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2021-10-20, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
There's a degree of play in the terms I've used. Tentatively I would say that in low-op 5e, the game is balanced as far as I've played it (mid tier 3), if certain concessions are made regarding adventuring day length and magic items. At higher levels of optimization, the large numbers of options that casters have can become oppressive for non-casters. Perhaps 'trash bin' and 'left behind' are too strong of terms, but its a noted trend, and I've seen a lot of high level players change away from their base class after a certain point. Certainly more than the reverse.
Feats are great, but the utility of having extra feats drops off hard after t2 because at that point everyone has spare ASIs, and feats dramatically diminish in utility as your party has more of them. For example, ritual caster is very strong, but its a lot less useful if someone else also has it or you already have a wizard and cleric in the party. Inspiring Leader is insane, but offers no utility for a second party member to take it. Most character builds can incorporate Shield Master, CBE, SS, EA, or GWM, but even the most feat intensive builds usually only incorporate three at most and will have everything they need by level 12 or so. Most of the high level fighter picks end up being defensive features, which even if strong are also fairly unexciting and don't really constitute 'customization' in my view. Having 'lucky' is great, but its not exactly something that really makes your character stand out.
(granted, my habit of giving a free feat and generous stats at 1st level does contribute to this.)
Similarly, expertise drops off in importance as levels go up because most DCs are still going to be relatively low and someone who just has proficiency will be casually rocking somewhere between +7 and +9 in t3.
Its not the most important thing in the world but it is a problem imo.Last edited by strangebloke; 2021-10-20 at 01:36 PM.
Make Martials CoolAgain.
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2021-10-20, 01:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Exactly. "You have a castle" shouldn't be a class feature, because you are going to want to give castles to lots of people who don't have that class feature. You are also going to want to scale the amount of troops someone has separately from their level, and support high-level adventures that don't involve mass battles. As I said in my reply on the subject, I don't see a way to have a "is a baron" subclass and handle things like "the elves pledge their troops to you after you cure the blight effecting their woodlands" without causing problems. Like WBL, the solution creates more problems than it solves.
Even Batman has access to resources, tools, intellect and plans that a player could never hope to compete with. He is essentially a DMPC, only functioning because it's in the author's best interest to keep him relevant for the worldbuilding, but the same isn't true between a player and their campaign. He's also a solo-player, able to spend as much time as he wants gathering information and developing strategies, while players have to work together in the same timespan.
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2021-10-20, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I could see it happen through some kind of birthright or earned privilege. A Warlock has command over a pet granted to him by his benefactor, so a Fighter could reasonably be given special privileges and honors that others don't have access to. The Magnificent Mansion spell is an example of how a home can be a unique character feature, it just happens to be tied to spells.
Maybe the Fighter only has rank among the dead, or elementals, or for some kind of Illuminati group or something.
Essentially, as long as whatever the Fighter gets, nobody else can do or imitate easily, it should be fine, I just think the suggestions I've read so far don't really address that area well enough for me to consider them plausible.
What you don't want is a situation where a Raging Barbarian ends up as useful on a Strength check as anyone else with a friend taking the Help Action. That is, completely replaceable with a bit of extra work.
The "Generic Thing You Can Do but +1!" strategy isn't doing us any favors (and is, frankly, one of my biggest concerns with Martials).Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-10-20 at 02:11 PM.
5th Edition Homebrewery
Prestige Options, changing primary attributes to open a world of new multiclassing.
Adrenaline Surge, fitting Short Rests into combat to fix bosses/Short Rest Classes.
Pain, using Exhaustion to make tactical martial combatants.
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2021-10-20, 02:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
1) if the party gets the keep and save a royal heir, that's great, they get advantages which are fitting for those situations. A subclass with a similar ability gets advantages without having to quest for it, and in addition to. I really don't see the problem. There's precedent: we already have characters decending from dragons (dragonborn), and those getting special privileges from being descended from dragons (draconic sorcerers, and in the new book monks and rangers). You can make a thing out of everything, and very little in the game makes sense if you look at it extremly critical. Somebody asked the question: how would a "normal knight" look that needs to keep up with those with superpowers. Well, voila, like this. It's a quickly conjured up example, of course anybody can shoot holes in it, but that's not the point, it's an illustration how a normal fighting man can get mechanical powers up to the level which is (according to some) required to play higher levels.
2) how does this add up with a party not being able to cast planeshift needing "DM pity"? Anyway: for many people most martials already HAVE this kind of abilities. Cause making 7 attacks with a +10 damage bonus and the ability to get an extra 1d10 on the attack roll allowing to instant kill relevant threats is exactly that, as is the possiblity to regularly hit 'almost impossible' skill checks. Without having to spend precious long rest resources.
