Types of "Fantastic" Powers

[PhoenixPhyre]

This grew out of the Worst House Rules thread, but I'm reposting the bulk of it here so discussion can continue in a more appropriate place.

Important note: I don't think it's possible to set hard boundaries here. Reality (level 0) is way too weird for that. But I think that there are substantial differences in fiction between those that are "powered" and those that are just merely at the top of their possible game (or still in that grey area), especially compared to us poor sods in the real world.

My belief is that most RPG characters (especially D&D-style heroic adventurers) are designed to be category 1 (category 2 for D&D) by the time they leave the lowest power levels. There is no "mundane" space available, not without doing damage to the world-building and verisimilitude.

Level 0: Normal Earth human capabilities, as a package. So Usain Bolt is a level 0 runner, but someone who was as fast as Usain Bolt but was also an olympic power-lifter and a super-genius would be pushing the boundaries.

Level 1: "Non-powered superheroes"/BA Normals. These do things that normal earth humans can't do--they're tougher, faster, smarter, etc. as a package. They survive things that it's unlikely a human can, but they're not special or using explicit powers in universe. It's just that normal people in the fiction can reach levels not found in earth humans. Most Action Heroes (Die Hard, Mission Impossible), for me are in this category.

Level 2: Explicit super powers. These are things that in-fiction people can't normally do. These break into a few major (overlapping) categories:

2a: Tech powers. Iron Man. Artificers. Their powers come from their gear, not their own selves. They wear "magic".

2b: Intrinsic powers. Superman. Most Marvel/DCU heroes, especially X-men. Their powers are innately part of them and manifest as packages of related abilities. They are "magic"/fantastic.
2b(i): "Built-in" super-powers. Those that turn on and then they're on. Like most X-men, most "superheroes".
2b(ii): Trained super-powers. These start out as category 1, but through training/dedication/gifts/etc slowly grow into legitimate in-universe violations of normal operating procedure.

2c: Spell-casting. Wizards, Dr. Strange. Harry Potter. They gain their power by actively casting spells or other direct magic. They do "magic".

I see low level "normal" characters in the 1 range mostly, although things like Rage or Evasion cross the line into 2b for me personally. They're things that normal people in fiction can't do, but the character can. By mid-levels, everyone in D&D is firmly into level 2, will-they-or-nil-they.

[Frozen_Feet]

TV tropes already has a similar "super weight" scale.

Anyways, the idea that there's no room for "level 0" or lower doesn't hold once you move outside the action genre. Drama games centered on mundane people exist, even if they aren't as popular as fantasy action.

[PhoenixPhyre]

TV tropes already has a similar "super weight" scale.

Anyways, the idea that there's no room for "level 0" or lower doesn't hold once you move outside the action genre. Drama games centered on mundane people exist, even if they aren't as popular as fantasy action.

True. I guess I don't play those (or find them that interesting) so I forgot about them.

Edit: And this isn't so much a weight scale as a set of partially-nested categories. You can have a super-weak category 2 ("spot on the wall" talent) vs a full action-hero (category 1) and the action hero will win 99 times out of a 100.

[Unavenger]

Level 0 characters can absolutely make for a compelling story, so long as you cut the last line where polymathy isn't allowed. Referring to badass normals as being beyond real human capability when that's antithetical to the entire point seems a little silly too.

[Segev]

Just to re-iterate my point from the prior thread, regardless of how you rate or weight it, the idea for balancing a fantastical setting like most D&D ones is to allow "mundane" things to scale up to levels of power that are just not feasible in the real world. Through training, yes, your fighter can gain the power to shatter castles with a swing of his warhammer. Your rogue can vanish into the shadow cast by a flagpole. No, neither is using magic; they're just that good.

You don't necessarily have to have a ranger who can create a demiplane, just one who can track the wizard's path through all his teleportations and follow him into it, using the astral tracks he left behind with his magic.

And that same ranger may well be able to keep an entire city well-fed on a years-long migration to a new homeland, based solely on his hunting, gathering, and survival skills. Especially with help from the peasants following his orders.

[Cluedrew]

For anyone just joining us, I grabbed a couple of highlight posts from the old thread that might help with context. I don't have a proper measure for that so it is kind of random.

Spoiler: Posts from old thread

Show

Sense motive, hide, spot/hide/MS, speak language, constitution checks, heal if heal actually let you heal people, craft, hide, heal, any skill that could be used for investigation. These all seem like reasonable stuff that you should be able to achieve mostly by being hard enough.

The point isn't necessarily that Aragorn can talk to the dead (he can't), it's that he can look around the area that the Rohirrim killed a bunch of orcs in and work out almost exactly what happened to Merry and Pippin without having to do so. Speak with Dead isn't usually a result, it's a method. Aragorn uses a different method (investigating the area around the battlefield) and gets the same result (finds out what happened to the hobbits). So, thank you for helping me prove my point!

