Buff Martials

Let Martials be Cu Chulain, Beowulf, Roland, et cetera.
Not "random schmuck wit a sword #1530642".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brèche_de_Roland

So every 3/5 levels they get a massive jump in power because their Level 2 abilities become Level 15 ability? Makes sense, Wizards have almost every ability they have grow each level.

Why the fuck would you not nerf casters?

You literally can't unless you go full Naruto than green suit guy style.

You SHOULD nerf the progression of the casters. They are suppose to spend like 50 years studying and shit. The only thing you need is extend the middle tier spellcaster spells before they reach godhood.

That's literally all you have to do.

Because high power games can be fun as long as everyone is high power.

>You literally can't unless you go full Naruto than green suit guy style.
See Nigga cut a 40 meter wide, 100 meter high trench through solid fucking rock with a swing of his sword.
Western myths and legends have plenty of high powered martials, no matter how loudly casterfags cry "weeaboo" at the idea that Martials might actually get to be get to be as powerful as their precious casters.

I made a few classes under that philosophy, my favorite of which being someone who defeats foes by smacking them with nonlethal negative levels all day.

>Last session
>Have Haste
>Smite full attack gives 90 some-odd damage, sending cultist into -70hp
>Not an amazing superhuman feat

>Spellcasters are more powerful than their mythological equivalents, 99% of which were divine in nature, and can emulate many of their inspirations at the same time
>this is fine, said the 3.5 douchebag
>Martials want to be able to emulate ONE of their mythological inspirations because they can't even do that much
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Every fucking time.

>Assume there is a problem and Martials need to be buffed

Why are we assuming this? What brings you to that conclusion? If a wizard waving a wand and destroying a mountain is the baseline, then rename the class "fighter" and have a swing of the "sword" level the same mountain.

Martials are already assumed to reach "Greek Hero" status at higher levels. Whu are you assuming that's not working as intended?

It's easy.

If we can divide "arcane" and "divine" and "psionic" up arbitrarily then why can't we divide "martial prowess" up in a category of 'magic' arbitrarily. It's just earned through physical prowess rather than studying ancient texts, praying to a god or being exposed to the far realm.

>Greek Hero
>can fight well AND either know how to trip a guy, or how to disarm a guy, but not both

Play another system.

Full stop. You cannot bring up martials anywhere near the same level as casters without getting magic involved. Tome of Battle came as close as it ever got in making martials viable in 3.x.

This martial/caster discrepancy is a problem only in 3.x and, to a slightly lesser extent, 5e. You did not see this in 1e, 2e, BECMI, or 4e.

That's exactly what 4e did.
And the grognards did what they do. They whined and screamed "weeaboo".

There is no way to fix this problem by buffing martials. You either have to make all martialy and skill focused characters swordmages/paladins or force casters to buy spells with feats or skill points.

>Hit One time with Shield once per Encounter
>Magic!
Go fucking home, Casterfag.

You don't need to give casters THAT much power to play high power games

...

I can't even tell if people are dumb enough to believe this or if they're just trolling.

Revamp the whole Martial System. Make it so that Martial feats are the equivalent of Spells without the spells slots and non-ranged AoE.

You would think that people who are supposedly well-versed in mythology would know about those myths, but I guess they're not nearly as educated as they would have you believe.

Shit dude 99% of these mythological heroes are warriors. The spellcaster shit came from relatively modern fiction rather than religion or myth.

Thing is, tier 1 classes bend the game over a barrel and rape its ass without lube and don't even have the goddamn common courtesy to give the game the reach-around, often without much metagaming, since it's as simple as going "ooh, could my animal companion be a bear?" or "conjuration sounds cool."

Bringing martials up to their level would mean giving them access to equally redonkulous game-breaking power.

That how it was done in earlier systems.

Fighters were among the fastest levelers, while wizards were slowest.
No "cantrip whenever I feel like it" bullshit. You memorized spells and when they were gone that's it. You had to plan ahead or you were fucked. And if you wanted to cast the same spell twice you had to memorize it twice...no "I use a banked slot to cast that last spell again".
All spells had to be found and copied from scrolls or spell books, with a high rate of failure. This allowed the DM to actively limit what shit happened in game.
Wizards had to be mindful of their spellbooks and make/cary "travel sized" versions or risk losing all accumulated spells if the book was destroyed.

