Fighter has to justify doing shit beyond "I hit it with my sword" under the guise of "realism"

Well feats, so it must be 3.x or later, One of the feats is Improved Unarmed, so it's got to be 3.x.
Oh look it turns out OP is complaining about worst edition and generalising.

I don't even think that's a universal issue. After all, nothing forces a system to have magic be something earth-shattering and easy like some do.

I think the biggest issue is people assuming that because magic as a concept can theoretically do anything, that means that any individual mage has to be able to do everything.

>I think the biggest issue is people assuming that because magic as a concept can theoretically do anything, that means that any individual mage has to be able to do everything.

I agree. I've seen plenty of systems that manage to balance caster and martial characters. They all have weaker magic than high end D&D magic.

It's amusing to me that you speak up for 2nd, but denounce the project of making the classes into vanilla skeletons with a variety of interchangeable modules. 2E was all about vanilla and forcing quite idiosyncratic classes (such as the Ranger, Druid and Bard) into molds that just didn't fit them.

don't forget 5th ed, where magic was neither particulary powerful, dangerous or noteworthy.

The wizards action does not really change the fight tempo. The effects of the spell end at the same time as the fight.

WOW. So magical! Fifth ed is cookie cutter mode. You've got some amorphous dough blobs without any sharp edges. These are your characters, wouldn't want there to be a balance issue, so we got rid of all the edge.

I think I hear you, but I either don't understand, or don't agree. Vanilla 2nd ed wasn't vanilla, it was core, there was little alternative for it to be the mundane flavor to.
The core class-types (warrior/priest/rogue/wizard) were the set, and the classes were 'packages' filed under each type?

Didn't fit them? I want to be receptive to whatever you're saying, but thats not compelling rhetoric yet.
Being a druid fit quite well under the catchall of 'variant priest', for instance.
If you didn't like it, you asked the gm to tweak up a priest of nature differently.

Seems good to me.

My point, if I had one, was arguing about class balance is stupid, and I'd rather appeal-to-authority-fallacy and worship Jeb Cook and Gary G as gods and gospels, declare the system un-needing of meddlesome well-wishers arguments, and just get on with playing the game,
because honestly, the gear we could have gotten in the time we spent arguing about class balance? Really? Really?
Was it a good use of our time, in return for imaginary power? Because you got your class tweaks. I hit the dungeon and got more gear with my time. Whee! Magic items. Wooooo.

Got to agree, every system I've ever seen do magic well at the very least limited the variety of magic available to any given mage.

I think there's 4 main parts to how good magic is. In D&D, spellcasting is safe, fast, powerful, and versatile.

To get a more sensible magic system, you basically need to reverse some of those, so that magic is either risky, time-consuming, limited, or specialized.

I think a sweet spot to aim for is two upsides and two downsides. Having magic be risky rituals that are expensive and time consuming, but are powerful and can accomplish a lot of effects, puts it into a rarer utility role. Having the opposite means you get something better for blasting, but without as much power or utility.

...

>The wizards action does not really change the fight tempo

Are you fucking serious? A fireball killing lower level enemies by the dozens is notchanging fight tempo? Hypnotic pattern essentially SoD-ing in an AoE is not changing the fight tempo?

>The effects of the spell end at the same time as the fight.

Except for all the ones that don't.

When did you realize your bait sucks?

I realized D&D was garbage when I realized that I had to fudge most of my rolls just to make sure that any enemy I threw at the party didn't immediately die due to the wizards playing smart.

I mean, I'm not going to fault them for acting intelligently but it becomes a hassle running for mixed party and seeing the martials on their phone because they knew the Cleric and Wizard would just SoL/SoD any enemy the party fought, leaving them to clean up the mess once the enemy was helpless.

I realized it was shit because every single other game uses point buy rather than the arbitrary increments that are levels, a dice system with more granularity like a d100, dice pool, or more than one dice, and avoid a set in stone class system beyond a few recommended archetypes, just as an example.

D&D is never getting its mechanics fixed to that extent in the name of keeping on to its identity. There is nothing wrong with liking D&D, but claiming that it is the best system for fantasy adventures and such is wrong.

Can someone ban this shitposter with an agenda already? He's been doing stuff like this the past several weeks with the same bait OP image.