EDIT: Also, the main reason that mundane characters in 3.5 suck is less that they don't get magic and more that they struggle to do things that I can do really easily. For example, in real life I'm trained (as in I have some actual instruction, not just ability), with a number of skill points that I'd say is my minimum listed in parentheses, in Appraise (1), Autohypnosis (2), Balance (2), Bluff (1), Climb (2), Concentration (2), Craft (Alchemy 3*, Drawing 1, Electronics 2, Mechanical 2), Handle Animal (1), Heal (5), Jump (2), Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering 4, Geography 2, History 3, Local 1, Nature 4, Religion 4), Perform (Act 2, Dance 1, Keyboard 2, Oratory 1, Strings 1, Sing 1), Profession (Various), Ride (1), Survival (2), Swim (3), Tumble (2) and Use Rope (1), and I'm not sure that this is unusual, but it's enough to mark me as at least a third-level rogue on its own. So I don't buy that "Mundane" is a fourth-level character concept when "Unavenger" is a third-level character (obviously I'm a feat rogue, and blew my combat feats on something trivial, because I don't think I do 2d6 extra points of damage when flanking). Maybe I took rapid shot, which is why I can fire a bow more than once every six freaking seconds, which always struck me as terrible for a half-decent archer.

*Incidentally non-casters not being able to mix up a standard solution of acid always annoyed me.

On the other side I think this is one of the three main roots of caster/martial. Which I have pegged as: Limiting martial|mundane characters to things on grounds of realism; Underestimating what someone can realistically do; Not limiting casters at all, just keep on piling things up because a wizard did it.

Those are the core problems, I think the first is the most reasonable to have in certain contexts (not kitchen sink action fantasy) the second is a mistake* and the third... that sort of just because magic should generally be limited to background elements.

* Which I think might come from historical "combat focused" versions of the game. Plus the Mermaid Problem awa mention, which I think here might come from trying to apply spell design to normal human abilities... but I just thought of that part.

The "Air-breathing Mermaid Problem" refers specifically to a feat that allowed water-breathing creatures to breathe air, thereby making the mermaid, who did not have that feat, suddenly unable to breathe air, as it had at most tables before that feat was printed. More generally, it refers to any time an ability something should logically have being gated behind a requisite feat. I believe that includes things like feats to let you perform combat maneuvers competently or without an AoO.

I don't think I have anything to add at this time... Segev's post did make me think of a funny little line: "Just say 'because skill' instead of 'because magic' and everything works out."

[Unavenger]

Just to re-iterate my point from the prior thread, regardless of how you rate or weight it, the idea for balancing a fantastical setting like most D&D ones is to allow "mundane" things to scale up to levels of power that are just not feasible in the real world. Through training, yes, your fighter can gain the power to shatter castles with a swing of his warhammer. Your rogue can vanish into the shadow cast by a flagpole. No, neither is using magic; they're just that good.

Ah yes because no-one's going to say that that isn't mundane.

No, you don't need to be able to hide in the shadow of a flagpole or smash a castle in one swing. You just need another way of achieving whatever you were trying to gain by hiding in the shadow of a flagpole, say by filling the person you were previously thinking of hiding from with sharp pieces of metal.

[gkathellar]

Ah yes because no-one's going to say that that isn't mundane.

That rapidly becomes a matter of quibbling about terminology. Are the things Segev described impossible? Sure, and if you want to call them magic, that's not objectively unreasonable. But the word "mundane" has a particular meaning in this context - specifically, it refers to Stuff What Is Not Wizard Stuff. It's a pretty well-established definition in discussion of action-fantasy gaming.

No, you don't need to be able to hide in the shadow of a flagpole or smash a castle in one swing. You just need another way of achieving whatever you were trying to gain by hiding in the shadow of a flagpole, say by filling the person you were previously thinking of hiding from with sharp pieces of metal.

Combat balance, desirable as it frequently is, is not a substitute for narrative contribution balance.

[Cluedrew]

Ah yes because no-one's going to say that that isn't mundane.

First, see what gkathellar said about what we are trying to get at here. The issue is we don't have a word that means "fantastic abilities at the edge or beyond of human ability that draw on the imagery of technically gifted individuals and do not invoke mastery of occult arts as an explanation". And that is both abbreviated and going to change depending on who you ask. Because different people want different things and so want different solutions to this problem. For example:

Closing the martial* to real gap: On the whole action role-playing game characters do pass human limits. But there are areas they still fall short. The post of yours I quoted covers this better than I would.

Closing the martial to archetype gap: A lot of the archetypes or classic character quoted as being the inspiration for rule-sets are far more capable than the characters those rule-sets create. One common example is that Conan the Barbarian has a lot more lore skills than what is available to the D&D Barbarian. Gilgamesh swam to the bottom of the ocean (or at least a lake) without any equipment or particular strength

Closing the martial to caster gap: This is an important one, because I feel that in games about martials and casters fighting side by side, they should be able to fight side by side. And usually as equals. Ars Magica messes with this but most games carry the implicate premise that they will be equal. And they often are not, which is a problem. However it can also be achieved by bringing casters down.

Closing the martial to TO** caster gap: Yeah this one I don't get, but I have had solutions shot down because they claimed that casters are infinitely powerful and the solution would not make martials infinitely powerful. I'm not sure why a partial solution.

* Well we are talking about words, I used martial instead of mundane. It has its own problematic connotations (war***) but I find the ones around mundane (boring) even worse. I sometimes resort to just saying physical if I'm desperate.
** Theoretical optimization. Which I have seen associated with the colour green on occasion.
*** And yes I realize in some contexts that is the actual meaning of the word. But words mean different things in different places.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That rapidly becomes a matter of quibbling about terminology. Are the things Segev described impossible? Sure, and if you want to call them magic, that's not objectively unreasonable. But the word "mundane" has a particular meaning in this context - specifically, it refers to Stuff What Is Not Wizard Stuff. It's a pretty well-established definition in discussion of action-fantasy gaming.

