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

[OldTrees1]

If the DM and the players are aligned, there are no barriers. You're stuck in the "must have a class feature to do X" (ie button-based) mode of thinking. But class features are only a tiny fraction of the capabilities of the PC. As I mentioned, if the DM and the players are aligned there are other ways available.

And encoding these capabilities in the classes themselves means that all adventures past the threshold point have to include those elements or you're wasting class features (CF the ranger and the hate it gets for not always involving the favored foe/terrain).

I don't think I specified it must be a class feature button. I specified it should be a player controlled character capability. I think most of my examples were mundane equipment + ability checks + player predictive knowledge about the limits of ability checks + the limits of ability checks scaling in a meaningful way to have level appropriate outcomes.

Encoding capabilities into the classes does not mean all adventures need to include those elements. Just don't have huge niche class features. Small niche class features can be accompanied by large general class features. Versatile features can be applicable in niches and outside of niches. The world doesn't flood merely because the Barbarian realizes they can hold their breath underwater.

And I've said that I'm in favor of moving all of those "taxi" and "utility" options (or at least the broader-scope ones) to non-spell options for everyone. What I don't want is every class being mandated to include the full panoply of taxi-driving abilities and utility options in the framework, just because one class currently has a monopoly. Doing that leads to (justified) claims of "well, he can do <X> and I can't, so I should be able to do <X>" and the end result is that all classes are just the same thing with different colored explosions and animations.

---

To be perfectly clear--my favored "solution" would be several-fold.
1) Remove all generalists entirely. This means breaking the wizard and cleric classes (especially) into much smaller pieces or locking most of their spell lists behind sub-class barriers, as well as trimming the spell lists to remove spells that do many things. Spell-casters should have a bunch of uni-tasker spells, each one powerful but limited in scope.
2) Add in both non-combat and combat-related "cool things" to those classes now lacking them.
3) Move most of the pieces that were once in spells into "incantations" (ie actual rituals) that anyone can access.
4) Define clear "magic cannot ..." and "only magic can ..." parameters.[1]

[1] hypothetical thought experiment--what if your ability to use magic items were inversely proportional to your ability to cast spells. So a full-caster could not attune to any items and could only use consumables, while a non-caster wouldn't have an attunement limit at all. Alternate one--what if all spells were temporary, including damage ones? So you could KO someone with magic, but they'd come back to life unless you thoroughly sworded them first. You could raise someone from the dead, but it'd only last for a while. You could teleport, but you'd "snap back" after a certain time. Etc. These are all totally hypothetical, but the idea remains. There has to be some limits on magic, otherwise there's no way to have any kind of balance. You can never have balance between "unbounded" and "bounded".

I think your position of moving taxi and broad utility effects to non-spell options for everyone is a solid position.

1) The AD&D Bard (and later incarnations), Chameleon, and Factotum imply that there are players that will want a generalist character. I think you can remove generalist classes and still satisfy those players.
2) Yup.
3) That is a good enough place for some of the taxi/broad utility effects. For verisimilitude we might still want scaffolding for the non magical solutions. For example a pickaxe.
4) I like this but it will be a tough sell.

[Kane0]

Pretty much the entire debate comes down to whether the solution is to "nerf casters" or to "buff martials" and then also down to what a theoretical buff to martials would even look like.

Personally, my goal in starting the thread wasn't to talk about a balance fix, it was to talk about making martials more interesting. But obviously that flows into talking about balance.

Not balance, feel. Many are just fine with hitting things each turn, and if they want to try something interesting they'll ad hoc something with the DM. Whether that is a conscious decision on their part is and always will be undetermined.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I don't think I specified it must be a class feature button. I specified it should be a player controlled character capability. I think most of my examples were mundane equipment + ability checks + player predictive knowledge about the limits of ability checks + the limits of ability checks scaling in a meaningful way to have level appropriate outcomes.

Encoding capabilities into the classes does not mean all adventures need to include those elements. Just don't have huge niche class features. Small niche class features can be accompanied by large general class features. Versatile features can be applicable in niches and outside of niches. The world doesn't flood merely because the Barbarian realizes they can hold their breath underwater.