I find the problem a lot of GMs fall into is the "equal encounter" problem. A GM in 3.5 wants to challenge a high level party, so they make a high level encounter. The easiest high level encounter are single target: I.e. "the party is level 18, here's a red dragon of CR 18."

Because of this, the spellcasters can go nuclear and completely dismantle one target. Meanwhile, the warrior gets to chip away a few HP.

An equally CR 18 encounter might comprise of sixteen CR 10 creatures (citation, I dug out Pathfinder and did a little math), or two fire teams from an evil overlords elite army. Suddenly, beset from multiple angles with a swarm of enemies and badly outnumbered by foes who, despite being individually interior are a credible threat in numbers, the mage *needs* the warrior to ablate damage and drop foes. But running 16 enemies sucks, so most GMs just don't.

You meant Dungeon World, didn't you?

I disagree with your point that fighters should be conceptually fantastic. They should not. A D&D fighter should, even at level 200, be just an asshole with a sharp piece of steel and nothing cool about him. Because that's the concept of a D&D fighter. You can't change that; he has to be an uncool scrub that is shit and pathetic.

HOWEVER: he should be balanced, mechanically, against mages and clerics and whatnot. This is a pure numbers game, you adjust his numbers and the numbers of other classes until balance appears. But you don't change the underlying concepts of either. Fighters will always be uncool, unwashed illiterate peasants even if they do 2d1000 damage per hit to 4d20 targets as a normal action and wizards do nothing to anyone.

>16 CR 10 creatures

Their saves are so bad (relatively) that the wizard is going to obliterate them with like 2-3 AoE save spells.

Also, the wizard defenses are again so high that they don't really pose a threat. 3.PF scaling is really out of whack (which can be fun, just saying that it really doesn't support the many small enemies" thing for balanced encounters).

That isn't why spellcasters are better. Give 3.5 fighter a sword that instantly kills any target he attacks, not hits, without a save and make all of the wizard's attack spells always do only one damage. The wizard is still going to be much, much more useful to the party because the utility of the magic grossly eclipses the numbers game.

3.5 does do that for wizards, though, at least a little bit. I don't know why most people seem to miss this part but they don't actually know their entire spell list. The DM has almost complete control over what spells the wizard has access to. However most campaigns take place in Generic High Fantasy Land where every podunk town has a Magical Library with every spell able to be copied down for free.

It's really not a great system, but there are tools there.

>Because that's the concept of a D&D fighter.
That never was the concept.

Yeah. Sage because yet another stupid troll thread, but in Chainmail, high level fighters fight as eight men, sufficient to bust a hole in an enemy line like Sauron at the start of Fellowship. Also like Sauron, when a high level fighter (called a superhero) steps up to the front, enemies all have to make a morale check immediately or flee. He can see invisible creatures, and can shoot a passing dragon out of the sky on a 2d6 roll of 7 or 8, I forget exactly, but it's not a very hard shot. That's considerably more powerful than "I'm a regular guy and I hit things with a metal stick lol."

The issue with that is that martials are forced to deal with the shitty mechanics and the fucked math while the mages are able to ignore all of it because "lol magic."

Beyond that, I mean, you can make a character who is just some asshole with a weapon but still give him something that makes him more interesting than just "I attack" until one side is dead.

The fact that there are so many games where martials get just as many meaningful choices as their mage counterparts is proof that there is at least some merit that supports martials as being interesting archtypes in and of themselves.

Hell, off the top of my head, you can use a sword to

>Swing
>Stab
>Pommel strike
>Parry

Which would cover all the basic damage types plus defense.

Not to mention, how each type of sword has their own qualities that makes them unique, coupled with the various types of sword stances and stances.

>people still taking the bait

He's an autist. Just leave him alone.

>needs a special feat to hit things with his fist (improved unarmed strike)

Did you know that you can still hit things with your fist? It's just a fucking stupid idea just like it would be in real life to punch someone with your fist.

>needs a special feat to allow momentum from one attack to carry through to another enemy (cleave)

Try "cleaving" people in real life faggot

>needs a special feat to move then attack (spring attack)

I'll give you that one

>wizard shoots fireballs and teleports

I'll also give you that one.

Still, quit getting angry at 3,5 cause it's 2 editions ago now.

...

None of these are problems in any edition prior to 3.5 or any attempt to build upon/recreate older editions as is done by OSR systems like Lamentations of the Flame Princes, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Adventurer Conqueror King System, etc.

