or at least doesn't use it in an obvious way like spellcasters or overtly magical subclasses like Rune Knight or Four Elements Monk.
And this debate exists for the same reason as discussions on the "martial caster divide" and what the Monk class is even supposed to be doing, which is that there is significantly more controversy on how powerful martial characters (especially "pure martials") are supposed to be. And the Monk is no exception.
I don't think very many non-casters sign up to be weaker or less effective than other characters. If you ask someone if fighters should be as effective as wizards, some might say no, but if you ask them if the class they are about to play should be relatively worse than other classes they ll say no.
IE its real easy to tell some other guy that their class should be lame for the greater good, or immersion
that said, I think its an incorrect assumption that martials want the same things that casters have/do. Its a different fantasy, with different desires and flavor. I ve seen people say fighter would be great with group heals and buffs, but I don't really think thats what people who picked fighter are really expecting from fighters.
So what you're basically saying is that if someone wants to play a mundane character, they should look for another game system?
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of their being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
So what you're basically saying is that if someone wants to play a mundane character, they should look for another game system?
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of their being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
Yes "mundane" here means that it doesn't use magic, or at least doesn't use it in an obvious way like spellcasters or overtly magical subclasses like Rune Knight or Four Elements Monk.
And this debate exists for the same reason as discussions on the "martial caster divide" and what the Monk class is even supposed to be doing, which is that there is significantly more controversy on how powerful martial characters (especially "pure martials") are supposed to be. And the Monk is no exception.
I don't think very many non-casters sign up to be weaker or less effective than other characters. If you ask someone if fighters should be as effective as wizards, some might say no, but if you ask them if the class they are about to play should be relatively worse than other classes they ll say no.
IE its real easy to tell some other guy that their class should be lame for the greater good, or immersion
that said, I think its an incorrect assumption that martials want the same things that casters have/do. Its a different fantasy, with different desires and flavor. I ve seen people say fighter would be great with group heals and buffs, but I don't really think thats what people who picked fighter are really expecting from fighters.
I agree. I don’t think martials as a base class need crowd control, buff/debuffs, etc. Damage, single target primarily, is what they should be outpacing casters at. And WotC seems to be giving martials a little more out of combat utility with skills, so that’s good. And probably all they need.
Casters can have the AOE (which might need reducing in some spells), crowd control and the buffing. But I do agree that casters may have a little too much, but I’m not sure if WotC will need, even slightly, their spells
I don't think very many non-casters sign up to be weaker or less effective than other characters. If you ask someone if fighters should be as effective as wizards, some might say no, but if you ask them if the class they are about to play should be relatively worse than other classes they ll say no.
IE its real easy to tell some other guy that their class should be lame for the greater good, or immersion
that said, I think its an incorrect assumption that martials want the same things that casters have/do. Its a different fantasy, with different desires and flavor. I ve seen people say fighter would be great with group heals and buffs, but I don't really think thats what people who picked fighter are really expecting from fighters.
I agree. I don’t think martials as a base class need crowd control, buff/debuffs, etc. Damage, single target primarily, is what they should be outpacing casters at. And WotC seems to be giving martials a little more out of combat utility with skills, so that’s good. And probably all they need.
Casters can have the AOE (which might need reducing in some spells), crowd control and the buffing. But I do agree that casters may have a little too much, but I’m not sure if WotC will need, even slightly, their spells
I also agree. But just like with casters there are a couple different playstyles for martials which they should excel at. But these playstyles should be different from those of casters. Here are some things I enjoy about martials:
1. Skirmishing -> being on/near the frontlines but weak enough that one critical hit from the BBEG could take you down. Having to balance risk vs opportunity for whether you choose to stay in melee to provide flanking or try to get an opportunity attack, or skedaddle out of there to protect yourself or lure an enemy where you want them to be. Also being the one who can get to that wizard in the enemy back line and take them out to stop the constant fireballs being chucked the whole party, but will you live to rejoin the party? Or will the enemies swarm you in revenge? And if one of them gets past your party's frontlines, being the one to dart back and save the squishy wizard from being splatted by a troll.
2. Frontlining -> running up to the biggest bad and standing in their face daring them to hit you, and punishing them if they choose not to. Then grinning and hacking them to bits.
3. Tag-teaming -> working together with your other martial buddy to flank and focus-fire down the biggest problems on the battlefield, or using grapples & shoves to make the most of the battlefield or your caster friend's spells.