My problem with this definition is that it promotes Guy at the Gym thinking. People run the following mental routine:
a) he says it's not magic, so it's normal
b) normal things can't do that.
c) so he can't do that.

Yes, they're equivocating between two definitions of "normal" and "magic", and that's fallacious. But that's the common reasoning I see all the time from GMs, especially those that want "realistic" games...from everyone but the spell-casters.

I think a much better distinction is between being fantastic (or whatever other term you want to substitute for "not possible for Earth humans") and doing magic (casting spells). Fantasy worlds are suffused with the fantastic-ness by their very nature. Is that "magic"? No. But is it well beyond what a normal Earth person can do? Yes. So it's not "mundane" or "normal". By its very inherent nature.

"Mundane" as a term also evokes the same fallacious reasoning. Accepting that everyone in a fantasy-adventure world (or anyone worth paying attention to) is fantastic. They're outside the bounds of normal Earth people. Whether in small ways or in large ways, their potential is not bounded by the physics that we know--instead it's bound (as is magic) by its own internal rules.

[Mechalich]

My problem with this definition is that it promotes Guy at the Gym thinking. People run the following mental routine:
a) he says it's not magic, so it's normal
b) normal things can't do that.
c) so he can't do that.

Yes, they're equivocating between two definitions of "normal" and "magic", and that's fallacious. But that's the common reasoning I see all the time from GMs, especially those that want "realistic" games...from everyone but the spell-casters.

I think a much better distinction is between being fantastic (or whatever other term you want to substitute for "not possible for Earth humans") and doing magic (casting spells). Fantasy worlds are suffused with the fantastic-ness by their very nature. Is that "magic"? No. But is it well beyond what a normal Earth person can do? Yes. So it's not "mundane" or "normal". By its very inherent nature.

"Mundane" as a term also evokes the same fallacious reasoning. Accepting that everyone in a fantasy-adventure world (or anyone worth paying attention to) is fantastic. They're outside the bounds of normal Earth people. Whether in small ways or in large ways, their potential is not bounded by the physics that we know--instead it's bound (as is magic) by its own internal rules.

The d20 differentiation between Extraordinary and Supernatural abilities is actually a decent (though in D&D very inconsistent) framework for looking at this sort of thing. Extraordinary abilities are some inherent aspect of the character involving fantastical biology or training that enhances biology to the point of allowing fantastical feats, while Supernatural abilities are those that rely on manipulating some sort of external 'magical' energy (even if this may be inherent to the creature) for effect. This is similar to how Exalted had Charms, which in theory simply enhanced or channeled personal power in some way, and Sorcery, which involved re-writing the laws of the universe to produce dramatic effects.

You can certainly do this, and if you're good at design math you can even potentially produce something that's balanced, most commonly by using point-based systems, but it doesn't really hit on the core issue of the Martial versus Caster divide in D&D.

The thing about D&D is that you're supposed to have characters who have no fantastical powers at all (ex. Fighters, Rogues) or characters who have extremely limited fantastical powers (ex. Rangers) who remain relevant all the way up the level scale. More importantly, D&D worlds are not supposed to be explicitly superhero worlds where a 1st-level Peasant with a spear is totally powerless. There is really no way to bridge this gap without redefining certain aspects of what D&D is in a way that violates long-established fluff. After all the most famous D&D character is a dude with two scimitars who has extremely limited fantastical powers. I mean, I don't think I can remember any situation where Drizzt uses a ranger spell in any of the books. You can give martials more skills and make them more well rounded, and you should, but you can't reach the upper levels of d20 capability, even as moderate optimization.

And honestly, you probably shouldn't even want too. Even moderately optimized level 15+ casters are stupidly powerful, to the point that you're no longer playing a game that even remotely resembles what D&D is intended to provide or what the narrative fluff looks like and you're somewhere in the Fate/Stay Night zone at least, if not the DBZ zone.

[Arbane]

In the middle of a chat about this exact thing on Something Awful:

Fionn Mac Cumhaill lived for more than 200 years, could suck his thumb to see the future (because his thumb had been burned when he was cooking the salmon of wisdom), and like every single Fenian he could run through the woods chased by dogs and remove a thorn from his foot without slowing down, could leap over a branch higher than his own head, could recite ****loads of poetry and declaim philosophy, and could speak the secret language of the Druids and the Bards. He was also a giant who could cross the sea to Wales and the water only came up to his breast. If he brought a wounded man water with his own two hands the wounded man would be healed. Most of the places in Ireland are named after stuff he did.

Achilleus is an obvious one, dipped in the river Styx so that only his heel was vulnerable. Actually all the Greek warriors who sacked Troy, Ajax, Agamemnon, Odysseus, they all could do impossible stuff.