The problem is that casters now have it easy.

I have come to the point in my life where I no longer care when a cheeto-stained grubby-fingered neckbeard shrieks about something being weeaboo. I've actually started to consider it a positive thing, because if their attitude is that shitty and they're always so miserable, then maybe liking what they don't like is a good thing.

God knows they never seem to provide an answer besides "It sucks and I hate it." One of them even started ranting about cultural marxism when I asked why he hates Japanese things so much.

Why do people refuse to go full "anime" again?

I mean what's the problem when the universe already has mages in robes?

>It's ridiculous to think the game doesn't let martials do superhuman things
>Just recently, I killed a person!
>(with the aid of a magical spell)
>(and channeling holy magic)
2/10 I replied. And this is Veeky Forums so getting a bite isn't impressive.

>Shit dude 99% of these mythological heroes are warriors.
Blessed with artifacts and favors from the gods themselves. Mythology balanced martials with magic items...which still amounted to shit when said martial went toe to toe with a sorceress.

Reply to the wrong post?

Maybe.

Can you name some examples of mythological heroes getting their shit wrecked when they faced "sorcerers" please?

Beowulf beat up a giant and a dragon. He had no magical artifacts.

>Fighters were among the fastest levelers, while wizards were slowest.
Wrong, it was Thief>Cleric>Fighter>Wizard in leveling speed, with the Wizard actually overtaking the Fighter in leveling speed later in the game.

Appreciate the correction, thank you. It's been a while. Could have sworn the Cleric was slower than the Fighter...

Scaling feats so you keep getting new bonuses and options from them as you level up.

Give Martials their own Save or Sucks and debuffs, battlefield control, and support/utility things, like sniffing out invisible enemies, having gut instincts that predict ambushes/betrayal, self-healing with a second wind, speed/mobility buffs, seeing the weakspots in inanimate objects and therefore being able to punch a castle in half.

Condense some skills together, give Martials enough skill points,and let them be used to perform supernatural stuff without needing to hit shit like DC 80. Enough Athletics/Acrobatics/Balance should let you leap tall buildings, run on walls and balance on clouds, enough Stealth should let you teleport when no one is looking.

Make combat rounds last longer than 6 seconds, like half a minute or so, so while the Caster spends the round waving around their hands, praying, or performing interpretive dance the Martial can justify pulling cinematic stunts during that time period, like cutting a rope anchoring a chandelier and using it falling to pull you up to the second floor.

Sir Gawain was powered by the sun. He had incredible strength at dawn, fading around sunset. He did some crazy shit, as did all the knights. And while magic items and stuff did play a role in some of it, it wasn't the whole story.

Heracles was doing fine with a huge club, bow and poisoned arrows

Give martials more skill points so they could be useful out of combat. Really people focus on the combat or PVP parts of the martial/caster disparity all of the time, but the real problem is that when it comes to solving puzzles or problems that can't be solved by full attacking, the wizard will always have a solution while a fighter will not. So more skills, more skill tricks, more synergy bonuses. Let the fighter outdo the wizard using sheer street smarts, a 10 ft pole and some rope from time to time.

Remove tax feats and make feats stronger. Instead of taking Combat Expertise and two more feats to be decentish at running into people and pushing them back, you should take one feat and be immediately proficient at the trick and capable of effectively using it in different situations. It's bizarre that you need to spend several feats to gain an ability that's worse than a low-level spell AND is generally not preferable to just full attacking.

Give Fighters something like a daily ability to add their level x2 to a Strength check or a save to resist magic to represent them mobilizing their force of will and inner power to perform a superhuman feat. If anything it would allow martial players to actually feel like powerful heroes from time to time rather than BMX Bandits to their Angel Summoner allies.

Apparently he was a ranger

Right. So as long as your martial is a demi-god with superhuman strength and the king of the gods interfering on his behalf, you'll be equal to a wizard, gotcha. Why aren't we looking a nerfing spell casters again?

And mythological casters were in the same boat. Merlin was half-demon, for example.

Because people who've gotten used to wizards that make Merlin look like a two-bit piker would get upset?