3) I don't have a clue what you are trying to say with the first sentence, so I hope you forgive me doubting it is a correct representation of my argument. As for your question, that's an easy one. Yeah, I'm fine with somebody else casting planeshift (or with a portal, or an item), and not with somebody else killing the dragon. Cause it's dungeons & dragons, not dungeons and how to reach other dimensions. The goal is to defeat the dragon. How to get there is not the goal of the game, though the quest to find a portal, the right forked metal rod, or getting from the place you planeshifted to the relevant location on plane x, can be interesting. But who casts the spell: who cares? Really, who cares what the taxi driver was called that delivered John McLane to the Nakatomi Plaza? Who flies the Thunderhawk that brings the Inquisitor and his retinue of specialists to the entrance of the lair of the evil cult? Answer: nobody.
4) this is the most blatantly obvious case of "saying things exactly the other way than they are" (must be a term for this) I've every seen on this forum. I'm happy with the status quo, and the way normal, martial characters can keep up with the casters. They do in my experience, in real games, at least up to early tier 3, and from lots of high level play and DM'ing in an edition that actually had martial/caster disparity I'm pretty damn sure it won't be a problem at higher levels, bar wish/simulacrum nonsense and the like. You are the one who wants to deny characters without very obvious supernatural powers high level play. Something Dr.Samurai already pointed out earlier. The claims you make in this alinea are without any substance or foundation.
I don't know... martials already have lots of supernatural abilities. I think this was adressed earlier somewhere in this thread, but the sheer amount of hp they have alone is supernatural, or above and beyond human in the real world. You mention barbarians as an example that suffers from the guy at the gym influencing design, but I don't see it. Hp is huge, capstone is strenght of a giant, hp in combination with rage means the ability to withstand abnormal punishment, while subclasses offer obvious supernatural abilities. With a realative weak subclass like the (only eagle) totem, a barbarian can see up to 1000 feet in detail, fly short burst, be supernatural fast, in addition to all regular stuff, including some rituals for divinations. It would have been totally fitting for a member of the X-men.
I think that's a pretty decent example for a D&D party, by the way (also with your remark in mind that it's hard to write about superheroes without superpowers among those who do): plenty of different types of power, some obvously stronger than others (but with risks), and somebody like wolverine being almost normal but just being very athletic, good fighting capabilities, and regeneration (lets say a champion fighter above level 15?). And the strongest powers have the biggest risks (just as casters, who can do occasionally fantasitc stuff at higher levels, run the risk to run emtpy, have their concentration disturbed, have less hp/ac in general, etc.).
I agree though that, without specific permission in the rules, many tables will rule as you say regarding skills, that they stay with in 'the normal', and I think that's a design flaw: some examples of supernatural skills could have been given for 25 and 30, and that would have been an inmprovement imo. So yeah, I see plenty of ways the game could be improved, also regarding martials and the amount of options that they have, but I also see plenty that could be improved regarding spellcasting. But the better shouldn't be the enemy of the good afaic, and 5e already does this "giving martials options" thing pretty well, if you want to have them.
Fair enough. I don't experience it as a problem, but for those who do, I think your skill trick suggestions @homebrew are fine start.Last edited by Waazraath; 2021-10-20 at 02:29 PM.
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2021-10-20, 02:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
However, what you're describing is about a level 15+ Barbarian. Would you put one of the X-men on the classification of power on the same level as a level 15 Sorcerer? A Storm Sorcerer at that level can do a lot more than Storm can, one of the strongest X-men in the series.
It's subjective, I just think the X-Men are better represented at the 6-13 level range.
But more than that, using bigger numbers doesn't necessarily solve much, because the way you think about those numbers doesn't really change whether they're bigger or smaller. For instance, if you were playing a game with Action Points, and more points means you could do more actions in a turn, a +1 would be a big deal. It changes how you perceive the game, allows newer combos and abilities, better mobility and bigger booms. HP and Damage, on the other hand, function exactly the same way they did at level 1. Making them bigger doesn't give the player any more game to play with. If anything, all it does is give more room for mistakes.
Falling 1000 feet and surviving from your massive HP pool isn't a form of utility, that's surviving a mistake. What's better than ignoring a mistake? Being able to prevent one.
Even if the end-result is the same, the character that fell feels like he messed up (and his character is so dumbfire that it doesn't matter how badly he fails), while the other one felt responsible for his success.
I'd rather have the tools I need to fix a problem than have a ton of cushioning needed to ignore it, since the former means that my decisions carry a lot more weight and what I do matters.Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-10-20 at 02:57 PM.
5th Edition Homebrewery
Prestige Options, changing primary attributes to open a world of new multiclassing.
Adrenaline Surge, fitting Short Rests into combat to fix bosses/Short Rest Classes.
Pain, using Exhaustion to make tactical martial combatants.
Fate Sorcery, lucky winner of the 5e D&D Subclass Contest VII!
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2021-10-20, 02:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I love how the more this conversation goes, the more people are talking themselves into wanting 1/2e features restored.
