D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Micah Sweet]

Tell me why I need to add "DnD takes place in a fantasy world of magic and monsters, and is full of impossible to achieve deeds" to the PHB.

Because you are relating that concept to people who appear to be humans. If they aren't humans, you should say so.

 

[ECMO3]

I skipped a lot of your build stuff, because most of it is just silly to me. I especially don't get why you are wasting time of false life and shield while in a city or town and not fighting.

That character is only built for fighting. That is the only thing it is designed to be good at, and I am assuming that you are not having days where you only worry about social encounters and days where you only worry about fighting.

I am assuming your DM is playing with all 3 pillars and you are preparing to use spells for all 3 pillars.

But the rest of this is just... kind of hilarious. Yeah, Hold Person only targets a single person at base level. Yes, again, any attack within 5ft is an auto crit. But you seem to never have fights with one big heavy. Taking out the enemy bruiser, who likely doesn't have LR or a high wisdom is critical.

And you seem to never have enemies that make their saves.

Also, "never more than one lost action per bad guy" are you not understanding how HUGE that is? The enemy is forced to ignore your party, potentially for an entire round. IF you time it right, you can essentially get two rounds of combat. Most fights are three rounds. That isn't an encounter ender?

It is not an encounter ender. It is a turn ender. Further if you damage them they are no longer charmed, so the encounter will never end with the enemies in that state unless you can kill them from max to 0 in one round, and if you can do that then you could have done it without casting the spell anyway since it does not give advantage on attacks

It can turn a hard fight into a cakewalk. Fear is a much smaller area, and since the enemies run away, they just come back later.

Ok do you not understand "encounter ender". If they run away (and you don't chase them) the encounter is over. It ended the encounter, which was the whole point in this whiteroom.

I rarely see HP turn an encounter into a cake walk. When it does it is usually because everyone failed (and in that case it is an encounter ender).

And if the enemy is low wisdom and will fail even with advantage? Seen it happen. It was actually a demon and they had advantage the entire time, took them three rounds to shake off the spell, WITH people hitting them.

Sure and I have seen them make it with a really low Wisdom.

Situational, sure, but when you have ten different "situational" encounter enders, it stops becoming a rare occurrence.

You are never going to have 10 different encounter enders because of the limits on spells known or spells prepared and things that are close to being situational encounter enders at low level (like Cause Fear or THL) are not as effective at high level.

Sure, it happens. But a spell that wins the fight half the time, still wins half of the fights. And no martial character can do that. None of them have the kind of reach or ability to, in a single action, win a fight.

Martial characters win more than half the fights IMO and it is actually rare a spell wins it in one action. Severely degrade the enemy, steal actions or control them sure, but actually end it - I think that is rare.

Also you are discounting things like Menacing Attack - hit a melee enemy with menacing attack from range and it is going to be roughly as effective as Tasha's hideous Laughter, while also doing damage. It also generally bypasses magic resistance (although some DMs don't do this).

 

[Chaosmancer]

I said good at all three pillars and that includes combat

At 3rd level you are weak at the combat pillar with a 10 Dexterity and 8 strength. Your cantrips do extremely poor damage, about half what you should be doing at this level, you don't have enough slots to use levels spells often and your dexterity and strength is too low to cover that with weapons like an AVERAGE Wizard would at this level.

Your cantrips do not do poor damage, and you have plenty of slots. Maybe not enough to cover eight combat encounters, but no one else has the health or resources to do that either. Besides, you asked for a 3rd level mage, of course they aren't doing their best yet.

So you actually think you wil be "good" at the combat pillar with a 10AC, no shield spell, no mage Armor spell and 26 hit points?

You will get wiped out. At 3rd level this Wizard might be hard pressed to survive the very first level 1 encounter in LMOP.

Three or four Goblins? Unless they all shoot the wizard (which, they could theoretically survive) then they are going to drop at least one goblin on their turn. Assuming the rest of the party can manage at least that, the wizard will be fine.

It is very weak at combat , not even close to average let alone good at that pillar. I will give you that you are good at the exploration pillar, and ok at the social pillar but you suck at combat.

