Caster vs. martial thread

Thanks for the tears caster-fag

Gary didn't intend for casters to be a popular class, so go back to your fucking basement

>Why would people read books when you could just kill a million rats and move mountains with your bare hands?

Diminishing returns.

anyone can kill a million rats

Play something other than D&D.
Problem solved.

shut the fuck up, faggot.

you assholes shut the fuck up too.

When i play martials, i don't want them to have any arcane powers. I want them to be incredibly badass, but not reality-bending.
(That's why there is nostalgia for spell-less ranger.)

I think caster players and martials players both want to play slightly different tone of game.

They do, they're just called carbohydrates

What if you made it so whatever makes it difficult to cast magic while wearing heavy armor also inhibited also magic passing through heavy armor? Like, make it so that steel is a natural magical inhibitor so that characters in full plate get advantage on all their magic based saving throws or something.

Why do you assume most people who call out the power disparity for the bullshit it is want casters to have god level powers?

Casters should be at a power level that fits with the martials whatever that is in this setting. Or simply not be available as player classes if that is somehow impossible.

Because that wouldn't solve the problem. The real issue is utility and untargeted AoE control spells breaking the game.
A real spellcasters will pile in debuffs until you can't do shit, and then send in allies or summoned creatures to kill you.

Martials, will they ever learn?

Martials do have Hercules level strength on D&D by high level. Does anyone even play D&D here?

Sure but nobody ever thinks "wow that guy with 18 strength is like hercules" because d&d these days just hands out stats at 18 or higher at level 1, they aren't a huge important thing and the game is practically built around the fact that if you're playing a strength based class you better have at least 18 strength or you're garbage. Replace strength for whatever primary stat your class uses

>martial can't have hercules level strength because it's "unrealistic"
Please, they're not even allowed to perform Olympic level feats cause some out-of-shape retards can barely bring themselves to do a half-dozen push-ups.

That's a monumentally idiotic point of view. Just as well, why the fuck would anyone kill a million fucking rats when you can just read fucking books and move mountains?

>he doesnt roll a straight D20 for all his stats

dont know who you met but they're playing wrong

This is why I play OSR games. Modern D&D is bullshit.

>But if you could just train like a Saiyan and keep getting stronger, wouldn't everyone do that?

Because hard work is hard, which is why people are fat and lazy?

They don't actually have herculean strength. They have very high strength and can thus carry a lot, hit well and hit hard. But Hercules can hold up the literal sky. He can divert a river with his hands.

While there are spells that do that, there is no support in the system to do things like that as a martial class.

This is truth.

Also
>But if you could just study like a wizard and keep getting stronger, wouldn't everyone do that?

In 5E you can't have any stat above 17 at level 1 by raw points buy... Only way to do it is to get lucky using rolled stats in which case it is more of a 'woah moment'.

You can have an ability score increase at level 4 which can bring you to 18 but by level 4 you're getting really powerful anyway.

Again does anybody here actually play D&D?

>his dm doesnt balance melee players with buffed items to make them viable when paired with magic users

tfw

>When i play martials, i don't want them to have any arcane powers. I want them to be incredibly badass, but not reality-bending.
'Reality bending' is a function of level, not character class.

Limit casters' range of spells. Make them have to specialise to get anything out of their powers. A fireball-wizard cannot open locks by magic, unless they're trained in... whatever magic discipline would allow them to do that.

I mean, it wouldn't work in D&D, because even magic specialisation is fucking broken in that system. But if I were making a system from scratch, that's what I would do.

>what is spellbook page limits
>what is 1 spell a page
>what is forcing the gathering of components

its easy to neuter a wizard if you play dnd the right way

>waaah wizards are broken when you play them wrong mechanically!!!!!

Not him but I think the problem with 5e's bounded everything prevents people from actually being Hercules
Your average Commoner has 10(+0) into everything. A Hercules has 20(+5) into Strength
In an arm-wrestle, the commoner still has a like 40% to win

>5e

theres your problem

I want to differentiate my martial class. What do you think of my work in progress?

Barbarian - Brute: with an attack the barbarian can also chose to shove, prone* or grapple (1 max)

Fighter - counter attack: one* attack action against attacker.

