D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[ECMO3]

I don't have the time in my life to watch multiple 2 to 4 hour videos, to find a high level party fighting CR 1/2 skeletons, with a wizard, who uses an AOE just to make a point to you. I waste enough of my time spending the hour it takes to go through these posts.

You should be able to find it quickly if it exists.

And if I was going to have a bunch of skeletons face a level 18 party, I'd surely have more than 8 of them in the encounter.

Well the adventure I pulled that from had I think 12 in one room and 8 in another.

Considering a fireball covers a 40 x 40 square unless I was dealing with a MASSIVE arena that is going to cover a large section of the room.

It covers a 20 foot radius circle, not a 40x40 square.

I missed the Solar? No I didn't. I literally mentioned it. I mentioned four monsters, how did you miss 25% of my examples. Also, "moving off turn" is not teleporting. SO I didn't miss that dragons do that, they weren't teleporting, so I didn't include them.


But, let's break this down:

Named, Unique villains: Acerack, Zariel, Bael, Factal Skall, Iggwilv, Imix, Laeral Silverhand, Moloch, Shadrix Silverquill, Yan-C-Bin, Ygorl, Titvilus

What kind of monsters do you think you are fighting at high level?

That is what you are fighting at high level. You aren't fighting enemies from the Monster Manual because those enemies are low CR.

Actually, that's an action: Archaic

Legendary action: The Archaic uses Teleport

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/2160296-archaic

, Drow Favored Consort,

Misty Step. Level 2 spell.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/96157-drow-favored-consort

Planeshift isn't teleport: Drow Matron Mother,

To be clear I said Teleport/plane shift

Okay, these count: Adult/Ancient/Greatwyrm Amethyst Dragon, Adult/Ancient/Greatwyrm Sapphire Dragon, Adult/Ancient/Greatwrym Crystal Dragon, Adult/Ancient/Greatwyrm Emerald Dragon, Adult/Ancient/Greatwyrm Topaz Dragon, Androsphinx, Solar, Blue Abishai Cosmic Horror, Demagoth titan (though it has to within 20 ft of someone for full effect), Githzeri Anarch, Lessor Star Spawn Emmisary (though it has to be within 15 ft of someone for full effect), Molydeus, Nightmare beast, Planar Incarnate, Veiled Presence

Okay, so I'm seeing a lot of gem dragon, and a smattering of other things. Now, I can't filter out the unique enemies, so I'm going to have to count them, I see 39 statblocks here? Now, you claim was "most" enemies at this level can teleport as either a bonus action or legendary action. Edit: Ah, correction. Your claim was that OVER HALF of the enemies at this CR could do this.

When you add in creatures that can move off turn it is over half

I count 289 statblocks of CR 16 or higher, so your 39 here make up... 13% of all monsters at this level. Does it happen? Yes. Does it happen often? ONly if your DM focuses on these statblocks.

That 289 includes duplicates that are published more than one place. It is more like 150 unique monsters.

Teleportation, plane shift and off turn movement combined are very common at this level.

Because you keep making assumptions like the only two people in the fight are the wizard and the fighter. In a normal party, with more than two people, the dragon wouldn't be able to immediately spam their wing buffet after every single turn. The other characters, therefore could hit the dragon with other areas of effect, that the dragon then could not immediately dart away from.

No once a round, which is all that is needed to escape the Web. Also other AOEs do not all trigger off turn like web does. That is what makes this option so weak.

Also if it burrows under your web they can't unless they go in the web to do it, because it would have full cover.

Also, I wonder how you would prepare for Dragonfear.

Off the top of my head: Heroism, Potion of Herosim, Darkness, Bardic Inspiration, Fog Cloud, Calm Emotions, Countercharm, Heroes Feast, Stand near a Paladin,

TBH I think there are more ways to counter frightened then there are to counter lightning.

DO fighter's have natural immunity to it? Or would you need, I don't know.... magic.

Yes they do, Blind Fighting fighting style and closing your eyes eliminates the disadvantage on attacks and checks associated with Frightened without any resource drain .... and in case you missed it most fighters have magic, especially most high level fighters.

And you just continually prove the point. The only possible things the dragon could do is deal damage, or run away from the web spell. No other party member could have a more dangerous spell ready for him.

