Unpopular D&D Opinions Part 2: Popular To Talk About

[Bohandas]

So it's not that Fighters don't get spells - if they got those effects as Maneuvers or whatever, but limited to only those things that can only ever be used in a fight, they'd still often have trouble being relevant. Even if you had a character with an ability 'kill any creature within 100ft, no save, at will, as a Standard Action', that would still often be less interesting to play in many campaigns (much less individual situations) than a low level caster.

What we need are more maneivers that do things like "slice a hole into the astral plane" or "swim up a waterfall" or "leap from mountaintop to mountaintop or over buildings" or "you can make a fire or a small body of water or all the air in the room go away if you can deal a blow strong enough to one shot an elemental of the appropriate size and kind" or "make someone unintelligible (including bardic music and casters trying to do verbal components) by slicing their words in half" or "parry spell effects back to the caster" or "literally slap sense into someone" or "that somersault cloud thing from Journey To The West"

[NichG]

What we need are more maneivers that do things like "slice a hole into the astral plane" or "swim up a waterfall" or "leap from mountaintop to mountaintop or over buildings" or "you can make a fire or a small body of water or all the air in the room go away if you can deal a blow strong enough to one shot an elemental of the appropriate size and kind" or "make someone unintelligible (including bardic music and casters trying to do verbal components) by slicing their words in half" or "parry spell effects back to the caster" or "literally slap sense into someone" or "that somersault cloud thing from Journey To The West"

Well that plus a basic re-conceptualization of the role as including everything that supports 'being good at fighting' and all insights that derive from it, rather than focusing on the act of striking in particular. Heightened ability to perceive the balance of forces in situations; self-discipline verging on stubbornness allowing one to ignore distractions, manipulations, bluffs, and the like; the ability to project that discipline outside of oneself to organize chaotic situations and restore order (be it a crowd gone amok, a sinking ship, a company that is losing money left and right, etc); reflexes and initiative allowing one to know the exact right time to move to have maximal effect; all the stuff regarding social dominance tied to shows of strength or resilience; the ability to see where someone is about to move based on their posture, extended to being able to sense when e.g. an army is about to march or a murderer about to strike again; body conditioning to allow survival in all sorts of extreme environments or shrugging off all sorts of harm or pain... And all of the quasi-supernatural extensions of those things for higher levels.

Not that every fighter would have all of those things, or would have to express all of them in the most broad ways, but I think going past the pigeon-hole of 'a fighter is someone who fights' is pretty important.

[Max_Killjoy]

What we need are more maneivers that do things like "slice a hole into the astral plane" or "swim up a waterfall" or "leap from mountaintop to mountaintop or over buildings" or "you can make a fire or a small body of water or all the air in the room go away if you can deal a blow strong enough to one shot an elemental of the appropriate size and kind" or "make someone unintelligible (including bardic music and casters trying to do verbal components) by slicing their words in half" or "parry spell effects back to the caster" or "literally slap sense into someone" or "that somersault cloud thing from Journey To The West"

This is a good example of how D&D is trying to encompass too many settings into one mash. This sort of thing for balance would fit some settings, but not others.

And IME, some of the greatest resistance to these sorts of powers for Fighters will come from a type of dedicated Fighter players, who want to play their Fighter as a character who doesn't exceed (at least the hypothetical / dramatic) limits of human capability... they want Conan, not Wuxia.

[Pex]

What we need are more maneivers that do things like "slice a hole into the astral plane" or "swim up a waterfall" or "leap from mountaintop to mountaintop or over buildings" or "you can make a fire or a small body of water or all the air in the room go away if you can deal a blow strong enough to one shot an elemental of the appropriate size and kind" or "make someone unintelligible (including bardic music and casters trying to do verbal components) by slicing their words in half" or "parry spell effects back to the caster" or "literally slap sense into someone" or "that somersault cloud thing from Journey To The West"

This has been discussed many times before. Fighters do not need to cut holes in reality. It's perfectly fine for spellcasters to do powerful things that only they can do. Fighters should be getting their own things, and more than just Guy At The Gym. Random ideas - Powerful Build is a class feature. They can ignore Exhaustion. No penalty to Perception in (Magical) Darkness. They still can't see, but they can hear very well to know where someone is even if they can't describe what they look like. No penalty to stealth in armor. The point is sure they could use more stuff, but they don't have to become spellcasters to do it. Likewise spellcasters need not be nerfed to almost useless. There is room to lower their power a bit of it's too much, but they are entitled to cast spells. They're entitled to cast powerful spells. They're entitled to cast powerful spells that work. They're entitled to cast powerful spells that work without killing themselves in the process by suffering a penalty for the audacity of casting a spell. Every spellcaster is specialized in some way such that no spellcaster can cast any spell is a fair limitation.

[Tanarii]

And IME, some of the greatest resistance to these sorts of powers for Fighters will come from a type of dedicated Fighter players, who want to play their Fighter as a character who doesn't exceed (at least the hypothetical / dramatic) limits of human capability... they want Conan, not Wuxia.

The flip side is Conan spellcasters ... most fantasy novel and film spellcasters ... have absolutely nothing like the power and ease of casting of a superhuman level (ie 11+) WotC D&D spellcaster, let alone a demigod level (17+) one.

Even heroic level (5-10) ones can exceed it, but at least it's the sweet spot where it still appears to generally feel reasonable to most people.

Which really indicates that yeah, it'd be fine for martials to start explicitly having martial superhero/wuxia type powers at 11-16, and martial demigod/dragonball type powers at 17+. But they'd probably have to publish 1-10 in the PHB and make 11-16 and 17-20 expansions.

