Do people really enjoy close battles?

[Xervous]

The disjoint between mundanes and other class types is in how they are defined.

A bard starts with a concept, “magical entertainer” and spans that concept across the adventure scope of the various levels. The Bard gets new capabilities but always remains conceptually a Bard, because that concept is flexible enough to grow. A fighter starts with the concept of ‘mundane fighting dude’ which we must note is a strict definition of “what” he does, rather than a general description of “how” he does things. When, not if, the game reaches the shifting point, this concept is no longer relevant. Meanwhile other “how, not what” classes are conceptually allowed to expand to fill their expected stations.

Find a good “how” concept to describe fighter, equip the class with features accordingly, and you’ll have something that can stand on its own without GMs rolling out the red carpet for it.

Or just acknowledge in the rules text that it might need more red carpets than other classes.

[Morgaln]

Note that "only way to navigate a river by bridge" is a ridiculous statement, much like "can't access other planes except by a party member having the plane shift spell" is a ridiculous statement.

But maybe that sums up the difference in psychology between wizard player and fighter players then.

I see lack of an explicit ability as a problem to be overcome; if there isn't a bridge I will build one (or more likely take a boat). Just like if I don't have someone in my party to cast the specific "win button" spell to sole the problem, I will find some other manner.

And you don't see in issue with the fact that for the martial, it is "a problem to be overcome," whereas for the wizard it is "press a button" situation? The wizard trivializes situations where the martial needs to get creative and/or invest time and/or is depended on luck of the die. There is simply no situation where the martial does the same thing in reverse. That is the disparity that people want fixed.

[Cluedrew]

Demanding that Spear-o be allowed to have a bigger pile of spear skill just because Spear-o's player doesn't want to have any magic is childish.

Depending what you mean by childish:

• Indulging in Fantasies That Don't Make Sense: The other option is literally magic. Which operates on the basis of finger-wiggling, muttering and jokes. And even if you manage to justify that I still don't see why things have to make that much sense, this is a thing we do for fun.
• Being selfish at the Expense of Others: So Mage-o's player insisting that Spear-o has to pick up magic to be stronger is being more considerate of other people?

Absolutely. Maybe I haven't been clear about it, but my position has never been that it's good that only the Wizard can solve these problems.

Since I'm quoting this post anyways: Great, that cleans up that conversation thread. I hope the explination about how it can make a wizard look bad made sense.

That is an excellent idea. The game would be better if Rangers eventually got the ability to do that. This would, of course, result in them no longer being anything like "mundane" or "badass normal".

OK, what is your issue with that? Not trying to predict any arguments from "Team Fighter"*, just what is your issue with that?

* Its in quotes because that isn't actually a thing, you have used the phrase but really there are just a bunch of different people with different opinions on the matter. Grouping everyone together who mostly falls on the "pro-fighter" side isn't useful. The "pro-wizard" side isn't a monolith either, which is why I'm asking about your opinions in particular.

Probably 90% of the issues with Fighters and Wizards in practice arise from the fact that the game is unwilling to say "this character concept only goes so far" and instead either lies to people or changes their characters under their noses (or both).

While there is an issue of people not really figuring out "what does an epic level fighter/rogue/ranger/barbarian look like"** and just trying to bump up the numbers on a mid-level version of that concept to fill in the gap. (A Practical Guide to Evil actually makes some headway here, even if it realise a bit to heavily on magical argumentations.)

But another issue is, I don't think D&D has the machinery to represent someone on par with a 20th level wizard by dint of pure combat ability. This would be someone where, if a pure caster stops time and puts a knife to their neck, that caster is dead before the knife breaches skin.

Also I try to keep my posts focused and this is already going a bunch of different directions, but shout-out to Xervous for bringing up "how, not why". I think the how for the fighter is conditioning and physical ability.

[RandomPeasant]

The book allows level 20 fighters; therefore you must be a level 20 fighter (or the equivalent) to be as good as anyone can be at melee combat.

That is the literal definition of a circular argument. "Mundane sword guy must be 20th level because the game says mundane sword guy is 20th level" is not a compelling argument that "mundane sword guy" makes sense as a 20th level concept. Step back from the game. What are the problems that "sword good" solves that are as difficult or as important as the problems that spellcasters solve at that level? What are the enemies that mundane sword guys defeat elsewhere in the genre and how do they compare to the enemies D&D says you need to deal with at 20th level?

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about high level. Look at what you quoted though, I was specifically saying that your argument only applies IF we are talking about the broken 3E wizard that can replicate other classes.

So "high level" is only 17+? Because the Wizard is better than the Fighter for a long time before that. And while it's true that the Wizard can (with some tricks which you might or might not consider cheese) fight better than the Fighter, that's not because the Wizard is broken, it's because the Fighter is underpowered. Trying to fight like a Fighter rather than like a Wizard does come with a real hit to the Wizard's effectiveness. It's just that the Fighter is so ineffective that taking that hit still leaves the Wizard doing better.

The whole statement I take issue with is that barring martial characters from advancing beyond level 6-10 is an adequate alternative to having better class balance at high levels.