I don't understand why you think that ability checks don't scale--the scaling is entirely up to the table and DM. A DC 30 check can already (by stock) move an immovable rod. There's plenty of room there. And if you say that "ok, a Super Wisdom(Medicine) Ability Check(tm, OC don't steal) can raise the dead", then you'll have complaints that, well, a cleric can do it without needing the check and just spending a spell slot. So unless these !spells are just as powerful and reliable and versatile as the spell equivalents (in which case they should just be spells, to reduce duplication), the issue will still remain. That's the way you get homogenization.

By any accounts, teleport and planeshift and raise dead are all major niche features. They either solve the issue entirely or they aren't useful at all. So either they come up...or they're a dead level. Or, we realize that really they're not so big a deal after all and it's fine if only some people can do them as long as there are other ways to get there and the DM doesn't hard-lock to a specific solution. Which is what I see most of the time--DMs have this real hard mentality that only magic can do cool things, and magic === spells. So the only way to solve anything above level 5 or so is to cast a spell.

[Dr.Samurai]

Pretty much the entire debate comes down to whether the solution is to "nerf casters" or to "buff martials" and then also down to what a theoretical buff to martials would even look like.

Personally, my goal in starting the thread wasn't to talk about a balance fix, it was to talk about making martials more interesting. But obviously that flows into talking about balance.

Hopefully my thoughts here are more in line with what you're asking for.

I think martials can easily have save-or-suck features, whether it's a straight up SoD like Decapitate or Heartstrike, or something like Dismember where they chop off a tentacle or beholder eyestalk. I think grappling can include things like sleeper holds or choke holds so you're not just immobilizing someone but over time you can put them to sleep or kill them. This isn't that different to Sleep spell+Coup de grace of earlier editions.

I think emptying out a waterskin and using it as a bladder to draw air from is a great way of staying underwater longer. So a martial in D&D can hold their breath for a very long time already, and then top off when they're reaching their limit to reset the count.

Summons and Planar Ally effects can be replicated by having squires/followers (something similar to the Leadership feat in that it doesn't necessarily have to be a normal human mercenary). Some detection can be replicated by a basic dog, which can be improved with magical creatures.

As alluded to before, using a shield protects you from AoEs and magical rays. Like straight up protects you with a miss chance or resistance or something that has a stark impact.

Before anyone balks at this I recognize it is on the lower end of the AMAZING spectrum. But that's where my thoughts start. Anyone is free to go way beyond this but the point I want to make is that even within my own limited concept of badass normal there are improvements that can be made. It is self-evident to us that wizards can do any and all of these things through spells, but martials should be able to as well with more mundane versions.

Anyway, won't have access for a bit so will add more if I think of anything.

[OldTrees1]

I don't understand why you think that ability checks don't scale--the scaling is entirely up to the table and DM. A DC 30 check can already (by stock) move an immovable rod. There's plenty of room there. And if you say that "ok, a Super Wisdom(Medicine) Ability Check(tm, OC don't steal) can raise the dead", then you'll have complaints that, well, a cleric can do it without needing the check and just spending a spell slot. So unless these !spells are just as powerful and reliable and versatile as the spell equivalents (in which case they should just be spells, to reduce duplication), the issue will still remain. That's the way you get homogenization.

By any accounts, teleport and planeshift and raise dead are all major niche features. They either solve the issue entirely or they aren't useful at all. So either they come up...or they're a dead level. Or, we realize that really they're not so big a deal after all and it's fine if only some people can do them as long as there are other ways to get there and the DM doesn't hard-lock to a specific solution. Which is what I see most of the time--DMs have this real hard mentality that only magic can do cool things, and magic === spells. So the only way to solve anything above level 5 or so is to cast a spell.

I hope you saw the rest of my post. I edited it a bit talking about your good idea of moving taxi and broad utility abilities.


Ability check scaling is effected by how much the modifier scales relative to the size of the RNG. I do not have the ability to reject IRL reality, so I can pin ability checks at the strength I want for level X but I can't really control their scaling for lower/higher levels without rewriting the math (rewriting the math is certainly an option on the table). However this particular discussion point does not need to derail the thread.