Maybe they do or maybe they don't, but they can't target him with most of them after he burrows into the ground.

The only things that could take legendary resistance is my wizard's spells, nothing and no one else is doing anything. Except the fighter who is going to solo the dragon, taking 15 or so attacks for somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 damage at least.

A Monk using Focused Aim, Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike will drain legendaries much, much faster than Web. It will even drain it significantly faster than you using a different spell the Dragon can't escape from and that is a severely debilitating condition. Even a Monk still probably can't get him to 0 before he dies though.

The Fighter is not going to take 15 attacks, probably more like 8.

You think in terms of spamming the same move over and over, not in terms of how your tactics can manuever the enemy for your team.

On the other hand I know what tactics you need in an encounter, and Web is terrible in this one. It has almost no chance of doing anything to the Dragon. Something else like Wall of Fire or even Faerie Fire would be a different story but Web is just plain horrible, and there are likely better ways to achieve what you are trying with Web. For example if you didn't have a Rune Knight, with the same 2nd level slot the Wizard could cast Enlarge on the Fighter and he could go grapple and prone the Dragon and while he would not be as good as the RK at doing it has a much better chance of success than Web does.

Why don't you provide a quotation that I did? I know how I set up example scenarios. And this constant shifting of the parameters against a singular opponent is not how I do it.

Here you go, I can back up what I say:

"2) While yes, higher level spells are often stronger, that doesn't mean low-level spells are weak. Web is an example I bring up fairly often, it is a low level spell, and not an IMMEDIATE fight ender, so will the DM use a legendary resistance on it? But, if you fail the dex save, then it takes an action to break out. And if you are trying to make distance, this can translate into two turns of the enemy being unable to hit the party, while granting advantage to the parties attacks. And the fighter.... can't replicate this, unless they take the web spell. The only fighter who even has an ability to restrain an enemy AT ALL is the Rune Knight, and it is a save at end of turn and fire damage."

"Not being able to move, all attacks against you have advantage, all of your attacks have disadvantage, you have disadvantage on dex saves"... not very bad for a lot of enemies?"

"So... 40% chance to restrain the dragon, preventing all melee attacks against the party. For the cost of a 2nd level spell, at 17th level. "

So yes you tried to use it as an example of a low level spell that is good to use on an Adult Dragon. That is where this started

All the things in bold are objectively untrue and you said all them: It is not two turns because it does not take effect when you cast it, it does not make the Dragon unable to move until its turn and it has nowhere near a 40% chance to restrain the Dragon because the majority of time the Dragon will not even be there at the start of his turn

Why would I decide to force myself into a situation where I am more likely to cause harm to the party than be helpful?

I don't know why, but casting Web on a Dragon does this.

You don't send your 3rd best member to do things, you send the best person for the job.

Player agency. Players decide what they want to do, not the DM, not the other players

No it isn't.

Planning and talking about how you want to tackle a fight, during the fight, is metagaming. You are discussing options of what each of you are going to do on your turn and that is not information the character whos turn it is would have in his turn. It is metagaming.

Encounters aren't just combat. We discuss who is the best to handle a negotiation (when we have the chance to) we discuss who is best to scout, and who is best to hold the back line.

Sure ahead of time, not during it though.

For example you are sneaking through the castle and a servant bringing the empty bottles back from the dinner party stumbles across you. You can tell him you are the new palace guards, you can offer him 100 gold to look the other way, you can say were at the dinner party and got lost, you can attack him and try to take him out quickly. But if you sit and discuss which of those you are going to do and who is going to do it; that is metagaming.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I already said Tier 3 is a great place for the supernatural where otherwise non-supernatural classes are concerned.

I honestly don't understand what you want. I am completely down with fighters etcetera having superhuman abilities. I'd love to help design some. For some reason, you are against calling it what it is and letting that halt the discussion. I mean the thread is called, "the magical martial". What's wrong with calling a supernatural ability...supernatural?

So if the ability was worded:

"At x level, you can leap supernaturally far. Your jump distance is increased to y (really far) feet"

You'd be good?

What if we cut off the first part and just had an evocative title..something like..

