Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")

[Ralanr]

That having been said, one thing 4E did that any serious attempt at accomplishing this thread's goal need to take into account is take martial characters seriously and stop giving casters preferential treatment. Everyone has their own list of powers and gets to use them. Whatever we think about the result, 5E goes right back to "awesome casters and their reliable sidekicks". The change of attitude is palpable.

To be fair, 5e did still nerf casters to some extent, and now martial characters at higher levels are still good at their main job of dealing damage and soaking it. 4 to 12 attacks in one turn from a level 20 fighter is nothing to sneeze at.

The main problem with martial characters is just the lack of options in them doing anything else. Caster's main draw is their wide breath of options, but they don't really feel like they're lacking in anything with those options. Even if you argue that blasting at higher levels is weaker, it's still effective at hindering large groups of enemies. Meanwhile the fighter can hit at most, 12 (or more if samurai) targets by attacking them one at a time. And every other martial is limited to just hitting two because of how extra attack works.

Then there's out of combat utility, or the utter lack of it.

[Willie the Duck]

I agree that casters have at least been toned down (except for some of those legacy spells like Simulacrum and Force Cage and the minionmancy and become-something-else spells which they should have seen coming as problems) and fighter-types are at least now good at the jobs they've been allowed.

Out of combat is definitely where I think martials falter the most, although mobs certain are another constraint. Unlike others, I don't necessarily hate the tautological skill DCs, but I would have loved more systems for actually doing things mundanely (plus, y'know, either giving fighters more skills and skill-boosters like rogues get).

[Dr.Samurai]

I suppose it very much depends on what you think is superhuman. As of now, a level 20 Fighter can survive being submerged in lava for about 12 to 18 seconds. That’s not really possible.

However their “big thing” is making 8 attacks in 6 seconds which is actually very possible. Probably not while also running 30 feet though.

So if you look at that and say “well that’s impossible ergo it must be superhuman” then there you are. A level 20 Fighter is superhuman.

But if for some reason that does not register as superhuman for you, I would probably need you to explain your reasoning.

Nothing to be done about the way damage is tracked in the game. Yes, a 20th level fighter can be submerged under lava and survive. I mean... I don't like that but thankfully I've never run across that.

Captain America is explicitly superhuman and at this point has multiple artifacts to his name. That is not "mundane" by any useful definition of the term.

This is why I have made the point that without getting into specifics or definitions we're talking around each other.

Warriors in D&D can get magical items, including artifacts. This is a staple of fantasy. You can call Cap "superhuman" and that's fine. It's a term. But he isn't shooting laser beams out of his eyes. I think the original examples I gave were creating earthquakes with a stomp and... something else I don't recall. There appears to be a disconnect which I can hopefully clear up:

1. I am not looking for high level warriors to be joe schmoe on the street with average stats and nothing remarkable about them. I very much love the badass normal trope.
2. Yes, the rules for D&D mean that high level warriors will be amazing compared to our own standards of normal. I am okay with this as well.
3. IMO, point #2 does not justify that high level warriors MUST THEREFORE have blatant supernatural powers, and by supernatural I don't mean "really strong or tough" but more like throwing lightning or cleaving mountains.

I think there's a definite place in the archetypes of the game for a 'badass normal' sort of figure who's less overtly supernatural than their peers, while still being able to be relevant purely on the basis of their power.

Awesome, we're in agreement there!

The thing is, how you model that 'badass norma'? IMO, the best way to do this is by just straight up making a martial spellcaster like a warlord or a warblade who has loads of enumerated powers that can be used both in and out of combat. Something like commander's strike, or the glamor bard's special BI usage that allows him to move the whole party at once.

I think this is a good idea and like both examples given.

[Morty]

To be fair, 5e did still nerf casters to some extent, and now martial characters at higher levels are still good at their main job of dealing damage and soaking it. 4 to 12 attacks in one turn from a level 20 fighter is nothing to sneeze at.

The main problem with martial characters is just the lack of options in them doing anything else. Caster's main draw is their wide breath of options, but they don't really feel like they're lacking in anything with those options. Even if you argue that blasting at higher levels is weaker, it's still effective at hindering large groups of enemies. Meanwhile the fighter can hit at most, 12 (or more if samurai) targets by attacking them one at a time. And every other martial is limited to just hitting two because of how extra attack works.

Then there's out of combat utility, or the utter lack of it.

I agree that casters have at least been toned down (except for some of those legacy spells like Simulacrum and Force Cage and the minionmancy and become-something-else spells which they should have seen coming as problems) and fighter-types are at least now good at the jobs they've been allowed.

Out of combat is definitely where I think martials falter the most, although mobs certain are another constraint. Unlike others, I don't necessarily hate the tautological skill DCs, but I would have loved more systems for actually doing things mundanely (plus, y'know, either giving fighters more skills and skill-boosters like rogues get).

The problem is less acute than it was, but the non-casters' job is still to make big damage numbers happen and make skill checks to casters can save on spells. Moreover, means of accomplishing anything without spells have been cut back on - 3E-era feats weren't good or anything, but they were there. The amount of design space devoted to casters versus non-casters is arguably more uneven than ever.

[Ralanr]

The problem is less acute than it was, but the non-casters' job is still to make big damage numbers happen and make skill checks to casters can save on spells. Moreover, means of accomplishing anything without spells have been cut back on - 3E-era feats weren't good or anything, but they were there. The amount of design space devoted to casters versus non-casters is arguably more uneven than ever.

On that, I agree. I don't know how to fix that beyond more feats, and I do not like feat bloat.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think others have made similar points before but a lot of things left to feats should really be looped into class features or item features. I think Shield Master is a good example. Shields should be more meaningful than "+2 AC".

[Man_Over_Game]

I think others have made similar points before but a lot of things left to feats should really be looped into class features or item features. I think Shield Master is a good example. Shields should be more meaningful than "+2 AC".

I've always liked the idea of having different levels of training that grant new features for different items.