Fergus Mac Roy had a sword that extended into a rainbow and allowed him to cut the heads off multiple enemies at once. He made a deal with Cu Chulain that if Cu Chulain retreated from him in a duel, the next time they met Fergus would be the one to fall back. When fighting Cu Chulain in a big battle, he remembered his promise, and instead of striking Cu Chulain he lopped the tops off of three mountains. A lot of **** in Ulster is named after stuff that Cu Chulain or Fergus or one of their bros did.

Sigurd ate a dragon's heart and could understand the speech of men and beasts. So that's cool. Sir Cei, King Arthur's Seneschal, could hold something in his hands and his hands were so hot that it would eventually catch on fire if he wanted it to. Cu Roi, whose name means The Hound of the Battlefield which totally owns, gets his head chopped off, picks it up, and just keeps on trucking

Pretty much everywhere you look warriors are doing crazy awesome ****, and anyone who says different is a worthless sack of **** who totally deserved all the times he got stuffed in a locker.

[Mechalich]

The thing is, D&D 'martials' are explicitly not mythic individuals. When the first truly mythic martial types were introduced into AD&D 1e they showed in Deities and Demigods, not the Player's Handbook. The Knights of the Round Table, several of whom are in that book with stats, are built on a martial chassis, but they also get powers no PC is allowed to have. Mythic warriors with divine blood like Achilles were explicitly labelled as Demigods and got even more fiat powers not attached to their classes by the rules.

The extremely limited mystic powers demonstrated by a character like Aragorn - minor healing, animal empathy, a few wilderness utility tricks - were intended to represent the peak of the mystic abilities given to a D&D ranger. D&D martials were built around inspiration from characters who were very much mortal and non-mythic and pulled from a Sword & Sorcery background. Conan was absolutely supposed to represent a very high level D&D martial (and in 1e and 2e you could totally build Conan, he just has unusually good stats and a giant pile of non-weapon proficiencies). Thing is, Cu Chulain rips Conan in half in one hit.

In earlier editions of D&D it was completely accepted that high-level casters (especially wizards) would be more powerful than high-level martials, and the XP tables were written accordingly - fighters and thieves just flat out leveled up faster than wizards. At the same time, the margin was actually less extreme not because martials were more powerful, but because wizards were weaker. They had fewer spells, fewer ways to stack buffs, and the combination of flat saving throw values and magic resistance (which was massively superior to spell resistance, as anyone who's ever parked a Skeleton Warrior next to Jon Irenicus at the end of Baldur's Gate II knows), meant that a save or die had a very good chance of doing absolutely nothing most of the time.

So yes, you can totally have martially oriented superheroes who are just as powerful as the magic user superheroes. Thor can be just as powerful as Dr. Strange. The problem is, D&D can't handle the players being Thor. Honestly, it can't handle the players being Dr. Strange either, but for various reasons people complain about this less.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But Thor is fantastical. Quite literally. I'm saying that the idea of "no fantastical powers" limits you to category 0. Which doesn't fit any D&D character since 1e. And even then--magic resistance and their durability alone make them at least category 1.

You can't have it both ways. Either they do nothing that a normal human on Earth can't do (so bye bye evasion, magic items, iterative attacks, higher than 4 HP, etc) or they're fantastic. Casting spells is not a measure of fantastic-ness. Only category 2c supers do that, and only some of them.

Once you accept that there is no such thing as a "non fantastic" PC, the world makes a lot more sense and you can begin to deal with the disparity between the classes. Until that point, no progress can be made without destroying any sense of verisimilitude and resorting to pure fiat.

[gkathellar]

The thing about D&D is that you're supposed to have characters who have no fantastical powers at all (ex. Fighters, Rogues) or characters who have extremely limited fantastical powers (ex. Rangers) who remain relevant all the way up the level scale.

That hasn’t always been the case by any means. BECMI belies it right in the name. 1E and 2E were never consistent with that approach. 3E set the benchmarks absurdly high, but does allow epic skill checks for things like using Balance to walk on clouds. 4E discarded the notion entirely.

Beyond that, there’s the simple question of the opposition. Many of D&D’s monsters are major antagonists from mythology, and the heroes are expected to kill them on a regular basis. Demon lords, building-sized dragons and gods have always been readily punchable. Hell, in 2E we have monster stats for intelligent asteroids.

D&D being gonzo as hell is nothing new.

More importantly, D&D worlds are not supposed to be explicitly superhero worlds where a 1st-level Peasant with a spear is totally powerless. There is really no way to bridge this gap without redefining certain aspects of what D&D is in a way that violates long-established fluff.

There are a number of D&D settings that dip into comic book shenanigans quite readily. In Eberron and Nentir Vale they shows up as part of the basic pulp premise. For Dark Sun, it’s on account of Athas having a sign that reads You Must Be This Tall To Ride. Planescape and Spelljammer invoke it implicitly, given some of the things players get involved in. You can make arguable cases for Ravenloft, Greyhawk, and FR, too. Oh, and Mystara, where this is explicitly built into the fabric of the setting and a player’s expected leveling arc.

After all the most famous D&D character is a dude with two scimitars who has extremely limited fantastical powers. I mean, I don't think I can remember any situation where Drizzt uses a ranger spell in any of the books.

Wait, you mean the guy who demonstrated Bruce Lee-esque agility when he was ten, was taught to fight by perhaps the greatest weapons master who ever lived, carves his way through armies, routinely outfights people covered in buffs, and is at one point described as walking on snow without breaking its surface? The righteous outcast of an evil society, trained in woodsmanship under a blind archer, who willingly protects a world that hates and fears him?

