Putting to death the caster/martial duality

>>50155011
D&D magic is cancerous shit to begin with.

Some people really just want to be a mundane character even in a world full of magic. Even if they are special because of "magic by another name". It's just the hero fantasy they like to play out.

You are correct, OP, and thankfully there are a lot of settings which embrace the idea.

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>>50155106

It is, but it's ubiquity puts it in the fore front of many people's minds when it comes to bog standard fantasy.

>>50155011

this is why 2e is good. The fighter's power is 1d10 hp and armour. The wizards power is winning one encounter a day. Good luck to anyone trying to be just wizards. Good luck to anyone trying to be just fighters. You need solid teamcomp to succeed. Playing a game with two fighters, a cleric and a thief right now, and I'm honestly glad we don't have a wizard, because we aren't ready to baby one yet. Maybe when i've hit third and the second fighter has hit second, but right now... fuck that.

>>50155011
I personally do like the idea that everyone uses low level magic all thr time but it's nnot even thought of as "real" magic.
Bakers do a little hand gesture over their pastries which is technically a form of an insulate rune to help them keep warm, but when questioned most think it's more a good luck charm.
Saddles have a little phrase in slowing script on each buckle to ensure they hold fast, every chevalier and horseman activates it with a muttered song as they maintain their equipment without understanding the words, just that it works.
Warriors know to hold a piece of bloodstone close to the heart and their blade should be held in elemental fire by their own hand before it ever tastes blood, and the five forms of swordplay known by the local knights also include a mental incantation because that's just how it works, and not saying it can and will make the strike fail.

Just dozens of tiny pieces of magic most barely notice or think about, and when they do they appreciate how useful magic is because wow it is everywhere. Every single trade has it's own magical tricks, most nations and many cities have a couple known specialities ranging from warding the dead from being risen up to finding your keys when you lost them.

>>50155011
>Have you tried not playing 3.x?

Seriously, most other games don't have the problem to the degree that D&D does. In fact I can think of one that does exactly what you talk about, Earthdawn. In Earthdawn all PCs are explicitly magical. Out of the box Warriors can learn to leap like Wuxia fighters (Air Dance) and harden their flesh to withstand mighty blows (Wood Skin).

>>50155162

I do really like this idea. Ubiquitous magic is really fun, and if you keep the common uses simple it doesn't really warp a setting in the way some people claim.

Depends on the setting. Specifically it depends on:
- How powerful the magic is.
- How much effort it takes to train in magic.


If magic takes a lot of effort/expense to learn, but isn't too much more powerful than martial combat, you'll see armies of martials because training a large number of them produces a more effective army than spending the same resources on a much smaller number of magic users.

Or maybe magic can only be learned by a subset of the population.

>>50155259
It's also fun when you make some magic tricks almost mundane ones.
So you're left wondering how many magic tricks are just placebo, work on mundane principles and which are genuinely magic.

It's basically just superstition but real. Mostly.

>>50155162
Robin Hobb's Soldier's Son trilogy involves magic like this, which I really liked.

>>50155161
I would agree with this. The loss of specialization and the prevalence of "do everything" characters has drastically reduced party cohesion. Everyone really can be loners.

>>50155318
Totally not where I was thinking of when I wrote it cough cough. The closing script has nothing to do with the hold fast charm. Cough.

That series went weird quickly though. Stopped reading halfway through, didn't give a shit about Hobb's fat fetish shaman magical realm and I wanted more knight adventures.

>>50155335

Yeah but for what it's worth you can't really do everything. You can be an academic who swings a sword but learning how to be a doctor and learning physics are two different things that require their own specialization to learn.

Obviously it really depends on how easy or hard magic is to learn in a given setting but I don't think you lose the team cohesion by having everyone be a gish by default, you're magic is tailored to what you do.

>>50155011
>How to end the martial caster disparity?
>Make the martial a caster
>GENIUS!1!
Your mother has to tell you to not look up when it rains, doesn't she?

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>>50155501

I suggest we kill the concept as a whole, to hell with the disparity.

>>50155436

You don't lose cohesion, no. You loose variety and choice. If everyone needs to be a fighter/wizard then sure, I can have slightly different spells from you, but there's no real difference in the characters we're building, because we need to be doing the same things.

Having a system where people are incentivised to play a variety of classes with a variety of strengths is miles better than a system where people all play the same class but slightly different.

>>50155335

it's not even the loss of specialisation, really, it's mostly the buff that casters got in 3.0 and onward. Cantrips, start at 2 first level spells per day, with it being pretty damn easy to get an extra spell at level one for int? That's pretty bullshit.

In my 2e game I'm running right now I managed to get 2 first level spells at first level and I was fucking ECSTATIC.

Of course, 2e definitely suffers from Priest being provably the best class... armour, casting, decent THAC0 progression, there's dozens of good reasons to have multiple priests in the party.

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>>50155501
>hating on the battlemaster fighter

>>50155559
>I suggest we kill the concept as a whole, to hell with the disparity.
Good sentiment, but the way to do it is wrong.

To kill the disparity, first you have to first change/explain a core prociple of the setting.

A high magic setting has magic energy as a natural thing, it's as much a basic force as gravity or strong molecular force. Magical beasts use it without any training or even sentience, giants and dragons rely on it to avoid the square-cube law, etc. In such a setting pure training and skill should be able to elevate someone to superhuman without actually learning magic. A high level thief or rogue should still be a "mundane human" in the same sense that Batman is a "mundane human", ie not at all by our standards, but in his universe he is just what anyone can be with enough training and willpower. A high level warrior should be able to leap fifty feet in the air, slice through the top of a mountain and do a whole bunch of other anime/wuxia/Exalted bullshit, not because he learns to cast some spells, but because in that type of setting that shit is just something you can do if you're badass enough.

>>50155575
>I can have slightly different spells from you, but there's no real difference in the characters we're building, because we need to be doing the same things

What?

