Have you ever noticed how much the game just hates mundanes?

[TheCrowing1432]

Now, when I say this, Im talking about the game's RAW. Im not talking about optimization. Im just talking about the game as it is.

Now what do I mean by hating mundanes? Well.

DND is a magic game. The world is built by magic, the beings in it use magic in every day situations. Mundanes need magic items to keep up, and casters just use magic items to be better.

And again, im not talking about optimization, simply just having the ability to cast spells makes you so much better then someone who cant.

And the kicker is, spellcasters know almost everything there is to know about their craft, while mundanes dont.


Lets compare Wizard and Fighter, both of these classes are similar in that they are supposed to represent different ends of the spectrum. Wizard is everything arcane, and Fighter is everything martial.


How do these classes do what they do?

Wizards just exist. They get everything, from being a wizard. They add spells to their spellbook using time and money and skill checks, but besides that, everything is bundled in with being a wizard.

What do fighters get? Well you might argue they get everything they need to hit things with their weapons.

Well, you would be wrong. Fighters at their base barely get everything. Sure, all Simple/Martial Weapon Profiencies, Armors and Shields.

They can use them, yes. But, can a fighter throw a punch? Not out of the box. Can a fighter grab someone? Not out of the box. Can he shoot an arrow? Yes, but not very well.

Now what does he need for all this? Feats.


What do wizards have? Spells.

They cast Evocation. Can they cast transmutation? Yes, right away, Can they cast Necromancy? Yes right away.


See, what im trying to do here, is compare the different fighting styles to the different spell schools. It may not be the best comparison but it is similar in the sense that the magic schools are different options for the wizard and the different fighting styles are options for the fighter.

The difference is, the fighter is quite bad at all of these, while the wizard is automatically proficient.

I know fighters get plenty of feats, but I think its crap that they cant throw a punch correctly without one.

The whole "You need to get this feat or incur an AOO/get massive minuses" is such bullcrap.

Wizards are supposed to be the masters of spell casting, and they can cast any and all schools, each school is a different way of magic.

Fighters are supposed to be the masters of fighting, and they cant do that right. All they can do is swing their pointy stick and they cant even do that particularly well.

I just....ugh, I hate how mundanes get shafted with feat taxes on things I think they should just be able to do. Fighters should be able to FIGHT.


Tome of battle did push mundanes up in the world, but even the tome of battle classes still fall prey to needing all these prerequisite feats in order to grapple, bullrush, shoot an arrow, etc.

[It Sat Rap]

Here is my point of view: The Wizard is better in short-term, while the Fighter is better in longterm. Why? A Wizard can cast mighty spells, throw a fireball and roast a whole group of enemys. But they can do that only a few times per day. When a Wizard runs out of spells, he is pretty useless. Sure, there are magic items like scrolls and wands, but each of this items can only cast one specific spell, so they can't compensate the speel slots all the time, unless the character is suuuuuper rich and has a scroll of every spell at hand. The Fighter can't roast a whole group of enemys, but he is able to land hundrets of hits with his sword over the day. Every time the Wizard uses his magic, his character loses power for the rest of the day. The fighter doesn't have that problem, he is as strong at the end of the day as he was at the beginning.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Poppycock!

The game clearly loves casters far more, but you're seriously selling short mundanes if your entire argument amounts to "fighters suck."

First off, mundanes do more than just hit the bad guys with the pointies. Mundane characters can sneak and spy and break and enter and swindle and proseletyze and unless the target is inherently magical they can do all of these things just fine.

You complained about the need for items. Mundane characters need magic items to stay competitive from about level 7-8 onward. So what? It's expected that adventurers will become obscenely wealthy and that magic items will be readily available. If mundanes aren't getting gear its because the DM is screwing them, not the system. Nevermind there are often non-magical ways to access things typically associated with magic.

Btw, isn't it a little odd to use the class most able to shrug off feat taxes to complain about feat taxes? Though, of course, it's a one feat tax for beatsticks anyway; power attack. Anything past that is gravy. Skill monkeys don't even need power attack.

Finally, since your gripe seems to be mostly about martial characters rather than mundane ones, Tome of Battle is a thing. Whether you, personally, like it or dislike it; Tome of Battle showed martial characters a lot of love. Even dipping warblade or swordsage can eliminate a lot of the "feat tax" issue without putting any supernatural elements into a character.

So, no, I haven't noticed that the game hates "mundane" characters. What I've noticed is a lot of people complaining that playing a non-caster is harder than playing a caster if you don't know what you're doing with the former and you're passing familiar with the latter.

[Vaz]

Here is my point of view: The Wizard is better in short-term, while the Fighter is better in longterm. Why? A Wizard can cast mighty spells, throw a fireball and roast a whole group of enemys. But they can do that only a few times per day. When a Wizard runs out of spells, he is pretty useless. Sure, there are magic items like scrolls and wands, but each of this items can only cast one specific spell, so they can't compensate the speel slots all the time, unless the character is suuuuuper rich and has a scroll of every spell at hand. The Fighter can't roast a whole group of enemys, but he is able to land hundrets of hits with his sword over the day. Every time the Wizard uses his magic, his character loses power for the rest of the day. The fighter doesn't have that problem, he is as strong at the end of the day as he was at the beginning.

A fighter landing hundreds of hits is dependent on being able to survive lomg enough to do it. When said fighter is ECL20, and able to survive in melee thanks to his HP pool, armour bonus, saves etc, and can nearly instant hit any mook/adds it is fine. But at that same level, a Wizard is brutalizing foes with armies of Planar Bound Pit Fiends, Shadesteel Golems, Ice assassin/Simulacrums, Animated Dread Warriors that they'll have spent their spare slots and down time making, or making a Fell Drain 30 mile wide burst to turn an army into a Shambling self propogating horde.

When it comes to high level threats like Dragons or Angels, etc, a Mundane is outmatched. Certain builds like Uberchargers can do things like OHKO, provided that their target is on the ground, or not readied to dispel their magical flight or some such basic tactical counter, while their return damage can half a mundanes health can bestow a ton of deblitating status effects; such as Wis or Int damage, Sleep, Paralysis, Confusion, Entangle, all of which hit martials pretty hard.

In regards to the setting favouring magic:

A single Wis 12 Adept can provide the water needs of 14 other men with their spellcasting of 0 level spells.

That water would weigh 480lbs in waterskins for 3 days which split between 15 men is 32lbs per man. That is the majority of a normal humans light load capacity, which if they march, would limit them to 48miles rather than 72miles.

The existence of an Adept, who brings Knowledge, Heal and Handle Animal to the party allows a party to march a further 24 miles in the same period, as well as extending the distance travelled by a vast amount.

[NevinPL]

The game doesn't "hate mundanes", it's just simply high magic, heroic RPG, just like you wrote:


DND is a magic game. The world is built by magic, the beings in it use magic in every day situations. Mundanes need magic items to keep up, and casters just use magic items to be better.
So I don't really understand what's this about. Just venting ?

[Vaz]

Rewarding Casters is still penalizimg Mundanes.

[Dread_Head]

Here is my point of view: The Wizard is better in short-term, while the Fighter is better in longterm. Why? A Wizard can cast mighty spells, throw a fireball and roast a whole group of enemys. But they can do that only a few times per day. When a Wizard runs out of spells, he is pretty useless. Sure, there are magic items like scrolls and wands, but each of this items can only cast one specific spell, so they can't compensate the speel slots all the time, unless the character is suuuuuper rich and has a scroll of every spell at hand. The Fighter can't roast a whole group of enemys, but he is able to land hundrets of hits with his sword over the day. Every time the Wizard uses his magic, his character loses power for the rest of the day. The fighter doesn't have that problem, he is as strong at the end of the day as he was at the beginning.

A typical Fighter is going to be hit back during that time though and they will run out of hp long before a Wizard runs out of spells (once the wizard can cast third level spells or so). Plus as Vaz points out once a Wizard can cast certain spells then they can have permanent allies to fight for them (Dominate, Planar Binding, Animate Dead etc), spells that invalidate whole encounters and even spells which allow them to equal or outperform the Fighter at that combat role (Polymorph, Shapechange, etc.)

In response to the OP yes Wizards gain access to all their power through automatically granted spells alone and fighters have to spend limited resources (feats) to become competent at any role let alone all the roles they could play. This is before we get into the problem of what Wizards can do is just strictly better than what Fighters do. In my homebrew fix for fighters they gain any fighter feat as usual and on odd levels gain the ability to use combat manouevres or options based on them such as dungeoncrasher or certain tactical feats.

[Psyren]

And again, im not talking about optimization, simply just having the ability to cast spells makes you so much better then someone who cant.

This one is working as intended (overall anyway - there are exceptions), and makes sense for the game.



I just....ugh, I hate how mundanes get shafted with feat taxes on things I think they should just be able to do. Fighters should be able to FIGHT.

This however I can agree with - there are too many feat taxes on martial classes. I think we can make a better game where martials have more baseline tricks and techniques.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Rewarding Casters is still penalizimg Mundanes.

False.

A wizard being able to teleport or fling fireballs doesn't effect a fighter's ability to hit things with his sword with the obvious exception of trying to hit a wizard who can teleport.

The game rewards system mastery and it's simply a fact that the community has made mastering the spells subsystem dramatically easier than mastering the intersections of efficient and clever use of WBL and non-caster character building when it was already somewhat easier anyway. Seriously, when's the last time you saw a guide on WBL-omancy that wasn't centered around being an artificer or one detailing all the useful things that can be done with alchemy or engineering?

Playing a caster is for people who don't want to have to think beyond "what spell solves this problem?" or who want to play super chess +++.

Playing a non-caster is for people that want to play clever adventurers.

[Psyren]

I would argue that "what spell solves this problem" can require a great deal of cleverness too - particularly when you have limited spells known and your spells aren't perfectly suited to the problem(s) at hand.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I would argue that "what spell solves this problem" can require a great deal of cleverness too - particularly when you have limited spells known and your spells aren't perfectly suited to the problem(s) at hand.

True enough, though I might disagree with "great deal." Even a sorcerer will often have an option in his repetoire that's "good enough" and will turn the tide of things if it doesn't solve the problem outright. How many problems can't be at least mitigated by a well chosen summon or bit of shapechanging magic?

[Masakan]

This is why I play Gishes.

[Solaris]

This is why I play Gishes.

That, or a ToB character.
Or both.

[Nifft]

Yeah, use Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. It's awesome and the classes are martial, even if they could be argued to not be strictly mundane.


Regarding mundanes in other editions, the 1e Fighter had the best saves, and the Thief got more value per XP than any other class. Fighters could attack up to their level (!!!) in minion-type monsters each round. In 4e terms, they had aspects of Controllers who could clear the ground without spending the resources of a Wizard's Fireball.

Magic-Users leveled up slowly, and at high levels, they had to spend days re-preparing all their spells. Also, Magic-Users suffered heavily from suck-now-rule-later syndrome (which IMHO was a very poor balance mechanic, but still, it was an attempt).

IMHO 5e is moving in the right direction -- spells are more limited, skills are more valuable, and Fighters are pretty great at low level and high level -- but 3.5e can also play well, if you use the right palette of classes, which is NOT the Core classes.

[Draconium]

In regards to Tome of Battle, I would argue that the Warblade class, at least, is strictly mundane. Crusaders have that divine paladin-esque flavor, Swordsages have a ton of Supernatural maneuvers. Warblades have neither, last I checked. I would consider them the epitome of mundane classes.

But I must agree, spellcasting classes tend to be much more powerful than mundane classes. That's one of the largest problems with 3.5.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think we're missing TheCrowing's point here. No-one's denying that casters are, objectively, more powerful classes. The issue he's hinting at, I think, is a manifestation of the Guy at the Gym Fallacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303089-The-Guy-at-the-Gym-Fallacy): mundane characters must obey real-life limits, while magic characters do not.

In real life, it takes a huge amount of training to learn a new martial arts technique, and so mundane characters gain abilities slowly. But there aren't spells in real life, so casters can learn their stuff at whatever speed they want. There are only so many things one can do with a weapon in real life, so there are only a limited number of mundane combat options*. There's no limit to what we can imagine magic doing, so there are thousands of spells. A real guy can only jump so high, move so fast, resist so much. Magic? Magic can do whatever we want. And so there were two, competing design goals. Mundane classes were written to be, well, mundane. Close to reality. Magic classes were... not.

But even if you strip out magic, the rules for mundane stuff still get the short end of the stick. You cannot do things well without investment-- without it, you immediately run into a slew of penalties and AoOs, all in the name of "realism." And Pelor help you if you want to overcome them. Want to be an archer? Two feats, minimum-- and that's just to shoot an arrow, never mind getting your damage up to par. Want to grapple? Trip? Disarm? Two feats. I've seen some of the blame laid on the design of the Fighter, actually-- combat feats were designed from his perspective, rather than those of the poor schmuck who doesn't get a dozen bonus feats.

Noncombat stuff isn't any better. Want to be a good talker? Five skills to cover all your bases. Be a thief? Three, or five if you also want to be sneaky. Want to be a know-it-all? Eleven. And, of course, skills really only scale relative to each other. A 20th level master thief rolls a much higher number when trying to hide, but he still has pretty much the same limitations as a level 1 commoner.

That's the issue at hand. I don't know if "hate" is exactly the right word, but playing a mundane means constantly dealing with "you must be this tall to enter" signs. WotC got a lot better at this, to be sure-- compare the Warblade to the Fighter-- but the core issues are baked right into the Player's Handbook. And just because you can jump through the hoops with sufficient system mastery and/or DM sweet-talking doesn't mean they don't exist.


*And, thus, we'd better make sure they're not all equally viable from the get-go, so people can differentiate their characters by specializing

[Hal0Badger]

To me, the problem is feat-subsystem, when compared to the spell-subsystem, is quite weak. Let me elaborate:

If you are caster, only thing you need is leveling up and getting a certain caster level (with spells known progression of course) and having a relevant casting stat high enough. Example, if you wish to cast 3rd level cleric spells, you require 5th level cleric and 13 wisdom. There are almost no other prerequisites. Only restrictions you may have encounter are like forbidden schools, or alignment spells. You will not see a lines like these in moderate cure spells:
"A caster must able to cast cure light wounds, to be able cast Cure Moderate Wounds."
"A caster must have 13 constitution score, to be able cast Cure Moderate Wounds."

A quick research on a "certain site", yields 300+ results for "only 3rd level cleric spells". Assuming half of this, are same spells from different resources or 3.0 version spells, it drops to 150 choices, just for level 3 spells.

When you move onto the feat-sub system, you will realize it is not as easy as this. Lets inspect "Whirlwind Attack" :
Prerequisites : Combat expertise (which means 13+ int), dodge(which also means 13+dex), mobility, spring attack, BAB +4

Dodge, as a feat (something you gain every 3 levels) gives +1 AC bonus against 1 enemy you designate. Mobility is not any better. The thing is, these only exist as "feat-taxes". Only mobility "slightly" snyergises with Whirlwind attack, only when you try to get into position. Other than that, none of these actually tied to a whirlwind attack. BAB +4 means, you need at least 4 level. I am not even talking about the fact you need to take 4 feats before taking this feat, which means, if no flaws allowed and "if you are not human", you can get this at 12 level.

I will admit, whirlwind attack has one of the worst preq. ever, and there are actually very good feats as well, which gives mundanes options, even if it is not their turn. Examples of these: Shock trooper(not just -AC for PA, it enhances bullrush GREATLY) and elusive target(even with feat-taxes, this is a very good feat). However, a fighter, as a class which focuses on the use of feat-subsystem, has an option of choosing from "230 feats" for his entire 20 level progression, same research done by the "certain site". And I did not exclude the same feats from different sources, or 3.0-3.5 feats mix-up, so number will decrease. What is worse, this list filled with things like "weapon focus, dodge, mobility", and they are prerequisites. You cannot skip those unnecessary and bad feats, if you wish to get some of the good feats, unlike a wizard who can skip the bad spells he does not want to use and directly go the ones that suits him best.

Skill system, is not any better. You have diplomacy? A caster has charm, or even better, dominate person/monsters.
You have jump? A caster flies. At level 3, if he is a wizard.
You can fall from high places and take no damage because of your tumble and jump skills, or your abilities like slow-fall? A wizard can fall down from there as well, probably even much more higher than that.
You have survival to hunt for food, track enemies? A caster has spells like create food-water, and scrying abilities.

Did I mention, casters also uses this feat and skill subsystem as well?

But don't worry, they can do it limited time per day. But a fighter can swing his sword as much as he wants right? Or at least, as long as he is alive.

Long story short, we need more "fun feats" like Shock Trooper, Elusive Target, Weapon style feats etc etc. and make those preq. feats not "feat-taxes", but something actually usefull and better. +1 to AC or Attack roll, gets very very boring as soon as you hit level 3.

[BowStreetRunner]

I think what the OP is getting at is where a fighter needs one feat to be effective at two-weapon fighting, another to be effective at tripping, another to be effective at disarming, etc. the wizard is effective at every school of magic without needing additional feats. Consider a system where wizards each get a single school of magic to start and it costs them a feat to purchase each additional school of magic. If they choose school specialization that is an additional feat that also precludes some other school feats. Sure, wizards have meta-magic feats and item creation feats already, but what I got out of the original post is that the OP just feels the wizard gets too much handed to them pre-feat-tax compared to the non-caster classes. This applies to any caster versus non-caster. The point is that if the caster classes all needed to take more feats just to get the full benefit of their spell list it would be more like what mundane classes have to deal with.

That's just what I take away from the post. A couple of ideas off the top of my head to accomplish this:

As I said before, one school of magic free and a feat to purchase each additional school.
A feat to pick up school specialization, complete with the limitation of prohibited schools.
Standard spell ranges are halved and it takes a feat to use spells at the full range.
A feat would be needed to cast with one hand. The default would be two hands free for all casting.

[Psyren]

I think we're missing TheCrowing's point here. No-one's denying that casters are, objectively, more powerful classes. The issue he's hinting at, I think, is a manifestation of the Guy at the Gym Fallacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303089-The-Guy-at-the-Gym-Fallacy): mundane characters must obey real-life limits, while magic characters do not.

*rolls eyes to the ceiling*

Every time I see that fallacy invoked we end up with people claiming thieves should be able to rearrange atoms or fighters should be able to flex corpses back to life or other ridiculousness.

Are martial (not mundane) characters a bit too heavily limited and lacking in interesting options both in and out of combat? Yes, I can get behind that; that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Should they be capable of "Ex Magic" and able to duplicate anything casters can do? Absolutely not.

[Grod_The_Giant]

*rolls eyes to the ceiling*

Every time I see that fallacy invoked we end up with people claiming thieves should be able to rearrange atoms or fighters should be able to flex corpses back to life or other ridiculousness.

Are martial (not mundane) characters a bit too heavily limited and lacking in interesting options both in and out of combat? Yes, I can get behind that; that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Should they be capable of "Ex Magic" and able to duplicate anything casters can do? Absolutely not.
And that's certainly going to far in the opposite direction. But when mundanes go zero to Conan and casters go zero to Dr. Strange, we have a significant problem. "Ex Magic" is a dumb idea, and somewhat of a straw man. But we can certainly pick better role models for high-level mundanes-- Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Rama, even superheroes. A high level mundane should at least be able to do things like jump onto a dragon's back while it's in flight, hide in the split-second while you blink, tear down the city gates with his bare hands, and similar such feats. Give me monks who can dance between showers of arrows and cripple enemies with a single touch. Give me barbarians who can wrestle giants, rogues who can walk invisibly through a crowded room, swashbucklers who can run up walls and turn enemies into allies with a word. In other words, give me non-casters who can do more at higher levels then they could at low.


That's just what I take away from the post. A couple of ideas off the top of my head to accomplish this:

As I said before, one school of magic free and a feat to purchase each additional school.
A feat to pick up school specialization, complete with the limitation of prohibited schools.
Standard spell ranges are halved and it takes a feat to use spells at the full range.
A feat would be needed to cast with one hand. The default would be two hands free for all casting.

And maybe another feat for defensive casting. And possibly yet another for scaling save DCs for each school (ie, from 10+ability mod to 10+spell level+ability mod), although that might be going to far. And to counterbalance,

Remove AoOs from everything but casting and movement.
Grant all generic prerequisite/gateway feats for free at BAB +1. (Combat Expertise, Dodge, Improved Shield Bash, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility, Power Attack, Point Blank Shot, and Precise Shot).
Grant obvious follow-up feats for free. (Ex, if you take TWF, you get Improved TWF at level 6, Greater at level 11, and so on)

[Curmudgeon]

The game doesn't "hate mundanes", it's just simply high magic, heroic RPG ...
No, the game does hate mundanes. A level 20 Fighter attacking a straw training dummy will ordinarily miss 5% of all attacks. That demonstrates active hate on the part of the game designers. Do 5% of all spellcasting attempts fail? No, because spellcasters aren't hated.

Here's my proposal to equalize things.

If a 20th level Fighter attacking a training dummy misses 5% of all swings, the minimum chance of failure to cast any spell is also going to be 5%. This is separate from Arcane Spell Failure; it applies to all spellcasters, independent of whether they cast arcane or divine spells. It's simply an integral failure mechanic for spellcasting.

When a Fighter gets additional swings, the chances of missing in a round increase, and so should the chances of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard failing to cast a spell. The formula for spellcasting success is 19/20 = 95% for spell levels which are available to those primary spellcasters at class levels 1-5, (19/20)^2 = 90% for spells which first become available at class levels 6-10, (19/20)^3 = 86% for spells which first become available at levels 11-15, and (19/20)^4 = 81% for spells which are only available at levels 16+. That leads to the table below. When attempting to cast a spell, roll percentile dice; the spell is not cast if you fail to roll the required success percentage or less:

spell level 0-3: 95% success rate
spell level 4-5: 90%
spell level 6-8: 86%
spell level 9+: 81%
Note that the spell *isn't* wasted; the Fighter doesn't lose their sword when they fail to hit, and the spellcaster doesn't lose their spell when they fail to cast it on the above table; the cost is purely in the actions. Using items of spell completion (scrolls) or spell trigger (wands and staffs) is considered spellcasting (per the Dungeon Master's Guide), so roll to see if you succeed for those also. Activation of those items with Use Magic Device follows the same rule; if you don't succeed on the percentile roll then there's simply no result. Consuming potions isn't considered spellcasting, so they work as normal.

[Masakan]

No, the game does hate mundanes. A level 20 Fighter attacking a straw training dummy will ordinarily miss 5% of all attacks. That demonstrates active hate on the part of the game designers. Do 5% of all spellcasting attempts fail? No, because spellcasters aren't hated.

Here's my proposal to equalize things.

If a 20th level Fighter attacking a training dummy misses 5% of all swings, the minimum chance of failure to cast any spell is also going to be 5%. This is separate from Arcane Spell Failure; it applies to all spellcasters, independent of whether they cast arcane or divine spells. It's simply an integral failure mechanic for spellcasting.

When a Fighter gets additional swings, the chances of missing in a round increase, and so should the chances of a Cleric/Druid/Wizard failing to cast a spell. The formula for spellcasting success is 19/20 = 95% for spell levels which are available to those primary spellcasters at class levels 1-5, (19/20)^2 = 90% for spells which first become available at class levels 6-10, (19/20)^3 = 86% for spells which first become available at levels 11-15, and (19/20)^4 = 81% for spells which are only available at levels 16+. That leads to the table below. When attempting to cast a spell, roll percentile dice; the spell is not cast if you fail to roll the required success percentage or less:

spell level 0-3: 95% success rate
spell level 4-5: 90%
spell level 6-8: 86%
spell level 9+: 81%
Note that the spell *isn't* wasted; the Fighter doesn't lose their sword when they fail to hit, and the spellcaster doesn't lose their spell when they fail to cast it on the above table; the cost is purely in the actions. Using items of spell completion (scrolls) or spell trigger (wands and staffs) is considered spellcasting (per the Dungeon Master's Guide), so roll to see if you succeed for those also. Activation of those items with Use Magic Device follows the same rule; if you don't succeed on the percentile roll then there's simply no result. Consuming potions isn't considered spellcasting, so they work as normal.

You do realize stuff like orb spells and Ray spells and stuff can still miss right? So for anyone wanting to play a blaster you wanna tack on a 5% chance to fail ON TOP of a 5% chance to miss?

[Doc_Maynot]

You do realize stuff like orb spells and Ray spells and stuff can still miss right? So for anyone wanting to play a blaster you wanna tack on a 5% chance to fail ON TOP of a 5% chance to miss?

At the same time, one can easily run a spellcaster that never rolls to attack. I know I've had to when a DM of mine had crazy crit fumble rules.

[Flickerdart]

The difference between casters and mundanes is pretty much this: mundane abilities make them better at playing by the rules, but spells make casters better at breaking the rules. Mundanes are good at getting high numbers when making checks that anyone can make. But when the other guy straight up doesn't need to make those checks, your numbers are pointless.

[Masakan]

At the same time, one can easily run a spellcaster that never rolls to attack. I know I've had to when a DM of mine had crazy crit fumble rules.

That doesn't make it any more fair.

[Nifft]

At the same time, one can easily run a spellcaster that never rolls to attack. I know I've had to when a DM of mine had crazy crit fumble rules.

Heh, too true.

There's a helpful thread on this forum about no-hit, no-save, no-SR spells.

- - -

Then 4e came along, and spellcaters had to roll to hit.

... but the 4e Lazy Warlord, a pure mundane Martial character, could attack using other characters and never lift her own sword.

Truly, the world was different.

[Psyren]

And that's certainly going to far in the opposite direction. But when mundanes go zero to Conan and casters go zero to Dr. Strange, we have a significant problem. "Ex Magic" is a dumb idea, and somewhat of a straw man. But we can certainly pick better role models for high-level mundanes-- Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Rama, even superheroes. A high level mundane should at least be able to do things like jump onto a dragon's back while it's in flight, hide in the split-second while you blink, tear down the city gates with his bare hands, and similar such feats. Give me monks who can dance between showers of arrows and cripple enemies with a single touch. Give me barbarians who can wrestle giants, rogues who can walk invisibly through a crowded room, swashbucklers who can run up walls and turn enemies into allies with a word. In other words, give me non-casters who can do more at higher levels then they could at low.

But we can already build martials that can do all of those things :smallconfused:

- Jump on dragon's back -> Readied action
- Hide while you blink -> HiPS
- Tear down gates -> Str check
- Dance between showers of arrows -> AC
- Wrestle Giants -> You mean the CR 5 ones or the CR 7 ones?
- Stealth through crowd -> HiPS again
- Run up walls -> Climb speed
- Turn enemies into allies -> Diplomancer, but honestly, this shouldn't be possible unless the foe in question was wavering already. Otherwise it's just compulsion by another name.



... but the 4e Lazy Warlord, a pure mundane Martial character, could attack using other characters and never lift her own sword.

Truly, the world was different.

3.5 Roy: "You... you mean they actually listen to you??"
4e Roy: "Sometimes I make them attack rocks by the side of the road. Just because I can."

[squiggit]

I think the thing that always bugged me about it even more than balance was the way feats are applied. It always sort of felt like my wizard was taking feats that just made him better while about half of my feats on more mundane characters were just there to make him functional.

Sure, my conjuration specialist wizard who took feats to make his summons as good as possible puts out some awesome monsters, but my diviner who didn't have augment summoning or the like could still cast summon monster and make scary things happen. That couldn't be said for my power attacking greatsword fighter deciding he wants to pick up a crossbow or start trying to trip people without investment and I always hated that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

RE guy at the gym fallacy;

Non-casters leave reality behind by level 8. The problem is not that the system expects non-casters to be limited to rality but that players do so.

Let's take a human fighter 8 that started with str 15, con 14, and and has no magical equipment.

Max ranks in jump means that, with a running start he can jump to a point where his feet are 6 feet off the ground while he's carrying 86lbs (39kg) and/or clear a 24ft gap both without rolling. Both of these are approaching world record jumps while carrying half-again your body weight when the athletes that set those records were just this side of nude. If he rolls for it he can match the high jump record and beat the long jump record by as much as several feet.

He could also run a marathon while carying as much as 260lbs (118kg) every day, without fail. Even twice a day, if he so chose.

He can also shove a solid stone block weighing just over half a metric ton off of the road if one were blocking the way for his carriage.

Mundane, indeed.

Now let's talk about the "feat tax" for being "competent" at the special combat maneuvers.

Imp grapple doesn't just make you a competent grappler. It makes our 8th level fighter competent enough to engage a freaking brown bear on it's own terms. If you prefer something a tad more even in the CR:Level department, a third level fighter with imp grapple is about even with an ogre, the ogre having a slight advantage. In both cases the fighter is naked of magical boosts and entirely human while his foes are armed beasts that outweigh him by double.

Imp trip has you on a level to knock down quadrupeds of your same size and strength or the same size and as quick on their feet as you are strong.

IUS doesn't just let you fist fight competently. It let's you fight armed and armored foes who have a greater (non-mechanical) reach and steel plates around their vitals on equal terms with your bare hands.

These aren't just feats in the mechanical sense. They are feats of martial prowess that go beyond competence right into preternatural degrees of skill.

A fighter can do all of these things and more. There's nothing mundane about them and that's why I generally refuse to use the term when discussing non-casters. The worst part, though, is that this is mid and low level stuff. At level 20 with only power attack a fighter can turn an iron-banded oak door to splinters by punching it for everything he's worth just once and can club down an inch thick iron door with a broken table leg without any magical assistance and his barbarian buddy (same starting setup) could pickup and hurl an economy sedan 50 feet.

It's really quite sensible that someone who wants to wrestle with dragons should have to dedicate himself to being superhumanly good at grappling. If the goal, however, is just to be able to kill the damned wyrm, tools and weapons are your friends. Being competent isn't that hard. Being a special snowflake takes effort. Being superhuman just comes with the job if you make it to mid level.

[Curmudgeon]

You do realize stuff like orb spells and Ray spells and stuff can still miss right? So for anyone wanting to play a blaster you wanna tack on a 5% chance to fail ON TOP of a 5% chance to miss?
Yes, that's exactly what I want: sometimes the casting of a spell will be delayed.