There's the equivocation. No one is barring martial characters from advancing past that point. People are barring mundane characters from advancing past that point. Because it does not make sense for mundane characters to advance past that point, since they do not have the capabilities that are necessary to advance past that point. At 10th level, the Wizard gets teleport and the Cleric gets plane shift. What does the mundane Fighter get that is anywhere near as useful?

The authors of D&D think King Arthur is a level 16 paladin / level 5 bard with near perfect stats and two artifact quality magic items.

And that is what I mean about the game lying to you. What does King Arthur do that is anywhere close to what a spellcaster of that level does? Bear in mind, that's a spellcaster with Epic Spellcasting, which even in its non-cheese forms is the part of D&D magic where "blanket the world in eternal night" starts being a thing you can seriously talk about doing. Or on the other end, where does King Arthur fight the kinds of enemies you fight at that level in his stories? Where's the Arthurian Legend where he goes into a city of Mind Flayers and kills all of them without breaking a sweat? What's the point on the grail quest where he stops to defeat a Titan?

You keep stating that martial characters shouldn't be able to kill a demon lord, but aside from the totally circular argument that "Mundane character's shoulnd't be able to kill a demon lord because someone who can kill a demon lord is no longer mundane"

That's not "circular reasoning" that's "mundane means something". "Mundane" means "limited by human capabilities". Is it really so bizarre to say that a lord of demons might be beyond the ability of a regular dude to handle in a straight fight? Step back from your obsession with thinking about what D&D says about these characters (which is the real circular argument) and think about things on the fictional layer Phoenix likes to go on about. Look at that list of "mundane" warriors you posted a few pages back. What's the most impressive feat each of them achieves in the stories they're actually in? The greatest foe they conquer, the greatest obstacle they overcome. Now look at D&D, and find the level with the closest analogy. It's not going to be 20th, or anywhere near it.

And you don't see in issue with the fact that for the martial, it is "a problem to be overcome," whereas for the wizard it is "press a button" situation? The wizard trivializes situations where the martial needs to get creative and/or invest time and/or is depended on luck of the die. There is simply no situation where the martial does the same thing in reverse. That is the disparity that people want fixed.

Exactly. I really don't get what's so difficult to understand about the idea that "I can go to another plane" is a different ability from "I might be able to find a way to get to another plane" that produces a different set of stories. Is Narnia (where there are a limited and specific set of portals between worlds that the protagonists can use) the same story as Amber (where all the protagonists can travel between worlds at will)? Maybe you don't mind not having high level abilities. That's fine, no one says you have to. But not having high level abilities makes you a low level character. If you want to have the adventures that don't involve plane shift, play at the levels before plane shift. Don't demand that there never be adventures that require plane shift.

Being selfish at the Expense of Others: So Mage-o's player insisting that Spear-o has to pick up magic to be stronger is being more considerate of other people?

If your concept is "I have a limit", you have that limit. Saying "I am only as good as a regular guy could be at this" (or as an action movie protagonist could be), then demanding that the entire scope of the game bend so that being that good is a protected role is childish. The equivalent on the part of Mage-o is defining his concept as "Planar Archmage" and insisting that it be made viable down to 1st level. Have I suggested that's how I want the game to work? Has anyone in any of these debates suggested that's how they want the game to work? I've never seen it.

OK, what is your issue with that? Not trying to predict any arguments from "Team Fighter"*, just what is your issue with that?

None whatsoever. That's what I've been calling for repeatedly. But there are people in the thread whose position is facially incompatible with this solution.

While there is an issue of people not really figuring out "what does an epic level fighter/rogue/ranger/barbarian look like"** and just trying to bump up the numbers on a mid-level version of that concept to fill in the gap. (A Practical Guide to Evil actually makes some headway here, even if it realise a bit to heavily on magical argumentations.)

Well that gets into the question of "what do you mean by 'do magic'?" Because for the most part, the Guide is quite insistent that the things its warrior-types are doing aren't "magic". When the Silver Huntress shoots you with a blast of holy light, that's not "magic" in the way that Diabolist opening a Hellgate is. It's "Light", a power source that is distinct from "Magic", though still supernatural. And I think if that's what you mean when you say "I don't want the Fighter to be magical", that's an entirely reasonable demand. The Raveling has a similar thing with the Red Fang Monks. Emphatically not wizards, probably not even capable of being wizards, but nevertheless superhuman. That's a reasonable ask for martial characters.

But another issue is, I don't think D&D has the machinery to represent someone on par with a 20th level wizard by dint of pure combat ability. This would be someone where, if a pure caster stops time and puts a knife to their neck, that caster is dead before the knife breaches skin.

Combat is the easiest part of things. Frankly, there's nothing except the fact that it craps all over suspension of disbelief to stop you from declaring that even when he cuts down a walking mountain of ice, the Fighter is "definitely not magical, no sir, not at all". The bigger issue is what happens outside combat. There's just no mundane answer to teleport or plane shift possible, and those are 5th level spells.

[GloatingSwine]

And you don't see in issue with the fact that for the martial, it is "a problem to be overcome," whereas for the wizard it is "press a button" situation?

Also, once the wizard has the spell he doesn't have to ask for permission to press the button. If a Fighter wants to town portal back to base he has to get the GM to agree to let him do it at all, and place it in the GMs discretion how often he gets to do it. As soon as the wizard has teleport, he can teleport as often as he wants as long as he remembers to pick up a gewgaw before he leaves so the GM doesn't even get to roll a mishap.