Depending on setting "magic" can be literally anything.

You could have an archer controlling the winds to make his arrows fly true, a sneaky bastard magically camouflaging himself and invisibly stabbing things in the dick, a weaboo martial arts master who creates illusions of himself to feint and strikes when the enemy falls for them...

I think you're thinking too much about D&D.
Yeah the priest spell list has a lot of the same shit as the wizard spell list, but that's a fact about D&D, not a fact about all make-believe magic spells everywhere.

>>50155743
I will hate on that piece of shit as long as 5E is a thing. Literally nothing it does is new and it is far, far less competent at literally everything it tries to do than the classes that inspired it were.

>>50155743
>picks from the same list at 15th level as they do at 3rd

shit design desu

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>>50155806

I agree with this and suppose I didn't have the right words to express it but yes, this is exactly the srot of thing that needs to be expressed more.

Magic isn't simply the spells that a wizard casts its inherent in the world setting. The fact that in D&D the monk and the fighter are two different things is strange because the fighter could certainly work towards physical/spiritual perfection in their combat prowess the same way a monk meditates to attain physical and spiritual enlightenment.

For the faggots who worry about something being weeaboo just imagine some famous/mythic western figure as having achieved it. You don't have to call it chi and you don't have to call everything they do eastern sounding names to have a guy who can cut boulders like butter or punch out dragons.

I know it's a meme and all but I also can't help but feel the concern for "weeaboo" also inherently stifiles this efforts. Okay, so some asshole really like Sephiroth and made an not at all obvious copy for your super realistic western fantasy setting with dragons and wizards.

>>50156279

unless I'm reading it wrong, they aren't talking about designing a system for this, but playing in a pre-built system with this stuff in it, which probably means pathfinder or D&D. In both of those systems, an illusionist is not fundamentally different from an evocation mage on a fundamental level, they just get different effects at different levels.

>>50156460

It's not exactly about a spefic system, however, it will naturally come up because D&D is typically what laymen thing about when it comes to RPG and no doubt permeates the mind of everyone and subtly (and not so subtley) influences all other media.

>>50156458
I know a guy who likes to point out Cuchulain when people complain about weeaboos. Cuchulain was anime as fuck.

One of the good things fourth edition D&D did was spelling out that before sixth level, between 6th and 13(?) level, and after that were different tiers of play. You want gritty semi-realistic, mundane? Play below 6th level. You get to seventh level you're beyond anything our non-magical world can make, you are literally superhuman. It's the reason why I also believe NPC classes should only go to sixth level. You can't reach seventh being a farmer, there is just no way to gain enough xp. Anything that gives enough xp is going to involve combat or a huge crisis.

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I don't want to leap 50 ft through the air or cut mountaintops in half or throw 2 ton boulders. I want to be skilled.
When I play a martial at 5e, here's what I do: I pick a weapon type to specialize in. If I pick great weapons, I'm going to be spending every round swinging a greatsword. I'll be shooting a bow if I pick bow. There's no reason to use anything else but the thing you picked. That's not even mentioning that every item in the game worth half a shit is labeled magic and kept out of my hands because none of them key off of str or dex. It all gets passed to the wizard because he's the one who identifies all of it and can use it just as well or better than me because he's the one who can do everything that isn't attacking with the weapon I picked, all I get is the +1 sword that I can't even smith myself because you need to be a spellcaster to make magic items.

I don't want to be Hercules, I don't want to be Guts, I want to be Link. I say phase out equipment specializations and add more interesting equipment that keys off of strength and dexterity that players can obtain reliably. Hookshots, special arrows, smoke bombs, actual bombs, lots of stuff. The way to fix caster/martial disparity is to give them more options in how they approach situations, not make them HUUAAGH SO STRONG.

>>50156792
>every item in the game worth half a shit is labeled magic and kept out of my hands
Link uses plenty of magic items though.

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>Implying """magic""" isn't just a very obvious display of one's internal power
>Implying skill, cultivation, and getting /fit/ doesn't make you a fighterwizard since martial skill and spiritual cultivation go hand in hand
>There are still people who have not come to realize wuxia is the best genre

>>50156792
So basically scrap the rogue and work them into a fighter?

I'd rather they broke down magic instead, so you can't have a wizard doing potentially every-fucking-thing in the spellbook.

>>50155011
Have you tried not playing 3.x?
I'm playing 4e and don't encounter any issues with C/MD or anything remotely similar to it.

>>50158069
That's mostly because 4e has pretty much everything have special attacks, so there's absolutely no reason to ever normally swing your sword when you can do an Omega Smite Smash or something that helps defend your allies or heals.

>>50155106
What's wrong with d&d magic (aside from the fact that most martials don't get anything near as good).

Seems to be basically what you find in other games, except the ones with on the fly spell creation.

>>50158102
>so there's absolutely no reason to ever normally swing your sword
There's actually quite a few builds that specialise in Basic Attacks. They're generally less flashy than conventional builds, but also get the job done.
My current Hexblade PC is an example of a character mostly optimising Basic Attacks, even if she has some crazy strong AoE daily powers up her sleeves that she can use in a pinch to turn an encounter around.

>>50156747
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

This is an interesting article that basically describes everything above 5th level as superhuman in 3.5e. The guy is talking more about how stupid it is for people to stat their favorite characters as 20th level characters

>>50156747
>One of the good things fourth edition D&D did was spelling out that before sixth level, between 6th and 13(?) level, and after that were different tiers of play. You want gritty semi-realistic, mundane? Play below 6th level. You get to seventh level you're beyond anything our non-magical world can make, you are literally superhuman. It's the reason why I also believe NPC classes should only go to sixth level. You can't reach seventh being a farmer, there is just no way to gain enough xp. Anything that gives enough xp is going to involve combat or a huge crisis.
It's actually 1-10 Heroic, 11-20 Paragon, 21-30 Epic: 4e had 30 as the level cap, not 20.

