So why don't they make high level martials on the same level

That wouldn't be very realistic, would it?

>>50978715
Because they're fucking stupid.

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>>50978745
>>50978715
So why don't we play psychic cats with complex sexual rituals?

>>50978745
Inb4 some pedantic faggot confuses internal consistency and realism

>>50978715
Monte Cook. That's why.

>>50978715
>>50978745
Hercules was quite literally Half-god. His prowess came mostly from using vastly overpowered racial template, not so much from class levels.

>>50978826
And Merlin was half-demon, Gandalf was an angel, et c.

Because Jocks beat up nerds in school and this is how they get their vengeance.

You fucked the girl I liked (Shit was so cash) so now I'm going to bully people like you in make believe for the rest of my life.

>>50978745
What in D&D is realistic?

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>>50978871

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>>50978900

Because it's not "martials", it's "fighters".

The other martials already get magic powers and can perform crazy shit. But, there's nothing wrong with wanting a class that keeps pace with super-powered people just by relying on the limits of human physique combined with wit, skill, technique, and a measure of luck.

It's not even that hard to balance, and hardly stresses the suspension of disbelief if done with the understanding that this guy is still a hero even if he doesn't have any inherent magical abilities. With or without magical assistance in the form of items and allies, it's a welcome niche to explore and not one that needs to be eliminated because you think Hercules wasn't a half-god.

>>50979014
>hitting someone with a pointy stick should be equal to throwing a fireball at someone

Nigger what? You mundane fags are so retarded.

>>50978715
Theme and depth issues.

Thematically, it's usually easier to maintain a "realistic" or "serious" setting with magic than with physical prowess. As an example of this, Wuxia often as relatively little magic, but it's clearly recognizable as a fantastic genre; you'd never throw it in with westerns or victorian drama as "realistic" or "gritty" or the like. Similarly, Hercules redirecting an entire river in combat has a different, generally more outrageous vibe to it than Gandalf bringing the sun up faster, even if the latter is arguably way more powerful and world-shattering.

Depth-wise, caster vs martial issues are often about doing cool shit more than having big numbers, so even if the martials are all literal gods you're still going to have issues regarding whether or not they have anything interesting to do in battle or in town beyond hitting things, again. Additionally, you're often talking about relatively separate methods of power, so trying to brute-force balance them tends to result in weird situations where the same enemies physically can't harm martials and can one-shot casters, or go down in one punch to martials and are physically invulnerable to casters, and so on. In addition to being wonky as hell, this then tends to whittle down on the awesomeness of casters because all of their invisible flying eyelaser turning people to stone stops working so good, and if that were a valid option we wouldn't be having this conversation because casters wouldn't have any fancier toys than their meatshield brethren.

>>50979038
Protagonists should be equal to protagonists.

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>>50979038
>>Wiggling your fingers and sleight of hand should be equal to stabbing someone.

Naga please, you magicfags are so retarded.

>>50979014
It's safe to give fighters more means of damage and deefenses, it can always be justified as mundane. A level 20 fighter can survive like a hundred arrows, but you shouldn't say that he's being hit by every arrow really.

Of course it strains disbelief for people to be "that fucking good" after a certain point, but that's only if you insist on seeing him as something believable out of a high fantasy context. There doesn't need to be a reason for it, just close your eyes and take a breath and tell yourself he's just fucking awesome and not to question it.

>>50979099
All protagonists are equal. It's just that some are more equal than the others.

If you know where the line is from, give yourself a cookie.

>>50979221
Who the fuck hasn't read Animal Farm

>>50979221
Animal Farm isn't exactly the most esoteric of high literary references, buddy.

Watching the Captain America movies really makes me want to make a high level fighter

>>50979221

whoa man that is some obscure shit. you must have read like 30 books

>>50979221
>what is animal farm

Damn, I really want a cookie but unfortunately I never did any of my assigned reading in the fucking 9th grade.

>>50979221
man, you just schooled me with your next level shit anon. if you would deign to tip your fedora in my direction i would be forever greatful

>>50979270
>you must have read like 30 books

my sides

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>>50979221
>animal farm
>the book literally assigned to children as young as the 6th grade to read

>>50979221
That's a really clever way to increase cookie consumption. Who do you work for?

Damn, forgot I'm in American prime time, is the book really baby's first assigned reading for you? It was basically samizdat back when I was doing primary.