Only in one, very modern version that caught on. It doesn't appear before Le Morte d'Artur

Why buff martials/keep casters the same? High level games are where things start to break down. Weaken the casters down to doing glorified magic tricks at low levels, moving up to decent Wizards by the time Fighters are decent fighters.

I'm against the idea of caster supremacy, actually. I'm just realistic in that in 3.x you can't bring up martials to the same level as casters without significantly hampering/nerfing casters, which has problems in and of itself.

Trying to fix 3.x is a hopeless endeavor. People have tried for years, with mixed results. You have to rework the system from the ground up to even come close, at which point you may as well go play another system entirely for all the work you're putting into it.

God, this. This is exactly what I want.

I want a warrior who, when the enemy mage teleports away, can reach in to the rift in reality left by the spell and pull the mage right back out so he can punch him in the face. I want a thief who can steal a mage's magic or a warrior's strength for himself, or steal the idea right out of someone's mind. I want a berserker whose rage is so potent that lesser warriors just being near him causes them to piss themselves with fear. I want a swordmaster who parries arrows and spells right out of the air and can cut you so hard that even the defensive spells protecting you are cut.

This is honestly what I've been considering if I ever suffer a bout of idiocy strong enough to make me run 3.PF again. I'd be heavily houseruling it and heavily nerfing casters, possibly to the point of just plain not allowing 9-level casters, while at the same time adding more combat maneuvers and improvisational tactics for martials.

This is why I've given up on 3.PF and set my binder full of houserule ideas aside and just played something else. Why yes, I DID take Veeky Forums's advice and just not play D&D, and it worked out great for me. I'm actually having fun playing other games now! Who the fuck knew, right?

>Ignores someone bring up Beowulf
>cherry picks Hercules so he can bring up demi-gods instead
>ignores that mythological casters were also usually not human or demi-gods
>still wants his normal human wizard to be even better than they ever were

Are you sure? I thought he was a cambion in some of the earliest tales.

The main problem with martials is a lack of versatility, especially with classes like the fighter. The easiest solution is to merge together a bunch of martial classes until you have something that more resembles the wizard: a martial character that levels up quadratically. A class like this might start out choosing whether they want to be good at hitting things, good at archery, good at sneaking, or good at leadership and social skills, but by level 20 they are good at all these things and more - much like the wizard starts out with a small selection of spells, but eventually obtains dozens with a wide variety of effects. This only works if the skill system and martial combat are themselves decent from the outset, giving martials quadratic access to two shit systems is just shit x shit = shit.

This approach could potentially bring martials up to the level of tier 2 casters, which is close enough.

>If you allow Martials to perform superhuman heroic actions as a core part of the system, it fixes everything.

While this is useful from a creative standpoint, because it gives you more room to work, it doesn't fix anything by itself. There are no tier 1 or 2 martials, but there are tier 5 and 6 casters - being unrealistic is necessary, not sufficient.

There are already several conceits in the game that let martials do superhuman things, ranging from pure skill (fighters can catch bullets), to rage (barbarians in Pathfinder can absorb fire and breathe it back at enemies) to ki (monks can straight-up teleport). But it won't get you to tier 1 or 2 unless it's handled quadratically. The monk is a good example of a martial that is clearly superhuman and magical, but still shit because it's designed so poorly.

>daily

Really nigga? Just give rrhem.a resource system that they can spend as they please on such feats. I would call it action points if those did not already exist.

Newb here, Can I make a captain America style fighter?

>throws shield lika a boomerang
>rush forwards and impale him with a spear or something

Yeah that would be a good idea.

Got a list to the rest of these feats? They would fit right in with my other techniques and martial schools in my world.

>The easiest solution is to merge together a bunch of martial classes until you have something that more resembles the wizard

You're making me want to dig out my old 3.PF houserules and make this.

>Fighter
No.
>Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade
Yes.

No

Depends on the system. D&D has throwing and returning weapons across its various editions, stick that tag on a shield and you're golden.

Don't Monk suffer because they were too MAD. They basically needed STR to hit, DEX to tank-dodge, WIS for AC, INT for skills and spells, and then CON for tanking hits since they were frontline martials.

No, it's pretty much early modern, it definitely doesn't show up in any of the earliest tales he shows up in.