[Calthropstu]

How did a discussion of whether or not people enjoy close battles become yet another martial caster disparity discussion?

I swear you guys do this on purpose.

[Jakinbandw]

Combat is the easiest part of things. Frankly, there's nothing except the fact that it craps all over suspension of disbelief to stop you from declaring that even when he cuts down a walking mountain of ice, the Fighter is "definitely not magical, no sir, not at all". The bigger issue is what happens outside combat. There's just no mundane answer to teleport or plane shift possible, and those are 5th level spells.

I disagree. In our reality we don't have magic, but you could build a spaceship that can take you to the moon. This is outside the range of teleport or planeshift and possible through completely mundane means.

But also if the fighter knew where every magical passage between the planes were and could walk through them at will, then their ability (knowledge) would be mundane, and yet also be a mix of planeshift and teleport. You might have to walk a mile to get to the entrance, but you aren't limited by spell slots either.

The real issue is that if you give the fighter an ability like this mages whine that they should get it too and be better at it then the fighter.

[Xervous]

I disagree. In our reality we don't have magic, but you could build a spaceship that can take you to the moon. This is outside the range of teleport or planeshift and possible through completely mundane means.

But also if the fighter knew where every magical passage between the planes were and could walk through them at will, then their ability (knowledge) would be mundane, and yet also be a mix of planeshift and teleport. You might have to walk a mile to get to the entrance, but you aren't limited by spell slots either.

The real issue is that if you give the fighter an ability like this mages whine that they should get it too and be better at it then the fighter.

I don’t see where the whining could come in. It looks like the bardic knowledge of plane shift if we compare bardic knowledge and an information gathering spell. Sure the spell provides more immediate results, but it’s one and done. The ability is always getting you something but it might not be exactly what you want, but it’s relevant often enough to feel impactful.

[Telok]

How did a discussion of whether or not people enjoy close battles become yet another martial caster disparity discussion?

I swear you guys do this on purpose.

I dunno. It gets kind of tiresome, ya? And it's always d&d/pf too, never other systems.

[kyoryu]

Real soldiers have their main attack.

They also have:

Grenades
Other explosives like claymore mines
Drones that they can use to see and/or attack things
Radio communications to coordinate
A multitude of different weapons available
... etc.

Why shouldn't a fantasy warrior have access to that same breadth of abilities? The high level warrior shouldn't just be a guy that hits things with a stick. He should be the guy with a trick or tactic for every situation, the guy that uses an arsenal of tools to overcome whatever is put before him.

[Xervous]

Wandering back on topic. I don’t care so much for the closeness of a fight as much as I care about the difficulty of a fight being properly conveyed before the fight is joined. The difference between “dragon, run!” and “dragon, I needed a new pair of boots!” changes the how and why of me engaging with the combat. A crushing defeat or close victory can both be enjoyable, assuming expectations and verisimilitude aren’t violated.

[Talakeal]

I dunno. It gets kind of tiresome, ya? And it's always d&d/pf too, never other systems.

That’s actually the thing that draws me into these arguments, people insisting that having class balance is impossible and logically contradictory on a conceptual level, and I am like, no its not, I play plenty of other games where it isn’t an issue.

[Quertus]

And another post eaten

For now, I'll just say that I'm enjoying the roasts by RandomPeasant - they really make this side topic worth reading.

@Glorthindel - although that is one of the sanest and best written muggle invocations, it still leaves me wondering how you picture the Fighter participating in high-level adventurers. When the party is challenged by a plague, an underwater extradimensional portal protected by invisible incorporeal guardians, a walking mountain that brings winter (an Epic monster, granted), invasion of the body snatchers, etc - how do you picture the high-level Fighter participating?

[Jakinbandw]

And another post eaten

For now, I'll just say that I'm enjoying the roasts by RandomPeasant - they really make this side topic worth reading.

@Glorthindel - although that is one of the sanest and best written muggle invocations, it still leaves me wondering how you picture the Fighter participating in high-level adventurers. When the party is challenged by a plague, am underwater extradimensional portal protected by invisible incorporeal guardians, a walking mountain that brings winter (an Epic monster, granted), invasion of the body snatchers, etc - how do you picture the high-level Fighter participating?

So for a character with only mundane capabilities.

1: as a Fighter they know how to kill things, this includes germs, and thus they can whip up an antibiotic to end the plauge

2: Since it is a portal, it must be a portal to somewhere. The Fighter knows where, and knows the shortest route to that place through unguarded portals. A short trip later they are on the other side and the Fighter puts on his Scooba gear, and thermal goggles.

3: The Fighter places a nuclear landmine down where he knows the mountain will walk.

4: The Fighter has high enough social skills to know who is replaced, and high enough intimidation to make them talk and lead him to the captives.

[RandomPeasant]

Also, once the wizard has the spell he doesn't have to ask for permission to press the button. If a Fighter wants to town portal back to base he has to get the GM to agree to let him do it at all, and place it in the GMs discretion how often he gets to do it. As soon as the wizard has teleport, he can teleport as often as he wants as long as he remembers to pick up a gewgaw before he leaves so the GM doesn't even get to roll a mishap.