[Satinavian]

The flip side is Conan spellcasters ... most fantasy novel and film spellcasters ... have absolutely nothing like the power and ease of casting of a superhuman level (ie 11+) WotC D&D spellcaster, let alone a demigod level (17+) one.

Even heroic level (5-10) ones can exceed it, but at least it's the sweet spot where it still appears to generally feel reasonable to most people.

Are you really sure about that ? Optimization aside (which tends to be horrible in books anyway) i don't feel like the shenanigans power users in Wheel of Time use are that inferior to D&D higher level casting to take a typical really widespread fantasy novel series. Or have you recently taken a look to the typical base asumptions about magic in your regular fantasy Isekai ? Or even something more clasical like Lyrical Nanoha ? Even if you go centuries back, you get people like Shapespeares Prospero. And don't get me started on magic based superheroes and their (often basically nonexistant) limitations.

Conan is not that typical anymore. In his genre spellcasters were weak, even weaker than the first year students from Harry Potter. Also not protagonists. But when was the last Sword&Sorcery film made/book written that got any relevant audience ?

This is a good example of how D&D is trying to encompass too many settings into one mash. This sort of thing for balance would fit some settings, but not others.

And IME, some of the greatest resistance to these sorts of powers for Fighters will come from a type of dedicated Fighter players, who want to play their Fighter as a character who doesn't exceed (at least the hypothetical / dramatic) limits of human capability... they want Conan, not Wuxia.

The problem is that everyone who actually wants to play Sword and Sorcery wants to play fighters (or fighter/rogues) anyway. And with with so many players wanting their game about something else, it will never go back to those roots as far as the mainstream is concerned.

In fact there are oh so many RPGs trying to get the Conan feel, most written by disgruntled fighter players. But they all remain niche.



I don't like the D&D magic at all. Which is not a big problem as i prefer and regular play only other systems anyway. But none of them would make for a good Conan rulesystem either.

[Milodiah]

I don't like the D&D magic at all. Which is not a big problem as i prefer and regular play only other systems anyway. But none of them would make for a good Conan rulesystem either.

One thing I do really like about some other tabletop magic systems, such as Shadowrun's or certain builds of GURPS magic like the one I've cobbled together, that D&D doesn't really have at all is the idea that a magician can push themselves to the limit, or beyond, to get more power behind something. Your spell slots are your spell slots, that's it, no more today. There's no dramatic self sacrifice for that one last burst of magic, there's no straining against the effort and hoping it holds together, there's no "can't do it, cap'n! She'll blow!". You get two fifth level spells a day at your level, with your attribute bonus. No more, no less. There's no difference between casting zero, one, or two for you. If someone asks you for three, or for a sixth level spell, you just kinda shrug and say "nope, not happening", no matter how dire it is. Even if you were willing to give up your life to make it happen, sorry, them's the breaks.

And when you level up, you just wake up that day able to cast that 6th level spell. Yesterday, there was no way in the world you could ever hope to do that. You might as well have tried to blow out the Sun like a birthday candle. Suddenly, though, you can cast one a day. It's not hard, there's no learning curve, you don't even break a sweat. And this is just something you can do now, without any further fanfare than the players themselves saying "omfg I finally get to pick out 6th level spells, pass me the players handbook!" Sure, maybe the DM feels like throwing in some cool descriptors of your arcane might suddenly flaring and you feeling the power surge through your veins, but that's the DM doing that, with no real support out of the rulebook.

I'm not saying I want that in D&D, because you'd have to pretty much rewrite the whole system to make it happen without it feeling clumsy, or tacked-on, or exploitable in a ton of obvious ways. But it definitely leaves a narrative hole.

[hamishspence]

One thing I do really like about some other tabletop magic systems, such as Shadowrun's or certain builds of GURPS magic like the one I've cobbled together, that D&D doesn't really have at all is the idea that a magician can push themselves to the limit, or beyond, to get more power behind something. Your spell slots are your spell slots, that's it, no more today. There's no dramatic self sacrifice for that one last burst of magic, there's no straining against the effort and hoping it holds together, there's no "can't do it, cap'n! She'll blow!". You get two fifth level spells a day at your level, with your attribute bonus. No more, no less. There's no difference between casting zero, one, or two for you. If someone asks you for three, or for a sixth level spell, you just kinda shrug and say "nope, not happening", no matter how dire it is. Even if you were willing to give up your life to make it happen, sorry, them's the breaks.

I'm not saying I want that in D&D, because you'd have to pretty much rewrite the whole system to make it happen without it feeling clumsy, or tacked-on, or exploitable in a ton of obvious ways. But it definitely leaves a narrative hole.

Overchannel feat, for psionics, works very much like this though.

[The Glyphstone]

I seem to remember a 3.5 feat that did something similar for arcane casters. Reserves of Strength, maybe? I only remember it because it was part of some TO exploit or another.

[RandomPeasant]

The point is sure they could use more stuff, but they don't have to become spellcasters to do it.

I think that's sort of a bait and switch, because it's never really explained what "become spellcasters" means. There are lots of differences between Wizards and Fighters. Wizards are back-line characters, Fighters are front-line characters. Wizards are INT-based characters, Fighters are STR-based characters. Wizards (typically) have a limited set of daily slots, Fighters (typically) do not. Wizards wear robes, Fighters wear plate. Wizards use magic, Fighters don't use magic. Which of those lines are you allowed to cross without saying that the Fighter has "become a spellcaster"?

