Balancing 3.5: Martials as Anti-Magic?

[PhantasyPen]

I just had an incredible vague idea pop into my head after two days of a rather frustrating flu, so I might not be too coherent or in my right mind. Basically, I'm wondering if it would have been a slightly more balanced design for 3.X if martial characters were essentially designed as mage-killers. That is to say, martial characters are made to be able to negate magic spells which target them, for example (like in my signature) fighters being able to deflect spells with their weapons or rogue-likes being able to sneak through impenetrable magical barriers. Perhaps also making abilities like Mettle and Evasion more common, where certain types of classes just completely negate spells that target specific saves.

[Venger]

I just had an incredible vague idea pop into my head after two days of a rather frustrating flu, so I might not be too coherent or in my right mind. Basically, I'm wondering if it would have been a slightly more balanced design for 3.X if martial characters were essentially designed as mage-killers. That is to say, martial characters are made to be able to negate magic spells which target them, for example (like in my signature) fighters being able to deflect spells with their weapons or rogue-likes being able to sneak through impenetrable magical barriers. Perhaps also making abilities like Mettle and Evasion more common, where certain types of classes just completely negate spells that target specific saves.

Like in all these other identical threads, the same problem arises.

Even if your character is, let's say, wholly immune to magic. Let's say he has Magic immunity like a golem. This doesn't actually make it any easier for him to kill enemies, much less do utility things that mundanes cannot do on their own, such as fly, teleport, overcome damage reduction, etc.

[PhantasyPen]

Like in all these other identical threads, the same problem arises.

Even if your character is, let's say, wholly immune to magic. Let's say he has Magic immunity like a golem. This doesn't actually make it any easier for him to kill enemies, much less do utility things that mundanes cannot do on their own, such as fly, teleport, overcome damage reduction, etc.


Okay, I wasn't trying to tackle the whole system all at once, I was just throwing an idea out there to see how it could be made to work, and possibly seeing how to build on it, but if you're going to be like that, then fine, let's get started on your points.


This foes not make it easier for mundanes to kill enemies
A: I would argue that not the purpose of this change in the first place, we're looking at defense here, not offense, you're trying to change the subject.
This does not like mundanes fly/teleport
A: I've found flight to be over-rated on this forum, and the few times it's been used in a campaign I was part of, the players have had ranged weapons sufficient to deal with the threat.
This does not help mundanes overcome damage reduction
A: Again, I'm just working on defense here, not offense, and I don't see why the idea of martial characters being able to negate spells somehow means they can't use magic weapons still.

[Nifft]

There's no need to make martial PCs anti-magic. Phrasing it in that way invites the exact problems that Venger brings up.

Instead, consider removing some of the special dispensation that magic gets. For example:

- Magic attacks can be deflected and parried just like weapon attacks. That Monk with Deflect Arrow can also deflect melf's acid arrow or Bob's magic missile (... well the first one at least).

Now you just need some more rules for deflecting & parrying attacks on yourself and allies, and then a martial character can contribute by negating magical attacks on her friends, and can credibly protect them from legitimate threats at mid-level and up.

The hypothetical deflection-based character isn't anti-magic, she's anti-attack (including magical attacks).

[Venger]

Okay, I wasn't trying to tackle the whole system all at once, I was just throwing an idea out there to see how it could be made to work, and possibly seeing how to build on it, but if you're going to be like that, then fine, let's get started on your points.


This foes not make it easier for mundanes to kill enemies
A: I would argue that not the purpose of this change in the first place, we're looking at defense here, not offense, you're trying to change the subject.
This does not like mundanes fly/teleport
A: I've found flight to be over-rated on this forum, and the few times it's been used in a campaign I was part of, the players have had ranged weapons sufficient to deal with the threat.
This does not help mundanes overcome damage reduction
A: Again, I'm just working on defense here, not offense, and I don't see why the idea of martial characters being able to negate spells somehow means they can't use magic weapons still.


How dare I offer you useful feedback. What exactly was your goal with this thread if you didn't want input on your houserule?

Defense does not help a character accrue xp by killing enemies. Monks may be annoying to kill, but their defensive capabilities (good saves, sr, evasion, etc) do not help them kill enemies, which is part of why they are a weak class.

Your anecdote about not needing to fly in your games doesn't somehow change the fact that flight is very important in the game past level 7 or so.

The "etc" means this is a nonexhaustive list, citing a few common things characters both magical and mundane need to be able to do to meaningfully contribute throughout the course of the game.

Be like what exactly?

There are many other interesting points to discuss regarding your houserule that may help you to improve it, but if you're going to be snotty and ungrateful, then I'm not going to bother explaining them to you.


There's no need to make martial PCs anti-magic. Phrasing it in that way invites the exact problems that Venger brings up.

Instead, consider removing some of the special dispensation that magic gets. For example:

- Magic attacks can be deflected and parried just like weapon attacks. That Monk with Deflect Arrow can also deflect melf's acid arrow or Bob's magic missile (... well the first one at least).

Now you just need some more rules for deflecting & parrying attacks on yourself and allies, and then a martial character can contribute by negating magical attacks on her friends, and can credibly protect them from legitimate threats at mid-level and up.

The hypothetical deflection-based character isn't anti-magic, she's anti-attack (including magical attacks).

This is definitely a good suggestion. Giving non-initiating mundanes access to a wall of blades-like effect will really help them out defensively

[Deophaun]

This does not like mundanes fly/teleport
A: I've found flight to be over-rated on this forum, and the few times it's been used in a campaign I was part of, the players have had ranged weapons sufficient to deal with the threat.
How does a ranged weapon help you get to the top of a glacier or quickly move across a continent? I must be missing something regarding these weapons.

[Venger]

How does a ranged weapon help you get to the top of a glacier or quickly move across a continent? I must be missing something regarding these weapons.

Just throw your hammer really hard and hang onto it to fly, like Thor. Who needs magic? Better get that strength score up!

[redwizard007]

Oh! Are we playing "trash the thread because it doesn't support the way the Playground likes to game?"

I think the guy is trying to recreate some of the cool martial based stuff you see in fiction. That's not exactly unheard of.