An important aspect of the abilities spellcasters get is that they give the players agency over things the DM would normally control. Very often, the "solutions" people are willing to give Fighters are just a more formalized "beg the DM" option. And that's not really a solution at all, because you could already beg the DM. When analyzing a fix like this, you should ask how what you're proposing compares to what a 2nd level character could do when explained to someone who doesn't play D&D. If the difference isn't clear to them, it's probably not a high-level ability.

I disagree. In our reality we don't have magic, but you could build a spaceship that can take you to the moon. This is outside the range of teleport or planeshift and possible through completely mundane means.

I think "the Fighter builds an Apollo launch vehicle" is just as corrosive to character concepts like "Conan" or "King Arthur" as "the Fighter gets some magic" (if not more so -- Logen Ninefingers is recognizably Conan, but no one from Starship Troopers is recognizably King Arthur), while also being massively disruptive to the setting. It's true that in a game like Shadowrun, the increased capabilities of technology reduce the power gap between casters and mundanes, but Shadowrun isn't D&D, and if "play E6" is not an acceptable solution, I don't see how "play Shadowrun" possibly could be.

I don’t see where the whining could come in. It looks like the bardic knowledge of plane shift if we compare bardic knowledge and an information gathering spell. Sure the spell provides more immediate results, but it’s one and done. The ability is always getting you something but it might not be exactly what you want, but it’s relevant often enough to feel impactful.

Yeah, I wouldn't whine about it, but it's also not really a replacement for plane shift (especially not greater plane shift or gate, which are precisely targetable). Being able to travel on foot through hell is certainly more useful than simply being able to travel on foot, but it's not really an answer to teleportation (unless you do Malazan-style Warrens).

That’s actually the thing that draws me into these arguments, people insisting that having class balance is impossible and logically contradictory on a conceptual level, and I am like, no its not, I play plenty of other games where it isn’t an issue.

If you can show me a system that balances "King Arthur" and "Warlock" on a mechanical level (that is: without any sort of narrative cheats like FATE-type games use), I will be extremely impressed. Mostly the solution games use is to simply model a narrow power band, and while that works, it doesn't really solve the problem. If King Arthur adventures with Merlin and Warlock adventures with Ranger, things work out fine. It's balancing across the conceptual bands that's the issue, not the class ones.

1: as a Fighter they know how to kill things, this includes germs, and thus they can whip up an antibiotic to end the plauge

I don't think there's an antibiotic for e.g. the undeath plague from Warcraft III. Which is sort of one of the fundamental problems with the whole "mundanes should be able to skill hard enough to solve any problem" thing. It means you can't ever say "and this threat was greater than mortal men could bear", because you're stubbornly insisting that every threat be one where a mortal man can show up and do about a quarter of the work. And that's a really cool thing to say.

[icefractal]

I don't think there's an antibiotic for e.g. the undeath plague from Warcraft III. Which is sort of one of the fundamental problems with the whole "mundanes should be able to skill hard enough to solve any problem" thing. It means you can't ever say "and this threat was greater than mortal men could bear", because you're stubbornly insisting that every threat be one where a mortal man can show up and do about a quarter of the work. And that's a really cool thing to say.

Yeah, but you can say that about magic too.
"Antibiotics can't cure this, it's a magical plague"
"Magic can't cure this, it's a divine plague"
About equally arbitrary. And I'd say that in practice, plagues which are plot devices and can only be cured by plot methods are much more common in TTRPGs than plagues which can be cured directly by the use of PC abilities, magical or not.

Which leads me to ...

The Fighter players cry so hard the problems they can't solve get removed from the game.

Has this ever actually happened once in the entire history of D&D?

Twice at least; both 4E and 5E significantly limited what PC magic could do.

However, I don't think this primarily driven by Fighter players complaining, it was driven by GMs complaining. IME, most GMs don't particularly value knot-cutting, and even when they do they prefer when it's based on paying attention to things they described rather than stuff on the character sheet.

Heck, when I'm GMing, the main reason I remember that concrete abilities are good is that I remember how much I enjoy them as a player. The natural impulse is to think - "Why would they need to contrive a mechanical hack for this? I'm happy to give them an appropriate path to achieve whatever they want." Thing is, every GM from the most player-oriented to the most railroady could say this - it's just that in the latter case, "appropriate path" means "after my cool plot is done, and maybe not on-screen". And even when the GM is great - having a path created for you to achieve something is different than achieving it without help, and sometimes the latter's what people are looking for.

[KorvinStarmast]

Real soldiers have their main attack.

They also have:

Grenades
Other explosives like claymore mines
Drones that they can use to see and/or attack things
Radio communications to coordinate
A multitude of different weapons available
... etc.

Why shouldn't a fantasy warrior have access to that same breadth of abilities? The high level warrior shouldn't just be a guy that hits things with a stick. He should be the guy with a trick or tactic for every situation, the guy that uses an arsenal of tools to overcome whatever is put before him.

Higher level soldiers have the FAC skill which allows them to summon iron raindrops from on high (also known as 'GBU-12') and if one of their other class skills is laser designate they can wreck an encounter in a way that a fireball can't. Higher level soldiers than that can summon, from on high, JDAM.