Personally, I don't see any reason why the Fighter should get magical (or at least supernatural) powers at high levels, because I can't think of any examples from the source material where Fighter-types go on high level adventures but don't have those types of abilities. Kaladin gets his pile of superpowers before he starts fighting giant rock monsters and psuedo-teleporting crab people. Ranger can cut holes into the realm of the fey and cut people just by thinking about cutting them. Captain America gets lightning powers before defeating Thanos. When someone can show me something that is even a 12th level D&D adventure that was defeated by exclusively non-magical people using their personal non-magical skills, I will concede that we need to think about what a high level Fighter who doesn't have any magic looks like. But I don't think that is ever going to happen.

Every spellcaster is specialized in some way such that no spellcaster can cast any spell is a fair limitation.

I always thought people over-focused on the versatility of spellcasters in their complaints about game balance. If you look at 3e (which has enough variety in classes to give clean examples), it seems pretty hard to come away thinking that if you look at the data. The Wizard is T1, and can re-pick their spells every day. The Dread Necromancer is T2, and casts spells of a list that is much more limited than the Wizards and which cannot be changed from day to day. The Incarnate is T4, and can re-pick their not-spells every day. Repicking her spells every day may be why a Wizard is better than a Sorcerer (though it's not even the only reason for that), but it's not why she's better than a Fighter. I'm not opposed to thematic limitations on spellcasters, but they're a good idea because people think thematically-focused classes are cool, not because they do much to address power disparity.

Are you really sure about that ? Optimization aside (which tends to be horrible in books anyway) i don't feel like the shenanigans power users in Wheel of Time use are that inferior to D&D higher level casting to take a typical really widespread fantasy novel series. Or have you recently taken a look to the typical base asumptions about magic in your regular fantasy Isekai ? Or even something more clasical like Lyrical Nanoha ? Even if you go centuries back, you get people like Shapespeares Prospero. And don't get me started on magic based superheroes and their (often basically nonexistant) limitations.

There is plenty of source material that is on the level of high-end D&D casters. Especially if we're defining "high end" as "humiliates the mundane Fighter". In many cases, other fantasy settings will have magic that is more impressive than D&D magic, usually because they have battle magic that effects an entire battlefield rather than being the equivalent of a grenade.

Conan is not that typical anymore. In his genre spellcasters were weak, even weaker than the first year students from Harry Potter. Also not protagonists. But when was the last Sword&Sorcery film made/book written that got any relevant audience ?

I would say the First Law trilogy counts (though Abercrombie's later stuff starts moving into flintlock fantasy territory). But broadly, I think it's sort of irrelevant. Is there fantasy out there with a low power level? Sure. But there's also fantasy out their with a high power level, and D&D doesn't have to pick just one. D&D has always presented a progression from murder-hobo to god-king, and the idea of a purely mundane Fighter doesn't fit properly in that and never has.

[Batcathat]

I always thought people over-focused on the versatility of spellcasters in their complaints about game balance. If you look at 3e (which has enough variety in classes to give clean examples), it seems pretty hard to come away thinking that if you look at the data. The Wizard is T1, and can re-pick their spells every day. The Dread Necromancer is T2, and casts spells of a list that is much more limited than the Wizards and which cannot be changed from day to day. The Incarnate is T4, and can re-pick their not-spells every day. Repicking her spells every day may be why a Wizard is better than a Sorcerer (though it's not even the only reason for that), but it's not why she's better than a Fighter. I'm not opposed to thematic limitations on spellcasters, but they're a good idea because people think thematically-focused classes are cool, not because they do much to address power disparity.

Caster versatility isn't just about them being able to change their spells though, but the sheer width of what their magic can do. A wizard can memorize the same spells every single day and still have so many more options than most non-casters (it depends on the spells picked, obviously, but unless you go out of your way to cripple yourself, you're likely to end up a lot more versatile than "can stab stuff").

[RandomPeasant]

Caster versatility isn't just about them being able to change their spells though, but the sheer width of what their magic can do. A wizard can memorize the same spells every single day and still have so many more options than most non-casters (it depends on the spells picked, obviously, but unless you go out of your way to cripple yourself, you're likely to end up a lot more versatile than "can stab stuff").

Sure, but then you start getting into "is that a bad thing". I think if you were looking at just the Wizard and just the Fighter, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the latter is a better model for the game than the former. Even when you get to the most versatile of non-casters (like the Warblade in 3e or the Battlemaster in 5e), they're still pretty lacking in the sorts of abilities even relatively limited casters have to interact with the plot or the setting. I'm certainly not claiming that the Wizard is an ideally-designed class in any edition, but it has a lot more going for it than people are generally willing to credit and many of the specific complaints people make are largely baseless.

[Batcathat]

Sure, but then you start getting into "is that a bad thing". I think if you were looking at just the Wizard and just the Fighter, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the latter is a better model for the game than the former. Even when you get to the most versatile of non-casters (like the Warblade in 3e or the Battlemaster in 5e), they're still pretty lacking in the sorts of abilities even relatively limited casters have to interact with the plot or the setting. I'm certainly not claiming that the Wizard is an ideally-designed class in any edition, but it has a lot more going for it than people are generally willing to credit and many of the specific complaints people make are largely baseless.

Sure, I'm certainly not saying that wizards should lose all versatility or even most of it. Just that I think they would be more balanced and more interesting if they had a more specific concept than "can do all the magic" (especially when the concept of D&D magic doesn't have a lot of limitations itself).

[Quertus]

You didn't come to the world able to read and write, no need to assume your character did.