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>>50158034
Wuxia is great but Xianxia is objectively better

>>50158109
It dominates the entire game and you're expected to use it to get anything done.
>the fact that most martials don't get anything near as good
That. There's no alternative. Your options are use spells or swing sword. Even if you want to use something that isn't locked to you, like Stealth, the bounded accuracy in 5e means you're probably just going to choke and eat shit unless you also have the appropriate buff spells cast on you or gained through magic items (Enhance Ability, Pass Without Trace, Invisibility, ect.) or you're a VERY high level Rogue.
Other games tend to have similar lists of spells that are ranked by power and casted through a limited resource, but they're also generally treated as a side thing. It's not "every class except for this one class is a magic user", it's "this one class is a magic user". The games are set up so you can go without it.

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>>50156747
BECMI got it right split D&D into effectively separate games instead of trying to make the system do everything.

Want ASoIF use Basic
Want Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale shit use Expert
Want dumb Legend of Drizzt shit with armies and nonsense Companion
Want Elminster Master
Want to be a fucking New God play with the Immortal rules

>>50158244
What does any of that have to do with how D&D magic works? How does any of that make magic cancerous?

D&D is a greater-than-life game, but has underwhelming martials.

Sure, they can survive a fall from terminal velocity, but most skills and such never reach truly superhuman levels, for some strange reason.

I'd argue that's not a problem with the magic at all. It's a problem with the martials.

Either the martials should quickly reach marvel-comics ability levels with their skills, or we should consider the following:

D&D is a high-magic game, with high magic settings. It's not lord of the rings, it's the X-Men with swords and bows.

That's what it does, that's what it's good at, that's the reason to like it.

If the muggles can't keep up, rather than redesigning the game to suit them, either they should be redesigned, or they should be discarded.

Stop dragging down my fantasy X-Men game by expecting nobody to surpass the shitty wannabe NPC classes.

>>50158408
>X-Men with swords and bows.
That is basically how I like my magic to work, you get a power or a theme and that's it, no do everything Wizard. Not to say you can't be powerful or use your powers creatively but you have to work within the bounds of your theme
Martials are Daredevil and Moon Knight at low levels progressing to Powerman and Iron Fist and finally to Thor and Hulk

>>50158244
Beat-Cop and Cat-Burglar have no business being character archetypes in an Avengers campaign. The fact that in this case, they are, is a mistake.

The Beat-Cop/Cat Burglar need to be redesigned/replaced by a Black Widow/Nick Fury/Iron Fist/Luke Cage/Iron Man/Spider-man/Wolverine/Cable/Bishop type.

>>50158408
>I want to use stealth
>invest in stealth directly
>be very good at stealth

>I want to use stealth
>invest in stealth directly
>suck on some cocks
>have the wizard cast the stealth spells on me so I'm not awful anymore

>>50158499
>Instead of a grab bag of vaguely related powers, you should get one power which can be used in various creative ways.

I'd be okay with that; but IMO that's more what the martials should look like.

I see classes like Magus and Eldritch Knight and Paladin as the better fitting martial classes, not Barbarian and Fighter.

D&D is a game where most characters have a diverse selection of abilities.

The 2-3 classes that don't follow that paradigm should be changed to fit the game, not all the others changed to suit them.

There are lots of low-magic RPGs. When I want one of those I grab them. If I want one of those with a d20 sheen, there's d20 Conan. Or I can GURPS/RuneQuest/MERP/Pendragon

>>50158518
Right. And that's a problem.

>Want to use stealth.
>Put points in stealth.
>Only get half way.

and it should be:
>Want to use stealth.
>Put points in stealth.
>Take stealth-related powers.

"I have no special powers" characters have no business tagging along in the fantasy superheroes RPG.

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>>50158500
Right
You can have a game where you play as a somebody like Maggie Sawyer or Dan Turpin and you can have a game where you play as Superman but you can't have one where one player can be Turpin and the other can be Supes it's impossible the game will objectively favor one over the other

>>50158518
>>50158552
There should be no "shitty muggle character" archetypes that you are even able to build.

Of course they can't keep up. "I want to be a regular guy bound by what would be realistic in real life" doesn't make sense in a group of superheroes, let alone a group of superheroes where everyone else has at least 4-6 unrelated powers.

>>50158557
Agreed.

And since the Maggie Sawyer/Dan Turpin types are in the minority, and the game is more or less designed around Superman and Goku, I'm inclined to say it should stick to Superman and Goku.

If you want "Low Magic D&D", fine, but that should be it's own game, with a disclaimer that you can't mix and match classes from one with classes from the other.

Ideally, there would be one rules compendium, one high magic characters book, and one low magic characters book.

If you want a low magic mage class for your game of thrones campaign, great.

I'd like to see thosefighter types replaced with ones that actually fit in into my superheroes game.

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>>50158535
Totem Barbarian would probably be able to stick around if you emphasize the Totem Spirit

>>50158604
Sure, there are particular builds/subclasses/archetypes/whatever that might still fit.

But it's the pathfinder/3.5 class tiers argument.

Your Tier 4/5 classes don't contribute well in a tier 1/2 game.

The fact that the game has some character options for both, and has no explicit rules to stop you from combining them, is a bad thing.

Example:
Summoner is a perfectly reasonable T2 Martial.

Summoner makes a Fighter look like ass.

Fighter has no business being in the same party as Wizard and Summoner. Sure he can keep up with the raw numbers, but he's a 1-trick pony. That works fine in a movie or comic book. That's not fun in a multiplayer game.

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>>50155011

Well, realistically this is just a leftover of sword-and-sorcery stories and you can say that it's just the magic getting out of hand that's the problem; in stories magic is usually limited by plot and never feels too egregious in a well-written story.