You have 7-8 spells you can cast per day, including Arcane recovery. Since your damage is so poor without leveled spells that means you can meaningfully contribute in probably 5 out of 20 turns of combat per day (with the other 2 or 3 spells going to prop up the social pillar), and that is assuming an enemy never saves or shrugs off one of your spells.

As for the rest, I agree you are good at the Social pillar and he exploration pillar. But you are not good at all 3 pillars.

Make that 16 Constitution a 10, take a 16 in Dexterity instead and some defensive spells and you will be a lot better at combat without sacrificing much at all in the other two, and that is the point if you insist on a 16 Constitution you are not going to be good at all 3 pillars.

I never insisted on the 16 constitution. You did. You specifically demanded I have it. And, you are just declaring things with no reason here. Ray of Frost is a good cantrip, decent damage and a utility effect. Every time I use it, I'll be meaningfully contributing. Also, do you think something like Grease is only around for a single turn? That is a concentration spell, and can be effective for multiple turns.

Additionally, only decent at the social pillar? Did you even read what I wrote? OR do you only count raw persuasion rolls as social and nothing else, like disguises, reading minds, illusions, misdirection, or any of the other things I built this character to actually do?

Your familiar uses its own ability scores not yours.

Yeah, and? I'm identifying a plant while looking through my familiar's eyes. Why would I be using my familiar's scores, I'm the one taking the action. This is like saying that because I hear about the white fang tribe while listening through my familiar, I would need to use their History skill to see if I know anything about them. It is nonsense.

From PHB page 173:

Athletics​

Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, or swimming.

From PHB page 182:
Climbing, Swimming, and Crawling
Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you're climbing, swimming, or crawling. You ignore this extra cost if you have a climbing speed and use it to climb, or a swimming speed and use it to swim. At the DM's option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check. Similarly, gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check.

Note how your entry says that they cover DIFFICULT situations that you encounter WHILE climbing. That is because climbing itself does not take a roll. Never has. People just keep using the wrong rules from an older edition.

So yeah, my 8 strength wizard can climb a tree or a rocky cliff just fine. Might struggle with climbing up a waterfall or a smooth wall though. Which can be handled with pitons and rope.

Like I said earlier your 3rd level character has a relatively high chance of dying in the very first encounter in LMOP (Goblins with Bows and Nimble Escape) designed for level 1 characters.

TBH Dodge is probably a better combat action for you than Ray of Frost considering the minimal damage ROF does at this level.

No they don't, unless I am somehow soloing the encounter with no allies.

First off if I wanted to be contribute at all 3 pillars I would dump Dexterity or Strength and push Charisma and Wisdom both

What?

Here are the stats I gave:
16 Str --> +3
10 Con --> +0
13 Charisma --> +1
16 Wisdom --> +3
12 Dex --> +1
8 INT --> -1

Here is what you are suggesting I change it to:
16 Str --> +3
10 Con --> +0
12 Charisma --> +1
16 Wisdom --> +3
13 Dex --> +1
8 INT --> -1

Which is no change or

16 Str --> +3
10 Con --> +0
13 Charisma --> +1
16 Wisdom --> +3
8 Dex --> -1
12 INT --> +1

Which is increasing INTELLIGENCE which you didn't even mention

Sure but they actually contribute a lot in combat where you don't. Like 20 rounds out of 20 rounds, and when they fail a Charisma check they have maneuvers that they can use more often than you can use your spells.

Do you... do you not know how maneuvers work? IF you are doing this per the fighting style, you get 1 die. 1 > 8, no matter how you cut that.

So, to have "more manuevers" you need to be battlemaster. But lo, I never picked a subclass for the wizard. So are we changing this so that you get to be a battlemaster who just happens to perfectly always use their dice ideally, while I'm a subclassless wizard?


And as for contributing in every round of combat... that encounter with the goblins in the forest, do you know who has been the least effective every time I've run that? Melee combatants. Because the goblins are hidden in the underbrush, at a distance, so the melee characters have to run in, deal with difficult terrain, and the goblins generally just keep kiting and shooting them then hiding. So, how effective is your fighter in any round of combat they can't reach a target? Are they always going to reach their target 100% of rounds of combat? Not in my experience.

And I love how you just go "sure" to a character who needs six skills, when their background and class will combine to give them 4. And will also need to break the rules for character creation to have unusually high stats. And you still need to assume Battlemaster, and not any other type of fighter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If it is just one locked door you have severely gimped your Wizard. Even if it is zero you have gimped her by having her prepare Knock.