Now, irl, I had an awful lot of practice training and writing before I went “out adventuring” (left home, went to college, got a job). But if you really want to run a game where “Grok play can can eat glass happy” is praiseworthy communication, because those are all real words, you do you. But, myself, I find it makes a much more cromulent game when the PCs have a feeling of Competence and actually having been trained.

Then again, I’d also fire most of my coworkers in most of the jobs I’ve had. I have a rather high bar, apparently, for what I consider “minimal competency”.

Agreed these generally eat up the most time, but ...

This one I consider a cardinal TTRPG sin ... uh, thing that makes you start seeing your character as a playing piece instead of you, the character. As such, this one is an easy immersion breaker to address. If your character can't be discussing something in universe, and it's something that would require them to talk about it, you shouldn't be doing it at the table either. Ditto for "ooc" conversations when an NPC is standing right there. If you say something that could only be communicated from character to character to have the intended in game result by the other character, the NPC heard your character say it and reacts accordingly.

For the combat thing, I know some people like to skip the research/scouting and advanced planning and just allow table talk as a substitute, but that approach is still an immersion breaker, because it still feels like "playing piece".

Unpopular experience: I've never seen players slowing down combat due to tactical decision making. I've seen it from newbies, but never people who have

I suspect part of it has to do with not playing with military personnel, serious wargamers, or other people who actually care about tactics. Optimising our gear and bluff/fast talk generally took a more important place than us than optimising tactics.

I've seen people slow it down by trying to be tactical. Usually badly, and almost always without cause.

For me, the whole "combat turns into a board game with playing pieces, killing roleplay" has only happened when people cranked the difficulty up and/or focused on "challenge via combat" as a primary avenue of play. When every action has to be optimal or near optimal from a pure tactical perspective or the risk of failure and death skyrockets, of course that mode takes over.

5e, in particular, runs just fine without that. It does mean you end up playing differently and building different characters as a result, but I happen to personally prefer it tremendously even though you give up "tactical" combat and challenge as a motivating factor in the process.

Well, I’ve certainly got an unpopular opinion here.

I think it depends on the group and their intentions as to what the right answer here is.

In general, I prefer quick play. Which means knowing the rules, playing your own character, and minimal table talk. Highly optimized play.

But not optimized *moves*. Questionable choices, made in character, where Batman don’t use the gun, no matter how obviously superior that choice would be.

Which means *challenge* isn’t and cannot be a strong motivator. Because in high challenge games, the impetus to think through your turn, to prevent a TPK, is too strong.

That said, I’ve played other ways that were fine *for those groups*, with their particular table cultures and motivations. One of the ones it might be obvious that I’d like, the group would help you *roleplaying* your character. So questions like (to continue the example) “would Batman consider a taser to be a gun?” were not unknown, and could “bog the game down”… except that that’s explicitly the game that they signed up to play, that’s what they found fun.

Similarly, I’ve seen a group that felt that pre-combat planning took too long, given that the players liked to plan for *everything*, and used retroactive planning, where, once you knew the battle, then you retroactively discussed *that portion* of the plan.

So, I guess it depends on what’s being discussed, and why, as to whether it makes you see your character more as a playing piece than a character (which definitely happens at many tables), and whether the time sink feels like a deal-breaker.

As a rule, give me fast tables. But there are exceptions.

@Anonymouswizard, in defense of serious war gamers, a) they’re more likely to know and actually understand the rules; b) they’re just as able to be playing an RPG for the roleplaying as distinct from a war game as they are to be playing it as a war game.

[RandomPeasant]

Sure, I'm certainly not saying that wizards should lose all versatility or even most of it. Just that I think they would be more balanced and more interesting if they had a more specific concept than "can do all the magic" (especially when the concept of D&D magic doesn't have a lot of limitations itself).

I guess my issue is mostly that while I agree with the "more interesting" part, I just don't see all that much evidence for "more balanced" when you look at the game as a whole. The correlation between "can change around their abilities easily" and "is overall very powerful" is just not all that strong.

[Pex]

I think that's sort of a bait and switch, because it's never really explained what "become spellcasters" means. There are lots of differences between Wizards and Fighters. Wizards are back-line characters, Fighters are front-line characters. Wizards are INT-based characters, Fighters are STR-based characters. Wizards (typically) have a limited set of daily slots, Fighters (typically) do not. Wizards wear robes, Fighters wear plate. Wizards use magic, Fighters don't use magic. Which of those lines are you allowed to cross without saying that the Fighter has "become a spellcaster"?

It is hard to define. It's more you'll know it when you see it. A fighter becoming a spellcaster is not literally casting spells with spell slots. Rather it means he has abilities that were traditionally in the realm of high level spells. A fighter cutting a hole in reality to plane shift or teleport is a more obvious example. I don't think people would object to someone being so good in Medicine they can do CPR to simulate Revivify, but they'll object a fighter waves his sword or whatever and resurrects the high priest who was dead for 50 years. A high level fighter should be more than Guy At The Gym, but whatever his abilities it's fine that Guy At The Gym is where the abilities start and become more so. A fighter/warrior type is based on the physical stats so any ability one can logically derive from them would work. That's for all warriors of some degree. It's ok for Barbarian to have Exceptional Strength but not Paladin. Specializations allow for variety. The CH warrior can be a the Combat Leader making the party fight better and non-combat socializing. The IN warrior knows combat tactics on an individual level but also knows lots of things, even esoteric things like 3E bards could know. Devil in the details. I don't need to spell out how this works. The point is let the spellcasters have their flashy spells. Warriors do other things.

[Cluedrew]

This has been discussed many times before. Fighters do not need to cut holes in reality.