[Quertus]

What do you want mundane's role to be? How do you want them to contribute to the game? Do you really want it to be, "I'm useless, but I survive to take a share of the treasure and XP from the people who actually contributed to our success"?

If so, then this is a good plan.

That having been said, I actually like the idea of giving muggles get huge, huge bonuses to saves (see Paladin), AC (see swashbuckling?) abilities like Evasion, etc. I just think that should be the icing on the cake, and you need to focus first and foremost on making them actually contribute to the game.

Of course, the same could be said for low-floor casters.

[PhantasyPen]

How does a ranged weapon help you get to the top of a glacier or quickly move across a continent? I must be missing something regarding these weapons.

Apparently this was a case of me misunderstanding the question, however I do feel like these aren't the types of situations thrown at your players if no one doesn't have some manner of dealing with them? Ultimately it's not the matter I'm trying to tackle at this exact moment however, and I am therefor hesitant to put too much concentration into addressing it until I get to that point organically.

[Venger]

Oh! Are we playing "trash the thread because it doesn't support the way the Playground likes to game?"

I think the guy is trying to recreate some of the cool martial based stuff you see in fiction. That's not exactly unheard of.
These things exist in the game already (mettle, mettle of mountains, evasion, sr, magic immunity, etc) but they alone do not help a character fight against characters with magic.


What do you want mundane's role to be? How do you want them to contribute to the game? Do you really want it to be, "I'm useless, but I survive to take a share of the treasure and XP from the people who actually contributed to our success"?

If so, then this is a good plan.

That having been said, I actually like the idea of giving muggles get huge, huge bonuses to saves (see Paladin), AC (see swashbuckling?) abilities like Evasion, etc. I just think that should be the icing on the cake, and you need to focus first and foremost on making them actually contribute to the game.

Of course, the same could be said for low-floor casters.

Yes, this is exactly the problem. There's a reason people don't take classes like witch slayer more often. Sure you'll make saves and ignore spells once in a while, but after that, what do you actually do to contribute to combat that you couldn't before? Not much, really.


Apparently this was a case of me misunderstanding the question, however I do feel like these aren't the types of situations thrown at your players if no one doesn't have some manner of dealing with them? Ultimately it's not the matter I'm trying to tackle at this exact moment however, and I am therefor hesitant to put too much concentration into addressing it until I get to that point organically.

And what exactly is the matter you're trying to tackle? If we knew, we might be able to help you more effectively.

While a gm may not say "you need to teleport 200 miles to stop the duke of darkness by tomorrow morning" when no one in the party has teleportation/fast travel, and this is an easy enough thing for him to avoid assuming he's not overtly malicious, the same is not true for flight.

If he's going from a module, rolling encounters, or even selecting monsters by hand because they are cool to fight against, or fit well in your campaign world, at mid-high levels an awful lot of monsters can fly.

If you're a melee-focused character without access to flight somehow, then when a vrock takes to the sky, you're kind of out of luck. sure you might have a bow and arrow to take potshots at him, but this is not going to have a meaningful impact on the combat.

This kind of thing can happen even if your gm isn't trying to pick on you.

[Cosi]

Magic immunity is a boring power. The game is about things happening. Blanket immunities make things not happen and the game not progress. This is something that should be done sparingly, and should absolutely not be the basis for half the classes. It's also unfun, because it means that lots of encounters involve people's abilities getting noped and them functionally having to sit out the fight.

Also, yes, it is absolutely true that this does nothing to allow Fighters to solve problems, which is the fundamental goal of adventuring. If you are 99% immune to Wizards, but can't kill them, you still lose.


Oh! Are we playing "trash the thread because it doesn't support the way the Playground likes to game?"

How is that different from "tell someone who posted something you think is bad that you think the thing they posted is bad"? What I am supposed to do if someone suggests a change I don't think is good? What is the point of asking for feedback if your response to negative feedback is just going to be "that's not what I'm trying to do"?


I think the guy is trying to recreate some of the cool martial based stuff you see in fiction. That's not exactly unheard of.

What "cool martial based stuff you see in fiction"? None of the moments from fiction I would describe as "cool martial based stuff" are people being immune to magic. The mode the fiction supports for balancing martials is giving them magic. Aragorn gets to be a Ghost King. Thor and Arthur get magical weapons. No one gets "total immunity to magic".

[PhantasyPen]

There's no need to make martial PCs anti-magic. Phrasing it in that way invites the exact problems that Venger brings up.

Instead, consider removing some of the special dispensation that magic gets. For example:

- Magic attacks can be deflected and parried just like weapon attacks. That Monk with Deflect Arrow can also deflect melf's acid arrow or Bob's magic missile (... well the first one at least).

Now you just need some more rules for deflecting & parrying attacks on yourself and allies, and then a martial character can contribute by negating magical attacks on her friends, and can credibly protect them from legitimate threats at mid-level and up.

The hypothetical deflection-based character isn't anti-magic, she's anti-attack (including magical attacks).

I have long advocated the idea of a parry mechanic ala melee evasion and Wall of Blades for D&D as being the default, however I am also aware that it effectively doubles the number of rolls made in combat, so that might not be the exact thing one wants to do, but it's a fairly decent representation of the overall idea and feel I'm going for I guess.


What do you want mundane's role to be? How do you want them to contribute to the game? Do you really want it to be, "I'm useless, but I survive to take a share of the treasure and XP from the people who actually contributed to our success"?

If so, then this is a good plan.

That having been said, I actually like the idea of giving muggles get huge, huge bonuses to saves (see Paladin), AC (see swashbuckling?) abilities like Evasion, etc. I just think that should be the icing on the cake, and you need to focus first and foremost on making them actually contribute to the game.

Of course, the same could be said for low-floor casters.


Well I suppose in this situation, the role of a mundane character is to be able to slay the mage, however, the real answer is that this is too broad a question for me to answer right now, and it is not an answer to my own question, which was "What if the mundane classes had more abilities that made them resistant to magic as the default?"