Also, cookies.

>>50979579
Pretty close. It is generally late middle school/early high school fare. So about ages 12-15. I read it in my first year of high school at 14.

>>50979579
my iron curtain brother

>>50979401
>1/1/17: The Day the Great Cookie Conspiracy was Uncrumbled
damn dude someone take this shit to /x/ before the government takes it down

>>50979181
With the epic deflection/reflection feats martials can knock away any missile from arrows and boulders to spells and even send them back at their source.

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>>50979579
>samizdat
Yeah, burgers all read that book in grade school. It's cool that you got to see it in a place where it was pretty hidden instead of shoved down your throat. It probably makes the book seem a bit more profound.

>>50978900
It just makes logical sense for a magic user to be more powerful than a fighter. I mean, historically speaking, magic has been able to do all kinds of things.

>>50980809
>historically speaking, magic has been able to do all kinds of things.

Historically speaking, magic isn't even real. So by default martials are the winners.

>>50980934
I think he was being facetious.

>>50980809
Historically speaking martials have been able to fuck up the most "powerful" spellcasters despite all their fancy tricks.

>>50978715
Why is there such a rigid distinction?

Gandalf was handy with a sword and staff

>>50980934
Are you sure? Magic could very well be as real as you are.

>>50979221
So despite being Amerifat I was never forced to read it. I read it and 1984 of my own accord, basically because I just read anything I heard was good. Animal Farm was way better, if only because it didn't try to cram an entire textbook into its second third.

D&D is pretty much Wuxia past lvl 12.

>>50980952
Name one instance in real life where a high level martial defeated a powerful mage.

>>50981333
this one time an old man told me he was a wizard and I punched him in the face

>>50978802
Too late...

>>50980719
Now not to make myself sound too special, by the time I was reading it the book was perfectly legal. It was home-copied version of the book though, that somebody donated to the library after it became legal.
Our assigned reading stayed the same for years
after the country shifted to democracy, they just crossed out the most blatant propaganda pieces but didn't add anything new (Western) until much later.

We were supposed to choose own reading in the last grade, but it was quickly called off because the guys tired to be cheeky and the first two tributes turned out to be some blatantly pornographic novel by Oscar Wilde and Mein Kampf. After that it was back to Dostoyevsky.

>>50981333
Darth Vader vs Obi-wan

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>>50981557
>implying it wasn't two gishes
>implying Star Wars is real

>>50978745
No less realistic than people shooting fireballs out of their eyes or giant flying lizards that can exhale lightning. Why should the ability of fighters be bound to real world constraints when literally no one else is?

I don't mean that fighters should get spells, that's exactly not the point. A high level fighter should be an epic hero who can split a boulder in half with a single stroke, who can deflect a lightning strike with his shield, who can pin a moonbeam to a butterfly's wing with an arrow from one hundred paces.

>>50981557
Cocainum versus Carey Fisher

>>50981591
Yeah but it's realistic for magic to do that stuff. It's magic!

>>50981617
Then why can't a first level wizard stop time, immediately obtain perfect knowledge of the entire world, and remake the universe as he sees fit, spending infinite time doing so.

Because of course he does not age, grow bored, or need sleep.

>>50981333
I can't

fuck, I think you're right

>>50978777
Because you're hungover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_nYgeYc90g

>>50982038
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5P5Tz3VH94
The dumb part is I still linked the wrong song but one appropriate for the post.

And the original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dLhFDYQHDQY

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>Extraordinary Abilities (Ex)
>Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics
>They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training

I will never fucking understand why everyone, including the designers, is so insistent on Fighters being limited to real world physics when Extraordinary abilities exist and are built right into the system. The goddamn Rogue gets several Extraordinary abilities including but not limited to I-can-dodge-a-bomb-strapped-to-my-neck and actual precognition.

Anyone who thinks D&D/Pathfinder operates under the same physics we do has not actually read the rules.

The days are long. It has been weeks since I lost track of my time, here.

Hope is a luxury I can no longer afford. The longer I am here, the further detatched I feel. My food stores will run dry soon. Every passing hour I think to myself "surely this must be the day," but that time never arrives. The madness creeping into me bays at the fringes of my psyche like a pack of ravenous hounds out for blood. I long for death, but that, too, refuses to come.

No. This is what I deserve. My penance for trusting the wrong people, and in my own foolhardy beliefs that we can change.