On the other hand, I have been unable to find a single "god-martial" ability someone didn't decry as being fundamentally flawed for some reason. And honestly, D&D casters have been given so many abilities that not stepping on their toes is like trying to not step on the floor. (And from the preview you are starting to address that issue.)

The flip side is Conan spellcasters ... most fantasy novel and film spellcasters ...

Are you really sure about that ? Optimization aside (which tends to be horrible in books anyway) i don't feel like the shenanigans power users in Wheel of Time use are that inferior to D&D higher level casting to take a typical really widespread fantasy novel series. Or have you recently taken a look to the typical base asumptions about magic in your regular fantasy Isekai ? Or even something more clasical like Lyrical Nanoha ? Even if you go centuries back, you get people like Shapespeares Prospero. And don't get me started on magic based superheroes and their (often basically nonexistant) limitations.

I wasn't aware Conan was in Wheel of Time. OK so that was probably about the "more". I'm not sure super-heroes (they may be wizards but it isn't really fantasy) or Isekai (it's supposed to be inside an RPG*) should really be used as counter examples. Still Prospero is a great highlight of what I think the actual difference is: A lot of wizards/casters in fiction aren't actually that strong in a straight up fight. D&D puts them on par with fighters in that regard while giving them many of the advantages they have in fiction.

* Except the villainess sub-genre which are in dating sims if you count that. There is probably a system about that.

[awa]

It is hard to define. It's more you'll know it when you see it. A fighter becoming a spellcaster is not literally casting spells with spell slots. Rather it means he has abilities that were traditionally in the realm of high level spells. A fighter cutting a hole in reality to plane shift or teleport is a more obvious example. I don't think people would object to someone being so good in Medicine they can do CPR to simulate Revivify, but they'll object a fighter waves his sword or whatever and resurrects the high priest who was dead for 50 years. A high level fighter should be more than Guy At The Gym, but whatever his abilities it's fine that Guy At The Gym is where the abilities start and become more so. A fighter/warrior type is based on the physical stats so any ability one can logically derive from them would work. That's for all warriors of some degree. It's ok for Barbarian to have Exceptional Strength but not Paladin. Specializations allow for variety. The CH warrior can be a the Combat Leader making the party fight better and non-combat socializing. The IN warrior knows combat tactics on an individual level but also knows lots of things, even esoteric things like 3E bards could know. Devil in the details. I don't need to spell out how this works. The point is let the spellcasters have their flashy spells. Warriors do other things.

I agree with this.

While a Conan style extraordinary human might not be able to match a wish it would still vastly exceed what current fighters and barbarians can do. Conan and many other fantasy martial for that matter are good at everything so a martial could have just straight up better stats across the board with all good saves, and much, much better skills. Then either give them a bunch of skill feats/ skill tricks for free or get rid of those things and make lots of option for extra high skill checks.

There are a lot of extraordinary abilities used in fiction that could expand a martial value without being beyond belief (your mileage may vary).
sense motive as near mind reading to predict actions, exceptional stealth, making poisons and potions from natural materials.

The main thing is the martial needs enough of these things to counteract the versatility of the casters.

Take knock vrs open locks or invisibility vs hide/move silent part of the reason people complain about these is because the rogue had to spend a lot of resources to be good at something the wizard can do with just a single spell. If the rogue wasn't spending a significant amount of their resources on those things than it would not feel as if he was being invalidated and replaced by a single spell.

If you want to make a sword and sorcery fan happy with a fighter don't look at Thor look at Conan, look at batman, look at James Bond and be willing to give them abilities to let them do their cool things. These are characters who do awesome stuff all the time but are still human if you squint.

[Tanarii]

On the other hand, I have been unable to find a single "god-martial" ability someone didn't decry as being fundamentally flawed for some reason.

Fire off 8 crossbow bolts from a Heavy Crossbow in 6 seconds, with no penalty for range or cover out to 400ft, and do very good single target damage. That's only possible once per short rest, which means it needs to be about as good as a a demigod tier 4 (17+) casters 7th, 8th and 9th level spell slots. Generally speaking it's probably not that good, but it's certainly a pretty amazing feat!

I wasn't aware Conan was in Wheel of Time.

Wheel of Time is mostly the exception that proves the rule. Sanderson's Cosmere is probably another solid exception.

[NichG]

Fire off 8 crossbow bolts from a Heavy Crossbow in 6 seconds, with no penalty for range or cover out to 400ft, and do very good single target damage. That's only possible once per short rest, which means it needs to be about as good as a a demigod tier 4 (17+) casters 7th, 8th and 9th level spell slots. Generally speaking it's probably not that good, but it's certainly a pretty amazing feat!

Got any utility examples rather than just more killing things better?

I guess this is my point. It's not about power, it's about conceptual limits. Rather than trying to make the fighter better at killing things (no need, just run an ubercharger...) think of what would make a fighter interesting to play even in a campaign with no combat.

Even better, think of what would help a fighter initiate plot rather than just react to it.

[Bohandas]

Caster versatility isn't just about them being able to change their spells though, but the sheer width of what their magic can do. A wizard can memorize the same spells every single day and still have so many more options than most non-casters (it depends on the spells picked, obviously, but unless you go out of your way to cripple yourself, you're likely to end up a lot more versatile than "can stab stuff").

What makes a wizard's golden hammer better than a fighter's?

[Tanarii]

Got any utility examples rather than just more killing things better?

Nope. Being able to fire a Heavy Crossbow that fast is beyond merely superhuman in my book though, which was my point.