The Drizzt books could be more anime mythic, but not by much. If he’s your iconic martial, you’re setting a pretty fantastic bar for that sort of thing.

You can give martials more skills and make them more well rounded, and you should, but you can't reach the upper levels of d20 capability, even as moderate optimization.

Yes, in most editions of the game that’s been something of a truism, for fairly straightforward reasons. That doesn’t mean it’s how things ought to be or how they were intended to be.

And honestly, you probably shouldn't even want too. Even moderately optimized level 15+ casters are stupidly powerful, to the point that you're no longer playing a game that even remotely resembles what D&D is intended to provide or what the narrative fluff looks like and you're somewhere in the Fate/Stay Night zone at least, if not the DBZ zone.

You’re making a lot of assumptions about (a) the intentions of hundreds of individual writers over the course of a 40+ year period, and (b) how people in general should play the game. Suffice it to say that D&D is and has been many different things to many different people, and while it has tended to have some consistent features, power scale is not one of them.

[Cluedrew]

How D&D martials are suppose to compare with casters has changed over the editions. I speak mostly of the more recent editions because I know those better and that is close to the design of games I am trying to make. And recently the expectation has been that the would be comparable. If the quadratic wizard needed quadratic XP maybe. And where there is a difference between what something promises to be and what it is, one of those things should change.

Ars Magica changed the promise and good for it. But I don't think D&D wants to do that. So it should change what it is. So really the issue of whether or not martials were supposed to be fantastic is mute (not moot), they kind of have to be.

[Unavenger]

But the word "mundane" has a particular meaning in this context - specifically, it refers to Stuff What Is Not Wizard Stuff. It's a pretty well-established definition in discussion of action-fantasy gaming.

See, I've always heard it used to mean what it means, which is "Of the world" ie nonmagical irrespective of whether the magic is coming from a wizard or a swordmage, I mean swordsage.

But it's irrelevant because I don't want to play a character who can cut the tops off mountains with a rainbow sword. You don't need to be able to do that in order to change the fate of the world multiple times (keeping Aragorn as an example because, weirdly, none of the mundane-means-blade-magic people have wanted to interface with him, like how many times did he save the ringbearer or one of the bastions of humanity just by being a badass? I'm seeing more than a few times that the dude with a greatsword literally saved the world while the wizard was busy doing things he could largely have done without magic anyway).

Fantasy is full of examples of magic swordsmen, sure. But it's also full of examples of non-magical people changing the fate of the world.

[gkathellar]

But it's irrelevant because I don't want to play a character who can cut the tops off mountains with a rainbow sword.

Okay.

You don't need to be able to do that in order to change the fate of the world multiple times (keeping Aragorn as an example because, weirdly, none of the mundane-means-blade-magic people have wanted to interface with him, like how many times did he save the ringbearer or one of the bastions of humanity just by being a badass? I'm seeing more than a few times that the dude with a greatsword literally saved the world while the wizard was busy doing things he could largely have done without magic anyway).

Fantasy is full of examples of magic swordsmen, sure. But it's also full of examples of non-magical people changing the fate of the world.

Sure. But a character like Aragorn is a function of his milieu, which was specifically created with him saving the ringbearer and being a bastion of humanity in mind. At the scale on which LotR operates, characters like Aragorn are perfectly reasonable. It's not the same scale at which "skills checks should let you perform impossible feats" is operating, and the comparison isn't really fair to either. Just as Aragorn is an appropriate protagonist for an LotR-scale story, he would be inappropriate and ineffectual in a larger-scale one.

As it happens, action-fantasy gaming tends to (a) veer towards the larger-scale option in terms of general style, while (b) still insisting that people play mundanes in the mold of Aragorn. The problem is not in either (a) nor (b), or even in trying to combine them, but specifically in trying to combine them in a game with a specific focus on being victorious heroes.

Fantasy novels =/= fantasy gaming. The latter borrow imagery and ideas from the former, but the actual structure of a game is very different from that of a novel. And whereas novels can and frequently do get by without empowering their protagonists in any way, depending on powerlessness and character interaction to create drama, a significant portion of any game lies in the presentation of challenges which players can take actions in reference to. Consider Gandalf's fight with the balrog: in the book, it's a cool moment that alludes to larger conflicts and forces in the world. But if it occurred at the table, we'd generally consider the whole episode bad form: throwing a balrog at a party completely incapable of confronting it so that you can depict a dramatic DMPC showdown is pretty much the archetypal Novice DM Mistake.

[Cluedrew]

See, I've always heard it used to mean what it means, which is "Of the world" ie nonmagical irrespective of whether the magic is coming from a wizard or a swordmage, I mean swordsage.

I've heard it to mean that. I've also heard to mean boring and I just found a definition that defines mundane as "characterized by the practical, transitory, ordinary and commonplace". Those don't describe Aragorn very well. ... I mean you clarified what version you were talking about so we should be good but I guess I'm just trying to provide context as for why there is contention over the words. Some people have been aghast at my use of martial.

But it's irrelevant because I don't want to play a character who can cut the tops off mountains with a rainbow sword. [...] Fantasy is full of examples of magic swordsmen, sure. But it's also full of examples of non-magical people changing the fate of the world.