For instance, the "Simple" use of shields grants +2 AC. The "Martial 1" use of shields allows you to spend your Reaction to make a Strength Saving Throw after receiving damage from a Dexterity Save effect or a weapon attack to reduce any damage it dealt by half (so making a Dexterity save against a Fireball, then making a Strength Save, means you take 25% damage instead of 50%).

Classes like Fighters or Rangers get Martial training sooner than other classes, like Barbarians, get to make them stand out more.

Personally, I think that it's a dumb idea to use permanent investments to improve specific items. You want your players to adapt and utilize all of your game, but adding gear-specific feats just means they have to memorize that one item and ignore anything else that comes up. What weapon a Fighter is using should be based on the expectations of the coming fight, not whether a weapon type has a magical upgrade in the DMG (Polearms).

[Ignimortis]

That having been said, one thing 4E did that any serious attempt at accomplishing this thread's goal need to take into account is take martial characters seriously and stop giving casters preferential treatment. Everyone has their own list of powers and gets to use them. Whatever we think about the result, 5E goes right back to "awesome casters and their reliable sidekicks". The change of attitude is palpable.

I mean, Rob Heinsoo, who was the lead designer for 4e, explicitly said in an interview that he had to go over designers' work and just stop them from making spellcasters (pointedly, Wizards) more awesome than martials. The issue is somehow very deep in the creators' minds, it's not exactly "what people really want".

There are a lot of people who don't want to let go of the idea that the wizard should be the most powerful class. The first Player's Handbook teetered back and forth between design drafts and development drafts, and sometimes the wizard had been deliberately bumped up to be slightly better than all the other classes. I wasn't comfortable with that, and the final version of the wizard is, if anything, possibly on the slightly weak side; the wizard was all alone as the first practitioner of the controller role and we stayed cautious knowing that we could improve the class later if we needed to.

[Man_Over_Game]

I mean, Rob Heinsoo, who was the lead designer for 4e, explicitly said in an interview that he had to go over designers' work and just stop them from making spellcasters (pointedly, Wizards) more awesome than martials. The issue is somehow very deep in the creators' minds, it's not exactly "what people really want".

Even now, we can't really agree on what a level 20 Fighter is supposed to do. The best we've come up with so far is "Deal as much damage as Wizards". Mission accomplished, I guess?

I always thought 4e's lead dev made a lot of intelligent decisions when it came to meta-design. People can relate to Fighters the most, so Fighters always do things that we can relate to. We understand Wizards the least, so they do things we can't. As a result, Fighters inherently are more grounded, because we perceive them to be.

It's the same reason that making a 30 on your Stealth Check doesn't turn you invisible, or a 30 on an Insight Check doesn't let you cast Detect Thoughts. Which is why we run into issues like high-level Rogues not being nearly as useful as a high-level Wizard when it comes to non-combat stuff.

No matter how fair it is, those are things that we relate to, so we naturally nerf them into being relatable. "Guy At The Gym" isn't something that we can absolve with just willpower, you need mechanics telling you what you can or can't do because we have a bias to make things that are relatable even more​ relatable. Mechanics tell us when our beliefs and biases are stupid, which is why it worked in 4e.

5e's 'rule-light' structure ended up backfiring and repeating all of the same mistakes. Frankly, I think the problem boils down to spells. Since they rely on mechanics to dictate how they function, very little bias can play a part in how they can affect the game. There's a reason that we structure our mid-to-high level campaigns around what casters the party has, rather than the number of players.

We see the exact same thing with Barbarians. They have super strength, 5e keeps things open-ended so the DM can decide on what "super strength" actually means, Barbarians end up being olympic weightlifters in a world where teleporting to another world isn't terribly difficult to do. We have a hard time making "super strength" into "impossible strength", and the game doesn't do enough to set that bar for us to combat those biases.

Obviously, we can't just remove all of the spells and force casters to use the same system everyone else does, so that means that we need to find ways to set those lower limits, bars that most players and DMs can't passively ignore. 4e solved this not just by nerfing casters, but also by rigidly dictating how strong martials should be, using superpowers and whatnot.


In other words, Martials can't just be strong, they have to be strong in ways that we can't understand. Anything less isn't enough, because we'll just accidentally nerf it into "realism" where we can.


As for anyone who wants a relatable Fighter...well, that's what levels 1-7 are for. Based on feedback from both WOTC and the forum, most tables rarely play past those levels, so it's not like they're losing out on anything anyway.

[strangebloke]

The problem is less acute than it was, but the non-casters' job is still to make big damage numbers happen and make skill checks to casters can save on spells. Moreover, means of accomplishing anything without spells have been cut back on - 3E-era feats weren't good or anything, but they were there. The amount of design space devoted to casters versus non-casters is arguably more uneven than ever.

3.5 martials only ended up with most of their content because so much of it was bad and needed to be replaced/updated.

But I digress, as the goal of this thread isn't to rehash edition wars again.

So this has been a really fruitful discussion overall even while we've meandered from the main point a lot. My biggest takeaway is that the problem fundamentally comes down to a few fixed issues.

1. Some people want to play really simple classes that can be played entirely out of the box with no knowledge of system mechanics, but designing classes this way leads to classes that inevitably get power crept by spellcasting and also fundamentally lack design options.

2. Any single option (like a subclass) that addresses this issue in part (like the BM or the Rune Knight) isn't ultimately going to have an impact on the general problem because of issue 1 and also because people want to have options in every subclasses.

3. Some people really want to play into a 'badass normal' archetype and certain spell like abilities can run contrary to that, like literally turning yourself invisible.

My Solution:

at any level, any class can replace the features they receive what are functionally "spells." We'll call them 'deeds.' (heaven forbid we call them powers) You take deeds at a given level, you get more deeds you can do. If you replace your class features for levels 1-5, you get to pick 1-2 of the normal 'deeds,' the ones that are comparable to a maneuver or something. You get a mighty deed, or another regular deed if you want. Then 11-16 is "heroic deeds," and 17-20 is "legendary deeds."

