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

[Angelalex242]

Errr. Thor is a deity straight out of dieties and demigods. He's like the #2 guy in the Norse Pantheon. Calling him 'just another warrior' is a little disingenuous.

[Ralanr]

Errr. Thor is a deity straight out of dieties and demigods. He's like the #2 guy in the Norse Pantheon. Calling him 'just another warrior' is a little disingenuous.

Plus Tyr's closer to a 'warrior' than Thor.

[strangebloke]

This line of argumentation for why "Aragorn" is so unviable at high level play is so convoluted.

Firstly, Aragorn's accomplishments, such as they are, establish no upward limit on his ability. He's able to fight several Nazgul at once with a torch and a broken sword. The closest equivalent to which in dnd is are death knights. Though Nazgul lack specific abilities like banishment, they also have additional abilities compared to a death knight, like the ability to curse thousands of people at once with some kind of fear effect, immunity to nonmagic nonfire damage, the ability to inflict uncurable disease upon everyone who feels despair, etc. We also don't have any upward limit for the martial ability of a nazgul, but considering the Witch King is treated as a near rival to Gandalf, an angel who can solo a balor, they're very strong and Gandalf himself was tested by a fight with only a few more nazgul than what Aragorn fought. Yes, the Nazgul left in part because they had already achieved their goal, but they also didn't casually backhand Aragorn like they could have done if he was "fifth level tops." They even waited to attack until after he had left.

Throughout the rest of the series, Aragorn racks up a body count in the hundreds, and its mentioned numerous times that he's personally able to drive back entire formations of orcs by the "terror of his countenance." He runs 172 miles in three days without sleeping and isn't visibly tired at the end of it. He's mentioned alongside Gandalf and Galadriel and a few others as someone who has the ability to claim and wield the full power of the one ring. He is capable of breaking curses and healing people of wounds that shouldn't be possible to be healed. He follows literal, non-metaphorical 'tracks' of Gollum over a year after Gollum left Mirkwood. He states that he would be both willing and able to fight the balrog, but Gandalf says he has to go with the hobbits to make sure they get out. (TBC he probably would die fighting the balrog, but there is precedent for humans in LOTR fighting and killing balrogs mano-y-mano.)

Such a character cannot be emulated by 5e noncasters unless you make extremely unfavorable, unwarranted assumptions about the capabilities of balrogs and nazgul and orcs in the setting. Sure, in the movies he gets tossed around by orcs and trolls at various points, but how high level was Lurtz, huh???

Now you can claim that a character who can do all the above can't hang with a "high level" wizard, but suffice to say that I am skeptical. Especially when we're talking Aragorn as a concept, who could reasonably be made far far stronger than he canonically is in the context of the book. There are specific scenarios where he might struggle to contribute. The example of a dragon swimming in lava comes to mind. But these situations are frankly hard for anyone in 5e to handle.

I particularly chuckle at the poster who brought up Forgotten Realms (the place where epic level NPCs are common and gods are extremely active and powerful) and Exalted (literally a game where you can play a god). The goalposts, they have shifted.

[Lord Raziere]

Errr. Thor is a deity straight out of dieties and demigods. He's like the #2 guy in the Norse Pantheon. Calling him 'just another warrior' is a little disingenuous.

Just to clarify: They're talking about MCU Thor, not DnD Thor. These discussions tend to use whatever latest popcultural thing people can point to as reference.

[Gurgeh]

You mean the thing that gives him the lightning powers you have explicitly listed as a no-go for martials?

What? He's not the god of hammers. Even in the MCU, Thor's lightning powers are baked into him because he's a god.

Firstly, Aragorn's accomplishments, such as they are, establish no upward limit on his ability

Yeah, Aragorn is much larger than life. Even the more grounded Jacksonian incarnation frequently accomplishes things that most D&D martials couldn't manage without DM fiat.

(TBC he probably would die fighting the balrog, but there is precedent for humans in LOTR fighting and killing balrogs mano-y-mano.)

Not quite true. The Fall of Gondolin has two separate accounts of elves fighting and defeating Balrogs one-on-one (in both cases dying in the process), but Tolkien's elves are on a whole different level from mortals - many of them are almost demigods in their own right.