So the important bit: Why not both?

[Unavenger]

Sure. But a character like Aragorn is a function of his milieu, which was specifically created with him saving the ringbearer and being a bastion of humanity in mind. At the scale on which LotR operates, characters like Aragorn are perfectly reasonable. It's not the same scale at which "skills checks should let you perform impossible feats" is operating, and the comparison isn't really fair to either. Just as Aragorn is an appropriate protagonist for an LotR-scale story, he would be inappropriate and ineffectual in a larger-scale one.

I've already compared Aragorn - who isn't even at the top of the mundane game - to mid-level D&D wizards and decided that I'd rather have him on my side than the wizard until at least mid-to-high levels (no surprise, because one of the antagonists is a wizard of at least 13th level and he still doesn't manage more than convince the fellowship to take a different route), and I'd definitely take him over a high-level swordsage. There is no level on which bringing people back from the brink of death, fighting off the nine near-immortal servants of the dark lord of the universe and inspiring an entire army to feats of heroism are boring abilities, and few levels at which they don't compare to T1 characters.

Plus, if Aragorn were the king of all mundane fantasy characters, he'd have stabbed the Balrog right through its face, cut eight of the ringwraiths to pieces and beaten the witch-king of Angmar into enough of a pulp that the hobbits could have killed him (or just thrown him off the summit of Amon Hen and let Eowyn have her own badass normal moment later), thrown something at Lurtz before he could have killed Boromir, shot the berseker with the torch (or one of the people carrying the mine) dead before casually flipping Legolas off, shown up earlier with the army of the dead and overall saved a lot of characters a lot of trouble and occasional death. Aragorn reads as mid-level in a T1 context because he could be a lot stronger without even scratching the mundanity ceiling.

So the important bit: Why not both?

Good question. Why not have Aragorn and, I dunno, Arwen in the same campaign setti...

...oh, wait.

(Arwen isn't my favourite example, I'll admit, but LotR doesn't really do magic swordsperson characters in the ToB sense. There's probably better ones, but I'm betting it's one of the elves).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Things that work in fantasy books don't necessarily work in fantasy RPGs. Very few games are trying to emulate LotR. For one, it's a setting that specifically tries to push "magic" (speaking broadly) into the background. All the heros are designed to represent the common man. This is not representative of most fantasy RPGs, let alone D&D. Comparing LotR characters to D&D ones is apples to space cruisers.

[Unavenger]

Things that work in fantasy books don't necessarily work in fantasy RPGs. Very few games are trying to emulate LotR. For one, it's a setting that specifically tries to push "magic" (speaking broadly) into the background. All the heros are designed to represent the common man. This is not representative of most fantasy RPGs, let alone D&D. Comparing LotR characters to D&D ones is apples to space cruisers.

But Cu Chulain to D&D is even further out - there's a class in D&D based at least loosely on Aragorn. There's no rainbow swordsman class who cuts the tops off mountains in a single swing. And I would argue that you need to be able to explain why defeating high-level encounters with a torch, partially-healing wounds that almost no-one else in the setting can even begin to help with, and using diplomacy to get an undead army on your side "Don't work" in RPGs.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But Cu Chulain to D&D is even further out - there's a class in D&D based at least loosely on Aragorn. There's no rainbow swordsman class who cuts the tops off mountains in a single swing. And I would argue that you need to be able to explain why defeating high-level encounters with a torch, partially-healing wounds that almost no-one else in the setting can even begin to help with, and using diplomacy to get an undead army on your side "Don't work" in RPGs.

He didn't use diplomacy. He used his legendary status as the inheritor of an oath. He healed, not by knowing herbs, but by being the rightful King and all that entails. Aragorn was not mundane. Aragon was fantastic. The scale of the setting is low compared to most D&D, but he was at the top end of that scale as far as mortals go. In part because he was descended from immortals. Basically, he was part of a party that only worked by fiat. And that's fine, in single author fiction.

And while rangers might have been inspired by Aragorn, they're not an attempt to reproduce him in game. Nor should they be bound to that single, partial inspiration. Same with other classes. Gandalf was a LotR wizard, not a D&D one. Bilbo was not a rogue.

[Unavenger]

He healed, not by knowing herbs, but by being the rightful King.

You've officially jumped the shark with this one. Even if you're right, what he did wouldn't have been impossible were he not king.

[Son of A Lich!]

Actually, I have a bit of a problem with this in reverse.

I think Martials are generally Okay in terms of what they can do, but as soon as you have someone with 9 levels of spell casting in the mix, they get left behind quickly.

There is this general idea that Magic ought to scale from Magic Missile to Wish. Magic Missile is an attack option that doesn't miss and avoids damage reduction abilities. It is truly magical. Cool. Wizards can only use this magic potential a short number of times per day, that is the trade off.

By level 19, however, they can cast Wish. A spell that can do Almost Anything. The Magic Missile trade off of only being able to do it once or twice a day is meaningless with what it can do when used daily, because it's not a thing that normal people can do but better, like Magic Missile, it's objectively the most powerful effect in D&D. When we are given things that are meant to be difficult to near impossible to do within the confines of D&D itself, Wish is used as the bar of impossibility. To kill a Tarrasque, you have to bring to 0 hit points, stop it's regeneration and cast wish.