0e-based retroclones are best D&D. Do you agree?

Why/why not?

Magic is usually world-breaking, because magicians have access to all the non-magical stuff too. Shadowrun does it better than any other system:
>no teleportation
>no fabrication effects
>no resurrection
>no time manipulation
>no contingency effects

But mages are still OP, even with these heavy restrictions and with mundane characters getting kick-ass tech. The only way it's balanced is because everybody targets the mages first.

16 cr 10 enemies is an even bigger joke than one ,lcr 18 dragon.

Instead of casting disintegrate a couple times the vaster just uses one banshee wail and instantly ends the fight

Maybe once retards like you stop defending it and trying to force me to play it.

>Did you know that you can still hit things with your fist? It's just a fucking stupid idea just like it would be in real life to punch someone with your fist.

>Try "cleaving" people in real life faggot

But we're not playing real life, we're playing fantastical heroes killing trolls and dragons and shit.

First time I played actually
>3e
>Roll pretty fucking high according to my DM (three 18s, two 16s, one 14)
>Pick Monk because I like independent stronk men who need no equipment plus wrestling and martial arts
>Literally outclassed by the Druid, who had only a 15 as best stat, in every field ever since the first fucking level
>Outclassed by the cleric in every field ever as soon as we hit 3rd level
Didn't stay to see more

Later friends, and new groups, tried to make me play more but always ended in a similar way, either you were a full caster or you ended literally being useless. People loving casters didn't help either, for example once I wanted to play a shifter barbarian who could, thanks to a serie of shifter PrCs, get ridiculous Str, but GM and players went nono because "cheesy", but Druid master of many forms who turned into a 12 headed cryohydra was ok I guess because no one complained coz "magic, doens't have to explain shit".

The best way to deal with the system as a DM is to ignore it. Its perfect from a players perspective but after level 5 just chuck that shit out and improve. The second I stopped running the game by its own rules is the second it became a good game. I end the fights when I feel they should end. I make players or monsters fail DC's as I see fit. The enjoy meant of my players has skyrocketed since I started doing this. Every player feels like they are useful and are doing good, Fights are always a "challenge," everything flows nicely.

Did we really need another one of these threads?

I realized DnD was shit when I started reading other systems, and realized that casters didn't have to be better than martials, and that every roll didn't have to be an uninteresting binary success/failure type thing.

I realized I did not care when I played with system fags.

Its not about "balance" exactly. Its about each player getting the same amount of screen time. Classes should be geared so that no class outshines the other in that regard.

Its also about classes not stepping into each others areas. Whats the point of a class when another can do the same thing more efficiently and better? Its the same reason why Blue gets so much flack in MTG. Its the color that consistently does what the other colors do but better.

I don't know about other campaigns, but in 5e, a hundred warriors are going to dismantle any Hercules type character you put up to fight them, while a caster with AoE spells might stand a chance.

Even you know that's bullshit.

Thats not min maxing at all. Nigga are you for real? Min maxing is taking a THING say always scoring a critical hit and then disregarding absolutely everything that does not favor that THING. Then once you have broken that THING you apply it to the game with rules completely unprepared for that THING to be done so well.

All your picture represents is having more OPTIONS to deal with a problem not breaking one or two of those options to always work by strict definition of game rules.

Show me on the doll where the martial touched you

No, I really don't. Because bounded accuracy means that the hundred warriors are going to be able to hit him a good portion of the time. Meanwhile, he's able to kill 4 a round.

Meanwhile, the wizard has access to spells that can kill dozens of them per round. So it's the difference between killing them in 4 rounds, or 25.

>trying to force me to play it.

I don't. Never have. Also I am the guy you replied to, I play 3.5 still but I don't got out shilling unlike 90% of RPG fans who go TRY MY LE EPIC SYSTEM all over goddamn Reddit and now on this site as well.

Well of course you're retarded so they will clump in perfect AoE groups. A hundred warriors will kill basically anyone in a round or two except for legendary NPCs

But your having fun wrooooooong, anonkun.

This thread should have been over with this post.

>Bounded accuracy
So then no Hercules type of character is possible.

Casters are why I've relegated 3.5e to Epic 6.

...

>people don't realize that a high level fighter can slay 100 warriors without breaking a sweat
>haha--ha n-no, 100 warriors will k-k-ki---beat any character in 1 or 2 rounds you're retarded

You seem to be backpedaling here friend!