[Pex]

I don't understand why you think that ability checks don't scale--the scaling is entirely up to the table and DM. A DC 30 check can already (by stock) move an immovable rod. There's plenty of room there. And if you say that "ok, a Super Wisdom(Medicine) Ability Check(tm, OC don't steal) can raise the dead", then you'll have complaints that, well, a cleric can do it without needing the check and just spending a spell slot. So unless these !spells are just as powerful and reliable and versatile as the spell equivalents (in which case they should just be spells, to reduce duplication), the issue will still remain. That's the way you get homogenization.

By any accounts, teleport and planeshift and raise dead are all major niche features. They either solve the issue entirely or they aren't useful at all. So either they come up...or they're a dead level. Or, we realize that really they're not so big a deal after all and it's fine if only some people can do them as long as there are other ways to get there and the DM doesn't hard-lock to a specific solution. Which is what I see most of the time--DMs have this real hard mentality that only magic can do cool things, and magic === spells. So the only way to solve anything above level 5 or so is to cast a spell.

Which is why it would be helpful if the game offered the DM guidelines and examples to follow instead of leaving it all up to the DM fiat. Show the DM how things can be done without casting a spell. Give examples. Give DCs. Of course the game couldn't possibly account for every possible scenario, but examples provide a frame of reference for a DM to extrapolate.

I didn't promise for this thread.

[Psyren]

Would you allow a player at your table to play a Commoner, if that was what they really wanted to play? What about a Truenamer who was insufficiently optimized to be able to use any of their abilities on level-appropriate opposition? Or a 5th level character in a 15th level party? "You must play a character that is appropriate for the game you are playing in" is not some bizarre position, nor is it a slippery slope that inevitably leads to everyone playing only the most powerful character possible in the system. It's a basic tenet of how TTRPGs work, and when you apply it in ways like "no, you can't play Pun-Pun in a 5th level adventure just because you can build that on 5 levels worth of abilities" or "no, you can't play a Solar Exalted in our Shadowrun game, those don't exist in the setting at all", no one bats an eye. But for some reason, the idea that there could be any concept in D&D that any D&D adventures scale past causes a certain segment of the fanbase to lose it and demand that the offending adventures be excised from D&D entirely so that they can continue writing "20" on their character sheet while playing a mundane warrior. And then they turn around and don't play at high level anyway.

See, I'm with you until you get to "and therefore, your rogue 20 or fighter 20 is inappropriate to a game with a wizard 20 or cleric 20." They're not equals, but they can play alongside each other and all contribute to the group's success. Sure a mechanic like WBL or Bounded Accuracy is a big part of that, but as long as the game works and has both accessibility and depth, that's all I care about.

The game should not collapse because the party showed up with a Sorcerer, a Wizard, a Bard, and a Cleric. It should also not collapse because the party showed up with a Fighter, a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Rogue. Ideally it should function at least okay if the party is two Wizards and two Clerics, though at the limit that becomes unsustainable. That means a couple of things that are a really hard sell for some people.

First, it means that martial classes need to have abilities that let them engage with high level adventures. The Paladin doesn't need to get "literally plane shift", or even any plane shift-alike at all. But someone in the second party does, or we need to explicitly have a paradigm where plane shift is not an ability that it matters if you have.

Second, it means that characters need to have a fairly large range of problems they can solve. Not necessarily as many as the Wizard and friends, but much closer to them than any other published class. To a first approximation, if every class provides a tool that solves half of the problems that exist, that means that a party that has not been specifically optimized to ensure good coverage of the problem space has better than 5% chance of having no solution for a given problem.

To me, what all that says is that when we approach the problem of balancing the martials in this context, we need to think about it less in terms of reducing the number of options casters have, and more in terms of deepening the way non-combat encounters work so that multiple characters can have viable solutions to each problem the party faces. After all, no one complains that characters "do too much" when they have viable actions to take in a variety of combat encounters, because the gameplay of combat is deep enough that different characters can contribute in different ways.

"Party can engage with planar campaign because they have plane shift" vs. "Party doesn't have plane shift and therefore can't" (or whatever other game-changing power) is a false dichotomy. For starters, you can introduce those elements to a campaign regardless of the party - have them find and use planar portals from the PHB, or pay for spellcasting services etc. You can still enforce limitations or consequences for a party who doesn't having those abilities, but you don't have to slam your books shut and tell everyone to reroll or get out. Homogenizing every class is not the solution.