HERCULEAN HANGTIME
"Your jump distance is increased to y (really far) feet"

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if the ability was worded:

"At x level, you can leap supernaturally far. Your jump distance is increased to y (really far) feet"

You'd be good?

What if we cut off the first part and just had an evocative title..something like..

HERCULEAN HANGTIME
"Your jump distance is increased to y (really far) feet"

I liked the first one better.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because they don't. The maximum lifting capacity for a Strength 20 is simply not superhuman by real life standards. If a creature in D&D is supposed to actually have superhuman strength, the number should exceed that. But it doesn't, because simplicity and abstraction were the design priorities. Ergo, the numbers don't make sense.

So, the only possible answer is that nearly nothing in DnD is superhumanly strong. Some giants won't qualify as of 2024. It cannot possibly be that the lifting and carrying rules were abstracted to be too low, in light of all the other evidence.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I already said Tier 3 is a great place for the supernatural where otherwise non-supernatural classes are concerned.

I honestly don't understand what you want. I am completely down with fighters etcetera having superhuman abilities. I'd love to help design some. For some reason, you are against calling it what it is and letting that halt the discussion. I mean the thread is called, "the magical martial". What's wrong with calling a supernatural ability...supernatural?

Me: "I want a fighter to be able to shatter stone with a punch"

You: "But wait! They can't do that, humans aren't that strong."

Me: "Okay, fine, humans are supernatural and can do that."

You: "But Wait! They aren't! None of the rules say that, show me in the rules where is says that or you can't have a fighter do that!"

Also You: "I would be totally okay to design abilities beyond human limits for high level fighters, you just have to acknowledge they are supernatural. Why won't you do that? What are you scared of?"

I don't know Micah, why can't I get much further than offering the barest bones of an ability without getting dragged into discussions about you wanting the PHB pre-re-written to call everything magic, except we can't do that because people won't like it, and why am I so scared of the word magic anyways. It is truly a mystery for the ages how this KEEPS HAPPENING with EVERY POST.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, the only possible answer is that nearly nothing in DnD is superhumanly strong. Some giants won't qualify as of 2024. It cannot possibly be that the lifting and carrying rules were abstracted to be too low, in light of all the other evidence.

I said that the abstraction breaks the system, yes. It makes no sense, thus, it cannot be used to explain anything in the fiction.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I liked the first one better.

Fair enough.

Neither of them contained any kind of justification. It's pure effect description.

If this is adequate for you, I expect there is a middle ground available.

A similarly worded ability might be..

"You stride with such supernatural grace that even the air itself can be traversed.. you gain a flight speed equal to your land speed"

Again, no justification, just description, but supernatural coded.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Me: "I want a fighter to be able to shatter stone with a punch"

You: "But wait! They can't do that, humans aren't that strong."

Me: "Okay, fine, humans are supernatural and can do that."

You: "But Wait! They aren't! None of the rules say that, show me in the rules where is says that or you can't have a fighter do that!"

Also You: "I would be totally okay to design abilities beyond human limits for high level fighters, you just have to acknowledge they are supernatural. Why won't you do that? What are you scared of?"

I don't know Micah, why can't I get much further than offering the barest bones of an ability without getting dragged into discussions about you wanting the PHB pre-re-written to call everything magic, except we can't do that because people won't like it, and why am I so scared of the word magic anyways. It is truly a mystery for the ages how this KEEPS HAPPENING with EVERY POST.

Are you cool with superhuman abilities being called out as such? If so, I have no objection and will drop this line of discussion immediately.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fair enough.

Neither of them contained any kind of justification. It's pure effect description.

If this is adequate for you, I expect there is a middle ground available.

A similarly worded ability might be..

"You stride with such supernatural grace that even the air itself can be traversed.. you gain a flight speed equal to your land speed"

Again, no justification, just description, but supernatural coded.

Coding matters. I'd prefer something in the class description, because calling it out for every ability individually is a bit awkward and inelegant, but sure.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Coding matters. I'd prefer something in the class description, because calling it out for every ability individually is a bit awkward and inelegant, but sure.

I mean.. I disagree about it mattering.

But at least if it's in the powers rather than the class, then players have the freedom to headcanon whatever narrative justification they deem appropriate at the character level.