I'm also a bit puzzled at RandomPeasant's statement that Aragorn apparently "doesn't get an artifact sword" when he literally does - with a fancy name and everything! Yes, Andúril doesn't shoot fireballs or turn him invisible, but in the text it's unambiguously a weapon of tremendous power, far more deadly than a simple piece of steel.

[strangebloke]

Yeah, Aragorn is much larger than life. Even the more grounded Jacksonian incarnation frequently accomplishes things that most D&D martials couldn't manage without DM fiat.

Yeah, after all Lurtz was clearly tenth level at least!!!

more seriously, if anything he's stronger since he unambiguously does defeat and drive off the nazgul, who are similarly portrayed as stronger in the movies (the witch king punking Gandalf comes to mind)

Not quite true. The Fall of Gondolin has two separate accounts of elves fighting and defeating Balrogs one-on-one (in both cases dying in the process), but Tolkien's elves are on a whole different level from mortals - many of them are almost demigods in their own right.

There are lots of incidental fights with balrogs that aren't called out as dramatically as Ecthelion and Glorfindel. The (admittedly weak) example I'm pulling on here is Fingon (top elf at the time) and Hurin (human king and ally) fighting against an army of trolls and balrogs. Fingon dies and Hurin is captured but only because they're outnumbered. (they're explicitly fighting all alone) Now you might argue that fingon was pulling all the weight here while Hurin dealt with the mobs of trolls, but considering we're comparing this situation to Gandalf and Aragorn I think it holds up.

Hurin's son, Turin, is similarly remarked-upon as being as good as all but the very best elves.

I'm also a bit puzzled at RandomPeasant's statement that Aragorn apparently "doesn't get an artifact sword" when he literally does - with a fancy name and everything! Yes, Andúril doesn't shoot fireballs or turn him invisible, but in the text it's unambiguously a weapon of tremendous power, far more deadly than a simple piece of steel.

Right, if we're talking the 'feel' of aragorn, then using his sword to summon an army of wraiths should be on the table, right?

[Ignimortis]

After a bit of thinking, here's my "high-level" theory. If whatever ability you propose for higher levels could be achieved by just giving a level 1 character +20 AC, +200 HP, +20 to saves and ability checks, +20 to-hit, and +100 magical damage on-hit, it is not, in fact, a high-level ability — because it's just the ability to do low-level things better. Which doesn't mean it's a bad ability by any means — getting even one of these numbers on your charsheet is a massive imbalance, but it also doesn't do anything new.

If your interaction with the core rules remains unchanged outside of "I succeed more often/with slightly more power behind each success", you're not really advancing, because you're still playing the 1st level game whatever your actual level is. Sure, the higher numbers might mean it's actually a 4th level or even a 7th level game now, but you're still not doing anything new.

[Angelalex242]

MCU Thor would still be built out of Deities and Demigods. He's a peer of Tiamat, as seen in Rise of Tiamat, and full power Tiamat at that. Can't be comparing him to mere 20th level mortals.

[Pex]

My theory is that everyone would be fine with low fantasy characters at high fantasy level if you just tied things to items more and brought back wealth by level.

The problem there being, wealth by level is terrible and a huge barrier to gameplay.

More unique magical items would be nice. Things that provide options. That doesn't always translate to out of combat power, but it would make doing combat a bit more interesting that "I attack."

I made a whole thread on my dislike of +X weapons for this (and I suppose other) reasons.

You will get people complaining it's not the character doing the Cool Thing but the magic item. You will get people resenting having to do this. As always, you can't please everyone.

In Superhero games "gadgeteer" is a super power - Batman, Iron Man. To get this idea to work in D&D you need to sell that high level warriors have gadgeteer as a class ability. It's not the magic weapon. It's the fighter wielding the magic weapon.

I also think that Batman is just not what most people want their martial character to grow up into. A lot of the "how do we make the Fighter scale" suggestions boil down to "make him Batman" or "make him Iron Man", and while you could do that, I think what most people want out of a Fighter on the level of those characters is Thor or Wonder Woman, not Batman or Iron Man. The guy who starts off with a mundane swordsman is almost always more connected to the "swordsman" part of than the "mundane" part, as evinced by the way those characters evolve in the genre as a whole. Kaladin levels up by getting superpowers that make him better at spear-fighting, not by finding a trove of fabrials.

I hide my face.