My wishlist for martials would be:
1. A more interesting option than Disengage to break free from swarms of minions to go after the big bad. This could be a 5ft radius AoE shove option, it could be fixing up the DMG optional rules for shoving through/past enemies or tumbling through enemy spaces so that AoO against you are at disadvantage and it doesn't require your action.
2. More diversity in subclasses/builds. Barbarian and Monk is pretty good at this, but all the Rogues feel very same-y, Paladins are in the middle, and Fighter you've got EK and Rune that are good but Champion, Battlemaster, Cavalier and Samurai aren't all that different from each other. And FFS fix the rules so not everyone feels the need to wield a polearm (STR) or hand crossbow (DEX).
3. Better features in tier 3-4, Fighters, Rogues, Barbarians almost all MC before they hit level 10 because there just isn't anything all that interesting or powerful in their main class, nor their subclass.
So what you're basically saying is that if someone wants to play a mundane character, they should look for another game system?
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of their being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
Yes "mundane" here means that it doesn't use magic, or at least doesn't use it in an obvious way like spellcasters or overtly magical subclasses like Rune Knight or Four Elements Monk.
And this debate exists for the same reason as discussions on the "martial caster divide" and what the Monk class is even supposed to be doing, which is that there is significantly more controversy on how powerful martial characters (especially "pure martials") are supposed to be. And the Monk is no exception.
I don't think very many non-casters sign up to be weaker or less effective than other characters. If you ask someone if fighters should be as effective as wizards, some might say no, but if you ask them if the class they are about to play should be relatively worse than other classes they ll say no.
IE its real easy to tell some other guy that their class should be lame for the greater good, or immersion
that said, I think its an incorrect assumption that martials want the same things that casters have/do. Its a different fantasy, with different desires and flavor. I ve seen people say fighter would be great with group heals and buffs, but I don't really think thats what people who picked fighter are really expecting from fighters.
I agree. I don’t think martials as a base class need crowd control, buff/debuffs, etc. Damage, single target primarily, is what they should be outpacing casters at. And WotC seems to be giving martials a little more out of combat utility with skills, so that’s good. And probably all they need.
Casters can have the AOE (which might need reducing in some spells), crowd control and the buffing. But I do agree that casters may have a little too much, but I’m not sure if WotC will need, even slightly, their spells
it's not even that martials should step aside for casters in the realms of buff, debuff, cc, and aoe. it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see one martial class that could, for instance, grapple two foes at once. or another that eventually masters the art of swinging a big damn axe in a whirlwind to take out many token foes. no, the risky thing about adding something to each class so that no one goes without is that eventually all the classes are the same but with different skins on top. a 'grey goo scenario' but where everyone is a bard holding a different accessory.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
So what you're basically saying is that if someone wants to play a mundane character, they should look for another game system?
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of their being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
Yes "mundane" here means that it doesn't use magic, or at least doesn't use it in an obvious way like spellcasters or overtly magical subclasses like Rune Knight or Four Elements Monk.
And this debate exists for the same reason as discussions on the "martial caster divide" and what the Monk class is even supposed to be doing, which is that there is significantly more controversy on how powerful martial characters (especially "pure martials") are supposed to be. And the Monk is no exception.
I don't think very many non-casters sign up to be weaker or less effective than other characters. If you ask someone if fighters should be as effective as wizards, some might say no, but if you ask them if the class they are about to play should be relatively worse than other classes they ll say no.
IE its real easy to tell some other guy that their class should be lame for the greater good, or immersion
that said, I think its an incorrect assumption that martials want the same things that casters have/do. Its a different fantasy, with different desires and flavor. I ve seen people say fighter would be great with group heals and buffs, but I don't really think thats what people who picked fighter are really expecting from fighters.
I agree. I don’t think martials as a base class need crowd control, buff/debuffs, etc. Damage, single target primarily, is what they should be outpacing casters at. And WotC seems to be giving martials a little more out of combat utility with skills, so that’s good. And probably all they need.
Casters can have the AOE (which might need reducing in some spells), crowd control and the buffing. But I do agree that casters may have a little too much, but I’m not sure if WotC will need, even slightly, their spells
it's not even that martials should step aside for casters in the realms of buff, debuff, cc, and aoe. it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see one martial class that could, for instance, grapple two foes at once. or another that eventually masters the art of swinging a big damn axe in a whirlwind to take out many token foes. no, the risky thing about adding something to each class so that no one goes without is that eventually all the classes are the same but with different skins on top. a 'grey goo scenario' but where everyone is a bard holding a different accessory.