[Morty]

Pretty much the entire debate comes down to whether the solution is to "nerf casters" or to "buff martials" and then also down to what a theoretical buff to martials would even look like.

Personally, my goal in starting the thread wasn't to talk about a balance fix, it was to talk about making martials more interesting. But obviously that flows into talking about balance.

I agree in broad terms, if not necessarily on the particulars. This is less an issue of power, as such, and more about agency and versatility. Non-spellcasters need to be able to do more on their own, instead of waiting for casters to do the important things until it's time to break something. Or, if they do that, they need to at least take centre stage when breaking things. As I always say, D&D fighters and barbarians sacrifice non-combat utility for martial prowess, but they don't get their money's worth.

And my opinion regarding the first paragraph is "both", but also that "buff this, nerf that" might be the wrong way to go about it. If D&D were to actually solve this problem (which it won't), it would require some rethinking instead of just adjusting what's already here.

[Xervous]

If the DM and the players are aligned, there are no barriers.

What aligns the DM and players? It’s certainly not the system from what we’ve seen. Does that leave us with coincidence and GM having the idea in the first place?

[Man_Over_Game]

See, I'm with you until you get to "and therefore, your rogue 20 or fighter 20 is inappropriate to a game with a wizard 20 or cleric 20." They're not equals, but they can play alongside each other and all contribute to the group's success. Sure a mechanic like WBL or Bounded Accuracy is a big part of that, but as long as the game works and has both accessibility and depth, that's all I care about.

So if Fighters and Rogues had capabilities that rivaled the utility of casters, you wouldn't care? I don't mean to be making assumptions, but it sounds like your requirements for having fun are a bit less rigid than other folks on here, so there's still a lot of room for everyone to be happy.

I agree in broad terms, if not necessarily on the particulars. This is less an issue of power, as such, and more about agency and versatility. Non-spellcasters need to be able to do more on their own, instead of waiting for casters to do the important things until it's time to break something. Or, if they do that, they need to at least take centre stage when breaking things. As I always say, D&D fighters and barbarians sacrifice non-combat utility for martial prowess, but they don't get their money's worth.

I do think that we should stray away from the idea that a class shouldn't be balanced around a combat/non-combat ratio. It doesn't benefit anyone to make Barbarians overpowered and then have them be about as useful as a generic NPC in town. Me dealing a bunch of damage with weapons doesn't synergize or subtract from my ability to interact with the world in a unique way.

It doesn't really benefit anyone to maintain the mentality that combat and noncombat abilities should be pulled from the same pool, because they rarely interact. Instead of designing classes around 70% of combat and 30% of non-combat (so that you're only having 30% of your possible fun when out of combat), we could enjoy a class that was 100% combat and 100% non-combat, having the most amount of fun at all times. You're rarely doing both Combat and Non-Combat abilities at the same time, so a player is never actually getting that 100%, so we'll just end up in situations where Barbarians are bored out of combat 70% of the time.

I think the solution is either to make it so that every combat feature functions as a non-combat feature (like FATE does, good luck with that), or make them mutually exclusive where each character gets roughly the same amount of value of both categories.

4e tried the second one, where everyone got roughly the same value of combat and noncombat features, they just kinda forgot to add enough roleplaying mechanics all around.

[Psyren]

So if Fighters and Rogues had capabilities that rivaled the utility of casters, you wouldn't care? I don't mean to be making assumptions, but it sounds like your requirements for having fun are a bit less rigid than other folks on here, so there's still a lot of room for everyone to be happy.

If there's a way to explain it credibly in-universe, sure.

"Fighters and Rogues in this setting are augmented with nanotech" for example would be fine.
"Fighters and Rogues do X pushups and now they can equal spells" would not.

[Morty]

So if Fighters and Rogues had capabilities that rivaled the utility of casters, you wouldn't care? I don't mean to be making assumptions, but it sounds like your requirements for having fun are a bit less rigid than other folks on here, so there's still a lot of room for everyone to be happy.



I do think that we should stray away from the idea that a class shouldn't be balanced around a combat/non-combat ratio. It doesn't benefit anyone to make Barbarians overpowered and then have them be about as useful as a generic NPC in town. Me dealing a bunch of damage with weapons doesn't synergize or subtract from my ability to interact with the world in a unique way.