These abilities could be at-will, or could be tied to some resource like 'stamina' or whatever that you get back on a short rest.

This would solve a lot of issues, mostly how it can sometimes feel like you're nerfing your character if you muscle through a dead level like barbarian 9, and I don't think it would be that hard to balance the deeds. Sure they're at will abilities, but it'd be pretty easy to just say

Normal = cantrips
Mighty = 1st level spells
Heroic = 2nd level spells
Legendary = 3rd level spells

Or adjust everything up by one category if its a limited resource. Obviously there's a lot to fiddle with here, but at the very least I don't think you'd ever run into a scenario where taking all deeds would be advantageous. Stacking up on abilties that are effectively at-will and are centered on utility is never going to be an overpowered thing.

[Ralanr]

I mean, Rob Heinsoo, who was the lead designer for 4e, explicitly said in an interview that he had to go over designers' work and just stop them from making spellcasters (pointedly, Wizards) more awesome than martials. The issue is somehow very deep in the creators' minds, it's not exactly "what people really want".

I'm not exactly surprised by the creator bias. I do wish there was less of it.

But it's called Wizards of the Coast for a reason I suppose.

[Waazraath]

Ok, in more or less random order:

- I absolutely agree with Dr.Samurai that a normal knight or warrior should be playable in DnD, from level 1-20. It’s a legit, what do I say, iconic concept in fantasy literature. Knights always fought big fat dragons with only a lance, shield, sword and horse, without being able to walk on the air and whatnot. And we’ve seen, over the past editions, plenty of possible options. Give it a cohort (squire, damn appropriate – and part of this thread is on how powerful summoning is due to extra hp and actions!) or followers like fighters got in AD&D; give it aura’s, passive or active, defensive or offensive; just check the dragon shaman or marshal from 3.x, or some of the stances out of Tome of Battle; hell, check the entire ToB for the effets that the most non-magical diciplines gave (Stone Dragon, Iron Heart, Tiger Claw…); check AD&D skills & powers or combat & tactics for appropriate bonuses… or give ‘em more expertise, bonuses on shore and grapple, resistance to magic, better saves, have ‘em inspire allies with temporary hp (to stay closer to 5e), etc. The 'simple fighter just being really good in fighting' could and should exist next to more super hero or manga derived martials.

- I definitely do not agree with the example that OldTrees1 gives at the first page, that every character should be able to more through (filled) lava tunnels to reach a lair and fight in an active volcano. First, almost no classes can. Moon Druid, by wildshaping into a fire elemental, but besides that, your depending on either very rare spells that give fire immunity like Investiture of Flame, True Polymorph or Shapechange – but all of those are concentration, so failing a check means certain death, and unless you turn into something with blindsight you won’t be able to see through lava. No character easily walks/swims through it, most classes (including full casters) never will, and (thus) it’s my strong conviction this is not intened play, not even high level / tier 4 – not being submerged in lava, nor in other extremely weird environments. The high level adventures in the official modules don’t require high level spellcasting to survive or be able to partake in the adventure. Higher tiers of play are intended to mean bigger monsters and higher stakes, not a completely different game.

- For decades and decades (at least since the Rules Cyclopedia, which is the oldest edition I played, and barring 4e which is an outlier) the balance between casters and other classes has been: casters are more squishy, less AC, less hp, some editions also worse saving throws, and having a limited powerful (due sometimes risky) resource versus unlimited less powerful resources. This has been done pretty well (second edition, fifth), and pretty poorly (third edition, though toward the end of 3.5 they got it right again), but this is it. Given that this can work, I strongly oppose the view that a subclass like the champion has no place at the higher levels – though if at any place, it does fall apart there.

- Even in 3.5, rock bottom as far as caster/martial balance is concerned, it really didn’t have to be a problem (in my experience: it wasn’t in real play). Especially towards the end of the edition, there was plenty of splat to upgrade (for instance) a paladin (relative weak class in that edition) to a solid ‘tier 3’ (in 3.5 terminology, not in 5e! – meaning you could have cool character that was good in a lot of stuff, but you didn’t break the game), and there were plenty of interesting classes that could replace the (potenially broken) wizard or druid, and replacements for the spell categories that were problematic (summoning and polymorphing, for example, you got new spells where you simply summoned or polymoprhed in 1 specific creature, instead of having monster manual 1-5 to pick stuff from). And of course… if you wanted to play a wizard, you just could, and not pick the broken spells, which even an early wizard guides (LogicNinja’s Guid to Being Batman for example) already described as ‘just don’t pick these, they are broken and unfun’. But if people did pick them, that is what disrupted the game balance: more a social problem where people wanted to ‘be best’ instead of playing a fun game with some friends which requires a minimum of balance.

- I recently thrown some of my experiences towards these boards: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...2-early-tier-3 – From those, I don’t really see any problems, up to early tier 3 (5e terminology). Maybe if you have a subclass like champion or berserker you just “attack again”, as the title of the original post states, but as far as I can estimate, most fighter, monk, and rogue subclasses offer enough options, and would have done fine in these settings. It gets more difficult out of combat, I’m aware.

- In general, I think the game is very good as it is, also for martials. But it probably would be an improvement if you had both relative simple martials, half casters and full casters classes, and moderately complicated and very complicated class variants of those as well. The 3.5 warlock is a good example of a caster that is pretty easy to handle, while the ToB classes are good examples of complicated martials. In that way, people who like complicated builds and martial characters can have their fun.

[Sneak Dog]

- I definitely do not agree with the example that OldTrees1 gives at the first page, that every character should be able to more through (filled) lava tunnels to reach a lair and fight in an active volcano. First, almost no classes can. Moon Druid, by wildshaping into a fire elemental, but besides that, your depending on either very rare spells that give fire immunity like Investiture of Flame, True Polymorph or Shapechange – but all of those are concentration, so failing a check means certain death, and unless you turn into something with blindsight you won’t be able to see through lava. No character easily walks/swims through it, most classes (including full casters) never will, and (thus) it’s my strong conviction this is not intened play, not even high level / tier 4 – not being submerged in lava, nor in other extremely weird environments. The high level adventures in the official modules don’t require high level spellcasting to survive or be able to partake in the adventure. Higher tiers of play are intended to mean bigger monsters and higher stakes, not a completely different game.