[Cluedrew]

Wandering back on topic. I don’t care so much for the closeness of a fight as much as I care about the difficulty of a fight being properly conveyed before the fight is joined. The difference between “dragon, run!” and “dragon, I needed a new pair of boots!” changes the how and why of me engaging with the combat. A crushing defeat or close victory can both be enjoyable, assuming expectations and verisimilitude aren’t violated.

Wait, how much in advance do you have to know how this fight is going to be? The way you have to describe it, it almost seems like the moment before the fight is good enough, but that doesn't seem quite right. Maybe I'm just projecting?

---

On to side topics:

If your concept is "I have a limit", you have that limit.

OK, did I say that was my concept? I don't know if I haven't gotten the idea of what I mean when I say martial across or you are trying to address other people as well. In the former case, please ask me instead of guessing. In the latter case, if someone else with that opinions comes along and asks you, you can reply to them with those ideas. Yes, there are plenty of people with opinions like that or more like that, in this thread even. But I'm not them.

So to get things started, what do you remember me saying about what I think a martial is? Feel free to put it into your own words. (Nothing is fine.)

Well that gets into the question of "what do you mean by 'do magic'?" Because for the most part, the Guide is quite insistent that the things its warrior-types are doing aren't "magic".

Did I say do magic? I was mostly referring to where the powers come from, not what they do. The names are a pushing it and the... its been a while, what to they call the three gift abilities? Anyways those feel way over the line for me as they are so distinct and have that granted power feel.

That’s actually the thing that draws me into these arguments, people insisting that having class balance is impossible and logically contradictory on a conceptual level, and I am like, no its not, I play plenty of other games where it isn’t an issue.

Its really funny actually, D&D is struggling to untie the knot and other systems are yelling, "Pull either end, the knot just falls apart." I actually made an effort to really dig into the problem and started a few threads on the matter some years ago. But eventually felt like I hit the bottom of the well so I stopped. In this thread I've gotten two ideas in this thread I did not immediately recognise, so looks like there is more to learn still. One I dropped when I was trying to keep things from going to this topic. Maybe I should pick that back up.

And another post eaten

How long are you spending writing these posts? The website will toss out a post if it goes to long without getting an update. Refreshing the page seems to put it off. Also, roasts?

[Jakinbandw]

I don't think there's an antibiotic for e.g. the undeath plague from Warcraft III. Which is sort of one of the fundamental problems with the whole "mundanes should be able to skill hard enough to solve any problem" thing. It means you can't ever say "and this threat was greater than mortal men could bear", because you're stubbornly insisting that every threat be one where a mortal man can show up and do about a quarter of the work. And that's a really cool thing to say.

It's a good thing I'm playing a woman!

There is an antibiotic for anything. The trick is to keep the person keeping the antibiotic alive while it kills the disease. But that aside, if a fighter couldn't solve it for that reason than neither could a mage, as a mage is also a mortal.

[Cluedrew]

To Jakinbandw: But a mage has access to polymorph and therefore can fake being a woman long enough to handle the problem.

I don't know why I'm running with this joke I just am. But yeah, why does magic let you solve problems beyond mortal might when it is magic a mortal can use? Do all mages become immortal before learning magic? That's cool, but a pretty intense first step. By moral do you mean a real life human being? I asked up-thread if anyone wanted martials to play to that limit and I got no, no and no. Two had notes about how far from real life human they wanted to go, but still, three out of three responses were nos.

[NichG]

To Jakinbandw: But a mage has access to polymorph and therefore can fake being a woman long enough to handle the problem.

I don't know why I'm running with this joke I just am. But yeah, why does magic let you solve problems beyond mortal might when it is magic a mortal can use? Do all mages become immortal before learning magic? That's cool, but a pretty intense first step. By moral do you mean a real life human being? I asked up-thread if anyone wanted martials to play to that limit and I got no, no and no. Two had notes about how far from real life human they wanted to go, but still, three out of three responses were nos.

This seems like yet another variation of the recurring problem of there being some inertia to the literal meanings of words and phrases that other people used in the past (just like 'mundane' and 'martial'), coupled with a tendency of large group discussions (as well as internet discussions) to result in someone jumping in whenever there's anything that looks like an attackable point... If we took it seriously, we'd end up with the mandate: "(D&D) must be a system that enables this particular cool-sounding catch-phrase I came up with to be used literally, it's the most important thing!"

[icefractal]

Personally speaking, when I hear "mundane" I think of what you'd call mundane IRL. Not special. Not particularly rare. Olympic athletes, famous actors, Nobel prize winners - none of those are "mundane".

Still, we need a term for ... what, precisely?
Non-spellcasters? People who would be just as good in a dead magic zone as not? People who could exist in non-fantasy fiction? People who could exist IRL? Those are all different categories.

Ultimately it boils down to how you see the world of D&D.
Is it a normal world that operates by roughly IRL rules, and then magic is a separate and distinct overlay sitting on top?
Or is it a world that differs from our own in many ways, and spells are only one of those ways?

IME, almost nobody applies the former to creatures or geography. Few people says that dragons should be unable to fly in a dead-magic zone (wings too small, body too heavy), or that if there's a floating island there must be a detectable (and dispel-able) spell holding it up, or that giant insects should be unable to breathe or support their own weight.