Monk - zone*: within the monk melee striking range (martial art striking range leason)

Paladin - retribution*: receive half damage rounded down, return damage receive rounded up against attacker

Ranger* - precise strike: ranger always hit his mark within inner range, deal half damage rounded up if attack roll is lower than target ac.

Rogue - exploit*: backstabbing rework

Prone*: recommend for adventage attack with melee for critical, broken?
One*: same as extra attack or no?
Retribution*: might give it to monk instead
Ranger*: a ranger never miss. Nothing gain, but steady damage.
Zone*: can't think of a fluff for it
Exploit*: meh

>commoners exist
There's your reason.

>>i think the problem with 5e
>5e has problems
Thanks for the quality post

p good, gonna show this to my DM

>memes
>>sarcasm
Find a rope to hang.

...

Magic, in any meaning, is a placeholder for any kind of technology or set of skills that is yet to be sufficiently understood by the general populace. Think of historical events like witch hunts.

THEREFORE, supremacy of magic over mundane skills is a must. And that is ok, because magic should be exorbitantly costly and ultimately limited in its application. It should require time and sacrifice. If your game system does not sufficiently reflect this balance, change your system.

These guys get it:

Sure, but it still feels weird that wizards just get a big box of toys labelled "magic" as they level up, instead of having to pick and choose what powers they actually want. Skyrim (and Oblivion and Morrowind before it) at least got that right: a Destruction mage, an Alteration mage and an Illusion mage will all have radically different skillsets, which in turn will massively influence how they play.

Also, being forced to gather and keep track of the materials needed to cast basic spells sounds like tedious bookkeeping, and screw that. I don't want to stop magic-users from having fun - I just want their fun to complement everyone else's.

>my muscles dont require/use up ammo

then deflect the debuffs back to the caster

this is literally only an issue at lvl 7+ and that point you should have multiclassing/prestige classing happening. If your melee characters cant keep up by then, they're retarded

Wouldn't they just become casters if they could that?

>Magic, in any meaning, is a placeholder for any kind of technology or set of skills that is yet to be sufficiently understood by the general populace

No it isn't you moron.

dual wielding greatword warrior 4life

just make a warrior magic
i mean
something that makes sense the warrior become as op as mage
something like his will became so strong that his soul acts on his body strengthing it

...

its magic
it is literally cheating reality

>Because that wouldn't solve the problem. The real issue is utility and untargeted AoE control spells breaking the game.
Honestly, this just sounds like your fighter isn't being creative.
I have a hard time believing that Hercules (or any sufficiently powerful martial character) wouldn't be able to use their strengths and skills for utility or to counter AoE spells.
Acting like your inability to find creative solutions using strength and skill is evidence there are none is just silly.

Pretty dumb, high level melees are stronger than elephants.
>throw a fucking boulder
Now you have your mundane AoE.

That's why you require 25 push-ups to join the group. It's a surprisingly great way to filter the biggest shitheads.

The crossover of the venn diagram of "Can do 25 pushups" and "wants to play dnd" is fairly slim.

Get them to do like... 8-10 burpees without stopping. It requires less actual dedication to fitness. (I'd be suprised if someone who wasn't actively doing something to work out their arms for a few minutes a day could reach 25 without sweating so hard playing with them for the next three hours requires a gas mask.) but puts enough strain on the legs to know that they're not complete fucking slobs.

...

A high level barbarian 17+ , which Hercules is, can get a strength of 24 giving them a +7 , and a +12 skill bonus in athletics with the brawny feat, for a total of +19

A DC 35 check is for a nearly impossible task such as the heroic feats you describe which means the barbarian can achieve them on a d20' roll of 16 or more. Admittedly difficult, though give them advantage, such as from their friend Iolaus helping them , and they have effectively a +5 bonus so it's closer to 11 or a 45% chance roughly.

So by RAW it's possible for a high level martial to do feats like that. The problem is DM's balking at it and just saying no because they don't understand how relative power levels and DC values are are meant to work.

Why would anyone kill a million rats when you could just read books?

Because 5e doesn't have a mechanic to cover situations like punching a mage in the throat or solar plexus to make him or her unable to say verbal spells, or to break their fingers so they can't use somatic spells.

Once wizards get into the mid levels, they are the most important and useful characters and the rest of the party is just there to stop them from being bum rushed.

I always ruled grappling would make non mental spell nearly impossile to cast.
It's pretty obvious.