And I would leave that up to subclasses. And you can already grapple two foes at once (Astral Self could be particularly good at it)
The thing that's missing is a niche that martials can fill that a caster cannot. Need to cause damage? Everyone can do that. Need high survivability? Everyone can do that. Need skill checks? Everyone can do that. Need to travel fast, communicate instantly, recover from a lost limb or other terrible injury, get to the top of that sheer unclimbable surface, force someone to help you, control a crowd, etc.... sorry it's casters only.
it's not even that martials should step aside for casters in the realms of buff, debuff, cc, and aoe. it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see one martial class that could, for instance, grapple two foes at once. or another that eventually masters the art of swinging a big damn axe in a whirlwind to take out many token foes. no, the risky thing about adding something to each class so that no one goes without is that eventually all the classes are the same but with different skins on top. a 'grey goo scenario' but where everyone is a bard holding a different accessory.
I dunno about 'grey goo' being inevitable in that case; as long as different classes have different ways to fill similar niches then it shouldn't feel too samey. The balance to obtain is to ensure that no one class can do everything (at least not without preparation) so that it's easy for any mix of 3+ characters to cover all the bases and have a bit of overlap for when things get messy.
For example, on area damage; leave the big ranged blasts to casters, but there's absolutely room for some martial classes/sub-class to have "multiattack when surrounded" bonuses so they can cope with being overrun (or even encourage enemies to overrun them for that reason), just as we could do with more abilities for withstanding concentrated assault (i.e- when the dragon decides it's going to focus all of its efforts on the one target).
Currently only Hunter (a sub-class of a half caster) has these types of abilities, and while I don't want to step on Hunter's toes, these are abilities that I'm not sure should be exclusive to that sub-class.
On healing abilities mentioned earlier; one thing that's interesting is just how much helping an ally can cripple a martial's performance, as it takes an action to administer a potion, yet many casters can use healing word (at range) to revive an ally for only a bonus action. For a fighter or monk to do that they are giving up all of their offensive capability, and usually not leaving themselves much else to do on the turn. While the fighter can at least use action surge for this, that's still a pretty steep cost.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
it's not even that martials should step aside for casters in the realms of buff, debuff, cc, and aoe. it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see one martial class that could, for instance, grapple two foes at once. or another that eventually masters the art of swinging a big damn axe in a whirlwind to take out many token foes. no, the risky thing about adding something to each class so that no one goes without is that eventually all the classes are the same but with different skins on top. a 'grey goo scenario' but where everyone is a bard holding a different accessory.
I dunno about 'grey goo' being inevitable in that case; as long as different classes have different ways to fill similar niches then it shouldn't feel too samey. The balance to obtain is to ensure that no one class can do everything (at least not without preparation) so that it's easy for any mix of 3+ characters to cover all the bases and have a bit of overlap for when things get messy.
For example, on area damage; leave the big ranged blasts to casters, but there's absolutely room for some martial classes/sub-class to have "multiattack when surrounded" bonuses so they can cope with being overrun (or even encourage enemies to overrun them for that reason), just as we could do with more abilities for withstanding concentrated assault (i.e- when the dragon decides it's going to focus all of its efforts on the one target).
Currently only Hunter (a sub-class of a half caster) has these types of abilities, and while I don't want to step on Hunter's toes, these are abilities that I'm not sure should be exclusive to that sub-class.
On healing abilities mentioned earlier; one thing that's interesting is just how much helping an ally can cripple a martial's performance, as it takes an action to administer a potion, yet many casters can use healing word (at range) to revive an ally for only a bonus action. For a fighter or monk to do that they are giving up all of their offensive capability, and usually not leaving themselves much else to do on the turn. While the fighter can at least use action surge for this, that's still a pretty steep cost.
okay, so what now with the monk? give them capability to fit into every martial role (tank, damage, bag of tricks, bonesaw doctor(?), etc...) or give all the other martials kamehameha blasts and water walking? or, giving consideration to specialties, should the base class have a discernible niche (skirmisher, wrestler, marathon running slap-fighter, bonus to humanoids, ninja stuff, etc.)?
so, what now with the monk??
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
We do have a subclass that can whirlwind and at least attack multiple token foes with Drunken Master Monk’s capstone. 7 attacks against 7 foes. They may not be wiping them out, but that isn’t new to monks. Steel Wind Strike has a similar feel for a Ranger or Bladesinger (though not a martial). If we would like WotC to flesh out those type of play styles for Martials I’m all for it.