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2021-10-20, 02:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-10-20, 02:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Those aren't just differences in scale/numbers though, the actual play changes at those tiers to create meaningful differences in kind too. Going from rats to giants, now you have to worry about things like reach/range, and cover, and tactics/positioning, and opposed ability checks etc. And if you go from 5 giants to 5 dragons (not sure what you meant by 5 mountains so I'm using dragons), you get all of the previous plus area attacks, energy damage, auras, spells etc. The gameplay loop does materially change, as it should.
Okay, repeat after me - HP are not meat. Especially not in 5e, where you don't even show signs of any kind of damage until half, with "cuts and bruises" below that, and the only true sign of trauma usually comes from the attack that dropped you to zero (PHB 196-197).
Agreed, and in fact, there should be at least one "simple subclass" for each class in core imo. Even if it has a lower ceiling than other subclasses, that's fine.
"Expensive things" does not have to equate to them being readily tradeable or keeping all of their market value. Finding someone both willing and able to pay for a "diamond castle", or even just a pile of fancy artwork, can be an adventure in itself.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2021-10-20, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-10-20, 03:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I can honestly say that if you gave me the option of playing the 5E fighter as-is or adding followers to it, I'd pick the former every time. Throwing minions at the fighter solves none of its problems - hooray, my generic beatstick now has more generic beatsticks under their command, except weaker - while making me engage with what's possibly my single least favorite activity in gaming.
Last edited by Morty; 2021-10-20 at 03:03 PM.
My FFRP characters. Avatar by Ashen Lilies. Sigatars by Ashen Lilies, Gullara and Purple Eagle.
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2021-10-20, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
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2021-10-20, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
In contrast for some Rogues I would prefer the 20th level Rogue with a multiplanar organization vs a 20th level Rogue with other things instead. Of course for other Rogues I would prefer the "other things instead".
An organization can allow for "action at a distance" in a similar but different way than teleport can.Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-10-20 at 03:16 PM.
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2021-10-20, 03:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I kinda like the idea of Fighters having Fighting Styles as modifications to the standard Actions (Attack, Dodge, Disengage, etc), and what subclass you take adds further utility to change how you think about your Actions.
For instance, a Defensive Fighting Style might allow the Fighter to make an Opportunity Attack when an enemy misses him after he takes the Dodge Action. A subclass feature for the Purple Dragon Knight makes it so that every time the Fighter takes the Dodge Action, an ally can spend their Reaction to do it too. An Eldritch Knight, on the other hand, gets to cast a Cantrip as a Bonus Action after taking the Dodge Action, perfect for maintaining Concentration on an important spell while maintaining a presence, or locking down an enemy with Booming Blade. How you think about the Dodge Action changes based on your Fighting Style, as well as your subclass. And for those that don't care about complexity, you give them the "Balanced" Fighting Style for +1 AC and +1 to Hit, and a balanced Champion subclass.
That way, it's still the core gameplay that everyone does, the Fighter just does it better but in a way that makes them think about combat differently. The Dodge Action, as-is, is just an expensive defensive feature for 1 person on the battlefield against a future attack, but changing those parameters around isn't all that hard and would add a lot and feel much more impactful than the currently optimal "+2 to hit with ranged attacks".
I dunno, just an idea I felt like jotting down.Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-10-20 at 03:43 PM.
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2021-10-20, 03:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
A Fighter with qualitative changes to existing at will abilities? Yes please!!
This will probably lead to the Fighter having upgrades to all of those actions. I would be cautious to not give the fighter too few buffs/features with this design. Having many solid options can be balanced against someone with a great option they spam, provided the solid options are good and not merely moderate.
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2021-10-20, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I would imagine the answer to the dragon question is about where the focus of the game is. D&D generally focuses on combat, so thats what most games focus around.
For something like Lord of the Rings, which is more about the journey, flying the eagles to Mordor would ruin the story, but having Bard the Bowman show up to kill Smaug doesn’t.
Although I will say that if you have a setting where people can cast plane shift, simply getting to another plane is not a good focus for an adventure, rather it is just one step in a longer adventure.
Likewise, if the Dragon can be reliably killed by a single spell, it probably isn’t a good focus for an adventure either.Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.
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2021-10-20, 04:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Originally Posted by Xervous
Your premise literally hinges on "high level gameplay requires high level abilities which includes bypassing travel". The point is that no one is required to actually have these abilities at high level. Your premise is founded on nothing but your opinion on how the game should be.
So the answer to your question is No, but also "your question is absurd" and "the point you're arguing is unfounded".
Yes, and as-is that character is not balanced with the casters that people can play at 20th level. Casters have a dramatically higher ability to advance the plot and interact with the world, and are comparably powerful in combat.
The question is how we move towards a paradigm where that character is balanced, and doing that requires giving it abilities on par with the ones casters get.
If you think those abilities are necessarily supernatural, then you agree with the premise that the only way for martials to be balanced at high levels is to give them supernatural abilities (which because you still won't use consistent terminology does not necessarily mean spells).
