People often have the same argument of "martials vs. casters"...

The place where mortal skill shades into divine art.

HOON DING bitch!

I fucking love that the Redguard from The Elder Scroll games lost their home continent due to some lost sword technique that cut through atoms and just atomized their entire continent.

Now that is sword proficiency.

Most people who subscribe to the martial vs. caster meme fall into one of two camps.

Either they're idiots who don't understand the rules to see that martials are inherently better than the average person by default.

or

They're power gamers who don't want martials having nice things because it means that it's less focus being funneled into their direction.

Personally, if I was running a D&D game, I would just allow the martial to do impressive feats of athleticism w/o having to roll, like picking up a 50 lb. boulder when they have 18 STR or catching a sword with their abs without dying but unfortunately I'm in the minority.

The only thing AMF's do is skew the game even further in the mage's direction while limiting the martial's options even more.

An AMF is basically a rust monster, the only ones who won't groan and curse at its mention are fools who don't know what the problem is.

Yeah, classic wuxia is honestly great. The various dojo masters bearing long forgotten superhuman skills and martial arts - pretty much what the OP is talking about when applied to martial arts.
It doesn't really handle all the other skills though.

The problem is that the writers for this stuff want martials to excel without being larger than life. No special powers like Hercules or Cuchulain had, just boring swordmans.

These people are currently winning, though. DnD is currently in Martial edition because of the various caster nerfs, especially Concentration.

Haha no. Casters in 5e are still way better. 4e was the real Martials Edition. Fighters, Warlords, and Rangers were the best classes in the game.

You will like Rokugan then. There it is a School, the Kakita Artisans that ends with "The Perfect Art": once a month your art is so good that whatever it represents comes to life.

5e is the second coming of Caster Edition.
Sure, it's not quite as pronounced as in the original Caster Edition, but that's because nothing about 5e is pronounced.

What you're describing is basically Wuxia, OP. 'Kung fu' literally means 'Diligent Effort', and most legendary Wuxia heroes got that way through hard work to the point they became supernaturally skilled and powerful.

youtube.com/watch?v=5bvO4fc-pW4

What a level 20 martial should really be like.

4e was martial edition, 5e is just caster edition lite since mages aren't as in-your-face about how much better they are at everything.

FFS, the druid in our last 5e game won every combat encounter by turning into a snake and constricting the fuck outta everything that moved and my bard was able to outright sidestep a few encounters through good use of illusion and mind-altering. The only thing that changed is that you can't have a flying, stone-skinned, invisible, wizard anymore.

Try Exalted, Solars are literally that. They use perfectly normal and mundane skills available to anybody but do so as demigods. From swording to crafting to sneaking to jumping to writing. All things are elevated to the same reality-busting level. Even sorcery is just an extension of knowledge that mere humans have access to, but which Exalted apply in godly ways.

The systems a total mess, though. It might not be worth playing.

Fool here. Care to explain?

Basically, martials need magic items in order to keep up with the CR that they're expected to deal with, so if you use an AMF on them, all their magic item shit is rendered moot until they leave the AMF, but that concept is easier said than done considering that anything that's powerful enough to cast AMF is powerful enough to deal with an unboosted martial.

Then to add insult to injury, there are spells that the mage can cast that still work within an AMF, so they'll still have option to protect themselves while the martials are even more useless than they were before.

In every single edition except 4E, the Fighter has primarily been defined by their magical items - gauntlets of ogre power, armor of ethereality, vorpal swords, displacer cloaks, you name it. Fuck, in post-OD&D systems they get something like +10-20AC from magical items and +3-5 to hit/damage - sometimes more than doubling their base damage, unless you're talking about 3E.

The anti-magic field as wizard spell began as the anti-magic SHELL - a defense against other casters that still permitted you to be fucked up by a dude with a magic sword just walking through it and into the caster's face. 3E's change to the formula just meant that all of a sudden you had... a dude in a robe who was unable to cast and also mostly immune to magic? It's not really worth casting on yourself.