As I said in my first post, this whole idea was incredibly vague in my head, the reason I brought it to the forum is to try and refine it. Now what exactly about the suggestion that I gave specifically says to you that martials are "useless"? Is it that they still aren't throwing around pew-pew lazers and Time Stopping to chain-gate in Solars? Because that is a completely separate conversation that I will not be having in this thread. If it's something else then please explain that instead of shooting the whole thing down and dismissing it out of hand, doing that doesn't help anything move forward.


These things exist in the game already (mettle, mettle of mountains, evasion, sr, magic immunity, etc) but they alone do not help a character fight against characters with magic.

And what exactly is the matter you're trying to tackle? If we knew, we might be able to help you more effectively.

Yes, these things do exist in the game already, what I'm trying to propose with this thread is the idea of making them more common for mundane characters.


While a gm may not say "you need to teleport 200 miles to stop the duke of darkness by tomorrow morning" when no one in the party has teleportation/fast travel, and this is an easy enough thing for him to avoid assuming he's not overtly malicious, the same is not true for flight.

If he's going from a module, rolling encounters, or even selecting monsters by hand because they are cool to fight against, or fit well in your campaign world, at mid-high levels an awful lot of monsters can fly.

If you're a melee-focused character without access to flight somehow, then when a vrock takes to the sky, you're kind of out of luck. sure you might have a bow and arrow to take potshots at him, but this is not going to have a meaningful impact on the combat.

This kind of thing can happen even if your gm isn't trying to pick on you.

These are things that are the entire reason that a character does not adventure alone, making one single character able to tackle all situations renders having a party pointless. The reason I opened this thread is because I keep seeing people on this forum and elsewhere saying that once a mage unlocks Save or Die spells the martial character might as well go home because they no longer have anything to contribute because all battles are now wizards throwing disintegrates and Power Word Kills at one another. Well right now I'm just asking: what if mundane characters had the ability to negate those things? I'm not necessarily looking at out of combat utility options for all characters because I feel if I was going to do that I might as well create an entirely new game system myself, which is not what I'm setting out to do. I'm just asking a single question, and trying to examine that for now, not trying to answer every single possible reason that spellcasting is broken.


Magic immunity is a boring power. The game is about things happening. Blanket immunities make things not happen and the game not progress. This is something that should be done sparingly, and should absolutely not be the basis for half the classes. It's also unfun, because it means that lots of encounters involve people's abilities getting noped and them functionally having to sit out the fight.


I did not state magic immunity, I proposed making and adding abilities that let martial characters more able to overcome magic in interesting ways. Venger is the one who said outright immunity to all magic.

[InvisibleBison]

Leaving aside the issues of implementation, I think this is a problematic idea because it unnecessarily limits the range of concepts that a martial character can express. In particular, it seems like this idea would make most gish builds impossible - you can't both be magic and anti-magic, after all.

[Cosi]

I did not state magic immunity, I proposed making and adding abilities that let martial characters more able to overcome magic in interesting ways. Venger is the one who said outright immunity to all magic.

I don't think you can make "negate other abilities" all that interesting. Mettle and evasion are not interesting abilities. They're reasonably powerful abilities, but they're not super interesting. The issue here is that "doing things" is interesting, and you're trying to stake out a space in which characters don't do things.

[PhantasyPen]

Leaving aside the issues of implementation, I think this is a problematic idea because it unnecessarily limits the range of concepts that a martial character can express. In particular, it seems like this idea would make most gish builds impossible - you can't both be magic and anti-magic, after all.

How does this limit the range of concepts for martial characters? What kinds of archetypes are you thinking of that don't work with this idea?

The statement about Gish builds is an interesting point, but I don't know, I can think of a few concepts which disagree, but I suppose that's still something that bears thinking about.

[Remuko]

I don't think you can make "negate other abilities" all that interesting. Mettle and evasion are not interesting abilities. They're reasonably powerful abilities, but they're not super interesting. The issue here is that "doing things" is interesting, and you're trying to stake out a space in which characters don't do things.

I don't think this is entirely true. A fighter being shot by a mage or a dragons breath and resisting it, pushing and walking thru is, is an awesome image. I think theres plenty of "nopes" in fiction that are way more cool than the hero swinging his sword and cutting the dragons head off.

[redwizard007]

Magic immunity is a boring power. The game is about things happening. Blanket immunities make things not happen and the game not progress. This is something that should be done sparingly, and should absolutely not be the basis for half the classes. It's also unfun, because it means that lots of encounters involve people's abilities getting noped and them functionally having to sit out the fight.


That must be why all the build guides dip for evasion and mettle.



Also, yes, it is absolutely true that this does nothing to allow Fighters to solve problems, which is the fundamental goal of adventuring. If you are 99% immune to Wizards, but can't kill them, you still lose.

I seem to remember something about full BAB and concentration checks...




How is that different from "tell someone who posted something you think is bad that you think the thing they posted is bad"? What I am supposed to do if someone suggests a change I don't think is good? What is the point of asking for feedback if your response to negative feedback is just going to be "that's not what I'm trying to do"?

Example of what you are doing: "Hey, what color is the sea?" "The sand in New Mexico is white in some places."

That's not helpful. It's not even relevant.




What "cool martial based stuff you see in fiction"? None of the moments from fiction I would describe as "cool martial based stuff" are people being immune to magic. The mode the fiction supports for balancing martials is giving them magic. Aragorn gets to be a Ghost King. Thor and Arthur get magical weapons. No one gets "total immunity to magic".

He didn't suggest total immunity to magic. He suggested innovative ways to get around it. Sometimes that might be shaking off the effect of a spell like with mettle, but it could also be slicing through a spell like that dark elf from that one author did.

[InvisibleBison]

How does this limit the range of concepts for martial characters? What kinds of archetypes are you thinking of that don't work with this idea?

The statement about Gish builds is an interesting point, but I don't know, I can think of a few concepts which disagree, but I suppose that's still something that bears thinking about.

"Anti-magic/mage-killer" is a specific character concept. By making all martials be mage-killers, you're blocking off all other character concepts, which I think is a bad idea. Any archetype that doesn't specialize in fighting mages (which is most of them) becomes impossible to implement.

[Covenant12]

As others have said, a martial being tough to take down by magic is a solid side dish. It still needs a main course or two to contribute past 10 or so. (lower if poorly optimized)

I've experimented with martial builds without casting, and frankly they require some maneuvers and stances closing on 10, but with some help can play their role.