If all the enemy is spread out, warlocks (full casters) are able to keep up with the fighter, and even outpace them. But if they're clumped up, as if to go to battle in formation, a wizard/caster type can destroy them with the following spells in basically 1 or 2 rounds:

Meteor Swarm
Mirage Arcane
Firestorm
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere
Raise Dead (precast)
Reverse Gravity
Storm of Vengeance
Tsunami
Control Water (depending on how your DM handles armored individuals swimming, and how fast they are allowed to swim)
Whirlwind
Wish

High level casters are the hordebreakers in 5e. High level casters are the out of combat experts in 5e. High level martials are the slightly better at single target damage than casters butlers in 5e.

>never swung a real war axe or sword
>has never cut into non-filet meat
>has never chopped firewood or the like

But cleaving through feet of sinew, flesh and bond and properly aiming for vital parts is soooo easy, I mean, I've stabbed into a piece of pre-cut meat with a kitchen knife before, that's why I'm an expert on the topic of fighting a moving, thinking, parrying target.

Also some peasant's punch is just as devastating as a professional boxer's / martial artist's. :^)

I can tell your that summon water and food is no easy job either, and I have tried for many years.

Neither Gandalf or Merlin fit into D&D high-level wizards. They're both nowhere powerful enough. They wouldn't even be wizards, Merlin would be a sorcerer and Gandalf would be a cleric

>le casters are totally OP
>they can cast meteor swarm 'n shiet
>what? a fighter of the same level could catch one of those meteors and hurl it back at the wizard?
>LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE I ONLY DO THINGS THAT ARE EXPLICITLY MENTIONED IN THE CRB AND HAVE NO FANTASY AT ALL, THIS GAME IS JUST ROLLING DICE, WHAT IS ROLEPLAY? NO BECAUSE FANTASY IS NOT WHAT A FANTASY RPG IS ABOUT.

>D&D books give Hercules, Achilles, Beowulf and other fantastic as fuck heroes as example of high level fighters
>"Fighter concept in D&D was never fantastic and it shouldn't be"
I'm getting mixed signals

I didn't say a high level fighter wouldn't die, they both would die horribly to 100 warriors. There is no fighting chance, you are purposely lining up the pins so the caster can kill them all - including it being a flat grassland they are fighting on, and you are purposely using only the PHB and not the DMG entries for handling battles of this scale to do your white room bullshit.

100 of anything will probably kill any single target that doesn't have legendary actions to keep itself from dying horribly.

It's ok you like 4e, but you have to realize there're tons of other editions in where that doesn't happen

And 4e has its own set of problems

There is literally one edition. The OP is literally saying 3.5 is all D&D.

I just love th fact that when someone points out a spell would not work or there are characters that can bypass them, the spell mutates into a new spell before the end of the round along with them being able to cast six spells at a time and always have contingency for 10 spells above 8th level.

In 3.5 you can't catch and hurl back a meteor with a fighter, user.

You are not a d&d character and d&d is not a game about realism

To me the expression "without breaking a sweat" kindof implies not dying. Are you a second language english speaker?

desu, meteor swarm is a garbage example of a op spell with any form damage resistance applying to each sphere.

You want something like force cage or reverse gravity for broken ass shit.

Deflect Arrows, retard.

Are you literally retarded?
I was pointing out that OP has no idea what he's talking about with cleave, "le it's not realism" is nonsense, because the creatures in D&D aren't balloon animals, no mere peasant has the strength to cut through feet thick of armour, flesh, bone and sinew and is likely not skilled enough to lead a blade effectively between the ribs of an opponent in the heat of battle without getting it stuck.

Physics are physics, iron is still iron, flesh is still flesh, bones are still bones, sure there may be dragons with bones as hard as adamantium, but when it comes to humans, bone density is still the same as in real humans, that is why hardness is a thing.

I have never even played 4e in my entire life, I stopped with 3.5e and have not yet returned to P&P because of work schedules. Even in 3.5e you could roleplay over rollplaying. What kind of rulebook nazis have you been playing with?

>le physics only apply to martials argument

Probably ones that think that a 20ft gorge magically becomes a 22ft gorge when the party levels up.