[TheCrowing1432]

I think what the OP is getting at is where a fighter needs one feat to be effective at two-weapon fighting, another to be effective at tripping, another to be effective at disarming, etc. the wizard is effective at every school of magic without needing additional feats. Consider a system where wizards each get a single school of magic to start and it costs them a feat to purchase each additional school of magic. If they choose school specialization that is an additional feat that also precludes some other school feats. Sure, wizards have meta-magic feats and item creation feats already, but what I got out of the original post is that the OP just feels the wizard gets too much handed to them pre-feat-tax compared to the non-caster classes. This applies to any caster versus non-caster. The point is that if the caster classes all needed to take more feats just to get the full benefit of their spell list it would be more like what mundane classes have to deal with.

That's just what I take away from the post. A couple of ideas off the top of my head to accomplish this:

As I said before, one school of magic free and a feat to purchase each additional school.
A feat to pick up school specialization, complete with the limitation of prohibited schools.
Standard spell ranges are halved and it takes a feat to use spells at the full range.
A feat would be needed to cast with one hand. The default would be two hands free for all casting.



And that's certainly going to far in the opposite direction. But when mundanes go zero to Conan and casters go zero to Dr. Strange, we have a significant problem. "Ex Magic" is a dumb idea, and somewhat of a straw man. But we can certainly pick better role models for high-level mundanes-- Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Rama, even superheroes. A high level mundane should at least be able to do things like jump onto a dragon's back while it's in flight, hide in the split-second while you blink, tear down the city gates with his bare hands, and similar such feats. Give me monks who can dance between showers of arrows and cripple enemies with a single touch. Give me barbarians who can wrestle giants, rogues who can walk invisibly through a crowded room, swashbucklers who can run up walls and turn enemies into allies with a word. In other words, give me non-casters who can do more at higher levels then they could at low.


And maybe another feat for defensive casting. And possibly yet another for scaling save DCs for each school (ie, from 10+ability mod to 10+spell level+ability mod), although that might be going to far. And to counterbalance,

Remove AoOs from everything but casting and movement.
Grant all generic prerequisite/gateway feats for free at BAB +1. (Combat Expertise, Dodge, Improved Shield Bash, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility, Power Attack, Point Blank Shot, and Precise Shot).
Grant obvious follow-up feats for free. (Ex, if you take TWF, you get Improved TWF at level 6, Greater at level 11, and so on)



I think we're missing TheCrowing's point here. No-one's denying that casters are, objectively, more powerful classes. The issue he's hinting at, I think, is a manifestation of the Guy at the Gym Fallacy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303089-The-Guy-at-the-Gym-Fallacy): mundane characters must obey real-life limits, while magic characters do not.

In real life, it takes a huge amount of training to learn a new martial arts technique, and so mundane characters gain abilities slowly. But there aren't spells in real life, so casters can learn their stuff at whatever speed they want. There are only so many things one can do with a weapon in real life, so there are only a limited number of mundane combat options*. There's no limit to what we can imagine magic doing, so there are thousands of spells. A real guy can only jump so high, move so fast, resist so much. Magic? Magic can do whatever we want. And so there were two, competing design goals. Mundane classes were written to be, well, mundane. Close to reality. Magic classes were... not.

But even if you strip out magic, the rules for mundane stuff still get the short end of the stick. You cannot do things well without investment-- without it, you immediately run into a slew of penalties and AoOs, all in the name of "realism." And Pelor help you if you want to overcome them. Want to be an archer? Two feats, minimum-- and that's just to shoot an arrow, never mind getting your damage up to par. Want to grapple? Trip? Disarm? Two feats. I've seen some of the blame laid on the design of the Fighter, actually-- combat feats were designed from his perspective, rather than those of the poor schmuck who doesn't get a dozen bonus feats.

Noncombat stuff isn't any better. Want to be a good talker? Five skills to cover all your bases. Be a thief? Three, or five if you also want to be sneaky. Want to be a know-it-all? Eleven. And, of course, skills really only scale relative to each other. A 20th level master thief rolls a much higher number when trying to hide, but he still has pretty much the same limitations as a level 1 commoner.

That's the issue at hand. I don't know if "hate" is exactly the right word, but playing a mundane means constantly dealing with "you must be this tall to enter" signs. WotC got a lot better at this, to be sure-- compare the Warblade to the Fighter-- but the core issues are baked right into the Player's Handbook. And just because you can jump through the hoops with sufficient system mastery and/or DM sweet-talking doesn't mean they don't exist.


*And, thus, we'd better make sure they're not all equally viable from the get-go, so people can differentiate their characters by specializing


These guys get what I was saying and they said the problems better then I could.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Now let's talk about the "feat tax" for being "competent" at the special combat maneuvers.
But without the Improved feat, you get smacked in the face for attempting it. That's pretty damn incompetent if you ask me.


These aren't just feats in the mechanical sense. They are feats of martial prowess that go beyond competence right into preternatural degrees of skill.
Being able to deal with guys in armor is bare minimum competence for a martial artist adventurer. Being able to use your shtick on larger foes (ie, a significant portion of the monster manual) is pretty necessary for an adventurer.

[TheCrowing1432]

Yes, that's exactly what I want: sometimes the casting of a spell will be delayed.

But more often then not, it wont be. Most monsters have low touch AC and casters can boost their dexterity in order to get their ranged touch attack up, or hell, use true strike.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I never realized how bad the bias against mundanes was until I started DM'ing a long-standing campaign, rather than just being a player. Because it goes so far beyond just how broken spells are, or how expensive (and tough to specifically find) magic arms and armor are compared to the inexpensive scrolls, wands, and staves and how ubiquitously useful they are to anyone capable of casting that spell (compare: wizard finds a scroll of Fly; "ooh that's handy, I'll be sure to use that some time" VS. fighter finds a magic weapon with the keen property; "ooh, I want that! but it's otherwise worse than my current weapon, it's not the type of weapon I want to use, and there's no way to just transfer over its 'keen-ness' cheaply, so...crap.")

No, I mean even deeper into the rules than that. As a DM, I've tried to find different encounters, enemies, and situations to be challenging to different segments of the party. And it's just ludicrous how much bias there is in the monsters and the conditions table!
Lots of monster special attacks boil down to "don't get close, or it sucks to be you!" and many qualities like DR, sheer size or lack of weapons use (shuts down most/all combat maneuver options), spiky or slimy bodies that make you pay for striking them, incorporeality, etc... will just make a warrior's day miserable. There's pretty much nothing like this for casters, the best you can do is SR and high saves, maybe some immunities. But it's still easy for a caster to use a spell to laugh such things off. Take swarms in particular. Wow, do they hose over martials! Some are just plain immune to their entire schtick! Where's the mage equivalent creature to swarms? Golems? You've gotta be freaking joking, golems tend to be harder for melee to deal with (big size, good grapple mod, reach, high DR, high AC, sometimes "FU for getting close!" stuff like Iron Golem's short ranged free action poison gas) than they are for mages, who can just use orbs and glitterdust to trivialize them, and unless its a closet troll situation, often can be totally safe with a simple fly spell.
Then there's conditions. Name me one that's objectively worse for a caster (not just equally bad, like being stunned or dazed or paralyzed, though w/ the right metamagic a caster can actually overcome some of those, too). Please. I struggled so much to find some, I ended up buffing some martial-biased conditions to screw over mages, too. Let's go through them, in fact.
Ability damaged / drained: Equally bad. Taking hits to casting stat can be very bad for a mage, but on the other hand, warriors have more than 1 ability that would severely cripple them if affected, due to MAD.
Blinded: Warriors can't AoO, mages can't use targeted spells. Losing dex-based AC hurts martials more since casters will have mirror image, concealment, etc... up as their main defense. Warriors have to pick a square and pray they're right, casters can fall back on area effects. Worse for martials.
Blown Away, Checked, and Knocked Down: Equally bad, has nothing to do w/ class or stats. It is much easier for a mage to enlarge himself w/ polymorphing to not be affected, though. Knocked Down is slightly worse for martials.
Confused: Equally bad. Only aspect that's unique is attacking nearest creature. If a caster, that could get you killed but more likely than not the closest thing is an ally b/c you're away from the enemies (and your melee won't kill the ally). If a martial, there's a high chance you'll murder an ally.
Cowering: Equally bad.
Dazed: Equally bad.
Dazzled: Worse for martials, but it's hardly a penalty at all.
Dead: I'm pretty sure casters are the only ones able to cheese the rules for being dead. (Slightly) Worse for martials.
Deafened: Yay, one that's worse for casters! Like dazzled, it's not that big a penalty, though.
Disabled: Worse for martials. They rely on full attacks, casters only need a standard. Casters are also more likely to be able to use the standard to heal themselves out of being disabled, or teleport to the nearest temple of [insert friendly deity].
Dying: Equally bad. Casters might have a contingency for the situation.
Energy drained: Worse for martials, those penalties will eat up their effectiveness much faster than losing a spell will for a mage since they get dozens of them. Now, I interpret the negative level to affect caster level (and initiator, manifester, etc..) and thus it can quickly shut off access to higher spell levels due to not meeting min. CL requirements, making energy drain clearly worse for casters. But it seems most do NOT see it that way.
Entangled: Casters don't need to approach their foes. Worse for martials.
Exhausted and Fatigued: Do casters even care? Worse for martials.
Fascinated: Equally bad.
Flatfooted: Worse for martials, they care more about AC and far more about AoOs.
Frightened, Panicked, and Turned: Hmm...Casters are less upset about putting distance between themselves and foes, and the conditions let them use magic to get away faster/safer, making it seem less bad for them. On the other hand, IME the effect of fear is usually the PCs desperately trying to find any loophole ("I run by you...dude, AoO trip or grapple me!") they can to NOT get far away from the rest of the party, cause that's just a pain in the ass to regroup. So...equally bad?
Grappling and Pinned: Worse for martials. Casters almost all have escape/immunity options, melee just has to try and match that T-Rex's grapple score....good luck. Also, the DC to cast while grappled (verbal only spells, granted) isn't that hard. But your 2H or 1H weapons are just plain shut DOWN.
Helpless: Depending on how you're helpless, either equally bad or worse for martials.
Incorporeal: Worse for martials to deal with; easier for casters to make use of.
Invisible: As above.
Nauseated: Equally bad.
Paralyzed: MUCH worse for martials.
Petrified: Equally bad, though mages could easily have countermeasures.
Shaken: Worse for martials.
Sickened: Do casters even care? Worse for martials.
Stable: Equally bad.
Staggered: MUCH worse for martials.
Stunned: Equally bad, though dropping things is likely worse for martials.
Unconscious: Equally bad.
EDIT: Slowed isn't listed in the condition summary but is fairly common. And is definitely worse for martials.

[Troacctid]

Negative levels are worse for casters, I think.

[Kelb_Panthera]

But without the Improved feat, you get smacked in the face for attempting it. That's pretty damn incompetent if you ask me.

No, that's what happens when you try to do something that requires specialized training that you don't have. Wrestling dragons and tripping giant centipedes isn't competent. It's extraordinary. Being able to stab or bludgeon them to death with an implement designed for stabbing or bludgeoning is competent and that only takes one feat to do reliably if you don't have a source of bonus damage and insist on doing so personally instead of engineering a solution.


Being able to deal with guys in armor is bare minimum competence for a martial artist adventurer. Being able to use your shtick on larger foes (ie, a significant portion of the monster manual) is pretty necessary for an adventurer.

The highlighted is the problem. The insistence on having some kind of schtick is what makes these things difficult. Weapons were made to penetrate armor and weapons don't care how big or small you are.

Fun fact: most martial artists will tell you in no uncertain terms, "if your opponent has a weapon and you don't, you are at a disadvantage. Either find a weapon or flee. Only try to engage an armed foe unarmed if you have no alternative." The monk, the class intended to be the quintessential martial artist adventurer (failure in that regard aside,) has a list of weapons with which he is proficient beacause martial artists in real life use weapons. That their unarmed strike is just as good is a schtick that was tacked on because "kung fu movies."

Also of note, a one level dip in monk gets you -better- than the IUS feat, imp grapple, and an AC bonus if you'd like to try going unarmored as well as unarmed. A second level gets you another martial artist appropriate feat and evasion. That feat tax you're complaining about looks rather cheap to me.

Trying to build a good warrior without multiclassing is like trying to build something cool with only one type of lego brick. It can be done but why would you limit yourself that way?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Negative levels are worse for casters, I think.

Why? There's plenty of spells where caster level doesn't matter or barely matters for determining the effect. But a bunch of minuses to attack rolls and skill and ability checks (like tripping) will definitely hurt a martial. Losing your most high level spells does suck, but you still will have plenty more at lower levels. It's definitely bad for anyone, but I don't think it's especially bad for casters as written. Once they lose access to entire spell levels, as I interpret it, then it becomes incredibly bad for them.

[squiggit]

Wrestling dragons and tripping giant centipedes isn't competent. It's extraordinary.
When you're level 8 and the giant centipede is CR8 then no, not really.


The insistence on having some kind of schtick is what makes these things difficult.
It's not an insistence, it's a component of the game. Martial characters have to specialize.

[Masakan]

This is why I will never understand why some tables still ban the tome of battle, or don't allow multiclassing or if they do implement the XP penalties.
Mundanes already have it rough enough ok? Why ban the few things that allow them to keep up with their caster counterparts?

[Kelb_Panthera]

When you're level 8 and the giant centipede is CR8 then no, not really.
Why are you trying to trip it instead of just making with the face stabbings already? Also, it has dozens of legs and can twist along its entire length. Yes, tripping it very much is an extraordinary feat. It's extraordinary to the point that you would question if it should be possible at all, given the physiology of the creature you're trying to trip. Nevermind that each of those legs is bigger than your torso (closest matches are gargantuan fiendish centipede and colossal not-fiendish centiped, CR's 8 & 9 respectively.) Even if we drop that to the more reasonable centipede of your own size, success is not assured even though it's CR is 1/2 and it shouldn't be. You're trying to do something absurd.


It's not an insistence, it's a component of the game. Martial characters have to specialize.

Nonsense. Stupid fighters have to specialize. Fighters that only ever fight in plain, clean, open fields have to specialize. Fighters who play with DM's committed to the "martials can't have nice things" mentality have to specialize.

Clever fighters know they can't prepare for everything and that no one trick will be useful in every encounter. They either learn to use what's at hand; be it terrain features, allies, an assortment of odd magic, alchemical, and mundane items from his pack, or even an intelligent foe's own mind; to solve problems or they die horribly.

Part of the problem stems from op boards like this and others insisting that anything less than absolute minimal failure chance at anything a character is "supposed to do" is unacceptable incompetence. If you set the bar that high, everything looks incompetent. Even more so when you disregard nebulous but relevant factors such as where an encounter takes place and a player's familiarity with controlling the flow of a situation both in and out of combat.

I'm not denying for a moment that running a non-caster is more difficult on several levels than playing a caster. What I take issue with is the idea that the system's bias in favor of casters is also bias against non-casters.

Hells, the expected wealth gain described in the DMG accounts for nearly double the expected WBL. Even if you -never- find a piece of gear you want, you should still be able to afford most of what you need after returning to civilization.

[Vaz]

False.

A wizard being able to teleport or fling fireballs doesn't effect a fighter's ability to hit things with his sword with the obvious exception of trying to hit a wizard who can teleport.

The game rewards system mastery and it's simply a fact that the community has made mastering the spells subsystem dramatically easier than mastering the intersections of efficient and clever use of WBL and non-caster character building when it was already somewhat easier anyway. Seriously, when's the last time you saw a guide on WBL-omancy that wasn't centered around being an artificer or one detailing all the useful things that can be done with alchemy or engineering?

Playing a caster is for people who don't want to have to think beyond "what spell solves this problem?" or who want to play super chess +++.

Playing a non-caster is for people that want to play clever adventurers.

Cast spells and win, don't cast spells and suffer isn't rewarding Casters?

Okay mate.

[Draconium]

Cast spells and win, don't cast spells and suffer isn't rewarding Casters?

Okay mate.

I think the argument is that penalizing mundane/martial characters =/= rewarding casters. They are two different problems.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Kelb-- So-- if I understand this correctly-- you're saying that:

It's unreasonable to expect martial characters to succeed at combat actions other than full attacks.
You should need to devote build resources towards gaining the "superhuman" ability to do stuff to level-appropriate enemies?
and
You should be able to improvise and use clever tactics when face stabbing doesn't work?

Because I have to say... that doesn't jive. And don't give me anything about clever use of terrain and alchemical items and WBLmancy and all, because everyone can do that. Such things are class-independent. You don't get to compare an expertly-played fighter to a poorly-played wizard and say that the classes are equal.


Fun fact: most martial artists will tell you in no uncertain terms,
Guy. At. The. Gym. Fallacy. Just because something is impractical in real life doesn't mean it needs to be in a fantasy game. The unarmed warrior-- be he brute-force brawler or kung-fu master-- is a well established trope, and it damn well should be possible. I mean, come on-- name one iconic fantasy warrior who you'd expect to get stabbed in the face whenever he tries to throw a punch.


Trying to build a good warrior without multiclassing is like trying to build something cool with only one type of lego brick. It can be done but why would you limit yourself that way?
And yet, you can make a wizard 20 with one book-- any book, really-- and it will be, at minimum, a fairly effective and versatile character. You can choose random goddamn spells and you'll have more options-- and probably more effective options-- than a mundane. A problem that can be fixed through system mastery is still a problem.

[Hal0Badger]

Now let's talk about the "feat tax" for being "competent" at the special combat maneuvers.

I have no problem Improved trip requiring a feat.

I do have problem, Combat Expertise listed preq. for Improved tip. Heck, combat expertise can even be useful

One of the weapon styles I like , is "High Sword Low Axe", which allows a free trip attempt if you hit both of your weapons. Cool, though it requires 2 feats: Weapon Fcous (sword), Weapon Focus (axe). This alone, delays getting this feat, 6 levels if you are not a fighter. Even if you are fighter, it may delay 2 levels.

This kind of feat tax I hate. Feats are not so easily come by, and martial feats should not be balanced around a fighter, so a barbarian or rogue should not have to multi-class into a fighter if he wishes to have a couple of more martial tricks.

[Masakan]

I have no problem Improved trip requiring a feat.

I do have problem, Combat Expertise listed preq. for Improved tip. Heck, combat expertise can even be useful

One of the weapon styles I like , is "High Sword Low Axe", which allows a free trip attempt if you hit both of your weapons. Cool, though it requires 2 feats: Weapon Fcous (sword), Weapon Focus (axe). This alone, delays getting this feat, 6 levels if you are not a fighter. Even if you are fighter, it may delay 2 levels.

This kind of feat tax I hate. Feats are not so easily come by, and martial feats should not be balanced around a fighter, so a barbarian or rogue should not have to multi-class into a fighter if he wishes to have a couple of more martial tricks.

Ironically despite how boring it is, fighter is one of the only base martial classes that has stood the test of time, just because of how many free feats it gets. In fact most of the martial feats made was probbaly made with the fighter in mind

[BowStreetRunner]

Let's just assume for a minute that they actually got the rules for martial character right. (I know, there are some who still believe that's not the case, but just for the sake of argument let's for the moment set aside those objections.) So if martial combat is actually that difficult and requires all of those feats in order to handle challenges of an appropriate CR, then why is casting so darned easy by comparison? Seriously, every character with a mental stat higher than a 10 should be out learning how to use spells. No ruler in his right mind would be employing an army of fighters or even rangers and paladins, he would be fielding hundreds and thousands of wizards, clerics, sorcerers and druids. If it really is so hard to master tripping or two weapon fighting or disarming, why bother then? Academy of Wizardry here I come!

[Telonius]

If you are caster, only thing you need is leveling up and getting a certain caster level (with spells known progression of course) and having a relevant casting stat high enough. Example, if you wish to cast 3rd level cleric spells, you require 5th level cleric and 13 wisdom. There are almost no other prerequisites. Only restrictions you may have encounter are like forbidden schools, or alignment spells. You will not see a lines like these in moderate cure spells:
"A caster must able to cast cure light wounds, to be able cast Cure Moderate Wounds."
"A caster must have 13 constitution score, to be able cast Cure Moderate Wounds."


One exception that proves the rule: Shadowcaster. (Which got an unofficial errata from its creator (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11610.msg397441#msg397441) to do away with a bunch of those prerequisites).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Cast spells and win, don't cast spells and suffer isn't rewarding Casters?

Okay mate.

Draconium has the right of this one. I'm not saying that casters don't have it better. They categorically do. What I'm saying is that having to sink build resources into being good at not being a caster isn't punishment. It's the whole point of having such a deep character building system in the first place. That and the bar for what is considered "competent" is set unreasonably high in most cases.


Kelb-- So-- if I understand this correctly-- you're saying that:

It's unreasonable to expect martial characters to succeed at combat actions other than full attacks.
You should need to devote build resources towards gaining the "superhuman" ability to do stuff to level-appropriate enemies?
and
You should be able to improvise and use clever tactics when face stabbing doesn't work?


Expecting them to succeed every time without fail, or as nearly so as the system allows, without putting anything towards being good at those specialized options is, indeed, unreasonable.
To do stuff with a high chance of success and to do so without concern for retaliatory action, yes. They can already do those things with some chance of success depending on the foe in question and, as in the monstrous centipede example, it takes a lot more than just feats to make these options viable in some cases.
There are situations, all be they rare enough, where the spellcaster doesn't have an appropriate spell or at least doesn't have an appropriate spell left, and must likewise use guile and whatever is on hand to survive and succeed. The difference is that the warriors are -much- more reliant on this.


Because I have to say... that doesn't jive. And don't give me anything about clever use of terrain and alchemical items and WBLmancy and all, because everyone can do that. Such things are class-independent. You don't get to compare an expertly-played fighter to a poorly-played wizard and say that the classes are equal.

I'm not saying that casters and non casters are, or even can be, equal. What I'm saying is that WBL is -much- more important to non-casters than it is to casters and, thusly, so is being able to leverage it. So much so that a mid-high level caster with nothing beyond 1st level starting wealth will stay reasonably competitive, if a bit vulnerable, while a non-caster in the same circumstance is completely screwed.



Guy. At. The. Gym. Fallacy. Just because something is impractical in real life doesn't mean it needs to be in a fantasy game. The unarmed warrior-- be he brute-force brawler or kung-fu master-- is a well established trope, and it damn well should be possible. I mean, come on-- name one iconic fantasy warrior who you'd expect to get stabbed in the face whenever he tries to throw a punch.

So let's just throw any semblance of verisimilitude out the window and let warriors do whatever they want without limit. Let's go ahead and let them do stuff like from Dragonball or Toriko. Throw beasts and each other through mountains, knock natural satellites out of their orbits, flex hard enough to warp space. Where's the line? Where's the exact, subjective line?



And yet, you can make a wizard 20 with one book-- any book, really-- and it will be, at minimum, a fairly effective and versatile character. You can choose random goddamn spells and you'll have more options-- and probably more effective options-- than a mundane. A problem that can be fixed through system mastery is still a problem.

I'm not trying to fix a problem. I'm perfectly comfortable with the disparity between casters and non-casters. If I wasn't I'd move on to 5e.

A straight, core only fighter can be perfectly viable. It won't meet the excessively high bar for competence you've set but it will have a fair to middling chance of surviving to high levels with or without direct caster support barring a stroke of dumb luck that could kill -any- character.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Let's just assume for a minute that they actually got the rules for martial character right. (I know, there are some who still believe that's not the case, but just for the sake of argument let's for the moment set aside those objections.) So if martial combat is actually that difficult and requires all of those feats in order to handle challenges of an appropriate CR, then why is casting so darned easy by comparison?

Being a competent non caster isn't that hard. It requires power attack for martials at a minimum feat investment and that you be clever with your wealth. That's it. Being a -fancy- special snowflake non-caster takes some investment but that goes beyond basic competence. If you want options then buy them. If you want as many options as a wizard, don't play a core non-caster.


Seriously, every character with a mental stat higher than a 10 should be out learning how to use spells. No ruler in his right mind would be employing an army of fighters or even rangers and paladins, he would be fielding hundreds and thousands of wizards, clerics, sorcerers and druids. If it really is so hard to master tripping or two weapon fighting or disarming, why bother then? Academy of Wizardry here I come!

Does no one read the DMG demographics? Being a spellcaster isn't as simple as mere desire and a decent mental ability score or they'd make up quite a bit larger portion of the general population.

[Roderick_BR]

I'll just remind you guys of the several forums (this included) that reminds us that fighters (and monks, and even the partial casters paladin and ranger) utterly sucks, and the many builds/homebrews to keep them relevant.

[DMVerdandi]

@Kelb.

Give me some of what you are toking brah.

You know, I feel like I have read opinions similar to yours before. Essentially that " Hey guy, you aren't being creative enough!".
The problem with that is, playing THIS game, does not open up for narrative judicial review. All of those things you are talking about fighters using to overcome obstacles, by RAW, they have little to no access to it.

Skills, right? Any vanilla 20 fighter is seriously lacking in that department, and all of the things they SHOULD know, they have no clue about.
Feat rogue. There is a guy who can do a lot of what you are talking about, and truly, the fighter should have had much access to the same things if not all of it, but it didn't, so it can't.

The casters if anything are simply systems with more applications.
If the fighter is windows 95, the full casters are SkyNet.
The casters are better simply because they have the Macros known as spells. They have the ability to execute distinct functions that reality MUST be influenced by.


That is in fact the whole problem.
Magic has VERY precise rules, and a plethora of them that work without DM intervention.
Half of the things that people want and expect out of mundanes is scattered across classes and feats, and they either need intervention to make it work, a melange of classes, or bust.


Theoretically IMO, no melee build should start without Factotum 1/Barbarian 1, for example, so talking about viable fighter 20's is pretty wild.

Factotum 1[able learner]/Barbarian 1[pounce]/Fighter 18 is exponentially stronger in fact.





Alas, the correct answer all along was what the two gentlemen on the first page said.
Play a gish
Play TOB
Play a TOB Gish

Problem solved.

[Curmudgeon]

But more often then not, it wont be. Most monsters have low touch AC and casters can boost their dexterity in order to get their ranged touch attack up, or hell, use true strike.
Yes, you're right; most of the time a spell won't be delayed. However, the chance of the spell being delayed is independent of whether the caster would hit with it if it were not delayed.

[Anlashok]

The insistence on "clever play" seems fundamentally at odds with the insistence that you just power attack everything to death.

It also seems to do more to prove the point regarding resource expenditure disparities rather than disprove it.

[Telok]

The last time I ran a campaign I killed a buch of prereqs for feats, gave fighters a feat every level instead of every even level, and had artifact swords and shields as loot starting around level 10.

It helped a bit.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The insistence on "clever play" seems fundamentally odd on the insistence that you just power attack everything to death.

If you're a warrior, you hit stuff. PA is the cheapest, least resource intensive way to be able to do damage at a decent level. There are other, less efficient but equally valid ways to do so.

There are, however, times when you either can't hit stuff with your chosen weapon or would rather not because doing so will harm you, your weapon, or both. It is at these times that you have to look beyond simple class features and think. Throw out a tanglefoot bag, set something on fire with a tindertwig, plunk the bloody thing with a poisoned arrow, withdraw a bit and setup a trap, slick the ground with lamp oil, do something unexpected with an immovable rod or some sovereign glu, try to lasso the thing, run it over with the wagon, do something clever. Those are all just core options. In the expanded rule-set the options rip wide open. Did you know that non-magical flight is possible without resorting to a flying race?


It also seems to do more to prove the point regarding resource expenditure disparities rather than disprove it.

I'm not trying to disprove such a disparity. I know that casters have it way better. What I'm arguing is that you don't have to be a caster to succeed as an adventurer. You don't even need to have one with you most of the time. This is true even in core only, though I can't fathom why anyone still playing 3e, 3.5, pathfinder or any combination thereof would still limit themselves like that. In the fullness of the system you only ever need casters to beat casters. Everything else can be handled with judicious application of mundane or magical gear, skills, and weapons.

I love casters and I love non-casters. There's simply no ignoring the fact, however, that they approach the game in fundamentally different ways. If you're a caster then your class features (spells) are where your power begins and ends. If you're not a caster then your class features are only part of the equation and most message boards, this one included, ignore that and say things like "fighter's suck."


It just irks me to see this "cast spells or go home" attitude continually perpetuated after all these years. Fighters don't suck. Fighters rock. Casters just rock harder.

[TheCrowing1432]

But the thing is, I dont WANT to power attack everything in every situation.


What if in one combat, instead of power attacking, I want to pop a guy in the jaw? kick his legs out from under him? Smack him with my shield?

Welp jokes on me because I didnt take the feats needed to do these basic as hell combat manuevers and Im going to eat an AOO or a severe minus in order to pull it off.

Fighters are supposed to be the masters of fighting, thats why they get all the armor and weapon profiencies, but theres a lot more to fighting then that.


And even going beyond the realm of fighting, what if I want to tell a lie? Like not be the party face, but just tell a casual lie, something that normal everyday people do all the time.

Well jokes on me, I have low skillpoints and no way to bluff. Meaning that every fighter ever is a horrible liar, they traded away their lying ability for sword.

I understand that classes exist to give people different abilities and powers and skills. But if some of those skills are basic things that people can just DO without any sort of training, it loses its meaning.

If fighters could somehow learn these abilities without taking feats for it, I would be fine with it.

Like I dunno a "Fighters Spellbook" for all intents and purposes. Maybe out there there is a wrestling trainer where I can get improved grapple without having to get a feat.

Maybe a manual? Something.

[Kelb_Panthera]

But the thing is, I dont WANT to power attack everything in every situation.

A) Not every situation.

B) Not the only viable option, just the cheapest in build resources.


What if in one combat, instead of power attacking, I want to pop a guy in the jaw?

Why wouldn't you power attack here? It can be applied to unarmed strikes. Also, what if his jaw isn't exposed? Most heavier armors protect the head with at least a chain coif if not a full, enclosed helmet. Punching through such things without being able to throw something more than a half-baked haymaker is just going to hurt your bare knuckles or make some harmless noise, depending on whether you're wearing a guantlet or not. Nevermind answering how you got past his sword to do it.


kick his legs out from under him?