If your familiar can sneak in and get a key then most Rogues can sneak in anfd get a key. There is no familiar option that is going to come close to a Rogue with expertise in Stealth. Even at 1st level.

Really? A grown, 6 ft man can reach and travel in every single place a 6 inch mouse can? Rogues aren't even allowed to roll stealth if they don't have total concealment.

Also, again, acid splash, heck you can ray of frost a lock to freeze it then break it with your staff or a crowbar. Knock is not the only possible way to deal with a locked door.

So what? Any character can do this with a couple feats.

By the way how is your Cleric or Druid getting Booming Blade since you did not consider feats because they are optional?

I like the build, so I mentioned it. They don't NEED it. IT is just a fun one. Also, those other characters usually don't benefit from being full spellcasters at the same time, or using their primary spellcasting stat to attack. And those that do... don't take Shillelagh usually. (except for Tome Locks)

Barbarian is probably the weakest class overall in terms of number of levels where they are weakest, but even they are playable all the way to level 20 with a 16 Strength.

When you get above level 10 they are going to start falling behind Monks, Fighters, Paladins and Rangers pretty quickly though, quick enough I would say you are usually not good at combat without other help.

I know they fall behind Fighters and Paladins. Not sure how you figure Rangers, since Rangers also don't get a level 11 boost. But I also don't think they fall behind monks. IT is subclass dependent though, perhaps. I'd have to re-run the numbers from a few years ago.

Of course, all of this is moot. Because the only thing you count in combat seems to be damage with an ability score mod attached, everything else is either terrible or useless, unless it is a defensive spell.

It is not needed. I played fighters to level 20 with a 16 attack stat. I rarely get a strength ASI at all, when I do get it it comes on a half feat typically (Heavy Armor Master most commonly).

Fighters get more attacks and most of them have fighting styles or subclass options to make their attacks even better.

Only one of those things increases your accuracy without spending a resource, and that one is meant to counter cover rules, which increase the target number. I mean, I guess if you are fine having a +9 to hit an AC of 23 to 25, go for it, but it doesn't matter how many attacks you get if most of them miss anyways.

Compared to other classes they are not "good" at these levels. Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics and Warlocks all have better combat spell options and the first 3 have much better AC and are much better at supporting concentration (especially the Sorc). Druids have roughly equivalent spell options with a better AC and Wild Shape. All the other classes are dealing more damage

There are 3 main problems with the Bard at these levels - bad Cantrips, weak AC and mediocre spell options. There is a 4th smaller problem in that they get less spells than Wizards, Sorcerers and Clerics because they can not recharge slots like those classes can.

A 15AC is not high enough to support spells like Hold Person or Heat Metal for very long and neither of these are the equivalent of Web or Spike Growth, being far more situational. Your Cleric is going to have Hold Person which works against humanoids and he is going to have Spiritual Weapon that Works against everything else. Your Wizard is going to have Hold Person and Web, your Druid Heat Metal for BBEG in armor and Spike Growth for everything else.

I guess you forget that Heat Metal causes the enemy disadvantage on every attack? Also it is a ranged spell, and melee enemies are going to have a hard time even reaching you.

Seriously, do you not even consider range and party members at all? You keep acting like back-line characters are going to be in the thick of the fighting, taking focus fire from every single enemy on the board, every turn. That isn't how combat typically works.

And even mediocre spells can be killer.

Hypnotic Pattern should not end a fight against intelligent enemies unless the DM plays on easy mode. It should be one lost action per failed save and if you cast heat metal or hold person every enemy is going to target you and your 15AC is going to come down. Round 1 you cast HP on 10 orcs and 9 fail their save, by round 3 ALL 10m of them should be fighting you again and if they are not the DM is being nice. You have to get every single enemy in the AOE and have all of them fail the save to end an encounter with this .... even then you better be able to either leave them or kill them in one round.