>Because 5e doesn't have a mechanic to cover situations
1. That's a 5e mechanics deficit problem, not a caster vs. martial problem

2. You are implying that if there is no mechanic to resolve something, it can't be done.
>Suddenly no characters can breathe or digest food!

3. This

In D&D you describe what you want to do, and the DM narrates this and works out an appropriate roll if applicable.

If you describe yourself doing an action outside of the rules the DMS role is literally to facilitate that. So if you describe crushing a windpipe to stop someone doing somatic you work out an appropriate roll ( say strength Vs opposed Dex/strength to avoid) and go for it.

Seriously does nobody play D&D here? Or do you only autistically follow what's in the book like it's some video game manual and do nothing outside it wh n the entire point of the rules is to facilitate you doing things outside of them because it's.impossible for any rules set to explicitly have rules for every conceivable action.

I play DnD but the DM is one of those autists.

I think this is the main problem really. Bad GMs will follow whatever the spell does as they're explicitly written down but ignore when the martial wants to do something interesting because it's not explicitly written down.

>I play DnD but the DM is one of those autists
For all the shit /co/ gives to forgists, I'd make obligatory to understand to concept on social contract before starting any type of rpg.
People should make sure to be on the same page before the game.
People should understand that DMs can't be anal and players can't be assholes.

Ironically, cripple of the cart-bound type is likely to have stronger arms than average person of the same demographic.
And you can always trade push-ups for pull-up at 1:1. I'm sure nobody would object to that.

Monks should have this but fighters should just get so ridiculously skilled at combat that they're basically untouchable

PERSONALLY, I don't think "martial" alone should be a source of power, and I think that everything should have a source of power. No matter how absurd it is, if it's more than normal, we deserve solid crunch and fluff as to why and HOW.

For magic, we get the explanation that the reason why someone can do things that are unexplainable is that they are pulling energy they don't have from somewhere else and acting as a conduit. From such we get "spells", which are rules that somehow change the nature of the base game into something concrete. They have a duration, range, power level, and set effect. Wunderbar.
Doesn't matter from which higher level of reality magic is drawing from, we know that that is what is happening.

Now, in some systems there is Body arts/Chi/Psionics, which is another form of magic that stems from the body and mind respectively. These are also fantastic, because even though some of the effects may be unreasonable, they are set in duration, range, effect, etc.
I love these, especially when a ki mechanic is set with either spells or martial arts techniques. Some of them CAN be foils for external magic, if not being straight up equal.

Now, so long as there are set rules, and a logical source, everything is good, BUT, it gets stupid when you don't accept logical sources and rules. When you want it to completely and without fail upend both the base level game, AND the magic rules, and then having some sort of complete aversion to anything that says "anime". No.
Get out, and shut the fuck up.

Example: Tome of battle in 3.5. Perfectly valid, worked well, had techniques that expressed higher degrees of martial power. Shat on.

4e, had a martial power source that had a defined role, and did it well. The powers were well defined, and explained well, and even if they were CRAZY, they were explained and defined well. Probably best iteration of fighter in DnD. Shat on. Also, mind you, had rituals that everyone could do.
But without rule or limit? No.

No frankly that's the game's problem. The DM shouldn't be required to make a ruling every time a player wants to do something more interesting than attacking for hit point damage - it's a huge extra burden and if you have to rule on the spot it's always going to be inconsistent and overpowered or unfair from the player's perspective or something...

Magicians get abilities that interact with the game world in clearly defined ways - so should everyone else if they're playing the same game.

Not every place is going to have a boulder and even if it did, you'd still only be doing 1d4+STR damage with it.

Not to mention, STR is pathetically weak in 5e since your carrying capacity is STR*15 lbs while lift/drag/etc. is STR*30. So in order to lift a one ton (2000 lbs.) boulder, a martial needs a STR score of 135 for their carrying capacity and a STR score of 67 for their lift/drag/etc.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're better off playing 3.PF if your aim is to throw boulders because in this game, that's just not happening.

>Gary didn't intend for casters to be a popular class

>Mages have access to dozens of spells.
>Each spell has its own unique material components and effects.
>Mages are capable of one-shotting entire encounters if they aren't killed by level 5.
>Also one of the few things in earlier D&D that's actually clearly written with an upper limit.
>Has the fastest means of healing.