Dead magic zones and similar, well, they suffer from just fucking over the entire party somewhat equally - the Fighter is hardly spared from its effects, even though the Magic-User is rendered completely useless and non-functional.

To some degree it's comparable to rust monsters and disenchanters and thieves and other "you have too powerful magic items, so I'm going to disintegrate them" things, in that DMZ's are designed to fuck over the players - but they fuck over ALL the players.

Sorry for rambling, but I'm not entirely sure how to organize my thoughts on the topic.

Being able to sword so hard you cut through space and time makes you special, it's not different from magic in that regard. It's just a different approach to doing something supernatural.

>like picking up a 50 lb. boulder when they have 18 STR or catching a sword with their abs without dying
See, that's really nice of you and all, but in my experience if you let players fiddle with damage like that then you never hear the end of it.

>I take the dragon's claw attack
>ok, it deals 23 dama-
>no it doesn't, I block it with my abs
>what? no you don't
>sure, I've been blocking swords with my abs all day, why not the dragon

I already know that's what my players would do, and I suspect a lot of other people's players as well.

And yeah, you can justify it, but bottom line is that if the player ever starts arguing with you over a rule, you've already lost.

Now if you want a campaign like that, where it's basically freeform and shit, then that's no problem. But I personally like some stakes in my game.
not to say that the way D&D currently handles it is better
Pic very much related

What the fuck are you even saying? I'm trying to follow your logic and just failing.

And PF.

They have an automatic bonus progression too.

To be fair, "catching a sword with their abs without dying" doesn't mean not taking any damage.

Wuxia fiction, no. However, it wouldn't be particularly hard to restructure elements of the combat system from a wuxia RP system like LotW so that secret techniques and arts also extended to non-combat skills

Yeah, but that requires you to actually be using that optional rule and also only solves part of it - the mathematical bits. (And even then you're below what you could've otherwise had - especially because of the ass-backwards way it interacts with magical weapons. Choosing between a +5 sword and a +4 keen sword at level 17? Are you fucking kidding me?)

If you're a fighter stuck in an AMF-equivalent, you can't rely on your vorpal swords or dragonbane arrows or flying boots or whatever - however, the monsters you fight are under no such restrictions. A dragon in a dead magic zone is way weaker than an ordinary one, but still a dangerous challenge since it can fly (and, to use an old OD&D tactic, drop boulders) and you can't. Bows are a dangerous tactic, since that requires you to split your already below-par enhancement bonus into it as well - meaning that if it decides to face you on the ground you're weaker than you could've been.

Also, of course, no casting means no Haste. No casting means no Cure X Wounds or Heal or Protection from Energy, etc. etc.

It's a team game, when you get down to it, and disabling the Wizard and Cleric in such a way lowers the performance of the Rogue and Fighter as well.

(Also, of course, once you start looking outside the Fighter you might start realizing that tons of classes require (su) abilities to function. Whoops, there went Greater Beast Totem's pounce. Hope the Barbarian didn't need that.)

There's a difference between "not dying" and "not taking damage" user.

Also, get better players.

Concentration makes playing a mage unbearable. Can only have one spell up at a time, meaning you're not very useful to anyone. You also don't have any real killing power since all the spell damage has been reduced. So either you're a useless bitch helping your Fighter master by softening up the foes he kills, or by buffing him. And it's always or because of Concentration.

The main problem with this problem is that the people who make it don't understand what they're talking about. Modernized Western minds can't not categorize everything into indiscernible boxes... In premodernity what was supernatural and what was mundane were usually one and the same. The swordsman and the cunningman were two folk who when venturing out for their own glory were focused on the same ends through differing means. If you wanted to kill someone, you could do it by cursing them or by stabbing them. If you wanted to ascertain political power, you could do it through either means as well. One is more brutal and obstinate, another is hidden and pervasive.

If one were to apply these principles to high fantasy, then it wouldn't make sense for the warrior who practices their craft which is at minimum in part mystical to not reap supernal results if they became so enlightened. For example, Chinese martial artists were warriors who knew their bodies so well that they obtained enlightenment and knowledge of Chi.