It doesn't really benefit anyone to maintain the mentality that combat and noncombat abilities should be pulled from the same pool, because they rarely interact. Instead of designing classes around 70% of combat and 30% of non-combat (so that you're only having 30% of your possible fun when out of combat), we could enjoy a class that was 100% combat and 100% non-combat, having the most amount of fun at all times. You're rarely doing both Combat and Non-Combat abilities at the same time, so a player is never actually getting that 100%, so we'll just end up in situations where Barbarians are bored out of combat 70% of the time.

I think the solution is either to make it so that every combat feature functions as a non-combat feature (like FATE does, good luck with that), or make them mutually exclusive where each character gets roughly the same amount of value of both categories.

4e tried the second one, where everyone got roughly the same value of combat and noncombat features, they just kinda forgot to add enough roleplaying mechanics all around.

It's actually not that complicated and many other systems manage it to an acceptable degree. D&D's unique problem is that it has a class list it dares not stray from, but which has no consistency on how many and what kind of abilities they get.

[Man_Over_Game]

If there's a way to explain it credibly in-universe, sure.

"Fighters and Rogues in this setting are augmented with nanotech" for example would be fine.
"Fighters and Rogues do X pushups and now they can equal spells" would not.

You know, that's a pretty valid point.

Fighters/Rogues/Rangers all start from things we understand, Clerics/Wizards/Sorcerers do not. Of course Martials are kinda stuck being the "Guy At The Gym" from levels 0 to 20, they don't really develop any reasons not to be.

[Amechra]

It's actually not that complicated and many other systems manage it to an acceptable degree. D&D's unique problem is that it has a class list it dares not stray from, but which has no consistency on how many and what kind of abilities they get.

Yeah... "spellcasters and non-spellcasters are completely out of sync with each-other in terms of what they can do" is mostly something that shows up in D&D And Friends.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah... "spellcasters and non-spellcasters are completely out of sync with each-other in terms of what they can do" is mostly something that shows up in D&D And Friends.

And I think it stems heavily from no clear idea of what magic can and cannot do. The current setting is "magic can do cool things, not magic can only do 'normal' things". And there's vested constituencies for that position, who take any idea of actually adding conceptual limits to spells as a full-bore attack on their gaming preferences. There seem to be people who take "mages rule" (ie the status quo) as a (the?) central premise of D&D. So any buffing of non-mages means that they feel they're falling behind.

[Ralanr]

Yeah... "spellcasters and non-spellcasters are completely out of sync with each-other in terms of what they can do" is mostly something that shows up in D&D And Friends.

It's shown up in other RPGS I've played, though the most non-D&D RPG I've played in is Shadowrun.

And shadowrun's magic is...oh boy.

[Morty]

Yeah... "spellcasters and non-spellcasters are completely out of sync with each-other in terms of what they can do" is mostly something that shows up in D&D And Friends.

I'm actually not talking about caster/non-caster balance here, I should have been more specific. I'm talking about the idea that you either invest in combat or non-combat skills and powers and can expect to be good at it in return. Which is normal outside of D&D, but in D&D people are scratching their heads about how to make a class named "fighter" good at non-combat tasks. And it exists alongside bards and wizards, who are powerful in and out of combat with little difficulty.

[Dr.Samurai]

It's actually not that complicated and many other systems manage it to an acceptable degree. D&D's unique problem is that it has a class list it dares not stray from, but which has no consistency on how many and what kind of abilities they get.

I know you're talking more about out of combat abilities here but this did make me think that D&D decides right off the bat to constrain martials.

It seems to me that anyone should be able to strike hard enough or precise enough to potentially Stun an enemy, but this ability is relegated to the Monk alone. Similarly, person and their dog/horse is a common trope, but only the Ranger can pull this off. The ability to take advantage of catching your foe off-guard for more devastating attacks can only be used by the Rogue.

But for me, warriors of any stripe should be able to do these things. Warriors should be able to fight at ranged, and fight in melee, and fight unarmed without a major drop in effectiveness. But in D&D you need to choose a fighting style and focus on that, after choosing a class that already limits what you're good at.