- For decades and decades (at least since the Rules Cyclopedia, which is the oldest edition I played, and barring 4e which is an outlier) the balance between casters and other classes has been: casters are more squishy, less AC, less hp, some editions also worse saving throws, and having a limited powerful (due sometimes risky) resource versus unlimited less powerful resources. This has been done pretty well (second edition, fifth), and pretty poorly (third edition, though toward the end of 3.5 they got it right again), but this is it. Given that this can work, I strongly oppose the view that a subclass like the champion has no place at the higher levels – though if at any place, it does fall apart there.

Well, the wizard can teleport into the lair. Or cast shapechange, wish, move earth, several passwalls and probably some other shenanigans. Then the actual lair is probably outside of the lava, so stuff can be stored there, combat had, and concentration on the travel method dropped. Clerics can gate, might be able to earthquake or planar ally. Without spells though, you're mostly stuck being a level 6ish dude that can deal and take a lot more damage. Class features don't seem to be that high-impact, and your skills still get results at level 16 on the same scale as level 6.
So the wizard is playing a different game than the fighter. The wizard is now playing hide-and-seek with dragons in volcanos and multiple planes. The fighter is still climbing up rough (but not too steep) mountainsides and asking the village elder where that dang dragon flew off to now, because the fighter must've missed them.

Even if you do try to stick to dragons in conveniently accessible caves, the wizard will still warp the game from just walking through the woods, wandering through the hills to find the right mountain, walking up to the cave to initiate a fight, to teleporting to in front of the cave to initiate a fight and saving three weeks of travel time to and fro. Then getting a perfectly save and comfortable place to take a long rest in, as well as the supplies to do so. While the barbarian would still be rolling the same survival checks to not get lost and to forage and literally risk starving the entire game. As a wilderness survival specialist.
The game already changes between the tiers, whether you amp up the non-combat challenges or not. There's a lot of spells that deal with the existing challenges very nicely, which is good. It shows growth in a very tangible and statisfying manner for the spells' casters. Spells trivialising them also whispers to the GM to amp up the non-combat challenges :P

-

While 5e has some surprisingly solid combat balance between all classes, it still continues the trend of making casting spells more convenient. Less concentration checks, less ways to fail casting, more convenient to prepare spells. Moreover, the limited resource vs. infinite resource balance means the system must have a standard adventuring day, it must be clear what it is, and variance on it should be done with the knowledge that one class is better than the other in that situation. D&D 5e seems a little... vague on this? The 5 minute workday kills this kind of trade-off.
Though there I also have doubts. I feel like a fighter or barbarian might run out of their resources (HP) before a paladin or cleric, who have access to healing in the forms of spells and lay on hands. On top of the barbarian/fighter possibly having less nova damage and so less ability to alpha strike a big threat before it drains a lot of resources.

Let me check that real quick. Lets assume that if a paladin spells all their spell slots to deal damage, they've fine and balanced with a fighter damage-wise. They both have a d10 hit die. The fighter has second wind say 4 times for a total 4d10 + 4 x level extra health. The paladin's lay on hands is 5 x level extra health. Right, that's darn close, good job second wind! Yeah, 5e's combat balance is impressive.

[RandomPeasant]

That having been said, one thing 4E did that any serious attempt at accomplishing this thread's goal need to take into account is take martial characters seriously and stop giving casters preferential treatment. Everyone has their own list of powers and gets to use them. Whatever we think about the result, 5E goes right back to "awesome casters and their reliable sidekicks". The change of attitude is palpable.

By far the best idea 4e had for balancing martials and casters was Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. No more trying to figure out how a Fighter fight into an epic-level adventure, or trying to explain why the Fighter got a crazy PrC and the Wizard just kept being a Wizard. When you got an adventure that was appropriate for demigods, you got to be a Demigod, and that was it. The implementation left a good deal to be desired, but on a basic level that was the single best idea D&D has ever had for how to handle balance between archetypes.

Then there's out of combat utility, or the utter lack of it.

That has been the fundamental problem since at least 3e. The game needs an idea of what a Fighter or a Barbarian or a Swashbuckler is supposed to contribute outside combat once things like "strong-arm the guards" or "have connections in the criminal underworld" are no longer a big deal. And I think that needs to start with more robust designs for the non-combat aspects of the game.

But he isn't shooting laser beams out of his eyes.

But he is shooting lightning out of a hammer. You know, the exact thing that the Thor you didn't want martials turning into does. In fact, in this post you describe "throwing lightning" as a power you don't want martial characters having.

On that, I agree. I don't know how to fix that beyond more feats, and I do not like feat bloat.

The thing you need to do is start with a more robust idea of what non-combat challenges are supposed to be like, so that you can figure out what sorts of abilities martial characters need to have, so you can just write those abilities instead of throwing a thousand feats at the wall. Non-combat is typically an afterthought for D&D, and as a result things tend to get defined around the non-combat abilities that do exist (that is: spells), resulting in a combination of "spells break the game!", "non-combat abilities don't matter, the Wizard just casts the appropriate spell", and "you're just turning martials into casters".

Some people want to play really simple classes that can be played entirely out of the box with no knowledge of system mechanics, but designing classes this way leads to classes that inevitably get power crept by spellcasting and also fundamentally lack design options.

I don't think that's inherently true. Consider something like the 3e Warlock. Pretty much a maximally simple class. You pick abilities off a list, and then you can use them whenever you want. You can argue about the complexity of some of the individual abilities, but at its core it's one of the simplest classes the game provides. But it's got a reasonable set of options (in that there are a bunch of Invocations you can pick), and is not particularly vulnerable to power creep (it comes in at roughly the same relative ranking now that it did on release). You can build classes that are simple, extensible, and not especially vulnerable to power creep. The problem is that martial classes typically end up under-tuned as a kind of nerd revenge fantasy, and that the game as a whole has extremely lackluster balance tuning.

