D&D (2024) Martial vs Caster: Removing the "Magical Dependencies" of high level.

[Yaarel]

I wonder, do anyone has been witness of games where DM abuse of anti magic shell and other magical turn off, to the point that the party feel compelled to add martial in the party to survive?

In my experience antimagic tends to be rare, and even then mainly at high levels and for a handful of specific encounters. It can be a challenging encounter, but it tends to be about as unfun as a Fighter who gets captured and has all of their equipment confiscated, or a Fighter who loses their magic sword to a Rust Monster.

Rare, it happens, tends to punish the reallife players, and is less than fun.

 

[HammerMan]

Fair. The two of you.

I know @GMforPowergamers said it all the time but I think he is gone. Where is @Vaalingrade i think he has similar experience. I wish I paid more attention to screen names of people I didn’t know we had to justify ourselves with references

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, it really is logically impossible to have all three.

• nonmagical Fighter
• high level spellcasters
• balanced game at high level

Pretty much.

The core is "how does the class contribute at high levels".

High level D&D is just iconically supernatural. And in the noncombat aspects are typically resistant or immune to the natural. The combat side is not always fully resistant or immune but has had times when it was fully.

 

[Emberashh]

Personally, I don't care at all if the fighter actually does cross into magic. If it was up to me, every character in D&D would be inherently magical and at high-levels, its the martial's internal magic from their body's capacity to handle it that would fuel their extraordinary abilities. And casters would either need to use external magic like from deities or an ever-present field of magic.

I personally don't care if fighters seem "anime" either. I've homebrewed abilities for martials that could let them duplicate themselves, cut rifts in space, and even move near lightspeed.

The three paragons of balancing the martials and casters cannot coexist:

You cannot want martials to be fully mundane, avoid caster's getting nerfed, and keep martials confined in an arbitrary desired medium.

You can probably have two, but not all three. If there's a group that represents one of those desires, then a group is guaranteed to be disappointed with the solution.

And while you might want to fight to defend your group, you have to realize that you have to let your own golden calf go in this debate if you actually want a solution.

This is why I say nerfing magic is actually the correct option.

Namely because magic doesn't need to be mathematically or mechanically busted to be cool as hell. Magics actually really easy to design for for just that reason.

For instance, an ability I made for the Path of Blood Necromancer in LNO is called Blood Wall; the caster exploits a wound in a targeted enemy, and their veins, nerves, and cuts burst from the wound forming a magically impassable wall up to 25ft long. The target is made immobile and effectively stunned as they take damage equal to the Necromancers level every turn. Any damage done to the wall transfers to the target and once the target is dropped to zero, or mortally wounded, or if the wall is dispelled, the wall dissipates.

Mechanically speaking, the ability is, if anything on the weaker side relative to what it exists alongside, given even a peasant with a pitchfork could get through it eventually.

But it is cool as hell.

 

[HammerMan]

I wonder, do anyone has been witness of games where DM abuse of anti magic shell and other magical turn off, to the point that the party feel compelled to add martial in the party to survive?

Oh that was our 2e and 3e norm. People (especially my bestie Becky) want to play martial heroes. So DMs bent over backwards to make them extra relivent.

The problem is the creative player.

It’s the green lantern issue. Tell a player the ring can do anything but it won’t kill. “Oh by anything I can throw a chunk of earth into the sun? What if someone is standing on it the ring isn’t what killed them then.
Oh the ring can’t effect the color yellow… can I pick up a truck and hit the bad guy with the truck instead of the ring directly?

So anti magic zones needed to be bigger and more all encompassing. Then the casters started to sit out encounters and it became 2 games anyway.
“Oh the cleric the wizard and the warlock can cast they got this… oh they can’t that’s fine they can sit back while the fighter ranger and rogue handle it”

 

[Stalker0]

So one idea of a fighter gaining supernatural power with levels is found in Brandon Sanderson novels, which are often cited in the new fantasy wave.

In his Stormlight Archive series, The "Knights Radiant" are people whose actions allow them to bond with spirits, known as "Spren". As they grow their bond with their spren by acting out certain "ideals" they gain new powers, even spiritual swords and armor known as Shardblades and Shardplate.

To me its a great example of mundane "fighters" turning into supernatural warriors at the higher levels.

 

[DnD Warlord]

What I have said is that the extreme view that non-casters are basically useless, the group is always better off with another caster, and casters are “always the correct answer” to every challenge, is one I have seen with extreme rarity.

I have been afraid to step my toe in here since page 5 or so, but I think it odd you don't hear that at least often enough that you wouldn't find it odd.
I don't think fighter rogue and barbarian are useless myself, but I can see where people feel that way. Especially if for them the fun is picking special features and how those features interact in the world.

I wonder, do anyone has been witness of games where DM abuse of anti magic shell and other magical turn off, to the point that the party feel compelled to add martial in the party to survive?

I actually signed in to comment on this.
I hate when DMs pull this. At least the people who claim fighters suck have the guts to just say not to play one set or the other. People who claim "Oh all classes are balanced in my games" then just turn off class features on the regular are playing favorites.
I understand dead magic and anti magic have a place but they better not be common or you best tell people at session 0.

it reminds me of the DMs that used to say "oh psionics are different" and they didn't mind people playing psion... but then they just give everything that has magic resistance now has psychic resistance and if you are immune magic you are immune psychic.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, it really is logically impossible to have all three.

• nonmagical Fighter
• high level spellcasters
• balanced game at high level

It's possible once you start ignoring the Guys at the Gym who can't accept badass fantastic fighters and don't understand that fantastic is not the same as magical.

 

[Yaarel]

So one idea of a fighter gaining supernatural power with levels is found in Brandon Sanderson novels, which are often cited in the new fantasy wave.

In his Stormlight Archive series, The "Knights Radiant" are people whose actions allow them to bond with spirits, known as "Spren". As they grow their bond with their spren by acting out certain "ideals" they gain new powers, even spiritual swords and armor known as Shardblades and Shardplate.

To me its a great example of mundane "fighters" turning into supernatural warriors at the higher levels.

There can be magic items that are actually this, a creature that bonds with a character. I treat (and evaluate) bonding with Faerie Dragon and Pseudodragon as an amount of treasure. This concept can apply diversely with other kinds of creatures and their magical effects.

In DMs Guide, Blackrazor is a demon in the form of a sword.

 

[Yaarel]

It's possible once you start ignoring the Guys at the Gym who can't accept badass fantastic fighters and don't understand that fantastic is not the same as magical.

Personally, I prefer and support full-on magical powers of legendary Fighters.

At the same time, I want the D&D game to be as inclusive as possible for players with other personal preferences, including a tradition of nonmagical Fighter flavor.

I want to find ways to thread needle sotospeak, to supply options that can make diverse Fighter fans happy with their own character concepts.