Out of combat it is similar; fighters get no real skill buffing features, and barbarian's have Rage (limited to Strength) but you can't really use Rage outside of combat unless you're taking environmental damage or something. The idea is that these classes are good athletically, and you can grab a couple of other skills from your background. But nothing ever augments these, so you're mostly just as good as anyone else that is proficient.

[tokek]

I know you're talking more about out of combat abilities here but this did make me think that D&D decides right off the bat to constrain martials.

It seems to me that anyone should be able to strike hard enough or precise enough to potentially Stun an enemy, but this ability is relegated to the Monk alone. Similarly, person and their dog/horse is a common trope, but only the Ranger can pull this off. The ability to take advantage of catching your foe off-guard for more devastating attacks can only be used by the Rogue.

But for me, warriors of any stripe should be able to do these things. Warriors should be able to fight at ranged, and fight in melee, and fight unarmed without a major drop in effectiveness. But in D&D you need to choose a fighting style and focus on that, after choosing a class that already limits what you're good at.

Out of combat it is similar; fighters get no real skill buffing features, and barbarian's have Rage (limited to Strength) but you can't really use Rage outside of combat unless you're taking environmental damage or something. The idea is that these classes are good athletically, and you can grab a couple of other skills from your background. But nothing ever augments these, so you're mostly just as good as anyone else that is proficient.

Well rogues are martial characters and are the best skill monkeys in the game with loads of out-of-combat utility. Barbarians get Primal Knowledge, Fighters get more ASI than anyone so they can choose feats which give them out of combat utility.

I actually think a lot of the problem with boring martial characters is optimisation. A character optimised for a single style of combat is often giving up other things. Just have a non-optimising table and things play in a much more interesting way with more options.

As for interesting things to do in combat- how many people have fully tried out all the options in the DMG before deciding that the game needs changing to make martial characters more interesting? Its right there in the rules and those things work far better for martial types than for anyone else. If all you ever do is the attack action its quite probably because your game is not using the full set of rules available. Those rules really don't need to be locked behind being accessed by just some classes, yet they benefit marital classes far more in terms of interesting fun things to do on your turn.

[Kane0]

As for interesting things to do in combat- how many people have fully tried out all the options in the DMG before deciding that the game needs changing to make martial characters more interesting? Its right there in the rules and those things work far better for martial types than for anyone else. If all you ever do is the attack action its quite probably because your game is not using the full set of rules available. Those rules really don't need to be locked behind being accessed by just some classes, yet they benefit marital classes far more in terms of interesting fun things to do on your turn.

Worth trying in my opinion:

Healing Surges
Slow Natural Healing/Rest Variants
Climb onto Creature
Action Options (Disarm, Mark, Overrun, Shove Aside, Tumble)
Hitting Cover
Cleaving Through

[Man_Over_Game]

Worth trying in my opinion:

Healing Surges
Slow Natural Healing/Rest Variants
Climb onto Creature
Action Options (Disarm, Mark, Overrun, Shove Aside, Tumble)
Hitting Cover
Cleaving Through

Spend Hit Dice as an Action.
Hit Dice recharge slower.
Grapple to move on top of an enemy.
Special Attack contest to make an enemy drop their weapon.
Hitting enemy makes your OAs against them have Advantage.
Athletics Contest to move through an enemy's space.
Acrobatics Contest to move through an enemy's space.
Shove with Disadvantage to move a target in any direction instead of pushing them.
Missing a ranged attack due to cover might damage the cover.
Excess damage hurts nearby enemies.

Almost all of these focus on mobility (which isn't inherently useful without other mechanics, mechanics Martials don't usually get), focus on healing or damage (which doesn't really add much in terms of decision-making), or fit a redundant redundant design space with normal rules (Mark).

Remove those and the ones that are highly circumstantial and likely won't come up very often (Shove Aside, Climb onto a Creature), and you're basically left with Disarm.

Disarm is probably the only one on the list that would reliably add a level of complexity to martials, although a lot of that could change if flanking rules were included (and worthwhile enough to strategize around).

Even then, Disarm is basically:

If (Enemy has Weapon) and If (MyDamage < Enemy Damage), Disarm enemy weapon and kick it away. It's not exactly very engaging or full of depth.

Well rogues are martial characters and are the best skill monkeys in the game with loads of out-of-combat utility.