But for characters, there's more of a split of opinion. And that's why I think it's impossible to reach consensus on what a high-level "normal" character should look like.

[Pex]

Why? Are you absolutely saying that a level-0 NPC cannot pass a saving throw against a Charm spell. Because they can. A wizard can cast a Charm spell on a 0-level peasant and the effect not take. This doesn't make every 0-level peasant magical. My high level mundane just happens to pass every time without rolling the dice. He is just that lucky I guess.

Do you know what the main difference between high level Fighters and Wizards are? Reliability. A Wizard can just do stuff, spend a slot and it happens, whereas Fighters are still rolling dice for everything. So, to me, the easiest way to "power up" a mundane is to also let them just do the things they do. Give them Legendary Saves so they can just no-sell a spell effect at will, let them ignore misdirection effects (blur, mirror image, displacement, the Fighter just bypasses it all and lands a hit), hell, even give them an autokill effect against creatures of a certain CR compared to their level. Hilariously, the rulebook is chock full of cool things for mundane characters, but the game is stingy with them - half the Feats in the book are a waste of a Feat slot but would be a cool freebie for a Fighter


The problem with this arguement is it is used to open the flood gates; I am asking for "action hero mundane", which I admit is not "reality mundane", but the counter arguement of "its not reality mundane, so since you have already broken reality, you might as well have teleporting through shadows and cutting holes in reality" misses the point. There is a very definite gradation between the guy at the gym, firing a crossbow four times in six seconds and jumping twice the distance of an olympic longjumper, and teleportation and cutting holes in reality, and there is quite a wide gap between them that we can operate in without jumping straight to the teleportation end.

Succeeding on a saving throw is not the same thing as immunity, but it's nice that now you recognize you are wanting martials to be cool at high level, the "action hero". Some people don't want that to mean "just bigger numbers" to what they've already been doing. They want to be able to cut a hole in reality to go to another plane. Other people, perhaps you, are quite happy if it's just bigger numbers, i.e. they're jumping 100 ft instead of 10. It's not "mundane", but it's a distinct flavor different than magic. They don't want the action hero to cut a hole in reality to go another plane. That's all fine and dandy. However, the action hero jumping 100 ft and not cutting a hole in reality should not mean the mage must be forbidden from plane shifting and be yelled at when they do.

[Glorthindel]

@Glorthindel - although that is one of the sanest and best written muggle invocations, it still leaves me wondering how you picture the Fighter participating in high-level adventurers. When the party is challenged by a plague, an underwater extradimensional portal protected by invisible incorporeal guardians, a walking mountain that brings winter (an Epic monster, granted), invasion of the body snatchers, etc - how do you picture the high-level Fighter participating?

That's the first time I've been accused of being sane ;)

Lets give it a go:
- This ones easy; sure, the Fighter can't 'cure' the plague (unless the source is a beast he can shove his blade through), but he should be the one immune to it. Whatever the source of the plague is, it is likely hiding in the deepest, thickest concentration of airborn death, and while the Wizard can jump the party in close, and the Cleric provide short-term blanket protection, the Fighter is the one who should be able to charge through clouds of plague-death and go toe-to-toe with the plague zombies and know he isn't going to become one himself (I admit, this is stepping on the Paladins toes a bit, but odds are you wont have both in a single party).
- For a start, ability to hold your breath longer should probably be a Fighter trait, though if the underwater segment is longer, then its potion time. Fighting underwater should probably invoke negative modifiers (not sure if it does though) that the Fighter can ignore, and combat with invisible creatures sort of plays of my earlier comment about being able to ignore misdirection effects - sure, not straight up See Invisible, but maybe allow Fighters to always be able to detect which square an invisible enemy is in, even if they are still at Disadvantage to hit (call it "Combat Awareness" or something, like an combined Blindfighting / Tremorsense).
- Number three is built for the Fighter - they probably need a few tricks to prevent such creatures walking straight past, but otherwise, let him start hacking it into boulders.
- This one I will leave, as I believe everyone shouldn't be able to handle everything, though if we are going for "possession style", one thing I had already been thinking about was a Fighter attack that causes instability (this idea was mainly to allow them to auto-banish low-level summoned creatures so that the Fighter is always a better choice than a Summon Spell), so maybe their hits could potentially jolt a possessor out of the body (give the host a free save to eject the possessor).

End of the day, I don't think a Fighter should be able to do everything - D&D is a co-operative game (most of the time) and everyone shouldn't have a solution to everything. The Fighter should need the Wizard (Arthur had Merlin), but the trick is to making it so that the Wizard also wants the Fighter, and not another Wizard. Plus, Magic Items exist, and Magic Swords (and other stuff) are a part of the Fighter fiction, so I don't see it as a problem if some Fighter deficencies are bolstered with Magic Items (though a problem is clearly there if a certain item is absolutely required).

However, the action hero jumping 100 ft and not cutting a hole in reality should not mean the mage must be forbidden from plane shifting and be yelled at when they do.

Absolutely, and I would be right beside you telling anyone yelling at Wizards for doing that stuff that they're a moron. That's what Wizards do!