My Solution:

This is just a classless system with extra steps.

Stacking up on abilties that are effectively at-will and are centered on utility is never going to be an overpowered thing.

It is very easy for me to imagine circumstances in which that is the optimal strategy. If, for example, typical adventures involve long sequences of relatively weak encounters with few opportunities to rest, getting as many at-will powers as possible would be a clearly desirable strategy. Similarly, if the most difficult parts of adventuring are the ones that utility effects mitigate, deeds will be disproportionately powerful. There is simply nothing that "is never going to be an overpowered thing", and no substitutes for testing things properly.

I absolutely agree with Dr.Samurai that a normal knight or warrior should be playable in DnD, from level 1-20. It’s a legit, what do I say, iconic concept in fantasy literature.

And so is the guy who uses magic and also a sword. Which is a concept that inherently invalidates "I use a sword but not magic". There is simply no amount of good with Axes and Swords and Bows and Kamas and Lucerne Hammers and Whips that a mundane warrior can be that matches up to MCU Thor's ability to teleport through space, or even Kaladin's ability to fly. And I think it is not necessary or desirable to preserve that concept through all twenty levels. Not because it conflicts with things I like more, but I think on its own terms having characters like Aragorn or Conan as examples of 20th level play is simply a bad idea.

Consider Aragorn for a second. Imagine that we are designing 5.5e from scratch, with no constraint of existing material or the broader field of fantasy as a genre or D&D tradition or anything else that might conflict with choosing any particular level for Aragorn to be. Is it a good idea to make Aragorn a 20th level character? I would say no, and the primary reason for that is that Aragorn just doesn't do that much stuff. If Aragorn is a 20th level character, that means that (to a first approximation) a 10th level character is half of Aragorn and a 5th level character a quarter. Each level you gain gives you one twentieth of Aragorn's abilities. And that right there seems totally unworkable to me. How are you slicing what Aragorn does into twenty different chunks that are each individually worth getting as a whole level of advancement? Forget the question of "you get +1 to hit" versus "you can now stop time", is "you learn how to treat basic injuries with herbs to a reasonable degree of proficiency" enough of an ability to be worth while as your level's advancement even if it is as good as what other characters get at that level? Because I'm not convinced it is.

There's also the issue of looking within the source material itself. In Lord of the Rings, people don't advance that much. There are three moments I can think of off the top of my head that are clear "someone leveled up" things: Gandalf digivolving from "Grey" to "White", Merry and Pip getting the Ent brew, and Aragorn using his authority as the rightful king of Gondor to command some ghosts. There are probably some more you can dig up by doing a close reading of the text, but there's just not very much advancement happening in that story. And unlike the issue of parceling out abilities, this is a thing for high-power characters too. If you look at the average superhero story, outside of origin stories, they typically don't involve the protagonist getting any stronger. The hero may learn an important personal or moral lesson of some sort, but Peter Parker doesn't walk out of a fight with Doc Ock with a new set of powers he acquired when he got bitten by a radioactive stick bug.

There are certainly characters that progress dramatically over the course of their stories. But those characters also change dramatically. Lindon is unrecognizably different at the end of Bloodline from what he was at the start of Unsouled. Over the course of A Practical Guide to Evil, Cat has gained and lost a variety of personal powers any one of which would have been enough to completely trivialize the problems she faced at the start of her story. That kind of "zero to hero" progression is something D&D tries to model, but if what you want is a character who starts out "skilled human" and ends up "skilled human", there's no real reason to have twenty levels of progression. Any ability that is appropriate for what you are at 20th level (a skilled human) was appropriate for what you were at 1st level (a skilled human), and the idea that you can have it now but not then is just forcing you to spend the majority of the game without abilities that are important to your character concept, which is not a good thing!

The 'simple fighter just being really good in fighting' could and should exist next to more super hero or manga derived martials.

How. Explain this to me. What is "badass normal" supposed to do next to "space god" that justifies his existence as a co-equal member of the party? It's not like the MCU, where there's a guy with a bow and arrow and you might as well have him fight some crime because it's not like turning him away does any good. In D&D, showing up with Hawkeye means the group has one less Thor or Hulk or Iron Man or Doctor Strange or Captain Marvel or Scarlet Witch at its disposal. How is that tradeoff supposed to be justifiable without a total disassociation between fluff and mechanics?

The high level adventures in the official modules don’t require high level spellcasting to survive or be able to partake in the adventure. Higher tiers of play are intended to mean bigger monsters and higher stakes, not a completely different game.

And this is exactly what I mean when I say that the effects of high level martials are best understood as a kind of negative space. High level adventures should send you to crazy environments that are filled with lava or where it rains acid or where it's been winter for a thousand years. Those are cool environments, and they exist in fantasy stories. But as long as the game insists that "mundane sword guy" must be a viable 20th level character, those stories and settings can't be a part of D&D and instead high level play can only be "low level play but bigger", which I personally consider to be a waste of time for all involved.

But it probably would be an improvement if you had both relative simple martials, half casters and full casters classes, and moderately complicated and very complicated class variants of those as well.

This much is certainly true. The game absolutely should have both simple and complicated characters on both sides of the martial/caster divide. That's a good thing, and not something that has historically been done very well.

[Kane0]

I think the underlying desire is that martial powers are to be relatively straightforward and believable, which might limit the straight up fantastical things we might want to put in (at least as the default, we can have a range of options).
So, with that in mind.

KISS Martial Prowess
Characters/classes that get access to Martial Prowess choose a number of abilities equal to their proficiency bonus, and can swap them around during a long rest for any others they meet the requirements for. (The idea here is to remain as flexible as possible and not lock a martial into a particular preferred method like fighting styles and feats currently do).
Some features give access to additional powers, for example the Champion's Remarkable Athelte might apply to powers known, and a feat might grant 'expertise' in Martial Prowess. Other features might allow you to exchange one or more martial powers faster such as during a short rest or by using an action.