If you're to consider a D&D style world, how much and in what way warriors used magic would depend a lot on how magic is done. D&D offers verbal, somatic and material components to doing magic, with the additional requirements of brain space, the relevant casting stat, and the natural resistance creatures seem to have to spells. So you're looking at a few issues for the average warrior; you need to spend a lot of time learning first, you need a free hand, you need some space to work in, you might need some ammunition,and it might just fail anyway. With all that in mind, it seems like the caster/martial duality would persist; you'd have some soldiers trained to fight with weapons and some to fight with magic. I'd imagine magic would be the preferred self-defense art, though, for anyone who could do it, which already seems like it would be radically different from how most D&D worlds work. Considering that magical knowledge in these universes can be written down and learned from books, it seems like the magical arms race would inevitably outpace mere metal.

But what you should consider is the edge cases; are there spells simple enough and practical enough that any soldier could use them? What if someone invented a way to do a spell with no somatic component and taught it to others? What about magical equipment; wouldn't different lords and nations rush to increase production of these items for their warriors? Wouldn't those items be fairly reliable and powerful tools by D&D rules?

It's always struck me that the way D&D portrays the ease of using magic does not match up with its supposed scarcity.

>>50158647
>supposed scarcity.
What supposed scarcity?

Forgotten Realms
>Airships, peasants have handy day-to-day life magic items, flying cities, reality warping force fields, magical defense systems, continent wide portal networks.

Eberron
>Airships, magic robots, dragon-stuff... (I don't know too much about Eberron).

Planescape
>Portals, Angels & Demons & Elementals everywhere.

Literally, what scarcity are you talking about? It's D&D. Magic is fucking everywhere.

Making magic strong or hard to cast breaks the flow of the game, and making magic very accessible or inherent to everyone ruffles a lot of jimmies.

Designing a TTRPG seems like a nightmare, especially if one tries to use a class system.

I'd like a setting where magic is so absurdly common and mundane that everyone knows some basics, and can do shit like make some light or move small objects around but there's not any known world-shattering spell and the best magicians in the world can't do more than create simple objects out of thin air, or cut down a tree without using a tool.

And then the warrior types are all magic-casters too, which fencing schools revolving around different ways of using magic to aid in your swordfighting like, some guys just buff themselves to be faster, tougher and stronger, while others add special effects to their hits, or make the sword too bright for the opponent to look at, and it all comes down to using your hat tricks the smartest way to win the fight.

>>50158680
I think >>50158647 is talking about a bunch of shitty nonsensical low-magic homebrew, with high-magic rules.

But that's hardly D&D's fault.

>>50158731
Runequest/Glorantha

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OP here.

For the sake of those coming into the discussion, the discussion is not how to fix the martial/castor disparity but rather to get rid of it entirely. The gish shhould be the norm and the standard. As pointed out already, the idea of an every man in a group of literal super heros is ridiculous. To use guys like Batman and Nick Fury and the Punisher I would hardly call those guys everymen because essentially being badass is a super power by itself; They are regularly far more athletic then even olympic athletes and have literally stared down gods and told them to suck dick.

I suppose from the stand point of background you could always come from the humble origins, which I believe what most people strive to do/be but otherwise your character shouldn't be bound to be just a mundane becuase at that point you're not

And even on top of all these there's the fandom that trully believes magic should beat all 24/7

>Holy shit anon, how do you have too much to hit and damage?
>? full bab+20 str+MW weapon+rage and for damage Power attack
>No, that can't be, do the math again
>? dude, is literaly there
>No, that's too strong
>How about the druid turning into fucking dire bear?
>Well, that's because it's wildshape so it makes sense
Fuck this shit

>>50159092
You can't be Batman, Nick Fury and Punisher in a rpg, those have plotarmor and the help of the writer to do absurd bullshit no one without powers could do, that doesn't exist in rpgs

>>50159092
4e had a similar idea, Barbs rage and turn into volcanos, Fighters are so sturdy their skin is now rock, etc

How to get rid of the disparity within the game? Allow ToB, Psionics and remove every T1, T5 and T6 class, play only with T2, T3 and T4 (and I would even say to remove T4).

>>50159134

I mean, isn't that the case as well in RPGs? Your character is inherently special by virtue of being a PC. In systems like 40k and EP you have points you can spend to reroll failures or to literally save your character from certain death which is more then a run of the mill citizen of the imperium has.

So I guess player agency is itself a form of plot armor for your PCs.

>>50159182
Batman outran Flash, a dude who mvoes faster than light
Knocked out Wonder Woman, a girl that can take nukes directly to face
Survived being punched through several reinforced concrete walls by a full strenght punch by Darkseid (as strong as Superman)

I dunno how many points you have, but I doubt you can survive an exterminatus in those games and still walk away

>>50159232
He also did stuff like this for days, he beat the justice league once AT MELEE without gadgets, just using his body and martial arts, it was an elseworld though in where they didn't know batman and thought he was an enemy.

>>50159232

Tell that to the survivors of Isstavan IV

>>50159260
Because they were hiden behind some cover, they didn't take a planet buster laser directly to the face and walk away like nothing happened

>>50159232
There's also this kid, Karate Kid, he doesn't have powers, he only knows every martial art ever, well, on top of being faster than light because of that he also redirected a 10km meteorite back to space using Aikido. Batman beat that kid using only martial arts.

>>50158181
>xianxia
I wish there was a decent system to make xianxia settings

>>50159679
same here

>>50158172
> Play below sixth level
> All combats are win or die in 2 rounds.

You're goddamn right, OP. Humans are smart. If learning magic will make them more likely to succeed, especially in something as vital as combat, they will learn it if they can, no matter how much effort it takes. Maybe the levy, who expects to fight one battle then go home, won't, but someone wanting to be a career warrior would.

DnD's classes are based on very oldschool fantasy. Like LOTR (where there are only five wizards in the world) and Conan (where magic is entirely limited to evil characters). Which is fine, except they have taken fantasy in a completely different level, where anyone might learn magic and wizards, druids, paladins, warlocks etc. with magic powers are running around. Not learning magic in that world would be like not going to college in ours. If you want to be a successful person, and you are smart and wealthy enough to do it, there is no reason to not to do it.

