Do people really enjoy close battles?

[Pex]

1. And who said those are valid characters in a D&D game? Certainly not any of the modern game makers. Not even 3e.
2. Maybe playing one of those (non-D&D) "powerful magic users in fantasy" isn't a supported mode in D&D? Or at least shouldn't be? Because the upper bound for "powerful magic users in fantasy" is...non-existent. It's a power arms race--for every example you can come up with, there's a more powerful one. And characters are only meaningful in context of their world. Those worlds are not D&D worlds, nor were they designed to be. They were designed for pre-written fiction, not TTRPGs. As such, trying to emulate them means you can't have a coherent world. By mixing things that are already stretching the bounds of sanity and whose powers are "whatever I want them to be" (where I is the author), there's no bounding principle.

My statement is merely that games are allowed to set their "accepted range" and going outside of that in either direction is not supported. If you want to play a fantasy god wizard...make a game that does that. Don't try to insist that everyone else change their game to accommodate you or claim that anyone else who doesn't want that has "faulty mechanics". D&D 5e (and 4e, and even 3e, outside of cheese and forum!RAW) specifically does not support that style of play. You can do it, but you're stepping outside of the supported range of the system and any breakage is not the system's fault.

I, personally, do not believe in mundane PCs. But I do not believe in "I should be able to reshape reality at a whim" PCs either. So claiming that the only other option other than an endless power spiral into gonzo land is an endless spiral in the other direction is just not true. There's an excluded middle, where the actual game systems in question make their stand. Nothing in 3e, 4e, or 5e promised you that you could play Quick Ben. Or Dr Strange. Or Conan. That was never in the cards. So any fault is one of expectations, not system.

3. No. Quick Ben, for instance, is basically capable of casting any spell at any time at any power. Doing that in 3e requires epic (and not at the level 20+ meaning) levels of cheese. Stinky limburger. And to even get close without super-stinky cheese, you have to dumpster dive through splat books and use questionable rulings (including mostly ignoring things like the setting-specific nature of PrCs and spells), ignoring context and adhering to the "unless the DM says I get what I want, he's a meany" mentality. And still can't mimic a tiny fraction of what he can do. And he's on the mild side of the spectrum. He's a walking plot device (and not a very coherent one either, as much as I like the Malazan books). As are most super-powered wizards--they have whatever powers are convenient for the case at hand, acting as a literal deus ex machina. That's not an acceptable (in my book) TTRPG character.

4. It included it (by design, anyway) in one particular portion of AD&D. With the "we really shouldn't include this, because this is a farce" qualifier written explicitly in the intro. 5e explicitly says "you can't kill real gods". It's not supported. And that's not a mechanical flaw, that's a system design decision. It may not be something you like, but it's not an objective flaw.

5. Every pre-written fiction character. Which was exactly my point--you can't use those as good comparisons to TTRPG characters. They're just entirely inapposite. You're comparing not just apples to oranges, but atom bombs to butterflies. Saying "martial TTRPG characters should be like Thor" is a statement that cannot be satisfied--if this were a compiler, it'd warn that that comparison cannot ever be true. They're different types that do not inherit from each other.

I think you are being too literal. I would agree that maybe somewhere a player really wants to play Thor or Dr. Strange in D&D. They're better off doing that in a game designed to play superheroes, but they want Thor written on their D&D character sheet. However, when generally talking about playing Thor or Conan or Harry Potter in D&D it's metaphorical. They represent a character type. It's an image of what they can do translated into D&D. To be Thor is to be a strong warrior who can kill big tough monsters and demons and having a cool magic weapon made just for him. To be Harry Potter is to be an ordinary kid who is the Chosen One learning and eventually wielding great magical power to vanquish the Evil Lich threatening the land. Players can accept the game mechanics the game provides that do not emulate the fiction from which their character type originates. They're happy with the spirit of playing the character despite not playing to the letter.

[NichG]

I think you are being too literal. I would agree that maybe somewhere a player really wants to play Thor or Dr. Strange in D&D. They're better off doing that in a game designed to play superheroes, but they want Thor written on their D&D character sheet. However, when generally talking about playing Thor or Conan or Harry Potter in D&D it's metaphorical. They represent a character type. It's an image of what they can do translated into D&D. To be Thor is to be a strong warrior who can kill big tough monsters and demons and having a cool magic weapon made just for him. To be Harry Potter is to be an ordinary kid who is the Chosen One learning and eventually wielding great magical power to vanquish the Evil Lich threatening the land. Players can accept the game mechanics the game provides that do not emulate the fiction from which their character type originates. They're happy with the spirit of playing the character despite not playing to the letter.

Rather than fixating on the specific fictional characters (who are in some sense a static point), I think the heart of this is more the fantasy of the transition itself - the idea that you see something totally beyond you and all other touch-stones you have, but that there is exists a path to become equal to that thing and live in its space comfortably. Being able to just phase through jail walls where in the past you had to fear confinement, being able to just teleport over to a place you had to spend months traveling to, being able to stand in the heart of a star not because your character always could, but because 'becoming able to stand in the heart of a star' is an achievable goal in the world being presented.

[Glorthindel]

Is this the yearly "Wizard players trying to delete the Fighter Class" thread? Sounds like it is.

It is not about "achievable in real life", it is about explicitly NOT MAGIC. I mean, I just can't believe that people cannot possibly comprehend a non-magical character who can handle threats way outside the human norm. I mean, go watch a movie, there are thousands of action hero characters who survive massive explosions, great falls, and fight improbably vast creatures and somehow survive. John McClane can't fly, yet he somehow can outfight a fighter jet (granted, this does move into the more silly end). Legolas doesn't cut holes in reality but can wipe out waves of enemies with his bow and take down a war elephant single handed. Other characters survive trains landing on them, being inside crashing planes, and come out of the wreckage on their feet swinging (or shooting), all of which falls pretty far outside the "achievable in real life". But that is the "mundane" fantasy. Let us have it.

Here's a deal. I want the Fighter class, and I want all your wuxia bollocks kept away from it. In return, I never have and never will ask for a Wizard nerf. Because that's what you are bothered about, you ultimately don't give a toss about the Fighter class, you just want your fantasy, and are terrified that what Fighter players want will take away what you want.

And guess what, it hasn't happened yet. If you think Wizards have been nerfed between editions, take a look at the AD&D Wizard. How many hit points did they have? What about spell components? Have you actually seen how long, by the rules, you are actually meant to have spent memorising spells in the older rules? Oh yeah, memorising spells, guess thats a thing of the past too. And lets not forget casting times and spells failing it you took a hit before the spell went off, no concentration check for you. You didn't get Int bonus to spell attack rolls either. Actually effective cantrips, they are all new. Multiclassing never used to allow you to circumvent the 'absolutely cant wear armour' rule, but now you can in plenty of easy ways. Wizards have enjoyed edition after edition of massive buffs, so how about you stop panicking over something that isn't going to happen, and stop trying to ruin our fun in your paranoia.

[Pex]

Is this the yearly "Wizard players trying to delete the Fighter Class" thread? Sounds like it is.

It is not about "achievable in real life", it is about explicitly NOT MAGIC. I mean, I just can't believe that people cannot possibly comprehend a non-magical character who can handle threats way outside the human norm. I mean, go watch a movie, there are thousands of action hero characters who survive massive explosions, great falls, and fight improbably vast creatures and somehow survive. John McClane can't fly, yet he somehow can outfight a fighter jet (granted, this does move into the more silly end). Legolas doesn't cut holes in reality but can wipe out waves of enemies with his bow and take down a war elephant single handed. Other characters survive trains landing on them, being inside crashing planes, and come out of the wreckage on their feet swinging (or shooting), all of which falls pretty far outside the "achievable in real life". But that is the "mundane" fantasy. Let us have it.

Here's a deal. I want the Fighter class, and I want all your wuxia bollocks kept away from it. In return, I never have and never will ask for a Wizard nerf. Because that's what you are bothered about, you ultimately don't give a toss about the Fighter class, you just want your fantasy, and are terrified that what Fighter players want will take away what you want.