I wouldn't call it loads. Everything they get is related to skills, which doesn't sound bad on paper, but it can get worse depending on the table.
The assassin, too, is another option that seems strong on paper and might end up being a lot less useful depending on what your DM feels is the best way to run the game.

I have yet to see a consistent problem at any table where skills are too strong, yet I've seen plenty of the opposite. When's the last time a result from a skill had more value than a level 2 spell at your table?

[Ralanr]

Idk if adding complexity combat helps with the scaling issue in the first place. It really only improves fighters who have more attacks to sacrifice for extra options.

But then again, not enough people are away of these other options. Either because they don't read them in the DMG, their DM doesn't, or their DM does and doesn't allow it.

Not to mention the confusion of using a heavy weapon for some of these. I'm pretty sure by RAW you can grapple someone with a heavy weapon and still hit them with that heavy weapon. This doesn't make much sense to me but I could be wrong.

[tokek]

Idk if adding complexity combat helps with the scaling issue in the first place. It really only improves fighters who have more attacks to sacrifice for extra options.

But then again, not enough people are away of these other options. Either because they don't read them in the DMG, their DM doesn't, or their DM does and doesn't allow it.

Not to mention the confusion of using a heavy weapon for some of these. I'm pretty sure by RAW you can grapple someone with a heavy weapon and still hit them with that heavy weapon. This doesn't make much sense to me but I could be wrong.

To an extent what I'm getting at is that we should try the existing rules before adding new rules or asking the designers to add new rules. I have to admit if I were a game designer and people came to me with a shopping list of "required" new options but had not tried the existing options - I'm not sure I would listen very hard. There are rules in the game to give martial characters more options and in some situations strong options, it seems to me the community should be trying them out if its felt that martial characters are lacking.

I've only tried some of these rarely because DMs don't generally seem to want complexity for martial characters. I've seen some wild (and game-breaking) homebrew to try to "balance" martial classes by the same DMs who didn't want to allow any of these rules. I was left wondering what they were thinking TBH.

The combinations of the mobility ones with advantage for flanking is quite potent, as is the disarm especially against spellcasters. It certainly gives martial characters more options to think about doing other than just the attack action. I've also toyed with the hero points idea, it seems another option to help make martial characters more epic - its pretty solid for making clutch saving throws which keeps them in the fight which is a thing a lot of them do need. Cleaving really helps a lot with giving martial characters an option vs hordes rather than just waiting for the caster to remove them. The Mark ability seems like a strong option for letting martial characters just tank better - I think if I played with this I would only limit it by making it incompatible with any of the other options in a turn.

[Dr.Samurai]

To an extent what I'm getting at is that we should try the existing rules before adding new rules or asking the designers to add new rules. I have to admit if I were a game designer and people came to me with a shopping list of "required" new options but had not tried the existing options - I'm not sure I would listen very hard. There are rules in the game to give martial characters more options and in some situations strong options, it seems to me the community should be trying them out if its felt that martial characters are lacking.

It is a fair point, but I think Man Over Game is correct that these options are not adding exactly what we're discussing here. Further, I can say from personal experience that DMs are not always eager to add these optional rules into the game. My DM currently will not allow these options but is considering adding a rule where casters take damage to upcast their spells (instead of spending the higher level spell slot).

[Psyren]

It's shown up in other RPGS I've played, though the most non-D&D RPG I've played in is Shadowrun.

And shadowrun's magic is...oh boy.

How is caster martial disparity there? I'm always curious how other games handle it. Usually magitech/cyberpunk does a better job since the "martials" at least have access to technology.

My biggest non-D&D/PF example is Dragon Age by Green Ronin, but there's several things you need a caster in the party for there.

[Morty]

Well rogues are martial characters and are the best skill monkeys in the game with loads of out-of-combat utility. Barbarians get Primal Knowledge, Fighters get more ASI than anyone so they can choose feats which give them out of combat utility.

Rogues being the designated "skill class" among non-casters is a large part of the problem. Gygax reportedly said that introducing the Thief class was a mistake, and if so it'd be the one thing I could agree with him on.

[Ralanr]

How is caster martial disparity there? I'm always curious how other games handle it. Usually magitech/cyberpunk does a better job since the "martials" at least have access to technology.