>>50155153

Surprising boner from this. Sauce?

>>50159121
Guess you shouldn't have described your dude as having no special powers, then they expect you should have no special powers.

>>50159148
It doesn't really matter which ones you remove.

What matters is a 2-3 tier spread at max.

1-3 is okay.
1-2 is better.
2-3 is better.
3-4 is boring but okay.
2-4 is okay.
3-5 and 4-5 are technically playable but I wouldn't do it.

>>50158109

DnD vancian casting is bad for two reasons:

The first and most obvious is balance. Everyone knows this one. The wizard can do anything, the martial can't do shit, and the rogue is only useful if the wizard didn't invest in spells that make the rogue obsolete like Knock and Find The Path.

The second is tone and worldbuilding. Simply put, WOTC never gave us a reason for magic to be something rare and special. Using DnD arcane magic has NO CONSEQUENCES. It only rarely requires rare materials, it never has a chance of backfiring, it doesn't indebt you to powerful forces (thats divine magic) and anyone who can read magic runes can cast basic spells. Just invest in some Use Magic Device and you are halfway to being a wizard.

Its just power for free on the table available to everyone, but we are expected to believe that for some reason most people won't touch it.

Even the 'but it takes soooo loooong to learn' argument means jack shit. Take your first level in literally anything else. Take your second level in Wizard. Skip decades of study and acquire magical power overnight.

Even if that's a gamist exploitation of the multiclassing rules, it still means that the only 'downside' to learning magic is entirely unseen in the game itself. If a problem can be solved with magic, there is never a reason to NOT solve that problem with magic. Its almost always better at accomplishing the task than the non-magical solution that other entire classes have to build their identity around.

Compare this to systems like DH, where using Psyker powers is dangerous and unpredictable. Not only can your spells fail, just like attacks rolls can (DnD spells having to roll to succeed is a rare downside of being in a bad spot) but even if everything works there is a chance of something very bad happening. This means that, given a problem that has magical and nonmagical solutions, the magic is usually held in reserve rather than being Plan A all the time.

>>50163715
>1. I don't see that as a problem with magic.
This is a problem with including shitty T5/6 characters as playable options in a game where everyone else can do cool shit.

>2.why the fuck should magic be rare and special? Fantasy superheroes.
>>50158680 see forgotten realms. That's d&d fantasy.

We don't believe most people won't touch it. It's fucking ubiquitous.

Dark heresy is completely different in tone and power level. I wouldn't try to use dark heresy to run a d&d setting. And I wouldn't try to use d&d to run a dark heresy game.

>>50163715
What's up with rare materials anyway? I feel like most GMs I've played with have just ignored material components.

>>50163715
>>50163821
In d&d fantasy, magic is so common that even if you don't know how to make magic by yourself, you make use of magic items on a regular basis.

Of course, with 5e going to "magic items are rare", while keeping the mage classes being most classes, and still holding onto the shitty sacred cow that is fighter/rogue/barb, the game now sends mixed messages. It now sends "magic is everywhere" and "magic is rare" at the same time.

>>50163852
Most GMs rely on their memory of a spell rather than look it up every time, so components are rarely enforced.

>>50155011
>Magic comes from your life. From your love. For whatever you do. Perhaps its part of everything we do. You cannot divide it up like 'here is skill, there is magic', this line between!

Fighters are just as magic as wizards. They just don't cast spells. But they, two-or-three hundred pound piles of muscle and hard-won skill, are somehow able to heft entire multi-ton weights into the air, leap multiple stories in a single bound, cleave titanic monsters in half when their blade is only a few feet long, etc. You act like that isn't magic, that it's 'more realistic' than waving your arms, shoving sulphur in your mouth and spitting flame.

Seriously though, the caster/martial duality is shit, but that's mostly because a level 10 caster is so much more powerful than a level 10 martial, at least in D&D.

>>50163852

No one can bother to remember, much less keep track of, material components for spells unless they are the big ones like wish or true resurrection.

No one keeps track of exactly how much bat guano they are carrying for their fireball spells, and people want even less to have to go and hunt down some bats every other session so that the wizard can contribute next fight. DnD spellcasters already have more book keeping than any of the other classes, and actually enforcing the material component system on a regular basis would make the game basically unplayable.

>>50159232
>>50159256

That's exactly why I hate Batman and all those "Bat-God doesn't exist!" wankers. It's the purest, stupidiest HFY jerk-off there is, with Miller's edge thrown in for good measure.

Actually, "martial vs caster" arguements resemble "Batman vs Superman", since they often devolve into arguements on the measure of martialness.

>>50164650
But isn't the material components system really the big limiter? Otherwise you could essentially play a Warlock or a Sorcerer, with little limit to your powers aside from how many spells you can cast per day.

>>50158109
>on the fly spell creation
Which systems are you thinking of?

>>50164628
Played a 17th level 5e game the other day, you could only do that with casters (mine was a Paladin/Warlock/Sorcerer)

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>>50155011
>Depends on the setting
>Have you tried not playing D&D
>My verisimilitude

I really liked how The Bartimaeus Trilogy handled this in that certain people were more immune to magic than another. To the point of a certain character being enshrouded in magic flame and barely being injured. Perhaps one could simply let fighters get bonuses to resisting magic. Perhaps the fighters intimate connection to his blade and armour gives it a mythological magic that isn't usable by anyone else but gives it a certain immunity to rogue magics. Of course this could let the Fighter be the only one who can cut through the magic force field and fulfill the anti mage role in the party.

>>50165363
GURPS/Ghosts of Albion/oMAGE/nMAGE

Likely not the only examples, but those are the ones I was thinking of.

>>50165824
This would not only make the fighter live through crazy magical fights but also make them look quite a bit cooler like in >>50164628
except instead of acrobatics it could be a simple block or bash with a shield. It would also give a nice tone of magic being misunderstood in that magic could be a bit harder to understand like a genie being caught in a bottle when he enters voluntarily.