No, I don't. You do not use consistent terminology when talking about your position, and you engage in what looks to be strategic conflation between entirely reasonable positions ("I just want a character who doesn't cast spells") and completely unworkable positions ("I want my 20th level character to still be a mundane sword guy and have that be balanced with 20th level spellcasters").
So your position is that you didn't complain about it, you're just saying that if there's a problem there (which you totally weren't saying there was), the problem was definitely that plane shift was used?
There are spells that trivialize things. I don't think that means we have to mutate every class so that all classes can trivialize things. Create Food and Water can trivialize survival games with food and water resource management. It doesn't mean all classes now must have some sort of "does not starve" mechanic built in to even the playing field.
Because I find that to be a distinction without a difference.
I really don't see why I should answer your questions when you refuse to answer mine.
Tell me, why is "arrow guy" a fair trade for "space god"?
What is meant by "space god"? You're obviously referring once again to Thor, but in what way? Thor absorbed the power of a neutron star in the movies. Your questions comes off as absurd to me because I don't know if you mean "wizard" or "gish" or "invincible", and what "fair trade" means in this context. I'm not sure why I have to prove to you that this is a "fair trade".
Why is it desirable to spread Aragorn or Conan's progression over twenty levels, when the characters don't advance at all in the stories they are actually part of?
Aragorn is a ranger in the North, and over the course of the trilogy fights Ringwraiths, hordes of orcs, and leads an army of undead to save Gondor, and leads the forces of Men into Mordor to buy time for Frodo, all before becoming King. But nah, he never levels up. It's all low level stuff, I mean... did you ever see him teleport or anything???
Do you see how answering your question is a distraction? You posit something as self-evident when it isn't, stick it in the form of a question, and now we are going to argue about whether or not Aragorn or Conan actually leveled up, and if they did, to what level, instead of addressing your unfounded notions about "high level play".
Is an adventure where an NPC kills a dragon for you the same as one where you kill that dragon?
No equivocation about how the things you like are important and the things other people like aren't...
So then you would say that you agree that a badass normal is an inappropriate character at levels where planar travel is an ability people would be expected to have?
There is virtually nothing that you have said that I agree with. We simply have a very different idea of what the game is.
Originally Posted by OldTrees1
Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game
I appreciate your point about relatability, but I think it has more to do with the nature of magic and the nature of mortals. We understand that magic operates outside the bounds of reality, or acts upon or changes reality. So we naturally don't put limits on it because it's supposed to work outside those limits. Lifting things up without touching them, moving instantly from one location to the next, turning invisible or turning into stone, etc.
By contrast, the nature of mortals is to be constrained by reality. In D&D, when you play a human fighter, you understand that if you fall from too high a height you can die, or that lava will burn you, possibly to death, or that if you are trapped in a room with the walls closing in you will be crushed to death. There is nothing to suggest that one day you will simply stop being subject to these things. We recognize that you can take down a kobold in a couple of swings because it is small and puny, but an ogre may be tougher because it is much bigger. But nothing suggests that if we keep swinging our sword then one day we can cut through several mountain peaks or through planar boundaries. I don't think this is an unintended consequence due to relatability. I think this is intended, I just think it needs some tweaking.
It's hard to write a superhero among superheroes that has no superpowers. Even Batman has access to resources, tools, and plans that a player could never hope to compete with. He is essentially a DMPC, only functioning because it's in the author's best interest to keep him relevant for the worldbuilding, but the same isn't true between a player and their campaign.Castlevania II: Dracula's Curse
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2021-10-20, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I think you're basically agreeing with me then. I don't think there is a version of "you get a castle" that A) it is appropriate to role-protect B) has a comparable impact to spells and C) fits within the "Fighter must be mundane" paradigm.
You don't see a problem with "everything that makes your character special is something the rest of the party could get for free"? I strongly suspect that if, in an actual game, you picked a "has a castle" subclass, and then the party got a castle as a reward (possibly before you even unlocked yours), you would be rather less sanguine about the situation.
how does this add up with a party not being able to cast planeshift needing "DM pity"? Anyway: for many people most martials already HAVE this kind of abilities. Cause making 7 attacks with a +10 damage bonus and the ability to get an extra 1d10 on the attack roll allowing to instant kill relevant threats is exactly that, as is the possiblity to regularly hit 'almost impossible' skill checks. Without having to spend precious long rest resources.
The goal is to defeat the dragon.
You are the one who wants to deny characters without very obvious supernatural powers high level play.
I wouldn't say "restored" so much as "done right". The game badly needs a system for handling things like "you have an army", but it's never really been done well.
Sure, I could invent reasons why "a giant pile of diamonds" cannot be turned into money, but the small pile of diamonds found in a dragon's hoard can be. Or we could just play in a system where large amounts of money do not break the game. You have yet to explain why that is not a desirable state of affairs. You have to break verisimilitude very hard to enforce WBL, and I do not see why that is desirable.