And guess what, it hasn't happened yet. If you think Wizards have been nerfed between editions, take a look at the AD&D Wizard. How many hit points did they have? What about spell components? Have you actually seen how long, by the rules, you are actually meant to have spent memorising spells in the older rules? Oh yeah, memorising spells, guess thats a thing of the past too. And lets not forget casting times and spells failing it you took a hit before the spell went off, no concentration check for you. You didn't get Int bonus to spell attack rolls either. Actually effective cantrips, they are all new. Multiclassing never used to allow you to circumvent the 'absolutely cant wear armour' rule, but now you can in plenty of easy ways. Wizards have enjoyed edition after edition of massive buffs, so how about you stop panicking over something that isn't going to happen, and stop trying to ruin our fun in your paranoia.

People can have their mundane class, but then they should stop complaining the spellcasters are flying, teleporting, and raising the dead. Can't have it both ways. No complaints, no problems, play on. However, people who want to play mundanes are complaining spellcasters are flying, teleporting, and raising the dead. Their solution is to get rid of flying, teleporting, and raising the dead. The spellcaster players are right to resent that. The question to them is not whether mundanes can keep up. The question is whether the martial (warrior) classes can keep up. If they can't then buff them up. Give them the Nice Things needed while still remaining a martial character, and in getting those Nice Things they aren't mundane. Meanwhile, the spellcaster players don't mind taking a look at themselves to be sure they aren't being omnipotent making the game unplayable. A touch up here and there, call it a nerf, is fine.

The spellcaster who needs to spend a resource spell slot to cast Fly will not complain the warrior can jump 40 ft over a chasm any time he pleases without spending any resources. The spellcaster who needs to spend a resource spell slot to cast Teleport will not complain the warrior can run back to the city 50 miles away in two hours time to warn the king of the advancing orcs any time he pleases without spending any resources. The spellcaster who needs to spend a resource spell slot to bring back to life someone who was dead 7 days will not complain the warrior can do CPR to bring to life someone who was dead for a minute any time he pleases without spending any resources, except maybe a healing kit use.

[Glorthindel]

However, people who want to play mundanes are complaining spellcasters are flying, teleporting, and raising the dead.

Are they though? Most times I see this conversation, its a Wizard circle-jerk, not many Fighters actually talking.

Personally, as a Fighter player, I am perfectly fine with the Wizard flying (or casting fly on me to stop that massive flying thing tearing them in half), teleporting (I am happy to jump in the circle with them), and raising the dead (which is likely to be me). Go for it, Wizard players should get to play the Wizard fantasy.

Give me Fighter-abilities. I would take spell resistances (really, why does the Fighter not get extra saving throw proficiencies), damage resistance, multiple attacks, abilities that block attacks, abilities that move enemies and allies around or otherwise control the fighting space, and abilities to bend, break, or punch through things. All happily.

Don't give me the ability to project a spectral 'blade' across vast distances, step into a shadow and appear across the room, or slam the ground for shockwaves. Those are your abilities, not mine. Keep your abilities, I don't want them. Some people will want those things too, and thats what subclasses and multiclass is for. And I don't want you to lose them either, its useful having the Wizard around. And that's the rub; the point is not to have the Fighter able to replace the Wizard, what's the point in that? But for the Wizard to want the Fighter around. We should be a team, not bickering and comparing the lengths of our Wands.

Give them the Nice Things needed while still remaining a martial character, and in getting those Nice Things they aren't mundane.

Why? Why can a Nice Thing not be mundane. What is Supernatural about immunity to Charm effects (a 0-level peasant can pass a save against any spell, why would automatically passing that save be something different). What is non-mundane about being able to break out of a Force Cage or smash through a Wall of Force? Why would it be deemed a magical ability to be able to use Intimidate to cow Beasts. Those are pretty damn Nice Things, and don't break the Fighter fantasy. These things exist, you just have to think like a Fighter, not immediately default to the book of Spells.

[Cluedrew]

Is there anybody reading this who believes non-spell-casters should be limited to the "mundane", abilities achievable in real life?

Certainly not I.

Not I.

I prefer "badass normal" level characters, but I have no problem with high level characters abiding by over the top action movie physics.

OK, so it seems that Talakeal is closest to what RandomPeasant (and now maybe Pex, I'd have to ask more to be sure) is saying the anti-caster group is arguing for but still isn't exactly there. Which is not to say no one actually is arguing for that, three people is hardly everyone. But I think its a smaller group than a lot of the pro-caster people give it credit for.

Actually pretending that there are only two positions in this discussion is rather unhelpful. For instance there are some people who caster/martial divide aside just enjoy low level play. Some of those want low level to be stretched out over more of the game, others went and made E6. But there are a lot of people who are actually arguing for fighter-types to be powered up. Even of the people I quoted in this thread it looks like Talakeal wants the most grounded fighter-type, BRC is in the middle and from pervious conversations I know PhoenixPhyre is pretty generous with what a fantastic non-caster can do. I might even be more extreme, like that one "mundane" I wrote who achieved true-invincibility through physical conditioning. Not grounded in reality at all but is also definitely a fighter and not a wizard.

On a broader note though, I am not sure why having limitations is a bad thing. Every character has limitations, that's what makes them unique. There is little difference between a special ability you have and a limitation that other people have; and insisting that people get to ignore their limitations as a necessary part of levelling up means that the endgame is just going to be a bunch of interchangeable members of the Q continuum.

Somewhere in some old caster/martial disparity thread is a list of wish-complete abilities, that is to say how a bunch of different archetypes reach infinite power and become identical in what they can do.

I'd say more but I have to go.

[kyoryu]

We keep hearing about the "batman wizard". We also need the "batman fighter".

Not literal Batman, but where the fighter is doing Epic Stuff by virtue of not just his strength, but the weaponry and equipment he uses.

[KorvinStarmast]

It seems like most of our argument boils down to the semantics over what qualifies as "mundane".

Piers Anthony called, he wants his word back. Mundane characters don't quite fit in a level-progression based swords and sorcery game. Something about the PC is fantastic, heroic, and/or beyond the ordinary. (IIRC, 3.x used EXT and SUP classifications for some of that stuff) .

IMO Iron Man would qualify as mundane, although I would say that he much better represents the "artificer" class just as Hulk better represents the barbarian class.

Not a mundane. He's fantastic, just as the Fantastic Four is - that armor isn't mundane. It's magitech that does not exist in a mundane world.

I remember back when 5E came out and I said I was super disappointed with how the saving throw system made it harder to save as you got to higher levels rather than easier, and was told that is to reinforce the team nature of the game.

Yeah, it originally grated on my nerves. (My previous mastery was AD&D, where you got better saves every few levels to everything). I have since gotten used to it. Teamwork is crucial.

It really hasn't though. A party of high level PCs can, in some editions, take down demigods or avatars.

But not gods, although once they statted gods in Eldritch Wizardry, players tried to figure out how to kill them. (FWIW, Frank Mentzer, the creative brain behind the BECMI progression observes that the I (Immortal) was almost a different game). (That was his alt on that site while he still participated there).

In 2E and 5E gods are just plot devices

IMO that's a good thing.

I don't know of a single time in any version of D&D when a solo character was supposed to be able to stand up to a god.

Soling a deity? No. But a party? Once you stat a deity, the players will go to the ends of the earth to figure out how to defeat it.

I am not saying I agree with this, but saying that high level characters in d&d are intended to solo gods is a bit disingenuous.

And it's not even correct. (I agree with you).

You can't build Drizzt by the rules and end up in the same place. You can't build Elminster the same way and get the novel!Elminster, at least as a playable character. Pre-written fiction and TTRPGs are completely disjoint. They have to be, because their needs and constraints are completely different.

Mary Sue / Marty Stu has its own internal problems in fiction as well.

Games need to decide what they're willing to handle, and do that. D&D (at least 4e and 5e) have decided that their gameplay won't change, that even a level 20 character is a mortal who can't take on gods[1] or reshape reality at will.