My mission is a failure; that, I accepted long ago. Now, my only salvation is death, and it will rescue me from this hell.

If you are reading this, don't mourn me. Just learn from my mistakes. Tell my mother I love her, and my brother George that he has my respect.

Above all, tell the world what I've learned here at my post so no further life is wasted here: there will never be a day that this thread isn't reposted on /tg/.

>>50978859
Funny enough Merlin was supposed to be the anti-Christ

>>50982086
It's an important discussion to have.

>>50982078
I'm guessing you're referring to Evasion and Uncanny Dodge right?

>>50982214
I'd add to this pic that casters are often more powerful than gods in mythology. Only Hindu gods can compare with them in versatility and power, Greek gods are complete shmucks to wizards.

>>50984612
That's a really broad claim. Hindu is the most bananas one, true; but still, what mythologies do you refer to?

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>>50980809
>>50978745
and /tg/ still falls for it

>>50978715

You sort of raise an interesting point about Hercules: if we can play the retarded offspring of a hobbit and an orc, why can't we play a demigod? I don't think demigods are even common in D&D.

>>50984664
In case of Greek heroes, Hercules included, thier demi-god status was little more than their "I'm special" card. Essentially, just an excuse to have a PC class

>>50984634
Greek, Norse, Babylonian, Slavic. What particular divine power can't powerful caster emulate here? Zeus literally throws enchanted magic weapons as lighting bolts forged by cyclops.

The problem is not fighters, the problem is wizards. Even if a fighter is Hercules a high level DnD wizard can do more things than Zeus or Odin could in the myths.

Now why nobody seems to want to address the fact that DnD has become a bloated high fantasy mess is another matter entirely. Its gone far, far beyond the 'power level' of most of the fantasy and legends that inspired it.

>>50984612
>>50984634
I'll point out that "casters", as we think of them in DnD, don't tend to really exist in historical literature. The only guys with legends of people running around throwing around fireballs were legends of ninja.

>>50982214
>Lancelot killing a dragon with a branch
Now that's just crossing the stories, he killed a (fully armed and armored) knight with a branch and he killed a dragon, but I don't think he didn't kill a dragon with a branch. He used his sword properly.

>>50984634
My bad, I wanted to write 'surpass' not 'compare with'.

>>50979270
>whoa man that is some obscure shit. you must have read like 30 books
I've read over 34, but I've never read that one.

>>50984736
Clerics do, as basically every cleric spell is stolen from biblical miracles and such

>>50984832
Fox's Cunning ain't in the Bible, mang.

>>50978715
So why don't you stop playing RPGs? Surely that solves the problem with every autist reviving this idiotic debate.

It's like blacks and slavery - you just gotta keep bringing it up don't you?

>>50978715
Short answer: because wizards would still be stronger.

All of the legendary martials from myths were either half gods or had spectacular magic weapons doing most of the work for them. In DnD, half god isn't something you can start as except in really high power settings, and the strongest magic weapons in DnD don't even hold a candle to the ones in myths. Excalibur's scabbard made its wearer literally invincible in combat, for example. Meanwhile, DnD wizards can outperform gods just by their natural progression, and are way the hell stronger than any actual mythical wizards.

>>50978715
It works like that in the good versions of D&D.
Too bad not many of you play those.

>>50984946
>So why don't you stop playing RPGs?
Memery aside, this is more of a "have you tried not playing D&D" thing. Off the top of my head I can think of a good number of games where there's not a caster/martial dichotomy.

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>>50978715
Literally what you're asking for is giving only the Martial Characters Mythic Ranks, as far as Pathfinder goes

That MAY work, maybe there's still a good chance >>50984951 is right here.

>Play Anima
>Problem solved

Was it that hard, anon?

>>50985421
Well, it does require playing a shitty system.

Then again, so does almost every edition of D&D.

>>50978715
No, it wouldn't solve anything. People would just complain about their fighter not being able to cross dimensions by flexing hard enough. You can see this happen in systems where casters and martials are more or less even in combat, such as D&D 5e.

>>50985543
You don't see that in systems where Fighters and Wizards have similar out-of-combat capability, like 4E, where most non-combat stuff is in skills or rituals (Wizards still have a bit of an upper hand but not much)

>>50985497

At first is a pain in the ass, but once you get used it works pretty well though it's perfect. And the three main powers are sort of well balanced even in higher levels, which is nice.