[Gurgeh]

more seriously, if anything he's stronger since he unambiguously does defeat and drive off the nazgul, who are similarly portrayed as stronger in the movies (the witch king punking Gandalf comes to mind)

Honestly, I'd half forgotten that scene - it wasn't even in the cinematic release. I found it far less satisfying than the standoff at the gate, that's for sure.

There are lots of incidental fights with balrogs that aren't called out as dramatically as Ecthelion and Glorfindel. The (admittedly weak) example I'm pulling on here is Fingon (top elf at the time) and Hurin (human king and ally) fighting against an army of trolls and balrogs. Fingon dies and Hurin is captured but only because they're outnumbered. (they're explicitly fighting all alone) Now you might argue that fingon was pulling all the weight here while Hurin dealt with the mobs of trolls, but considering we're comparing this situation to Gandalf and Aragorn I think it holds up.

Hm, I'm pretty sure that Fingon's death happened before that last stand - Hurin and Huor go down fighting a rearguard action to make sure that Turgon and his contingent can escape to Gondolin, and Fingon was presumably already dead at that point. AFB so can't confirm the details, but happy to concede that a Balrog wouldn't be wholly beyond a human combatant - just mostly so.

Fair call on Turin, since taking out Glaurung puts him in the very exclusive club of unambiguously identified dragonslayers (who, interestingly, were all human or part-human: Turin, Earendil, Fram, and Bard).

[Talakeal]

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.

Lord of the Rings is pretty vague on what exactly the power levels of said angels are.

There are numerous times when mortals overcome them in the lore, and even Gandalf certainly acts like he is in danger numerous times.

You mean the thing that gives him the lightning powers you have explicitly listed as a no-go for martials? What "Captain America in Endgame" looks like as a D&D character is a subclass that gives you magical weapons automatically for leveling up. That's a totally fine thing to have, but I would not call that "mundane" in any meaningful sense.

I don't know if anyone has a problem with magic items. But for some reason I keep getting into arguments with people who insist that mundanes need "super powers" and magic items just won't cut it.

Honestly I would say End Game Captain America is a bit under powered, both personally and in magic items, for a level 20 fighter, but he's close enough.

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".

As I said to Old Trees, I apologize for Straw-men, but it is really hard to parse what argument is actually being made when people talk about "low level campaigns with bigger numbers".

The thing is, I don't see Plane Shift as particularly impactful at all. I don't plan on taking it on my current wizard if the campaign lasts until 13th level, and I would trade it for relentless, indomitable, or survivor in a heart beat.

Or, if you want non-combat abilities, Expertise or Reliable.

Aragorn doesn't win a "greatest warrior" trophy that is accredited by the Middle Earth UN. He just has a bunch of fights with specific opponents which he beats. He could have all of those fights in a world where there were a bunch of more powerful things he didn't fight and it would change absolutely nothing about his character. His career as a statesman has essentially nothing to do with his personal power, and could very easily be replicated in any setting where he was a respected political figure (consider that in the real world pretty much any soldier could kill pretty much any diplomat, and we still have respected diplomats).

The post below covers most of this better than I could. But I will say that one's politics absolutely require high level in D&D where your maximum ability in skills, social or otherwise, is directly tied to your level.

Yes, because the thing he slays isn't a D&D red dragon, and nowhere in the story of him slaying it is it claimed to be. It is simply something that people call a dragon which could be represented quite adequately by a wyvern, which a mundane warrior can comfortably slay.

Right, but a big part of playing George the Dragon Slayer is being a dragon slayer. And in D&D, that won't happen at low levels.

Also, wyverns don't breathe fire.

I will confess a lack of familiarity with Drizzt. What are the specific feats you think could not be adequately modeled as accomplishments of a lower level character? Imagine you were telling someone who had never played D&D about Drizzt's adventures, and that you then told them about the adventures of a 6th level character. What are the things that would jump out to that person as being clearly more impressive about the things Drizzt did?

I haven't actually read any of the books either, but I know he has defeated balors, mariliths, and glabrezu on several occasions as well as dragons. And very large groups of drow and orcs.

Who said anything about limiting martial characters? Thor is a martial character. Kaladin is a martial character. Indrani is a martial character. All of them have capabilities that allow them to do things mundane characters can't.