But you do admit they are from the same fantasy. Okay glad you accept your mistake. The original aregument didn’t specify D&D wizard. Your words:
So you want to play a mundane character in a high fantasy game and tell the player who plays a high fantasy character in a high fantasy game they are wrecking the game.
Well good thing this game doesn’t have ordinary medieval knights as a build option.
In a recent UA reveal, Jeremy Crawford described the Fighter's identity as "wearing heavy armor and wielding martial weapons."
Yeah, Jeremy Crawford described fighters as just about as close to ordinary medieval knights as possible without discussing their roots in medieval nobility.
This whole mundane vs. magical issue feels like a massive distraction, and I'm not sure everyone is using mundane to mean the same thing.
In 5th-edition even a 1st-level player character is beyond "normal" as they surpass the average commoner thanks to superior ability scores and access to special abilities. No player character in 5th-edition can be described as "mundane" in the sense of there being nothing special about them.
But mundane in the sense of being non-magical (which I suspect is what most people mean, and how I would use it in the context of this thread) is simply the way most pure martials are; you might debate whether an extraordinary fighter or monk might actually be magical in a less obvious way, but mechanically it's up to the player if they are blessed by a deity, unusually driven, or supremely skilled and resilient etc.?
The relevant point for this thread is that for martial classes the core features should be a little ambiguous in their source so the player can decide what it represents within a broad archetype. Sub-classes can be less ambiguous because they are for specialising or expanding in one of several directions, so the player that wants to be more magical/mystical can choose a sub-class that supports a build with more "powers", while someone who wants to be more about supreme technique can choose one with more purely physical abilities etc.
Beyond that I don't think a debate about what class an arthurian character might be is in anyway related to improving the Monk class?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Not sure how you reached this conclusion from my post, since I was saying that high level utility magic is totally fine with me as a player who prefers martial characters.
But to be explicit here, 1/3 of the game (levels 14+) is almost never played, the prewritten campaigns don't cover it, surveys suggest almost no tables play at it. In my own anecdotal experience it isn't that players get bored and don't want to play to high levels, it is that a lot of DMs don't want to run the game at those levels. Even in my campaign the reached level 17, the DM did a lot of batch level ups so that we only played a handful of sessions at level 14+ before the campaign was over. That suggests there is a serious problem with the game.
Now then, we don't have stats on this, but let me ask you, do you think DMs and writers avoid levels 14+ because of high level Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues? Who at those levels just hit a bit harder and can survive a bit more punishment than they could at lower levels? Or do you think, maybe, just maybe, its the high level Wizards, Sorcerers, and other casters who can just delete enemies from the game with a single spell?
its not so simple, a lot of games just die before reaching that level. Not necessarily out of hate, but its a lot of sessions. the only way you play high level generally is if people skip levels. And, there is a LOT less content, most people use prebuilt content. Or they remix or copy paste prebuilt content. There is very little support currently for high end stuff.
I'm not sure casters are the root of the issue
I don't think very many non-casters sign up to be weaker or less effective than other characters. If you ask someone if fighters should be as effective as wizards, some might say no, but if you ask them if the class they are about to play should be relatively worse than other classes they ll say no.
IE its real easy to tell some other guy that their class should be lame for the greater good, or immersion
that said, I think its an incorrect assumption that martials want the same things that casters have/do. Its a different fantasy, with different desires and flavor. I ve seen people say fighter would be great with group heals and buffs, but I don't really think thats what people who picked fighter are really expecting from fighters.
Thank you
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I agree. I don’t think martials as a base class need crowd control, buff/debuffs, etc. Damage, single target primarily, is what they should be outpacing casters at. And WotC seems to be giving martials a little more out of combat utility with skills, so that’s good. And probably all they need.
Casters can have the AOE (which might need reducing in some spells), crowd control and the buffing. But I do agree that casters may have a little too much, but I’m not sure if WotC will need, even slightly, their spells
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I also agree. But just like with casters there are a couple different playstyles for martials which they should excel at. But these playstyles should be different from those of casters. Here are some things I enjoy about martials:
1. Skirmishing -> being on/near the frontlines but weak enough that one critical hit from the BBEG could take you down. Having to balance risk vs opportunity for whether you choose to stay in melee to provide flanking or try to get an opportunity attack, or skedaddle out of there to protect yourself or lure an enemy where you want them to be. Also being the one who can get to that wizard in the enemy back line and take them out to stop the constant fireballs being chucked the whole party, but will you live to rejoin the party? Or will the enemies swarm you in revenge? And if one of them gets past your party's frontlines, being the one to dart back and save the squishy wizard from being splatted by a troll.