>Gary didn't intend for casters to be a popular class
Then he REALLY fucked up then. Think about it, I could be some faggot swinging a sword around in the hopes that the DM gives me a bonus for aiming at his legs or I could be a magic user and cast a spell that shoots a lightning bolt that bounes off solid objects, potentially one-shotting anything in one hit if you manage to angle it correctly.

Yeah, I start off with shit HP, THAC0, and AC. Sure, my spells give me penalties to my initiative depending on how powerful it is, but dammit, there's something inherently satisfying about casting spells.

at least you have the decency to lead by up and saying this is a troll thread

see Martials are about as Herculean as the people who wrote the rules.

>>martial can't have hercules level strength because it's "unrealistic"

By your logic, if christians think god can move faster than light, they must also think that scifi with faster than light travel is realistic

You really can't.

Caster gets dissolved by Gelatinous Cube while a teenager. Martial cuts it up and serves Jello while a teenager.

So fucking stupid...

martials have every right to become as good as casters when they get remodeled to have a resource management system that has the same outcomes for running out of resources just like casters.

Why do people think that Barbarian is so much better then fighters most of the time?

On a side note why the fuck do people still go on about caster supremacy after save-or-suck theory has being disproved mathematically for years? Play a buff caster is just better most of the time.

I concur that strenght is dumbed down in 5e but:
- martial caster disparity is lower, so 5e is not a main contender for this topic.
- it's easy to refluff rules. when you are stronger than an elephant in a human body, who cares about mundane carrying capacity? and assign a proportional damage.

Because GMs are just bad these days and they do not understand that handing out high starting stats breaks the game, or rather the CR system.

I have a shoulder tear, how much do I have to squat to get in?

I hate high lvl characters. You should only be able to reach them thanks to divine patronage.

Two things.
1) The rules are supposed to be there to show what is or isn't possible to do by your average PC.
2) The rules are there to set the tone of the game and maintain internal consistency.
If the DM has to invent new rules every time the player does anything that's more involved than "I attack, I hit, I deal XdY damage" then that's an issue with the rules, not the DM

As someone who has run dozens of games over the years, you get really overwhelmed incredibly quick when you have to juggle the world, the NPC's, the antagonists, and the mechanics while still obfuscating the rules as much as possible from the party, who expects that all of their decisions will have merit.

Not him but I think at least 1 or 2 platelmao

I'm fiddling with the idea of homebrewing an Inquisitor/Witch Hunter class that focuses on battlefield control and being able to essentially use a reaction to attack a mage with what amounts to a poor man's counterspell (that is, shooting the bastard to interrupt the incantation). Any ideas for such a thing?

why can't casters and martials both have access to the same type of energies, and use them differently? One uses them to buff their body the other to modify the outside world.
that way the ability of a spellcaster to apply debuffs on a martial will also depend on the martial's level and martial techniques

Part of the issue is that GM are often more reluctant to give magic weapons and armor than spells to the wizard.

Okay genius, what's your solution to resolving the situation where the player wants to do something that doesn't have mechanics explicitly written for it in the rules?
Do you simply say "No you can't do that thing you want to do because there isn't a rule saying how you can do it?"
>tfw the characters still can't breathe

you really can tho

A) Magic Item-based itemization is cancer
B) It doesn't solve the core issue of the wizard's debuffs and AoE

>i dont like it so its cancer
>it doesnt take away caster abilities waaaah

>martial caster disparity is lower
"Lower" is not the same as "non-existent" though and even then, it's not that there isn't a disparity, it's just that it's less obvious than it was in 3.PF.
>when you are stronger than an elephant in a human body
Your average elephant can lift ~300kg (~661 pounds) with its trunk, so your average martial would need a STR score of 45 to carry that weight and 23 to lift it.
>who cares about mundane carrying capacity?
I do, because if a 20 is supposed to be the upper echelon of physical strength, it'd make sense that the numbers match the fluff.

What's the point of investing points in STR when it doesn't give you anything to use that STR with?

Can't move the prime mover, amigo.

>The rules are supposed to be there to show what is or isn't possible to do by your average PC.
I agree that certain systems have a deficit regarding this, forcing the martial PC to be creative.

>If the DM has to invent new rules every time the player does anything that's more involved than
Okay then, please address this question

just make it a feat/talent.
classes with specialized enemies are bad design.