Some example powers:

(Athletics proficiency, Prof bonus +2): Your shoves push up to 10' instead of 5'
(Shield proficiency, Prof bonus +3): You provide 3/4 cover instead of 1/2 cover, which extends out to a 15' cone directly behind you when subject to area of effect attacks, spells and abilities
(STR save proficiency, Prof bonus +3): You can attempt to escape a Grapple or effect such as Web using a Bonus action instead of an action
(Thrown weapon proficiency, Prof bonus +2): Ranged attacks you make with a thrown weapon that miss continue in a straight line out to their maximum range or until they strike a surface or creature, keeping the original attack roll
(Ammunition weapon proficiency, Prof Bonus +4): Your ranged weapon attacks ignore the effects of wind conditions, including spells such as Warding Wind and Wind Wall
(Bludgeoning weapon proficiency, Prof Bonus +5): Your melee weapon attacks are able to target and destroy magical force effects such as Wall of Force and Forcecage

And so on.

Might have to be careful about overlap with fighting styles and feats but honestly I think it's OK if these mostly supplant things like GWM and CBE so martials can take other interesting things like Alert and Ritual Caster without feeling like their primary function (combat performance) will be affected.

[Man_Over_Game]

By far the best idea 4e had for balancing martials and casters was Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. No more trying to figure out how a Fighter fight into an epic-level adventure, or trying to explain why the Fighter got a crazy PrC and the Wizard just kept being a Wizard. When you got an adventure that was appropriate for demigods, you got to be a Demigod, and that was it. The implementation left a good deal to be desired, but on a basic level that was the single best idea D&D has ever had for how to handle balance between archetypes.

One thing mentioned earlier in the thread is the fact that people will accidentally nerf relatable characters simply based on the fact that they're relatable. People think "That's something I could see a normal Human doing" and immediately think the character is doing something humanly possible, rather than inhumanly possible. Take the fact that 5e is pretty hands-off when it comes to a lot of these elements, like skills, and you end up in a situation where an impossible 30 on a skill check at level 20 duplicates something Rambo might try doing...in a fight against space wizards.

Wizards, druids and the such never really had this problem, since spells are kinda rigid. Not only are the rules for those abilities well-defined, but we can't really relate to them. Our physics don't work, our understanding of energy doesn't work, so spells do exactly what they say on the tin. And since they regularly have these rigid mechanics, there isn't much your DM or his bias can really do to change the power level of casters (without adding a ton of houserules into the equation).

4e's modification of martials with Epic and Paragon paths was perfect, since it not only explained how those previously-relatable characters are now things we cannot fathom, while also adding rigid rules in place to force their power level to be stuck at a certain level. No matter how "normal" you think a Fighter is, it has to be this superpowered in order to continue the game and keep up with the rest of the roster. And maybe he's a master at fairly relatable things, like superhuman speed or superhuman strength or superhuman willpower, but they all require a level of superhumanity that separates the character from our expectations of another random knight.

By not allowing that character to stay relatable, they can break our expectations and become something more. If we ever want Martials to be considered as relevant as most casters at high level play, I think that's what needs to happen.

Frankly, I think Thor is a bit too relatable for what I'd expect of a level 20 character to be. He shoots lightning, can fly, and has super strength, all feats that a Wizard could accomplish by level 5. We need to think bigger.

A level 20 character can resurrect anyone by just knowing their name. They can teleport to another plane of existence 4 times in the same day. They can grant someone any wish their heart desires, or seal someone in a prison that they could never escape without outside influence.

And casters are more versatile than martials, so martials should be a bit more to compensate for the specialization, right?

My point is, we need to think bigger. When a level 20 Fighter is capable of rending space-time in half to create a portal to another universe 5 times a day, once more than a Wizard, I think we've gone far enough.

[strangebloke]

I don't think that's inherently true. Consider something like the 3e Warlock. Pretty much a maximally simple class. You pick abilities off a list, and then you can use them whenever you want. You can argue about the complexity of some of the individual abilities, but at its core it's one of the simplest classes the game provides. But it's got a reasonable set of options (in that there are a bunch of Invocations you can pick), and is not particularly vulnerable to power creep (it comes in at roughly the same relative ranking now that it did on release). You can build classes that are simple, extensible, and not especially vulnerable to power creep. The problem is that martial classes typically end up under-tuned as a kind of nerd revenge fantasy, and that the game as a whole has extremely lackluster balance tuning.

>repeatedly tells me I know nothing about 3.5
>tells me 3.5 warlock is a good example of a simple class outpacing spellcasters

...what?

This is just a classless system with extra steps.

It is very easy for me to imagine circumstances in which that is the optimal strategy. If, for example, typical adventures involve long sequences of relatively weak encounters with few opportunities to rest, getting as many at-will powers as possible would be a clearly desirable strategy. Similarly, if the most difficult parts of adventuring are the ones that utility effects mitigate, deeds will be disproportionately powerful. There is simply nothing that "is never going to be an overpowered thing", and no substitutes for testing things properly.

A scenario where there's a huge number of encounters per day such that at-will abilities outpace all other (including short rest) abilities seems well outside the realm of any kind of play that I've ever heard of.

But sure, I didn't mean to imply that there wouldn't need to be Q&A and balance testing. It certainly isn't a classless system, its just a pool of features that every class pull from. Like, you know. Feats.

[Psyren]

In D&D, showing up with Hawkeye means the group has one less Thor or Hulk or Iron Man or Doctor Strange or Captain Marvel or Scarlet Witch at its disposal.

Where does this logic end? Showing up with Hulk also means one less Scarlet Witch. Showing up with a Duskblade means one less Wizard. Showing up with a Wizard means one less Pun-Pun. Why even bother playing anything below T0?