Not sure if there is a word that can't be nit-picked. If you say "mundane" people assume you are talking about every-day Joe Shmoe.

Fantastic not spell caster without explicitly supernatural abilities who is good in combat? What would you call a level 20 war-blade (who doesn't have the stupid stomp manuever)?

[Pex]

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.

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[Man_Over_Game]

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I am an amateur game developer, and that was the best compliment someone could ever give me. Thank you very much.

[Angelalex242]

Basically, all of the Istari are angels not allowed to use their full power. Their color determines how much of their power they can use.

Saruman, as head of the council as 'the White' might be using something like 15% of his. When he turns traitor, and becomes Saruman of many Colors, it might go up to something like 20%, as there are still hard limits on him.

Gandalf the Grey starts at maybe 10-12% of his full power...then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and since he can break Saruman's staff, he's probably been trusted with something like 25% of his power.

Radagast the Brown is maybe using 8% of his, with perhaps 10% possible when dealing with Nature/Animals.

The Blue Wizards...we've never seen them in action, but they're less powerful than Radagast, so we're looking at maybe 5% of their total power. Good thing there were two of them.

[Psyren]

I also think that Batman is just not what most people want their martial character to grow up into. A lot of the "how do we make the Fighter scale" suggestions boil down to "make him Batman" or "make him Iron Man", and while you could do that, I think what most people want out of a Fighter on the level of those characters is Thor or Wonder Woman, not Batman or Iron Man. The guy who starts off with a mundane swordsman is almost always more connected to the "swordsman" part of than the "mundane" part, as evinced by the way those characters evolve in the genre as a whole. Kaladin levels up by getting superpowers that make him better at spear-fighting, not by finding a trove of fabrials.

Thor and Wonder Woman are aliens that were bequeathed magical artifacts from their alien-deity parents. You could definitely build a Fighter that follows such a route to power, but it's a bit too specific a fantasy to apply to all of them.

You will get people complaining it's not the character doing the Cool Thing but the magic item. You will get people resenting having to do this. As always, you can't please everyone.

In Superhero games "gadgeteer" is a super power - Batman, Iron Man. To get this idea to work in D&D you need to sell that high level warriors have gadgeteer as a class ability. It's not the magic weapon. It's the fighter wielding the magic weapon.

In D&D a "gadgeteer" would probably be an Artificer (particularly a Battlesmith or Armorist if you wanted to keep the martial flavor), or at worst a Thief Rogue with a bag full of tricks for use with Fast Hands in a pinch.

[JugsOfHolyness]

5e's design philosophy has been simplicity. With the reworked Core rules coming out in 2024, I hope that they are able to provide proper depth to Martials (especially Monk) while retaining that simplicity

[Kane0]

5e's design philosophy has been simplicity. With the reworked Core rules coming out in 2024, I hope that they are able to provide proper depth to Martials (especially Monk) while retaining that simplicity

How does this sound for simple:

If you get a skill proficiency after level 1 (eg via a class or subclass feature, feat, boon, etc) you can instead trade that for two skill trick/talents, chosen from a list according to the skills you are proficient in and your proficiency bonus.

Each skill talent/trick offers a niche improvement related to the associated skill. Some encourage you to take alternative actions like Help or Search, others offer different ways to spend your attacks (like alternatives to shoves) or movement instead of actions and bonus actions.

[Lord Raziere]

MCU Thor would still be built out of Deities and Demigods. He's a peer of Tiamat, as seen in Rise of Tiamat, and full power Tiamat at that. Can't be comparing him to mere 20th level mortals.

Well. to get that mechanical representation for the exact thing you got to go back two editions to 3.5 where everything can be statted in some way. and thats giving a lot of the simplicity that makes 5e work.

this is 5e. we don't even have the rules from monstrous races to use then put fighter levels on top of. races are strictly a 1st level thing, so you can't even make a custom thor-like race to do what Thor does on smaller scale, because that would be unbalanced with other races.

so you want to hold that standard of exactness of the origin of the powers, thats simply not going to fly in the current edition. the way to gain power is class levels. meaning if someone wants to play a martial in the style of MCU Thor? they need a class/subclass to do it. That is just the mechanical reality 5e lives in. No one is talking about literally playing Thor, we're using him as an example of martial feats we'd like to do, regardless of the actual origin behind it, because the actual origin is meaningless. its fluff and fluff can be changed for whatever setting you need.