[Xervous]

Wait, how much in advance do you have to know how this fight is going to be? The way you have to describe it, it almost seems like the moment before the fight is good enough, but that doesn't seem quite right. Maybe I'm just projecting?

It really depends on context, but may better be boiled down to “I’d rather not have more than 1 in... 5? Fights feel like a random hidden threat level.” That’s not to say there can’t be uncertainty about how dangerous a potential encounter is, but I will note that knowing there is uncertainty is still knowledge.

So we go hunting the bandit lord Shanks in the northern desert. We know there will be bandits who are easy to handle in groups of X but not Y. The giant scorpions are best avoided. And it could be bandits starting rumors or those ruins are actually haunted. All of that is great. But getting blindsided by town guards who could be solving the bandit problem on a lunch break? Getting “oh that’s a giant scorpion, the region is well known for them” when we stumble on one with no forewarning after specifically asking around for details on the region (and not failing the associated checks if they exist)? That’s not good.

[Cluedrew]

To RandomPeasant: Sparked by NichG, I would just like to be super clear that, all jokes aside, I am actually just asking about what you meant by "mortal man".

Still, we need a term for ... what, precisely?

For me: People whose primary fantastic abilities do not involve occult forces. (Fantastic abilities: things people can't do in real life. Occult Forces: This one is harder to describe but it kind of "spooky action at a distance", things that have the look and feel of magic.)

There is some fuzzy ground in the middle, like even I'm not entirely sure how to call a monk removing a curse with acupuncture. But there are definitely cases clearly one side of the line that I'm fine with and I've never quite figured out why other people aren't. Except for people who want low level gritty and grounded games which I do not care for - most of the time - but I understand it.

Also, I think D&D's was originally designed on the model of real-world + magic, but it seems to be trending more towards just being its own fantasy world as time goes on. Maybe that is just my bias because that is how I tend to write my settings. And yes it applies to all sorts of strange combat techniques too, someone with the right martial training can get huge advantages out of standing in knee deep water or even just being on sand.

To Xervous: I think I get it, thanks.

[Quertus]

So for a character with only mundane capabilities.

1: as a Fighter they know how to kill things, this includes germs, and thus they can whip up an antibiotic to end the plauge

2: Since it is a portal, it must be a portal to somewhere. The Fighter knows where, and knows the shortest route to that place through unguarded portals. A short trip later they are on the other side and the Fighter puts on his Scooba gear, and thermal goggles.

3: The Fighter places a nuclear landmine down where he knows the mountain will walk.

4: The Fighter has high enough social skills to know who is replaced, and high enough intimidation to make them talk and lead him to the captives.

This might be the best - and fastest - response I've gotten for high-level Muggle capabilities. Kudos! You seem qualified to design high-level muggles.

I disagree. In our reality we don't have magic, but you could build a spaceship that can take you to the moon. This is outside the range of teleport or planeshift and possible through completely mundane means.

But also if the fighter knew where every magical passage between the planes were and could walk through them at will, then their ability (knowledge) would be mundane, and yet also be a mix of planeshift and teleport. You might have to walk a mile to get to the entrance, but you aren't limited by spell slots either.

The real issue is that if you give the fighter an ability like this mages whine that they should get it too and be better at it then the fighter.

Well of course the wizard will want it, too.- and you should let them have it.

Look, not every Fighter concept will involve getting any particular such ability. And some Wizards logically will. But Fighters should get more abilities. Kinda like they get more feats.

How long are you spending writing these posts? The website will toss out a post if it goes to long without getting an update. Refreshing the page seems to put it off. Also, roasts?

Quite some time, even for short posts. I get distracted. (EDIT: when I opened this thread, you were the last post. ~3 hours between when I started and finished my reply.)

"Roasts" is admittedly not the correct word. But, while I may not agree with everything they've said, RandomPeasant has given the best rebuttals I've seen to several concepts.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also, I think D&D's was originally designed on the model of real-world + magic, but it seems to be trending more towards just being its own fantasy world as time goes on.

Yes, that's how it started.

Speaking of close battles, the topic of this thread: we had one last night. It was a running fight, that saw us face
a stone golem, a magic user of some kind, four elementals (one of each kind), a monk/martial arts adept, an archer, another magic user (not sure when she ran off to, we think she turned invisible and fled), a shield guardian, another higher level magic user, six guards and six zombies and two shriekers - who kindly went off early in the encounter to make sure everyone knew we were around ... despite some nice stealthing by our warlock and our rogue.

We prevailed, but it was a heck of a fight.

Everyone in the party but the rogue is now down below half HP (warlock (me) has 5), most spell slots are exhausted, and most charges on the wand (2 left) and the two rings are consumed (0 and 2 remain respectively). A bead of force was expended. We spiked the doors at either end of a side hallway and are trying to manage a short rest. Not sure if that's gonna work, since we know that there are at least two more doorways that lead ... somewhere.
It was a wild battle. Six players, one DM.
Did we enjoy it? Heck yes. Two PCs dropped to 0 HP at various times during the fight. Numerous "WTF" moments arose as various enemies popped into the fight, flanked us, or in the case of the shield guardian, blew up near the end with a level 4 up cast fireball from it's amulet.