[strangebloke]

Frankly, I think Thor is a bit too relatable for what I'd expect of a level 20 character to be. He shoots lightning, can fly, and has super strength, all feats that a Wizard could accomplish by level 5. We need to think bigger.

A level 20 character can resurrect anyone by just knowing their name. They can teleport to another plane of existence 4 times in the same day. They can grant someone any wish their heart desires, or seal someone in a prison that they could never escape without outside influence.

And casters are more versatile than martials, so martials should be a bit more to compensate for the specialization, right?

My point is, we need to think bigger. When a level 20 Fighter is capable of rending space-time in half to create a portal to another universe 5 times a day, once more than a Wizard, I think we've gone far enough.

It's a tired discussion, but party bus mechanics like resurrect and teleport and plane shift are overrated in terms of their importance to gameplay. I will see people playing a cleric because the party needs someone to res, but I also see parties just blithely ignoring that and finding a res somewhere else if they need it. I don't think that fighters need to have the same tricks as wizards or clerics to be equal, I'd rather they had their own abilities.

Currently the various martials have niches to some extent, at least within t2 and the early parts of t3. Monks are excellent at lockdown and consistency. Fighters are excellent at single target damage or alternately can have good single target damage but can also be incredibly durable and have lots of utility. Rogues are utility monsters, particularly the few really good subclasses, and also have really high single target damage.

IMO you could extend this relatively balance state a lot further if you cut down certain options that allow casters to cut into martials' niche (bladesinger and hexblade and BB and shadow blade) get rid of some of the more ridiculous high-end stuff (forget simulacrum: force cage type things are what really grinds my gears.) and then ALSO give martials a flexible system that allows them to increase in power as the game goes on.

See above for my take on that.

[OldTrees1]

- I definitely do not agree with the example that OldTrees1 gives at the first page, that every character should be able to more through (filled) lava tunnels to reach a lair and fight in an active volcano. First, almost no classes can. Moon Druid, by wildshaping into a fire elemental, but besides that, your depending on either very rare spells that give fire immunity like Investiture of Flame, True Polymorph or Shapechange – but all of those are concentration, so failing a check means certain death, and unless you turn into something with blindsight you won’t be able to see through lava. No character easily walks/swims through it, most classes (including full casters) never will, and (thus) it’s my strong conviction this is not intened play, not even high level / tier 4 – not being submerged in lava, nor in other extremely weird environments. The high level adventures in the official modules don’t require high level spellcasting to survive or be able to partake in the adventure. Higher tiers of play are intended to mean bigger monsters and higher stakes, not a completely different game.

I did not say the characters should necessarily be able to move through (filled) lava tunnels. I was expecting a 20th level knight mining a lava free tunnel or having another solution to the situation. I am expecting the character to have a solution. Not necessarily the obvious solution. If D&D has lava swimming Red Dragons, then I expect the characters to have valid solutions.

On the other hand I don't want high level monsters to need to follow "play nice and die for the PCs" etiquette rules. If a dragon can swim in lava, they might eventually start swimming in lava. If 20th level is too low for the Red Dragon to use lava filled tunnels, then should they be CR 30 or CR 40 instead?

Please don't decide to nerf Martials. This is Dungeons and Dragons. While it covers a lot of territory, there are high level dungeon environments and high level dragons to consider as part of the game premise.

PS: There is a lava swimming Young Red Dragon in a Tier 3 official module (the party is around 13th-15th level towards the end of the hardcover). Although surprisingly the dragon is scripted to land on solid ground (for no good reason) rather than use the lake of lava.

[strangebloke]

I did not say the characters should necessarily be able to move through (filled) lava tunnels. I was expecting a 20th level knight mining a lava free tunnel or having another solution to the situation. I am expecting the character to have a solution. Not necessarily the obvious solution. If D&D has lava swimming Red Dragons, then I expect the characters to have valid solutions.

On the other hand I don't want high level monsters to need to follow "play nice and die for the PCs" etiquette rules. If a dragon can swim in lava, they might eventually start swimming in lava. If 20th level is too low for the Red Dragon to use lava filled tunnels, then should they be CR 30 or CR 40 instead?

Please don't decide to nerf Martials.

PS: There is a lava swimming Young Red Dragon in a Tier 3 official module (the party is around 13th-15th level towards the end of the hardcover). Although surprisingly the dragon is scripted to land on solid ground (for no good reason) rather than use the lake of lava.

once again I feel the need to say that the fighter doesn't need to be able to do this, not alone anyway. There just need to be niches for the fighter to operate in on their own merits.

[OldTrees1]

once again I feel the need to say that the fighter doesn't need to be able to do this, not alone anyway. There just need to be niches for the fighter to operate in on their own merits.

In 3E there were several books (the Complete X series) that talked about parties of all _____s. I think it is reasonable to expect the game could handle parties that do not have stereotypical class quotas.

If fighters have high level niches and can still solve these high level obstacles, then I don't really mind if the solution is something external that they have control over (see your "resurrections at local temple" example) rather than something internal they have control over. Just so long as it is not something external that they don't have control over.

However I don't want class quotas. So I am biased towards the classes being self sufficient with regards to engaging in the obstacles of high level. However I would be willing to reconsider after I see the niches you find for the high level characters. Maybe you could convince me.

[strangebloke]

In 3E there were several books (the Complete X series) that talked about parties of all _____s. I think it is reasonable to expect the game could handle parties that do not have stereotypical class quotas.

If fighters have high level niches and can still solve these high level obstacles. Then I don't really mind if the solution is something external that they have control over (see your "resurrections at local temple" example) rather than something internal they have control over.

However I don't want class quotas.

I think the reasonable goal would be to have several possible classes with solutions so that the requirement becomes more like "at least one wizard/cleric/artificer/druid or its going to be harder" rather than "have two wizards or get a weaker encounter."

and ideally there would be other situations that require (or are at least made easier) by a martial. But that's harder to achieve within the current design space because so much has been given over to the realm of the casters.