>>Ignores someone bring up Beowulf
Missed it. Its a good example of Heroic Martials.
>>cherry picks Hercules so he can bring up demi-gods instead
Hercules was mentioned. He as well as many greek heros are children of gods, making them stronger than mortal men.
>>ignores that mythological casters were also usually not human or demi-gods
Usually? >>still wants his normal human wizard to be even better than they ever were
Did you miss the post about casters, spell books, memorizing and generally sucking for the early game? this is what helped curb casters early. I miss my 2e wizard doing more with his sling than magic because I fucked up my spell priority.
Martials don't need a buff. Casters need to be brought back down.

Yes. You would get a -4 to an attack roll to throw a shield as an improvised weapon and only deal 1d3+str damage, though. Or you could take two feats and wait until you have +9 BAB so you can throw a shield with Shield Sling, dealing a bit more damage and even attempting a trip.

That's being a martial for ya.

...

There is Tome of Battle/Path if War, but the simplest solution is to let Martians preform what is basically a SLA if they can preform a sufficient Skill check, but with the duration or effects more limited because they still have better hp, bab, etc. On average than the one everyone bitches about (the Wizard)

But yeah, imagine a Fighter mimicking Greater Dispel Magic as he literally slashes the magic apart with his sword off a Sunder attempt, or a Rogue effectively Dimension Dooring via high Acrobatics roll and then Enervating his target with a perfect killing stroke- if they survived his knives they will wish they hadn't!

>martials

ftfy

This is just making me realize that to create the D&D I want, I'd have to either play 4e or create so many houserules that I wouldn't even be playing D&D anymore.

Or you just play that prestige class in ToB based around throwing weapons and doing cool shit.

Yeah kinda. The powercreep for casters was way too fking fast.

Welcome to game design, you will never be satisfied. Enjoy your stay!

They're in the Fantasy Craft core book, you can probably find it in an FC general if you search the archives.
Here's the fencing tree, which I love. Note how it synergizes: Drop into total defense, then wait. When an enemy steps into range, auto hit him. If he misses you, which is likely because you're in total defense, you can pull back and draw him into the square you were in before. If you do that, hey, he just entered a square adjacent to you while you were in TD! Auto-hit him again.
The Supremacy trick basically lets you instakill any one mook that doesn't have the dexterity to match you, once per round.

Then there's the Knife tree, where one feat means that as long as you have a knife anywhere in your inventory, you are considered armed with it regardless of other circumstances. Like the enemy took you prisoner, disarmed you, and tied you to a chair, but missed that knife in your boot? Hey, call him over and whisper sweet knifings in his ear!

4e is honestly a pretty good game. It's just a very different beast from traditional D&D, but it's one I've actually found myself preferring.

> a Fighter mimicking Greater Dispel Magic as he literally slashes the magic apart with his sword off a Sunder attempt
Barbarian in PF can do exactly that actually. Too bad it's once per rage and only affects one ongoing effect with a rather hefty DC.

Therein lies the problem. The only limiting factors I would apply are obvious ones like duration, capability, and reducing spam. Obviously your Warrior probably should not be able to mimic a wish spell whenever they want, or duplicate the gate spell, especially if it does not match the character or their story.

Other obvious things would be like polymorph indefinitely and obvious signs of abuse. But when they do transform like Cu Chulainn it should be obviously very useful and extremely powerful.

Why doesn't Veeky Forums design their own game? Take eveything of value of the current systems and just homebrew a new one.

It's been done, to various degrees of success.

Yes, among other things. The monk was a clusterfuck of bad design, the first two answers here explain it very well:

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/13/optimizing-a-dd-3-5-monk

Design by committee or large collaboration never works well unless everybody's being paid and even then you still need a director to keep people's shit in line.

Too many cooks in the kitchen. Ultimately some or a lot of people are not going to agree on something and it just rolls downhill from there.

Besides some of the best products are made by very small teams or individuals with a focused goal and tons of resolve.

The problem here is that not every mechanic fits into every genre. You wouldn't use health rules from a high-flying cinematic heroic game for a down-and-dirty gritty game about post-apocalyptic survival.

Yeah, if you really want to play a 3E-like, with balanced martials and casters, just go with Fantasy Craft. Martials get cool stuff, casters are jack of all trades, master of none, it works pretty well.
There aren't really any modules for it, though, much less adventure paths, and folks have been waiting since forever for the Spellbound supplement, but that shouldn't deter most groups.