A dinosaur isn't a Tyrannosaurus Rex or an Allosaurus or a Spinosaurus, it's a fucking dragon, subdue it or die.

Direct damage hasn't been the Wizard's main schtick since, like, 3E. It's all about control these days - all the effects that start with "save or", and some that start with "save and". (I particularly remember one 3E spell that was basically "if they fail to save, they get [horribly debilitating effect] - if they save, they instead get [lesser but still horribly debilitating effect the designer underestimated]". I think it may have stunned the opponent for a turn on a failed save?)

Or just "no save, just" spells like Sleep.

>So either you're a useless bitch helping your Fighter master by softening up the foes he kills, or by buffing him.
So you're sending your trained attack dog out to do your job for you, in other words? It's all about perspective. After all, just take a step back, pretend you're in It's a Wonderful Life, and think about how things would look if you weren't there.

The more team-oriented spells are almost always the best choice, yes - you debuff the enemy to make them worse at doing your thing, buff your friends to make them better at their thing, and then whack 'em together and watch as the bowling ball strikes down the pins.

My favorite example for this will always be 3.5's Haste. It's a third-level spell, so it's competing with a 5d6 damage fireball (save for half). Neat. If you instead Haste the rest of the party, everyone gets an extra attack. Let's say that the Fighter's got a greatsword, the Rogue's a flank-junkie, and the Cleric's using a suboptimal 1d6 weapon to simplify things.
That's 7d6+(3*STR) damage. Each round. For five rounds.

Fuck, let's say you Haste yourself as well for the defensive bonuses and decide to just plink in a bit with a crossbow for a round rather than use up another spell. You can do that, because Haste means you're actually contributing in some small way.

Direct damage doesn't do much - Haste and similar spells are a force multiplier. Small wonder 5E tried to nerf it so hard.

>since, like, 3E
Which 5e is the descendent of more than it is 4e. Most are going to ignore 4e which was even worse for this.

>Your attack dog
He can easily kill you. He's the only one actually defeating foes. Sorry user, but he's your master. You're a useless support character, and most people DON'T want to be someone's buff bitch. It's why most people don't want to be healers. No glory or achievement on their own, it's all for the Fighter.

Concentration only makes it so you're not stacking multiple self-buffs on yourself to become a flying, invisible, hasted, stone-skinned mage of destruction.

Spells in general have been buffed thanks to bounded accuracy and modular spell slots allowing each and every spell to maintain its usefulness as you gain more and more spell slots to spend.

Take hold person for example, in 3.5, you couldn't use it on multiple targets unless you had mass hold person, a 7th level spell. In 5e however, hold person can hold one additional target so long as you spend a spell slot that's 3rd level or higher. In addition, hold person paralyzes foes, which means that you not only get advantage whenever you attack them but you also auto-crit if you attack using a melee weapon.

Mages haven't been about direct damage since 3e, they've always been the guy manipulating the battlefield to their favor using liberal uses of spells. If DD is your thing then just play an EK or Paladin.

This is one of the things 4e did amazingly well. Leaders were so damn fun to play because they made the support role active and interesting.

Concentration prevents you from doing anything but one thing at any one time. Vastly reducing the usability of most spells as well as your own versatility.

And no, why would I want to play a Cleric with an annoying honor code if I wanted to use magic?

Too bad it shit on magic worse than 5e. 5e just has a bad mechanic. 4e hated them.

>Too bad it shit on magic worse than 5e.
How so? Wizards and Sorcerers were both really fun, so were Swordmages.

>He can easily kill you.
Any class can easily kill any other class in the right conditions, the question though is why are you planning to kill your teammates in the first place?
>He's the only one actually defeating foes.
SoL were notoriously good in 3.PF simply because they ended combat the turn they went off without a hitch. Even if the Fighter is ultimately killing the enemy, it's the wizard who is setting up the conditions that allow the Fighter to finish off the enemy.
>You're a useless support character, and most people DON'T want to be someone's buff bitch.
Most people are also idiots who don't read the rules and expect to always win without any major problems. There's a reason why tanks and support are more lucrative than DPS in most games.
>No glory or achievement on their own, it's all for the Fighter.
Actually, it'd be a TEAM effort since the Fighter isn't the only one dealing damage or affecting combat.