Things that would be classically martial type abilities that could be made extreme:
Leap very far and Run very fast
Throw things very far
Shrug off intense pain / poison / damage
Exceptional balance
Very fast hands
"See" without eyesight
(Most of these already exist, but not at ludicrous levels of ability)

In non-physical:
Incredible crafting / technology skills
Very good leadership skills

I'd include sage-like knowledge, but in D&D that's been coopted by Wizards.

OTOH, I'm a strong believer that it's totally fair to exceed these things and move into the "magical" realm for martials once you start talking level 11+. Those are the levels of play at which spells are gained that are incredibly powerful (6th) or weren't originally intended for player use (7-9th), because when they were written the idea that a player could legitimately reach them was ludicrous. And unfortunately they've stayed in the game because of inertia. And meanwhile, the speed of leveling has gone to blazingly fast.

If WotC isn't going to slow the game down so that level 11+ is released as an Epic level expansion, they should probably revisit martials and giving them "magical" abilities. I don't think they failed to mostly balance martials in 5e, or rather I know it's balanced through at least level 13 but possibly it falls apart in late Tier 3 or Tier 4. But that doesn't mean they couldn't just rewrite it so there's an explicitly called out change to "magical" levels of martial-hood starting when casters get 6th level spells.

[Telok]

Nope. Being able to fire a Heavy Crossbow that fast is beyond merely superhuman in my book though, which was my point.

Things that would be classically martial type abilities that could be made extreme:
Leap very far and Run very fast
Throw things very far
Shrug off intense pain / poison / damage
Exceptional balance
Very fast hands
"See" without eyesight
(Most of these already exist, but not at ludicrous levels of ability)

In non-physical:
Incredible crafting / technology skills
Very good leadership skills

I'd include sage-like knowledge, but in D&D that's been coopted by Wizards.

Part of the issue, possibly, is a weird WotC theme of "we gave X to class Y so we can't give it to class Z" where "x" is anything but general combat ability. Like giving "know stuff" to wizards and then soft banning it in other classes.

Another part is that the martials super type stuff you mentioned is either gated behind being high level, or highly limited build resources, or both. Which, of course, isn't an issue if all your classes run on the same resources and have equal level abilities except that you run the risk of homogenizing your archtypes and making stuff feel 'samey'.

Had a 3.5 xeph dex warblade that could hit half the list you posted (crafting was limited to high checks & carving stone luke butter, plus limited spell parry & "this round all attacks just raise my already silly high AC even higher") at level 12 or 14. But I'm not sure you could get that much into a later edition straight melee warrior without being much higher level or cheesing out a perfect set of just the right magic items. Of course ToB is widely thought of as WotC's one real "martials get nice things" success.

[NichG]

Nope. Being able to fire a Heavy Crossbow that fast is beyond merely superhuman in my book though, which was my point.

Things that would be classically martial type abilities that could be made extreme:
Leap very far and Run very fast
Throw things very far
Shrug off intense pain / poison / damage
Exceptional balance
Very fast hands
"See" without eyesight
(Most of these already exist, but not at ludicrous levels of ability)

In non-physical:
Incredible crafting / technology skills
Very good leadership skills

I'd include sage-like knowledge, but in D&D that's been coopted by Wizards.

OTOH, I'm a strong believer that it's totally fair to exceed these things and move into the "magical" realm for martials once you start talking level 11+. Those are the levels of play at which spells are gained that are incredibly powerful (6th) or weren't originally intended for player use (7-9th), because when they were written the idea that a player could legitimately reach them was ludicrous. And unfortunately they've stayed in the game because of inertia. And meanwhile, the speed of leveling has gone to blazingly fast.

If WotC isn't going to slow the game down so that level 11+ is released as an Epic level expansion, they should probably revisit martials and giving them "magical" abilities. I don't think they failed to mostly balance martials in 5e, or rather I know it's balanced through at least level 13 but possibly it falls apart in late Tier 3 or Tier 4. But that doesn't mean they couldn't just rewrite it so there's an explicitly called out change to "magical" levels of martial-hood starting when casters get 6th level spells.

So what I'm getting at is that it's not even the human/superhuman distinction that causes problems. It's versatility and specifically the ability to initiate plot, change, growth, etc rather than just react to circumstances. For example, putting aside actual individual feats of power, think about the sorts of scenarios that e.g. the real-world leader of a country can (and is expected to) deal with. That's a completely mundane 'character' who might have to deal with plagues or famines stretching over millions, or fundamental shifts in the sustainability of ways of life, or ideological conflicts without a single 'head of the snake' that can simply be cut off, or disruptive technologies that change things which people assumed were to be held constant. They can in principle initiate huge projects to completely change regions or environments, reach beyond what civilization has achieved, etc. A modern mundane leader could even in principle extinguish human life on Earth.

Those are the kinds of things I'd expect e.g. a Lv15 or so character to be dealing with.

It didn't require me to go beyond the mundane to find a character who could do that (though there's nothing wrong with going beyond the mundane to expand the sorts of archetypes you can have who can deal with that kind of thing). But if I had focused only on combat as the centerpiece of how I thought about a character, I think it'd be hard to get anything which would stand up past Lv8 or so no matter how good they are in combat.

[Satinavian]

I wasn't aware Conan was in Wheel of Time. OK so that was probably about the "more". I'm not sure super-heroes (they may be wizards but it isn't really fantasy) or Isekai (it's supposed to be inside an RPG*) should really be used as counter examples.

Yes, it was about the "most". I just disagree that Conan-like spellcasters are that typical or what the audience nowadays expect from the spellcaster archetype. Also Isekai is about visiting/being reincarnated to other worlds and while video game worlds are common so are genuine fantasy worlds.