>if the rulebook doesn't explicitly state it, it literally cannot happen
Mate, get your nose out of the book and start using that brain of yours. You can apply deflect arrows to it with a higher DC and the fighter taking fire damage in the process. You can even catch ballista bolts and falling debris for example.
Why is it so hard for you wannabe P&P players to understand that not everything must be a railroad or video game?

Three years from now

>fantastical heroes
>heroes

No. Of course if you approach it with the idea of "my character is a/the hero, he should be able to do x" you're going to be butt frustrated that he doesn't have certain abilities by default, just because that's your expectation of a hero.

D&D is best when you play regular or skilled people who got to where they are by hard work and learned from actual experiences.

first post worst post

>system isnt shit, there is a class not affected by shitty rules

ok.

Actually, that's one of the things it explicitly says you can't do at all, ever.

>Unusually massive ranged weapons and ranged attacks generated by spell effects can’t be deflected.

>Unusually massive ranged weapons, such as boulders hurled by giants, and ranged attacks generated by spell effects, such as Melf's acid arrow, can't be deflected.

>The easiest high level encounter are single target: I.e. "the party is level 18, here's a red dragon of CR 18."
>Because of this, the spellcasters can go nuclear and completely dismantle one target.
This.
It wasn't truly high level, but I remember in a game once the DM sent at us a singleenemy that he later admitted was supposed to be a boss battle.
I was a spellcaster, so of course I polymorphed it into something similar and chucked it down a chasm. I can tell the DM wanted to bullshit so much to make it not work but luckily he had more integrity than that.
What was something similar a fighter of an equal -or even higher- level could have done? Nothing. He would have had to slowly chip it's HP away.
Casters/Martials are inherently unbalanced.

> no mere peasant has the strength to cut through feet thick of armour, flesh, bone and sinew and is likely not skilled enough to lead a blade effectively between the ribs of an opponent in the heat of battle without getting it stuck
Fighter characters are not "mere peasants". Having even a single level in fighter already means the character is unusually strong and skilled. If it's unlikely a character could pull something off you roll the dice.

>implying
If a spell conjures a physical object, such as a sword that is not a magic sword, the sword still is a physical object that obeys the rules of the plane it comes from.
If the sword was magic, or made of magic to be more specific, I don't care if a scrawny wizard with 6 STR can slice through 300 people at once, because it's magic.

no game that wasnt called deendee would get away with this kind of shit. any small-fry developer would be ridiculed or, more likely, ignored.

I never said that.

No. A level 1 fighter is militia at best. An average infantry man is level 3 at best.

Then you're jumping into an argument you didn't start and don't understand.

people think system does not matter are literally idiots

With 22+ STR and the ability to lift half a metric ton over your head, why would you think that a horse-sized boulder or ballista arrow that weighs less than your maximum capacity falls under the definition of 'unusual'?
Again, you're just reading the words, you have no creative input, you should never be DMs, or heck even players because you sound like the people that just want to be railroaded along. Just play a videogame or read a book by yourself if you want that.

Straight from the 5e player's handbook, which is what I was talking about

>Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen's army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers,trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters.

Says the user choosing to compare 5e to a 4e argument, and do so without understanding 5e at all manages to try and make a 3.5e comparison instead.

I knew exactly what was said, and simply pointed out your argument was bullshit, and since then you have been desperately to try and make it make sense.

>AND ranged attacks generated by spells
Lets see, mmmm, yes, meteor swarm is a spell, so you can't.

Btw 1 cubic meter of rock weighs 2.5 tons, you'll need way more str than 22.

Stop playing 3.5. Play 0e or some shit and the level one wizard may be able to cast sleep, maybe. On an enemy who isn't intelligent to hit him while he's casting it, thus causing him to lose his ONE spell for the day.

Then after that one cast, success or not, he has to rest EIGHT hours before he does it again. That's with a check for wandering monsters every ten minutes. Six checks per hour and a one in six chance of actually having a wandering monster bump into you means an average of eight encounters while the wizard is trying to sleep.

Oh, and you have to start casting at the beginning of the round and don't get your spell off until the end, during which time you're a sitting duck. And that's with no attacks of opportunity for your fighters if they just walk past your guys and stab you right in the gut.

The only thing about that that changes at higher levels is more/better spells, but you level slower than the fighter or thief too.

3.5 is not the only edition of D&D.

>meteor swarm casts literal meteors

Literal or not you can't catch them because spell explicity says you can't catch them

>Spell
Feat*