What's wrong with magic classes in 4e?

You don't know how people work, do you? Nobody cares about the support staff. They care about the achiever. It's the martial in this system. He's the only hero. Everyone else is nothing.

Vastly, vastly inferior to martial classes.

...They weren't, though? I mean, can you expand on that? I've played 4e quite a bit and I never felt Arcane classes were less effective than Martial ones.

>Concentration prevents you from doing anything but one thing at any one time.
Actually, concentration only prevents you from using two spells with a duration of (concentration) at once, if there's no "duration: X minutes (concentration)" then you can use multiple spells at once.
>And no, why would I want to play a Cleric with an annoying honor code if I wanted to use magic?
Because Paladins are one of the hardest hitting classes in the game thanks to their smite spells. You're the one going on about damage so if that's your thing then there's already magic-using classes that deal serviceable damage.

Then just stick to playing 3e where magic classes are far superior to martials if that's what you're looking for.

>Actually, concentration only prevents you from using two spells with a duration of (concentration) at once
Which is anything that's not instantaneous, yes. Meaning you can only be doing one thing at once, which I just said?

>Because Paladins.
Paladins are majority martial. Paladins are only Divine Casters, meaning they serve a god or sometimes a concept, which is irritatingly restrictive to character concepts, and even worse, they have their retarded Lawful Good code you have to obey.

See, the issue is that there's nothing wrong with equalizing the classes. The issue is making casters weaker than martials.

If casters are equal to martials, they'll always be better as they're more versatile.

>Nobody cares about the support staff. They care about the achiever.
Nobody ever succeeded at anything without help from somebody else.

I mean, take a movie for example, is the leading actor the achiever or is it the director? Is it the musicians that make pieces that set the scene or is it the artists who build the props? Is it the lighting person who makes sure everything is visible or is it the cameraman who has to get in there and make sure the shot looks good? The only time you'll see a one-man show is with smaller projects on youtube but even they wouldn't be anyone special if people didn't like and share their videos.

>Bards, depending on the system, range from musicians to literal reality benders
Anybody else have a problem with that?

That's an issue of the setting's martial design.

Yet nobody gives a shit about the support staff. They don't get the credit nor are they considered to be meaningful.

>Which is anything that's not instantaneous, yes. Meaning you can only be doing one thing at once, which I just said?
Actually, you can do a spell that has a duration of concentrate and a spell that's instantaneous. I'm not a mathematician here but if I'm correct, that's at least two things you're doing, not one.
>Paladins are majority martial. Paladins are only Divine Casters, meaning they serve a god or sometimes a concept, which is irritatingly restrictive to character concepts, and even worse, they have their retarded Lawful Good code you have to obey.
Paladins in 5e aren't limited to LG user, you can technically be a paladin of any alignment if you want to since its archtypes (plus oathbreaker) allows for some fluidity.

I don't think "equal" means what you think it means.

>The issue is making casters weaker than martials.
And where is that the case?

>They don't get the credit nor are they considered to be meaningful.
They obviously do get credit otherwise they wouldn't be in the film's credits.

Are you feeling okay user?

Apparently it means dealing as much damage as martials do while also having supreme versatility.

Pretty sure that is "better", not "equal".

That's what that user is asking for.

>Implying anyone reads the credits.

It really doesn't matter. An annoying martial cleric with a stupid honor core is an annoying martial cleric with a stupid honor code no matter the alignment.

4 and 5e.

My first post was berating the makers of DnD for being allergic to giving martials fantastic abilities. If you'll look at mythical heroes, the majority had something about them that made them special, generally unique powers. I think that DnD is innately flawed in trying to keep martials 'grounded' and realistic swordsmen and not mythical heroes.