Still Prospero is a great highlight of what I think the actual difference is: A lot of wizards/casters in fiction aren't actually that strong in a straight up fight. D&D puts them on par with fighters in that regard while giving them many of the advantages they have in fiction.

Now that is something i can agree with.

An archetypical fighter in a fantasy setting is a professional combattant, an archetypical caster is not. An archetypical caster should be busy doing noncombat applied magic professionally and lack both combat training and a focus on combat relevant spells. Only a small subset of casters actually serving in military positions should be differently oriented but even those might gravitate to logistical support instead of combat power (but have self defense options and potentially basic armor and weapon training because basic training is easy).
This shifts a bit in cases where combat casters are really powerful and basically the only ones who matter in a war. Then you get caster = soldier aristocrat. But those worlds don't really have any fighters to speak of.

But D&D has combat at the center and thus spells are mostly focussed on combat as are casters.

Luckily i don't play D&D and thus can build and play both civillian casters who have never been near combat and don't expect/prepare for it either and casters that use magic only outside combat but achieve great and impressive things there.


There are so many magic based archetypes in fiction that are not about combat. And D&D is horrible at realizing them because you usually end up needing a mid or high level spell for the main shtick and are locked in to wizard with all the accompaning baggage.

[Pex]

On the other hand, I have been unable to find a single "god-martial" ability someone didn't decry as being fundamentally flawed for some reason. And honestly, D&D casters have been given so many abilities that not stepping on their toes is like trying to not step on the floor. (And from the preview you are starting to address that issue.)

There is the other extreme. There are people who exactly want the Fighter to be Guy At The Gym but be suitable to play when spellcasters travel to different planes and clone themselves. It's not enough a warrior should not cut a hole in reality. They shouldn't be able to do the things I suggested. No exceptional strength, No perfect hearing in darkness. No CPR. The wizard casts Force Cage. The fighter attacks three times. The druid lets everyone breathe underwater to visit the sea elves. The fighter has disadvantage on stealth checks wearing plate mail. They're happy with that.

On the DM side of things, it's how much does the DM resent having to find ways to make the warriors relevant or having to find ways to curtail spellcaster power. The more resentment the DM has, the more he'll female dog about it on the internet for those of us who are here.

The debate goes in circles, and I don't think it will ever resolve. It's impossible to please everyone, and there hasn't been a perfect D&D. The cost was too high for whatever balance 4E had between warriors and spellcasters. As much as I like 3E I do think 5E makes a better fit. Personal bias I do think some people (generally speaking, I'm not calling anyone out) who complain need to get over it spellcasters can teleport and do other powerful effects. As the levels progress things that were obstacles at low level no longer are. That is the design feature of the game. The most loud complainers are the ones who can't or refuse to adapt to the paradigm shift of PC power. Be mindful players shouldn't Win D&D with powers or combinations of powers. Smash the banhammer on Coffeelock and Simulacrum/Wish chaining, but don't get upset a ravine is no longer a problem in traveling.

[Satinavian]

The debate goes in circles, and I don't think it will ever resolve. It's impossible to please everyone, and there hasn't been a perfect D&D. The cost was too high for whatever balance 4E had between warriors and spellcasters. As much as I like 3E I do think 5E makes a better fit. Personal bias I do think some people (generally speaking, I'm not calling anyone out) who complain need to get over it spellcasters can teleport and do other powerful effects. As the levels progress things that were obstacles at low level no longer are. That is the design feature of the game. The most loud complainers are the ones who can't or refuse to adapt to the paradigm shift of PC power. Be mindful players shouldn't Win D&D with powers or combinations of powers. Smash the banhammer on Coffeelock and Simulacrum/Wish chaining, but don't get upset a ravine is no longer a problem in traveling.

That sounds about right.

People should stop trying to "fix D&D" in regards to caster/martial stuff. Opinions about how things should be are too varied in the playerbase and those with the fixes are naturally the ones least happy with the status quo. And they never get the community to follow their direction.

If you don't like how things are, it is far better to look at the myriads of other modifications that tried to do the very same thing and and never got traction. No need to reinvent the wheel again. D&D is what it is and will mostly stay this way. They took risks with 4E and paid the price, now they know their audience better

[Batcathat]

I guess my issue is mostly that while I agree with the "more interesting" part, I just don't see all that much evidence for "more balanced" when you look at the game as a whole. The correlation between "can change around their abilities easily" and "is overall very powerful" is just not all that strong.

Right, but that's not what the specialization would change (well, my version of it, at least). A specialized caster would still change around their abilities, they just wouldn't have all the spells to pick from.

What makes a wizard's golden hammer better than a fighter's?

Because even a wizard who doesn't change their spells typically have an entire golden toolbox at their disposal.

[Mordante]

Nekomancer? That's the anime wizard who summons cat-girls (and boys), right? If it had two c's instead of the k, that'd be sweet[1] as well. Ok, more chalky

I agree. Except strike generalist. You're a generalist for the first couple levels. After that, if you want more power, you have to specialize. I'd say the same to clerics--your first couple of levels are generic; any cleric can cast those spells. Beyond that? You get power from your domain (with some overlap). Want to cast the upper-tier resurrection spells? Better have something tied to life or death. Etc. No more life clerics casting animate dead.

Spoiler: spoiling the joke

Show

Necromancer
Nekomancer sounds like a fusion of the japanese word for "cat" with "mancer"
And Necco is a particular kind of "candy"--ok, more like chalk tablets. Ugh.

Cat girls/boys FTW. Currently playing a female Catfolk Bard that one day will be a swiftblade.