Except when they use wish. (Caveat: DM can make adjustments, and is expected to, per the PHB. The Monkey Paw always lurks ...).

[1] ... demon princes and Dukes of Hell are not gods. They're explicitly not on the same power scale at all. They're explicitly designed as "things you can sword to death".

If your party uses good tactics and has a combination of sword and sorcery attributes on tap. But beware, dukes of hell have minions - lots of minions. Quantity has a quality all its own.

Again, D&D has been about a zero-to-hero progression with big paradigm shifts since before I was born.

But not zero to deity, with Mentzer's Immortal being a possible exception.

"Let's go to a world where everything is on fire all the time and kill the king of genies with death spells" is not what I would call a "low power adventure".

That's a Tier II or III adventure, isn't it? (D&D 5e). Looks like a level 8 or 9 adventure in AD&D 1e, maybe 10th. (Depends on which magic items are on hand).

But the problem is that there's a real change in semantics between the two terms. Thor is martial. Thor is in no sense mundane.

Yes. He's a deity, the son of Odin. He's not a D&D PC.

I have to ask then - what is the purpose of having twenty levels?

To have adventures on other planes of existence than the Prime Material, it seems to me. To be like Elric of Melnibone.

Players can accept the game mechanics the game provides that do not emulate the fiction from which their character type originates. They're happy with the spirit of playing the character despite not playing to the letter.

Yes, some players do accept those limitations.

Personally, as a Fighter player, I am perfectly fine with the Wizard flying (or casting fly on me to stop that massive flying thing tearing them in half), teleporting (I am happy to jump in the circle with them), and raising the dead (which is likely to be me). Go for it, Wizard players should get to play the Wizard fantasy.

D&D is about team work, not single action heroes. That conceit goes back to its origin, and yet, I was at plenty of tables were players also turned on each other.
And the game supported it, sort of. That usually led to OOC friction, though.

[RandomPeasant]

Why not do one thing and do it well?

"Zero to Hero" is one thing. Again, from the literal beginning, D&D has had and been about this kind of dramatic power scaling. The person who wants the game to be something it's not is you. Lots of games have a narrow power band if that's what you want.

For the record, I looked it up, Baphomet is CR 24, not 20. I thought it was weird that a Demon Lord had the same CR as a Balor.

The version in the Fiendish Codex is CR 20. It's not really that weird, and it goes to underscore my point about how demanding that mundanes getting to last until level 20 is unworkable. The game scaling out to thirty or forty levels just to incorporate "dude who is good at swording and also has magic" is just not reasonable. Twenty levels is plenty for everything that the game could possibly need.

I prefer "badass normal" level characters

But that's fundamentally the same problem. "Badass normal" has an inherent ceiling. Lots of characters are just "a badass normal, but with superpowers". If the badass normal on their own is supposed to be a viable character, that means the superhuman can't be part of the game. You can't just say "well, he's even badass-ier", at a certain point it just becomes childish one-upsmanship.

On a broader note though, I am not sure why having limitations is a bad thing.

Limitations are fine. The issue is a concept that is just a limitation. Consider a different concept: fire mage. That's a concept with limitations. If you're a fire mage, you presumably don't have ice magic or mind magic or squirrel magic. But it also comes with allowances: you have a mandate to have some fire magic. That's workable. "Badass normal" or "mundane" are not, because they just mean "doesn't have any special powers", so for any of those characters there is necessarily a character out there who's just them but better in way that is not just contingent (like how Ozai happens to be a better firebender than Mako) but fundamental (in that they have reached the limits of what their concept allows them to do).

But its not just mundane characters, most people really only advance every other level; casters get new spells every other level, fighters get new feats every other level, rogues get more sneak attack every other level, etc.

Casters get additional abilities, and additional uses of their abilities, even at levels where they don't get a new tier of powers. I do think there is some value in being able to have narrower gradations of power.

I think you are being too literal. I would agree that maybe somewhere a player really wants to play Thor or Dr. Strange in D&D. They're better off doing that in a game designed to play superheroes, but they want Thor written on their D&D character sheet. However, when generally talking about playing Thor or Conan or Harry Potter in D&D it's metaphorical. They represent a character type. It's an image of what they can do translated into D&D.

Exactly. People's character concepts are not just "has some Wizard levels" or "has some Fighter levels" or "has a mix of Druid and Rogue levels". They are inspired by things they see elsewhere, or ideas of their own, and the ability of the game to reasonably model those things is a key reason for its success.

Is this the yearly "Wizard players trying to delete the Fighter Class" thread? Sounds like it is.

No, this is the yearly "Wizard players would like Fighter players to stop taking away everything that makes Wizards interesting" thread. No one wants to take away the Fighter, as the Wizard side says in every single one of these conversations, wherever and whenever they happen. What people want is for the Fighter to get abilities that is appropriate to the context of the adventures he has, so that the things that a regular dude cannot contribute to are not excluded from the game.

It is not about "achievable in real life", it is about explicitly NOT MAGIC.

Define "not magic". Because in my experience, there's a bait and switch here. People say "I don't want to just be a Wizard with a sword", and then the character they describe is "John McClane", like that guy has any business in the kinds of stories high level D&D produces.

Here's a deal. I want the Fighter class, and I want all your wuxia bollocks kept away from it. In return, I never have and never will ask for a Wizard nerf.

Will you also never complain when the Wizard overshadows you? Will you sit quietly when there's a section of the adventure where the Wizard can contribute and you can't, no matter how long that section is or how often it happens? Will you never ask the Wizard to prepare different spells to cover for the gap between you and a level-appropriate character? Because it's not just the explicit nerfs. It's the way having a character who can't keep up changes the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

Exactly. People's character concepts are not just "has some Wizard levels" or "has some Fighter levels" or "has a mix of Druid and Rogue levels". They are inspired by things they see elsewhere, or ideas of their own, and the ability of the game to reasonably model those things is a key reason for its success.

Only some people. Other people take a low level character and discover who and what he/she is during play.
My first Magic User was not patterned on anyone, he was simply Belzar. (He ended up at 9th level when that campaign ended due to us all going off to college and such).
My homebrew Destroyer (I play tested it for a friend, I didn't design the class, he fused some druid and magic user stuff) went from zero to almost dead to fleeing from the authorities when that campaign ended. His initial inspiration was, for the DM, a picture on the front of a KISS album. (It's been over 40 years, I can't at the moment recall his name).
Burnitrol, an OD&D elf, was not patterned off of anyone. He grew organically from level 1 through 7 along side a Fighting Man and a Rogue. I wasn't trying to make a character like someone else; I was trying to see who the character became during play ... if he survived. His story was the unique story of his adventures and the friends and acquaintances he made along the way... which included the Rainbow Demon (who was seriously bad news).
Hayseed Lindensap (a hobbit thief) ended his adventuring career somewhere in a cavern fighting fire giants at level 11. Never did finish that module, DM had to move. There's never been anyone quite like him. His shenanigans with the wand of wonder that he found is still a source of mirth when I talk to the DM on the phone about the old days.
Roderic the Ranger was last seen fighting the Slavers of the Undercity when that campaign got interrupted by RL (people moving) at level 6.
I still have the 3x5 cards with my original Traveller characters on them, but the names aren't coming back to me.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Only some people. Other people take a low level character and discover who and what he/she is during play.
My first Magic User was not patterned on anyone, he was simply Belzar. (He ended up at 9th level when that campaign ended due to us all going off to college and such).
My homebrew Destroyer (I play tested it for a friend, I didn't design the class, he fused some druid and magic user stuff) went from zero to almost dead to fleeing from the authorities when that campaign ended. His initial inspiration was, for the DM, a picture on the front of a KISS album. (It's been over 40 years, I can't at the moment recall his name).
Burnitrol, an OD&D elf, was not patterned off of anyone. He grew organically from level 1 through 7 along side a Fighting Man and a Rogue. I wasn't trying to make a character like someone else; I was trying to see who the character became during play ... if he survived. His story was the unique story of his adventures and the friends and acquaintances he made along the way... which included the Rainbow Demon (who was seriously bad news).
Hayseed Lindensap (a hobbit thief) ended his adventuring career somewhere in a cavern fighting fire giants at level 11. Never did finish that module, DM had to move. There's never been anyone quite like him. His shenanigans with the wand of wonder that he found is still a source of mirth when I talk to the DM on the phone about the old days.
Roderic the Ranger was last seen fighting the Slavers of the Undercity when that campaign got interrupted by RL (people moving) at level 6.
I still have the 3x5 cards with my original Traveller characters on them, but the names aren't coming back to me.