This is why high powered fantasy settings aren't very good and detract from immersion.

I'm a fan of the standard classes; Warrior, Rogue and Mage. I like them, I think they're good, and they force people in the game to work together to some extent. Making everyone an anime fighter is kind of lame IMO.

The BEST way to fix the disparity problem is to keep Wizards on the same level as fighters by reducing the powers of their spells. Wizards should be Harry Potter, not the ridiculous strawman DnD Wizard everyone points too.

>>50165299
In 5e at least, having a component pouch or arcane focus (both available from character creation) allows you to ignore any material component that isn't consumed with a listed cost (eg. a pinch of diamond dust worth 25gp sprinkled over the target, which the spell consumes).

>>50166607
>Wizards should be Harry Potter

So unlimited casts per day with the ability to disarm, stun, kill, and alter memory on command? With no way for a non caster to counter any of it?

>>50165824
Get out, weeb

>>50166711

You knew what I meant, faggot.

>>50166607
>The BEST way to fix the disparity problem is to keep Wizards on the same level as fighters by reducing the powers of their spells
Or increase the power of fighters to adecuate to the high power faggotry of casters, just because he's a fighter doesn't mean he's a mundane

>>50165299
No, the limiter is the spells per day, and they go away very, very quickly once you get some spellcasting Ability Score boosting items.

>>50158109
D&D Magic is inherently unbalanced to the point of rendering other classes modtly redundant by the time you hit 8-10, and rendering all classes entirely redundant beyond that.

>>50166727
I don't think you knew what you meant.

>>50166738
Could stand to have a bit of both really.

>>50158566
Yeah, by the time the martials get to be level 6 or so, they should be getting some special powers: Spell-like abilities related to their class, etc.

Fine, D&D is a high-magic game. Why the fuck aren't high-level heroes expected to hang with the Wizards getting high-magic abilities?

If I'm a Fighter 16, I should be so badass I can jump into my enemies and still get a Full Attack. If I'm a good enough Rogue, I should be so god-damned Stealthy it's treated like Invisibility. If I'm a Ranger, my hatred for my chosen foes should turn some of my blows into Fort Save or Die in addition to damage. If I'm a Paladin, my aura of righteousness and purity should give me Fast Healing.

I should not get to attack twice or three times if I happen to be standing right next to my opponent when the Wizard gets to remake reality all day with no penalty.

Hell, I'd be mostly fine with the various D&D rulesets in play if magic items on magic-users inflicted a magic penalty of some sort. Magical items are explicitly there for the D&D martials to catch up to the D&D Wizards/Sorcs/Clerics/Druids, but the Wizards/Sorcs/Clerics/Druids can get the same benefit at no penalty.

That's why Vancian is shit.

>>50166743
And of course, by all you mean "The very few classes that don't actually have magic", I assume?

>>50166892
>Game has casters and martials
>Casters render all other classes moot
What do you think?

>>50166869
>D&D is a high magic game.
Agreed.
>All D&D characters should get cool powers so they can contribute meaningfully to the party.
Agreed.

>The current state, where there are mundane 1-trick pony classes with no cool powers and very limited versatility, is bad.
Agreed. Those classes need a serious overhaul, or to be discarded and replaced with something better.

>Magic items should be used as a clutch to bring up martials, rather than a universal resource of customization.
Absolutely terrible idea. Fuck no. Fix the classes, don't try to use items as a shitty bandaid.

>That's why Vancian is shit.
But all of your post had nothing to do with criticizing Vancian, and was a criticism of shitty martial class design.

Re-read it. Your conclusion is disconnected from your argument.

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>>50166794
It'd be neat if you could take Spellcasting as a Feat (or similar) without having to multiclass.

Like...

"Lesser Spellcasting"
Requirements: (Relevant Spellcasting Stat)13+, Character Level 9+
You can cast spells as a Level 3 Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Druid, but get no other class features.

"Moderate Spellcasting"
Requirements: (Relevant Spellcasting Stat)15+, Character Level 13+
You can cast spells as a Level 7 Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Druid, but get no other class features.

"Powerful Spellcasting"
Requirements: (Relevant Spellcasting Stat)17+, Character Level 17+
You can cast spells as a Level 11 Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Druid, but get no other class features.

>>50166940
>Game is like 80% casters, and 20% martials.
>The 20% of Martials are moot by design.
Martials should still have magic of some kind, and should just be more combat focused.
Paladin should be the minimum level of magic power access.

That's what I think.

>>50166963
Should scale automatically, but I wholeheartedly support this idea.

You should be able to take a feat that scales and replicates major class features from other classes, rather than multiclassing nonsense.

To some extent this is now the case in 5e. For instance, you can become a ritual caster as a fighter, giving you some out of combat magic.

>>50166956
No, my conclusion was that spellcasting would be fine as-is (instead of beefing up the martials) if the magic items in play could be used better by martials and not wizards.

How in the hell does it make sense that a Wizard is more distracted by armor than he is by being bedazzled with all sorts of magic on his body which is interfering with the arcane process?

>>50166963
And remove actual casters, right?
See a fighter, even with 3rd level spells will still suck because there's no synergy between casting and fighting, every turn he has to choose between casting and fighting, spend like 1 turn buffing himself, etc That's why multiclassing fighter/cleric doesn't work

Meanwhile Duskblade does a pretty good job mixing both

>>50166963
>Stat 13+
>Stat 15+
>Stat 17+
Yeah because martials aren't MAD enough already

>>50166892
No, I mean anything that's not a Cleric, Druid, Wizard, or Sorcerer in 3.5E/Pathfinder. The Bard sucks cock entirely and the Paladin and Ranger barely benefit from their spellcasting at all.

>>50167008
The armor isn't distracting, it is physically restrictive, making the proper movements more difficult for spellcasting.