One main course is of course damage, generally melee. THF, power attack, reach(spiked chain most direct, other options), pounce, shock trooper when available. Damage standing still is acceptable, if charging can be the mvp of the party. (maneuvers to allow charging more effectively, I like crusader)

Another solid course, though more difficult, is lockdown of enemy casters. Including ones that mostly cast spell-likes. Combat reflexes, reach again, mage slayer, stand still, the crusader stance that makes 5' steps provoke AoO. I generally take the barb2 ACF improved trip, because why not. At high levels quickened utility/movement spells come on line, and I'm still working on a solution to that, but preventing the BBEG caster from doing anything is a big deal. Can you ready an action to interrupt a quickened spell?

And that's basically an effective martial plan. It takes far more planning than caster or gish, and is easier to fail at. But you can be a real force in any combat, and hopefully have survival or a social skill to occasionally use outside of it. I'm not trying to make martials have a solution when teleport or plane shift is the only option. Casters keep that, non-caster martials won't be T1. A very valuable T3 is plenty I think.

Non-caster martials have issues, some mentioned. They need flight, they have no good answer to invisibility or miss chance. They could really use swift or at least move action teleportation of some kind (maneuvers can help on the last, anklets of translocation and charge/pounce as well). A partial solution is WBL. Increase it. Spellcasters can often do everything with their spells naked, martials need magic gear. Increasing WBL buffs casters a bit but makes martials playable. Wings, permanent detect invis if nothing else affordable when they start to need them, not 3-5 levels later.

Longer than I wanted.

TL;DR: With limited ToB dips, non-caster martials make solid and valuable T3's. With a lot of planning and many trap options. A homebrew with some of the op's suggestions (resist/parry spells, ignore miss chance) could make them great in any combat situation. I do concede PHB-only, low-magic non-caster beatsticks become dead weight around 10. Some of the op's ideas are good, but I agree with most that without effective offense, personal survival doesn't help the party. You need to scare(damage) or restrict/lockdown enemy options.

[Cosi]

The Magic Item Christmas Tree is bad, and using WBL as a solution makes it worse. The game should be moving away from required items, not facilitating more of them. Again, look at the source material. When people have magic gear, it is a small number of powerful items, not a large number of weak ones. It is easy to tell iconic, compelling stories about Mjolnir or The One Ring. It is much harder to tell those stories about +3 swords, Belts of Healing, and Anklets of Translocation.


That must be why all the build guides dip for evasion and mettle.

Boring is different from weak. A no-save, no-SR, no-immunity free-action instant kill ability would be something people would dip for. That wouldn't make it good design. To be clear: I am not saying those abilities are equally bad design, or that evasion shouldn't be in the game. What I am saying is that if you are going to give people evasion, you need to also give them useful offensive tools. And useful utility tools.


I seem to remember something about full BAB and concentration checks...

And I seem to remember something about flight, and martials not having it.


That's not helpful. It's not even relevant.

It's perfectly helpful. If someone says "I want to move to Boise to start a career in showbusiness", it is entirely reasonable to tell them that Boise is not the right city to do that. Some ideas won't work well, or put the game in a worse place than alternatives. And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with having a bad idea. At least you're having ideas.

[Covenant12]

The Magic Item Christmas Tree is bad, and using WBL as a solution makes it worse. The game should be moving away from required items, not facilitating more of them. Again, look at the source material. When people have magic gear, it is a small number of powerful items, not a large number of weak ones. It is easy to tell iconic, compelling stories about Mjolnir or The One Ring. It is much harder to tell those stories about +3 swords, Belts of Healing, and Anklets of Translocation.Going have to agree to disagree here. 3.5 does poorly run as low or no magic items. What balance exists assumes sufficient magic to say, hit stuff and do notable damage to it. There are rpgs out there that mesh well with it, 3.5 isn't one of them. Not just martials (excepting gishes with 9ths by 20), but rogues will have difficulty functioning like that.

[redwizard007]

The Magic Item Christmas Tree is bad, and using WBL as a solution makes it worse. The game should be moving away from required items, not facilitating more of them. Again, look at the source material. When people have magic gear, it is a small number of powerful items, not a large number of weak ones. It is easy to tell iconic, compelling stories about Mjolnir or The One Ring. It is much harder to tell those stories about +3 swords, Belts of Healing, and Anklets of Translocation.



Boring is different from weak. A no-save, no-SR, no-immunity free-action instant kill ability would be something people would dip for. That wouldn't make it good design. To be clear: I am not saying those abilities are equally bad design, or that evasion shouldn't be in the game. What I am saying is that if you are going to give people evasion, you need to also give them useful offensive tools. And useful utility tools.



And I seem to remember something about flight, and martials not having it.



It's perfectly helpful. If someone says "I want to move to Boise to start a career in showbusiness", it is entirely reasonable to tell them that Boise is not the right city to do that. Some ideas won't work well, or put the game in a worse place than alternatives. And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with having a bad idea. At least you're having ideas.

I'm not breaking another long quote down on my phone, so bear with me...

Vs. flight- casting flight in close proximity to a well built fighter = questionable outcome at best.

Touche with Boise

[Deophaun]

The reason I opened this thread is because I keep seeing people on this forum and elsewhere saying that once a mage unlocks Save or Die spells the martial character might as well go home because they no longer have anything to contribute because all battles are now wizards throwing disintegrates and Power Word Kills at one another.
I would say that the people you're seeing don't understand the problem at all, then. It's not that casters have Save or Dies that are the issue--mundanes can kill plenty of things in a single round, too, and more reliably--it's that casters have the flexibility to solve any problem you throw at them quickly, while mundanes can take hours or months to perform the same task, if they ever can.

[PhantasyPen]

I would say that the people you're seeing don't understand the problem at all, then. It's not that casters have Save or Dies that are the issue--mundanes can kill plenty of things in a single round, too, and more reliably--it's that casters have the flexibility to solve any problem you throw at them quickly, while mundanes can take hours or months to perform the same task, if they ever can.

Okay, I see. I give you this point: if I want something done particularly swiftly, I hire a spellcaster, that's fine. However that is not the topic of this thread.