So, why in the 9 hells is it a player ability? Why isn't this harder to pull off? I don't mind that a Monk can't chop off the head of a dragon with a round house kick, but if the Mundanes are to be compareable to Magickers, why can't Ember Fly at will at higher levels?

One of the two extremes needs to be corrected. Either Spell casters need to have heavier caps or mundanes need to be able to well exceed mortal expectations. I would be a lot more willing to DM higher level play if wizards had more restirictions on their higher level spell casting.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Actually, I have a bit of a problem with this in reverse.

I think Martials are generally Okay in terms of what they can do, but as soon as you have someone with 9 levels of spell casting in the mix, they get left behind quickly.

There is this general idea that Magic ought to scale from Magic Missile to Wish. Magic Missile is an attack option that doesn't miss and avoids damage reduction abilities. It is truly magical. Cool. Wizards can only use this magic potential a short number of times per day, that is the trade off.

By level 19, however, they can cast Wish. A spell that can do Almost Anything. The Magic Missile trade off of only being able to do it once or twice a day is meaningless with what it can do when used daily, because it's not a thing that normal people can do but better, like Magic Missile, it's objectively the most powerful effect in D&D. When we are given things that are meant to be difficult to near impossible to do within the confines of D&D itself, Wish is used as the bar of impossibility. To kill a Tarrasque, you have to bring to 0 hit points, stop it's regeneration and cast wish.

So, why in the 9 hells is it a player ability? Why isn't this harder to pull off? I don't mind that a Monk can't chop off the head of a dragon with a round house kick, but if the Mundanes are to be compareable to Magickers, why can't Ember Fly at will at higher levels?

One of the two extremes needs to be corrected. Either Spell casters need to have heavier caps or mundanes need to be able to well exceed mortal expectations. I would be a lot more willing to DM higher level play if wizards had more restirictions on their higher level spell casting.

I should be clear. I'm not concerned with magnitude of power here. A weak category 2c (the Spotmaker, whose only power is to change the color of a single spot on a single wall from red to slightly less-red) will absolutely be defeated in any reasonable contest even by a category 0.

I'd say that you've presented a false dichotomy. If spell-casters are allowed to transcend the humanly possible, so should non-spell-casters. And to the same degree. Possibly not the same effects, but the same general level of power. Heroes of Irish Legend can play nicely with full-power (although not TO) 9th-level casters. But if non-casters are limited to merely slight extrapolations of human ability, then so should spell-casters. No free pass from reality for anyone. Either everyone is super-powered or no one is.

And yes, Unavenger, the healing in the Return of the King is explicitly called out as the healing hands of the King. It's used as a proof of his claim to the throne. And no other mortal could have negotiated with the spirits of the dead--only he could, by virtue of his ancestry and the (supernatural) oath sworn and broken. Aragorn (as with all the main characters of LotR) is best categorized as on the border between category 1 (larger-than-life but still mostly bound to mortal limits) and category 2b (those empowered by their ancestry/birth/innate power). None of them were category 0. Not even close. Hobbits have their stealth and their courage beyond that of men (although they're mostly category 1, merely having more resilience than most and heaps of plot armor). Elves are...well...elves. Etc.

[Cluedrew]

Good question. Why not have Aragorn and, I dunno, Arwen in the same campaign setti...

Oh, I had a moment where I thought you were completely crazy until I realized you were talking about the movie version. Anyways I would not describe either of version as a "fantastic swordsmaster". The move version is roughly Aragorn plus spell casting ability. Gilgamesh definitely is (although he is 1/3 god, so he isn't a normal, but his abilities and feats line up with the archetype). Some of the stuff I have heard about Conan lines up but I've never read that. Do you have any other "fantastic but not magic" characters? I think there is a mismatch in what we are talking about.

On Wish: I despise wish. Wish is something the spell caster grants using the sum total of all other spells you know. Making it a spell is... stupid.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh, I had a moment where I thought you were completely crazy until I realized you were talking about the movie version. Anyways I would not describe either of version as a "fantastic swordsmaster". The move version is roughly Aragorn plus spell casting ability. Gilgamesh definitely is (although he is 1/3 god, so he isn't a normal, but his abilities and feats line up with the archetype). Some of the stuff I have heard about Conan lines up but I've never read that. Do you have any other "fantastic but not magic" characters? I think there is a mismatch in what we are talking about.

On Wish: I despise wish. Wish is something the spell caster grants using the sum total of all other spells you know. Making it a spell is... stupid.

For the record, I agree about wish.

[Mechalich]

I should be clear. I'm not concerned with magnitude of power here. A weak category 2c (the Spotmaker, whose only power is to change the color of a single spot on a single wall from red to slightly less-red) will absolutely be defeated in any reasonable contest even by a category 0.

I'd say that you've presented a false dichotomy. If spell-casters are allowed to transcend the humanly possible, so should non-spell-casters. And to the same degree. Possibly not the same effects, but the same general level of power. Heroes of Irish Legend can play nicely with full-power (although not TO) 9th-level casters. But if non-casters are limited to merely slight extrapolations of human ability, then so should spell-casters. No free pass from reality for anyone. Either everyone is super-powered or no one is.