Just do it. An AoO isn't guaranteed to hit and you've probably got a fair chance of success even without the +4 from imp trip.


Smack him with my shield?

You don't take an attack penalty or an AoO for doing that anyway. Imp shield bash just lets you keep the AC bonus from the shield on the same round you bash with it. Given that there's no advantage to doing this over just hitting with your primary weapon, however, I have to question why you'd do this other than for cool points?


Welp jokes on me because I didnt take the feats needed to do these basic as hell combat manuevers and Im going to eat an AOO or a severe minus in order to pull it off.

See above. Throwing a seriously damaging punch is the only one of those you can't really do without feat investment and it's deuced difficult to harm an armed and armored foe with your bare hands without being trained in unarmed combat. Hell, it's not easy to do real damage to an equally unarmed and unarmored foe with your bare hands without training during the actual standing, brawling portion of a fight. Most of the damage in such scraps comes from one opponent or the other getting in a lucky shot and just swarming over an opponent that isn't fighting back anymore.


Fighters are supposed to be the masters of fighting, thats why they get all the armor and weapon profiencies, but theres a lot more to fighting then that.

Not really. Not without specialized training at least.

Take, for example, bob and ted. Bob and Ted are both members of their local SCA chapter. They spend every sunday wearing armor and swinging PVC swords at each other(both are fighters). On saturdays, however, Bob takes Brazilian jiu jitsu classes (gaining imp grapple) while Ted goes out to his cousin's ranch and tilts at dummies with a lance (ride-by attack). Do you really wanna say that Ted should be just as good at grappling as Bob? Do you really think that Ted should even be able to grab at Bob without having his helmet rattled by Bob's sword? Of course not. Different types of specialized training make for different types of fighters. You -can't- master every style and, frankly, fighters really would suck if they all did do the same thing.



And even going beyond the realm of fighting, what if I want to tell a lie? Like not be the party face, but just tell a casual lie, something that normal everyday people do all the time.

Bluff is a skill that can be used untrained and most people have no ranks in sense motive. You can lie just fine. Circumstance modifiers might even give you a better than even chance at being believed. If the person you're lying to is a friend or ally they'll want to believe you and if they're a stranger they probably don't care regardless of whether they believe you or not. Nevermind that taking ranks cross-class is a perfectly viable choice unless you actually do wanna be the party face.


Well jokes on me, I have low skillpoints and no way to bluff. Meaning that every fighter ever is a horrible liar, they traded away their lying ability for sword.

Nonsense. See above. You're not bluffing your way past a dedicated security expert or politician but you are in no way impeded from lying as readily and effectively as any other joe on the street.


I understand that classes exist to give people different abilities and powers and skills. But if some of those skills are basic things that people can just DO without any sort of training, it loses its meaning.

It's amazing how little people think of skills they've spent their lives developing. A lot of these "basic things that everyone should be able to just do" actually do take some skill when you step back and examine them thoroughly.


If fighters could somehow learn these abilities without taking feats for it, I would be fine with it.

Like I dunno a "Fighters Spellbook" for all intents and purposes. Maybe out there there is a wrestling trainer where I can get improved grapple without having to get a feat.

Maybe a manual? Something.

ToB allusion? If not, that's what you're looking to get.

The notable difference being that dedicating a feat to these maneuvers means you can do them reliably, over and over and over again while having them as a maneuver readied means you can do them once without having to actively refocus your posture and mind before doing them again against the same opponent. The former is a more thorough learning of the skill in question than the latter. That's why a warblade has so many more tricks than a fighter, he hasn't mastered them as thoroughly as the fighter has his own maneuvers. Also, if ToB is in play, the fighter can gain access to a fair selection of maneuvers himself.

[Windrammer]

Poppycock!

The game clearly loves casters far more, but you're seriously selling short mundanes if your entire argument amounts to "fighters suck."
That's pretty unfair. That was his conclusion, his argument was sound and you didn't even address it. You completely ignored the core point.


First off, mundanes do more than just hit the bad guys with the pointies. Mundane characters can sneak and spy and break and enter and swindle and proseletyze and unless the target is inherently magical they can do all of these things just fine.
None of that is pretty insignificant and all of it is done perfectly well if not better by casters. Even if it weren't it's a pretty bleak argument. It's like telling a starving African child that they are perfectly fine because Africa is pretty.


You complained about the need for items. Mundane characters need magic items to stay competitive from about level 7-8 onward. So what? It's expected that adventurers will become obscenely wealthy and that magic items will be readily available. If mundanes aren't getting gear its because the DM is screwing them, not the system. They need them to be relevant and casters don't need them at all. How do you not realize the fundamental issue with this? And it's absurd to say that a DM not rolling with the cheesy, immersion breaking, high fantasy BS that is standard DnD is screwing anyone. It's inherently screwed for characters to be so dependent on items in the first place. It may as well be a freaking scifi setting with all the damn gadgets you need. The items in the system are provided as options, they're not supposed to be a crucial part of the game. Think of a fantasy movie you like. See any anklets of translocations? See any brilliant energy spiked chains? See any ioun stones? Exactly. You're used to cheese campaigns perhaps, but I actually prefer the low wealth settings that actually have a modicum of credibility and connection to the kind of fantasy that made us look to DnD in the first place.


Btw, isn't it a little odd to use the class most able to shrug off feat taxes to complain about feat taxes?
Not. At. All. They have all those feats just to keep up with the feat chains that make them able to do anything. A two weapon fighter is still feat starved. Have you ever even played a fighter? If they got a feat every level it still isn't enough. And the point that you REFUSE to address is that fighters aren't able to do basic martial things without wasting a precious resource and giving up other important options. Wizards don't need to take a feat to copy spells from scrolls. Wizards don't need a feat to cast from a certain school of magic. Wizards don't need a feat to gain bonus spell slots based off their int. If wizards suffered any of those they'd be that much closer to the fighter.


Though, of course, it's a one feat tax for beatsticks anyway; power attack. Anything past that is gravy.

You've never played a martial character, have you? Do you know what power attack does? Without extra feats, it's just less for your to hit bonus. that's why magic items are such a crutch - you need more bonuses than your bab and your strength. A level 6 fighter is supposed to be an impressive warrior. With 18 str, and a masterwork great sword being swung with three points of power attack, they're rolling.... +9/+4 to hit for 2d6+12 damage.

Congrats, you need to roll above the average just to hit someone with good mundane ac, and you're doing considerably less damage than an orb of force, which is a ranged touch attack and a first level spell.

The rest is definitely not just "gravy", power attack by itself is lovely but it won't be very useful until you start reaching the levels at which casters can just raze towns and change the world.



Have you forgotten what he was talking about? They don't eliminate feat taxes. There are a handful of early maneuvers that do a few unimportant things at staggered consistency - a two weapon strike, a bull rush, and an extra attack at penalty to the rest. So yes, a Warblade could pretend he has two weapon fighting every other round if he does nothing but repeatedly execute and refresh the same maneuver. If that's enough to satisfy you then I suggest you try playing that as a TWF character, and omit the feats normally involved. Tell me how that goes.

[quote]So, no, I haven't noticed that the game hates "mundane" characters. What I've noticed is a lot of people complaining that playing a non-caster is harder than playing a caster if you don't know what you're doing with the former and you're passing familiar with the latter.
You seem familiar with neither. I'm familiar with both. Casters are overtly stronger at any conceivable task. Sure, they can run out of spells, but that wouldn't pose much of an issue past low levels as they tend to get the job done before the slots run out.

[Windrammer]

In regards to Tome of Battle, I would argue that the Warblade class, at least, is strictly mundane. Crusaders have that divine paladin-esque flavor, Swordsages have a ton of Supernatural maneuvers. Warblades have neither, last I checked. I would consider them the epitome of mundane classes.

But I must agree, spellcasting classes tend to be much more powerful than mundane classes. That's one of the largest problems with 3.5.

So a chance at competence comes at the cost of playing a zany kung fu anime video game character who throws a weapon 60 ft and has it damage EVERYBODY in its path, because that's a believable thing to do in a fight. Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior. Why can't someone JUST be a fighter and have that be good? Why are we pretending that it's okay that the fighter is so weak? Why can't someone just play a good martial character who doesn't manage a goddamn spell list? A lot of Blade Magic may be marked [ex], but real talk, it's magic. It's totally magic. It's only considered otherwise as a matter of rule technicality, but the reality remains the same: They are only good because of magic. They are given abilities they should already have as what are effectively renewable spells.

[Mystral]

Here is my point of view: The Wizard is better in short-term, while the Fighter is better in longterm. Why? A Wizard can cast mighty spells, throw a fireball and roast a whole group of enemys. But they can do that only a few times per day. When a Wizard runs out of spells, he is pretty useless. Sure, there are magic items like scrolls and wands, but each of this items can only cast one specific spell, so they can't compensate the speel slots all the time, unless the character is suuuuuper rich and has a scroll of every spell at hand. The Fighter can't roast a whole group of enemys, but he is able to land hundrets of hits with his sword over the day. Every time the Wizard uses his magic, his character loses power for the rest of the day. The fighter doesn't have that problem, he is as strong at the end of the day as he was at the beginning.

When the spellcasters have run dry, the party doesn't push on and lets the fighter do the heavy lifting, that would be suicidal. They just rest up and let the spell casters prepare new spells, again.

[Mystral]

Are you guys seriously debating why non-casters are not worse than casters? I thought this issue has been cleared up years ago.

Of course casters are better than non-casters. Non-Casters get incredibly strong and competent, compared to real life humans. But Casters get strong far quicker. It's called linear fighter, quadratic wizard. They pass the non-casters at around level 3-5 and just zoom away.

[ericgrau]

WBL begs to differ. It brings magic to all, diluting the distinctiveness of those who already have it. It is significantly more helpful to those who don't already have magic than it is to those who do. So much so that a magic user should consider donating to the a non-magic user not purely out of pity but simply because he has so little benefit. Some, but little. He already has plenty of spells per day and most of his best spells have no save so a higher int or cha isn't a big deal. Mental stat and more spells are a couple of the biggest things he can buy but these still aren't a big deal.

The penalties on special attacks are big, but not huge. Lower BAB, a smaller size category, and/or poor strength can exceed it 2 or 3 times over. And the AoO from such is usually a joke. People should attempt them against vulnerable opponents far more often than they do, without any feats at all. The real issue is unfamiliarity with the overly complicated rules.

Overcomplicated mundane rules are the real problem with the system. Magic items are pretty easy to get and it's a poor DM who's overly stingy who's the problem there if there is any problem there. Special attacks are an actual system problem not from ineffectiveness but from over-complication. It's a classic that no one wants to learn the grapple rules, nor most others. I have some cheat sheets in my sig that help, but even then it's a pain that could be better organized and explained. My sheets still don't tell you when they're good nor which characters can use them more often nor how to optimize for using them in general even without getting any specific feats (e.g., large size). A 50 gp potion of enlarge person is about as good as having every special attack feat put together, and more, yet people still use the spell to deal damage if at all. Nonononono.

[Morty]

I used to joke that D&D would be a lot better off if it would just admit that beyond a certain point magic-users do all the important work, and other people are their bodyguards or someone they occasionally allow to solve a problem so they can save a spell. But that's not accurate, since the rules for magic and non-magical activities would still be dysfunctional even if they did that.

The fact is that the magic subsystem is necessary for most of the actually interesting, narrative-shaping and exciting things you can do in the game. The interaction between magical and non-magical efforts gets increasingly one-way as the game progresses - magic can only be interacted with using other magic. Classes that don't cast spells often get nothing equivalent to it - they need to make do with their class features, feats and skills. Which are not only things magic-users also get, but they also offer very little utility. Class features and feats are incredibly scarce resources; skills have major problems with scaling.

Another effect of it is that without spells, you really do the same thing at level 20 as you did at level 1 - your numbers just got larger.

Then there's non-magical combat, which starts off as rocket tag and ends up resembling blind-folded people swinging at a piñata, unless you cheese up an über-charger or something similar to deal massive damage. Either way, you might have one thing you can do other than to swing, stab or shoot, and you'll probably need to spend most of your feats on it. It's not just a matter of power or competitiveness - fighters, rangers, rogues et cetera are just inept at something they should be good at, even when you only compare them to real-world combatants.

[Mystral]

I used to joke that D&D would be a lot better off if it would just admit that beyond a certain point magic-users do all the important work, and other people are their bodyguards or someone they occasionally allow to solve a problem so they can save a spell. But that's not accurate, since the rules for magic and non-magical activities would still be dysfunctional even if they did that.

The fact is that the magic subsystem is necessary for most of the actually interesting, narrative-shaping and exciting things you can do in the game. The interaction between magical and non-magical efforts gets increasingly one-way as the game progresses - magic can only be interacted with using other magic. Classes that don't cast spells often get nothing equivalent to it - they need to make do with their class features, feats and skills. Which are not only things magic-users also get, but they also offer very little utility. Class features and feats are incredibly scarce resources; skills have major problems with scaling.

Another effect of it is that without spells, you really do the same thing at level 20 as you did at level 1 - your numbers just got larger.

Then there's non-magical combat, which starts off as rocket tag and ends up resembling blind-folded people swinging at a piñata, unless you cheese up an über-charger or something similar to deal massive damage. Either way, you might have one thing you can do other than to swing, stab or shoot, and you'll probably need to spend most of your feats on it. It's not just a matter of power or competitiveness - fighters, rangers, rogues et cetera are just inept at something they should be good at, even when you only compare them to real-world combatants.

In one of my first games of D&D, non-magic users were often referred to as external hitpoints for the mages. By the DM, no less.

He was also quite suprised that noone wanted to play external hitpoints for the party wizard (played by his wife).

[Milo v3]

So a chance at competence comes at the cost of playing a zany kung fu anime video game character
Not accurate description of ToB or PoW.


who throws a weapon 60 ft and has it damage EVERYBODY in its path, because that's a believable thing to do in a fight.
It is if your a throwing based warrior.



Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior.
You aren't forced to don such a theme. I've seen more "standard" fantasy style gritty warriors made with ToB than I've seen anime-esque ones.


Why can't someone JUST be a fighter and have that be good? Why are we pretending that it's okay that the fighter is so weak?
Because to be honest it's a generic, stupid and boring concept for a class in a game where everyone is a fighter.


Why can't someone just play a good martial character who doesn't manage a goddamn spell list?
Warblade is an example of such characters.


A lot of Blade Magic may be marked [ex], but real talk, it's magic. It's totally magic.
Again. Not accurate. Only a tiny portion of "blade magic" is at all supernatural in nature, and Most of those are mechanically marked as supernatural.


They are only good because of magic.
No.


They are given abilities they should already have as what are effectively renewable spells.
No.

[Draconium]

So a chance at competence comes at the cost of playing a zany kung fu anime video game character who throws a weapon 60 ft and has it damage EVERYBODY in its path, because that's a believable thing to do in a fight.

It's not any less believable than someone charging, jumping, and hitting for so much damage, they turn a dragon into a fine red mist. (Ubercharger) Or having a large guy pick up that mountain over there and chuck it at the enemy. (Hulking Hurler) Honestly, most of the good builds in D&D rely on mechanics that would be impossible, or at least impractical, to pull off outside of the game.


Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior. Why can't someone JUST be a fighter and have that be good? Why are we pretending that it's okay that the fighter is so weak? Why can't someone just play a good martial character who doesn't manage a goddamn spell list?

I never claimed Fighter was good. It's a well-known fact that they suck without a ton of optimization and/or dipping. But Tome of Battle is a decent addition to the D&D game, from my perspective, since it gives you more options than "I hit again" to stay alive, barring some ridiculously optimized build.


A lot of Blade Magic may be marked [ex], but real talk, it's magic. It's totally magic. It's only considered otherwise as a matter of rule technicality, but the reality remains the same: They are only good because of magic. They are given abilities they should already have as what are effectively renewable spells.

That's the difference between you and me, then. I see the term "Blade Magic" as just a name, as few maneuvers are truly magical in nature. And while I admit that the maneuver system is similar to the spell system, it plays differently than it, because you can actually use it right in the center of combat. Plus, maneuvers look so much sexier than spells. :smalltongue:

[Masakan]

So a chance at competence comes at the cost of playing a zany kung fu anime video game character who throws a weapon 60 ft and has it damage EVERYBODY in its path, because that's a believable thing to do in a fight. Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior. Why can't someone JUST be a fighter and have that be good? Why are we pretending that it's okay that the fighter is so weak? Why can't someone just play a good martial character who doesn't manage a goddamn spell list? A lot of Blade Magic may be marked [ex], but real talk, it's magic. It's totally magic. It's only considered otherwise as a matter of rule technicality, but the reality remains the same: They are only good because of magic. They are given abilities they should already have as what are effectively renewable spells.

Then you can enjoy being a boring, uninteresting, bland, useless, weak little piece of trash.
I know I would never touch a straight fighter or barbarian only because at the end of the day both of them amount to little more than moving and Full attacking. That's all their good for, hitting things really really hard. Face the fact dnd has ALWAYS been centered around it's magic, taking that away is effectively taking away 75% of the game.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Then you can enjoy being a boring, uninteresting, bland, useless, weak little piece of trash.
I know I would never touch a straight fighter or barbarian only because at the end of the day both of them amount to little more than moving and Full attacking. That's all their good for, hitting things really really hard. Face the fact dnd has ALWAYS been centered around it's magic, taking that away is effectively taking away 75% of the game.

While I agree they are overall lacking and don't have enough cool/good things to do, I will suggest you take a look at this amazing martial artist homebrew class, The Hao Han (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5448.0;msg=78308).

It's just a re-fluffed Barbarian making use of a bunch of WotC provided alternate class features.

[Morty]

The reason why Tome of Battle classes have long lists of spell-like abilities (spell-like in that they resemble spells) is that there's not much else you can do to make a competent fighting class in 3.x. The system just doesn't allow for it. You need to either rewrite parts of the basic rules thoroughly - which they couldn't do in a supplement - or bolt a new subsystem on top of them. At best you could argue that they should have tried to give them a different resource mechanic.

[Jormengand]

At best you could argue that they should have tried to give them a different resource mechanic.

Or that they shouldn't be able to run out of ability to stab people at all.

[Masakan]

The reason why Tome of Battle classes have long lists of spell-like abilities (spell-like in that they resemble spells) is that there's not much else you can do to make a competent fighting class in 3.x. The system just doesn't allow for it. You need to either rewrite parts of the basic rules thoroughly - which they couldn't do in a supplement - or bolt a new subsystem on top of them. At best you could argue that they should have tried to give them a different resource mechanic.
I prefer to think of them as techniques.

[Draconium]

Or that they shouldn't be able to run out of ability to stab people at all.

Well, all classes have the ability to refresh their maneuvers, one way or another. (Though the Swordsage's isn't all that good...) And even then, Crusaders and Warblades don't absolutely need the maneuvers to be at least as decent as a base fighter. The maneuvers are just what makes them better at what they do, along with some of their other, non-maneuver abilities. If you were to effectively keep them from using maneuvers, they could at least handle themselves in a fight anyways.

[Windrammer]

Not accurate description of ToB or PoW.
Amazing rebuttal. Allow me to retort: Sure it is!

Man, debating is easier than I thought.


It is if your a throwing based warrior. Now, it isn't. It's still absurd. Are you visualizing it?




You aren't forced to don such a theme. I've seen more "standard" fantasy style gritty warriors made with ToB than I've seen anime-esque ones. ToB is decidedly oriental and requires substantial reflavoring for it to function differently.



Because to be honest it's a generic, stupid and boring concept for a class in a game where everyone is a fighter.
Wow. You're saying it's fine that fighter is so much weaker than it should be because it's just boring? Where I come from, that's called an "opinion", and it's an unusual one at that. I, and many, many others, don't think fighters are boring at all. In fact, every time I play a wizard I get bored and wish I was a martial character again. Warriors have always been the main heroes of fantasy tales and most people won't get turned off simply by the fact that fighting without magic is too mainstream.



Warblade is an example of such characters.
You are attempting some of the weakest pedantry I've ever seen, and you failed at it. A rose by any other name is still a rose, whether they're called spells or maneuvers, whether you refresh them with standard/swift action or a night's rest.



Again. Not accurate. Only a tiny portion of "blade magic" is at all supernatural in nature, and Most of those are mechanically marked as supernatural.
Are you saying that because the rules say so or because you actually think all those maneuvers are plausible?



No.
No.
If an argument doesn't deserve a real rebuttal then you shouldn't bother responding.

[Morty]

Or that they shouldn't be able to run out of ability to stab people at all.

You can refuse to give them a resource mechanic on the basis that martial abilities need to be at least this at-will to qualify, but it strikes me as making things harder for no good reason.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior.

And why shouldn't they?

When casters are just casting divinations for minor fortune-telling guidance and conjuring up a light as impressive displays of their magical power, then your warrior can be someone whose greatest claims to fame are being fleet-footed and wielding a sword like it's part of his arm. When casters have a telephone line to the gods for information and can summon up forcewalls while flying hundreds of feet off the ground, a warrior needs to be equally flashy and perform similarly out-there feats to keep up. One of my favorite examples is 4e's "Dark Wanderer" epic destiny for rangers and rogues. They have an ability that goes like "using 24 hours of time, you can travel anywhere in the multiverse, though if you try to arrive inside a building you'll end up right outside it".

Both are equally valid power levels. They also don't mix.

[Brova]

@Resource Management: I don't really see why mundanes couldn't have a bunch of different resource management systems. Monks should totally have Kung Fu forms that require mental disciple to perform. Barbarians should absolutely run around punching and being punched until they get angry enough to hulk out. Marshals should react to the flow of battle and give commands that are situationally appropriate. Rogues should have the ability to stab people in the kidneys when the opportunity to do that presents itself. All of those are resource management systems other than "you can always stab things", and all of them feel totally reasonable for martial characters.


Now, it isn't. It's still absurd. Are you visualizing it?

Why? If you throw something through all the people in question, it will totally hurt everyone in that line. You seen Cap's shield? Imagine that. But with a sword. Also, "hit everyone in a 60ft line" is seriously lame in D&D terms. lightning bolt is a 3rd level spell, and it is in the worst school of magic. If martials can't have that (or something equivalent), they can't play D&D past the point where that is level appropriate.


Wow. You're saying it's fine that fighter is so much weaker than it should be because it's just boring?

Look, "fight" is just a thing people do in D&D. Saying you are a "Fighter" conveys zero information about you. Do you hit people with swords or blast them with spells? Do you fight alone or with a group of allies? Do you have high powered offenses geared at ending a fight quickly or do you prefer to lock down and grind out enemies? Are you better off fighting one strong enemy or a bunch of weak ones?

And most damning of all, what do you do when the fight music isn't playing?


Are you saying that because the rules say so or because you actually think all those maneuvers are plausible?

D&D characters live in a world with Dragons too big to survive according to the square-cube law which can fly (ha) and breath fire. They can survive 200ft falls because they are personally that hardcore. Nothing they do is "plausible" in any actual sense.

[Windrammer]

It's not any less believable than someone charging, jumping, and hitting for so much damage, they turn a dragon into a fine red mist. (Ubercharger) Or having a large guy pick up that mountain over there and chuck it at the enemy. (Hulking Hurler) Honestly, most of the good builds in D&D rely on mechanics that would be impossible, or at least impractical, to pull off outside of the game.
That's just the issue. Not requires extensive mechanical optimization for martial characters to do something interesting, and they're still unfit for a game without magic items or unusual abilities.Your ubercharger may do 3000 damage on a it and that's all well and good against a dumb monster, but against a caster? They can simply fly. They can use a conjurer ACF to jaunt out of the way as an immediate action. They can lay down walls, webs, tentacles. They can cast an empowered Ray of Clumsiness on that str-based character and sap about 13 points, most likely leaving it unable to function.

As a side note, it's an amusing irony of martial cheese that it seldom involves the ToB.



I never claimed Fighter was good. It's a well-known fact that they suck without a ton of optimization and/or dipping. But Tome of Battle is a decent addition to the D&D game, from my perspective, since it gives you more options than "I hit again" to stay alive, barring some ridiculously optimized build.




That's the difference between you and me, then. I see the term "Blade Magic" as just a name, as few maneuvers are truly magical in nature. And while I admit that the maneuver system is similar to the spell system, it plays differently than it, because you can actually use it right in the center of combat. Plus, maneuvers look so much sexier than spells. :smalltongue:
Again, I love the ToB. It suits the kind of characters I like to play and if fighters were equal to Warblades I'd still play Warblades. But a lot of what they do is pretty implausible when you actually visualize it playing out. Besides, I'm only comparing them to bells in the most basic sense... They're expendable actions with specific effects of which you keep a list that you add more powerful ones to as you level up. It's essentially a bag of gimmicks, and I think warriors should be good with in a more inherent, at-will way. "Oh no I need a moment to *refresh* my maneuvers so I can be good again cuz I forgot them." I just want fighters to hit well and do the things you'd expect a fantasy fighter to be able to do and they don't let fighters do that. He should be able to GWF and TWF. He should be able to punch and wrestle. He shouldn't have to do special moves with special names to get things done. Fighter is such a pathetic class and I don't think the travesty of that should be understated. Casters get all their cool stuff for free when all fighters get is a couple points of extra ac, bab, and weapon die. To do anything that casters actually can't do you need to spend feat upon feat upon feat, well casters get all they need and then some like spoiled children. Make wizards take a feat to be able to copy scrolls to their spellbook!

[Masakan]

ToB is decidedly oriental and requires substantial reflavoring for it to function differently.

Then why the hell are monks a mainstay AND need I remind you probably one of if not THE weakest martial character in the entire game?

[Windrammer]

@Resource Management: I don't really see why mundanes couldn't have a bunch of different resource management systems. Monks should totally have Kung Fu forms that require mental disciple to perform. Barbarians should absolutely run around punching and being punched until they get angry enough to hulk out. Marshals should react to the flow of battle and give commands that are situationally appropriate. Rogues should have the ability to stab people in the kidneys when the opportunity to do that presents itself. All of those are resource management systems other than "you can always stab things", and all of them feel totally reasonable for martial characters. I'm a little unsure of what's being argued here.




Why? If you throw something through all the people in question, it will totally hurt everyone in that line. You seen Cap's shield? Imagine that. But with a sword. Also, "hit everyone in a 60ft line" is seriously lame in D&D terms. lightning bolt is a 3rd level spell, and it is in the worst school of magic. If martials can't have that (or something equivalent), they can't play D&D past the point where that is level appropriate.

I don't read comics, but Ill say with confidence that Captain America has NEVER done something like lightning throw. Now I didn't say that maneuver was good, because it isn't. It's just absurd in concept. Imagine there's eight people in that path. Imagine a sword bouncing between all of them, hitting each for slashing damage. If you visualize that, it should either look like a magic, animated weapon or a comedy gag. When he throws that shield and it bounces between a couple bad guys you think "that's a bit silly but I can stomach it". Now imagine that bouncing between EVERYBODY in a sixty foot line.


Look, "fight" is just a thing people do in D&D. Saying you are a "Fighter" conveys zero information about you. Do you hit people with swords or blast them with spells? Do you fight alone or with a group of allies? Do you have high powered offenses geared at ending a fight quickly or do you prefer to lock down and grind out enemies? Are you better off fighting one strong enemy or a bunch of weak ones? So your issue is with the name of the class? Why don't we just call it "Warrior" for the sake of discussion then? It's still a crucially important role in a fantasy rpg system, and no characters are fully defined by the name of their class anyways. Warriors may not be to your tastes, but they are to a lot of other players.


And most damning of all, what do you do when the fight music isn't playing?
Idk. Drink mead, gamble? Why do you ask? What does anyone do when the fight music isn't playing?



D&D characters live in a world with Dragons too big to survive according to the square-cube law which can fly (ha) and breath fire. They can survive 200ft falls because they are personally that hardcore. Nothing they do is "plausible" in any actual sense.
We're talking about very different kinds of plausibility. I'm talking plausibility in the context of fantasy, which is considerably more liberal. I'm not concerned with the laws of physics, dragons are most certainly not the worst offenders in that department. I'm talking about what you can envision a hero doing in a movie, that's it.

[Brova]

I'm a little unsure of what's being argued here.

The argument Jormewhatever has in every single one of these threads where ToB is awful because martials should only have the resource management system they think is right for martials.1


I don't read comics, but Ill say with confidence that Captain America has NEVER done something like lightning throw.

You haven't seen any of the movies Cap is in? Because in every single one of them he bounces his shield around to hit people.


Now imagine that bouncing between EVERYBODY in a sixty foot line.

Okay.

How is that less reasonable than anything the Wizard does? Because you personally don't like it?


So your issue is with the name of the class? Why don't we just call it "Warrior" for the sake of discussion then? It's still a crucially important role in a fantasy rpg system, and no characters are fully defined by the name of their class anyways. Warriors may not be to your tastes, but they are to a lot of other players.

You were asking why the Fighter was boring. That's why.


Idk. Drink mead, gamble? Why do you ask? What does anyone do when the fight music isn't playing?

Solve noncombat problems. Like the Rogue's ability to sneak, the Cleric's ability to be a priest, the Wizard's ability to divine, the Druid's ability to do nature shenanigans, or the Artificer's ability to build magical stuff.


We're talking about very different kinds of plausibility. I'm talking plausibility in the context of fantasy, which is considerably more liberal. I'm not concerned with the laws of physics, dragons are most certainly not the worst offenders in that department. I'm talking about what you can envision a hero doing in a movie, that's it.

So your contention is that it is totally plausible for there to be Dragons and Wizards and Demons and what not, but completely ridiculous that someone could throw their sword really hard? I don't think that's a standard you'll find many people sharing.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Names and "special moves" were hardly unique to "oriental" martial arts. Ever looked at a medieval or renaissance fencing manual (http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources/liberi/wildRose/fiore.html)? Even guard stances are described fancifully-- "I'm the WHOLE IRON DOOR at ground level/And always stop cuts and thrusts." It also strikes me as entirely reasonable to not be able to do the exact same trick twice in a row, and to back off for a moment and regain a balanced stance before launching into more fancy moves.