That's why spells without somatic components don't suffer from armor penalties to arcane magic.

I think "taking away magic items" is a bigger change than "beefing up martials", in that your particular loadout of magic items is a significant portion of the character customization available in the game.

>>50167038
>The Bard sucks cock entirely
It's a tier3 and if you know what you're doing can even be tier2

How many variations of fighter/castor can you get rid of by giving the base line fighter an ability where he has spells suited to his task that he can cast while attack?

I cast a quick buff on myself that lasts for a turn or two and then attack afterwards or I attack and then throw a fireball when my opponent tries to fly away?

Hell, if the idea of throwing a fireball makes your autism hurt then say you use your ki to pick up a rock and chuck it like a fucking cannonball at the target which is equally applicable (and better in my opinion.)

>>50167055
>Be tied down
>You can still cast spell though you have to pass DC 15+level of spell (which is piss easy)
>Wear armor
>Roll d100, if you roll like below 50% you lose spell
No, armors do something more than being restrictive, specially because divine casters, even with somatic components, cast fine

Magic just needs to be more of a force multiplier, so it's worth having the martials around.

>>50167038
Pathfinder and 3.5e Bards are actually kind of awesome. I don't know what the fuck you're on about.

They're straight up better rogues with magic, make fairly effective archers, and on top of that fill the party support role amazingly.

Range magic is shit, but the Paladin does okay (he's at the low end of acceptable) between his various lay-on-hands abilities and his spells.

>>50167059
Yeah, he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

>>50167099
>Magic should have to be in the be party-support role
Ugh. fuck no.

If I want a magical beatstick character, that's entirely reasonable.

>>50167105
>tfw at 6th level my Bard could add, on top of his bab+str, motherfuck +11 to attack and damage

Minmaxing inspire courage + words of creation + snowflake wardancer was pretty cool, dealing more damage and hitting better than the barb was also awesome

>>50167092
Yeah, I can see the argument that these should be the same, but aren't.

I personally think it's simply inconsistent game design, rather than armor having phenomenal spell-casting prevention powers.

>>50167114
You can still make a magical beatstick character, just by taking higher physical stats.

>>50167122
Not to mention how much you make the other combatants more effective.

Bards are fantastic.

>>50167130
>You can make a character who uses magic to be a beatstick without any such magic existing, just have higher stats!
What?

>>50167127
Anon, there're feats that let you cast arcane spells with armor just fucking fine, is not about restriction.

>>50167150
I'm saying magic should enhance what you already have, so buff spells work better the higher your base is.

>>50155011
I just buff the martial classes physical capabilities. This includes improving bonuses slightly.

>>50155011
If you are playing PF, just give martials only all of the abilities from the Automatic Bonus Progression chart. Poof, no more reliance on magic from anyone else. Then they can do whatever they want with their skill points.

>>50167150
>Not to mention how much you make the other combatants more effective.
Yeah, with inspire courage+song of heart+words of creation+that spell which name I don't remmember that was immediate action I gave, at 6th level, +6 to attack and damage to the party (myself included) if I wardanced I added +Cha (+5) to myself on attack and damage to a total of +11, add power attack and it was quite awesome.

I never got this meme of "when your party is dying and you're just a bard".

>>50167192
>Automatic Bonus Progression chart
Believe it or not isn't perfect, it's actually underpowered because they're outright bonuses, no secondary effects like spell resistance, speed, keen, etc

>>50155106
Read Jack Vance's Dying Earth, faggot.

>>50167247
D&D magic only superficially resembles Vances system now.

>>50163715
AD&D was fine because everyone gained levels faster than casters (and therefore their saves went higher faster), it took treal amounts of time to cast spells (the level of the spell added to initiative so that if a monster or martial didn't beat your initiative but you cast a 4th level spell, that 4 segment casting time could make the monsters and martials have lower initiatives and let them interrupt your spell very easily), and byt the time the caster was bending the rules of reality and making it his bitch, the fighter owned the kingdom anyways and had high enough saves that the chances of the caster using mind control magic on him were pretty damn slim (again, their levels being higher=saves being better).

3.0 and on removed that could threaten a caster.

>>50167247
Different anon here, it was a work of art. I'll never hate Vancian magic...

and at least twice in the Dying Earth paladins wrecked magicians, once capturing one of the greatest mages of the era and torturing him to death.

>>50167222
Incorrect. You can use the bonus you get to apply those abilities to your weapons and armor per the rules, and in addition, can change the bonuses and what weapons or armor they apply to once per day as well.

>In this system, magic weapons, armor, and shields never have enhancement bonuses of their own; those bonuses are granted only through attunement. Any weapon, armor, or shield special abilities on attuned items count against a character's enhancement bonus from attunement. To determine an attuned magic item's enhancement bonus, subtract the cost of its special ability from the enhancement bonus granted by attunement. (This applies only to special abilities whose cost is equivalent to an enhancement bonus, not to those that cost a flat amount of gold pieces.) For example, if a character with a +3 enhancement bonus from weapon attunement wields a keen scimitar, she subtracts 1 point of her enhancement bonus (for the cost of keen), leaving her with a +2 keen scimitar. If a character doesn't have enough of an enhancement bonus to afford the special ability (such as a 4th-level character with a vorpal longsword), she can still use the weapon's power on its own, but the weapon gains no enhancement bonus.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/automatic-bonus-progression

Bottom of the page.

In addition, you could still allow magic weapons, granting them even more versatility in how their weapons and armors work.

>>50158109
Putting aside the fact that martials don't get anything like it, there's too much disparity within the spell levels. Take 2nd level spells for instance:

>Arcane Lock
>>Locks a door.

>Continual Flame
>>Permanent, heatless torch.