That's another side of it. When you have a problem that "mundane sword guy" can't solve, it's pretty rare that "lots of mundane sword guys" can solve that problem. Having a kingdom or an army needs to be a parallel and optional advancement track, not a replacement for individual character power. Mandating that every game turn into Logistics and Dragons to give the Fighter something to do is a bad idea, even if the possibility of games turning into Logistics and Dragons is a valuable thing to have.
So you would then acknowledge that an adventure which was appropriate for people with access to plane shift was different from one which was appropriate for people who did not have access to that ability? And since it's different, we might reasonably want some term to differentiate the types of adventures, and since plane shift is acquired a fairly high level, it might be appropriate to call it a "high level adventure".
That's all we need. If the answer to that question is no, you agree with me. Fling all the insults you want, but once you accept the premise that anti-optimization doesn't invalidate the notion of "level-appropriate", your "but what if they don't pick plane shift" argument evaporates. I agree that the game does not handle the transition to high level play as well as it should. But part of fixing that is giving martials high level abilities, which you are resolutely opposed to the game doing.
Unworkable for you.
There are spells that trivialize things.
It's a team game, we all come to the table and play the character we want.
If I want to play an Aragorn, why do I have to explain myself for wanting to fight monsters, which provides me with XP and therefore levels, and continue going until the game ultimately stops for natural organic reasons?
Thirdly, who says the characters don't advance?
Aragorn is a ranger in the North, and over the course of the trilogy fights Ringwraiths, hordes of orcs, and leads an army of undead to save Gondor, and leads the forces of Men into Mordor to buy time for Frodo, all before becoming King. But nah, he never levels up.
addressing your unfounded notions about "high level play".Last edited by RandomPeasant; 2021-10-20 at 05:26 PM.
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2021-10-20, 05:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Not at all, no.
Its like saying I have a dog, my dog has black fur, therefore anything with black fur must be my dog.
Some characters gain the ability to plane-shift at mid level. Most characters never get it regardless of level, and a few characters even get it at low level. To define a high-level character by their ability to cast plane-shift is completely backward, as is defining the level of adventure by how much plane-shift factors into it.
What I am saying is that an adventure which can be solved with a single spell (or similar ability) is not an appropriate adventure, but that has very little to do with level.
For example, if you really want to make a high level adventure about tracking down a portal to travel to another plane, one can simply deny the ability to use plane-shift through some form of rules legal DM fiat such as the destination being warded or unknown or saying the local region is cut off from the planes like in Dark Sun or Ravenloft. Plane-shift is actually a really bad example for this sort of thing as it is one of the few spells that actually requires DM fiat to use as intended due to the requirement of a rod attuned to the appropriate plane.
Likewise, if you want to run a low level adventure that requires trivially getting to another plane first, just put a portal in front of the PCs or give them an ally / magic item who can cast plane shift for them.
A character who has specific abilities or connections can trivialize encounters at any level. Getting a royal pardon for a wrongfully accused criminal might be a decent adventure, but probably not if the king owes one of the PCs a favor or is a close personal friend. A dungeon full of poison gas that is instantly fatal to all living creatures might be a decent impediment to a low level adventure, but not if the PCs are warforged and deathless. Etc.Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.
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2021-10-20, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Yeah, one of the first campaigns I ever played in was a plane hopping campaign and we started jumping from like 3rd level onward. I believe the spell plane shift was outright banned.
spells like this aren't that big a deal.Make Martials CoolAgain.
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2021-10-20, 05:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I generally agree with this.
The problems of this are threefold though:
1: Its a team game, and not everyone's idea of the perfect spot is in the same place. Guy who wants to play the Aragorniest of aragorns and the Dr Strangiest of Dr. Strages are not going to have the same balance point; but they may be able to compromise on a spectrum that includes both points.
2: The rest of the world needs to be calibrated to the PCs. If you want to have the full Aragorn experiance, he needs to be in Middle Earth. Likewise, the opposition needs to be calibrated. If you wanted a Middle Earth experience but swapped out Morgoth for, say, comic book Lucifer Morningstar he will be far too powerful, but on the other hand if you swapped him out for TV Lucifer Morningstar he will be far too weak.
Rewriting the entire monster manual / campaign setting for every PC is a lot more work than its probably worth.
3: Some people need advancement. There are lots of players who quickly get bored with characters and need to keep getting new abilities to stay interested. There is one guy in my gaming group who doesn't really like anything about RPGs except he is addicted to the "carrot" part of the game where he gets to level up. Neither of these people are going to enjoy a game where they remain at a single level forever even if it is the best representation of their concept.Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
RandomPeasant... it is difficult to see our discussion going anywhere productive. When you say "play Aragorn", I assume you mean "play a human warrior with some survival skills". I don't assume you mean "map out the LotR storyline". So I'm not trying to fit in 20 levels of D&D gameplay into the LotR trilogy. If we continue to use that though, then imagine the story continues. Aragorn is king but continues to adventure, with a steward watching the Kingdom in his stead. Can Aragorn find a powerful and possibly supernatural mount that allows him to travel across the realms faster than normal? Can he obtain magical armor and a magical sword that would let him tackle a balrog? Can he take down a dragon similar to the way Bard did? Can he venture into Mordor and hunt down all the great evils of the world still lurking there like Shelob?