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>>50978715
Honestly I could really go for something like that:

Like a Warrior that has the ability to do shit like strike the ground to emanate a 160 ft long cone of Earthquake in front of him. Can be done multiple times a round as a Full-Attack against the ground. Pointing out some reminders for the hitpoints of 5ft worth of stone to see how far you burrow a hole through the ground. The Reflex DCs are determined by your Attack Bonus used to strike the ground, generally somewhere at in the low 30's end game, which is about normal followed up by 3 more saves at 5 less like full attack.
Could be a reasonable ability option at 15th or 16th level, which sounds reasonable if you tack it to a resource, given that Wizards would still just innately have more utility, there's no way around that.

Sticking to just a normal point pool of KILLFUCKSOULSHITTER points like we already have Panache or Grit is just unimaginative

His resource is Burn, a la the Pathfinder Kineticist, where you start piling up Non-lethal damage that can't be healed from the sheer strain of these acts.
It's basically like a shitty mix of blood magic and DnD 3.5 Psi points, effectively taking the worst points of both, but I like the flavor of it.

Abilities like the Grendel's ability to make checks to dismember grappled targets, and then being considered proficient with severed limbs and treating them as anything up to a +3 Anarchic Flail, scaled to your level.

End game abilities would be shit like immunity to death effects if your burn doesn't exceed your hit points, instead taking the partial effect of the spell, a sizable amount of burn and being considered dying but staggered instead of unconscious for a few rounds.

Imagine getting your fucking head cut off by a Vorpal blade and that only making you even angrier.

>>50985421
What if I don't like programmable calculators?

>>50981637
Because that's a 9th lvl wizard spell

>>50982078
You mean fighters really get nothing, no cleave so heavy it can split hills, no unstoppable charge? No brief immortality from being stabbed a hundred times? Just "I hit it with my sword"?

>>50985840
>Just "I hit it with my sword"?

They have to spend a very limited resource just to be good at that.

>>50978715
Unironically? Casters are fun and interesting and I want them to be good. Rogues get honourable mention status.

Fighters are boring shitballs and should be hireling NPCs.

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>>50982214
Here's the expanded one.

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>>50982078
Give the non-casters the option to become Mythic adventurers.

paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mythicAdventures/mythicHeroes.html

Gestalt the Base Mythic Abilities table onto extant tables, with the non-martials gaining a Mythic Tier at 2nd level and every other level thereafter. For example, the Fighter ends up looking like pic.

Because in the early days of D&D TSR was constantly receiving letters about how bullshit it is that even if a magic-user only had his fastest spells prepared that day, any semi-optimized fighter could easily tank the lightning bolt before making sure the caster never casts another spell ever again.

Seriously, go look at old dragon mags if you want examples.

Back then taking any damage interrupted a cast, and while casting you had to stand in place the whole round, so no AC adjustment from dexterity or movement based magic, and no running and casting.

Are there any DnD-likes other than Dungeon Crawl Classics that encourage fighters to be the "Do Awesome Shit" class? I think the key is that they all need something like Mighty Deeds of Arms.

Just use fucking Tome of Battle

>>50986642
Or better yet play something other than 3.x D&D.

>>50978826
Gilgamesh was 2/3 god.

Try to figure that one out.

>>50978859
Demons and angels are on a whole different lower powerscale than being the SON OF THE HEAD GOD OF A FUCKING PANTHEON.

>>50979014
But he needs _something_ to keep up. And that's experience. A high-level fighter is (should be) a veteran who's seen it all, and sees attacks coming before their foe knows they're attacking. If targeted by any kind of attack - spell, melee, arrow, etc. - they can sacrifice their next turn to take action just before the effect happens. Limited per-encounter resource: being able to still take their next turn, also usable for taking several pre-emptive actions per turn. Secondary reserve as per-day actions, to allow tough encounters to drain the character.

So a high-level fighter is a methodical killing machine who will murder you before your blow can land. Or perhaps they simply step away from your clumsy attack and kill one of your minions. Or bullrush the healer out of the fireball just before it goes off. Or...

High-level fighter is in control; they don't just stand there like an idiot taking a beating or rely on their reflexes, they fight with their brains (barbarians fight with their hearts), and this the easiest way of simulating the character knowing in advance what their foes will do.