[Pex]

In D&D a "gadgeteer" would probably be an Artificer (particularly a Battlesmith or Armorist if you wanted to keep the martial flavor), or at worst a Thief Rogue with a bag full of tricks for use with Fast Hands in a pinch.

Now, but the idea is to make the warrior the gadgeteer allowing him supernatural stuff using magic items at the higher levels as a natural progression. It's hypothetical and would require a new game edition. Artificer would be a subclass of Fighter meaning only the idea of the Artificer, an analogy. How it would actually work is not important at this time since it's just theory crafting, and it doesn't have to be how Artificer works now in 5E.

[Ralanr]

In Superhero games "gadgeteer" is a super power - Batman, Iron Man. To get this idea to work in D&D you need to sell that high level warriors have gadgeteer as a class ability. It's not the magic weapon. It's the fighter wielding the magic weapon.

Wouldn't that be stepping on the artificer's schtick?

[Morty]

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.

I don't know if fighters using the same actions as everyone but better is a design goal worth seriously pursuing.

[Xervous]

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.

Further down the road of MMO parallels the underprivileged class only needs numbers to participate in a given encounter. The mechanical variation is not frequently a check upon the character, if you have the numbers you’re allowed to play ball. You’re taking this class with its engagement rotation unchanging over the levels and pitting it against tasks where the primary differentiation metric is number rather than feature driven. We could take a Great Wyrm red and just scale the numbers down to make it a feasible fight for a L3 party. This adjusted red would not leave players thinking it was a hefty deviation from other level appropriate threats the game presents. You could do the same with a wyrmling red, scaling it up to challenge a T4 party. The great wyrm red is just a bigger bundle of numbers, strip out the mention of the dragon’s size and combat numbers and people will have a very hard time guessing what level the fighter is playing at (using just information derived from dragon and fighter actions). The fighter attacks, the dragon flames. Blur the 19 Dragon above the mob and the 15 Fighter above the player and this could be the tutorial zone or a really high level dungeon.

Probably not, I don't have a lot of experience at those levels. I've got some experience with several one-shots in the mid teens, but none at 20. But even before I engage in this endeavor, what am I trying to demonstrate here? I want to be sure it's something I am actually arguing for.

My curiosity and hope are leading me towards a Same Game test (level appropriate tasks that a given character can address 50% of, but lower level characters can’t manage 50% of).

Getting a sample of tasks may reveal any of the following:

The fighter can engage 50% but a sizable percentage of other classes can engage well over 50%. If we accept these tasks are all level appropriate it may be the case that too many favoring those classes were chosen. This in turn can inform us what weighting of task variety puts most classes around the 50% band.

The fighter can engage 50%, other classes get 50%, but much lower level characters get close to or exactly 50%. Too many level agnostic tasks were chosen (they aren’t challenging tasks for a high level character or the nature of their challenge does not test level based capabilities).

The fighter can’t manage 50% but most other classes can do 50%. This informs us that some classes have narrower competencies and need to be presented more tailored scenarios to reach the 50%

The fighter greatly exceeds 50% but most other classes do not. The tasks have been biased to favor the fighter (somehow).

And so on... This gives us both an understanding of where the fighter falls in the pack, and what arrangement of task types puts the fighter on equal engagement footing as other characters of his level.

[Man_Over_Game]

I don't know if fighters using the same actions as everyone but better is a design goal worth seriously pursuing.

Why do you say that?

I'd contest that that's how they're already designed via Action Surge, it just doesn't use that design space efficiently towards fun. The only thing worth doing with it is more damage, causing their gameplay to feel stale and predictable in most encounters. It's a powerful feature, it just gets wasted on the most generic, uninteractive form of contribution in the game.

[Ralanr]

Why do you say that?

I'd contest that that's how they're already designed via Action Surge, it just doesn't use that design space efficiently towards fun. The only thing worth doing with it is more damage, causing their gameplay to feel stale and predictable in most encounters. It's a powerful feature, it just gets wasted on the most generic, uninteractive form of contribution in the game.

Not the original poster, but I'd argue that this would leave other martial classes behind.

Martial power is not just fundamentally a fighter thing. Barbarians are also affected by this. Rangers and Paladins have spells to help (though the Paladin is better off because of smite), while monks also work with Ki (though monks have their own problems).