[Masakan]

Names and "special moves" were hardly unique to "oriental" martial arts. Ever looked at a medieval or renaissance fencing manual (http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources/liberi/wildRose/fiore.html)? Even guard stances are described fancifully-- "I'm the WHOLE IRON DOOR at ground level/And always stop cuts and thrusts." It also strikes me as entirely reasonable to not be able to do the exact same trick twice in a row, and to back off for a moment and regain a balanced stance before launching into more fancy moves.
Like i said Maneuvers are more techniques then spells, effectively they show knowledge and finesse in fighting as oppose to just randomly bashing someone's skull in until they die.
I get some people like playing the big dumb meathead, but at the same time people actually like playing a warrior who oh idk fights smart rather than hard?

[Brova]

Also, why is more asian influence in D&D bad? Asian mythology is totally sweet. Shapeshifting demons, hard core kung fu warriors, animist spirits, and some pretty sweet gods. I mean, look at fantasy with asian mythological elements. Avatar is one of the best cartoon series ever. Lord of Light is a freakin' amazing book. If the price of having warriors do awesome stuff is that D&D looks more like that, I personally do not consider that a price.

[GPuzzle]

I think that we need to clarify that they don't want something that everyone can do (fight smart) since that's something that every smart player can do. They want a character that mechnically speaking can "fight smart". Taking 4e as an example here, Fighters have an At-Will Power at level 1 that allows them to attack an enemy and if they hit they shift 1 square and then slide the enemy 1 square into where they started. Simple.

This means that not only are the players fighting smartly (they can repostion themselves), but that means that the characters are fighting smartly since now it's the characters that are changing things around. It's a built-in mechanic that allows players to make smarter choices but also is reflected in that the characters themselves are making smarter choices.

They want something built in that makes the characters, not the players, look like they're fighting smarter. 4e has a problem where it works really well when everything's Grimdark and the players are the heroes, the shining light that brings salvation to the world - and to be fair that's been a staple of storytelling since even before the Biblical times. And of course that's not everyone's cup of tea. But the interaction that is has between the players fighting smartly and the characters fighting smartly is something that I see barely mentioned.

Also, people want to play different styles, and there's nothing wrong with it. After all, otherwise we wouldn't have so many options out there.

[rrwoods]

Can't believe I'm jumping in on this, but I feel like there's an implicit distinction being made that some folks aren't seeing.

The fighter class is boring. There's no getting around that. It's an undeniable fact.

I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that the fighter class *should be* boring. In fact, most ToB advocates are arguing that ToB is WotC's attempt at making classes that are supposed to fill the same roles as fighter without being boring!

People hitting things with big sticks fighting alongside people doing crazy mystical **** is a staple of fantasy no matter the medium. To say that the guys hitting things must necessarily be less interesting is the Guy At The Gym Fallacy (which the writers of the PHB committed when they wrote Fighter). But you can't say "swords should be interesting too" and then in the same breath take away all the stuff that makes them interesting. Or, if you do, you have to provide a suitable replacement in the form of homebrew (which will be much less thoroughly tested for brokenness than the boom that's been out six years).

Essentially, your choices are:
1) accept that mundane sword wielders are (unmitigatably) boring
2) mitigate the mundane = boring problem by embracing sourcebooks designed to fix that very problem
3) mitigate the mundane = boring problem by inventing something

If you refuse all three, then you're deluding yourself into something that's simply demonstrably false, and I never want to play in a game you run.

You're right: fighters *shouldn't be* boring. But they are. Are you going to fix that or whine about it incessantly?

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's a frustrating number of people out there who are defiantly proud of "boring" weak Fighters who get nothing particularly flavorful and are totally mundane even at level 20, and for the most part just get bigger numbers. They're often (but not always) grognards, and like having a simple and down to earth class that's completely vanilla so they can add their own flavor to it.

If you're designing a D&D edition, you have to cater to these people, unfortunately. So I'm fine with Fighter remaining a boring and weak class that does nothing but swing a sword and maybe trip or grapple someone. The issue is...a lot of people then insist that because fighting is all a Fighter does, that he MUST be the best at it, better than the "more diluted in concept" other martials.

That is when the Fighter becomes the glass ceiling of the martials (simultaneously he can't do anything overtly magical or supernatural but also no other martial can do as well as him at fighting) and the hatred begins.

If Fighter was kept as-is and was just understood as a borderline NPC class that exists to appease grognards and possibly give a few quick bonus feats as a dip, without any (laughable) expectation that he actually be comparable to any other *real* PC class, there would be no problem. Since you must appease, I've found that's the best route, more than trying to shoe horn things into the fighter chassis that fighter fans don't want.

[Anlashok]

ToB is decidedly oriental and requires substantial reflavoring for it to function differently.
Yeah, nothing makes me think the Far East more than crusaders and elves in plate armor with kite shields.


We're talking about very different kinds of plausibility. I'm talking plausibility in the context of fantasy, which is considerably more liberal. I'm not concerned with the laws of physics, dragons are most certainly not the worst offenders in that department. I'm talking about what you can envision a hero doing in a movie, that's it.
Half the stuff you're saying is completely unreasonable is stuff that heroes do in movies though.

In fact in general you just seem to be arbitrarily picking and choosing things to deem as reasonable or unreasonable. So I'm not really sure it's a good point to begin with.

[Troacctid]

That is when the Fighter becomes the glass ceiling of the martials (simultaneously he can't do anything overtly magical or supernatural but also no other martial can do as well as him at fighting) and the hatred begins.

I don't think that's accurate at all. There are plenty of martial classes that have magic and/or are better than the Fighter, even just in core. Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, and Rogue, for example. (Although Barbarian isn't MUCH better.)

[Windrammer]

And why shouldn't they?

When casters are just casting divinations for minor fortune-telling guidance and conjuring up a light as impressive displays of their magical power, then your warrior can be someone whose greatest claims to fame are being fleet-footed and wielding a sword like it's part of his arm. When casters have a telephone line to the gods for information and can summon up forcewalls while flying hundreds of feet off the ground, a warrior needs to be equally flashy and perform similarly out-there feats to keep up. One of my favorite examples is 4e's "Dark Wanderer" epic destiny for rangers and rogues. They have an ability that goes like "using 24 hours of time, you can travel anywhere in the multiverse, though if you try to arrive inside a building you'll end up right outside it".

Both are equally valid power levels. They also don't mix.

That's a good point, and I admit that I can't conceive a way in which someone can be a generic fantasy warrior and be of the same strength as a martial adept. That just doesn't excuse just how weak and underprivileged the core martial classes are. As the OP explained, the bias is clear. Core classes must make great investments to do basic things that you'd expect that character to be able to do, while the other classes get everything they need and more.

[Windrammer]

Then you can enjoy being a boring, uninteresting, bland, useless, weak little piece of trash.
I know I would never touch a straight fighter or barbarian only because at the end of the day both of them amount to little more than moving and Full attacking. That's all their good for, hitting things really really hard. Face the fact dnd has ALWAYS been centered around it's magic, taking that away is effectively taking away 75% of the game.

No one is taking your Wiz-Wiz away from you, child, we're only suggesting that more should have been given to the core martial classes, and perhaps just a teensy bit less to the casters.

[Masakan]

No one is taking your Wiz-Wiz away from you, child, we're only suggesting that more should have been given to the core martial classes, and perhaps just a teensy bit less to the casters.
Ok 1. Name calling does not make you look cool, it just makes you look pretentious.
Second, complaining about what should have been put in what is essentially an outdated system is completely pointless. You can either take it for what it is, homebrew some new stuff for the core classes or move on the 5e.
But don't bother speaking if all your gonna do is bitch and not bring any sort of solution to the table.

[Jormengand]

The argument Jormewhatever has in every single one of these threads where ToB is awful because martials should only have the resource management system they think is right for martials.

You could just have copied and pasted my name if it was so hard for you. Plus, no. I couldn't give a flying damn what resource management system someone has if they're martial: duskblades are martial. Clerics can be martial. Druids can be martial. But if you're mundane, I don't like the idea of you forgetting how to stab someone because you just stabbed them. If you're magical, it makes sense that you should be able to run out of mojo after you already hit someone with a sword made of lightning or personally asked your deity if they'd mind giving you full BAB for a while. It doesn't make sense that you're going to run out of stamina with which to sword someone but it's okay because you have enough stamina to punch them in the face.

[Masakan]

You could just have copied and pasted my name if it was so hard for you. Plus, no. I couldn't give a flying damn what resource management system someone has if they're martial: duskblades are martial. Clerics can be martial. Druids can be martial. But if you're mundane, I don't like the idea of you forgetting how to stab someone because you just stabbed them. If you're magical, it makes sense that you should be able to run out of mojo after you already hit someone with a sword made of lightning or personally asked your deity if they'd mind giving you full BAB for a while. It doesn't make sense that you're going to run out of stamina with which to sword someone but it's okay because you have enough stamina to punch them in the face.
So you have problems with pure mundane characters having a few extra tricks up their sleeves, but your perfectly fine with casters rewriting the laws of reality just because they can only do it a few times a day......Do i need to point out the logical fallacy in this?

[Jormengand]

So you have problems with pure mundane characters having a few extra tricks up their sleeves, but your perfectly fine with casters rewriting the laws of reality just because they can only do it a few times a day......Do i need to point out the logical fallacy in this?

No, I do: it's the straw man fallacy. I never said I had a problem with martials having strong abilities. Quite the opposite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?428437-quot-Stand-back-boy-and-let-me-show-you-war!-quot-%283-5-class-PEACH%29). What I take issue with is the idea that when a guy stabs another guy in a funky way, he then suddenly forgets to do that kind of stab for a while. That's stupid.

[Masakan]

No, I do: it's the straw man fallacy. I never said I had a problem with martials having strong abilities. Quite the opposite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?428437-quot-Stand-back-boy-and-let-me-show-you-war!-quot-%283-5-class-PEACH%29). What I take issue with is the idea that when a guy stabs another guy in a funky way, he then suddenly forgets to do that kind of stab for a while. That's stupid.

First of all thats not even how it works. I would imagine doing those kinds of maneuvers is physically taxing and so they would have to recenter themselves before using them again. Maybe im just rationalizing it but they dont forget how to use them

[Jormengand]

First of all thats not even how it works. I would imagine doing those kinds of maneuvers is physically taxing and so they would have to recenter themselves before using them again. Maybe im just rationalizing it but they dont forget how to use them
It doesn't make sense that you're going to run out of stamina with which to sword someone but it's okay because you have enough stamina to punch them in the face.
I'd be fine if you had, like, a pool of "Stamina points" based on your constitution and level, and you got some number of them back per round, but it seems odd to me that you're so tired that you can't do that cool swordy thing but can do that cool punchy thing, and your sister is too tired to do the cool punchy thing but she's absolutely got the energy for that cool swordy thing.

[Windrammer]

The argument Jormewhatever has in every single one of these threads where ToB is awful because martials should only have the resource management system they think is right for martials.1
That sentence doesn't make very much sense



You haven't seen any of the movies Cap is in? Because in every single one of them he bounces his shield around to hit people.
...Are you trolling me? You cropped out the part of what I said that renders what you just responded with irrelevant. Are you trying to misrepresent me for the two or three people reading this discussion or are you just careless? Whatever, this is what copy and paste is for.

I don't read comics, but I'll say with confidence that Captain America has NEVER done something like lightning throw. Now I didn't say that maneuver was good, because it isn't. It's just absurd in concept. Imagine there's eight people in that path. Imagine a sword bouncing between all of them, hitting each for slashing damage. If you visualize that, it should either look like a magic, animated weapon or a comedy gag. When he throws that shield and it bounces between a couple bad guys you think "that's a bit silly but I can stomach it". Now imagine that bouncing between EVERYBODY in a sixty foot line.

Yes, Captain America has thrown a shield and had it bounce between people, as I said in the part you cropped out. Why are you pretending that Captain America has ever done anything like what Lightning Throw does? Lighting throw is That's a weapon that can do slashing damage +12d6 to like, twelve people... in six seconds. I could write a book about how much different and more extreme this is than Cap's shield tricks, but do I really have to? Can't you just be reasonable and think this through instead? Please, give me an example of Captain America hitting 12 people with the force that can KILL a bear with one good throw of his shield. And even then, it still wouldn't be the same, as lightning throw works with any weapon, and that weapon will do the normal damage it is meant to. As in, that sword is finding a way to hit each person with the sharp edge. Furthermore, after travelling sixty feet, between 12 people, it returns to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVoInlWIcrI





Okay.

How is that less reasonable than anything the Wizard does? Because you personally don't like it?

Um... What? What thread do you think you're in? Where did you get that from? Did you think I was arguing that Lightning Throw makes Warblades better than Wizards?

How incredibly insightful of you to realize that people who can sap all the dexterity from most creatures for the cost of a ranged touch attack and a third level spell slot are better than the people who can throw a sword really really hard at a lot of people. It never would have occurred to me that the epic level guy who can do two whole full attacks in one round isn't as strong as the guy who can say "I wish the bad guy was dead" and give up a pinch of XP for it to be so. Thank you for showing me the light, I'm really going to think about how a guy who can roll an attack to block someone else's attack can possibly stand up to someone who can summon an impenetrable wall of force around themselves. This is truly blowing my mind.




You were asking why the Fighter was boring. That's why.

You know, perhaps we've had different experiences with the english language but I'm pretty sure the way you just used the word "that" doesn't clarify anything in the slightest, as it's in response to a question that accounts for more than one potential answer. Is it the name, or is it the role? "Yes!"

As presented, it sounds like you're saying that the fighter is boring because of their name, in which case you're successfully making me rethink having this discussion with you at all.




Solve noncombat problems. Like the Rogue's ability to sneak, the Cleric's ability to be a priest, the Wizard's ability to divine, the Druid's ability to do nature shenanigans, or the Artificer's ability to build magical stuff.
Then... Let them do it. No character is supposed to be the solution for everything. Characters have roles, I and many others happen to like the warrior role. If you like disarming traps and diplomancing shopkeepers then that's your tastes and I'll respect them whether or not I understand them.




So your contention is that it is totally plausible for there to be Dragons and Wizards and Demons and what not, but completely ridiculous that someone could throw their sword really hard? I don't think that's a standard you'll find many people sharing.
That's probably because it's not very close to what I'm actually saying. You can be snippy if you want but you're wasting both our time when you decide to ignore the actual argument. I don't know how many times I'll have to repeat it... I'm talking about what's credible in the context of heroic fantasy. Really, mos of that comes down to how it looks in the mind's eye, and what you can imagine occurring in a fantasy film. Bouncing a sword between twelve people in a sixty foot line and having the sword return to you just looks stupid.

[Masakan]

I'd be fine if you had, like, a pool of "Stamina points" based on your constitution and level, and you got some number of them back per round, but it seems odd to me that you're so tired that you can't do that cool swordy thing but can do that cool punchy thing, and your sister is too tired to do the cool punchy thing but she's absolutely got the energy for that cool swordy thing.

Ok at that point that's just word play

[Nifft]

Ok at that point that's just sword play

I think you were missing a letter.

[Windrammer]

Ok 1. Name calling does not make you look cool, it just makes you look pretentious.
Second, complaining about what should have been put in what is essentially an outdated system is completely pointless. You can either take it for what it is, homebrew some new stuff for the core classes or move on the 5e.
But don't bother speaking if all your gonna do is bitch and not bring any sort of solution to the table.

I don't consider 3.5 an outdated system. 5e is a different system with different appeal, and it's more restrictive in what you can do. I continue to play 3.5 because I like it. I do homebrew stuff for core classes. Now, I didn't make this post. I just visited it. I thought the OP stated the issue pretty well and even provided a perspective that hadn't occurred to me. So I was aghast at how illogical people were being in the responses. That's why I'm in the heart of the discussion, because I disagree with what many people here are saying. You came at me, rudely, and with a dumb thing to say that barely related to what you were responding to. Don't complain when you get a similar response. And I really, really don't care if I'm striking people as pretentious on an anonymous traditional gaming forum.

[Jormengand]

Ok at that point that's just word play

No, it's not. My issue is that they're essentially vancian casters with swords and shorter rest times. I wouldn't have an issue if mundane A was mundane A (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA): if you're going to claim that it's because they're running out of stamina, they should have mechanics which actually make sense with that.

[Morty]

I'd be fine if you had, like, a pool of "Stamina points" based on your constitution and level, and you got some number of them back per round, but it seems odd to me that you're so tired that you can't do that cool swordy thing but can do that cool punchy thing, and your sister is too tired to do the cool punchy thing but she's absolutely got the energy for that cool swordy thing.

And that's not what happens. Readying and expending maneuvers is an an abstraction of the flow of martial combat, where a fighter tries different strikes and counters based on the situation. And as any martial artist and fencer will tell you, you can't just do the same thing over and over. It's not "forgetting" strikes and counters and to treat it this way is to needlessly focus on form over function.

Is ToB's the most elegant way to portray it? Not really. But it's certainly better than anything D&D had come up with prior to that book. It could have been done better, although I'm not sure if 3e's obstructive rules would have allowed it. A pool of points called "combat momentum" might grind people's gears less, I suppose.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I'd be fine if you had, like, a pool of "Stamina points" based on your constitution and level, and you got some number of them back per round, but it seems odd to me that you're so tired that you can't do that cool swordy thing but can do that cool punchy thing, and your sister is too tired to do the cool punchy thing but she's absolutely got the energy for that cool swordy thing.

See, I always considered this part of the natural combat flow -- never really broke my immersion. I've seen a number of times when, in sparring/competing across various martial arts (naming fencing, judo, aikido, english longsword, and staff fighting), my attacks have failed to be successful because I've become overly reliant on the same technique, and my opponent has adjusted. With a bit of time to use other tricks and throw off their expectations, I could easily launch the same attack again.

It's not 100% realistic (I can indeed hit a bunch of times in a row with the same move if my opponent has trouble blocking that particular strike, or doesn't pick up the pattern, or I'm significantly better than he is), but it's definitely good enough for D&D.

In fact, it's BETTER that combat momentum as a pool of points, which would imply that I can hit my opponent the same way seven times in a row, then can't use ANY techniques until I've recovered. That's pretty unrealistic.

I suppose you could balance each maneuver with its own pool, but that gets into heavy bookkeeping REALLY fast.

[Nifft]

No, it's not. My issue is that they're essentially vancian casters with swords and shorter rest times. I wouldn't have an issue if mundane A was mundane A (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA): if you're going to claim that it's because they're running out of stamina, they should have mechanics which actually make sense with that.

They have abilities which have a cooldown.

In that regard, they're like OD&D Dragons, which IIRC was the first monster to have an ability with a cooldown (breath weapon, 1d4 rounds before using it again).

Video games emulated the OD&D dragon and now "cooldown" has a bit of a bad name, but it was a D&D mechanic originally.

[Masakan]

{scrubbed}

[Jormengand]

And that's not what happens. Readying and expending maneuvers is an an abstraction of the flow of martial combat, where a fighter tries different strikes and counters based on the situation. And as any martial artist and fencer will tell you, you can't just do the same thing over and over. It's not "forgetting" strikes and counters and to treat it this way is to needlessly focus on form over function.

Is ToB's the most elegant way to portray it? Not really. But it's certainly better than anything D&D had come up with prior to that book. It could have been done better, although I'm not sure if 3e's obstructive rules would have allowed it. A pool of points called "combat momentum" might grind people's gears less, I suppose.
See, I always considered this part of the natural combat flow -- never really broke my immersion. I've seen a number of times when, in sparring/competing across various martial arts (naming fencing, judo, aikido, english longsword, and staff fighting), my attacks have failed to be successful because I've become overly reliant on the same technique, and my opponent has adjusted. With a bit of time to use other tricks and throw off their expectations, I could easily launch the same attack again.

It's not 100% realistic (I can indeed hit a bunch of times in a row with the same move if my opponent has trouble blocking that particular strike, or doesn't pick up the pattern, or I'm significantly better than he is), but it's definitely good enough for D&D.

Then why can a wizard throw three lightning bolts and I don't get so much as a bonus on my reflex save for him being so damned predictable? And even if doing the same technique twice isn't likely to work against a skilled swordsman, why can't I do it against the dude in the bathrobe who just lobbed three lightning bolts at me but hasn't picked up a proper sword in his life?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Then why can a wizard throw three lightning bolts and I don't get so much as a bonus on my reflex save for him being so damned predictable?

Because dodging lightning doesn't get easier? It's faster than you are, period. You dodge it to the best of your ability, which is how your dodging always works. Otherwise we reach a point where we're getting bonuses to AC against attacks from enemies just because they've attacked you before.


And even if doing the same technique twice isn't likely to work against a skilled swordsman, why can't I do it against the dude in the bathrobe who just lobbed three lightning bolts at me but hasn't picked up a proper sword in his life?

Because even amateur combatants pick up patterns, would be my guess. Again, it's not an exact simulation, but it IS a fully functional one.

[Brova]

This means that not only are the players fighting smartly (they can repostion themselves), but that means that the characters are fighting smartly since now it's the characters that are changing things around. It's a built-in mechanic that allows players to make smarter choices but also is reflected in that the characters themselves are making smarter choices.

That's a distinction without a difference. Any decision the player makes is (from the perspective of the game world) one the character makes. The only difference is if the player is metagaming.


People hitting things with big sticks fighting alongside people doing crazy mystical **** is a staple of fantasy no matter the medium.

Yes, and the people doing that hit enemies with sticks are not as good as the people who do crazy magic. When Team Avatar defeats the Fire Lord, the mundane characters (Sokka and Suki) go fight a different battle than the people with superpowers.

Demanding to play "guy with a stick" in a game with high powered Wizards is demanding to play a low level character. That's dumb, and it is not a thing the game should support.


If you refuse all three, then you're deluding yourself into something that's simply demonstrably false, and I never want to play in a game you run.

There's absolutely a solution that works and refuses all three: kill the mundane fighter. Guy without magic is not an acceptable character concept in high level D&D. Once you accept that, people can just be Beastmasters or Spirit Ragers or whatever, and there is no problem.

I favor this solution.


If you're designing a D&D edition, you have to cater to these people, unfortunately.

No, you don't. In fact, I'd say that given the option of catering to those people and not catering to those people, you should not cater to them unless doing so is obviously bad design. Because those people's demands are terrible, and the game is better if you ignore them.


Plus, no. I couldn't give a flying damn what resource management system someone has if they're martial: duskblades are martial. Clerics can be martial. Druids can be martial. But if you're mundane, I don't like the idea of you forgetting how to stab someone because you just stabbed them.

Fortunately, that's not how ToB works. The Crusader is divinely inspired with martial skill. He "forgets how to stab people" because his god (or philosophy) is no longer guiding him to do that particular thing. The Swordsage has prepared his body to do particular stunts, and has to refocus. The Warblade overextends himself when he uses maneuvers, and has to break his offense to recuperate.


Yes, Captain America has thrown a shield and had it bounce between people, as I said in the part you cropped out. Why are you pretending that Captain America has ever done anything like what Lightning Throw does?

A thrown shield hitting multiple enemies is just a lower level version of a thrown sword doing that. If your hangup is that I can't find a movie that is exactly D&D, I can't really help you.


Um... What? What thread do you think you're in? Where did you get that from? Did you think I was arguing that Lightning Throw makes Warblades better than Wizards?

Reasonable in the sense of believable. Not powerful.


As presented, it sounds like you're saying that the fighter is boring because of their name, in which case you're successfully making me rethink having this discussion with you at all.

Yes. There's a design problem with a class called a "Fighter". It has no concept. Compare that to the Monk. He's got a concept: he knows kung fu. Or the Wizard, who does magic. Or the Summoner, who summons stuff. Or the Berserker, who rages at stuff. Or seriously, do I need to go on?


Then... Let them do it. No character is supposed to be the solution for everything. Characters have roles, I and many others happen to like the warrior role. If you like disarming traps and diplomancing shopkeepers then that's your tastes and I'll respect them whether or not I understand them.

No. Bad design. Characters need to contribute to all parts of the game.


That's probably because it's not very close to what I'm actually saying. You can be snippy if you want but you're wasting both our time when you decide to ignore the actual argument. I don't know how many times I'll have to repeat it... I'm talking about what's credible in the context of heroic fantasy. Really, mos of that comes down to how it looks in the mind's eye, and what you can imagine occurring in a fantasy film. Bouncing a sword between twelve people in a sixty foot line and having the sword return to you just looks stupid.

That's your opinion. Lots of people think that looks totally reasonable. For example me. Or people who watch fighting anime.

[Jormengand]

Because dodging lightning doesn't get easier? It's faster than you are, period. You dodge it to the best of your ability, which is how your dodging always works. Otherwise we reach a point where we're getting bonuses to AC against attacks from enemies just because they've attacked you before.

It's like dodging a bullet inasmuch as you're not dodging the bullet but the gun. And dodging the wizard should be easier if he's being predictable.


Because even amateur combatants pick up patterns, would be my guess. Again, it's not an exact simulation, but it IS a fully functional one.

I don't like that martial initiators, and only martial initiators, have to deal with the possibility that their opponent might pick up on their fighting pattern. A fighter can try to trip, disarm, or even feint at the same person repeatedly, and even succeed, but if you're a martial initiator trying to do anything even vaguely interesting then nope, not on the cards.


Fortunately, that's not how ToB works. The Crusader is divinely inspired with martial skill. He "forgets how to stab people" because his god (or philosophy) is no longer guiding him to do that particular thing. The Swordsage has prepared his body to do particular stunts, and has to refocus. The Warblade overextends himself when he uses maneuvers, and has to break his offense to recuperate.

Also, the ToB apologists disagreeing with each other on why the maneuvers need to be re-prepared doesn't really speak of a very good, cohesive fluff.

[Masakan]

It's like dodging a bullet inasmuch as you're not dodging the bullet but the gun. And dodging the wizard should be easier if he's being unpredictable.



I don't like that martial initiators, and only martial initiators, have to deal with the possibility that their opponent might pick up on their fighting pattern. A fighter can try to trip, disarm, or even feint at the same person repeatedly, and even succeed, but if you're a martial initiator trying to do anything even vaguely interesting then nope, not on the cards.

Please tell me your not saying you don't like tome of battle....for being more realistic and being better than the core mundane classes because of it?

[Nifft]

I don't like that martial initiators, and only martial initiators, have to deal with the possibility that their opponent might pick up on their fighting pattern. A fighter can try to trip, disarm, or even feint at the same person repeatedly, and even succeed, but if you're a martial initiator trying to do anything even vaguely interesting then nope, not on the cards.

That's just one popular way to fluff the mechanic.

You're free to fluff it differently, including making it actual magic or psionics or whatever (except it's internal magic so it ignores Anti-Magic Fields, except when it doesn't ignore AMFs).

There are no flavor police who will kick down your door if you fail to use the most popular fluff.

[Jormengand]

Please tell me your not saying you don't like tome of battle....for being more realistic and being better than the core mundane classes because of it?

No, no I'm not. What I'm saying is that I dislike it because you're basically going "Here, have all these goodies... oh, except that you have to deal with crap that even the freaking fighter doesn't have to deal with." If the fighter can trip people in enough varied, inspired and different ways so as to be unpredictable, then I think that the warblade should be able to perform maneuvers in enough varied, inspired and different ways so as to be unpredictable.

I basically dislike the fact that they decided to shove a stupid, unnecessary restriction on maneuvers on the basis that warblades are too dumb to do what fighters (and also warblades who aren't using maneuvers) do all the damn time.


That's just one popular way to fluff the mechanic.

You're free to fluff it differently, including making it actual magic or psionics or whatever (except it's internal magic so it ignores Anti-Magic Fields, except when it doesn't ignore AMFs).

There are no flavor police who will kick down your door if you fail to use the most popular fluff.

I'm aware that it's magic, but I'm also aware that some people on this forum insist that it's the Really Ultimate For Real Way Of Playing A Mundane Character And If You Prefer Something Else You're Bad And Wrong, and I don't like that.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

It's like dodging a bullet inasmuch as you're not dodging the bullet but the gun. And dodging the wizard should be easier if he's being predictable.

It's like dodging a gun where the projectile fired is 10ft in diameter and travels instantaneously -- that's a fair sight harder. Plus, we have no indication that the wizard ever has to point out a direction for his spell, actually. He could just make jazz hands, look at the sky, and fire it anywhere. If you know lighting will hit SOMEWHERE but not where its going to be almost impossible to dodge: human reflexes just aren't that fast.


I don't like that martial initiators, and only martial initiators, have to deal with the possibility that their opponent might pick up on their fighting pattern. A fighter can try to trip, disarm, or even feint at the same person repeatedly, and even succeed, but if you're a martial initiator trying to do anything even vaguely interesting then nope, not on the cards.

A Paladin can only Smite a few times per day. A Barbarian reaches a point where he can't get angry again. A Monk can't deflect more than a single arrow per round. A 2nd level Rogue takes either no damage or full damage from an attack -- it can never partially dodge.

There's a lot of nonsense in D&D. Again, you're allowed to not like ToB, but that doesn't make it a bad system.


Also, the ToB apologists disagreeing with each other on why the maneuvers need to be re-prepared doesn't really speak of a very good, cohesive fluff.

But that doesn't matter, since the core system is really sound and the fluff is heavily mutable. I haven't EVER used the fluff as written, actually. I tailor the moves and descriptions to the character in question, and keep the mechanics.

[Masakan]

No, no I'm not. What I'm saying is that I dislike it because you're basically going "Here, have all these goodies... oh, except that you have to deal with crap that even the freaking fighter doesn't have to deal with." If the fighter can trip people in enough varied, inspired and different ways so as to be unpredictable, then I think that the warblade should be able to perform maneuvers in enough varied, inspired and different ways so as to be unpredictable.



I'm aware that it's magic, but I'm also aware that some people on this forum insist that it's the Really Ultimate For Real Way Of Playing A Mundane Character And If You Prefer Something Else You're Bad And Wrong, and I don't like that.