Close fights: even more fun when the bard kvetches "Wait, what do you mean I turn visible after I shot that magic user with my had cross bow?" or the warlock (me) goes down to 0 HP and the bard, rather than pop him up with a healing word, turns invisible so that the archer won't shoot at him. This prompted the "As shown, buddy is only half of a word!" comment. Other witticisms got one and all cackling as successes and failures cropped up.

More fun than a ROFL stomp.

[RandomPeasant]

And even when the GM is great - having a path created for you to achieve something is different than achieving it without help, and sometimes the latter's what people are looking for.

That's the big thing. There is a fundamental difference between "I can do this by asking the DM for a way to do this" and "I can do this". Even if it is on some level an illusion, so is everything at the table. There's nothing wrong with an adventure where the PCs get a series of DM assists, but there's also nothing wrong with an adventure where the players overcome problems by applying their abilities. Demanding that the latter be removed because you only want to play characters that can do the former is unreasonable.

OK, did I say that was my concept?

No, but you're not the only part of this thread. Talakeal, for instance, is quite adamant about wanting simply "is maximally good at swording for a normal person" to be a 20th level concept. The reason these debates are so endless is that people equivocate between things that are emphatically not the same, so when responding I try to make the distinctions explicit.

Still, we need a term for ... what, precisely?

Well, that's the crux of it. Some people mean "guy who uses a sword" or "guy who isn't a Wizard". Some people mean "guy who doesn't have magic" (which is itself something you can parse in any number of ways).

- Number three is built for the Fighter - they probably need a few tricks to prevent such creatures walking straight past, but otherwise, let him start hacking it into boulders.

Do you know how many boulders it takes to make a mountain? Or how hard it is to cut through a boulder? The character you are talking about is not meaningfully "not magic" by any useful definition of the term other than the semantic "we call these abilities Magic and those abilities Kung Fu".

Plus, Magic Items exist, and Magic Swords (and other stuff) are a part of the Fighter fiction, so I don't see it as a problem if some Fighter deficencies are bolstered with Magic Items (though a problem is clearly there if a certain item is absolutely required).

But they are also the part of the fiction of people with superhuman abilities. MCU Thor has Mjolnir and Stormbreaker just as much as King Arthur has Excalibur (and, as far as I know, more than Conan has any named weapon). If the Fighter is going to get his power from a magic sword, that's going to mean him taking a Blade Bound PrC (or Paragon Path or Archetype), and that's "magical" (again, by the broad definition).

To RandomPeasant: Sparked by NichG, I would just like to be super clear that, all jokes aside, I am actually just asking about what you meant by "mortal man".

The plague thing is a pretty loose connection to the topic. It gets clearer when you talk about creatures, where the capabilities of mortals are pretty well-defined. At any level where "I am a regular dude with some skills and some magic gear" is to be a viable character, "I am a superhuman dude with those skills and some magical gear" cannot. And it's fine for there to be levels like that. "Regular dude with some skills" is a reasonable, supportable concept. But so is "superhuman dude with those skills". Kaladin is a reasonable thing to want to be, and the margin between him and maximal mundane martial skill (if it exists at all) is smaller than the margin of "Windrunner".

For me: People whose primary fantastic abilities do not involve occult forces. (Fantastic abilities: things people can't do in real life. Occult Forces: This one is harder to describe but it kind of "spooky action at a distance", things that have the look and feel of magic.)

And that is a definition by which martial characters could abide and be viable at any power level (though, of course, there is also a niche for martial characters with explicitly mystical abilities). But, that's not the only thing people are arguing for, and if I blithely say "yeah, that's reasonable", people will turn around and ask why I'm telling them they can't plane John McClane in an Epic level game.

[Satinavian]

Personally speaking, when I hear "mundane" I think of what you'd call mundane IRL. Not special. Not particularly rare. Olympic athletes, famous actors, Nobel prize winners - none of those are "mundane".

Still, we need a term for ... what, precisely?
Non-spellcasters? People who would be just as good in a dead magic zone as not? People who could exist in non-fantasy fiction? People who could exist IRL? Those are all different categories.

Ultimately it boils down to how you see the world of D&D.
Is it a normal world that operates by roughly IRL rules, and then magic is a separate and distinct overlay sitting on top?
Or is it a world that differs from our own in many ways, and spells are only one of those ways?

"mundane" is derives from mundus meaning "the world". Mundane thus mostly means "worldly" or "of this world" and is generally opposed to either "otherworldly" or to "heavenly" in a religious sense.
It did get a secondary meaning as "normal" and generally gets the shaft in the wordly/heavenly framework.

So when someone talked about mundane RPG character i would understand that as "nothing supernatural whatsoever" and also as "people that work like those in the real world".

IME, almost nobody applies the former to creatures or geography. Few people says that dragons should be unable to fly in a dead-magic zone (wings too small, body too heavy), or that if there's a floating island there must be a detectable (and dispel-able) spell holding it up, or that giant insects should be unable to breathe or support their own weight.

But for characters, there's more of a split of opinion. And that's why I think it's impossible to reach consensus on what a high-level "normal" character should look like.

There is a surprising number of systems where anti-magic is an established and surefire way to bring dragons down. And while people have different tolerance for giant-insects, stupid geography or architecture and other impossibilities, few would call that stuff they know can't work in the real world "mundane", even if they accept it in the game.