Okay, no, seriously, what the actual heck are you assuming here? I cast a spell that takes 9 out of 10 enemies out of the fight, and somehow they get 3 rounds of freely waking everyone else up? Did the rest of the party go out for chicken wings? There is one active enemy who can wake up one other enemy. We should have at least three different party members focusing that guy down. Even if you CAN'T kill him in that one round [and he's an ORC, he has 15 hp and we are level 5! Two attacks should end him] then there are two orcs awake, one of whom should be on the verge of death. So we kill him this round and the other orc wakes up... a single orc. We now have 7 unconscious orcs, and two awake orcs... and for two rounds of combat the party has not been hit a single time.

The DM being nice? The DM is looking at a losing proposition, either the party keep getting free rounds of combat with no reprisal, or they leave the other orcs sitting helplessly. I would love the DM to keep wasting time waking the orcs, by the time all of them are awake, half of them will be dead and I just single-handedly was responsible for stopping somewhere around 50 attacks from the enemy and causing five orc deaths.

Does your party just wander away and leave you to play solo, is that what happens? Because I can't see how else you are imagining 3 rounds of combat going by with not a single enemy combatant being defeated when none of them are even fighting back.

He is not going to be dealing good damage, he is going to be doing worse than other casters at control and at healing.

d8+mod is decent damage at level 5. It isn't amazing, but again, I was talking about using Enemies Abound to have one of the enemy turn around and attack their allies. Also... the bard is just as good at healing as most druids and clerics, and they have better control than most clerics.

I know I haven't seen highly effective bard players, and I've STILL seen them accomplish far more than you seem to think is even possible.

YES. You claimed fighters could not do impossible things. They can.

Also why they can't smash rocks? I think they can. A rock is an object, so it has hit points and draining hit points by smashing things is supposedly the only thing people here seem to think a fighter can do well.

They can't jump over tall buildings because you can only jump as far as your move.

You may think they can, I was told they could only do it if they have the proper tools to break rocks. And likely they would only allow it for small rocks, not entire walls, without multiple minutes of effort.

And yes, HP is impossible. Can fighter's take ACTIONS instead of you just keep insisting "but they can survive taking a ton of damage! That's impossible!" So can the wizard, the wizard can also fly, have your dead grandmother claw your eyes out, make you THINK your dead grandmother is clawing your eyes out, and turn people into newts. One of these things is more impossible than falling face first into concrete repeatedly.

It is fundamentally right. It is right when I play a caster and it is right when I play a non-caster. IMO it is one big reason this edition is so fun.

No. It isn't right. This is a team game, which you seem to have no conception of from your various posts. Like, I seriously wonder if you only play solo, except you mentioned a team in one of your other posts.

I think it is the biggest flaw with this edition, that being a martial so often means that you are overshadowed by the casters who need to make no effort to do so. This isn't a game where the casters should always be better than everyone else. That isn't how you design a team game.

 

[Clint_L]

I think it is the biggest flaw with this edition, that being a martial so often means that you are overshadowed by the casters who need to make no effort to do so. This isn't a game where the casters should always be better than everyone else. That isn't how you design a team game.

This is always the crux of your arguments. I can't comment on your games, but I have a LOT of experience with 5e, and I just don't find that martial characters are overshadowed by casters. Especially in combat, which is where much of the conversation has been focused. It is far, far more common for combat to be dominated by martial characters, who between damage dealt and damage taken are much more reliable than casters.

Spell casters do have the potential to disrupt the normal sequence of events in combat, and when this happens it is memorable, so I think we tend to overestimate how frequently it happens. But this dependent on a number of factors: skill in game play, having the right spells chosen, and pure luck. In my experience, it is just as likely for casters to have a minimal impact on combat. That is much less often the case with martial classes.

As well, martial classes are less resource dependent, so the longer the combat goes, or the more consecutive combats are faced, the more dominant they become.

For another thread, I broke down the total damage dealt over all three seasons of Critical Role by that point (it's a handy resource since folks keep every stat imaginable and there are hundreds of games spanning well over a thousand hours of play at this point). The top damage dealers are all martial classes. The only caster who comes close is Caleb, a wizard who specializes in fire magic, and even there, when you break down his damage it is heavily concentrated into a few fights against multiple foes where his AoE spells were at maximum effectiveness.

Outside of combat, casters offer great versatility, particularly at higher levels and when the party has time to rest and prepare for a situation. In my experience, this is more where they thrive, but other classes are not being sidelined. In my games, most scouting is still being done by rogues and rangers, for example.