>Hypnotic Pattern
>>Prevent a decent number of creatures that fail Will saves from taking any action aside from sitting quietly until disturbed

>Alter Self
>>Magically-assisted disguise

>Hideous Laughter
>>Target is completely helpless, and can easily be coup de graced for one round/level on a failed Will save

>Whispering Wind
>>Send a message to someone several miles away

>Rope Trick
>>Hide up to eight creatures in a pocket dimension for several hours that is near-impossible to travel to from the outside once closed

>Invisibility
>>Makes you invisible for a little while

>Glitterdust
>>Blinds and outlines creatures, including invisible ones

>>50167189
Fixes nothing. They're already effective at numbers.

The problem is thats all they are.

>>50167664
>They're already effective at numbers.
>Monk
>Samurai
>Rogue
>Etc
Implying they are all good at numbers

>>50166723
How am I a weeb for liking a british book?

>>50167627
>>>50158109 (You)
>Putting aside the fact that martials don't get anything like it
Good, because I've stated a thousand times in this thread that that is a problem of underwhelming fighters and rogues and barbarians and rangers, not a problem with everyone else.

>there's too much disparity within the spell levels. Take 2nd level spells for instance:
>>Arcane Lock
>>>Locks a door.
>>Continual Flame
>>>Permanent, heatless torch.
Both of these seem comparable. Keep in mind you have to buy the torch materials.

>>Hypnotic Pattern
>>>Prevent a decent number of creatures that fail Will saves from taking any action aside from sitting quietly until disturbed
Really good, until the dc's are too low.

>>Alter Self
>>>Magically-assisted disguise
Very useful

>>Hideous Laughter
>>>Target is completely helpless, and can easily be coup de graced for one round/level on a failed Will save.
Takes teamwork, but yeah, it's really good vs 1 target.

>>Whispering Wind
>>>Send a message to someone several miles away.
Useful, but not a combat spell.

>>Rope Trick
>>>Hide up to eight creatures in a pocket dimension for several hours that is near-impossible to travel to from the outside once closed
Handy, for sure. But you're not going to escape. It's a temporary hidey hole. You'll have to come out eventually. The monsters can wait.

>>Invisibility
>>>Makes you invisible for a little while
Good out of combat spell, not great in combat

>>Glitterdust
>>>Blinds and outlines creatures, including invisible ones
Helpful, for sure.

So, what exactly is your beef with this random assortment of spells?

>>50167676
>Some of them aren't effective at anything!
Point. This is more severe in some editions than others. But I think those should be fixed on an individual basis, not by giving +"Free Numbers" to an arbitrary subset of classes based on "who has sword proficiency" or whatever.

>>50159679
>>50162431
I only have a superficial understanding of Xianxia, but why not GURPS?

>>50167782
Did you have a point with this post?

>>50168473
Seemed obvious to me but, yes.

Responding to >>50167627.

Appreciating that he's actually addressing mentioning concerns with the actual magic systems, rather than concerns that there are a few crappy classes that are crappy and don't have them.

Then trying to determine what exactly his concerns amounted to from his examples, and failing to see the big problem they were supposedly illustrating;

Then asking him outright to explain what that problem is.

>>50167782
>>50168538
The point was that the disparity was pretty wide between the six seemingly standard spells, and the three really good ones, and that despite that gap, they're all from 2nd level.

That wide gap is the problem I usually see, making damage an invalid form of combat, and causing saves, usually Fort and Will, to become the standard. Seriously, Will save vs being unable to stand up and defend yourself, followed by a Fort save to just not die. Coup de Grace does max damage if I'm remembering right, and you can use any touch range spell as part of a basic melee attack. 18(3d6) worth of shocking grasp plus 4(1d4) for a dagger is a DC 32 Fort save. At 3rd level. Without a Nat 20, nothing's surviving that, and that's something the Wizard can do himself.

>>50169715
Save or suck is far less prevalent in 5e, but I do see your point, if you're playing 3.x.

Those save or suck spells are quite good, and there are new save or suck spells to replace them when they're no longer of use.

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>>50168420
Because like D&D, GURPS isn't for everything

>>50158035
Not him, but thats exactly why i liked things like necromancer and beguiler. You got the magic of one school only and were pretty decent at it. Psionics was also always good for making you choose carefully what you could do, but most people i played with instantly banned it.

>>50169930
Maybe not, but it's pretty good for Martial arts and Wuxia.

>>50158408
3.5 did that with the book of nine swords. Everyone through a fucking fit over it though :(

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>>50158604
Pictured here is a Totem Warrior Barbarian and a Circle of the Land Druid

>>50170008
I actually hated that book at the time, and have grown more accepting of it - to the point where I've just accepted that there's not going to be a better martial option, and I use PoW/PoW:E in Pathfinder.

It largely addresses the M/C discrepancy, and in a way, that's good.

But it has these really cheesy, gamey mechanics, emphasizing all the elements that I hated most of 3.X before it came out.

>>50169930
It literally is for everything. It just won't be a tailor made tool for that thing. Unlike D&D which you have to break horribly just to come out with an original idea.

>>50171081
It's not.

GURPS sucks for high powered supers, for instance, and for campaigns looking for a specific type of gameplay mechanics which GURPS lacks.

I would not use GURPS as a D&D 3.x/4.x replacement for that reason.

But for Wuxia GURPS would be great.

>>50159232
>>50159256
>>50159562
>>50164669

Don't forget that one crossover where he knocked the air out of the Hulk with a kick. The same Hulk that eats tank shells like it's nothing.
Normal but badass human my fucking ass.

>>50155271
Making it so the gift of magic is rare (enough) and non-effortless should be sufficient. So that maybe you can get the occasional multiclass wizard/martial class hybrid being a captain of a mostly martial army mixed with a few support casters here and there.

>>50171726
That only fixes the lore, what do you imply, introducing class percentages and if you don't roll high enough you don't get to be a caster? that doesn't fix disparity that just makes that the guy who gets to outclass everybody is a random person everygame

>>50163821
>dark heresy to run a d&d setting

but that's just WFRP desu

>>50171891
Wouldn't use whfrp for d&d either.