Exactly. I've seen people do both--most of the best characters have been "here's a super vague concept picked by finding a mini that looks cool from the shared collection" and then built with the world in mind, organically. None of the "I want to be like X" characters have gone very far at all, both for mechanical reasons (you can't emulate those powersets with any reasonable fidelity) and for the more basic reason that they don't have an organic place in the world. They're intruders, so trying to find their motivations and goals in this world inevitably runs sideways against the established characterization. Or against the world.

[RandomPeasant]

Only some people. Other people take a low level character and discover who and what he/she is during play.

Certainly. I never meant to imply that you can only create a character that way. Some people do want to play a class. Some people have a specific mechanical ability they want. Some people have a very abstract concept like "shadow thief" or "fire mage". Some people have a personality and figure out what powers that person would have. Some people just roll up whatever the table needs. Some people let characters evolve organically. All of those and more are valid. Frankly, I mostly don't want to play the characters being discussed directly, but I know from experience that if you just describe the power level those characters are at, the other side will go off about how you're being a munchkin and those characters have no place in fantasy and how could any reasonable person want that. Real characters who have real adventures who actually do have that kind of power short-circuits that argument, leaving flailing about how someone's D&D campaign is no longer a valid thing for D&D to produce because he wrote a book about it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Certainly. I never meant to imply that you can only create a character that way. Some people do want to play a class. Some people have a specific mechanical ability they want. Some people have a very abstract concept like "shadow thief" or "fire mage". Some people have a personality and figure out what powers that person would have. Some people just roll up whatever the table needs. Some people let characters evolve organically. All of those and more are valid.

Glad we agree on that.

The rest alludes to a part of this furball that I'm not interested in joining.

[icefractal]

Why? Why can a Nice Thing not be mundane. What is Supernatural about immunity to Charm effects (a 0-level peasant can pass a save against any spell, why would automatically passing that save be something different).

High level martial abilities as being able to consistently do something that would normally be a fluke of luck? Seems potentially promising; you could do a fair amount of abilities this way.

What is non-mundane about being able to break out of a Force Cage or smash through a Wall of Force?

I mean, I don't have a problem with that ability, but I wouldn't call it mundane either - not in 3E at least, where force walls are indestructible (in PF1, they're merely very tough). You're breaking something that a dino-killer asteroid or an erupting volcano couldn't scratch - does that sound mundane? I think a number of people might consider "slam the ground to create shockwaves" as more mundane than that.

It occurs to me that people may care more or less about the strategic level abilities depending on how much the party in their campaign acts as a single unit. In a "high collaboration" game where the party has the same goals and discusses actions OOC, it could be considered just an implementation detail that the Wizard happens to be the one casting Teleportation Circle to create their trade network - ultimately it was a decision made by the entire group.

In a group where the PCs have different, sometimes opposing goals, it's a bigger issue that some of them can coordinate a worldwide empire and others can't.

And of course for some campaigns it won't matter, because they're plot based and the plot is resolved by actions that anyone can take part in.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In a group where the PCs have different, sometimes opposing goals, it's a much bigger issue that some of them can coordinate a worldwide empire and others can't.

This is a significant point IMO. I'm used to the high-collaboration, "we're a team" games. Where if someone is trying to coordinate an empire, they're all in on it together.

In fact, I have that as my "core model" for how D&D (in particular) is supposed to go. Keying off of a statement in the current WotC House Style Guide for D&D, which says that one of the big "selling points" that makes D&D different from most fiction is that it's about a team collectively overcoming challenges that none of them could do individually, not about a protagonist with sidekicks. So I build all my games around that model. Individual party members may have individual goals, but the party as a whole discusses "whose goal are we focusing on right now" and they attack those goals together. Rather than being a group of individuals who just happen to be walking along the same road for a time.

So "I can cast teleport" is just an addition to the team's capabilities, just like "I can cast FIST real hard" is an addition to the team's capabilities." There's no real competition between team-mates--they cooperate to share spotlight and help everyone else do their thing. At least that's the ideal.

[Telok]

This is a significant point IMO. I'm used to the high-collaboration, "we're a team" games. Where if someone is trying to coordinate an empire, they're all in on it together.

I think part of the issue may be that "we're a team" works best when everyone in the team can actually do something useful in most situations. I've been in groups where the teamwork discussion was how to turn an encounter into a fight so the three beatstick characters could participate.

Weirdly I remember d&d 4e being better at it because the default (for our dm, don't know about official 4e dmg bits) for failing a skill challenge was to have a fight. So we'd send the heavy armor brutes into stealth & social skill challenges and sort of counter-ambush the failed skill challenge fight. It got weirdly meta.

[RandomPeasant]

I think part of the issue may be that "we're a team" works best when everyone in the team can actually do something useful in most situations. I've been in groups where the teamwork discussion was how to turn an encounter into a fight so the three beatstick characters could participate.

"Teamwork" where it's one guy doing all the actual work tends not to work very well. Whether it's the guy doing the work feeling like a puppet, or the other guys feeling like they don't do much, bad feelings are easy to get to. I'm sure "the Wizard does everything, but we all planned it" works for some people, but I don't think it's a good general solution, for the same reason that I don't see a lot of people hanging around a D&D group when they don't have a character: it's important to actually do things.

[Talakeal]

It occurs to me that people may care more or less about the strategic level abilities depending on how much the party in their campaign acts as a single unit. In a "high collaboration" game where the party has the same goals and discusses actions OOC, it could be considered just an implementation detail that the Wizard happens to be the one casting Teleportation Circle to create their trade network - ultimately it was a decision made by the entire group.

In a group where the PCs have different, sometimes opposing goals, it's a bigger issue that some of them can coordinate a worldwide empire and others can't.

And of course for some campaigns it won't matter, because they're plot based and the plot is resolved by actions that anyone can take part in.

Very much this. I never much cared about who was casting plane shift as long as someone in the party could, and if nobody can, well, its rarely an urgent enough spell that you can't just hire an NPC caster or buy a scroll anyway, especially considering you can't plane shift without acquiring a special focus to begin with.

The version in the Fiendish Codex is CR 20. It's not really that weird, and it goes to underscore my point about how demanding that mundanes getting to last until level 20 is unworkable.

Its wierd that demon lords are no stronger than their minions.

The fiendish codex versions are remarkable for being the weakest (relative) implementations of demon lords and arch-devils ever, to the point where the books authors said they were just meant as avatars / aspects of the real thing or as weakest possible versions of them that you could tweak to the needs of your own campaign.

I much prefer the BoVD and Demonomicon versions as they are able to serve as boss monsters for level 20 parties without being unbeatable plot devices.

The game scaling out to thirty or forty levels just to incorporate "dude who is good at swording and also has magic" is just not reasonable. Twenty levels is plenty for everything that the game could possibly need.

But that's fundamentally the same problem. "Badass normal" has an inherent ceiling. Lots of characters are just "a badass normal, but with superpowers". If the badass normal on their own is supposed to be a viable character, that means the superhuman can't be part of the game. You can't just say "well, he's even badass-ier", at a certain point it just becomes childish one-upsmanship.