>>50981333
Rasputin got stomped by those noblemen

>>50981637
Because wizards aren't priests, so they don't get that stand

>>50979014
>But, there's nothing wrong with wanting a class that keeps pace with super-powered people just by relying on the limits of human physique combined with wit, skill, technique, and a measure of luck.

There is EVERYTHING wrong with that fucking retarded shite.

If you want warriors to just be regular people, wizards should just be casting magic that is just unusual normal stuff. Oh, you throw a fireball! Your opponent feels like someone threw a torch at them. Oh, you cast magic missile! Your opponent feels the thud of an actual arrow plinking on their armour. Oh, you muster all your power into a great spell of arcane force? It feels like being run over by a stampeding boar.

If wizards do absurd shit, warriors should be doing absurd shit too.

Like fucking warpspasming the fuck out like some Celtic Arnold Schwarzenegger action hero stuck in a David Cronenberg bodyhorror film.

>>50980809
>Merlin
>Ur-wizard
>Literally the son of the devil given powers by God
>Primarily a diviner
>His most important accomplishments were all prophesies and council
Yeah, how about you talk about a magician that wasn't a demigod?
This is such a stupid-ass argument and I'm getting really tired of people bringing up shit that never happened to 'prove' mortal magicians were some sort of reality-crushing supergeniuses in anything other than modern fantasy.

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>>50986840
Gilgamesh's parents were Lugalbanda (or Banda; a half-god son of Utu, the sun god) and Ninsumun (a goddess, the daughter of Anu and Uras).

So since his parents were one-half god and full god, Gilgamesh is himself 2/3rds god.

>>50986881
Also: high-level fighters could pre-empt any action, not just those aimed at them, due to their superior awareness of the battlefield. Also, feats to make certain actions (like switch to a missile weapon and shoot someone or even attack someone) into free actions, some perhaps with per-encounter pools and per-turn limits.

Think Darth Maul vs. Qui-Gon Jin.

>>50979579
>90s Russia
>Animal farm is a part of recommended literature list

I dunno where are you from but I'm sure as hell you're fucking old.

>>50986125
>Orpheus
I agree with all that other stuff but Orpheus had Bard levels, not Fighter.

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>>50987207
Yikes, Enki's relationship with Ninhursag, Ninsar, and Ninkurra looks...disturbingly familiar.

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>>50987243
You forgot a tier

>>50987258
I think what bothers me most is that time travel ISN'T involved.

>>50987243
>>50987258
Imagine the weapon-grade inbredness you could harness from those genetics.

>>50981557
Frig off Randy.

>>50984664
On a technical level you can play anything as long as your DM agrees with it. The 5E books mention that a Greek pantheon is allowed so I think it's very possible.

>>50987207
Please learn basic math

>>50987304
>imagine
You can see it in their faces

>>50981591
>. A high level fighter should be an epic hero who can split a boulder in half with a single stroke, who can deflect a lightning strike with his shield, who can pin a moonbeam to a butterfly's wing with an arrow from one hundred paces.
Not to be that guy but that's how it is in 5e

>>50987524
So if the problem has been fixed why do we still have these threads?

>>50986874
No, they aren't

>>50987553
Because most of these threads are bait.

>>50987524
No it's not. What made you think that it is?

>>50987524
>
Oh boy, 3 rerolls on saves a day. Not even advantage, just rerolls. Sure feels great to be a POWERFUL HERO who can perform AMAZING FEATS.

Or I could use those skills that only 2 classes can use to any efficacy. Really fantastic stuff.

>>50987558
Yes they are.

The retarded shite in jewish, christian and muslim mythology might have clouded the concept of pantheons in Western civilization, but angels and demons are FUCKING DOGSHITE compared to real gods.

>>50987656
Gods in other mythologies are weaker and closer to the power of spirits and daemons

>>50987618
>more feats/stat increase than anyone
>can either be a close combat toolbox or an absurd damage dealer
Remember than a lvl5 fighter can already negate dragon breath in 5e

>>50987698
>negate dragon breath
How? I have the PHB open to the section to the Fighter's abilities, and I'm seeing no way for them to do that.

>>50978715
>why don't they
They who?

>>50987414
this. this is a nerd hobby, we have standards.

>>50987698
>Shield Master
Dex saves only. It's good. but it's not Forcecage and Faithful Hound good.