This is D&D, so we're not constraining ourselves to the world of LotR. I originally brought up Aragorn way back when just to give everyone an image of a mundane warrior, not to say "I want D&D gameplay to mimic LotR".
Your comment about coming to the table to play... whatever it was you said is baffling to me and I don't know what to make of it so I can't really reply. I really do think we are not going to see eye to eye on this no matter how many times we quote/reply to each other.
Hopping onto what Takaleal said, your comment about acknowledging "appropriate" adventures simply doesn't follow from what you're saying. "Appropriate" is a loaded term.Castlevania II: Dracula's Curse
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
And one that can only be defined:
* at the system level by the developers[1]
* at the table level by the individual table[2]
Neither of which lends itself to "discussion" on the internet. And to the degree that "appropriate" is defined in some kind of objective, global fashion (see footnote 1), the issue is that some people don't like that definition and want to substitute their own. And that's just not useful.
If barbarians not having planeshift is a problem at your individual table, fix it at that level. Because not everyone agrees that it's a problem; even those that agree on the problem don't agree on the solution. Any global "fix" would break people's flow, which means that global fixes are off the table (unless the developers feel strongly about it, in which case they bear the costs of breaking things for players). Note: this is not a fallacy--the dispute is over the existence of the defect in the first place. One says "All characters need planeshift." The other says "All characters do not need planeshift" (which is different from "no characters need planeshift", fyi). Those are incompatible statements if taken at the global scope. The resolution is to prepend "At my table". At which point both can be true, and the one for whom it's an issue bears the weight of departing from the default. Because the system itself and the developers don't consider it to be a problem.
[1] the devs have given many examples of what they consider "appropriate" adventures. That includes, well, all the printed adventures (which are well within the capabilities of a low-op, Basic Rules Only party). Etc. None of which require planeshift or teleport.
[2] A table where planeshift is necessary really says nothing about a different table's needs. And there are tools included to allow anyone to meet those capabilities. See the first part of the section of the DMG where it talks about the planes. And calls out finding portals before it talks about magical methods. Plus all the items and other issues.Last edited by PhoenixPhyre; 2021-10-20 at 05:57 PM.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Thank you Dr.Samurai, that was cathartic.
While I can't speak for RandomPeasant, there is a lot of talking past each other, and I suspect their actual position is very similar to what I outlined there.
At this point I will drop out of that conversation. Again, thank you, that was cathartic.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
The trick is to never give the player more of what they already have while still giving them plenty of fun things to play with, through antisynergies. It's how you give neat toys to people without having to worry much about them being overpowered. Specializations are what increases power creep and makes the game less adaptive evolving, more predictable and boring. Antisynergies make games more fun.
For instance, my Dodge bonus that gives you a Reaction attack doesn't actually increase your defense, it makes increasing your defense a better option by also mixing in some damage. You can do the same with your attacks or the Disengage Action.
A few examples of what I mean:
Aggressive Fighting Style: The first time you hit an enemy each turn with a weapon attack, for each enemy, they take extra damage equal to your Proficiency*. If you hit an enemy twice in the same turn with a weapon attack, gain THP equal to your Proficiency Bonus. This THP expires at the start of your next turn. (Encourages either changing targets or tanking against a single target that you hope hits you back).
Mobile Fighting Style: When you use the Disengage Action, you may Shove one enemy adjacent to when you took the Disengage Action. You can also choose to reduce your speed to 0 at any time after taking the Disengage Action to Shove an additional enemy adjacent to you. You may use your Dexterity score for these Shove contests when using this Fighting Style.
Balanced Fighting Style: You get +1 to AC and +1 to hit (designed for those who prefer something less complicated but still want something effective).
Which end up creating an aggressive playstyle that discourages single-target combat (unless you're tanking) while also making the 'Run Away' Action work great for both maintaining distance and close-ranged control. What this doesn't do is make the Attack Action all that much better against single targets (which it's already good for) and it doesn't make the Disengage Action much better to retreat with (which it's already good for). Even the Balanced option isn't very strong in either direction, since AC is hard to wrack up synergies with, and a +1 to hit isn't much more than a minor bonus.
*6 damage per each unique target sounds like a lot, but even at a 6 Proficiency Bonus, that's a maximum of 24 damage after hitting 4 different targets for about 12 damage each. It bumps up their individual damage from ~12 to ~18, so you're probably not going to kill anything that was actually a threat, and you might get more value out of hitting one target four times for 54 damage.Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-10-20 at 07:04 PM.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
No, it's like saying that it is reasonable to describe your dog as a thing with black fur.
Some characters gain the ability to plane-shift at mid level. Most characters never get it regardless of level, and a few characters even get it at low level. To define a high-level character by their ability to cast plane-shift is completely backward, as is defining the level of adventure by how much plane-shift factors into it.