>in the magic world, martial cannot be magical
Only retards believe this.

You're going to be hard pressed to give martials the same selection of abilities that casters do.

>4
Care to go into detail on that?

objectively speaking
level should be a UNIVERSAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! measure of power
everything should have levels, magic items, PCs, spells, feats
a level 3 summoning spell should bring forth a level 3 monster, a level 10 PC should be equal overall to a level 10 PC or monster, etcetera etcetera

if you want fighters to be weaker than casters, then tweak leveling so that that is the case. perhaps fighters advance faster early on and slower later on

Exalted and Anima beg to differ.

Is there really any difference in those systems between the two?

>Implying anyone reads the credits.
It doesn't matter if nobody reads the credits, they're still being credited for their work on the film.
>It really doesn't matter. An annoying martial cleric with a stupid honor core is an annoying martial cleric with a stupid honor code no matter the alignment.
It does matter because now you can be a paladin of any alignment, which means that it's no longer as restrictive as it was in 3e. Not to mention, you can choose any vow you want so you're not even forced into being a white knight either.

Of course.
Anima in particular makes a huge distinction between them.

This is fundamentally untrue. It's perfectly possible to give martial and magical characters equal amounts of utility. It just means magic needs to have limits and making magic users specialise rather than letting them have toolbox solutions to every possible problem.

It's also fine to have a class that trades out direct combat ability to have that large toolbox kit.

Most abilities in Exalted are divine. These are also "proprietary" to what incarna or primordial is the source of your powers.

Sorcery and martial arts are non proprietary but rather an inter-splat wealth of special powers. Even some normies can use some of these.

They're fairly distinct. Sorcery is, however, horrendously balanced, and a spell ranges anywhere from "aw, what a cute trick" to Demon of the First Circle, the single best power you can get.

>It doesn't matter if nobody reads the credits
But it does. The entire point is that nobody cares about the support staff or considers them important. This is blatantly true.

>It does matter
No it doesn't, because I hate Divine Magic, the whole god devotion thing, and the enslavement to an honor code.

Ehh... I'm not sure on that one.

Personally I dislike making people choose between combat ability and utility, especially if both are a significant part of the game.

This isn't always the case, but in something like D&D? Combat is a large part of the point of the game. Everyone should be able to engage with it in a way that's interesting and enjoyable.

I guess Shadowrun is the other sort of system, though, where everything is utility and combat is just another way of achieving a goal.

People who want a large toolbox are usually fine with the trade off. It's very rare that you end up useless in combat because of it.

>These are also "proprietary" to what incarna or primordial is the source of your powers.
The Exalted aren't powered by the Incarnae. The Exaltation might have originated with them but they're independent.

Probably. It's just a personal thing I guess, something I find annoying in games and that I try to avoid when designing my own.

It's never fun to be presented with a situation of 'You can have this ability that makes you more effective in combat, Or you can have this ability that seems fun and interesting out of combat'. Either you're actively making yourself less good in combat, potentially hurting your ability to contribute, or you're denying yourself something that might be really fun to use creatively in roleplay.

It's why I really like the idea of dividing the two up in terms of progression, giving everyone access to both independently, instead of forcing them to choose between.

Letting them pick up the boulder when they have 18 STR is one thing. Attempting to THROW or BOWL with the boulder is an entirely different thing.

>No it doesn't, because I hate Divine Magic, the whole god devotion thing, and the enslavement to an honor code.
Thanks for finally admitting that you're just throwing a fit and that your complaint is actually baseless.

Now, if you would please explain why you claim that casters are weaker than martials in 4e?

Even when you separate them out, the guy who's fantastic at battlefield control, shouldn't also be doing the same damage as the guy who focused himself into a single target melee monster.

By the point they can do that, most Redguards stopped using material swords altogether, instead basically becoming a sword themselves by summoning a spirit sword or some shit. Because metal has its limitations but you can make yourself so proficient in swords you basically become part sword in a metaphysical sense and cut things more effectively with your own spirit. Or soul. Or something.