I think this list would be a decent start

Cartomancy - The Magic of Luck, Circumstance and Fate.
Cryptomancy - Study of Runes, Sigils, Symbols.
Crystalomancy - Magic of Crystals (crystals are used as magic items by a few cultures)
Elemental Magic - Four big elements.
Invocation - Magic drawn from supernatural entities.
Mysticism - Internal, mental, spiritual magic.
Natural Magic - Magic concerning animals, plants, and the natural world.
Necromancy - Death magic. Entropy.
Shamanism - Totemic spirit magic.
Witchcraft - Sympathetic magic
Wizardry - Manipulation of arcane energy ambient in the world.

Cat girls/boys FTW. Currently playing a female Catfolk Bard that one day will be a swiftblade.

[RandomPeasant]

It is hard to define. It's more you'll know it when you see it. A fighter becoming a spellcaster is not literally casting spells with spell slots. Rather it means he has abilities that were traditionally in the realm of high level spells.

Then how exactly is the Fighter supposed to contribute in an environment where people are throwing around high level spells? It seems like at that point the only solution is to go full non-overlapping magisteria, but that causes problems with all the characters whose magisteria demonstrably do overlap. Kaladin is walking around with both high level martial abilities (martial skill most obviously, but super-speed seems like something you'd be okay with), but also clearly magical ones like gravity manipulation. But at the bottom line, if the Wizard is allowed to have plane shift and the Fighter is not allowed to have abilities that are "traditionally in the realm of plane shift", how have you solved anything?

I wasn't aware Conan was in Wheel of Time.

In fairness to that, you can find Conan-riffs in high powered fantasy settings (like Cnaiur in The Second Apocalypse). I don't know of one in Wheel of Time, but I haven't read Wheel of Time, so who can say?

I'm not sure super-heroes (they may be wizards but it isn't really fantasy)

Is there a reason that isn't exactly a No True Scotsman?

D&D puts them on par with fighters in that regard while giving them many of the advantages they have in fiction.

Well, you kind of have to. D&D spends too much time on combat to justify dramatic differences in performance there. Once you've declared that your game is going to be about going into dungeons and fighting the things you find there for treasure and that half the expected team is people who do magic, a lot of the "what if magic was like this bit of fiction where Wizards mostly do Vasty Rituals of Might Power" solutions go out the window.

While a Conan style extraordinary human might not be able to match a wish it would still vastly exceed what current fighters and barbarians can do.

I think that gets at an important aspect of the issue. There are two sides to the problem, and a lot of the time people who care about one will talk past the other. On the one hand, D&D has historically be pretty terrible at representing martial characters. The Barbarian just doesn't do a good Conan, and the Ranger makes for a pretty sloppy Aragorn. On the other hand, non-magical martials just don't scale to the same level that spellcasters do. There's no amount of power you can give Conan that will make him an appropriate adventuring companion for Rand al'Thor or Quick Ben while remaining recognizably Conan. I would argue that these have the same root cause (trying to spread "non-magical martial" out over twenty levels), but it is not unreasonable for people to be more concerned about one or the other.

Take knock vrs open locks or invisibility vs hide/move silent part of the reason people complain about these is because the rogue had to spend a lot of resources to be good at something the wizard can do with just a single spell. If the rogue wasn't spending a significant amount of their resources on those things than it would not feel as if he was being invalidated and replaced by a single spell.

I always thought that was a bad example. knock is a significant resource investment on the Wizard's part, at least at the level it first becomes available. A 3rd level Wizard has maybe four 2nd level spells, and he allocates them at the beginning of the day. Preparing knock means giving up a web or glitterdust sight unseen, and it still leaves you unable to get past a corridor with locked doors on both ends.

If you want to make a sword and sorcery fan happy with a fighter don't look at Thor look at Conan, look at batman, look at James Bond and be willing to give them abilities to let them do their cool things. These are characters who do awesome stuff all the time but are still human if you squint.

I just don't think that's true. If you look at the roster of the Avengers and the Justice League, and you ask the guy who just rolled up a 1st level Barbarian which one of those guys he wants to be when he hits 20th level, he's going to say Thor or Hulk, not Iron Man or Batman. Those characters are Artificers, not martials of any sort. I'm sure there's some percentage of the playerbase for whom Conan -> Batman is the desired progression, but I think Conan -> Thor or "I don't want to go to 20th level" are both far more common.

Wheel of Time is mostly the exception that proves the rule. Sanderson's Cosmere is probably another solid exception.

It's things like this that make me agree with the guy who was telling you to get with the times. High powered fantasy (particularly if we just mean "more powerful than Conan") isn't the exception, it's a totally standard part of the genre. And frankly, it has been for a long time. Without looking anything up (or straying outside of D&D-adjacent fantasy), I can think of: Malazan, A Practical Guide to Evil, The Second Apocalypse, The Gods are Bastards, The Book of the Ancestor, The Powder Mage Trilogy, The Raveling, Cradle, Traveler's Gate, and The Shadow of What Was Lost. Anyone who thinks Conan is the whole or the standard of the fantasy genre badly needs to read another book.

Right, but that's not what the specialization would change (well, my version of it, at least). A specialized caster would still change around their abilities, they just wouldn't have all the spells to pick from.

But again, I don't think that matters all that much. Just like the Sorcerer is T2 despite not getting to change their spells from day to day, the Dread Necromancer and Beguiler are T2 despite having sharply limited spell lists. Ultimately, it's power that makes the Wizard powerful, with flexibility of any kind just being the thing that sets it above other casters (that and actually having a faster progression for some damn reason).