Simple Answer, Houserule the Recovery mechanic away and let them spam skills for days on end...anyone ever tell you, you are WAY too by the book?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Because dodging lightning doesn't get easier? It's faster than you are, period.

Someone summoning lightning is fine because it's fantasy, but someone being faster than lightning is unrealistic and can't happen...

[Morty]

You've also boiled it down to the aspect of the enemy predicting your attacks, in order to reduce the argument to absurdity. The enemy predicting the attacks is part of it, but only a part. It also has to do with momentum, positioning, fatigue and circumstances. All abstracted to readied and expended maneuvers. Again - not perfect. But deliberately interpreting it in the most nonsensical way possible and deriding it is sort of dishonest.

[Jormengand]

It's like dodging a gun where the projectile fired is 10ft in diameter and travels instantaneously -- that's a fair sight harder. Plus, we have no indication that the wizard ever has to point out a direction for his spell, actually. He could just make jazz hands, look at the sky, and fire it anywhere.

Take fireball then: you specifically point at your target.


A Paladin can only Smite a few times per day.
Supernatural.


A Barbarian reaches a point where he can't get angry again.
Which makes sense. Sometimes you're just too tired to be angry.

A Monk can't deflect more than a single arrow per round.
Perfectly natural. It would worry me more if you could get a hundred archers shooting her and she's just like "Nah."


A 2nd level Rogue takes either no damage or full damage from an attack -- it can never partially dodge.
A little odd, but oh well?


There's a lot of nonsense in D&D.

So let's add more!


But that doesn't matter, since the core system is really sound and the fluff is heavily mutable. I haven't EVER used the fluff as written, actually. I tailor the moves and descriptions to the character in question, and keep the mechanics.

Good for you I guess?


Simple Answer, Houserule the Recovery mechanic away and let them spam skills for days on end...anyone ever tell you, you are WAY too by the book?

Right, only the problem is that people insist that using the ToB by-the-itself is the One True Way To... you know the rest.

[Shackel]

Jorme, I'm a PF player so I don't remember which 3.5 class did something similar to this, but I know the "Pathwalker"(Psychic Warrior archetype) has a maneuver regaining method of just needing to make a normal attack or full-attack. What do you think of that method? It seems to fit a lot more into the idea that the maneuvers are fitting into the flow of battle, subtly changing your stance so that it cannot be done again in rapid-succession. You can keep your enemy on their toes by becoming an unpredictable flurry of maneuvers, or you can space them out to keep flow.

The Warlord in PF seems to fall in that same category too: an active way of regaining your maneuvers with the Gambits. Do you think active methods would make more sense, or do you find issue with them being "expendable" in the first place, and prefer something like, say, the Tactical feats from 3.5?

[Nifft]

I'm aware that it's magic, but I'm also aware that some people on this forum insist that it's the Really Ultimate For Real Way Of Playing A Mundane Character And If You Prefer Something Else You're Bad And Wrong, and I don't like that.

It feels like you're biting my hand for having the audacity to try to help bridge the gap between your preference and the more popular preferences.

Well, whatever. It's no harm to my games if you can't use ToB stuff.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Someone summoning lightning is fine because it's fantasy, but someone being faster than lightning is unrealistic and can't happen...

I have no issue with someone being faster than lightning. That's why you get a reflex save! You CAN be faster than lightning.

I was attempting to explain why it might be harder to get into a pattern of dodging lightning blasts, that's all. :smalltongue:

And honestly? I wouldn't be opposed to gaining bonuses to saves against repeated uses of the same spell. But D&D has never BEEN consistent, and that lack of consistency is NOT a reason for Tome of Battle to be considered a poor source book.

[Masakan]

Right, only the problem is that people insist that using the ToB by-the-itself is the One True Way To... you know the rest.

Actually keep up in a high fantasy campaign as a Pure melee? Sadly its the truth

[Jormengand]

Jorme, I'm a PF player so I don't remember which 3.5 class did something similar to this, but I know the "Pathwalker"(Psychic Warrior archetype) has a maneuver regaining method of just needing to make a normal attack or full-attack. What do you think of that method? It seems to fit a lot more into the idea that the maneuvers are fitting into the flow of battle, subtly changing your stance so that it cannot be done again in rapid-succession. You can keep your enemy on their toes by becoming an unpredictable flurry of maneuvers, or you can space them out to keep flow.

The Warlord in PF seems to fall in that same category too: an active way of regaining your maneuvers with the Gambits. Do you think active methods would make more sense, or do you find issue with them being "expendable" in the first place, and prefer something like, say, the Tactical feats from 3.5?

I still don't like it: the fighter doesn't need to recover his tripping by making a normal attack. Why do maneuvers have to fit into the flow of battle but combat maneuvers (goddammit Pathfinder) don't?


Actually keep up in a high fantasy campaign as a Pure melee? Sadly its the truth

Be a cleric and pure melee instead. Just as magical, and even stronger!

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Take fireball then: you specifically point at your target.

Point half taken. Point NOT half taken due to the 20 foot radius though. :smalltongue:


Supernatural.

So is, say, the Crusader.


Which makes sense. Sometimes you're just too tired to be angry.

Sometimes you just exhausted yourself with your powerful Mountain Tombstone Strike, or are recovering from your fancy Five Finger Creeping Ice Enervation Strike and need to use something a little less taxing on yourself. Seems about as reasonable to me.


A little odd, but oh well?

My thoughts on Tome of Battle's maneuver system. Opinions are allowed to vary without either of us being wrong, or the book necessarily being poorly designed.


So let's add more!

D&D is not a simulationist game, for all that it occasionally attempts a nod at realism. Adding more nonsense in the interest of gameplay players may enjoy is fine with me.


Good for you I guess?

Yeah. Pretty much. My only point there was that there doesn't need to be consistent fluff. :smalltongue:


Right, only the problem is that people insist that using the ToB by-the-itself is the One True Way To... you know the rest.

Pretty sure I NEVER insisted on that, in any way, shape, or form. I'll defend it as a great sourcebook, but it's up to you to use or not as you see fit. It's not the band-aid for all your problems.

[Mystral]

Someone summoning lightning is fine because it's fantasy, but someone being faster than lightning is unrealistic and can't happen...

Of course it can happen, and it does happen when that person makes his/her reflex save and has evasion.

[rrwoods]

snip
I think we are in agreement here? I consider "kill the mundane fighter" akin to my option 2. My favorite character is the swordsage I'm currently playing, because I love martials but I also love options. Thankfully my DM shares my opinion (and, it appears, yours).

[Draconium]

I'm a little concerned about how this morphed from "why fighters are worse than casters" into "why Tome of Battle sucks/doesn't suck." :smalleek: Anyone else?

[Masakan]

Be a cleric and pure melee instead. Just as magical, and even stronger!

Your Still not playing a pure melee!

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I'm a little concerned about how this morphed from "why fighters are worse than casters" into "why Tome of Battle sucks/doesn't suck." :smalleek: Anyone else?

That always happens, sadly.

I wish more people just accepted the philosophy of:

Tome of Battle is a great book that introduces a higher-power set of martial characters, if you enjoy the mechanics presented therein. It's perfectly acceptable to NOT like the classes and systems in the book. USE AT YOUR GAME TABLE'S DISCRETION. REFLAVOR IT OR IGNORE IT AS YOU WISH. THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG.

[Jormengand]

So is, say, the Crusader.

And unlike the others it has the common decency to admit it.


Sometimes you just exhausted yourself with your powerful Mountain Tombstone Strike, or are recovering from your fancy Five Finger Creeping Ice Enervation Strike and need to use something a little less taxing on yourself. Seems about as reasonable to me.
Right, only go back to what I was saying about swords and punching and sisters (you can sword but too tired to punch, your sister is too tired to sword but all up for punching) and you start to see why that's a little silly.


My thoughts on Tome of Battle's maneuver system. Opinions are allowed to vary without either of us being wrong, or the book necessarily being poorly designed.
The thing is, it's not just "This is a thing that's odd, but hey, it makes the game better so oh well", it's "This is a thing that's odd, and also makes the last hope for mundanes less good and less mundane-feeling".


D&D is not a simulationist game, for all that it occasionally attempts a nod at realism. Adding more nonsense in the interest of gameplay players may enjoy is fine with me.

Yeah, but there's nonsense like binary success/failure which makes the game better because it's quicker, and then there's nonsense like being two tired to stab someone but all right punching them while your brother is all ready to stab them, but not to punch them.


Pretty sure I NEVER insisted on that, in any way, shape, or form. I'll defend it as a great sourcebook, but it's up to you to use or not as you see fit. It's not the band-aid for all your problems.

I didn't say you did.


Your Still not playing a pure melee!

It's not hard to spam self-buffs, which make you better (purely) at melee.

[Shackel]

I still don't like it: the fighter doesn't need to recover his tripping by making a normal attack. Why do maneuvers have to fit into the flow of battle but combat maneuvers (goddammit Pathfinder) don't?

My guess is that, say, disarming is simpler than making a focused pair of more accurate attacks which instantly disarm if successful(Flick of the Wrist, Thrashing Dragon 2nd level maneuver). However, if there was a feat or something that made a strike permanently readied for you(perhaps even with a bonus), that'd be kind of interesting. Signature Strike or something.

[Masakan]

I'm a little concerned about how this morphed from "why fighters are worse than casters" into "why Tome of Battle sucks/doesn't suck." :smalleek: Anyone else?

Sadly this tends to happen with these kinds of discussions.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

And unlike the others it has the common decency to admit it.

The Swordsage outright admits it as well. It doesn't give you the REASON you run out of ki, or energy, or willpower, or whatever, but it's really easy to come up with logical explanations as to why your supernatural monk-like warrior can't conjure more fire for a while.


The thing is, it's not just "This is a thing that's odd, but hey, it makes the game better so oh well", it's "This is a thing that's odd, and also makes the last hope for mundanes less good and less mundane-feeling".

That's your opinion. You're on the latter side, I'm on the former. Again, neither of us is wrong: one of us will just use ToB, the other won't.


I didn't say you did.

Fair enough. :smallbiggrin:

[Nifft]

That always happens, sadly.

I wish more people just accepted the philosophy of:

Tome of Battle is a great book that introduces a higher-power set of martial characters, if you enjoy the mechanics presented therein. It's perfectly acceptable to NOT like the classes and systems in the book. USE AT YOUR GAME TABLE'S DISCRETION. REFLAVOR IT OR IGNORE IT AS YOU WISH. THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG.

But my alignment is Lawful Right.

[Jormengand]

The Swordsage outright admits it as well. It doesn't give you the REASON you run out of ki, or energy, or willpower, or whatever, but it's really easy to come up with logical explanations as to why your supernatural monk-like warrior can't conjure more fire for a while.

Right, but that isn't helpful when discussing why the game hates mundanes.

[rrwoods]

That always happens, sadly.

I wish more people just accepted the philosophy of:

Tome of Battle is a great book that introduces a higher-power set of martial characters, if you enjoy the mechanics presented therein. It's perfectly acceptable to NOT like the classes and systems in the book. USE AT YOUR GAME TABLE'S DISCRETION. REFLAVOR IT OR IGNORE IT AS YOU WISH. THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG.

I mean, yeah, sure. I'm not going to tell anyone they are Having Fun Wrong. However you have fun -- do it! That's what the ttrpg experience should be about no matter your system of choice.

My problem is with people who say "fighters are boring how awful is that" -- clearly indicating they aren't having fun -- but then reject all fixes. 3.5 is two editions old! We aren't getting new material! Work with what we've got, make new material, or move on.

[Masakan]

Right, but that isn't helpful when discussing why the game hates mundanes.
Hold up hold up, I think i get this issue. Tell me this. Do you consider any class in the Tome of Battle Mundane?

[Brova]

Right, but that isn't helpful when discussing why the game hates mundanes.

The game doesn't hate mundanes. Well, it kind of does, but that's besides the point. The point is this: mundanes suck. Not having a high level power source is exactly like not being high level. If you want to have high level mundanes, either high level needs to be indistinguishable from low level or they need to not be mundane.

[Jormengand]

Hold up hold up, I think i get this issue. Tell me this. Do you consider any class in the Tome of Battle Mundane?

Even if all of their abilities are tagged (Ex), either they're magical or they're mundane and mildly amnesiac.

[Mystral]

Personally, I can't see why people always propose that Tome of Battle is too asian/anime.

The art in the book is clearly western fantasy. I only found two pictures with an asiatic looking character.

Of the three classes in the book, two are clearly western fantasy. Only the Swordsage could be seen as a Ninja wannabee, but then, that's mostly shadow blade's fault. And even then, it's powers very easily fit into western fantasy, as well.

Of the nine disciplines, desert wind has a distinctly arabic feel, devoted spirits is very western fantasy, the concept of mind over matter of diamond mind is no more asian than psionics, iron heart is basically classical medieval fencing without any bells and whistles, stone dragon encompases the art of hitting things really, really hard, tiger claw feels somewhat primal and tribal and white raven focuses on supporting and leading your team mates. Setting sun, with its focus on throwing people around, could be seen as a nod to soft oriental fighting stiles, but that would require you to forget all the various wrestling arts of the west. And shadow hand might be seen as the ninja school, but then, rogues should be seen as ninjas, too, because they sneak around a lot and use many tools and skills.

There is also only one prestige class that screams "asia" to me, the Shadow Sun Ninja. And guess what, it's a monk prestige class, so this is totally apropriate. All the other prestige classes have a western fluff and would need serious refluffing to feel at home in an asiatic setting.

Of the nine swords mentioned in the title, exactly one is not a medieval sword, and that is the kukri Tiger Fang. No katanas, no ninja-to's, daos or naginatas in sight.

So where, oh where, does this "asian fighting magic" thing even exist, except in the head of the ToB haters?

[Morty]

Tome of Battle is an actual, WotC-sanctioned attempt at addressing the fundamental issues that cause the non-spellcasting classes to be kind of pathetic. A discussion of those issues is going to involve Tome of Battle sooner or later.

[Masakan]

Even if all of their abilities are tagged (Ex), either they're magical or they're mundane and mildly amnesiac.

Meaning in your eyes it only further serves the point that the game hates mundanes.

Unfortunately that's just kind of how the definition of the word "Mundane" works.
lacking interest or excitement; dull.
humdrum, dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, tiresome, wearisome, unexciting, uninteresting, involving, uneventful, unvarying, unremarkable, repetitive, repetitious, routine, ordinary, everyday, day-to-day, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, workaday.

They are by definition unremarkable. And that's sadly something you will just have to accept.


Personally, I can't see why people always propose that Tome of Battle is too asian/anime.

The art in the book is clearly western fantasy. I only found two pictures with an asiatic looking character.

Of the three classes in the book, two are clearly western fantasy. Only the Swordsage could be seen as a Ninja wannabee, but then, that's mostly shadow blade's fault. And even then, it's powers very easily fit into western fantasy, as well.

Of the nine disciplines, desert wind has a distinctly arabic feel, devoted spirits is very western fantasy, the concept of mind over matter of diamond mind is no more asian than psionics, iron heart is basically classical medieval fencing without any bells and whistles, stone dragon encompases the art of hitting things really, really hard, tiger claw feels somewhat primal and tribal and white raven focuses on supporting and leading your team mates. Setting sun, with its focus on throwing people around, could be seen as a nod to soft oriental fighting stiles, but that would require you to forget all the various wrestling arts of the west. And shadow hand might be seen as the ninja school, but then, rogues should be seen as ninjas, too, because they sneak around a lot and use many tools and skills.

There is also only one prestige class that screams "asia" to me, the Shadow Sun Ninja. And guess what, it's a monk prestige class, so this is totally apropriate. All the other prestige classes have a western fluff and would need serious refluffing to feel at home in an asiatic setting.

Of the nine swords mentioned in the title, exactly one is not a medieval sword, and that is the kukri Tiger Fang. No katanas, no ninja-to's, daos or naginatas in sight.

So where, oh where, does this "asian fighting magic" thing even exist, except in the head of the ToB haters?

And even if it was overly anime/asian who cares? It makes melees actually fun to play.
If you want a blatent anime board game look up anime D20 yes that is an actual thing

[Mystral]

And even if it was overly anime/asian who cares? It makes melees actually fun to play.
If you want a blatent anime board game look up anime D20 yes that is an actual thing

There is also wrestling d20.

[Jormengand]

Meaning in your eyes it only further serves the point that the game hates mundanes.

Unfortunately that's just kind of how the definition of the word "Mundane" works.
lacking interest or excitement; dull.
humdrum, dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, tiresome, wearisome, unexciting, uninteresting, involving, uneventful, unvarying, unremarkable, repetitive, repetitious, routine, ordinary, everyday, day-to-day, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, workaday.

They are by definition unremarkable. And that's sadly something you will just have to accept.

I refer you to Professor Richard Dawkins' opinion:

“The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from the Latin 'Mundus' meaning 'the world'. And the world is anything but dull: The world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world."

More to the point, I'm just using "Mundane" to mean "Nonmagical." And some nonmagical things are awesome, man.

[Brova]

More to the point, I'm just using "Mundane" to mean "Nonmagical." And some nonmagical things are awesome, man.

Yes.

Like Warblades.

You seem to be confusing your personal dislike for a resource management system with a problem with that resource management system.

Unless you have some ace in the hole as to why ToB is bad for the game, why do we care about your opinion?

[Masakan]

Yes.

Like Warblades.

You seem to be confusing your personal dislike for a resource management system with a problem with that resource management system.

Unless you have some ace in the hole as to why ToB is bad for the game, why do we care about your opinion?

No i think a better question is why SHOULD we? But he's right Warblades have no magical, divine or supernatural inclinations whatsoever, and yet considered toxic simply by association.

And sadly I don't think the world should be associated with the word mundane, because at least to me the world is very magical.

[Jormengand]

You seem to be confusing your personal dislike for a resource management system with a problem with that resource management system.

And you seem to assume that if you like something then it doesn't matter if a fairly sizable contingent of other people don't like it, because they aren't you.

[Masakan]

And you seem to assume that if you like something then it doesn't matter if a fairly sizable contingent of other people don't like it, because they aren't you.
No he's saying that you are completely and totally biased. Besides, should we NOT like it because you don't?

[OldTrees1]

I'm a little concerned about how this morphed from "why fighters are worse than casters" into "why Tome of Battle sucks/doesn't suck." :smalleek: Anyone else?

Yes this is a problem. It has happened many times and thus can be studied for patterns.

Here are some summaries of one side:
"I find Fighter(with the feats that currently exist) therefore the concept of a Feat based martial character is fundamentally boring"
"I heard you mention Fighter, let me plug ToB as if it is the only and is an obligatory option. I don't actually necessarily feel it is obligatory but that is how one plugs right?"
"I need to convince you that there are no significant differences between Maneuvers and Non-manuever based martial combat that could make someone dislike Maneuvers despite you being a explicit counterexample."

Here are the summaries of the other side of the argument(usually not actually the opposite position):
"I have enough system mastery to have found enough stuff for Fighter to make them interesting"
"Backlash to ToB plug"
"I need to convince you that this difference between Maneuvers and Non-maneuvers is significant and does make some people dislike maneuvers."

Add on the whole word choice semantics issue of Caster-Non caster, Martial-Non Martial, Mundane - Non Mundane, Magical - Non Magical, ... and you have a mess.


That always happens, sadly.

I wish more people just accepted the philosophy of:

Tome of Battle is a great book that introduces a higher-power set of martial characters, if you enjoy the mechanics presented therein. It's perfectly acceptable to NOT like the classes and systems in the book. USE AT YOUR GAME TABLE'S DISCRETION. REFLAVOR IT OR IGNORE IT AS YOU WISH. THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG.

Frankly, it is not about people holding that philosophy, it is about people speaking as if they held that philosophy. Even you were sending off signals that were counter to this philosophy that we both know you hold. Although this is not the time/place to discuss the specific semantics that result in such miscommunication.



Back to the opening topic:
D&D 3rd edition hates non-casters because WotC flubbed some of the structure by taking a big step into new territory(higher risk of structural mistakes) and had some large misconceptions about PCs of various classes.

Fighter would have been better if the Feat section held up the expectations that Fighter's class features expected.
Skillmonkeys would have been better if the Skills section was kept in mind when the casters were getting utility spells.
Etc.

[Jormengand]

No he's saying that you are completely and totally biased.

Yes, I admit, I'm biased against stupid mechanics that make your class less effective at being a good mundane by making it less good and less mundane. Many bias. Such loaded. Wow.

[Brova]

And you seem to assume that if you like something then it doesn't matter if a fairly sizable contingent of other people don't like it, because they aren't you.

What?

There are two criticisms of Tome of Battle.

The one that "a fairly sizable contingent of other people" make is that it is too anime. Those people are wrong, both because ToB is not anime and because drawing anime, and Asian influences in general, would make D&D a better game.

The one that you personally make is that you don't think Tome of Battle "feels mundane". Frankly, I don't care. Because your entire argument is that you don't like it. If you have some argument as to how it is bad, I'm all ears.

[Anlashok]

Here are some summaries of one side:
[snip]
Here are the summaries of the other side of the argument(usually not actually the opposite position):
[snip]


My favorite part is the way you totally don't phrase it to make one side sound completely rational and victimized by the other side which are dumb and bigoted.

[Jormengand]

If you have some argument as to how it is bad, I'm all ears.

Well, then, you'll be happy to respond to the arguments that I've spent aboooout the last two pages making.

[OldTrees1]

My favorite part is the way you totally don't phrase it to make one side sound completely rational and victimized by the other side which are dumb and bigoted.

Which side is that?(rhetorical) I tried to phrase both to sound bigoted since it is the extreme positions that create these arguments even if puppeting people that hold less extreme positions.

[Masakan]

Well, then, you'll be happy to respond to the arguments that I've spent aboooout the last two pages making.

Im sorry I looked at the last 2 pages as well as every other arguement you made regarding the ToB and every single one only amounted to "Tome of Battle is bad because I don't like it", Nothing to do with it's mechanics or why they are bad, nothing to do with anything being particularly broken. It's bad because I said so.

Look I don't like Wizards I think how they work is cumbersome, I think they are a lot less inflexible than sorcerers and as much as people sing their praises are hindered simply because they are reliant on seeing things coming.

Does that make Wizards a bad class? Pfft Come on, I would have been laughed out of the forums if I ever said that.

[Brova]

Well, then, you'll be happy to respond to the arguments that I've spent aboooout the last two pages making.

I don't think you understand what I mean by bad. I don't mean whether or not you think the mechanics feel mundane. I care about the mechanics being bad design. Here are some examples of arguments that things in D&D are bad design:

1. Psionics is bad design because a power point reserve encourages you to spam your most powerful abilities, as using low level powers directly trades off with using high level ones. This is compounded by the fact that low level powers do not automatically scale, meaning that getting a low level power with level appropriate numbers costs as much as using a level appropriate power.

2. The Factotum is bad design because it gains inspiration points at the beginning of an encounter, which is not a defined event in D&D. Further, it does not ever lose inspiration points and the rules for default action types make it impossible or useless to use certain abilities.

3. Setting spell DCs by level is bad design because it means that you either end up with low level abilities being useless if the DC for high level spells is level appropriate or high level abilities being broken if the DC for low level spells is level appropriate.

4. planar binding is bad design because it allows you to control enough tokens to overwhelm the actions of other players and, indeed, any opposition that is remotely level appropriate.

And so on. There are even arguments you can make like that about Tome of Battle, mostly with people getting new stances just before the next level of stances happens or the Idiot Crusader trick. You could also make a more complicated argument about how ToB is bad design because high level maneuvers don't keep up with high level spells (seriously, wail of the banshee is the same level as a maneuver that does 100 points of fire damage in an area).

But you didn't make those arguments. The argument you made was that you didn't like Tome of Battle. I will now refute that argument: I like Tome of Battle.

[Masakan]

{scrubbed}

[Jormengand]

And the point flew on, way, way above the heads of Masakan and Brova...

Okay, let's get one thing here. The entire freaking topic is about mundanes. Whether or not Tome of Battle is mundane is absolutely relevant to whether or not it's a good mundane fix. I mean, it's not a bad magic system, but it suffers from the fact that it, well, is a magic system if it wants to be the mundane fix. Hope that clears that up for you. And no, I'm not quoting you, because pretty much none of what you said was of any real relevance. If you want to argue about whether or not it's well-designed, this isn't the thread you are looking for.

[Brova]

Okay, let's get one thing here. The entire freaking topic is about mundanes. Whether or not Tome of Battle is mundane is absolutely relevant to whether or not it's a good mundane fix. I mean, it's not a bad magic system, but it suffers from the fact that it, well, is a magic system if it wants to be the mundane fix. Hope that clears that up for you. And no, I'm not quoting you, because pretty much none of what you said was of any real relevance. If you want to argue about whether or not it's well-designed, this isn't the thread you are looking for.

I'm going to refute your argument again. I think Tome of Battle is mundane.

Also, you can't fix mundanes if they aren't allowed to have magic. If there is some constraint ("not being magic") which constrains one subset of classes, but not others, by definition those subsets are imbalanced. And if you think it's totally fine for mundanes to get magic powers, just not with ToB rules, we're right back to you not having an argument.

What something feels like to you is neither here nor there.

[Jormengand]

I'm going to refute your argument again. I think Tome of Battle is mundane.

You can think the sun is a fish for all I care. The sun is not a fish; ToB is not mundane.


Also, you can't fix mundanes if they aren't allowed to have magic.
So... you can't fix mundanes?

If there is some constraint ("not being magic") which constrains one subset of classes, but not others, by definition those subsets are imbalanced.
Not necessarily. The set of all odd numbers has a constraint which the set of all even numbers doesn't, but the set of all even numbers also has constraint that the set of all odd numbers doesn't. Wizards have constraints in the number of spells per day they have (at least, unless you do stuff to make it infinite, but that's usually TO by that point), so if fighters were actually any good, just not quite as good, but didn't have those restraints, then we might have something vaguely balanced.

And if you think it's totally fine for mundanes to get magic powers, just not with ToB rules, we're right back to you not having an argument.
Just as well I don't think that, didn't say it, and did not, by any means, imply it, then.


What something feels like to you is neither here nor there.

Right back at you, brah.

[Mystral]

You can think the sun is a fish for all I care. The sun is not a fish; ToB is not mundane.

You can build a perfectly mundane warblade without him doing _anything_ that is out of the realm of the mundane and physically impossible, up until the highest levels.

[Brova]

You can think the sun is a fish for all I care. The sun is not a fish; ToB is not mundane.

Why?


So... you can't fix mundanes?

Well, you can't fix high level mundanes. But low level mundanes are basically fine, so I don't really think that's the point of this discussion.


Not necessarily. The set of all odd numbers has a constraint which the set of all even numbers doesn't, but the set of all even numbers also has constraint that the set of all odd numbers doesn't.

One would imagine I was assuming ceteris paribus. Actually, one would not have to imagine that, as I was. Hence, the second set is not constrained.


Wizards have constraints in the number of spells per day they have (at least, unless you do stuff to make it infinite, but that's usually TO by that point), so if fighters were actually any good, just not quite as good, but didn't have those restraints, then we might have something vaguely balanced.

You're missing the point. If a Fighter has an ability that is "almost as good" as shapechange, he's pretty obviously not mundane.

[Jormengand]

You can build a perfectly mundane warblade without him doing _anything_ that is out of the realm of the mundane and physically impossible, up until the highest levels.

You can build a perfectly mundane wizard with nine intelligence as well. I mean, so what if you can build something magical as though it were a mundane?

[Brova]

You can build a perfectly mundane wizard with nine intelligence as well. I mean, so what if you can build something magical as though it were a mundane?

So I have a question. Which of the following is mundane:

1. A guy who can use an [Ex] version of shapechange at will.
2. A guy who can stun someone once per combat.

Simple answer please.

[Jormengand]

Why?

Going back to lightning throw, I doubt that a bullet from an assault rifle could go through six people, much less do enough damage to kill the last one instantly. For a start.


Well, you can't fix high level mundanes. But low level mundanes are basically fine, so I don't really think that's the point of this discussion.
Well, yes, you can fix high level mundanes. By actually giving them decent abilities that, well, are decent. And not magical.


One would imagine I was assuming ceteris paribus. Actually, one would not have to imagine that, as I was. Hence, the second set is not constrained.

You're missing the point. If a Fighter has an ability that is "almost as good" as shapechange, he's pretty obviously not mundane.

And if a wizard can cast spells forever without dropping he's not a vancian caster, either. It's not that I don't understand your point. I just don't agree with your point.


So I have a question. Which of the following is mundane:

1. A guy who can use an [Ex] version of shapechange at will.
2. A guy who can stun someone once per combat.

Simple answer please.

Neither. The former for obvious reasons, and the latter because in real life people don't have magical constraints on how often they can stun a guy.

[Mystral]

You can build a perfectly mundane wizard with nine intelligence as well. I mean, so what if you can build something magical as though it were a mundane?

Okay, let me clarify:

You can build a perfectly mundane warblade, which is still viable and working as intended by the designers.

Could you please tell me which features of the warblade ARE magical? There are only a few maneuvers that have a non-mundane ring to them, like the one where the warblade throws his weapon and it returns into his hand, or parts of the diamond mind school.

In fact, of the nine schools of the ToB, only 3.5 qualify as magical: Desert Wind with some fire-based stuff, shadow hand with shadow manipulation and devoted spirit with divine healing and stuff. Some of the manuevers of diamond mind seem supernatural, but others are more reminiscent of the feats of willpower by real life shaolin monks.

The other schools? Medieval fencing with Iron Heart, soft throwing based martial arts with setting sun, strong, slow strikes with stone dragon, acrobatic fencing with tiger claw and team-based tactics with white raven. All perfectly mundane.

[Masakan]

{scrubbed}

[Jormengand]

{scrubbed}

No, maneuvers aren't magical in principle. The mystical limitations surrounding when you can and can't do a maneuver? Are. I've lost track of how many times I've said that.

[Mystral]

No, maneuvers aren't magical in principle. The mystical limitations surrounding when you can and can't do a maneuver? Are. I've lost track of how many times I've said that.