Hello there. I advise to use 5e or old school editions instead of the one that does not satisfy you.

Nope, Geoffrey of Monmouth, 12th century. From timelessmyths.com:

In the work, titled Historia regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain", c. 1137), Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote that he was a son of a nun and grandson of the King of Demetia in southern Wales. As to his father, he was either a devil or an incubus. Merlin is a paradox, he was the son of the devil, yet he was the servant of God.

Just don't play D&D

My group swiched to Savage Worlds a while ago, and while there are a couple things I don't like, there is simply far less bullshit and a lot of fun options. I was amazed that the single page dedicated to social conflicts was legitimately more realistic than the crap that the PHB offered. I am sure that any other system like Runequest or Fantasy Age can also satisfy your needs.

apparently there hasn't been a fantasy craft general in seven days

so that's good

Does FC even have enough fans for a general? Or am I thinking of some other game with a vocal and obnoxious but small fanbase?

Dunno, maybe Dungeon World gets a shitpost or two. I don't really want to pay for a pdf i might end up not using, so i just wanted to look at the rules in full.

FC used to have generals regularly, but the interminable wait for Spellbound sort of sucked the life out of them. There wasn't much to talk about with very little new coming out, and there's no need for big arguments about how to fix shit, because it pretty much works as-is.

DW's fans have mostly given up on the possibility of any sane discussion of it here on Veeky Forums. I know I did long ago. It's a shame, we had really nice threads for a while, then the Shitpostening began...

Anyway, Fantasy Craft. Here ya go.
mediafire.com/folder/nzs6xsnzbid4t/Fantasy_Craft

Thanks guy

Use the Tome of Battle/Path of War in order to use one feat and unlock eight million ways to punch people, and stop whining about how anything that isn't hitting with a sword is somehow magic because that's just going to kill the motivation to "fix" things.

Tome of Battle is the best you can do.

I told my players that if one of them would try a fighter, I'd allow them to use any homebrew or third party or whatever feats they wanted (D&D 3.5, by the way). One agreed, and ended up with a human fighter who wielded a 10 foot long sword which he could swing around without penalty and throw with pinpoint accuracy. I thought it was awesome but everyone else was still unimpressed.

The most important thing with 4e is putting effort into making the combat scenarios fleshed out.
Like avoid "Room with monster in it" and make sure combat has interesting mechanics and goals you know.
I mean you should do this in almost every game but 4e does this really well.

If we're trying to be realistic about your options for 3.pf, it really does come down to splatbooks.

I've played fighters in the past and ultimately the major benefit you will get from them is your massive equipment load, because, you have to fucking face this, you are defined by your equipment.

Generally, I wish martials got more bonuses to ranged weapons, because it's entirely logical that one would be so acquainted, but barring that, I tend to work as follows for books:

>Tome of Battle/ 9 Swords is an obligate choice, it utterly invalidates vanilla fighters and frankly that's a good thing. It's therefore unavoidable and required.

>Master of Arms by Second World Simulations is full of combat maneuvers and martial feats that you should bullshit your DM into letting you use. There are moments of Peter Jackson Tolkien movie fuckery that will keep your character at least interesting in combat. You can also pull shit like hamstringing monsters or breaking holes in their armor and shield that you can target.

>Equipment-wise you need to hoard splatbooks on Dwarves. They get some of THE most ridiculous kit I've ever seen in a d20. Same goes for Drow, but Dwarves get a lot of really interesting situational weapons. For instance, using Hammer And Helm from Races of Renown, I made a dragon slayer who used a dwarven Bolt Drives to bore chained screws into a dragon, thus giving me something to grab onto, climb up him, and letting me pin him with weights at the end of the chain.

>Complete Warrior will have combat feats, special items, etc.

And you're gonna need bags of holding to keep all your kit.

45% of playing a good Martial is doing things that will surprise your DM, 45% is bullying the DM into letting you get access, crafting, divine favor or otherwise, to magical items that YOU want (I always go for halberds in this case because halberds are rarely ever made interesting, magic or otherwise in tabletop), and 10% is hitting things.