The Magic Item Christmas Tree is bad, and using WBL as a solution makes it worse. The game should be moving away from required items, not facilitating more of them. Again, look at the source material. When people have magic gear, it is a small number of powerful items, not a large number of weak ones. It is easy to tell iconic, compelling stories about Mjolnir or The One Ring. It is much harder to tell those stories about +3 swords, Belts of Healing, and Anklets of Translocation.

Boring is different from weak. A no-save, no-SR, no-immunity free-action instant kill ability would be something people would dip for. That wouldn't make it good design. To be clear: I am not saying those abilities are equally bad design, or that evasion shouldn't be in the game. What I am saying is that if you are going to give people evasion, you need to also give them useful offensive tools. And useful utility tools.



And I seem to remember something about flight, and martials not having it.



It's perfectly helpful. If someone says "I want to move to Boise to start a career in showbusiness", it is entirely reasonable to tell them that Boise is not the right city to do that. Some ideas won't work well, or put the game in a worse place than alternatives. And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with having a bad idea. At least you're having ideas.

This isn't a thread about the Christmas Tree effect, nor is is about showbusiness in Boise, this is about trying to find interesting ways to give martial characters ways to work around magical chickanery. This thread also has nothing to do with mundane flight but if people are going to keep making is a topic of conversation then fine, here's my solution: making a Jump check as part of your attack roll (DC = Target's AC) allows you to hit a flying creature with a melee weapon.

[Venger]

Okay, I see. I give you this point: if I want something done particularly swiftly, I hire a spellcaster, that's fine. However that is not the topic of this thread.
Okay, so what is the topic of this thread?


This isn't a thread about the Christmas Tree effect, nor is is about showbusiness in Boise, this is about trying to find interesting ways to give martial characters ways to work around magical chickanery. This thread also has nothing to do with mundane flight but if people are going to keep making is a topic of conversation then fine, here's my solution: making a Jump check as part of your attack roll (DC = Target's AC) allows you to hit a flying creature with a melee weapon.
So mundanes can teleport after all! Nice.

[Deophaun]

Okay, I see. I give you this point: if I want something done particularly swiftly, I hire a spellcaster, that's fine. However that is not the topic of this thread.
I would suggest you rename the thread, then, as from what you're now describing your topic has nothing to do with balance.

[Quertus]

Now what exactly about the suggestion that I gave specifically says to you that martials are "useless"? Is it that they still aren't throwing around pew-pew lazers and Time Stopping to chain-gate in Solars? Because that is a completely separate conversation that I will not be having in this thread. If it's something else then please explain that instead of shooting the whole thing down and dismissing it out of hand, doing that doesn't help anything move forward.

The big problem with the balance of muggles - according to Playground conventional wisdom, at least - is that they do not contribute to the narrative, they're dead weight. If you are trying to balance muggles, letting them still utterly fail to contribute, but guaranteeing their survival, seems to at best sidestep the problem.

Would you rather play the hero who solves the quest, or the sidekick whose only power is plot armor?


I don't think this is entirely true. A fighter being shot by a mage or a dragons breath and resisting it, pushing and walking thru is, is an awesome image. I think theres plenty of "nopes" in fiction that are way more cool than the hero swinging his sword and cutting the dragons head off.

By all means, please elaborate on cool moments in fiction of Fighters saying "nope".

Off the top of my head, I've got:
* the Black Knight in Monty Python's The Search for the Holy Grail saying "it's just a flesh wound".
* saying "nope" to a hall of needles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
* saying "nope" to the gods' indestructible gates in the celestial bureaucracy

Note that my list is entirely them saying "nope" to mundane things... :smallfrown:


interesting ways to give martial characters ways to work around magical chickanery.

Evasion, better saves - not interesting, but useful.

Better "mind manipulation minigame" could be both useful and interesting. The Rogue has such great knowledge of anatomy, he gets an automatic will saves vs illusions of living creatures, with a bonus equal to twice his sneak attack dice, and vs illusions of walls with a bonus equal to half his ranks in climb. If mind controlled to preform a tactically suboptimal action, the Fighter gets an automatic will save, with a bonus equal to his BAB.


I would suggest you rename the thread, then, as from what you're now describing your topic has nothing to do with balance.

That may be in order, but we've got a meme going...

[Cosi]

Going have to agree to disagree here. 3.5 does poorly run as low or no magic items. What balance exists assumes sufficient magic to say, hit stuff and do notable damage to it. There are rpgs out there that mesh well with it, 3.5 isn't one of them. Not just martials (excepting gishes with 9ths by 20), but rogues will have difficulty functioning like that.

The balance of D&D does assume magic items. I'm not saying we should remove those. I'm saying doubling down on that is creating more problems that will have to be solved eventually. Better to pull from Weapons of Legacy, or Unearthed Arcana's proto-Weapons of Legacy subsystem, because that's closer to the source material.


Vs. flight- casting flight in close proximity to a well built fighter = questionable outcome at best.

Casters have all day flight -- overland flight is the obvious solution, phantom steed at higher levels, or even fly lasts long enough for a full day's dungeon crawling.


Okay, so what is the topic of this thread?

I think the topic of this thread is that giving martials anti-magic is the best solution and we should all support it.

[PhantasyPen]

Okay, so what is the topic of this thread?



I would suggest you rename the thread, then, as from what you're now describing your topic has nothing to do with balance.



I think the topic of this thread is that giving martials anti-magic is the best solution and we should all support it.

The intended topic of this thread was to open a discussion about the idea of if the mundane classes had generally-restricted abilities like Evasion and Mettle, or more novel/obscure abilities like a class feature version the Spellcutter enchantment, as a more common design, making such powers the rule rather than the exception for martials, and what it would do for those classes as a first step towards not neutering mundane characters for the high crime of "not having magic."

[Quertus]

The intended topic of this thread was to open a discussion about the idea of if the mundane classes had generally-restricted abilities like Evasion and Mettle, or more novel/obscure abilities like a class feature version the Spellcutter enchantment, as a more common design, making such powers the rule rather than the exception for martials, and what it would do for those classes as a first step towards not neutering mundane characters for the high crime of "not having magic."