Limitations are fine. The issue is a concept that is just a limitation. Consider a different concept: fire mage. That's a concept with limitations. If you're a fire mage, you presumably don't have ice magic or mind magic or squirrel magic. But it also comes with allowances: you have a mandate to have some fire magic. That's workable. "Badass normal" or "mundane" are not, because they just mean "doesn't have any special powers", so for any of those characters there is necessarily a character out there who's just them but better in way that is not just contingent (like how Ozai happens to be a better firebender than Mako) but fundamental (in that they have reached the limits of what their concept allows them to do).

I don't see the distinction.

I don't know why saying the level 10 wizard / level 5 rogue is a worse rogue than the level 15 rogue is being childish. Characters in RPGs are (usually) meant to be balanced, whether it is through levels, or point buy, or whatever.

Likewise, I don't see why a fire-mage being unable to learn ice magic is any less of a limitation than a swordsman not being able to learn ice magic.

No, this is the yearly "Wizard players would like Fighter players to stop taking away everything that makes Wizards interesting" thread. No one wants to take away the Fighter, as the Wizard side says in every single one of these conversations, wherever and whenever they happen. What people want is for the Fighter to get abilities that is appropriate to the context of the adventures he has, so that the things that a regular dude cannot contribute to are not excluded from the game.

Sorry to tell you this, but 3E D&D has been out of print for 13 years. Every other edition has had much tighter class balance, as has virtually every other game in the genre.

I keep getting sucked into this debates because people talk like 3E style caster supremacy was the pinnacle of game design and that all other games which people have moved on to are based around some sort of inherently contradictory premise and anyone who can't see that is somehow delusional.

Define "not magic". Because in my experience, there's a bait and switch here. People say "I don't want to just be a Wizard with a sword", and then the character they describe is "John McClane", like that guy has any business in the kinds of stories high level D&D produces.

This really just comes down to the "captain hobo problem".

Some people see a martial character attack a monster for 100 point of damage and imagine Conan impaling the beast by using his mighty thews to propel five feet of Atlantean steel into its chest, while other people see a shonen anime protagonist summoning up his ki to perform the legendary seven monkey strike of the golden moon upon the far horizon. Both have the same effect, and both are going to send some portion of the player-base into conniptions.

*For those who don't know, the captain hobo problem refers to the ability to fluff abilities however you like in Mutants and Masterminds, meaning that the guy who plays superman and the guy who plays a homeless guy with a golf club both operate the same mechanically but drastically throw off the games tone when used together.

Will you also never complain when the Wizard overshadows you? Will you sit quietly when there's a section of the adventure where the Wizard can contribute and you can't, no matter how long that section is or how often it happens? Will you never ask the Wizard to prepare different spells to cover for the gap between you and a level-appropriate character? Because it's not just the explicit nerfs. It's the way having a character who can't keep up changes the game.

Three problems here:

1: In my experience its wizard players who cry the hardest when they can't solve a problem. Introduce a magic immune monster, or a dead magic zone, or a volcano that disrupts teleportation and its like someone stole all the pacifiers at daycare. I know this is unfair stereotyping, but hopefully people who willingly play classes with more limitations don't get mad when those limitations actually come up, although... that is certainly how my players approach the game, caster and martial alike.

2: This just sounds like the wizard is not a team player. If you need four people to kill the monster, and it lives in the abyss, do you really need all four people able to cast plane shift?

3: This sounds like a poorly designed adventure. What if the party doesn't have a wizard? Or the wizard took the wrong spells? What do you do?

3a: Either the GM is contriving a scenario specifically for the wizard, in which case why not just tailor it so that the other characters have contrived moments to shine as well?

3b: Or you really are advocating for the 3E god wizard who can replicate every other class often better than those classes themselves, in which case why even have classes in the game at all?

[Jakinbandw]

The problem is that high level magic is, by RAW, broken.

There is no level of martial character who can keep up with aD&D caster who is allowed all the infinite loops that 3.5 magic allows. It doesn’t matter if they are Hulk or Goku, they can’t keep up.

OBJECTION!

Behold my 3.5 homebrew class:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post24067776

It can keep up with casters all the way to 20th (by which I mean that casters will never completely overshadow it in its area of expertise, ie: combat and action economy.

[KorvinStarmast]

1: In my experience its wizard players who cry the hardest when they can't solve a problem. Introduce a magic immune monster, or a dead magic zone, or a volcano that disrupts teleportation and its like someone stole all the pacifiers at daycare. I know this is unfair stereotyping, but hopefully people who willingly play classes with more limitations don't get mad when those limitations actually come up, although... that is certainly how my players approach the game, caster and martial alike.

2: This just sounds like the wizard is not a team player. If you need four people to kill the monster, and it lives in the abyss, do you really need all four people able to cast plane shift?

3: This sounds like a poorly designed adventure. What if the party doesn't have a wizard? Or the wizard took the wrong spells? What do you do?

3a: Either the GM is contriving a scenario specifically for the wizard, in which case why not just tailor it so that the other characters have contrived moments to shine as well?

3b: Or you really are advocating for the 3E god wizard who can replicate every other class often better than those classes themselves, in which case why even have classes in the game at all?

5e tried to fix some of this, and partly succeeded. But high level spells do some pretty warpy things, regardless of the edition; it's a matter of degree not kind. The current OoTS strips (once Sunny's eye is in play, start about #1238) illustrates nicely what happens when one is too dependent on spells. Counterspell, legendary saves, limits on spell slots, all play into mitigating the effects of spells on a given encounter.
As an aside:
One of the things I like about the Zealot Barbarian (D&D 5e) is that he just keeps coming and coming, rendering the need for a raise dead or revivify spell moot in a lot of cases.

[BRC]

"Teamwork" where it's one guy doing all the actual work tends not to work very well. Whether it's the guy doing the work feeling like a puppet, or the other guys feeling like they don't do much, bad feelings are easy to get to. I'm sure "the Wizard does everything, but we all planned it" works for some people, but I don't think it's a good general solution, for the same reason that I don't see a lot of people hanging around a D&D group when they don't have a character: it's important to actually do things.

Player experience is measured in Table Time generally. One nice thing about toolbox wizards is that it doesn't tend to take very long to resolve their stuff.

The Wizard teleports the party takes seconds to resolve on the table. They then spend 2 hours resolving a combat where everybody gets to contribute (Even if the actual damage/impact isn't exactly even).

It can be rough when the Wizard trivializes the combat, negating everybody else's contributions, say, hitting the enemy with a Save or Lose spell after everybody else has been chipping away at it's health for 5 rounds.


For me, the bigger issue is psychological, which is part of why I'm a big fan of the Battlemaster or ToB style implementation of the fighter.

Wizards get to break out their Big Spells for Cool, High-Impact moments. Martials generally just get to do the same pretty good thing round after round. 5e Fighters have the absolutely massive Action Surge for their Big Moments, and Battlemaster's superiority die stacks on top of that, allowing some really really cool Big Moments.

[Pex]

Are they though? Most times I see this conversation, its a Wizard circle-jerk, not many Fighters actually talking.

Yes, every time someone says high level D&D is broken because of spells thus should not exist.

I'm all for people wanting to play mundane characters, just stop complaining the magic users aren't.

However, you're still conflating mundane with martial. The character who is immune to charm is not mundane. The character who can jump 50 ft across the chasm is not mundane. They're not casting spells or "warping reality", but they are not mundane.

[RandomPeasant]

Its wierd that demon lords are no stronger than their minions.

Not every demon lord has to have Balors as minions. Baphomet's minions are probably Goristros, fiendish minotaurs, and other conceptually-appropriate demons. In fact, I would guess that a decent chunk of abyssal layers are simply ruled over by Balors (or even Mariliths) who happen to be the baddest demon on that particular layer. It's not like the Hells, where there's nine big guys and you can just list them out.

I don't know why saying the level 10 wizard / level 5 rogue is a worse rogue than the level 15 rogue is being childish. Characters in RPGs are (usually) meant to be balanced, whether it is through levels, or point buy, or whatever.