Plane-shift is actually a really bad example for this sort of thing as it is one of the few spells that actually requires DM fiat to use as intended due to the requirement of a rod attuned to the appropriate plane.
I don't think you need to do that. Consider that Hawkeye and Thor do exist in the same universe, and that their doing so doesn't particularly impede the ability of either character to participate in the stories that are appropriate for them, or for those stories to be enjoyable. The fact that Hawkeye would not have been able to do anything particularly useful in the climax of Thor Ragnarok doesn't make it a worse film, nor does the fact that the opposition of the Hawkeye TV series will presumably pose absolutely no threat to Thor invalidate that series. In D&D terms, you don't need to rewrite the setting or the Monster Manual. You just need to ensure that there are enough monsters in the manual for both Hawkeye and Thor to have a reasonable variety of foes to fight, and that the setting is big enough that high-level characters are not getting up in everyone's business all the time.
Some people need advancement. There are lots of players who quickly get bored with characters and need to keep getting new abilities to stay interested.
That said, I do think there is room for non-level-based advancement. Horizontal growth is a useful thing to have, and there are many sorts of advancement that benefit from being decoupled from level. You should not need to become more personally powerful to rule a larger kingdom or lead a larger army, so those are benefits you could plausibly accrue without gaining any levels (and therefore being pushed towards a paradigm for which your concept might not be appropriate). Similarly, I think allowing people to select new abilities (whether those are class abilities or just feats) without needing to level up would solve a lot of problems the game has.
That last thing is what I mean when I talk about how spreading Aragorn out over 20 levels seems like a bad deal for Aragorn, any questions of balance aside. Hawkeye has a bunch of trick arrows that he uses (some of my examples may be Green Arrow trick arrows, but the characters are basically the same). He's got exploding arrows and hacking arrows and shield arrows and fist arrows and fire arrows and net arrows. If Hawkeye is supposed to get his full assortment of arrows over twenty levels, that means you have to make some declaration like "bomb arrow is a 3rd level arrow and net arrow is a 12th level arrow", which will be disappointing to some subset of people who want to play Hawkeye, but think that Net Arrow is the key part of his kit. But if Hawkeye is a concept that exists at a specific level (or relatively small level range), and gets his arrows by horizontal, non-level, advancement, each person who wants to play a Hawkeye character can get the arrows that are compelling to them from day one.
But you are trying to fit them to a LotR character. I'm not saying that "play Aragorn" has to mean "pick up some halflings in a bar, then go to an elf down, then an abandoned dwarfhold, then a tribe of horsemen" and so on through the LotR storyline. But I am saying that if you want to "play Aragorn", that means you're stuck with the kinds of capabilities Aragorn displays in the stories he is actually in. And that means he does not get an epic mount or an artifact sword, because in the stories he is actually a part of he factually does not get those things. If you want to have a character who gets artifacts that allow him to overcome his personal lack of superpowers, that's fine, but that character is Iron Man, not Aragorn.
Your comment about coming to the table to play... whatever it was you said is baffling to me and I don't know what to make of it so I can't really reply. I really do think we are not going to see eye to eye on this no matter how many times we quote/reply to each other.
Hopping onto what Takaleal said, your comment about acknowledging "appropriate" adventures simply doesn't follow from what you're saying. "Appropriate" is a loaded term.Last edited by RandomPeasant; 2021-10-20 at 07:11 PM.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
This is the crux of it. It's baffling that anyone is trying to tell everyone else what is objectively "appropriate" for all games. This is also why I mentioned modules before, as you note in your footnote, because if the developers felt this way about travel they would require parties to have these abilities. But they don't. No game can assume a caster will have a spell because spells known are choices that players make.
If barbarians not having planeshift is a problem at your individual table, fix it at that level. Because not everyone agrees that it's a problem; even those that agree on the problem don't agree on the solution. Any global "fix" would break people's flow, which means that global fixes are off the table (unless the developers feel strongly about it, in which case they bear the costs of breaking things for players). Note: this is not a fallacy--the dispute is over the existence of the defect in the first place. One says "All characters need planeshift." The other says "All characters do not need planeshift" (which is different from "no characters need planeshift", fyi). Those are incompatible statements if taken at the global scope. The resolution is to prepend "At my table". At which point both can be true, and the one for whom it's an issue bears the weight of departing from the default. Because the system itself and the developers don't consider it to be a problem.
Originally Posted by OldTrees1
Originally Posted by RandomPeasant
Bringing up Aragorn was a mistake because I see now that he can't be disassociated from LotR. I was just trying to think of a heroic human warrior from media that we all would recognize but the intent was to slot him into a D&D game and imagine him... you know, leveling up in D&D.
What is baffling about "Shadowrun characters are not appropriate for D&D games"?