[Morty]

Why do you say that?

I'd contest that that's how they're already designed via Action Surge, it just doesn't use that design space efficiently towards fun. The only thing worth doing with it is more damage, causing their gameplay to feel stale and predictable in most encounters. It's a powerful feature, it just gets wasted on the most generic, uninteractive form of contribution in the game.

And my concern is precisely that boosting basic actions is going to be more of the same.

[GreyBlack]

This line of argumentation for why "Aragorn" is so unviable at high level play is so convoluted.

Firstly, Aragorn's accomplishments, such as they are, establish no upward limit on his ability. He's able to fight several Nazgul at once with a torch and a broken sword. The closest equivalent to which in dnd is are death knights. Though Nazgul lack specific abilities like banishment, they also have additional abilities compared to a death knight, like the ability to curse thousands of people at once with some kind of fear effect, immunity to nonmagic nonfire damage, the ability to inflict uncurable disease upon everyone who feels despair, etc. We also don't have any upward limit for the martial ability of a nazgul, but considering the Witch King is treated as a near rival to Gandalf, an angel who can solo a balor, they're very strong and Gandalf himself was tested by a fight with only a few more nazgul than what Aragorn fought. Yes, the Nazgul left in part because they had already achieved their goal, but they also didn't casually backhand Aragorn like they could have done if he was "fifth level tops." They even waited to attack until after he had left.

Throughout the rest of the series, Aragorn racks up a body count in the hundreds, and its mentioned numerous times that he's personally able to drive back entire formations of orcs by the "terror of his countenance." He runs 172 miles in three days without sleeping and isn't visibly tired at the end of it. He's mentioned alongside Gandalf and Galadriel and a few others as someone who has the ability to claim and wield the full power of the one ring. He is capable of breaking curses and healing people of wounds that shouldn't be possible to be healed. He follows literal, non-metaphorical 'tracks' of Gollum over a year after Gollum left Mirkwood. He states that he would be both willing and able to fight the balrog, but Gandalf says he has to go with the hobbits to make sure they get out. (TBC he probably would die fighting the balrog, but there is precedent for humans in LOTR fighting and killing balrogs mano-y-mano.)

Such a character cannot be emulated by 5e noncasters unless you make extremely unfavorable, unwarranted assumptions about the capabilities of balrogs and nazgul and orcs in the setting. Sure, in the movies he gets tossed around by orcs and trolls at various points, but how high level was Lurtz, huh???

Now you can claim that a character who can do all the above can't hang with a "high level" wizard, but suffice to say that I am skeptical. Especially when we're talking Aragorn as a concept, who could reasonably be made far far stronger than he canonically is in the context of the book. There are specific scenarios where he might struggle to contribute. The example of a dragon swimming in lava comes to mind. But these situations are frankly hard for anyone in 5e to handle.

I particularly chuckle at the poster who brought up Forgotten Realms (the place where epic level NPCs are common and gods are extremely active and powerful) and Exalted (literally a game where you can play a god). The goalposts, they have shifted.

So, here's a question for Aragorn, though: Was he human?

Aragorn was Numenorean, a race of Men gifted with longer life, greater strength and wisdom, and other benefits. The Numenoreans date back to the First Age. As such, it kinda tells me that Aragorn (in 5e terms) might just have racial abilities that can mimic magical abilities; think the Tiefling's Infernal Legacy that allows them to cast Hellish Rebuke and Darkness.

So, given that, is it really fair to compare Aragorn to the basic concept of a "martial"? Could he have been just using racial features to accomplish those feats?

[Ralanr]

So, here's a question for Aragorn, though: Was he human?

Aragorn was Numenorean, a race of Men gifted with longer life, greater strength and wisdom, and other benefits. The Numenoreans date back to the First Age. As such, it kinda tells me that Aragorn (in 5e terms) might just have racial abilities that can mimic magical abilities; think the Tiefling's Infernal Legacy that allows them to cast Hellish Rebuke and Darkness.

So, given that, is it really fair to compare Aragorn to the basic concept of a "martial"? Could he have been just using racial features to accomplish those feats?

I mean, by that logic is it fair to compare Gimli and Legolas to the basic concept of martial?