Again, step back to the level of the fiction. Kaladin is not a "pretty good spearman" who simply happens to be in a world with no master spearmen. He is a master spearman. Insisting there is a separate level of spearman-ing that must exist so that "regular spearman" can compete with "magic spearman" is childish. There's an amount of skill you can have with a spear. Kaladin has it. That's part of his character. Demanding that Spear-o be allowed to have a bigger pile of spear skill just because Spear-o's player doesn't want to have any magic is childish.

I mean, really, why are you fighting so hard on this? You've said you'd be happy with ten levels. What's wrong with calling those ten levels "Heroic Tier", protecting the mundanes/martials/"badass normals" in that tier, and having the remaining ten levels be "Paragon Tier" and "Epic Tier", where you're allowed to have mundane skill and also magic?

Likewise, I don't see why a fire-mage being unable to learn ice magic is any less of a limitation than a swordsman not being able to learn ice magic.

The limitation is the same. But the concept of "fire mage" comes with something else.

1: In my experience its wizard players who cry the hardest when they can't solve a problem. Introduce a magic immune monster, or a dead magic zone, or a volcano that disrupts teleportation and its like someone stole all the pacifiers at daycare. I know this is unfair stereotyping, but hopefully people who willingly play classes with more limitations don't get mad when those limitations actually come up, although... that is certainly how my players approach the game, caster and martial alike.

The Fighter players cry so hard the problems they can't solve get removed from the game.

3: This sounds like a poorly designed adventure. What if the party doesn't have a wizard? Or the wizard took the wrong spells? What do you do?

This is exactly what I mean about Fighters crying so hard they remove problems from the game. You look at "the big boss is on another plane", observe that the Fighter can't solve that problem, and conclude that putting stuff on other planes is bad game design. No. Not giving people abilities that get them to other planes at the levels when enemies are on other planes is bad game design. Every character needs to have access to a wide enough range of problem solving tools that you do not need to sculpt a party to be able to solve level-appropriate challenges. If "go to another plane" is an appropriate adventure for 13th level characters, then the party needs to have abilities that let them do that even if they are a Rogue, a Barbarian, a Fighter, and a Ranger. And they need to not blow through the adventure even if they are a Warlock, a Cleric, a Druid, and a Wizard. I see no way to do that if we insist that it is totally okay for half the classes to not have high level abilities.

3b: Or you really are advocating for the 3E god wizard who can replicate every other class often better than those classes themselves, in which case why even have classes in the game at all?

That's a straw man. The 3e Wizard cannot replicate every other class. It certainly can't do it better than those classes. Far too many people have an understanding of 3.5 that comes from forum complaints rather than actual analysis. You absolutely can run a game of 3.5 where one of the party members is a Wizard, the Wizard is not meaningfully nerfed (outside infinite loops), and everyone has their own niche. It's not even terribly hard. You just can't do it by having one of the party members be a sword-and-board Fighter.

Player experience is measured in Table Time generally. One nice thing about toolbox wizards is that it doesn't tend to take very long to resolve their stuff.

But wasn't that what people were complaining about back on the last topic this thread was about? You can't both say "Wizards shouldn't have buttons that solve problems" and "it's good that it's fast when Wizards solve a problem".

Yes, every time someone says high level D&D is broken because of spells thus should not exist.

Yeah. Did y'all not read the rest of the thread? "You do your thing, I'll do mine" is not the position of Team Fighter.

[Cluedrew]

I don't think you can have a meaningful definition of "mundane" that includes "can fight a demon lord". And whatever your definition of mundane is, you run into the same fundamental problem: it is only ever a limit. Never an allowance. There is nothing you can do because you are "mundane", only things you can't do. And that's just a bad idea as a thing to define a third to a half of your classes as being.

Sure I can.

Mundane: Dressed in purple.

People dressed in purple can fight the demon lord. Do I think this is actually the definition of mundane anyone in this thread is using? No. But it is a definition I can use for the word mundane and includes people that can fight a demon lord. And like the one I just forwarded they might not be what you are expecting. Actually what's wrong with the various definitions that have been forwarded so far? Even some of the more restrictive ones seem like they could take on a demon lord.

This really just comes down to the "captain hobo problem".

Never thought about it in that light. Or maybe I did and I forgot? I don't yet have any insightful follow-up yet, maybe I'll have something about it later.

This is exactly what I mean about Fighters crying so hard they remove problems from the game. You look at "the big boss is on another plane", observe that the Fighter can't solve that problem, and conclude that putting stuff on other planes is bad game design.

Obviously this is a ranger problem (you know the class about travel and terrain), if you want to go to exotic locations you should make sure to have a ranger.

Weird wording aside: the problem is not that the wizard unlocks new types of adventures. It that no other class unlocks other type of adventures. That I know of. If there is a type of adventure locked behind an ability only a few martial classes, I would like to hear it. Rogue might be the closest but other classes can sneak and plan heists, rogues are just good at that. The issue is that other classes tend to be good at combat or at skills which everyone can access. I can't speak for everyone of course* but I think the problem is not either side, neither the casters nor the martials, but the disparity. And of course people while point at the side they don't like as much or, slightly more reasonably, the side that is smaller. Less than half the classes can access plane-shift through there class abilities right? I haven't counted. But that makes them the odd one's out. I'm not saying we have to go with the currently more popular option, but that seems to be part of the reason wizards get blamed for the divide.

* People talk like there are two sides to this debate, but that is a pretty dramatic simplification of all the different opinions floating around in this space.

[NichG]

Weird wording aside: the problem is not that the wizard unlocks new types of adventures. It that no other class unlocks other type of adventures. That I know of. If there is a type of adventure locked behind an ability only a few martial classes, I would like to hear it. Rogue might be the closest but other classes can sneak and plan heists, rogues are just good at that. The issue is that other classes tend to be good at combat or at skills which everyone can access. I can't speak for everyone of course* but I think the problem is not either side, neither the casters nor the martials, but the disparity. And of course people while point at the side they don't like as much or, slightly more reasonably, the side that is smaller. Less than half the classes can access plane-shift through there class abilities right? I haven't counted. But that makes them the odd one's out. I'm not saying we have to go with the currently more popular option, but that seems to be part of the reason wizards get blamed for the divide.

* People talk like there are two sides to this debate, but that is a pretty dramatic simplification of all the different opinions floating around in this space.

Well, adventure-unlocking abilities for other archetypes have been proposed pretty much every time this comes up, but often that comes up against resistance...

Martial characters who can issue a challenge to the gods which must be answered in order to protest or overturn some perceived injustice associated with the god's domain... Rangers who can not only planeshift, but who can do the equivalent of Amberite princes walking through shadow to navigate to a particular place on any infinite plane which matches what they want to a T, so long as its contents are consistent with the concepts underlying that plane. Thieves, gamblers, merchants, and scoundrels who can steal, wager, sell, or coerce abstract attributes from their marks, literally stealing a kingdom's prosperity or exchanging years of someone's life for another person's strength. Diplomats who can enforce a standing and irresistable compulsion for others to go through with whatever they've promised, even if they made those promises un-knowingly. Masterminds who can analyze exactly what their target would do in any hypothetical situation, correctly, and in a binding way...

[Cluedrew]

To NichG: There are a variety of arguments raised against those additions its true. The one I understand is basically "but I like low to mid level play and settings" and my response to that is pretty much: could you homebrew E12 (or where-ever the casters are starting to break things anyways, I just doubled 6) and play below that? I'm probably not going to be working on the next edition of D&D so I can't actually promise that these abilities will be in the high-levels where they should be, but the idea is actually to distribute these abilities across levels appropriately. I'll admit that some of these are not plausibly human, but I actually don't care, that's not the line for me. Don't have time to explain it right now so this is in white!

The other arguments tend to be weird things I don't understand from the caster side.

[Talakeal]

Not every demon lord has to have Balors as minions. Baphomet's minions are probably Goristros, fiendish minotaurs, and other conceptually-appropriate demons. In fact, I would guess that a decent chunk of abyssal layers are simply ruled over by Balors (or even Mariliths) who happen to be the baddest demon on that particular layer. It's not like the Hells, where there's nine big guys and you can just list them out.