>>50987760
Level 4 actually, with shield master;

>>50987414
To be fair, he is in fact described in the Epic as being 2/3rds god. It's not that anon is bad at fractions, it's that the SUMERIANS were bad at fractions.

Story Time!
The Sumerians were in fact SO BAD at fractions that they went out of their way to make sure they didn't have to use them ever. They used batches of 12 for lots and lots of things, which has had long-lasting repercussions for Western civilization. They also created our system of measuring time. By having 60 minutes, 60 seconds, and 24 hours in a day, the need to do any actual fraction work was minimized because those fuckers are divisible by EVERYTHING. (The actual time increments were devised later by the Greeks, but the denominations carried over.)

>>50987688
>Gods in other mythologies are weaker and closer to the power of spirits and daemons
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. No.

Go back to school kiddo. Goddamn Hindu mythology is so insane, they make YHWH look like a fucking kid playing with matches.

>>50988119
Hindu myths read like a battle shounen's final arc stretched out over 30 volumes.

>>50988119
We were talking about Zeus, and another anon specifically said "Western mythology"

Go sit in the corner until you're done being an illiterate retard.

>>50988156
He said real gods not western ones. Read the text you faggot

>>50988156
So?

Even Zeus does shit that makes YHWH look like a fucking hack.

YHWH can't transform into golden rain, or a bull, or a geese.

All YHWH does is kill his own people, then kill his own son who is also himself. He's a schizophrenic egoist with paranoid delusions (YOU JEWS ARE PLOTTING AGAINST ME, BUT JUST WAIT, I WILL HAVE THE BABYLONIANS DESTROY YOU HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA).

He's what happens when you let Samuel the "permanently banned from the game store" Joker fanboy come up with a Chaotic Evil God.

>>50988187
Then why was he talking about Hercules' bloodline being more powerful than Merlin's?

>>50979038
Depends on the stick. Depends on the fireball. Would you rather I threw a firecracker at you or hit you in the face with a baseball bat?

>>50988187
Different guy maybe, looks like a 6 way conversation

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>>50988202
ebin.

>>50988202
>All YHWH does is kill his own people,
And also playing with Leviathan:

>For his first three hours [a day], G-d studies Torah. Humans study Torah in pairs, but G-d does it alone (who could actually function as G-d’s study buddy?). Then He judges the world. The Talmud tells us that He actually has to take a moment to decide to be merciful, because if He were not, He would destroy all of existence. The third quarter of the day is feeding time for the animals. It is a social activity to feed animals, but if you are trying to feed every animal in the world in only three hours, I doubt you get past saying hi. Only the final three hours contain dedicated one-on-one time. G-d spends three hours playing with the Leviathan, a mythical sea monster.
>The Talmud closes out the conversation by asking how G-d spends His nights. We are told He sits and listens to the song of his animals.

>>50988216
>Then why was he talking about Hercules' bloodline being more powerful than Merlin's?
I wasn't. I just said that you can't fucking compare Merlin to Hercules, because Hercules has a divine father, and Merlin just has some random demon as a father.

>>50988341
The more I read Jewish mythology, the more God ends up looking like an autistic 4 year old.

>>50988366
Or some sort of antisocial being at any rate, like the crazy bitter cat lady. Loving animals is codeword for hating people.

>>50988311
Is the picture on the laptop a picture of Noah? The guy who does pretty good deep design reviews on videogames?

>>50988311
>goosebumps
truly a gentleman of refined tastes

>>50984700
This guy is 100% right. If you portray magic as literal rule breaking capable of anything without any rules of its own of course it's broken.

It never hurt anybody who shouldn't be hurt to write magic rules not allowing bullshit. But nowadays magic is just about wank of casting a spell allowing you to see into future onto yourself, casting spell allowing you to cast your most powerful world shaking spells immediately , summoning several dicksucium dragons that can't be harmed by anything and also suck your dick really good, then jumping into your own personal dimension where nobody can hurt you.

Making magic more reasonable and limited improves everything from internal consistency of not having to deal with the implications of your average adventurer's power to suspension of disbelief, and you don't need to make martials even stronger and completely negate the ordinary guy swinging a sword theme.

>>50986920
Rasputin must've multiclassed to monk with those fortitude saves.

Now you're imagining Kung Fu Rasputin

>>50988688
Magic should in my opinion just be some kind of physical activity at a distance.