I get your point, but taking on racial features in the argument gets weird and I don't think it was ever clear if Aragorn learned this abilities through his training as a ranger, or by being a Numenorean. Granted, I only watched the movies (and read the Hobbit).

[Man_Over_Game]

Not the original poster, but I'd argue that this would leave other martial classes behind.

Martial power is not just fundamentally a fighter thing. Barbarians are also affected by this. Rangers and Paladins have spells to help (though the Paladin is better off because of smite), while monks also work with Ki (though monks have their own problems).

I kinda liked the idea of each martial class having its own design niche as to what parts of combat they modify.

For instance, Barbarians could focus on the combat line, having abilities that break up the enemy's positioning while being a stable foundation for their party's. So they have things that protect adjacent allies, encourage aggression, punishing enemies who want to be close to each other, stuff like that.

Monks work best by flanking the enemy, taking out enemies who are near death as they approach the back line, all while making sure that their constant pressure isn't a liability through spot defenses.

Rangers could focus on disabling enemies and abusing their weaknesses in their strategies, while Rogues capitalize on enemies who are in bad situations (like through conditions or ally/enemy positioning).

They have these kinds of design spaces already in the game (Barbarians have Rage, Grapples. Monks have Deflect Missiles, smaller attacks, and Patient Defense. Rogues care about some conditions and some positioning), it just doesn't feel very...precise?

There's not a lot of vision that I can see on this level, just a lot of numbers and rough balance.

Balance matters a lot less when things are incomparable. With a design scheme like this, it wouldn't matter as much if the Fighter did more damage than the Barbarian, since they'd both contribute in ways the other couldn't, but the same isn't necessarily true with the 5e we have now.

Despite the fact that a 10% difference in damage isn't enough to make an impact with 5e's low difficulty curve, it's still enough for most folks to decide that the Barbarian is inferior to Fighter and look at it negatively, because that's one of the few things either of them are capable of doing.

On the other hand, even though Warlocks and Wizards fit a similar design space (a caster that can flex between damage, control and utility), they're incomparable enough that having both doesn't make them redundant or any more predictable. Having different ways to do the same things is enough in this example, because they have plenty of options to diversify their skillset with, with very few dead ends.

You can fix balance by just making player options feel differently, and then add ways for that player investment to grow into different sub-roles so that they don't get stale and stay unique in any party.

We need Barbarians who Barbarian their way through problems, not the way Fighters do it.

[GreyBlack]

I mean, by that logic is it fair to compare Gimli and Legolas to the basic concept of martial?

I get your point, but taking on racial features in the argument gets weird and I don't think it was ever clear if Aragorn learned this abilities through his training as a ranger, or by being a Numenorean. Granted, I only watched the movies (and read the Hobbit).

Yeah, hence my question before of "What even is a martial?" Some definitions would say that a ranger isn't a martial character; same as a paladin, or a rune knight, or a barbarian.

5e kinda breaks down a lot of the wall between "caster" and "martial," and a lot of the base flavor seems to say supposedly "mundane" abilities like the Second Wind are actually a part of the background magic of the setting. Which, honestly, I find really cool; the barbarian's Rage is just as magical as Wild Shaping. That said, it does kinda blur that line of what martial characters are.

I also would like to posit that the complaint of "Martials need to be able to do more stuff" is less about what martials are actually able to do and more that people want more rules about what you're explicitly allowed to do. Which, unfortunately, is antithetical to the entire 5e design philosophy, but that's neither here nor there.

[Xervous]

I also would like to posit that the complaint of "Martials need to be able to do more stuff" is less about what martials are actually able to do and more that people want more rules about what you're explicitly allowed to do. Which, unfortunately, is antithetical to the entire 5e design philosophy, but that's neither here nor there.

If you want to arsepull amazing acts from skills then bounded accuracy makes it a head scratcher. If you want to gate these fantastic skill usages by class or scenario you run into things like dex barbarian doing (athletic thing) while athletics proficient wizard can’t even attempt, but if the wizard has codpiece of 20 STR he’s allowed to roll and...that way lies calvinball. If it’s something available to all characters but heavily filtered through GM approval we’ve just defined mother may I.

Fine with having the GM determine what the Martials can do? No problems. Want some system level assurance for the Martials? It’s not there (even as guidance for GMs).