As an example, you think playing a human fighter in 5E alongside a wizard "space god" (whatever that means, you refuse to define) is akin to rolling up a Shadowrun character for a D&D game. This feels like to me that at every turn you are throwing up wall after wall after wall that makes it difficult to meet anywhere in the middle.
Appropriate is a necessary term if we are to talk about the abilities characters should have.
You are positing something else; that the game shouldn't have these things at higher levels.
Those are two different conversations. You are going against the grain, whereas we are talking about something that already exists in the game, but how to make it better. You're here telling people they're playing the game wrong.Castlevania II: Dracula's Curse
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
Yeah, its like the fanfic ship of theseus problem: how much can you change a character before they are no longer that character? Take Naruto, give them Sharingan, make them female, give them fox ears and a tail, make them depressed broody and pragmatic, make them hate their home village, give them Zabusa's sword, make them fall in love with Ino, make them dress in colors other than orange, make them eat something other than ramen, don't teach them rasengan but give the flying thunder god technique instead, make them go missing nin.....at what point have you stopped playing an alternate version of Naruto, and started playing some OC that shares a couple similarities to him?
and while the 1-20th growth thing, yes the point is to not know where you end up and to allow the character to change, but sometimes you don't feel like doing that for a character. there are some characters built for the growth thing. generally those concepts involve being an apprentice or squire or something. but sometimes you want something more complete and to do things with that completeness and have a journey that isn't necessarily about physical growth.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
If you are just making the tautology that plane shift is (typically) available to high level characters therefore it is (typically) a high level ability, that's perfectly reasonable.
What's not reasonable are further extrapolations that therefore any character with plane shift is high level, that characters without plane shift aren't (or shouldn't be) high level, that adventures must require plane shift to be high level, etc.
Aragorn is one of the greatest warriors and most influential statesmen in the history of middle Earth. Drop him into Forgotten Realms or Exalted, and he is just some irrelevant footnote who is unlikely to accomplish much of anything.
Likewise, Saint George the Dragon Slayer's most notable feat would be impossible if you put him up against a D&D red dragon.
Or heck, how about trying to recreate Drizzt Dourden who is a 16th level martial character who regularly overcomes challenges appropriate to a level 16 character. If you suddenly drop him to sixth level because that's the limit for a purely martial character, you suddenly become incapable of recreating drizzt feats with your peak Drizzt build.
If you aren't going to reorganize the setting accordingly, all limiting martial characters is going to do is codify "Casters rool martials drewl!" into the lore as well as the rules, and that isn't going to make anyone happy except the caster supremacists who weren't going to play martials in the first place.Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
To be fair, it's just lucky for Aragorn that the only wizard around is actually an angel who was told to use his powers as little as possible. Narsil cut the ring of power from Sauron's hand, so let's eyeball it as a sword of sharpness +3.
...only so much you can do with that.Last edited by Angelalex242; 2021-10-20 at 09:19 PM.
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Re: Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")
I can imagine that. I can imagine a character who, instead of growing in personal power, accumulates a larger and larger collection of magical artifacts. But that character is Iron Man (actually, the most specific analogy I'm aware of for that character is a Doctor Fate ripoff in the Incursions saga, but that's an excessively deep cut). That's what a high level character who relies on gear for power looks like. Maybe it's a version of that archetype who has moved some points from Engineering to Weapon Skill, but that character is closer in every meaningful respect to Iron Man than Aragorn.
(to stick with Marvel, Captain America with his shield and Mjolnir come to mind).
Because I did not suggest that.
You are positing something else; that the game shouldn't have these things at higher levels.
I really think having a section where you explain that not every campaign needs to level from 1 to 20 or even level at all in the DMG would make like 90% of these problems go away. The root problem here is not that a 20th level Wizard is better than a 20th level Fighter or that Thor is better than Hawkeye. It's that the game tells you that to keep playing your character you have to keep gaining abilities, even if you have all the abilities you need to actualize your character concept. So you end up with people demanding that they be allowed to keep gaining abilities that don't change their character concept, despite the fact that there is no reason to gain levels if that is what you want to do. If you want an ability that was appropriate for the character concept you had at 5th level, there is no earthly reason you should need to be 6th level (let alone 16th level) to get it.
Not a single one of those things is an accurate representation of my position as I have said repeatedly. The closest is the idea that without plane shift you aren't high level, and that's a conflation of "you need to have abilities that are as broadly impactful as plane shift" with "you need to have exactly plane shift".
Aragorn is one of the greatest warriors and most influential statesmen in the history of middle Earth. Drop him into Forgotten Realms or Exalted, and he is just some irrelevant footnote who is unlikely to accomplish much of anything.
Likewise, Saint George the Dragon Slayer's most notable feat would be impossible if you put him up against a D&D red dragon.
Or heck, how about trying to recreate Drizzt Dourden who is a 16th level martial character who regularly overcomes challenges appropriate to a level 16 character. If you suddenly drop him to sixth level because that's the limit for a purely martial character, you suddenly become incapable of recreating drizzt feats with your peak Drizzt build.
all limiting martial characters