Ok, but doesn't it kind of undercut your (already circular) argument that you have to use the weakest version of one of the weakest demon lords?

Again, step back to the level of the fiction. Kaladin is not a "pretty good spearman" who simply happens to be in a world with no master spearmen. He is a master spearman. Insisting there is a separate level of spearman-ing that must exist so that "regular spearman" can compete with "magic spearman" is childish. There's an amount of skill you can have with a spear. Kaladin has it. That's part of his character. Demanding that Spear-o be allowed to have a bigger pile of spear skill just because Spear-o's player doesn't want to have any magic is childish.

Then Kaladin is a level 20 martial. Full stop.

The rules of the game say that a level 20 fighter cannot also be a spellcaster unless you are playing with the gestalt or epic rules.

D&D has said that the best fighters in the world have a +20 BaB. That is the rules of the game. And they have this level of skill even if they are humans with average stats in an anti-magic field.

Arguing that a class should be level capped or given as a free multi-class because you personally look down on said class is not a reasonable demand.

The Fighter players cry so hard the problems they can't solve get removed from the game.

Has this ever actually happened once in the entire history of D&D?

This is exactly what I mean about Fighters crying so hard they remove problems from the game. You look at "the big boss is on another plane", observe that the Fighter can't solve that problem, and conclude that putting stuff on other planes is bad game design. No. Not giving people abilities that get them to other planes at the levels when enemies are on other planes is bad game design. Every character needs to have access to a wide enough range of problem solving tools that you do not need to sculpt a party to be able to solve level-appropriate challenges. If "go to another plane" is an appropriate adventure for 13th level characters, then the party needs to have abilities that let them do that even if they are a Rogue, a Barbarian, a Fighter, and a Ranger. And they need to not blow through the adventure even if they are a Warlock, a Cleric, a Druid, and a Wizard. I see no way to do that if we insist that it is totally okay for half the classes to not have high level abilities.

That's like saying that low level parties can't have adventures on the other side of the river unless you give them the ability to walk on water.

Portals, scrolls of plane shift, and NPC casters have existed for day one and are just as easy for high level characters who don't know plane-shift to acquire as it would be for a low level character to find a bridge or look for a boat.

I also think its kind of ironic that we are using the cleric spell plane shift as an example of an iconic game changing wizard ability when wizards don't get it at all in many editions and always get it much later than their divine brethren.

That's a straw man. The 3e Wizard cannot replicate every other class. It certainly can't do it better than those classes. Far too many people have an understanding of 3.5 that comes from forum complaints rather than actual analysis. You absolutely can run a game of 3.5 where one of the party members is a Wizard, the Wizard is not meaningfully nerfed (outside infinite loops), and everyone has their own niche. It's not even terribly hard. You just can't do it by having one of the party members be a sword-and-board Fighter.

No, a 3.5 wizard can absolutely replicate any other class ability. Cast Gate or Shape-Change and then dig through the stack of Monster Books until you find a creature who has said class ability.

That still doesn't address what an adventure which can only be handled by a wizard with a specific spell actually looks like or why it is a reasonable expectation of the game though.

But wasn't that what people were complaining about back on the last topic this thread was about? You can't both say "Wizards shouldn't have buttons that solve problems" and "it's good that it's fast when Wizards solve a problem".

No?

I mean, really, why are you fighting so hard on this? You've said you'd be happy with ten levels. What's wrong with calling those ten levels "Heroic Tier", protecting the mundanes/martials/"badass normals" in that tier, and having the remaining ten levels be "Paragon Tier" and "Epic Tier", where you're allowed to have mundane skill and also magic?

Because you are cutting off vast swathes of content for no reason. Roughly half the monsters, spells, feats, and magic items in the game just vanish. Likewise, half your player pool just vanishes as people who enjoy high level casters or high level martials won't play.

And, as I said earlier, your character no longer matters. You go from having the potential for saving the world and adventuring on planes, and thwarting arch-devils and demigods, and toppling or founding vast empires to being a mid-level lackey who only exists at the mercy of the real heroes if you can scrape by without being noticed. And that's not really the heroic fantasy anyone wants.

It also really screws up world building, like in in 4E D&D there is supposed to be this ancient rivalry between surface elves and drow, but drow are an order of magnitude stronger than surface elves due to being paragon tier enemies and could likely wipe them out with little trouble (barring intervention from epic tier forces who actually matter).

[RandomPeasant]

Weird wording aside: the problem is not that the wizard unlocks new types of adventures. It that no other class unlocks other type of adventures.

Absolutely. Maybe I haven't been clear about it, but my position has never been that it's good that only the Wizard can solve these problems. My position is that it is good that these problems exist to be solved and that the game should allow more characters to have solutions for them. When the time comes that "the big bad is on another plane" is an obstacle that the players can reasonably be asked to overcome, enough classes should have abilities that allow them to overcome that obstacle that the party is not hosed if they happen to be a Ranger, a Barbarian, a Rogue, and a Swashbuckler.

Martial characters who can issue a challenge to the gods which must be answered in order to protest or overturn some perceived injustice associated with the god's domain...

I mean, if that's the proposal, I can see why people are objecting to you. I see a huge number of problems there, ranging from "isn't that a Cleric ability" to "why are you making a fundamental part of a class something that doesn't work if you change the cosmology" to "if the gods work that way, how is this a class-restricted ability in the first p".

Rangers who can not only planeshift, but who can do the equivalent of Amberite princes walking through shadow to navigate to a particular place on any infinite plane which matches what they want to a T, so long as its contents are consistent with the concepts underlying that plane.

That is an excellent idea. The game would be better if Rangers eventually got the ability to do that. This would, of course, result in them no longer being anything like "mundane" or "badass normal".

Masterminds who can analyze exactly what their target would do in any hypothetical situation, correctly, and in a binding way...

That one I'm skeptical on, because while it works as a PC ability, it seems like it could get frustrating really fast coming from a NPC.

To NichG: There are a variety of arguments raised against those additions its true. The one I understand is basically "but I like low to mid level play and settings" and my response to that is pretty much: could you homebrew E12 (or where-ever the casters are starting to break things anyways, I just doubled 6) and play below that?

I don't even see why you should need to homebrew it. I think "I like non-magical characters and don't like that the game inexorably pushes me past that" is a 100% valid complaint about D&D, and that the game should take steps to fix that. Have explicit tiers, with a clear explanation of what sorts of capabilities and adventures are expected, allowed, required, or unacceptable in each. Move away from per-monster or per-encounter XP as the primary advancement mechanism, and have a big section in the DMG explaining that "we like this power level and will play at it until we want to run a different campaign" is a completely valid way of running a game. Add some better mechanisms for non-level advancement tracks for people who want to be able to get marginal upgrades without changing paradigms. Probably 90% of the issues with Fighters and Wizards in practice arise from the fact that the game is unwilling to say "this character concept only goes so far" and instead either lies to people or changes their characters under their noses (or both).

Ok, but doesn't it kind of undercut your (already circular) argument that you have to use the weakest version of one of the weakest demon lords?

What circular argument? I don't "have" to use anything, I literally just picked the alphabetically first example of the thing I was talking about from the canonical source (for that edition).

Then Kaladin is a level 20 martial. Full stop.

Why? Because it seems to me that the "circular argument" here is you defining "good at mundane combat" as a 20th level ability. Why on earth would that be a 20th level ability? "I can change form every round" is a 20th level ability. "I can stop time" is a 20th level ability. "I can open a portal to another world" is a 20th level ability. Seriously, explain the standard by which "I have as much skill with a sword as it is possible for someone without supernatural assistance to have" is supposed to be on par with those. Walk me through it.

That's like saying that low level parties can't have adventures on the other side of the river unless you give them the ability to walk on water.