2. Frontlining -> running up to the biggest bad and standing in their face daring them to hit you, and punishing them if they choose not to. Then grinning and hacking them to bits.
3. Tag-teaming -> working together with your other martial buddy to flank and focus-fire down the biggest problems on the battlefield, or using grapples & shoves to make the most of the battlefield or your caster friend's spells.
My wishlist for martials would be:
1. A more interesting option than Disengage to break free from swarms of minions to go after the big bad. This could be a 5ft radius AoE shove option, it could be fixing up the DMG optional rules for shoving through/past enemies or tumbling through enemy spaces so that AoO against you are at disadvantage and it doesn't require your action.
2. More diversity in subclasses/builds. Barbarian and Monk is pretty good at this, but all the Rogues feel very same-y, Paladins are in the middle, and Fighter you've got EK and Rune that are good but Champion, Battlemaster, Cavalier and Samurai aren't all that different from each other. And FFS fix the rules so not everyone feels the need to wield a polearm (STR) or hand crossbow (DEX).
3. Better features in tier 3-4, Fighters, Rogues, Barbarians almost all MC before they hit level 10 because there just isn't anything all that interesting or powerful in their main class, nor their subclass.
it's not even that martials should step aside for casters in the realms of buff, debuff, cc, and aoe. it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see one martial class that could, for instance, grapple two foes at once. or another that eventually masters the art of swinging a big damn axe in a whirlwind to take out many token foes. no, the risky thing about adding something to each class so that no one goes without is that eventually all the classes are the same but with different skins on top. a 'grey goo scenario' but where everyone is a bard holding a different accessory.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
And I would leave that up to subclasses. And you can already grapple two foes at once (Astral Self could be particularly good at it)
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
The thing that's missing is a niche that martials can fill that a caster cannot. Need to cause damage? Everyone can do that. Need high survivability? Everyone can do that. Need skill checks? Everyone can do that. Need to travel fast, communicate instantly, recover from a lost limb or other terrible injury, get to the top of that sheer unclimbable surface, force someone to help you, control a crowd, etc.... sorry it's casters only.
" Need high survivability? Everyone can do that."
Loud silent laugh.
Sorry, I should footnote that to everyone but monks.
Nah, just replace "everyone" with "spellcasters".
I dunno about 'grey goo' being inevitable in that case; as long as different classes have different ways to fill similar niches then it shouldn't feel too samey. The balance to obtain is to ensure that no one class can do everything (at least not without preparation) so that it's easy for any mix of 3+ characters to cover all the bases and have a bit of overlap for when things get messy.
For example, on area damage; leave the big ranged blasts to casters, but there's absolutely room for some martial classes/sub-class to have "multiattack when surrounded" bonuses so they can cope with being overrun (or even encourage enemies to overrun them for that reason), just as we could do with more abilities for withstanding concentrated assault (i.e- when the dragon decides it's going to focus all of its efforts on the one target).
Currently only Hunter (a sub-class of a half caster) has these types of abilities, and while I don't want to step on Hunter's toes, these are abilities that I'm not sure should be exclusive to that sub-class.
On healing abilities mentioned earlier; one thing that's interesting is just how much helping an ally can cripple a martial's performance, as it takes an action to administer a potion, yet many casters can use healing word (at range) to revive an ally for only a bonus action. For a fighter or monk to do that they are giving up all of their offensive capability, and usually not leaving themselves much else to do on the turn. While the fighter can at least use action surge for this, that's still a pretty steep cost.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
okay, so what now with the monk? give them capability to fit into every martial role (tank, damage, bag of tricks, bonesaw doctor(?), etc...) or give all the other martials kamehameha blasts and water walking? or, giving consideration to specialties, should the base class have a discernible niche (skirmisher, wrestler, marathon running slap-fighter, bonus to humanoids, ninja stuff, etc.)?
so, what now with the monk??
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
We do have a subclass that can whirlwind and at least attack multiple token foes with Drunken Master Monk’s capstone. 7 attacks against 7 foes. They may not be wiping them out, but that isn’t new to monks. Steel Wind Strike has a similar feel for a Ranger or Bladesinger (though not a martial). If we would like WotC to flesh out those type of play styles for Martials I’m all for it.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?