Personally, I'd like to see the Fighter get things that felt, well, thematic to being a Fighter, the Rogue to get things thematic to being a Rogue, and same for the Monk, Barbarian, etc.

But, my personal preferences aside? If you gave them the abilities you've discussed? Yay, they could participate in a fight vs a Beholder, or a Dragon. They'd still be dead weight vs mundane foes, or at a tea party. Or when traveling. Or... Well, any time that they weren't fighting something magical.

Some more broadly applicable skills and abilities are required to change people's opinions on muggles being dead weight.

EDIT: at least the Paladin bonuses to saves are good vs mundane things like poison; the Swashbuckler's AC bonus is good vs mundane opponents, too; etc.

[PhantasyPen]

Personally, I'd like to see the Fighter get things that felt, well, thematic to being a Fighter, the Rogue to get things thematic to being a Rogue, and same for the Monk, Barbarian, etc.


Part of the reason I opened this thread was that the initial idea kind of made me think about rebuilding the PHB classes from the ground up, along these lines, however I'm still a bit hesitant to try this, so I wanted to go over the smaller changes first. However seeing how this thread immediately got trashed, it appears if I wanted to do something like that, I would need to post the whole thing at once, which I didn't want to do.

[Nifft]

Part of the reason I opened this thread was that the initial idea kind of made me think about rebuilding the PHB classes from the ground up, along these lines, however I'm still a bit hesitant to try this, so I wanted to go over the smaller changes first. However seeing how this thread immediately got trashed, it appears if I wanted to do something like that, I would need to post the whole thing at once, which I didn't want to do.

Nah you don't have to do the whole thing at once, and even if you did you'd still get bad posters posting badly.

Don't let the bad posters chase you away. Respond to the good & productive ideas (e.g. mine :smallsmile: whereby martials get stuff that works on both magic & non-magic).

[Quertus]

Part of the reason I opened this thread was that the initial idea kind of made me think about rebuilding the PHB classes from the ground up, along these lines, however I'm still a bit hesitant to try this, so I wanted to go over the smaller changes first. However seeing how this thread immediately got trashed, it appears if I wanted to do something like that, I would need to post the whole thing at once, which I didn't want to do.


Respond to the good & productive ideas (e.g. mine :smallsmile: whereby martials get stuff that works on both magic & non-magic).

I mean, I like the idea of muggles getting nice defensive boosts, particularly when they're generally applicable, and not niche, especially niche anti magic. It's just... kinda like folding the laundry when the house is on fire, you know?

If you're looking at doing something that big though, how are you planning on fixing the horribly low floor on casters?

Dang it, now I've gotta join the meme. :smallannoyed:

[PhantasyPen]

Nah you don't have to do the whole thing at once, and even if you did you'd still get bad posters posting badly.

Don't let the bad posters chase you away. Respond to the good & productive ideas (e.g. mine :smallsmile: whereby martials get stuff that works on both magic & non-magic).

Okay then, I did respond to it I believe but that post got buried so fast it isn't even funny.



Instead, consider removing some of the special dispensation that magic gets. For example:

- Magic attacks can be deflected and parried just like weapon attacks. That Monk with Deflect Arrow can also deflect melf's acid arrow or Bob's magic missile (... well the first one at least).

Now you just need some more rules for deflecting & parrying attacks on yourself and allies, and then a martial character can contribute by negating magical attacks on her friends, and can credibly protect them from legitimate threats at mid-level and up.

The hypothetical deflection-based character isn't anti-magic, she's anti-attack (including magical attacks).

I love this concept, I've loved it since I first picked up the PHB (I remember thinking that being able to make an attack roll to parry an opponent's attack was an actual official rule in my first campaign, wasn't like my DM knew any better, our only other campaign was a oneshot I had run the week before), the only reason I don't make something like permanent Melee Evasion/Wall of Blades a part of my regular houserules (possibly dispensing with the AC system altogether) is that it doubles the number of rolls made in combat, and martials make a lot of rolls already. Hmm, maybe tie it to the AoO system? Spend an AoO for the ability to parry as a special rule option?



If you're looking at doing something that big though, how are you planning on fixing the horribly low floor on casters?

Dang it, now I've gotta join the meme. :smallannoyed:

I'm probably talking around your complaint due to not understanding what you mean (I never break out a caster character without extensive research first.) but if I rewrote the system, I would turn all the core casters into themed fixed-list casters like the Dread Necromancer and the Warmage, which admittedly would massively inflate the number of classes in Core, but hey, it's more stuff to play with.

[Venger]

The intended topic of this thread was to open a discussion about the idea of if the mundane classes had generally-restricted abilities like Evasion and Mettle, or more novel/obscure abilities like a class feature version the Spellcutter enchantment, as a more common design, making such powers the rule rather than the exception for martials, and what it would do for those classes as a first step towards not neutering mundane characters for the high crime of "not having magic."

And we addressed that at length. Abilities like mettle and evasion already exist. Having them alone does not help characters without at least some magic contribute. Look at hexblade, for example. Even as a half-caster, he sucks despite his mettle ability. Even if you gave him free evasion, it wouldn't help him actually do anything. If you want mundanes to be able to do things, you need to give them at least some powers they can actively use to accomplish things, not not solely powers they can use to avoid having things done to them.

I've never heard of that weapon ability before. What issue of dragon magazine is it from and what does it do?

[Nifft]

able to make an attack roll to parry an opponent's attack was an actual official rule in my first campaign, wasn't like my DM knew any better, our only other campaign was a oneshot I had run the week before), the only reason I don't make something like permanent Melee Evasion/Wall of Blades a part of my regular houserules (possibly dispensing with the AC system altogether) is that it doubles the number of rolls made in combat, and martials make a lot of rolls already. Hmm, maybe tie it to the AoO system? Spend an AoO for the ability to parry as a special rule option?

Warhammer Fantasy RPG had Dodge / Parry / Block all as separate reactions, and if you had the right equipment & training you could do all 3 in a turn.

I don't like the idea of using AoOs for defense. I'd suggest making a separate resource silo for defenses.