I would, in fact, say that if you have a river with no bridge, and players do not have abilities that let them cross that river, they cannot have adventures that involve being on the other side of that river. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that an adventure where you ford a river is different from one where you cross a bridge, and that the capabilities of the characters who can do the former make them clearly different in terms of what sorts of adventures they can have from characters who must rely exclusively on bridges. For example, I'm pretty sure you can't do "Fantasy Lewis and Clarke" if the only way for the party to navigate a river is by bridge.

No, a 3.5 wizard can absolutely replicate any other class ability. Cast Gate or Shape-Change and then dig through the stack of Monster Books until you find a creature who has said class ability.

I am begging you: make a version of this argument that applies before 17th level. Please. And before you complain about how I just used shapechange and gate as examples of 20th level abilities: those options are broken for reasons that are implementation details specific to 3e. Neither is inherently problematic.

Because you are cutting off vast swathes of content for no reason. Roughly half the monsters, spells, feats, and magic items in the game just vanish. Likewise, half your player pool just vanishes as people who enjoy high level casters or high level martials won't play.

Can you explain to me how "make the power progression characters are expected to follow explicit and formalized" does that at all? Because as with a number of the issues you've raised, your complaint is so far from the proposal as I understood it that I genuinely don't know where to begin.

And, as I said earlier, your character no longer matters. You go from having the potential for saving the world and adventuring on planes, and thwarting arch-devils and demigods, and toppling or founding vast empires to being a mid-level lackey who only exists at the mercy of the real heroes if you can scrape by without being noticed.

And as I said earlier, no you don't. That's the core issue. Characters like King Arthur and Conan do not have that potential. King Arthur is not strong enough to save the world from Orcus. The failure of the Paladin class is not that it does not allow you to build a version of King Arthur who can invade hell. That is not an adventure that is conceptually appropriate for King Arthur to go on. The failure of the Paladin class is that it does not produce anything that can deal with Orcus adequately, and that it does not give you the tools to build King Arthur before the game reaches a level where his capabilities are no longer relevant.

It also really screws up world building, like in in 4E D&D there is supposed to be this ancient rivalry between surface elves and drow, but drow are an order of magnitude stronger than surface elves due to being paragon tier enemies and could likely wipe them out with little trouble (barring intervention from epic tier forces who actually matter).

But don't you have the exact same issue if you declare that the elves are mostly 3rd level and the drow are mostly 13th level? I just don't see how this is a result of tiering at all. If anything, requiring you to explicitly think about tiers should make this easier. Someone should have gone through and said "hey, you've got this rivalry in here that says Paragon drow are supposed to be in a stalemate with Heroic elves, what gives?"

[Talakeal]

I would, in fact, say that if you have a river with no bridge, and players do not have abilities that let them cross that river, they cannot have adventures that involve being on the other side of that river. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that an adventure where you ford a river is different from one where you cross a bridge, and that the capabilities of the characters who can do the former make them clearly different in terms of what sorts of adventures they can have from characters who must rely exclusively on bridges. For example, I'm pretty sure you can't do "Fantasy Lewis and Clarke" if the only way for the party to navigate a river is by bridge.

Note that "only way to navigate a river by bridge" is a ridiculous statement, much like "can't access other planes except by a party member having the plane shift spell" is a ridiculous statement.

But maybe that sums up the difference in psychology between wizard player and fighter players then.

I see lack of an explicit ability as a problem to be overcome; if there isn't a bridge I will build one (or more likely take a boat). Just like if I don't have someone in my party to cast the specific "win button" spell to sole the problem, I will find some other manner.

Why? Because it seems to me that the "circular argument" here is you defining "good at mundane combat" as a 20th level ability. Why on earth would that be a 20th level ability? "I can change form every round" is a 20th level ability. "I can stop time" is a 20th level ability. "I can open a portal to another world" is a 20th level ability. Seriously, explain the standard by which "I have as much skill with a sword as it is possible for someone without supernatural assistance to have" is supposed to be on par with those. Walk me through it.

You do not say "good at mundane combat" you said "as good as anyone can be".

The book allows level 20 fighters; therefore you must be a level 20 fighter (or the equivalent) to be as good as anyone can be at melee combat.

As to the why of it, because Gary Gygax liked stories about daring swordsmen slaying deadly monsters, and so that's the game he made.

I am begging you: make a version of this argument that applies before 17th level. Please. And before you complain about how I just used shapechange and gate as examples of 20th level abilities: those options are broken for reasons that are implementation details specific to 3e. Neither is inherently problematic.

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about high level. Look at what you quoted though, I was specifically saying that your argument only applies IF we are talking about the broken 3E wizard that can replicate other classes.

Can you explain to me how "make the power progression characters are expected to follow explicit and formalized" does that at all? Because as with a number of the issues you've raised, your complaint is so far from the proposal as I understood it that I genuinely don't know where to begin.

The whole statement I take issue with is that barring martial characters from advancing beyond level 6-10 is an adequate alternative to having better class balance at high levels.

Now, if we are talking about rewriting the game from the ground up so that progression stops at level 10 and all existing abilities are rebalanced around it, well I am all for that. Hell, I have spent the last ~20 years doing something very similar; but that's very unlikely to happen in any official capacity, and without the D&D brand there is no real reason to stick to the D&D rules set.

And as I said earlier, no you don't. That's the core issue. Characters like King Arthur and Conan do not have that potential. King Arthur is not strong enough to save the world from Orcus. The failure of the Paladin class is not that it does not allow you to build a version of King Arthur who can invade hell. That is not an adventure that is conceptually appropriate for King Arthur to go on. The failure of the Paladin class is that it does not produce anything that can deal with Orcus adequately, and that it does not give you the tools to build King Arthur before the game reaches a level where his capabilities are no longer relevant.

You say this, but what is it based on?

D&D and Orcus both have D&D stats.

The authors of D&D think King Arthur is a level 16 paladin / level 5 bard with near perfect stats and two artifact quality magic items.

Orcus varies, but he is typically depicted as being of a similar power level, the fiendish codex version is CR22 iirc.

Although I would give Orcus the edge, King Arthur absolutely has the potential to slay Orcus.

I mean, I get that you don't like that the authors of D&D allow martial characters, but you can't simply will them out of existence.

You keep stating that martial characters shouldn't be able to kill a demon lord, but aside from the totally circular argument that "Mundane character's shoulnd't be able to kill a demon lord because someone who can kill a demon lord is no longer mundane" you haven't actually given a good reason. The closest you have come is talking about how "fighter tears bring about unwarranted wizard nerfs" without actually demonstrating that this has ever happened.

[Glorthindel]

The character who is immune to charm is not mundane.

Why? Are you absolutely saying that a level-0 NPC cannot pass a saving throw against a Charm spell. Because they can. A wizard can cast a Charm spell on a 0-level peasant and the effect not take. This doesn't make every 0-level peasant magical. My high level mundane just happens to pass every time without rolling the dice. He is just that lucky I guess.

Do you know what the main difference between high level Fighters and Wizards are? Reliability. A Wizard can just do stuff, spend a slot and it happens, whereas Fighters are still rolling dice for everything. So, to me, the easiest way to "power up" a mundane is to also let them just do the things they do. Give them Legendary Saves so they can just no-sell a spell effect at will, let them ignore misdirection effects (blur, mirror image, displacement, the Fighter just bypasses it all and lands a hit), hell, even give them an autokill effect against creatures of a certain CR compared to their level. Hilariously, the rulebook is chock full of cool things for mundane characters, but the game is stingy with them - half the Feats in the book are a waste of a Feat slot but would be a cool freebie for a Fighter

They're not casting spells or "warping reality", but they are not mundane.

The problem with this arguement is it is used to open the flood gates; I am asking for "action hero mundane", which I admit is not "reality mundane", but the counter arguement of "its not reality mundane, so since you have already broken reality, you might as well have teleporting through shadows and cutting holes in reality" misses the point. There is a very definite gradation between the guy at the gym, firing a crossbow four times in six seconds and jumping twice the distance of an olympic longjumper, and teleportation and cutting holes in reality, and there is quite a wide gap between them that we can operate in without jumping straight to the teleportation end.