I fundamentally disagree. The magnitude of power is far more important than the nature of power, in large part because it changes depending on context. There are magical powers that are awesome in a stone age context but fundamentally pointless in a modern world. For example, the ability to have owls carry messages from place to place in Harry Potter. That takes several days depending on distance, has high upkeep costs, and is vulnerable to interception. It is a fundamentally inferior communication method to having a cell phone in almost every way. But you could totally make that power available in an urban fantasy game (and in fact many urban fantasy settings do allow familiars to carry messages) and people will even pay points for it.

What you want, for game purposes, is that powers should present the same level of output for the same amount of investment (in dots, XP, or whatever) regardless of how they work. So investing in 'sword training' should produce roughly the same benefits as investing in 'alchemy training' or 'curses training' or any other form of magic.

You could certainly build a 'magic-user' type character in a game whose powers scale equally with that of 'sword-user' character. In fact your average jRPG does this all the time (in Disgaea, both types can reach level 9999 and do billions of damage per attack). You could even build it such that the growth scale for both types remains entirely within human levels of capability - ie. a fire bolt is functionally an arrow and you become better at throwing bolts of fire the way an archer becomes better at firing arrows. This is actually quite easy to do within the boundaries of a combat system (and pseudo-caster classes like the Warlock kind of manage it). It becomes much harder when you move to the much larger play-space of all non-combat actions.

Games like D&D run into a problem based on differences in magnitude. After all, the Fighter and Wizard are fairly close to balanced for the first few levels, it's only as their powers grow stronger that the differences become a problem, because the design was never for them to scale to the same magnitude. The D&D warrior is intended to scale from 'dumb peasant with sharp stick' to 'Fafhrd' and the rogue from 'orphan cutpurse' to 'Gray Mouser,' but neither of those guys have any magical powers worth talking about. Meanwhile while the wizard is intended to scale from 'academic with parlor trick' to 'Ningauble of the Seven Eyes' who has the power to bend time and space and could extinguish Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser with a wave of a hand. The source material - and Nehwon is explicitly source material for D&D to the point of blatant copyright violations - had fundamental inequalities that Gygax and co. preserved during the initial design of D&D and that have never been properly addressed (and probably never will be, too many sacred cows to slay).

[Son of A Lich!]

I hear you when you call it a false dichotomy, but I think the direction is wrong

I'm not applying the false dichotomy; The Player's Handbook is.

If I take 2 level 20 characters and put them side-by-side, I should be looking at two characters that are roughly equal in capacity to affect the story they are in. A Wizard may be above the power curve, but he can only do things out of the norm Occasionally. A wizard with a 9th level spell that allows him to change the color of a dot is able to do something literally fantastic, but isn't surpassing his teammates.

I hate having Monsters in mind for a combat encounter and having to account for the Mundanes who don't have native things like Flight. Why does a wizard get to cast flight when he doesn't intend to be in Melee and need it, but a fighter can't when he will be in melee but he can't cast it natively? Now, I don't want a fighter to pull out a spell book and fly up to a dragon, but I also don't want my dragon to decide against it's better judgement that it will engage with the party indoors only allowing it to fly 10 feet above the ground. Flight is a [i]Basic[i] mechanic that a fighter would have to build around to contribute in a fight, taking up things like Bows and eschewing Boots of Elvenkind for Boots of flight. Wizards and Fighters are not on an equal level here. At 20th level, most of the big monsters that players are facing have some kind of abilities that make them challenging to fight, but Fighters have no native means to over come these common issues (Water breathing, Flame Auras, Necrotic Touch, etc) and have to rely on spell casters to use their abilities on the fighter.

I'm glad that 5e changed the number of concentration spells you have up, that was really nice of them; but it doesn't change the fact that now the Wizard has to choose between giving his meatshield an ability he needs to compete or dropping it in lieu of a more important spell. When a player has to decide whether to let a friend help in the combat or not, the game is suffering. Again, I don't want to be the bad guy, and I don't want to have to give my players abilities that let them stand up to basic issues they are going to face down the line.

I would rather my Fighter be able to "Combat Fly" by "jumping good" and using the impact of his blows to help him stay aloft rather then tell him 'Ah, no... see, you can only jump 15 feet up in the air with this skill so you don't get to fight this time. Don't worry, a bunch of Flail Snails will be joining the fight later for you to take care of like the big boy adventurer you are".

The Fighter feels like he made a bad character, the rogue wishes they had found a bow that cast magic arrows, the Ranger wishes he had water breathing prepared today, etc.

If you look at builds in 5e today, you will notice that a lot of people will gravitate towards classes that have spell casting simply because it lets them work around whatever problem they may face and gives them capacity to get by without a wizards help. From Arcane Tricksters to Eldritch Knights, Sorcadins and others. Why gimp yourself on a fight when you can take care of it yourself?

The two level 20 characters are NOT approximately equal. And this is despite going through the same dungeons, getting the same loot, having the same experience point levels and being called peers on the whole point of a "Level" in the first place. They are not on the same level. A Monk can't even kill himself as cool as a sorcerer can, A monk could find the highest point in a castle and jump to his death (And realize he had slow fall), where a sorcerer can literally planeshift himself into the Nine Hells. There should be some semblance of balance between the two characters though, starting with being competent in most scenarios adventurers would face on in day to day activity.