[Florian]

Pathfinder martials have access to stuff like cut from the air or spellsunder, so they basically can block an incoming spell with their blade and smash that annoying iron guard / stone skin spell to pieces (also fun when you manage ranged sunder attempts). Works quite well.

[theblasblas]

One aspect that I didn't see people talking about from skimming the replies: Making Martials anti-magic by default will nerf casters as a side effect. That is, if in every fight about 70% of your enemies had both evasion and mettle in addition to their normal abilities then PC casters will have a harder time doing anything offensively, giving Martials a larger role. This can also be extended to outside of combat if, for example, martials were more resilient to mind-affecting spells or more perceptive against invisibility, it would allow characters who are mundanely good at diplomacy or stealth a chance to shine.

[Quertus]

I'm probably talking around your complaint due to not understanding what you mean (I never break out a caster character without extensive research first.) but if I rewrote the system, I would turn all the core casters into themed fixed-list casters like the Dread Necromancer and the Warmage, which admittedly would massively inflate the number of classes in Core, but hey, it's more stuff to play with.

... Conventional wisdom says that this is a good idea. I think it's a bad plan, and lowers the floor on wizards even further. Let me explain.

Conventional wisdom says that a Wizard who picks bad spells today can just pick better spells tomorrow. Which is small consolation to the player who is useless today, even smaller consolation to their dead Wizard.

Having only highly thematic spells makes it far too likely that your Wizard will be dead weight, unable to contribute at all. This is, IMO, exactly the opposite of what one should be aiming for when balancing the classes. Fighter is useless dead weight, so let's make everyone else useless dead weight, too? That's technically balanced, but doesn't sound terribly fun. IMO, is much better to aim to make everyone's abilities more universally applicable.

Also, on a personal note, I love the idea of the D&D Wizard (pre 3e) - the sage collecting scraps of arcane knowledge from the post-apocalyptic ruins of former civilizations. Your proposed changes would likely kill that archetype.


One aspect that I didn't see people talking about from skimming the replies: Making Martials anti-magic by default will nerf casters as a side effect. That is, if in every fight about 70% of your enemies had both evasion and mettle in addition to their normal abilities then PC casters will have a harder time doing anything offensively, giving Martials a larger role. This can also be extended to outside of combat if, for example, martials were more resilient to mind-affecting spells or more perceptive against invisibility, it would allow characters who are mundanely good at diplomacy or stealth a chance to shine.

How many monsters do you usually fight at a time? In my games, and the modules I've read, it's usually only one creature type at a time. So, 70+% of the fights, everything has evasion and mettle, and casters quickly learn to rely on minionmancy, animating the dead, buffing animal companions, and spamming summons, further relegating martial characters to the sidelines.

At least, that's how I'd expect that change to play out.

[theblasblas]

Better the fighter fighting alongside a summoned griffon, than just standing in the sidelines as the Wizard mops up with a Fireball or a Charm Monster. A large part of the utility of the Wizard is that most of their spells are good both inside and outside of combat, if they fill up their list with summon spells they won't have as much utility out of combat.

Of course, all of this is assuming that it's not a 15-minute adventuring day.

[PhantasyPen]

I've never heard of that weapon ability before. What issue of dragon magazine is it from and what does it do?

There are two versions that I've seen, neither of which comes from dragon magazine that I can recall.
The first version, and by far the better of the two, simply wraps the user's blade in an anti-magic field, and allows you to make a Reflex save to cut down a spell that is targeting you. Or you can do what my Dervish did and put that enchantment on an adamantine weapon and suddenly no obstacle in the world can bar your party's progress. (Hey look at that, a martial with utility and someone using the sunder rules? I really don't play the way the playground says :tongue: )
The second version, and far less efficient, allows a spellcaster to stick a specific spell inside of the weapon, and the next time that someone casts that spell, the martial character gets to make a free (greater?) dispel magic check to counterspell that specific spell. Over all not very good save for making sure your friend's aren't dead when the DM decides to use your wizard's favorite spell against you all.


One aspect that I didn't see people talking about from skimming the replies: Making Martials anti-magic by default will nerf casters as a side effect. That is, if in every fight about 70% of your enemies had both evasion and mettle in addition to their normal abilities then PC casters will have a harder time doing anything offensively, giving Martials a larger role. This can also be extended to outside of combat if, for example, martials were more resilient to mind-affecting spells or more perceptive against invisibility, it would allow characters who are mundanely good at diplomacy or stealth a chance to shine.

This honestly just sounds like a good thing to me.

[Cosi]

Having only highly thematic spells makes it far too likely that your Wizard will be dead weight, unable to contribute at all. This is, IMO, exactly the opposite of what one should be aiming for when balancing the classes. Fighter is useless dead weight, so let's make everyone else useless dead weight, too? That's technically balanced, but doesn't sound terribly fun. IMO, is much better to aim to make everyone's abilities more universally applicable.

I agree that making people more like the Fighter (possessed of a narrow niche of mechanical prowess and worthless outside it) is bad, but that's not how thematic casters have to work. Consider, for example, the Necromancer. Sure, you could just give her negative energy blasts and some undead. But you could also add some divinations (speak with dead is obvious, but Necromancy was originally "divination via spirits), blasting effects to support Lord of the Uttercold shenanigans, plague themed debuffs, stinking cloud and friends for undead-friendly battlefield control, raise dead effects, teleport or plane shift effects mediated via the spirit world, or fear magic. All of that is on-theme for a Necromancer, but it's also a wide enough variety of things that you could plausibly trim one or two options and still have a character who has something to do in any situation, and there are other options you could add depending on exactly what kind of Necromancer you went with (shadow magic for someone focused on incorporeal undead, or melee options for a vampire type, or an entire line of magic jar shenanigans, or entropy magic, or disease magic, or any number of other things).

If you define your themes by flavor rather than mechanics, and you're generous with theme-adjacent options, it's very easy to produce casters that are both thematic and able to contribute in a variety of situations.


Also, on a personal note, I love the idea of the D&D Wizard (pre 3e) - the sage collecting scraps of arcane knowledge from the post-apocalyptic ruins of former civilizations. Your proposed changes would likely kill that archetype.