I find that your arguments about the dominance of casting classes always feel extremely hyperbolic. There is a great difference between what you describe and what I experience, or see happening in actual play shows, etc.. To the contrary, I find fighters, for example, to be a highly popular class that players very much enjoy specifically because they can be relied on to have an outsized impact on most battles.

Edit: also, hold person: highly overrated spell, IMO. Heat metal is a way more effective way to deal with most big, tough humanoids, and Maximillian's Earthen Grasp is way more reliable for dealing with the quick and clever ones, plus can target all kinds of creatures. Or just use web.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Because you are relating that concept to people who appear to be humans. If they aren't humans, you should say so.

the humans are one singular species out of how many? you've got elves, goliaths, aasimar, goblins, warforged, gnomes and many many more who aren't subject to these arbitrary limitations of yours, humans are a tiny fraction.

but you are saying the martials all need run on an entirely separate 'real world' set of limitations because a human might play that class and there’s not a footnote specifying that these aren’t regular old earth humans, like what seems to be assumed as standard for most every other fictional setting that exists.

(2nd paragraph edited/rewritten)

 

[Micah Sweet]

the humans are one singular species out of how many? you've got elves, goliaths, aasimar, goblins, warforged, gnomes and many many more who aren't subject to these arbitrary limitations of yours, humans are a tiny fraction.

but you are saying the martials all need run on an entirely separate 'real world' set of limitations because a human might play that class and there’s not a footnote specifying that these aren’t regular old earth humans, like what seems to be assumed as standard for most every other fictional setting that exists.

(2nd paragraph edited/rewritten)

It doesn't matter how many nonhuman heritages there are. Humans are still the baseline every other heritage is compared to, and thus the basis for comparison in terms of what is possible without the supernatural, because we're humans.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It doesn't matter how many nonhuman heritages there are. Humans are still the baseline every other heritage is compared to, and thus the basis for comparison in terms of what is possible without the supernatural, because we're humans.

But so is Batman, so is Tarzan, Beowulf and countless other heroes of myths and stories that nevertheless do things no real human can. It is a fantasy game, not a real world simulator.

 

[Minigiant]

It doesn't matter how many nonhuman heritages there are. Humans are still the baseline every other heritage is compared to, and thus the basis for comparison in terms of what is possible without the supernatural, because we're humans.

Not necessarily

A Kryptonian on Krypton has no powers. A Kryptonian on Earth as a ton of powers. Biologically they don't change

I believe the official line in 5e is that D&D humans are like Earth Humans but each setting is a different universe with different laws. Official settings have magical energy flowing in them as referenced in the Weave, Primal power, and Monk's Ki.

So it could be that a D&D human is exactly like a Real Earth human because D&D settings are so magical that humans natural limits are higher in D&D than Earth.

 

[Clint_L]

But so is Batman, so is Tarzan, Beowulf and countless other heroes of myths and stories that nevertheless do things no real human can. It is a fantasy game, not a real world simulator.

Beowulf is human but of a legendary sort, a lot like Hercules. And anyway, the stuff we see him do is kind of typical for a D&D fighter or barbarian (probably a barbarian): he defeats a couple ogres, basically, some raiders, and a dragon with some help. His most legendary feat is exactly that, legendary: swimming in armour while fighting sea monsters and throwing their bodies to the shore. Note that there are no witnesses and the story is told as part of a brag while he is facing down Unferth. Telling impressive, exaggerated stories about your prowess (ie bullshitting) as part of establishing the pecking order was much admired in Anglo-Saxon culture. We’re not supposed to think he literally did that.

Batman is literally a superhero, and I think positions in this thread are basically divided between those who want to see martials basically have explicit super hero powers as a baseline, and those who don’t. In terms of class, he’s like a monk mixed with an artificer.

Tarzan is basically a low level monk.

We all understand it’s a fantasy game. I think everyone is pretty comfortable with martial characters doing stuff that actual human beings could not, like tanking a dragon. That doesn’t mean that anything goes. In most fantasy novels the protagonist can’t leap over mountains and cleave boulders. That stuff is coming more from the superhero genre, and does not fit the flavour that has been successful in D&D for fifty years. It’s a different game.