This is just a mechanical aspect of the game, a balancing factor. You might as well say that sneak attack is magical because rogues are magically unable to kick someone in the nads unless they are suprising or flanking them.

Jus because you've said it often doesn't make it more right.

[Draconium]

No, maneuvers aren't magical in principle. The mystical limitations surrounding when you can and can't do a maneuver? Are. I've lost track of how many times I've said that.

But... I was under the impression that those reasons are purely mechanical, so you can't spam the maneuvers. And as such, you should be able to fluff it as whatever you want, whether it be magic, combat rhythm, stamina, or what have you.

Basically, it's only magical if you see it as magical.

[Brova]

Going back to lightning throw, I doubt that a bullet from an assault rifle could go through six people, much less do enough damage to kill the last one instantly. For a start.

Okay, cool. The upper limit for mundane characters should be "not quite as good as modern weapons". So how the hell are they supposed to contribute to a part of a Wizard who can kill an entire room full of people with a word, a Cleric who can summon legions of angels, or a Druid that can alter the weather and wipe cities off the map?

Answer: They can't, being mundane is a low level concept.


Well, yes, you can fix high level mundanes. By actually giving them decent abilities that, well, are decent. And not magical.

Except you just rejected giving them an ability as good as lightning bolt, a spell that you wouldn't cast if it was two levels lower than it is.


And if a wizard can cast spells forever without dropping he's not a vancian caster, either. It's not that I don't understand your point. I just don't agree with your point.

Viagra fallacy. Being weaker than a Wizard, but able to go all day just means that parties will be all Wizards and rest more. Also, hit points.


Neither. The former for obvious reasons, and the latter because in real life people don't have magical constraints on how often they can stun a guy.

Once again, we've just established an upper bound for how good mundanes can be. That bound is people getting shapechange. What about cloudkill? stinking cloud? wall of smoke?

[Jormengand]

This is just a mechanical aspect of the game, a balancing factor. You might as well say that sneak attack is magical because rogues are magically unable to kick someone in the nads unless they are suprising or flanking them.

Right, because forgetting how to stab someone after you just stabbed them is totally on par with being unable to backstab someone in the front. Uh-huh.


Jus because you've said it often doesn't make it more right.

No, which is why I never claimed that. The fact that I've said it often does mean that anyone with even a cursory interest in the debate should have had the presence of mind to figure out my position by now.



Brova: There's nothing magical about being able to solve all your wizard-related problems by ramming five feet of steel down his throat. Or how about being immune to magic? That's almost diametrically non-magical. Oh, or how about being able to give an inspiring speech and rally entire continents to your side faster than the druid can destroy them? That's improbable, sure, but not impossible, and "Improbable but not impossible" is basically the whole point of being a mundane hero.

[Masakan]

{scrubbed}

[Mystral]

The warblade recharges his maneuvers by doing a standard attack. Which means that you can do the same maneuver every second round, interspersed by a round of fighting normally, regaining your balance and focus and recovering from the strain of your special maneuvers.

What exactly is not mundane about this?

Your position is very clear, by the way. Wrong, but clear.

[Brova]

Another question. Which of the following resource management systems would "be mundane":

1. You sometimes see an opportunity in battle to strike particularly effectively. This is abstracted mechanically by having a deck of powers and drawing ones that are currently tactically appropriate.
2. You get angry. Mechanically, you get Rage points when you hit people or get hit. You can cash in these points for limit breaks of various sorts.
3. You need to prepare your strikes. Mechanically, you have to drop out of combat for a few actions to do something impressive.
4. Your strikes build up momentum to hit people really hard. Mechanically, you have some basic powers that give you Momentum and more advanced powers that let you spend it.
5. Your powers involve pushing your body beyond its limits for an impressive effect. Mechanically, you do something sweet and then are exhausted or whatever for a while.

[OldTrees1]

Could you please tell me which features of the warblade ARE magical?

Since he has repeated his answer with no success, I will try to translate his answer:


The greatest warrior that ever lived should be able to position themselves for a combat technique as part of the same action as the combat technique(sorta like how a Standard action Attack might be 1 potential hit from several thrusts and feints).


Now, in a system where 1st level casters are always in position to cast a spell, do we really hate martial characters enough to punish them with action economy taxes for "positioning"? I hope not. Some players do enjoy the refreshing action economy tax. Letting those players experience that refresh system is good. However we must recognize that at the same level of combat abstraction as casters, there would be not be such a tax.

That said, I still count ToB as Martials.


The warblade recharges his maneuvers by doing a standard attack. Which means that you can do the same maneuver every second round, interspersed by a round of fighting normally, regaining your balance and focus and recovering from the strain of your special maneuvers.

What exactly is not mundane about this?

Your position is very clear, by the way. Wrong, but clear.

Guy at the Gym Fallacy
The Warblade ought not need to recover from strain since the maneuvers they are doing at their level are not reasonably simulated strenuous for someone of that level. (unless invoking the Guy at the Gym Fallacy)

Sidenote: It doesn't even make sense as strain. RAW You can do N such actions and take 1 round to recover. But if you recover between those N such actions then it takes N rounds to recover from the same "strain"?

[Hal0Badger]

I have seen 6-7 pages answers, last time I have checked it was 3. I hoped a for a health discussion about a fixes or remakes, all I got a discussion if ToB is magical or mundane.

The problem with mundane system is, they are quite restricting, from skill tricks to feats.
A wizard or caster simply goes chooses, and fun to play because when you set your eye a spell, all you need is levels. Like, if you are an illusionist and set your eyes on the Major Image, all you need to do is to get proper level.

For mundanes, bad feat-taxes and limited feat numbers blocks the same fun. If you are not a fighter, you are not likely get more than 1 fighting style, unless you multiclass and dip multiple times.

Maybe a different feat progression per classes, like BAB, would allow a better mundane system. Or changing-merging tax feats, like merging dodge+mobility, and making the dodge bonus +2, can make those feats at least decent.

[Milo v3]

Amazing rebuttal. Allow me to retort: Sure it is!

Man, debating is easier than I thought.
You do realize the ansertion I answered had less reasoning behind it than my rebuttal? Nothing in the book has anything forcing you to be zany. Nothing in the book has anything forcing you to use kung-fu. Nothing in the book has anything forcing you to be anime-esque. Nothing in the book has anything forcing you to be videogame-esque. Please show the text that states you (directly or indirectly) that your character would have to be any of those.


Now, it isn't. It's still absurd. Are you visualizing it?
A warrior who is powerful and a master at the spear throws his spear, said spear than penetrates his opponents over after the other because of the immense force it was thrown with and his throwing technique. It isn't absurd, it's mythic. It's taking martial skill + levels to it's logical conclusion. It's not anymore absurd than the fact fighters can survive being hit by ancient red dragons breath weapon, if anything it is less absurd.


ToB is decidedly oriental and requires substantial reflavoring for it to function differently.
Not really. I'm looking at the books text right now and:
[list]
Crusader has the same fluff as a paladin, except that they can different alignments and instead of getting specific spells they get blessings and immediate guidance throughout the day. There is no anime or videogame-ness in their fluff at all.
Swordsage has the same fluff as a duskblade or hexblade, except they need to recentre their mind every now and then because they have a much smaller amount of magic they can perform. Not anime or videogame.
Warblade has the same fluff as a fighter. Not anime or videogame.


Wow. You're saying it's fine that fighter is so much weaker than it should be because it's just boring? Where I come from, that's called an "opinion", and it's an unusual one at that. I, and many, many others, don't think fighters are boring at all. In fact, every time I play a wizard I get bored and wish I was a martial character again. Warriors have always been the main heroes of fantasy tales and most people won't get turned off simply by the fact that fighting without magic is too mainstream.
You could just play a martial class that does something. Barbarian, bloodrager, brawler, cavalier, crusader, gunslinger, hexblade, paladin, ranger, slayer, swashbuckler, warblade. They all have a reason to exist. They have flavour that goes "I fight in this way". Fighters don't work as a class concept when Everyone already is a fighter. You need more than that to be worth it.


You are attempting some of the weakest pedantry I've ever seen, and you failed at it. A rose by any other name is still a rose, whether they're called spells or maneuvers, whether you refresh them with standard/swift action or a night's rest.
So is a drink of water the same as a spell? Both can be expended, and you can refresh them? The only reason they look like spells is because they are displayed with the same formatting... which is sort of required based on the mechanics of how 3.5e works.


Are you saying that because the rules say so or because you actually think all those maneuvers are plausible?
Plausible. For a martial hero. A real-world warrior might not be able to do them, but a warrior who regularly battles giants, golems, dragons and undead.... Yep. Completely plausible that these superhuman warriors can do martial stuff better than a guy at the gym.


If an argument doesn't deserve a real rebuttal then you shouldn't bother responding.
Your statement was blatently wrong. It didn't need a real rebuttal. Is initiating good because it's magic? No.... because it's no magic... Which makes your statement rather weird. Are they're abilities reneweable spells? No... The only similarity they have is the formatting, which all the subsystems in 3.5e They all have the same format except for binding. Not because they're magic, but because it's the most efficient method of displaying the information.

[Masakan]

I have seen 6-7 pages answers, last time I have checked it was 3. I hoped a for a health discussion about a fixes or remakes, all I got a discussion if ToB is magical or mundane.

The problem with mundane system is, they are quite restricting, from skill tricks to feats.
A wizard or caster simply goes chooses, and fun to play because when you set your eye a spell, all you need is levels. Like, if you are an illusionist and set your eyes on the Major Image, all you need to do is to get proper level.

For mundanes, bad feat-taxes and limited feat numbers blocks the same fun. If you are not a fighter, you are not likely get more than 1 fighting style, unless you multiclass and dip multiple times.

Maybe a different feat progression per classes, like BAB, would allow a better mundane system. Or changing-merging tax feats, like merging dodge+mobility, and making the dodge bonus +2, can make those feats at least decent.

In hindsight though, you really should have seen this coming.

[Jormengand]

Another question. Which of the following resource management systems would "be mundane":


1. You sometimes see an opportunity in battle to strike particularly effectively. This is abstracted mechanically by having a deck of powers and drawing ones that are currently tactically appropriate.
Not mundane: if they were determined by an actual mechanic related to how the battle was actually progressing I'd be fine with it (it'd be hellishly complicated, though), but otherwise it's just "The great Dee Emm (or maybe the great Plai Err) is randomly deciding what attacks you can use now."


2. You get angry. Mechanically, you get Rage points when you hit people or get hit. You can cash in these points for limit breaks of various sorts.
Fine if the "Limit breaks" themselves are mundane. I mean, people can lift cars and such when they need to.


3. You need to prepare your strikes. Mechanically, you have to drop out of combat for a few actions to do something impressive.
Isn't that basically Death Attack? I guess mundane, but really boring.

4. Your strikes build up momentum to hit people really hard. Mechanically, you have some basic powers that give you Momentum and more advanced powers that let you spend it.
Hey, look, a thing. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?356108-Momentum-A-martial-class-project-%28WIP-PEACH%29) Notice how I didn't pretend it was mundane?


5. Your powers involve pushing your body beyond its limits for an impressive effect. Mechanically, you do something sweet and then are exhausted or whatever for a while.
Much like 3.


A warrior who is powerful and a master at the spear throws his spear, said spear than penetrates his opponents over after the other because of the immense force it was thrown with and his throwing technique. It isn't absurd, it's mythic. It's taking martial skill + levels to it's logical conclusion. It's not anymore absurd than the fact fighters can survive being hit by ancient red dragons breath weapon, if anything it is less absurd.

People can walk through fire and live. You know what people can't do? Throw a spear straight through six people in a row, doing more damage to each one than is dealt by being on fire for 72 seconds, and get the spear back without budging an inch.

[OldTrees1]

The problem with mundane system is, they are quite restricting, from skill tricks to feats.
A wizard or caster simply goes chooses, and fun to play because when you set your eye a spell, all you need is levels. Like, if you are an illusionist and set your eyes on the Major Image, all you need to do is to get proper level.

For mundanes, bad feat-taxes and limited feat numbers blocks the same fun. If you are not a fighter, you are not likely get more than 1 fighting style, unless you multiclass and dip multiple times.

Maybe a different feat progression per classes, like BAB, would allow a better mundane system. Or changing-merging tax feats, like merging dodge+mobility, and making the dodge bonus +2, can make those feats at least decent.

Since Wizards only have a level requirement for access, then that would make sense as a system for Martials too. Once a Fighter has a high enough BAB(or it takes a BAB check like Trip) they should be able to do _insert martial thing X_. Then we can have the limited feats act as enhancements beyond the level appropriate reasonable ability.

This would result in martials being minimally relevant in a lot of fighting styles and quite competent in a smaller number. Things like Knockback would be known by 6th level but the Bullrush check would separate the normal martials from the specialized and separate the pushover wizards from the solid dwarven warriors.

To do so would require scrapping a bunch of feats(or leave them for earlier access for non martials?) and add reasonable feats for the martials' now mostly empty feat slots.

[Jormengand]

Since Wizards only have a level requirement for access, then that would make sense as a system for Martials too. Once a Fighter has a high enough BAB(or it takes a BAB check like Trip) they should be able to do _insert martial thing X_. Then we can have the limited feats act as enhancements beyond the level appropriate reasonable ability.

To do so would require scrapping a bunch of feats(or leave them for earlier access for non martials?) and add reasonable feats for the martials' now mostly empty feat slots.

Frank and K's Races of War had feats which scaled with BAB.

[OldTrees1]

Frank and K's Races of War had feats which scaled with BAB.

They did. Many of those would be good examples of free features tied to BAB(rather than scaling feats that are feat taxes) if we wanted to adopt the level unlocking system.

[Brova]

@RoW Feats: That's a very good fix for martial characters. But I don't think you can credibly call it mundane. I mean, the Fighter literally gets to craft magic items, which certainly seems magical. Also Foil Action. Some of the feats also grant magic abilities. For example, Mage Slayer lets you follow teleporters.


Not mundane: if they were determined by an actual mechanic related to how the battle was actually progressing I'd be fine with it (it'd be hellishly complicated, though), but otherwise it's just "The great Dee Emm (or maybe the great Plai Err) is randomly deciding what attacks you can use now."

So abstraction is not mundane? The mechanic abstracts the lay of the battle in the same way attack rolls abstract swinging your sword. Why is one problematic but not the other?

So you've admitted that 2 (Rage Meter), 3 (Prep Time) and 5 (Drain) are mundane.

Now, you've activated my trap card!

Here are the exact same mechanics, but presented with magical fluff. And notice that I didn't specific any abilities, so no whining that it's obviously not mundane because you have abilities that are actually good at high levels.

2. You are a conduit of magical power. As you cast spells, you accumulate Charge. You can burn Charge for better spells.
3. You are a ritualist. You need to take time to sacrifice goats or virgins for your spells to go off.
5. You are an occultist of some stripe. By making deals with elder gods, you can exert tremendous power. Unfortunately, this makes you exhausted or whatever.

This demonstrates two things.

First, mechanics can't determine if you are mundane. Because the exact same mechanics describe a character who is mundane and one who is not.

Second, not letting mundane people use magic makes them less than magicians. Notice how every set up for mundane characters has a corresponding magical set up. This is not true for magic systems. For example (by your standard), there is no mundane trapping for the resource management system of Encounter Powers.

[Jormengand]

First, mechanics can't determine if you are mundane. Because the exact same mechanics describe a character who is mundane and one who is not.

Okay, okay. Here's a mechanic for you: Every day, you wake up, prepare spell slots, and are locked into using those spells, which do things like turn you into an elephant. How do you describe that as mundane? You don't. I mean, just because you can describe hitting people with your hand and them taking damage as magical (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shockingGrasp.htm), doesn't mean that it is (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#unarmedStrike). Anything could be magical, but some things couldn't be nonmagical. That's the point.



I'm about to sleep, but this is relevant so I'm gonna leave it here:


Look at what all the ability tags are actually called. "Extraordinary" and "Supernatural". So "Beyond the capabilities of normal humans" and "Beyond the fundamental laws of reality." Ex healing people, Ex moving really fast, those make sense because, y'know what, they're beyond the capacities of normal humans, but that doesn't mean no-one, anywhere, ever, can do them. Hey, even Ex Plane Shift works: I mean, in real life, there aren't any locations that you can't at least hypothetically go to just by moving there normally - anyway, in Norse Mythology I'm pretty sure you can get between the planes just by climbing up and down Yggdrasil; there's nothing about it being another plane of existence or whatnot that means you can't walk between them without magic - "You can't just walk into Baator because you couldn't do that in real life" makes about as much sense as "You can't just be an elf because you couldn't do that in real life".

That's another thing. Just because no-one can do it in real life doesn't mean it's magic. I mean, elves don't suddenly stop existing in an anti-magic field. Why? Because there's nothing inherently magical about being a pointy-eared, graceful, frail, mildly insomniac humanoid. It doesn't happen in real life, sure. But then, as previously pointed out, falling at terminal velocity, swimming in lava, and then being perfectly fine afterwards doesn't happen in real life, and having hit points isn't even an Ex ability. Compared to the suspension of disbelief you have to pull for people to do so much as have that many hit points, Ex'ing all of the things doesn't seem that terrible.

This is pretty much an extended version of the whole Guy at the Gym malarkey, only it goes from "The guy at the gym can't do it, so no-one can" to "No-one can do it, therefore it must break the fundamental laws of reality." And even if it does, it's not as though the subordinate clause of literally the first sentence in the Ex ability description doesn't exist. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#extraordinaryAbilities) (That said, I don't like the idea of abilities which break the laws of physics but still have an Ex tag. If something breaks the laws of physics, it is literally, definitively supernatural).

Because breaking the fundamental laws of reality is what we're really talking about whenever we say "Magic" or even "Supernatural". Computers aren't magic. Guns aren't magic. Moving really fast isn't magic. Using your intelligence score in combat, dumbass, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0808.html) isn't magic. Hell, the druid's animal companion isn't even magic. Healing people certainly isn't magic; I'd have died at birth if it was. Seeing really well in the dark? Not magic. Being good with words, to the point of turning people fanatical in six seconds flat? Sorry, not magic: I'm not seeing the broken laws of physics here - hey, maybe you just have a really sexy voice or something. Knowing a lot of stuff? Nope, not magical. Being fearless, and utterly immune to every poison and disease known to man? Pushing it, but I'm pretty sure that that's more the laws of biology being broken than the laws of physics, and you're allowed to break those. More seriously, just being hard enough that you're functionally immune even if not technically immune (id est, to the point of no mechanical effect) makes sense. Being so scary you daze people? Yeah, that's not magical either.

There are tons of ways that you can justify the mundane equivalents of... honestly, most spell effects, as has already been mentioned in a post about bombs. We just don't, because we have this preconception that magic has to be able to defeat mundane at everything - the idea (can't remember whether it was Tippy or Psyren who said it) that the magical way of doing something wouldn't have been researched if it wasn't strictly better than the mundane way of doing it is clearly absurd: first, perhaps someone would like to explain to me how the Paladin's first-level spell which grants you a single temporary hit point came to be, as the barbarian sees your temporary hit point and raises you a D12 hit die.

The second reason that makes no sense... well, why would you create a new gun if it weren't strictly better than another type of gun? Well, maybe it's better at some things, but worse at others? A missile launcher may be a bigger and flashier weapon than a compact submachinegun, sure, but if you're fighting on a staircase, inside a building, at close range, you're going to want the SMG. There are two ways of doing it, and one is better in some situations, and the other is better in others! It's almost like that was the entire point of D&D 3.5 having different classes in the first place!

The third reason it's utterly messed-up is that even if there is a strictly-better version of something you can produce, chances are, it's harder to get your hands on. Yeah, you could have a railgun, but that would be really expensive and take ages to construct. Why not just invest in a few cruise missiles instead? Similarly, yes, you could become a paragon of physical strength by tirelessly training... but when you can get half as much anyway out of cheating with magic? Suddenly, magic seems a lot easier. That said, railguns do exist, and in D&D, people who actually train physically to do things the old-fashioned way should exist, and they should come out better than the people who temporarily screw about with reality to get the same effect.

That's what I was saying when I was talking about WHFB, and you don't have to know anything about WHFB to understand the main point of what I'm saying. Yes, you can cheat out some decent stats, but even a fourth-level (the highest in WHFB) wizard just isn't going to be anywhere near as good in close combat as a chaos lord (crazy-strong melee guy) unless he's decided to turn into a dragon (and if he does that, he loses his wizard levels, assuming he even succeeds at casting the spell), in which case he may as well just have been a dragon in the first place.

So in Warhammer, yes, spellcasters do some things mundanes can't. But mundanes also do some things spellcasters can't. I mean, go back to D&D and look at the justification for Wiz/Sor having different weapon proficiencies, even. If you're busy learning to tell reality to go away (or control your innate inborn ability to tell reality to go away, same thing), you're not learning how to hit people with sticks, or dodge everything ever, or even heal people. You're learning to cheat at The UniverseTM so that you can fake being able to do those.

[Hal0Badger]

Since Wizards only have a level requirement for access, then that would make sense as a system for Martials too. Once a Fighter has a high enough BAB(or it takes a BAB check like Trip) they should be able to do _insert martial thing X_. Then we can have the limited feats act as enhancements beyond the level appropriate reasonable ability.

This would result in martials being minimally relevant in a lot of fighting styles and quite competent in a smaller number. Things like Knockback would be known by 6th level but the Bullrush check would separate the normal martials from the specialized and separate the pushover wizards from the solid dwarven warriors.

To do so would require scrapping a bunch of feats(or leave them for earlier access for non martials?) and add reasonable feats for the martials' now mostly empty feat slots.


I would agree that some feats scale with BAB, or something similar, to unlock more abilities. But I would not like, auto access to certain feats just because I simply level up.
One of the examples of this, I have seen many people before suggested that giving "Improved Unarmed Strike" at a certain BAB as free.
To me, Improved Unarmed Strike defines that if you are trained in hand to hand combat in an "expert manner". Like, a kung-fu master, or if a fighter learns this feat later on, it is not just fighting with his power or simple training, but uses an advanced technique like boxing. Why I make this difference is, IUS means "You can defend yourself against an armed opponent, just with fists". I would agree that Conan could throw a punch, more than decently, but against armed opponents he will not turn into Mike Tyson and start throwing punches, he will look for weapons.
This is my personal idea though, a fix like this can work, I simply "not like it", just as I don't like ToB, for his spell-like built system.

Another thing is, I like customization choices given to me, rather than directly given bonuses. Pathfinder does this very nicely: a ranger does not get an auto-feat, he chooses from a pool. Same with unchained monk abilities. Pathfinder might not have fixed the problem casters going from stage artist to Raistlin as they level up, but it certainly made "more fun mundanes", just check out the feats and traits they provide.

BTW, a different feat progression might not be tied to BAB. I mean, a rogue could learn more feats than a paladin, while paladin gets more class features thanks to his divine connections.

[Brova]

Okay, okay. Here's a mechanic for you: Every day, you wake up, prepare spell slots, and are locked into using those spells, which do things like turn you into an elephant. How do you describe that as mundane? You don't. I mean, just because you can describe hitting people with your hand and them taking damage as magical (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shockingGrasp.htm), doesn't mean that it is (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#unarmedStrike). Anything could be magical, but some things couldn't be nonmagical. That's the point.

Yep, spell preparation does seem pretty magical. Fortunately, that's not what Tome of Battle is.

[GPuzzle]

The problem I see that Jormengard has with mundanes is that the solutions she is suggesting can only work if the DM cooperates with the players who are being smart to work something out.

The problem with this is that it doesn't work in a vacuum. It's a social solution - there's nothing wrong with that. However, it's the ultimate form of ETV. Hell, a caster can do the same - oftentimes it will be the casters that are doing the same.

What people want here, Jormengard, is not a social solution - which is something that works when players and DM cooperate to achieve something. They want a mechanical solution - something which is inherently built into the game that allows players and DMs alike to work on it. All your solutions have been social ones.

For example, I quote from Grod_the_Giant on the first page:


And that's certainly going to far in the opposite direction. But when mundanes go zero to Conan and casters go zero to Dr. Strange, we have a significant problem. "Ex Magic" is a dumb idea, and somewhat of a straw man. But we can certainly pick better role models for high-level mundanes-- Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Rama, even superheroes. A high level mundane should at least be able to do things like jump onto a dragon's back while it's in flight, hide in the split-second while you blink, tear down the city gates with his bare hands, and similar such feats. Give me monks who can dance between showers of arrows and cripple enemies with a single touch. Give me barbarians who can wrestle giants, rogues who can walk invisibly through a crowded room, swashbucklers who can run up walls and turn enemies into allies with a word. In other words, give me non-casters who can do more at higher levels then they could at low.

They want a mechanical solution that pretty much just says: "You've stopped pushing the limits of the natural a long time ago. You're now, through sheer training/willpower/what-have-you, on demigod levels of epicness." Notice the names mentioned. Beowulf - kills two trolls while swimming after having discarded his own sword. Gilgamesh - races the Sun and wins. Rama - shoots an arrow that reaches to the very skies.

This is what they want mundanes to be doing mechanically. Which is not what you want.

[Windrammer]

Must feel really empowering not having a face doesn't it?

Not particularly. I didn't threaten to beat you up, I just poked fun at something rude you said. You're the one being dramatic about it.

[OldTrees1]

I would agree that some feats scale with BAB, or something similar, to unlock more abilities. But I would not like, auto access to certain feats just because I simply level up.
One of the examples of this, I have seen many people before suggested that giving "Improved Unarmed Strike" at a certain BAB as free.
To me, Improved Unarmed Strike defines that if you are trained in hand to hand combat in an "expert manner". Like, a kung-fu master, or if a fighter learns this feat later on, it is not just fighting with his power or simple training, but uses an advanced technique like boxing. Why I make this difference is, IUS means "You can defend yourself against an armed opponent, just with fists". I would agree that Conan could throw a punch, more than decently, but against armed opponents he will not turn into Mike Tyson and start throwing punches, he will look for weapons.
This is my personal idea though, a fix like this can work, I simply "not like it", just as I don't like ToB, for his spell-like built system.

Another thing is, I like customization choices given to me, rather than directly given bonuses. Pathfinder does this very nicely: a ranger does not get an auto-feat, he chooses from a pool. Same with unchained monk abilities. Pathfinder might not have fixed the problem casters going from stage artist to Raistlin as they level up, but it certainly made "more fun mundanes", just check out the feats and traits they provide.

BTW, a different feat progression might not be tied to BAB. I mean, a rogue could learn more feats than a paladin, while paladin gets more class features thanks to his divine connections.

Yay good discussion!

I think I should clarify that I am not suggesting Martials get Martial feats for free as they level up. Instead I was saying that many existent feats probably are not good enough to represent feats for Martials and usually lock away options(locked options being the issue we would be addressing) rather than being level appropriate enhancements on options(what would be necessary to actually make a specialist martial).

So while I would give Improved Unarmed Strike at some BAB, Improved Unarmed Strike would no longer be the Mike Tyson feat. Instead there would be some decent Unarmed Fighting feats(Maybe taking the name Improved Unarmed Strike) that Mike Tyson would invest in to differentiate them from Conan. Likewise Conan would prefer to grab a weapon since Conan has feats in weapon combat. Improved Unarmed Strike would be left as feat only as an option for Gandalf to decide to punch somewhat like Conan rather than punch like Rasputin.

Where lines would be drawn may vary due to subjective tastes but the general idea sounds in line with your tastes.

I do like your idea of different feat amounts(and agree that it would not follow BAB due to classes like Rogue having more than Paladins).

[Solaris]

And yet, you can make a wizard 20 with one book-- any book, really-- and it will be, at minimum, a fairly effective and versatile character. You can choose random goddamn spells and you'll have more options-- and probably more effective options-- than a mundane. A problem that can be fixed through system mastery is still a problem.

It's remarkable how apt you are at describing problems and difficulties with the game's design, Grod. What's bolded, by the way, sounds like a good addition to the Oberoni Fallacy from the other side of the DM's screen.

Y'know, this problem is precisely why I gave all martial classes ToB maneuvers in my game (except barbarians, but that was because I wanted to throw a bone to the people who aren't interested in being awesome able to meaningfully contribute having such complexity in a melee character). It's not that I really wanted to up their power, it's that the ability to do something competently other than full attack is really nice to have without having to dump a pile of feats into it.
After all, practically every other class in the game gets that option. Why not the beatsticks?


So let's just throw any semblance of verisimilitude out the window and let warriors do whatever they want without limit. Let's go ahead and let them do stuff like from Dragonball or Toriko. Throw beasts and each other through mountains, knock natural satellites out of their orbits, flex hard enough to warp space. Where's the line? Where's the exact, subjective line?

Why not let them? Casters are already playing Dragon Ball Z at high levels. Why not design the system so that the beatsticks are, too (or at least playing Dragon Ball)? Let's face it - if you want a game that's gritty and has some decent versimilitude, you're not playing high-level D&D. You're playing E6 or something else entirely, back down in the levels where this problem doesn't really exist in practical play. Once D&D wanders into high-level play, it's basically the same sort of stuff Exalted does. The casters have set the bar by being able to literally rewrite reality and kill someone with a word - so why not set it so the beatstick types can hit a guy so hard he flies through a wall? Why make the beatsticks play Lord of the Rings while casters are making Goku look like a chump?


Alas, the correct answer all along was what the two gentlemen on the first page said.
Play a gish
Play TOB
Play a TOB Gish

Problem solved.

Hey, I resent the implication that I'm a gentleman!
I'm a bloodthirsty savage, thank you very much.

Besides, this is GitP. Simple solutions to complex problems are no fun, 'cause then we can't spend fourteen pages arguing about all the things.


So a chance at competence comes at the cost of playing a zany kung fu anime video game character who throws a weapon 60 ft and has it damage EVERYBODY in its path, because that's a believable thing to do in a fight. Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior. Why can't someone JUST be a fighter and have that be good? Why are we pretending that it's okay that the fighter is so weak? Why can't someone just play a good martial character who doesn't manage a goddamn spell list? A lot of Blade Magic may be marked [ex], but real talk, it's magic. It's totally magic. It's only considered otherwise as a matter of rule technicality, but the reality remains the same: They are only good because of magic. They are given abilities they should already have as what are effectively renewable spells.