[Ignimortis]

once again I feel the need to say that the fighter doesn't need to be able to do this, not alone anyway. There just need to be niches for the fighter to operate in on their own merits.

And here we come to the other end of the martial-caster problem. For there to be niches, casters need to be unable to do everything in the game and beyond. In turn, that means: 1) less spell changing every day, potentially remaining as a Wizard feature only 2) far more constricted spell lists that depend more upon smaller choices: rather than "cleric spell", something should be "war cleric spell" or "nature cleric spell", and there should be very little overlap 3) drop Wish and other open-ended spells that end up doing anything you want.

For example, I can count universal cleric spells on one hand: Guidance, Bless, Bane (divine favor/disfavor is easy enough), Cure OR Inflict Wounds, Revivify (but not Raise Dead/Resurrection). Everything else should probably be locked behind domains — war cleric might not get damaging cantrips to encourage weapon use, even.

[OldTrees1]

I think the reasonable goal would be to have several possible classes with solutions so that the requirement becomes more like "at least one wizard/cleric/artificer/druid or its going to be harder" rather than "have two wizards or get a weaker encounter."

and ideally there would be other situations that require (or are at least made easier) by a martial. But that's harder to achieve within the current design space because so much has been given over to the realm of the casters.

This, especially the "or it is going to be harder" rather than the "or someone make one or else I have to replace it with a qualitatively weaker encounter".

If this is your goal, then even a failed attempt would be a welcome improvement.

[Aimeryan]

To be fair, 5e did still nerf casters to some extent, and now martial characters at higher levels are still good at their main job of dealing damage and soaking it. 4 to 12 attacks in one turn from a level 20 fighter is nothing to sneeze at.

The main problem with martial characters is just the lack of options in them doing anything else. Caster's main draw is their wide breath of options, but they don't really feel like they're lacking in anything with those options. Even if you argue that blasting at higher levels is weaker, it's still effective at hindering large groups of enemies. Meanwhile the fighter can hit at most, 12 (or more if samurai) targets by attacking them one at a time. And every other martial is limited to just hitting two because of how extra attack works.

Then there's out of combat utility, or the utter lack of it.

As you mention, martial power is not in and of itself a problem - if, for example:

• martials did 10 damage a round
• martials had 100 health
• tough solo enemies did 20 damage a round, while weaker multiple enemies did less
• tough solo enemies had 50 health, while weaker multiple enemies had less
• martials just attacked
• enemies just attacked
• everything was in melee range

Well, martials would cope without issue, especially with four of them. If the casters ended up doing more damage per round than the martials, this still wouldn't change. What would change is the disparity between the two, which would lead to people likely to complain, even though the martials would be coping.

The real issue here is just how boring this is. Yes, is. Not 'would be', is. The numbers might be different, but the situation is largely the same in 5e as the one presented here. The casters don't necessarily do more damage a round (and even if/when they do it is highly limited), but what they do is be more interesting, more fun. However, the encounters themselves are not that interesting in 5e compared to previous editions (I haven't played 4e, looking mostly at 3.5e here). The reason for this is that 5e has successfully made martials cope at high levels - by largely removing all the stuff that martials couldn't handle, and thus all the interesting stuff that casters could.

So, my issue with martials in 5e is that they drag down the potential of the higher tiers of play, which is probably one of the reasons people don't bother to play at the higher tiers - nothing changes from the lower tiers and they get bored; might as well wrap up the campaign and start something fresh.

If WotC are not going to make martials more interesting at higher tiers, then I would at least prefer they cap them at level 10 and out right state they are not suited for higher tier play. Then add back in the interesting stuff at higher tiers.

[Pex]

Warriors do not need to cut a hole in reality to travel to another part of the world or another plane. Spellcasters are entitled to be able to do their own thing. What warriors needs are equivalent Wow Cool Things. The trouble is defining and agreeing to what those Wow Cool Things are. Some people vehemently object to anything that's "magical". Other people say it's absolutely necessary as a definition of being a Wow Cool Thing, including saying yes, the warrior should be able to cut a hole in reality for traveling. It is at least agreed in defining what is magical it doesn't have to be a spell. In previous threads everyone agrees warriors should get Wow Cool Things that are not combat related. However, some people don't want those Wow Cool Things to be class features so that warrior builds can get Wow Cool Combat Things and are happy for character features to give the Wow Cool Non-Combat Things, such as backgrounds and skills using 5E vernacular. Other people absolutely want a class feature power button to push that gives the warrior Wow Cool Non-Combat Things.

That is where we are. Without agreement on what a Wow Cool Thing should be in effect and game mechanics the so called problem of martial power will never be satisfied.

[Aimeryan]

That is where we are. Without agreement on what a Wow Cool Thing should be in effect and game mechanics the so called problem of martial power will never be satisfied.

To be fair, this the developers job, not ours. We can say what isn't working, but we don't need to provide the solution - that is not our job. We can say what we would like, but we don't need to provide the solution on how to get there. If the developer cannot or will not come up with a solution then our job is to either keep on giving feedback until they do, move on, or settle - some of us will still go out of our way to provide solutions, but it still is not our job.

[OldTrees1]

That is where we are. Without agreement on what a Wow Cool Thing should be in effect and game mechanics the so called problem of martial power will never be satisfied.

However, what if the players had the option to choose between those "Wow Cool Thing" paradigms without conflicting with another choice they cared about?

For example if an RPG had a Wizard class, and a Dread Necromancer class, then I could choose the Dread Necromancer class for my necromancer character.

[Ignimortis]

However, what if the players had the option to choose between those "Wow Cool Thing" paradigms without conflicting with another choice they cared about?

For example if an RPG had a Wizard class, and a Dread Necromancer class, then I could choose the Dread Necromancer class for my necromancer character.

And the Dread Necromancer shouldn't be actively worse than the Wizard or any other class at necromancy, too. The Dread Necromancer should be the best there is to do necromancy, or at least only rivaled by other classes which make necromancy their schtick (why are there more than one, though?).