I don't think "seek the lost secrets of the ancients" requires you to be a generalist mage. The Necronomicon is a book of lost ancient lore, but it is specifically full of necromancy lore. Certainly, some classes are a better fit for it than others (it is, for example, unforgivable that the Truenamer has no reason to search through ancient ruins for lost words of power), but anyone could plausibly be motivated by ancient secrets. Also, if most characters are specialists, having a PrC/subclass/feat/whatever that gives you magic from other lists is more impactful than it would be otherwise.

[Venger]

There are two versions that I've seen, neither of which comes from dragon magazine that I can recall.
The first version, and by far the better of the two, simply wraps the user's blade in an anti-magic field, and allows you to make a Reflex save to cut down a spell that is targeting you. Or you can do what my Dervish did and put that enchantment on an adamantine weapon and suddenly no obstacle in the world can bar your party's progress. (Hey look at that, a martial with utility and someone using the sunder rules? I really don't play the way the playground says :tongue: )
The second version, and far less efficient, allows a spellcaster to stick a specific spell inside of the weapon, and the next time that someone casts that spell, the martial character gets to make a free (greater?) dispel magic check to counterspell that specific spell. Over all not very good save for making sure your friend's aren't dead when the DM decides to use your wizard's favorite spell against you all.

That's interesting. Let us know if you recall where they're from. I assume they're homebrew. People dislike sunder primarily because you're destroying your own loot. The second one sounds more or less like a spellblade

[Anachronity]

My approach is almost always just to nerf magic, usually by decreasing the breadth of different effects any one character has access to (sure, you can fly, but you can't also AoE blind people with Glitterdust, turn invisible, or become immune to projectiles). Nerfing Vancian casting to the point where they aren't OP though is inadvisable just on a basis of effort required. You basically need to scrap the whole system at that point.

Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) for Pathfinder (relatively easy to port to 3.5) is an excellent alternative to Vancian casting that allows strong specialization (e.g. "I want to play an ice mage") at an earlier level (cold blasts, cold cones, cold beams, weaker ice walls, and limited cold-based weather control all by level 4), but gets rid of a lot of the random extra side powers that such characters have access to (like free Detect Magic or Fly). It's still very high T3 (breaking into T2 if Advanced Talents are allowed), but I consider it a marked improvement overall.


If you want Vancian casting as-is, then the only option is martial initiators; the only way that martials can keep up with the sheer breadth of options that Vancian casters have is to basically just become casters themselves.

In the end it depends very much on the type of game you want. Balance is relative, and fighters are only dead weight by comparison to wizards. If the party as a whole is hitting substantially below their weight class (or character level, in this case) then any reasonable GM will just tone down the challenge. The problem occurs when one party member can consistently and tremendously outperform the others, and therefore can't participate in the same encounter as everyone else without one or more players just not having any fun. There is definitely something to be said, though, about "move, swing, turn" fighters being boring. You probably shouldn't go that low on PC power unless you're playing with all new players.

[PhantasyPen]

I agree that making people more like the Fighter (possessed of a narrow niche of mechanical prowess and worthless outside it) is bad, but that's not how thematic casters have to work. Consider, for example, the Necromancer. Sure, you could just give her negative energy blasts and some undead. But you could also add some divinations (speak with dead is obvious, but Necromancy was originally "divination via spirits), blasting effects to support Lord of the Uttercold shenanigans, plague themed debuffs, stinking cloud and friends for undead-friendly battlefield control, raise dead effects, teleport or plane shift effects mediated via the spirit world, or fear magic. All of that is on-theme for a Necromancer, but it's also a wide enough variety of things that you could plausibly trim one or two options and still have a character who has something to do in any situation, and there are other options you could add depending on exactly what kind of Necromancer you went with (shadow magic for someone focused on incorporeal undead, or melee options for a vampire type, or an entire line of magic jar shenanigans, or entropy magic, or disease magic, or any number of other things).

If you define your themes by flavor rather than mechanics, and you're generous with theme-adjacent options, it's very easy to produce casters that are both thematic and able to contribute in a variety of situations.

Essentially this, it's not hard to build casters thematically, which would probably be the best way to avoid just rehashing the fixed-list casters that already exist, however at the same time, I don't think I would want to make one individual class significantly more powerful than the rest by virtue of too broad a "Theme"


That's interesting. Let us know if you recall where they're from. I assume they're homebrew. People dislike sunder primarily because you're destroying your own loot. The second one sounds more or less like a spellblade

So the anti-magic field version is from a book called Arms&Armor v3.5 by Bastion Press which is basically a martial character's wet dream if you're looking for a more comprehensive weapon list. I'm not sure where the second version is from, but I think it was probably somewhere in the Magic Item compendium or the second DMG.




Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) for Pathfinder (relatively easy to port to 3.5) is an excellent alternative to Vancian casting that allows strong specialization (e.g. "I want to play an ice mage") at an earlier level (cold blasts, cold cones, cold beams, weaker ice walls, and limited cold-based weather control all by level 4), but gets rid of a lot of the random extra side powers that such characters have access to (like free Detect Magic or Fly). It's still very high T3 (breaking into T2 if Advanced Talents are allowed), but I consider it a marked improvement overall.


I'm actually in a Pathfinder game right now that uses the Spheres system, I'm impressed with it so far, however one of the things I love so much about 3.5 is the idea that if you can think of it, you can build it (which might go against my fixed-list caster statement), and as versatile as the Spheres are, it's not quite at that level. Also I don't like back-porting Pathfinder stuff into 3.5.

[Anachronity]

one of the things I love so much about 3.5 is the idea that if you can think of it, you can build it (which might go against my fixed-list caster statement), and as versatile as the Spheres are, it's not quite at that level. Also I don't like back-porting Pathfinder stuff into 3.5.

In my experience, Vancian magic is substantially more constraining due to requiring level bloat to fulfill a lot of more specific concepts (other than maybe specifically a concept from the works of Jack Vance :smalltongue:)

Add to that the very much compatible buff to fighters in Spheres of Might and you get a very satisfying balance level.
(I will admit I like the base mechanics of Path of War/Tome of Battle a lot. But I don't like the balance point of it, and I like SoP more than either of the martial fixes so I just go with the martial fix more in line with SoP's balance point.)