You know, I used to really dislike ToB because of its animeness and how un-D&D it seemed, but after I really sat through and read the maneuvers and what they can actually do... it doesn't really feel anime-like to me, or at least not like the cartoonish over-the-top stuff. Sure, some of them are silly, zany, anime-style moves (like the aforementioned Lightning Throw), but by and large they really do feel perfectly congruent with the tone the more magical classes have set for D&D 3.5E. I mean, shoot, Iron Heart pretty much reads as "All the class features the fighter should have had", and Desert Wind, Setting Sun, and Shadow Hand are no more bizarre than anything you'd find on a wizard's spell list.

I've also come to the realization that making characters who are purely mundane in high-level vanilla D&D 3.5E is simply not going to work well. The game is just plain not designed for it. It's expecting fighters to bring medieval tools and implements to the table, while spellcasters are bringing the magical equivalents of Star Trek- and Star Wars-level tools and implements. Letting fighters use magic items isn't a solution, because the casters get the same things while still being able to do what they do - so both baselines are raised equally by throwing magic items at the party. Magic items permit mundanes to do more things - and by virtue of the opportunity cost inherent in the spell slot system, they also permit spellcasters to do more things.


Names and "special moves" were hardly unique to "oriental" martial arts. Ever looked at a medieval or renaissance fencing manual (http://www.aemma.org/onlineResources/liberi/wildRose/fiore.html)? Even guard stances are described fancifully-- "I'm the WHOLE IRON DOOR at ground level/And always stop cuts and thrusts." It also strikes me as entirely reasonable to not be able to do the exact same trick twice in a row, and to back off for a moment and regain a balanced stance before launching into more fancy moves.

It was cracking open a German manual on fencing with a bastard sword that helped convince me of Tome of Battle's place in a D&D game, actually.
It's actually breaking verisimilitude more to not have such maneuvers given the context of a high-magic medieval Europe-like setting.


Going back to lightning throw, I doubt that a bullet from an assault rifle could go through six people, much less do enough damage to kill the last one instantly. For a start.

Stranger things have happened, even in the real world.
While Lightning Throw strains credibility (even if I have no difficulty imagining Captain America performing such a feat as ricocheting his shield from one target to the next in a 60-ft. line, the fact that the thrown weapon automatically returns is... iffy for pretty much anyone else), one maneuver doesn't really kill the setup. If that's the low point, what we're working with isn't too bad if our objective is to make a mundane character who's competent and a reliable contributor at high-level 3.5E play.


No, maneuvers aren't magical in principle. The mystical limitations surrounding when you can and can't do a maneuver? Are. I've lost track of how many times I've said that.

You know, I don't think I necessarily agree with that in the warblade's case. The other two, absolutely, but not the warblade.

Here's why: Like Djinn-in-Tonic said, pulling the same maneuver multiple times is unlikely to work out. You have to effectively reset the situation by doing something else, like battering at them to get them to expect something different. This works well with the warblade's recovery method, being as it's a full attack - that is, battering at them to get them to expect something different. It's not perfect, but it does a fairly reasonable job at emulating a realistic swordfight without getting excessively complex about it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Why not let them? Casters are already playing Dragon Ball Z at high levels. Why not design the system so that the beatsticks are, too (or at least playing Dragon Ball)? Let's face it - if you want a game that's gritty and has some decent versimilitude, you're not playing high-level D&D. You're playing E6 or something else entirely, back down in the levels where this problem doesn't really exist in practical play. Once D&D wanders into high-level play, it's basically the same sort of stuff Exalted does. The casters have set the bar by being able to literally rewrite reality and kill someone with a word - so why not set it so the beatstick types can hit a guy so hard he flies through a wall? Why make the beatsticks play Lord of the Rings while casters are making Goku look like a chump?

The statement I made there was intended to be sarcastic and point out the fact that what is acceptable in martial characters is subjective.

That said, no. Hell no. The power scale for dragonball absolutely dwarfs just about everything else in fiction at its late stages. That's not even considering it recently resumed and that scale is growing again. Even Toriko, Naruto, and Bleach don't come close. The only thing I can think of on that level is Gurren Lagan which is only somewhat ahead of DB.

I'm all for powerful non-casters but that's just a bit too ridiculous for my taste. None of the big six at level 20 are capable of physically destroying planets. Rendering one unlivable, sure, but utterly destroying one in an instant? No.

[Solaris]

The statement I made there was intended to be sarcastic and point out the fact that what is acceptable in martial characters is subjective.

That said, no. Hell no. The power scale for dragonball absolutely dwarfs just about everything else in fiction at its late stages. That's not even considering it recently resumed and that scale is growing again. Even Toriko, Naruto, and Bleach don't come close. The only thing I can think of on that level is Gurren Lagan which is only somewhat ahead of DB.

I'm all for powerful non-casters but that's just a bit too ridiculous for my taste. None of the big six at level 20 are capable of physically destroying planets. Rendering one unlivable, sure, but utterly destroying one in an instant? No.

Nobody in Dragon Ball can destroy a planet, either. Dragon Ball Z, sure, but I've seen TO that can deliver enough damage to sunder a planet. (I can't dig up the link, but it can be done and we don't even have to get up to Pun-Pun levels.)

My point, however, without getting down into quibbling about which anime best represents it or whether there's a material difference between rendering a planet unlivable or outright destroying it, is that high-level D&D is simply a different game for mundanes than it is for casters. They're entirely different leagues and worlds apart from one another. Casters get bigger numbers and can do different things, while mundanes only get bigger numbers. This works fine in low-level D&D, before the spellcasting system goes pear-shaped and mundanes can meaningfully contribute, but at the higher levels of the game the Big Six is... a Super Saiyan, and the mundanes aren't even Krillin or Yamcha. They're Hercule Satan.

[Brova]

That said, no. Hell no. The power scale for dragonball absolutely dwarfs just about everything else in fiction at its late stages.

I very much doubt that. Off the top of my head:

1. The Polity uses moons shot at >.9c as weapons of war.
2. IG Thanos is a universe tier reality warper.
3. The Xul were trying to do something with black holes that would rewrite all of reality.
4. Anything from a higher "level" in Fine Structure.
5. Adonalsium from Sanderson's Cosmere, though its powers are unclear.

That's not even touching the real heavy hitters like the Culture or the Xeelee or the Downstreamers. Even if you're only counting fantasy fiction, Creatures of Light and Darkness has combat time travel, a weapon called The Hammer That Shatters Suns, and a character who is (possibly) capable of creating planets just by imagining they exist.


I'm all for powerful non-casters but that's just a bit too ridiculous for my taste. None of the big six at level 20 are capable of physically destroying planets. Rendering one unlivable, sure, but utterly destroying one in an instant? No.

It depends on how you model the planet. You should be able to brute force it with ice assassin or simulacrum chaining. In theory, it's possible a sufficiently large number of castings of planar binding could summon enough creatures to collapse the planet into a black hole, though I don't know the physics involved and imagine they don't apply anyway. Similarly polymorph any object can arguably create black holes.

Do you have a general list of feats you'd consider to be the most impressive for DragonBall? I don't actually know enough about the show to find comparison points.

[ThinkMinty]

Yes, and the people doing that hit enemies with sticks are not as good as the people who do crazy magic. When Team Avatar defeats the Fire Lord, the mundane characters (Sokka and Suki) go fight a different battle than the people with superpowers.

In fairness, Sokka (and yes, mostly Sokka; Suki helped, and the caster he brought with him, Toph. was *mostly* his scout on that mission) defeated an entire fleet using his cunning...while Aang was ******* around with one caster and waffling over whether not he should actually kill the genocidal, child-abusing sorcerer-king.


Like I dunno a "Fighters Spellbook" for all intents and purposes. Maybe out there there is a wrestling trainer where I can get improved grapple without having to get a feat.

Maybe a manual? Something.

So a chance at competence comes at the cost of playing a zany kung fu anime video game character who throws a weapon 60 ft and has it damage EVERYBODY in its path, because that's a believable thing to do in a fight. Coming from someone who has played more Warblade than any other class and adores ToB over all other books, people shouldn't be forced to don such a gaudy theme to be a competent warrior. Why can't someone JUST be a fighter and have that be good? Why are we pretending that it's okay that the fighter is so weak? Why can't someone just play a good martial character who doesn't manage a goddamn spell list? A lot of Blade Magic may be marked [ex], but real talk, it's magic. It's totally magic. It's only considered otherwise as a matter of rule technicality, but the reality remains the same: They are only good because of magic. They are given abilities they should already have as what are effectively renewable spells.

Tome of Battle is what you need, sarcasm or otherwise; {Scrubbed} Warblade's like a Fighter, but with the flexibility to go do stretches for fifteen minutes and change your entire feat tree. Warblade's strictly better than fighter at the same role, and playing the former when the latter is available


ToB is decidedly oriental and requires substantial reflavoring for it to function differently.

Putting aside the cultural condescension in that statement, I fail to see how that's a problem; oriental stuff is pretty cool.


No, I do: it's the straw man fallacy. I never said I had a problem with martials having strong abilities. Quite the opposite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?428437-quot-Stand-back-boy-and-let-me-show-you-war!-quot-%283-5-class-PEACH%29). What I take issue with is the idea that when a guy stabs another guy in a funky way, he then suddenly forgets to do that kind of stab for a while. That's stupid.

So is the spellcaster who's dedicated decades of study to arcane study suddenly flaking on how to throw a fireball.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I very much doubt that. Off the top of my head:

1. The Polity uses moons shot at >.9c as weapons of war.
2. IG Thanos is a universe tier reality warper.
3. The Xul were trying to do something with black holes that would rewrite all of reality.
4. Anything from a higher "level" in Fine Structure.
5. Adonalsium from Sanderson's Cosmere, though its powers are unclear.

That's not even touching the real heavy hitters like the Culture or the Xeelee or the Downstreamers. Even if you're only counting fantasy fiction, Creatures of Light and Darkness has combat time travel, a weapon called The Hammer That Shatters Suns, and a character who is (possibly) capable of creating planets just by imagining they exist.

Now how many of those are individuals with the personal, inherent power to destroy worlds and how many more can you name? Also, a handful of examples that match or exceed Dragonball does nothing to disprove that it's an absurd level of power compared to most fiction.




It depends on how you model the planet. You should be able to brute force it with ice assassin or simulacrum chaining. In theory, it's possible a sufficiently large number of castings of planar binding could summon enough creatures to collapse the planet into a black hole, though I don't know the physics involved and imagine they don't apply anyway. Similarly polymorph any object can arguably create black holes.

Those methods can take a while and are a hell of a lot more complex than point, shoot, no more planet.


Do you have a general list of feats you'd consider to be the most impressive for DragonBall? I don't actually know enough about the show to find comparison points.

I was referring to the general dragonball fiction not any one segmemt of it. At the end of the dragonball anime they were fairly reasonable in power but by the end of dragonball z majin buu was capable of destroying galaxies in a matter of moments at his worst. Even if you discount Buu as a magical construct, any of the main characters had been capable of destroying worlds since not long after the saiyan saga and reducing them to dust and ash by the time the cell games started. In the new series, dragonball super, Goku is capable of going toe to toe with the literal god of destruction, a being that was able to cut a planet in half with a single stroke of his paw-hand; not a chop, not a strike, just a simple tap of the edge of his hand on a table.

There may well be examples of individuals with greater power than the characters in the dragonball universe but they're few and far between.

[ThinkMinty]

As for my solution to this problem, I'll throw in an unconventional one. There's a supplement out there that'll make anyone much more effective.

Complete Scoundrel. See, the biggest problem for mundanes is that you're turning your brain off and just hitting your problems until they're solved. Think like a scoundrel, be a dirty rotten cheater, and the reality, the situation, is yours to manipulate regardless of whether or not you can cast even a single spell. The advice in the book might even be more valuable than the extra mechanical options.

If it's good enough for the Three Musketeers, Conan, Gilgamesh, and Indiana Jones, it's good enough for you.

I'll use a fictional example to illustrate the utter power of being a scoundrel, put into a spoiler for those of you not this far into One Piece. While this is an anime example (and therefore some of y'all might wanna dismiss it out of hand), it's not the "shout at it until it falls down" kind of situation. I'll explain just enough of it so that those unfamiliar can get a gist of the situation.

So, in the Thriller Bark arc, one of the enemies, Perona, is essentially a caster due to her eating the Hollow-Hollow Fruit. She can conjure these little marshmallow-ghosts that look like Boos from Mario called Hallows. Her Hallows can scout, explode, and phase through people to make them too melancholy to do anything, reducing them to pondering their own uselessness. Plus she's got astral projection (which itself lets her size-shift, phase, and fly), so she can do all of this remotely from her comfy spoiled princess bed. She's able to single-handedly trounce almost all of the Straw Hats she comes across with minimal effort, and being a jerk to her zombie teddy bear and dutiful subordinate, Kumashi.

I said almost all, because the weakest member of the crew, Usopp, defeated her single-handedly. He's an ordinary human in a party full of monsters and extraordinarily talented people. Now, how does an ordinary man trounce the nefarious and bratty Ghost Princess?

He cheats. She can't depress him with her Negative Hollows because he's already a negative person. He withstands the explosions despite them hurting a lot by keeping his mind on the endgame, and by paying attention, he's able to work out the nature of her powers and her weaknesses. Once he's pinned down the location of her actual body, he shoots at it, tricking her into going back into her own body out of panic. He shot her with sticky gloop that traps her arm in her bed (while lying by omission about what he was going to shoot her with), so she can't run away to try and project again from a safe location. His next move is to release a lot of toy roaches, exploiting her pathological fear of them and increasingly pear-shaped situation to trick her into thinking they're real. Next, with the power of lying, he acts as though his prop hammer is in fact a ten-ton hammer that he's going to use to reduce her to paste. His various gambits stack up, and she is slowly but surely reduced from being frighteningly effective to being a frantic, whining mess begging for any mercy she can get. His commitment to the act causes her to nearly wet herself, and she faints from the sheer terror of the situation she thinks she's in.

Moral of the story: Fighting fair is for people who don't want to win.

There you go. There's a lot of opportunity out there for those willing to take it, and personally, Intelligence and Charisma are never stats you want to dump.

[Masakan]

Or you can make the Mage Slayer feat mandatory for every non caster, or at least every sneak attacker.

[GPuzzle]

As for my solution to this problem, I'll throw in an unconventional one. There's a supplement out there that'll make anyone much more effective.

Complete Scoundrel. See, the biggest problem for mundanes is that you're turning your brain off and just hitting your problems until they're solved. Think like a scoundrel, be a dirty rotten cheater, and the reality, the situation, is yours to manipulate regardless of whether or not you can cast even a single spell. The advice in the book might even be more valuable than the extra mechanical options.

If it's good enough for the Three Musketeers, Conan, Gilgamesh, and Indiana Jones, it's good enough for you.

I'll use a fictional example to illustrate the utter power of being a scoundrel, put into a spoiler for those of you not this far into One Piece. While this is an anime example (and therefore some of y'all might wanna dismiss it out of hand), it's not the "shout at it until it falls down" kind of situation. I'll explain just enough of it so that those unfamiliar can get a gist of the situation.

So, in the Thriller Bark arc, one of the enemies, Perona, is essentially a caster due to her eating the Hollow-Hollow Fruit. She can conjure these little marshmallow-ghosts that look like Boos from Mario called Hallows. Her Hallows can scout, explode, and phase through people to make them too melancholy to do anything, reducing them to pondering their own uselessness. Plus she's got astral projection (which itself lets her size-shift, phase, and fly), so she can do all of this remotely from her comfy spoiled princess bed. She's able to single-handedly trounce almost all of the Straw Hats she comes across with minimal effort, and being a jerk to her zombie teddy bear and dutiful subordinate, Kumashi.

I said almost all, because the weakest member of the crew, Usopp, defeated her single-handedly. He's an ordinary human in a party full of monsters and extraordinarily talented people. Now, how does an ordinary man trounce the nefarious and bratty Ghost Princess?

He cheats. She can't depress him with her Negative Hollows because he's already a negative person. He withstands the explosions despite them hurting a lot by keeping his mind on the endgame, and by paying attention, he's able to work out the nature of her powers and her weaknesses. Once he's pinned down the location of her actual body, he shoots at it, tricking her into going back into her own body out of panic. He shot her with sticky gloop that traps her arm in her bed (while lying by omission about what he was going to shoot her with), so she can't run away to try and project again from a safe location. His next move is to release a lot of toy roaches, exploiting her pathological fear of them and increasingly pear-shaped situation to trick her into thinking they're real. Next, with the power of lying, he acts as though his prop hammer is in fact a ten-ton hammer that he's going to use to reduce her to paste. His various gambits stack up, and she is slowly but surely reduced from being frighteningly effective to being a frantic, whining mess begging for any mercy she can get. His commitment to the act causes her to nearly wet herself, and she faints from the sheer terror of the situation she thinks she's in.

Moral of the story: Fighting fair is for people who don't want to win.

There you go. There's a lot of opportunity out there for those willing to take it, and personally, Intelligence and Charisma are never stats you want to dump.

I'm going to step in and say that this is a social solution. Yeah, a smart character/player can pull that off. No matter the class, system, or, well, anything. It's got the problem of being subject to DM and player cooperation, which should be the way RPGs are played, but it's the ultimate example of ETV.

They want a mechanical solution. They want to fire an arrow that reaches the heavens, race the sun and win, kill trolls while swimming for hours (Rama, Gilgamesh, Beowulf), and they want to do that mechanically.

A smart player can fight smart no matter the class. But they want weaker classes mechanically to not have to rely on that to be good, and rather be awesome because they are smart.

[Brova]

Now how many of those are individuals with the personal, inherent power to destroy worlds and how many more can you name?

Three out of those five are individuals (Fine Structure, IG Thanos, Adonalsium). Arguably the Polity should count as well. Any AI on a cargo Runcible should be able to accelerate arbitrary objects to arbitrary speeds. In general though, I think the demand of individual power is a little unreasonable. A lot of stuff, particularly SciFi has its high level feats performed by groups.

Now, as far as the challenge goes, I'm going to count groups and I'm going to count feats that seem roughly that impressive. Here goes:

1. The Fleetmind (Schlock Mercenary). Unblockable teleportation, instantaneous mass production, and the setting has weapons available to non-goverment actors capable of sterilizing planets.
2. Pa'anuri (Schlock Mercenary). Gravity manipulation, use supernovas as weapons, only vulnerable to setting specific technology.
3. Systems Commonwealth (Andromeda). Nova bombs destroy stars when used, Andromeda Ascendant carries 40 as standard complement.
4. Xeelee (Xeelee Sequence). Time travel, universe scale construction projects, handguns damage stars.
5. Downstreamers (Manifold). Time travel, modified nature of the multiverse.
6. Unnamed Precursors (The Expanse). Interstellar portals, turned entire planets into batteries, stations capable of locally altering the laws of physics.
7. Warhammer 40k (Warhammer 40k). Modern WH40k has at least planet serialization, War In Heaven Necrons had time travel in some form.
8. Entities (Worm). Multiversal, grant superpowers, feed by consuming every possible iteration of a planet.
9. The Culture (Ian Bank's Culture Series). Planet busters per casualty reports of Idiran-Culture War, not sure on exact stats.
10. The Godhead (Humanity's Fire). Personal power not clear, orchestrated destruction of ~500 stars.

Other examples exist. There are several instances of powers unknown engaging in induced "stage" changes in stars to create a more hospitable universe, including the Photino Birds in the Xeelee sequence and an unnamed race of aliens in a novel I do not remember the name of. Many other precursor species probably count, but their feats are generally limited to "created apparatus for FTL travel" and "unknown cataclysmic war".

Similar examples of power in fantasy are rarer. Many elder gods exist with at least locally planet destroying capability, but they seldom appear "on camera" so to speak. Still, most creation myths are probably close to the appropriate scale. Some Zelazny stories, notably the aforementioned Creatures of Light and Darkness, fit as well. It's possible that endgame Wheel of Time has similar power levels, but I don't personally know.

Comics also provide a wealth of characters at similar power levels, Galactus being the most prominent of these. Other characters have planet busting power, such as (unless memory fails) Superman, Silver Surfer, and Odin. I assume someone deeper into comic lore than I can provide details.


Also, a handful of examples that match or exceed Dragonball does nothing to disprove that it's an absurd level of power compared to most fiction.

Sure. But D&D is absurd compared to most of fiction. Just having teleportation solves whole swaths of fantasy plots. Every story that involves characters struggling against a massive army would change dramatically with D&D power levels. Whole expanses of fantasy simply don't have magic at all. Frankly, I think it's a good thing for D&D to go to eleven. If you want to tell stories about people who can't destroy planets, feel free to tell those stories. That's not really a reason they shouldn't exist.


Those methods can take a while and are a hell of a lot more complex than point, shoot, no more planet.

DBZ has an entire series to train up to planet destroying. It takes (by my rough estimate) 3 x 10 ^ 21 castings of disintegrate to destroy earth (assuming the dust is of negligible mass). That takes 3000000000000000000000 ice assassins. Assuming our Wizard uses the Archmage class feature "Spell-like Ability" and Supernatural Transformation, he can create an ice assassin of himself as a standard action. Simplifying some math, we can roughly model available ice assassins as an exponential function of rounds elapsed. So in about 75 rounds you'd have the 3000000000000000000000 ice assassins you need. It takes about seven minutes to pull this off from a standing start. Seems reasonable in light of the seasons Goku spent training.

[Milo v3]

Wizard crafts command word item of wish. There, much more powerful than dragon ball.

[TheCrowing1432]

Ok few things.


I consider the Tome of Battle to be a magical suppliment for martials. Which isnt a bad thing, it does solve a lot of problems for martials, both in combat (giving them something to do other then move and full attack) and out of combat (decent skills lists and skill point amounts to use them with)


But what it doesnt do is fix the faulty feat chains.


A wizard will get level 9 spells regardless of his feat choices.

A fighter/warblade/whatever wont get better at two weapon fighting/archery/grappling/what have you UNLESS he gets those feats.

Martials dont get better at being martials by leveling up, Magics DO.

Sure the Martials numbers get bigger, but there more to it then that.

[Milo v3]

Ok few things.

I consider the Tome of Battle to be a magical suppliment for martials. Which isnt a bad thing, it does solve a lot of problems for martials, both in combat (giving them something to do other then move and full attack) and out of combat (decent skills lists and skill point amounts to use them with)

But what it doesnt do is fix the faulty feat chains.

A wizard will get level 9 spells regardless of his feat choices.

A fighter/warblade/whatever wont get better at two weapon fighting/archery/grappling/what have you UNLESS he gets those feats.

Martials dont get better at being martials by leveling up, Magics DO.

Sure the Martials numbers get bigger, but there more to it then that.

Well... those classes do get feats for free, and warblades can also take manoeuvres and stances that improve their fighting styles (Path of War has stances and manoeuvres that do it so I assume ToB has them as well). Though I do wonder, why does it need to fix the feat chains?

[TheCrowing1432]

Well... those classes do get feats for free, and warblades can also take manoeuvres and stances that improve their fighting styles (Path of War has stances and manoeuvres that do it so I assume ToB has them as well). Though I do wonder, why does it need to fix the feat chains?

Yes but youre not seeing my point.


Casters dont need to take feats to acquire better spellcasting, its intrinsically part of their design.


Martials do. You can have a martial thats bad at fighting, its really hard to have a spellcaster thats bad at spellcasting unless you actively pick spells that dont do anything effective.


My entire point of this thread was to point out that martials have to work harder for less results. Getting better at a thing is NOT intrinsic to their design the way getting better at spellcasting is intrinsic to the design of casters.

[Milo v3]

Yes but youre not seeing my point.


Casters dont need to take feats to acquire better spellcasting, its intrinsically part of their design.


Martials do. You can have a martial thats bad at fighting, its really hard to have a spellcaster thats bad at spellcasting unless you actively pick spells that dont do anything effective.


My entire point of this thread was to point out that martials have to work harder for less results. Getting better at a thing is NOT intrinsic to their design the way getting better at spellcasting is intrinsic to the design of casters.

Except initiators do get better intrinsically since they learn more powerful maneuvers as they level. They don't need to take feats to acquire better martial skill. And yes, martials do need to work harder for less results, but that doesn't get anywhere near close to "The game hates martials".

Also, putting giant spaces is aesthetically displeasing.

[georgie_leech]

Except initiators do get better intrinsically since they learn more powerful maneuvers as they level. They don't need to take feats to acquire better martial skill. And yes, martials do need to work harder for less results, but that doesn't get anywhere near close to "The game hates martials".


Perhaps a bit of extreme wording, but look at it this way. As a Wizard levels up, they get automatic access to 2nd Level Spells. They don't need to spend a feat, they just automatically have the capability. A Wizard 5 has the intrinsic capacity to cast a Fireball regardless of build choices. They also have access to all spell schools. As part of being a wizard, they have a fundamental grasp of both the magic of manipulating matter into unusual forms, calling out beings from beyond the planes, commanding the dead, and manipulating energy to do their bidding. If the gain the ability to supercharge their spells, such as with Empower Spell, they can apply that to all of their spells; They can Empower Fireball just as easily as they can Empower Vampiric Touch.

A Fighter doesn't get this same luxury. They have a basic mechanic they can pull off without difficulty, attacking. For all other combat actions, they must spend a feat in order to not be attacked back, and often have significant limitations to how well they can do the task. Even learning how to avoid getting stabbed in retaliation for a technique can't be applied to more than one ability. Instead of a single "Avoid AoO" Feat that applies to all Combat Maneuvers in the same way you can apply Empower Spell to any appropriate Spell, You have separate feats for each, as if there was a Empower (Evocation) and Empower (Necromancy) and so on. A Fighter, although trained in combat, has a narrower skill set by default than a Wizard does with magic. Imagine if Wizards could pick a single spell school that they could cast normally from, and that if they wanted to cast from any other spell school, they couldn't cast defensively, augment with metamagic, and had reduced save DC's unless they spent a feat.

To put it another way, both Wizards and Fighters are presented as generalists at their craft. As part of a Fighter's training, they are taught the basics of Grappling, Tripping, and other Combat Maneuvers. If they want to get better or learn a more advanced technique though, they must spend a feat. A Wizard though must spend no feats to get increased spell levels, or access new techniques. They just do.

Yes, initiators ignore pretty much all of that. WotC eventually learned better. But the initial launch did have somewhat of an inequality when it came to how characters improved.

[ThinkMinty]

Wizard crafts command word item of wish. There, much more powerful than dragon ball.

No DM that isn't also you is ever going to let you have that, ever. Be serious.


Ok few things.


I consider the Tome of Battle to be a magical suppliment for martials. Which isnt a bad thing, it does solve a lot of problems for martials, both in combat (giving them something to do other then move and full attack) and out of combat (decent skills lists and skill point amounts to use them with)


But what it doesnt do is fix the faulty feat chains.

Then it solves a lot of problems, then. So it's at least somewhat helpful.

You know what else is magical? Anything better than a masterwork weapon.


Casters dont need to take feats to acquire better spellcasting, its intrinsically part of their design.

*don't

Why do I keep needing to take Spell Focus, Skill Focus: Knowledge (Arcana), metamagic feats, and other things like those, then? Is it perhaps that casters aren't omnipotent, and like anyone else, do need to specialize to do certain things well?


A wizard will get level 9 spells regardless of his feat choices.

At level 17. Unless your Int bonus is +9 (which is a minimum 28 Intelligence, it's entirely plausible, but ), you've got one 9th a day at that point. If you are at 28, that's two. They're not as easy to come by as you make it sound.


I'm going to step in and say that this is a social solution. Yeah, a smart character/player can pull that off. No matter the class, system, or, well, anything. It's got the problem of being subject to DM and player cooperation, which should be the way RPGs are played, but it's the ultimate example of ETV.

They want a mechanical solution. They want to fire an arrow that reaches the heavens, race the sun and win, kill trolls while swimming for hours (Rama, Gilgamesh, Beowulf), and they want to do that mechanically.

A smart player can fight smart no matter the class. But they want weaker classes mechanically to not have to rely on that to be good, and rather be awesome because they are smart.

ETV? Unsure what that stands for.

Mechanical solutions? Tome of Battle, gishes, multiclassing, multi-class gishes, Hulking Hurlers, spiked chain builds...

There's options, you just have to bother looking for 'em. 3.5 isn't as immediately plug and play as some of the other editions or an MMO would be. You've gotta pay a lot of attention when building.

Also, seriously, a Handy Haversack full of utility toys never hurt anyone. You need to put tools in your hand to solve problems other than ones where violence is the answer, regardless of whether or not you're a spellcaster.

[Curmudgeon]

You might as well say that sneak attack is magical because rogues are magically unable to kick someone in the nads unless they are suprising or flanking them.
Not a good comparison, because you know there's no magic involved there. It's called a sneak attack. If someone sees the attack coming they're going to defend their vulnerable parts. If they completely fail to Spot the Rogue, or their attention is diverted from the Rogue because there's this other flanking opponent, the sneaky attack can hit where it hurts.

[Jormengand]

So is the spellcaster who's dedicated decades of study to arcane study suddenly flaking on how to throw a fireball.

Right, but that's not what happens: there's a mystical-magical limitation on how much he can fireball. That cannot, and should not try to, exist for anything flying the flag of "Mundane".

[Morty]

I have seen 6-7 pages answers, last time I have checked it was 3. I hoped a for a health discussion about a fixes or remakes, all I got a discussion if ToB is magical or mundane.

The problem with mundane system is, they are quite restricting, from skill tricks to feats.
A wizard or caster simply goes chooses, and fun to play because when you set your eye a spell, all you need is levels. Like, if you are an illusionist and set your eyes on the Major Image, all you need to do is to get proper level.

For mundanes, bad feat-taxes and limited feat numbers blocks the same fun. If you are not a fighter, you are not likely get more than 1 fighting style, unless you multiclass and dip multiple times.