>But it does. The entire point is that nobody cares about the support staff or considers them important. This is blatantly true.
If nobody cared about the support staff then there wouldn't be a credit sequence at all. Which is blatantly true.
>No it doesn't, because I hate Divine Magic, the whole god devotion thing, and the enslavement to an honor code.
Paladins only need to choose an oath, there's nothing in the CRB that states that you have to choose a god. To say nothing on the fact that there's multiple oaths that you can choose from that range from white knight to nature knight to black knight, not to mention oathbreaker or the oaths from SCA.

It just sounds like you're arguing for the sake of arguing now.

What does that have to do with the utility/combat split?

>Baseless
>Why don't you want to play this one MARTIAL CLASS for your magic!?
Are you stupid?

>If nobody cared about the support staff then there wouldn't be a credit sequence at all.
That's union obligation. That doesn't mean anyone cares.

>All this paladin shit
They're still a martial class. They're still enslaved to that code. And whether or not they have to devote themselves to a god depends on the setting. Faerun for example has always required divine magic come from gods.

My point is that toolbox/focused divide still applies even if you don't have combat and utility taking the same resources.

Okay?
I don't remember anyone claiming that a controller should be dealing the same damage as a single target damage dealer.

>Why don't you want to play this one half-caster for your damage dealing!?
I'm not the one randomly twisting other people's posts to suit my incoherent arguing.

>Are you stupid?
Can you explain why mages are weaker than martials in 4e already? At this point it's just getting silly.
>That's union obligation. That doesn't mean anyone cares.
If nobody cares then there wouldn't be a union obligation in the first place, are you generally this daft IRL?
>They're still enslaved to that code.
No they're not, if they were then they wouldn't be given a choice.
> And whether or not they have to devote themselves to a god depends on the setting.
In the base CRB, you don't have to pick a diety to worship whenever you choose to play a paladin. It doesn't matter how other settings do it because ATM, we haven't gotten anything for most of the other D&D settings yet.

The whole thing started with that user claiming that casters were weaker than martials because of it.

Well, yeah.
Because he has no idea what a controller does and sees casters as artillery.

>Half
Boy you sure don't know a lot about paladins.

I don't want to get into a fucking discussion about 4e you fucking 4urry. That's not the point. Go on thinking what you want about your shitty system.

>If nobody cares then there wouldn't be a union obligation
The union wants their money. They don't care about their contributions.

>No they're not, if they were then they wouldn't be given a choice.
Literalism is for pedants. They either follow it slavishly or have no powers.

>I don't want to get into a fucking discussion about 4e you fucking 4urry. That's not the point. Go on thinking what you want about your shitty system.
So you admit that your claim about 4e casters being weaker than martials is complete bullshit.

Exalted 3e is good.
But yeah, it's exactly waht the op asked for.

No. I'm telling you that I'm not here to argue about 4e.

Exalted 3e is inferior to 2e in every way except sorcery.

So you made a point you have no intention of backing up? Good to know you're just a fucking idiot then. We can safely discard anything you've said up until now because it has no basis in fact.

Same, personally, but then you got the guys that swear up and down NO, its just MUNDANE.

Drives me fucking insane.

I.e. you don't want to provide an explanation for your inane claim because you don't have one.

>I don't want to get into a fucking discussion about 4e you fucking 4urry. That's not the point. Go on thinking what you want about your shitty system.
You can't claim that something is bad without giving reasons why user. You can't expect anyone to take you at your word considering your words change definition with every post you make. For example...
>The union wants their money. They don't care about their contributions.
Exhibit A: the point is that if they didn't matter than there wouldn't be credits, so your immediate response is to go on about money.
>They either follow it slavishly or have no powers.
Exhibit B: You went from going on about how paladins need to follow gods to how they need to follow codes even though its already stated that paladins are less restricted in 5e in terms of who they can follow.

You need to learn how to argue kid. Last (You) you'll get from me. Don't bother posting.