My biggest non-D&D/PF example is Dragon Age by Green Ronin, but there's several things you need a caster in the party for there.

In 5e (the edition I played in, it's currently in 6e right now) the disparity is an issue. While spells themselves (in my experience) weren't always an issue, it was spirit summoning and non magical characters inability to really hurt spirits for the longest time (it got a bit better in the end, but magic characters still came out ahead) and players having access to summoning powerful spirits just from character gen made being a non summoning player (mundane street sam or adept) feel overshadowed quickly.

Arguably the worst sin of Shadowrun is that there's very little to stop magic users from using mundane gear as effectively. You could sacrifice a little essence and still come out on top. This isn't even factoring that magic itself doesn't have a cap in how high you can raise it, but essence (what you use to limit how many augments you have) is limited and you can't ever increase it or get any back.

I love the world of shadowrun, but a bad experience in helping run a discord server for it has left a poor taste of the system in my mouth.

[Ignimortis]

How is caster martial disparity there? I'm always curious how other games handle it. Usually magitech/cyberpunk does a better job since the "martials" at least have access to technology.

Still terrible. The issue with mages and other non-mundanes in Shadowrun is that they're mundane+ with zero mechanical downsides (prejudice in the world varies between GMs). You can, with some effort and playtime, make a mage that has the same augments as a street samurai. It will not be very efficient, since magic is better than tech at a lot of things, but if you scale it down, you can reap all the relevant benefits of augmentation and recoup your losses in maybe a hundred karma, or, if you've good at prioritizing and picking proper gear, in 43 karma exactly.

My common solution for that is to double Essence costs for non-mundanes (and also rebalance all the cyberware costs, but that's mostly me wanting to fix the whole system instead of a few issues). No ifs or buts. You're Awakened or Emerged? That cyberarm is now 2 Essence base instead of 1. Yes, you still only get 6 ever.

This teaches us an important lesson in game design — access to power sources is sometimes more important than the power source itself, because a lot of cyber is pretty worthless, but cherrypicking things that are good for mages (pain editor, cybereyes, maybe a synaptic booster if you can fit one into 1 Essence) lets you have the best of both worlds.

[Daracaex]

I'm weeks late to this discussion (and cannot read everything), but I think a good start would be to put a bit more focus on weapons and allow choices to matter more with weapon selection. As it is, there is little reason to pick one weapon over another other than flavor. The only choices that matter are whether you're one-handing, two-handing, dual wielding, or ranged, and then if you've taken one of a couple feats that enhance a specific weapon group. To get weapons to do interesting things (outside of magic weapons) you need to specialize into a certain type. And often the difference between weapons within similar types is a difference in average damage output of one or two.

I'd like to see good reasons again for the fighter to have multiple weapons on their person again to take advantage of different fighting styles. Specialization can still exist, certainly, but generalization as a form of granting "powers" would also be nice. I saw a system once that does this (Revised Martial Equipment by CommanderFayne), but I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet.

[strangebloke]

Not balance, feel. Many are just fine with hitting things each turn, and if they want to try something interesting they'll ad hoc something with the DM. Whether that is a conscious decision on their part is and always will be undetermined.

I'm weeks late to this discussion (and cannot read everything), but I think a good start would be to put a bit more focus on weapons and allow choices to matter more with weapon selection. As it is, there is little reason to pick one weapon over another other than flavor. The only choices that matter are whether you're one-handing, two-handing, dual wielding, or ranged, and then if you've taken one of a couple feats that enhance a specific weapon group. To get weapons to do interesting things (outside of magic weapons) you need to specialize into a certain type. And often the difference between weapons within similar types is a difference in average damage output of one or two.

I'd like to see good reasons again for the fighter to have multiple weapons on their person again to take advantage of different fighting styles. Specialization can still exist, certainly, but generalization as a form of granting "powers" would also be nice. I saw a system once that does this (Revised Martial Equipment by CommanderFayne), but I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet.

Wielding multiple weapons, especially multiple magic weapons under the current attunement paradigm, seems like its always going to be ignored unless there are massive upsides to having bludgeoning and slashing weapons.

....and if prior experience is any indication, most of the time someone proposes something like this, its on the order of "various creatures resist bludgeoning and slashing damage" which is just a straight nerf.