Maybe a different feat progression per classes, like BAB, would allow a better mundane system. Or changing-merging tax feats, like merging dodge+mobility, and making the dodge bonus +2, can make those feats at least decent.

I don't think working with feats is going to accomplish much. Not by itself, anyway. No matter which way you swing it, feats are very, very restrictive. You get a select number of them at a given level, and that's it. Besides, even if you bend the system into a pretzel in order to give "martials" more feats, that's still just more of what the other classes get anyway. The feat system just isn't very good, when it comes down to it.

What non-magical classes needs are robust rules to represent their competence at what they do. Nothing more and nothing less. Tome of Battle introduces an entire new subsystem to accomplish it, and that's the best you can do without overhauling some fundamental system assumptions. This applies to both the combat rules and skill rules, but more to combat. Both subsystems are very simple, and they rarely interact with magic in a way that doesn't result in magic completely bypassing them.

3rd edition D&D is just fundamentally rigged to discourage accomplishment through other means than spells. It's not an easy hurdle to clear.

[Mystral]

As for my solution to this problem, I'll throw in an unconventional one. There's a supplement out there that'll make anyone much more effective.

Complete Scoundrel. See, the biggest problem for mundanes is that you're turning your brain off and just hitting your problems until they're solved. Think like a scoundrel, be a dirty rotten cheater, and the reality, the situation, is yours to manipulate regardless of whether or not you can cast even a single spell. The advice in the book might even be more valuable than the extra mechanical options.

If it's good enough for the Three Musketeers, Conan, Gilgamesh, and Indiana Jones, it's good enough for you.

I'll use a fictional example to illustrate the utter power of being a scoundrel, put into a spoiler for those of you not this far into One Piece. While this is an anime example (and therefore some of y'all might wanna dismiss it out of hand), it's not the "shout at it until it falls down" kind of situation. I'll explain just enough of it so that those unfamiliar can get a gist of the situation.

So, in the Thriller Bark arc, one of the enemies, Perona, is essentially a caster due to her eating the Hollow-Hollow Fruit. She can conjure these little marshmallow-ghosts that look like Boos from Mario called Hallows. Her Hallows can scout, explode, and phase through people to make them too melancholy to do anything, reducing them to pondering their own uselessness. Plus she's got astral projection (which itself lets her size-shift, phase, and fly), so she can do all of this remotely from her comfy spoiled princess bed. She's able to single-handedly trounce almost all of the Straw Hats she comes across with minimal effort, and being a jerk to her zombie teddy bear and dutiful subordinate, Kumashi.

I said almost all, because the weakest member of the crew, Usopp, defeated her single-handedly. He's an ordinary human in a party full of monsters and extraordinarily talented people. Now, how does an ordinary man trounce the nefarious and bratty Ghost Princess?

He cheats. She can't depress him with her Negative Hollows because he's already a negative person. He withstands the explosions despite them hurting a lot by keeping his mind on the endgame, and by paying attention, he's able to work out the nature of her powers and her weaknesses. Once he's pinned down the location of her actual body, he shoots at it, tricking her into going back into her own body out of panic. He shot her with sticky gloop that traps her arm in her bed (while lying by omission about what he was going to shoot her with), so she can't run away to try and project again from a safe location. His next move is to release a lot of toy roaches, exploiting her pathological fear of them and increasingly pear-shaped situation to trick her into thinking they're real. Next, with the power of lying, he acts as though his prop hammer is in fact a ten-ton hammer that he's going to use to reduce her to paste. His various gambits stack up, and she is slowly but surely reduced from being frighteningly effective to being a frantic, whining mess begging for any mercy she can get. His commitment to the act causes her to nearly wet herself, and she faints from the sheer terror of the situation she thinks she's in.

Moral of the story: Fighting fair is for people who don't want to win.

There you go. There's a lot of opportunity out there for those willing to take it, and personally, Intelligence and Charisma are never stats you want to dump.


So I guess that if you want to play a righteous, knightly character, you are just out of luck?

[Mystral]

Not a good comparison, because you know there's no magic involved there. It's called a sneak attack. If someone sees the attack coming they're going to defend their vulnerable parts. If they completely fail to Spot the Rogue, or their attention is diverted from the Rogue because there's this other flanking opponent, the sneaky attack can hit where it hurts.

I know that it is a very bad comparision, that was what I was trying to illustrate.

[ThinkMinty]

So I guess that if you want to play a righteous, knightly character, you are just out of luck?

There's nothing dishonorable, unrighteous, ignoble, unlawful, or ungood about resourcefulness, knowing the flaws of your enemies and how to exploit them, knowing how to improvise, or paying attention to detail. Seriously, they explain this in the supplement.

Good, even Lawful Good, does not mean dumb. If you'd like an example you're probably already familiar with, Lien the Paladin is a knightly scoundrel, and Roy still thinks even though he's not mechanically rewarded for it very often. Among other things, it's how Roy was able to beat spiked-chain cheese (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html), by exploiting the half-ogre's repetitive attack pattern and his terrain.

"I wanna have no supernatural powers, and then insist on turning my brain all the way off, and not have my utility suffer at all compared to someone who's magical and/or thinks" is an entirely different argument than "Dude, martials got the short end of a lot of sticks in 3e, especially at higher levels". The former's stupid, the later's true.

[Brova]

Among other things, it's how Roy was able to beat spiked-chain cheese (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html), by exploiting the half-ogre's repetitive attack pattern and his terrain.

If that battle happened literally anywhere else, he would have lost to the half-ogre's strategy. Relying on there being terrain that counters your enemy tactics is dumb. It makes the character feel weak, and you can't depend on it being there. You can sort of make that work, but it depends on giving the Fighter meta-game abilities like "there's a cliff here now" or "actually, you caused an avalanche".

[Solaris]

I'm going to step in and say that this is a social solution. Yeah, a smart character/player can pull that off. No matter the class, system, or, well, anything. It's got the problem of being subject to DM and player cooperation, which should be the way RPGs are played, but it's the ultimate example of ETV.

They want a mechanical solution. They want to fire an arrow that reaches the heavens, race the sun and win, kill trolls while swimming for hours (Rama, Gilgamesh, Beowulf), and they want to do that mechanically.

A smart player can fight smart no matter the class. But they want weaker classes mechanically to not have to rely on that to be good, and rather be awesome because they are smart.

I agree. There's nothing a clever fighter can do that a clever wizard can't. The clever wizard just doesn't need to, because his class features already give him a solution to the problem.

Saying "Just play smarter!" is borderline insulting and patronizing, working as it does from the assumption that martial players aren't. Worse, it's disregarding the actual problem of the mechanical disparities between the options available to casters and non-casters. Reliance on playing smart is no more a solution than is throwing magic items at the party, and for exactly the same reason - it is an extrinsic factor that affects all classes equally, and leaves the mundanes just as poorly off as they were before in relation to their caster brethren.

[Nifft]

I agree. There's nothing a clever fighter can do that a clever wizard can't. The clever wizard just doesn't need to, because his class features already give him a solution to the problem.

Saying "Just play smarter!" is borderline insulting and patronizing, working as it does from the assumption that martial players aren't. Worse, it's disregarding the actual problem of the mechanical disparities between the options available to casters and non-casters. Reliance on playing smart is no more a solution than is throwing magic items at the party, and for exactly the same reason - it is an extrinsic factor that affects all classes equally, and leaves the mundanes just as poorly off as they were before in relation to their caster brethren.

It's even worse than that, because a clever Wizard has a whole additional arena in which to be creative: spell effects.

Not only does the Wizard have more tools (and thus need less creativity), but also the Wizard has more tools (and thus is more rewarded for the same level of creativity).

[Gnaeus]

Okay, okay. Here's a mechanic for you: Every day, you wake up, prepare spell slots, and are locked into using those spells, which do things like turn you into an elephant. How do you describe that as mundane? You don't. I mean, just because

In the morning, batman wakes up.
He prepares 5 smoke bombs, 1 can of bat-shark repellent, 4 electrical batarangs, a suit of power armor shaped like whatever he wants, his kryptonite gauntlets, his bat flight suit, and 2 kinds of surveillance gear. He has other gear, but to use it, he has to go back to the cave, find it, prep it for battle.

[GPuzzle]

ETV? Unsure what that stands for.

Expect Table Variance. DM reliance, basically.


Mechanical solutions? Tome of Battle, gishes, multiclassing, multi-class gishes, Hulking Hurlers, spiked chain builds...

One was made specifically to counter Mundanes being boring (and people didn't consider them Mundane afterwards), the rest is a result of edition bloat.

"Mechanical solutions? Just play 4e!" would get me laughed out of this subforum.



There's options, you just have to bother looking for 'em. 3.5 isn't as immediately plug and play as some of the other editions or an MMO would be. You've gotta pay a lot of attention when building.

Also, seriously, a Handy Haversack full of utility toys never hurt anyone. You need to put tools in your hand to solve problems other than ones where violence is the answer, regardless of whether or not you're a spellcaster.

See, the thing is, Mundanes, right now are needing to play smart to be able to compete with casters. Literally everything you said Mundanes can do, Casters also can.

They shouldn't. They should be able to pull off not superhuman-like, but Demigod level feats of strength, agility, charisma, what-have-you, when casters can do things like kill people with words and all those ridiculous builds we see out there.

Then, we can talk about playing smart, because that isn't a solution to being weaker.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

That cannot, and should not try to, exist for anything flying the flag of "Mundane".

Okay...serious question for you here, Jormengand.

Have you ever done any serious weapon-based sports? If so, can you honestly tell me that every six seconds for the length of an entire fight you are able to find an opening for, have energy to use, and be able to correctly execute the technique you are best at with close to its effective maximum speed and power?

[Masakan]

Okay...serious question for you here, Jormengand.

Have you ever done any serious weapon-based sports? If so, can you honestly tell me that every six seconds for the length of an entire fight you are able to find an opening for, have energy to use, and be able to correctly execute the technique you are best at with close to its effective maximum speed and power?

Can I just point out that the tomb of battle portays a more realistic sense of melee martial arts in DnD and actually makes martials better because of it? So realism improves characters in a fantasy game. How ironic is that?

[Brova]

"Mechanical solutions? Just play 4e!" would get me laughed out of this subforum.

Here's the thing. That should have been the solution. Setting aside criticisms of what 4e is what 4e should have been is a game that learned from 3e. The ways to make "mundane" characters viable were known at the point 4e dropped. WotC should have just made one of those official. Then I could play Fighters and Monks in games without needing to convince the DM to let me use content that doesn't suck. The point of a new edition should have been something that plays like the old one, but with solutions included and chaff cut. 4e should have been 3e without Sorcerers and with Beguilers, Warlocks, and Crusaders. Then we could have just moved to the new edition.


They shouldn't. They should be able to pull off not superhuman-like, but Demigod level feats of strength, agility, charisma, what-have-you, when casters can do things like kill people with words and all those ridiculous builds we see out there.

I don't think that's doable if you insist on people being "mundane". Since mundanes are constrained by realism and casters aren't, mundanes will eventually be worse. Specifically, they will be worse at the point where you need to do unrealistic things to compete. In D&D, that's somewhere between 5th (when you start flying) and 9th (when you can cast plane shift and teleport). What should happen is that mundanes should get a power source they level into. So the Ranger starts out at low levels with a pet wolf and some harrying tactics. Then he gets a pet manticore and gains flight and missile spines. Then he gets a pet ethereal defiler and gains plane shift as an SLA. Or the Paladin gets to glow with holy light and smite people or summon angels. Or the Assassin turns into Kylar Stern. Or whatever. Just not "guy with a sword and no magic".

[Jormengand]

In the morning, batman wakes up.
He prepares 5 smoke bombs, 1 can of bat-shark repellent, 4 electrical batarangs, a suit of power armor shaped like whatever he wants, his kryptonite gauntlets, his bat flight suit, and 2 kinds of surveillance gear. He has other gear, but to use it, he has to go back to the cave, find it, prep it for battle.

Right, only he prepares them out of some combination of thin air, sulfur and bat crap.


[C]an you honestly tell me that every six seconds for the length of an entire fight you are able to find an opening for, have energy to use, and be able to correctly execute the technique you are best at with close to its effective maximum speed and power?

Not quite, but pretty close. But are you seriously going to tell me that whether or not there is an opening to use the technique (and you have the energy to do so) is entirely based on whether you already used it this fight?

[Milo v3]

Not quite, but pretty close. But are you seriously going to tell me that whether or not there is an opening to use the technique (and you have the energy to do so) is entirely based on whether you already used it this fight?
I'm sure you understand that this is an abstraction.

[Brova]

I'm sure you understand that this is an abstraction.

She understands that. But (according to her) abstraction makes you not mundane. Apparently, at her tables mundane characters actually have to LARP out the fight rather than making attack rolls.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Not quite, but pretty close. But are you seriously going to tell me that whether or not there is an opening to use the technique (and you have the energy to do so) is entirely based on whether you already used it this fight?

No, but it's an approximately equal abstraction to the flow of combat as saying that there will always be the correct opening for whatever move you try to do, and that a trained swordsman might actually have the opportunity to use and see the benefit in using the same attack a dozen times in a row (which doesn't happen).

Again, you don't LIKE the mechanic, and it may not be mundane by YOUR definition, but that doesn't make it either bad or objectively non-mundane.

[Masakan]

Right, only he prepares them out of some combination of thin air, sulfur and bat crap.



Not quite, but pretty close. But are you seriously going to tell me that whether or not there is an opening to use the technique (and you have the energy to do so) is entirely based on whether you already used it this fight?

I am seriously trying to understand your train of thought, because right now, your arguments are filled with so many logical fallacies that I cannot comprehend what your trying to say. This isn't an insult this is me being confused, no matter how you put it I honestly don't see what the issue is here aside from you not liking how it works.

We tried to be courteous by associate ToB characters with mundanes, but if you won't even accept that, then why not just accept that Mundanes Suck, and no serious player is ever gonna use them for more than a couple of dips. You can either accept it, or continue to rant about it, but that's just how it's gonna be.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

...why not just accept that Mundanes Suck, and no serious player is ever gonna use them for more than a couple of dips.

Let's put a qualifier on here, Masakan.

"No player with serious knowledge of the game mechanics, when asked to build the most optimal character possible for a given major party role (using available WotC published sourcebooks), is likely to use more than a few levels of any given mundane class save for highly specific feat-based builds."

Even with that modified statement I'm not 100% confident in it.

Regardless, I'm a serious player, and I've totally played straight fighters and barbarians and rogues before. Serious player =/= powergamer, and we're more than allowed to play suboptimal things because we enjoy them.

[Masakan]

Let's put a qualifier on here, Masakan.

"No player with serious knowledge of the game mechanics, when asked to build the most optimal character possible for a given major party role (using available WotC published sourcebooks), is likely to use more than a few levels of any given mundane class save for highly specific feat-based builds."

Even with that modified statement I'm not 100% confident in it.

Regardless, I'm a serious player, and I've totally played straight fighters and barbarians and rogues before. Serious player =/= powergamer, and we're more than allowed to play suboptimal things because we enjoy them.

Ok fair enough, still doesn't change the power discrepancy between casters and non casters.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Ok fair enough, still doesn't change the power discrepancy between casters and non casters.

I don't think anyone is actually arguing that it does, or that casters aren't far and away stronger than non-casters. That is pretty much a provable fact.

[OldTrees1]

Okay...serious question for you here, Jormengand.

Have you ever done any serious weapon-based sports? If so, can you honestly tell me that every six seconds for the length of an entire fight you are able to find an opening for, have energy to use, and be able to correctly execute the technique you are best at with close to its effective maximum speed and power?

Pardon me, but
1) isn't this the Guy at the Gym Fallacy?

2) A Fighter might not get to use a Full Attack or a Charge every 6 seconds the entire fight since the opponent can make a tactical choice (moving/closing respectively or utilizing terrain) but that does not prevent them from being capable of doing so 2 turns in a row if the opponent does not make such a tactical choice.

3) Even if a Dungeoncrasher can use Knockback every round(due to the opponent not using what was mentioned in #2) they still might not be at maxmium speed and power due to the opponent's choices (opponent raising their AC lowering the Dungeoncrasher's power attack and thus knockback's bullrush, or the opponent moves away from walls to crash into).

Now I agree with you in that the ToB refreshing mechanic does not prevent ToB from being mundane. However I do recognize that it is an unrealistic action economy tax compared to the level of combat abstraction other Martials fight under which is less that the level of combat abstraction casters cast under.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Pardon me, but
1) isn't this the Guy at the Gym Fallacy?

Not really, no. I have no problems with a Fighter being able to throw MOUNTAINS if he so chooses. I also have no real reason that he CAN'T use the same move over and over again. I'm just saying that I don't think it's necessarily immersion breaking or non-mundane if he has some sort of limit imposed on his ability to use the same technique dozens and dozens of times in a row.

[OldTrees1]

Not really, no. I have no problems with a Fighter being able to throw MOUNTAINS if he so chooses. I also have no real reason that he CAN'T use the same move over and over again. I'm just saying that I don't think it's necessarily immersion breaking or non-mundane if he has some sort of limit imposed on his ability to use the same technique dozens and dozens of times in a row.

Edited in more to that post that you might have missed(not on the Guy at the Gym Fallacy but about levels of combat abstraction in D&D).

I got the implication that your argument was "Can you IRL person(Guy at a Gym) use a specific maneuver every round at full potency for an entire fight?" I suspect this was not an implication you meant but I do not see any other from that text.

That said the conclusion you are trying to reach (which is quite reasonable as detailed in your quoted post) is rather hard given the other person's premises. Perhaps "Presume a Warrior could attempt a maneuver above their level? If they could then might they need to prepare and recharge afterwards? What if a Warrior focused primarily or exclusively on using such maneuvers?"

[Milo v3]

I got the implication that your argument was "Can you IRL person(Guy at a Gym) use a specific maneuver every round at full potency for an entire fight?" I suspect this was not an implication you meant but I do not see any other.
I interpreted it more as "this mechanic represents this thing in reality, so it shouldn't be immersion breaking or perceived as supernatural." Not discussing that such a thing should be the limit on their potency.

[Masakan]

I interpreted it more as "this mechanic represents this thing in reality, so it shouldn't be immersion breaking or perceived as supernatural." Not discussing that such a thing should be the limit on their potency.

This pretty much sums it up for me

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I got the implication that your argument was "Can you IRL person(Guy at a Gym) use a specific maneuver every round at full potency for an entire fight?" I suspect this was not an implication you meant but I do not see any other.

It was specifically in response to Jormengand's opinion that not allowing you to select moves at will and use them with no limit was non-mundane. I was attempting to point out that the limiting factor actually is reasonable if you're attempting to portray non-magical martial combat. Note that I said reasonable here, not required. Both the Tome of Battle mechanic and "use whatever you want, whenever you want" are unrealistic. It doesn't matter which you use, because neither is "real."


2) A Fighter might not get to use a Full Attack or a Charge every 6 seconds the entire fight since the opponent can make a tactical choice (moving/closing respectively or utilizing terrain) but that does not prevent them from being capable of doing so 2 turns in a row if the opponent does not make such a tactical choice.

But the standard attack mechanics are already so horribly abstracted that it barely matters. :smalltongue:


3) Even if a Dungeoncrasher can use Knockback every round(due to the opponent not using what was mentioned in #2) they still might not be at maxmium speed and power due to the opponent's choices (opponent raising their AC lowering the Dungeoncrasher's power attack and thus knockback's bullrush, or the opponent moves away from walls to crash into).

This is true. I'd say, however, that if we're going with attack mechanic levels of abstraction where a single round of combat represents several attacks and blocks on both parties, than maybe you DID try to use Mountain Tombstone Strike a second time, and it was blocked, so you fell back on, say, Desert Inferno Strike instead. Still seems reasonable to me.

[Gnaeus]

Right, only he prepares them out of some combination of thin air, sulfur and bat crap.


The spell component pouch is totally mundane.Your non-magical spell component pouch can contain an infinite amount of every possible component without straining your credibility, and you can reach into it as a free action and pull out the exact piece of junk you need, which may be something like a live animal which would be moving or dying.

If you can wrap your brain around THAT as being mundane, Batman or Agatha Heterodyne always having the parts on hand to build that robot or suit or ray shouldn't be a strain on your imagination.

There is pretty much nothing that a wizard can do that cannot be readily refluffed to mundane steampunk. And the vancian prep mechanic, if anything, makes more sense in that paradigm than it does for 3.5 casters. "I can't use my death ray again. My resonance crystal is out of power and I will need 8 hours to calibrate or charge another one". There is a 3rd party technologist class for PF that pretty much does exactly that, all the way up to 9th level effects.

[OldTrees1]

It was specifically in response to Jormengand's opinion that not allowing you to select moves at will and use them with no limit was non-mundane. I was attempting to point out that the limiting factor actually is reasonable if you're attempting to portray non-magical martial combat. Note that I said reasonable here, not required. Both the Tome of Battle mechanic and "use whatever you want, whenever you want" are unrealistic. It doesn't matter which you use, because neither is "real."
What I underlined is a better way of phrasing that than your reply to Jormengand since it avoids a few implications you are not intending. But that's what you get for nuanced positions right? :smallbiggrin:


But the standard attack mechanics are already so horribly abstracted that it barely matters. :smalltongue:
And casting is abstracted even further. :smallwink: If we remember that less abstraction usually comes with relative penalties and we remember the original topic of this thread...


This is true. I'd say, however, that if we're going with attack mechanic levels of abstraction where a single round of combat represents several attacks and blocks on both parties, than maybe you DID try to use Mountain Tombstone Strike a second time, and it was blocked, so you fell back on, say, Desert Inferno Strike instead. Still seems reasonable to me.
While that seems reasonable, it is not at the level of abstraction you claim it is unless you actually allow a Maneuver to work twice in a row (aka when "you did try to use it a second time and it was not blocked"). However it seems evident that we are on the same page.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

And casting is abstracted even further. :smallwink: If we remember that less abstraction usually comes with relative penalties and we remember the original topic of this thread...

While that seems reasonable, it is not at the level of abstraction you claim it is unless you actually allow a Maneuver to work twice in a row (aka when "you did try to use it a second time and it was not blocked"). However it seems evident that we are on the same page.

Again, I'm not arguing it's a perfect system, or that there aren't holes any any level you could abstract it too. But every system in D&D has abstractions and logic holes, because D&D isn't a simulation-based game. It has some nods to simulation, but that's about where it ends.

So yeah. We can argue varying levels of abstraction, realism, believably, etc. for pretty much all systems in the game, but what it really boils down to, any any point, is "If the mechanics are not OBJECTIVELY bad (i.e. Truenamer and its ilk), do you, as a player or DM, SUBJECTIVELY like them and wish to use them?" :smalltongue:

[Masakan]

Again, I'm not arguing it's a perfect system, or that there aren't holes any any level you could abstract it too. But every system in D&D has abstractions and logic holes, because D&D isn't a simulation-based game. It has some nods to simulation, but that's about where it ends.

So yeah. We can argue varying levels of abstraction, realism, believably, etc. for pretty much all systems in the game, but what it really boils down to, any any point, is "If the mechanics are not OBJECTIVELY bad (i.e. Truenamer and its ilk), do you, as a player or DM, SUBJECTIVELY like them and wish to use them?" :smalltongue:
Effectively making any other argument against this more or less moot

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Effectively making any other argument against this more or less moot

I mean, I think arguments against Tome of Battle being a good system should be based in the functionality of the system and whether or not it delivers on the intended fantasy.

The SUBJECTIVE issue is that not everyone agrees on what the fantasy of high-level non-magical combatants should look like. The secondary subjective issue is the manner that people prefer their abstraction when it comes to game mechanics.

So there are a ton of subjective arguments. I'd argue the only really constructive conversations about Tome of Battle as an addition to the game really comes when you either A: discuss purely its functionality in the game space, or B: agree on the tone and goal of the system, and can thus discuss the merits of the system towards meeting that fantasy. Otherwise you're just discussing your subjective opinion of the books intended goals.

[Kelb_Panthera]

3rd edition D&D is just fundamentally rigged to discourage accomplishment through other means than spells. It's not an easy hurdle to clear.

This is the point I was taking issue with earlier in the thread. Encouragememt of one thing is not inherently discouragement of another. A non-caster is capable of overcoming nearly any challenge you'd care to present them with barring the obcvious exception of taking down a caster in a contrived, 1 on 1 fight.

The system does not hate non-casters. It certainly loves casters to pieces, no one is denying that, but that is not the same as hating non-casters.

[Brova]

This is the point I was taking issue with earlier in the thread. Encouragememt of one thing is not inherently discouragement of another. A non-caster is capable of overcoming nearly any challenge you'd care to present them with barring the obcvious exception of taking down a caster in a contrived, 1 on 1 fight.

I very much doubt that. Take a look at the Same Game Test (dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:The_Same_Game_Test). Now make a core (non-Rogue) mundane who can go 50% on the level 10 or 15 SGT.

[Masakan]

I mean, I think arguments against Tome of Battle being a good system should be based in the functionality of the system and whether or not it delivers on the intended fantasy.

The SUBJECTIVE issue is that not everyone agrees on what the fantasy of high-level non-magical combatants should look like. The secondary subjective issue is the manner that people prefer their abstraction when it comes to game mechanics.

So there are a ton of subjective arguments. I'd argue the only really constructive conversations about Tome of Battle as an addition to the game really comes when you either A: discuss purely its functionality in the game space, or B: agree on the tone and goal of the system, and can thus discuss the merits of the system towards meeting that fantasy. Otherwise you're just discussing your subjective opinion of the books intended goals.

But that's just it pretty much every arguement against it has been entirely subjective, or if they were addressing how it works, it was quickly rebutted with facts.

[Vaz]

How does a 20th level Mundane take on other CR20 foes, like Grey Linnorms or Balors? How does a Fighter or Barbarian survive against their Implosion, or Miracled Metamagic Spells?

How does one take down a Battletitan, even?

[Morty]

This is the point I was taking issue with earlier in the thread. Encouragememt of one thing is not inherently discouragement of another. A non-caster is capable of overcoming nearly any challenge you'd care to present them with barring the obcvious exception of taking down a caster in a contrived, 1 on 1 fight.

The system does not hate non-casters. It certainly loves casters to pieces, no one is denying that, but that is not the same as hating non-casters.

That would be true if the rules for non-magical competence were good and rules for magic were just better, but that's not the case. Non-magical combat is awful, non-magical skills are only somewhat better. Magic steamrolling everything non-magic past a certain point is only part of the problem.

[Masakan]

That would be true if the rules for non-magical competence were good and rules for magic were just better, but that's not the case. Non-magical combat is awful, non-magical skills are only somewhat better. Magic steamrolling everything non-magic past a certain point is only part of the problem.
The fact that any upgrades or high level items mundanes get are usually magic based doesn't help either, face it DnD is centered around it's magic.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I very much doubt that. Take a look at the Same Game Test (dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:The_Same_Game_Test). Now make a core (non-Rogue) mundane who can go 50% on the level 10 or 15 SGT.

The same game test was intended to test how the various individual classes stack up against one another and makes several presumptions that would be utterly contrived in actual play most of the time.

In particular, the level 15 forest of magma is utterly unsurvivable if you had no knowledge that you would be in such a place beforehand for a character of any class. If you're going into mid and high level encounters completely blind then you're not playing smart. Random encounters happen but encounters are not completely random at any table at which I've ever played.

The SGT also discounts tactical withdrawal altogether. Escape and return better prepared is as basic a strategem as it gets and the SGT counts that as a loss.

It also says that equipment should be discounted entirely, save the standar +x to y bonus items, for better accuracy. That's just plain stupid for non-casters.

Bottom line: the SGT that you've linked is flawed for even the purpose that it was intended. A proper SGT would be to run each class through a series of adventures that are ostensibly at their level.

Besides, even if I did make a fighter that could pull 50% or better, I'd certainly be accused of intentionally selecting the most optimal equipment for each of the challenges.

[Brova]

In particular, the level 15 forest of magma is utterly unsurvivable if you had no knowledge that you would be in such a place beforehand for a character of any class. If you're going into mid and high level encounters completely blind then you're not playing smart. Random encounters happen but encounters are not completely random at any table at which I've ever played.

You can get all day flight for a 3rd level spell slot (Extended alter self). Or items. Or mounts. All of those solve the encounter of "cross a lava forest". Frankly, it baffles me that you would think a 15th level character would not typically have flight. If you want to complain about an encounter not being fair, you could talk about the traps as those basically require you to be a Rogue or other class with trapfinding.

But even if some encounter is difficult to defeat without making the right choices at chargen, that doesn't matter. Because the SGT isn't supposed to be beaten. Success means that you go 50%. Losing some encounters is expected.


The SGT also discounts tactical withdrawal altogether. Escape and return better prepared is as basic a strategem as it gets and the SGT counts that as a loss.

You don't know what encounters you will expect to fight. If you can't effectively prepare for level appropriate encounters in general, you are not level appropriate.


It also says that equipment should be discounted entirely, save the standar +x to y bonus items, for better accuracy. That's just plain stupid for non-casters.

Yes, that's a concession to simplicity. If you honestly think that getting a pile of items is the difference between being level appropriate and not, feel free to run it with that assumption.


Besides, even if I did make a fighter that could pull 50% or better, I'd certainly be accused of intentionally selecting the most optimal equipment for each of the challenges.

That depends. If you picked specific equipment for those challenges (a ring of protection from bears, a scroll of magic circle against windghosts, etc) then yes you would. If you picked generally effective items (flight, ghost touch weapons, etc) that wouldn't be a legitimate criticism.

[Vaz]

At 20 minutes/caster level, you'd need to have a Caster level of 720 for all day flight from a 3rd level spell. Do you mean Extended Overland Flight from a 6th level slot?

[Hiro Protagonest]

At 20 minutes/caster level, you'd need to have a Caster level of 720 for all day flight from a 3rd level spell. Do you mean Extended Overland Flight from a 6th level slot?

Erm... you need a caster level of 72, not 720.

If he meant 8-hour flight, that would be 24. Though a day is more like 16 hours, with 8 hours rest.

[Vaz]

Whoops. Eh, same difference though. 52 CL needed on a CL 20 build.