I'd love to see a system where the primary magical attacks of a wizard are projections of their weapon.

A wizard with a spear can stab anyone in eye sight. A wizard with a greatsword can chop anyone in eye sight. You get the idea.

Downside is that the force of the attack diminishes with distance, so if you just start stabbing the air because you see an orc walking just over the horizon, that orc might just feel like some coarse sand is blowing his way.

>>50979250
Well, with the right feats and traits, you CAN make Captain America.

>>50978715
This: >>50978745
The problem is the approach to martials. When a level 1 wizard can cast a spell that's better than a 20th level monk's class feature, the reply is "it's magic!". When a fighter in the "Book of Weeaboo Fitan Magic" teleports behind his enemy and cuts him to a thousand pieces while muttering 'nothin personell... kid' under his breath, it's "unrealistic". Because a non-magical human can't possibly act that fast.

A 20th level fighter or barbarian should be Hercules or Gilgamesh. You know, Hercules? The guy who took over carrying the fucking heavens themselves so Atlas could have a five minute break?

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>>50986510
>we have ubercasters now because TSR was flooded by mongs who never took the time to layer defensive buffs
>or practice good battlefield control
>or just cast fucking charm if nothing else
>never once considering their role as part of a team
>never relying on their teammates to cover for them while they crank out advantage after advantage
>not understanding the sadistic joy of mercilessly suffocating entire rooms under layers and layers of pressure like so many pillows
>all while the DM slowly pulls his hair out
>no, all they want is to cast fireball and move on to the next room like gerbils on a wheel

This isn't just what's wrong with D&D, it's what's wrong with the whole damn world.

>>50988919
but what's unrealistic for a wizard to have?

>>50989222
Sex

>>50989222
Nothing. Because magic handwaves all rules of logic, yet somehow the martials that are expected by the RAW to compete one equal footing with the casters are expected to conform to the basic laws of physics. In a balanced system a level 20 fighter should be able to jump so good it's indistinguishable from flight.

>>50978715
To be fair, I don't know if having the classes be "equal" in power is necessarily needed: playing different classes should be an exercise in creative play, both on the part of the player and the DM.

If some player is a rogue with the ability to disarm traps, a DM should put traps in the campaign somewhere and the player is responsible for searching for traps. A wizard should use his spells, but a DM should think ahead and occasionally reward a wizard for preparing and using a divination spell over a fireball or something similar. A fighter should have opportunities to do more than just hit things--DMs should have encounters where bull-rushing, tripping, disarming and using other techniques are just as viable as doing damage. Better still, give a fighter an interesting character encounter--a rival or foil that might be a match for the fighter physically, but challenges the player character-wise.

Just as energy resistance or critical hit-negative creatures can stymie a wizard or rogue and force them to rethink their tactics, so too should the DM create encounters to challenge a player's command of his character class. Players, meanwhile, should be look for ways to expand upon what they bring to the table mechanically--the most fun I've every had at a gaming table is when the group and the DM go completely off-script and just start improvising and thinking outside the box.

Still, martials can be incredibly badass in their own right, and history proves this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benkei

>>50989414
>To be fair, I don't know if having the classes be "equal" in power is necessarily needed
Most of us aren't upset about that. Most of us are upset about casters making martials redundant. With a certain domain or a certain spell (preferably on a wand) or a certain alternate class feature, a wizard or cleric can make for example make the rogue entirely redundant. And I don't mean that the cleric dedicates all of his resources to becoming a marginally better rogue, I mean the cleric puts a minor investment into utterly outshining the rogue and can at the same time still outfight the fighter and patch up the entire party after combat, making the fighter and rogue dead weight.

There's nothing wrong with multiple classes fulfilling the same role (hell, the bard steps on the rogue's toes all the time), there's a lot wrong with one class making another dedicated class entirely pointless though.

>>50989222
When you think about it, the ability to cast spells is based on the character's human attributes, just like a fighter's ability to wield their weapon is based on their own attributes. Magic should be equally limited, on the grounds that it's not the magic casting itself, but the mortal, fleshy wizard casting the magic. It's like saying a sword can swing itself and therefor can do things a fighter wielding the sword couldn't do.

The problem is that very few games ever bother to define what magic can or can't do, or what a wizard can or can't do with magic, and so people end up using wizards because they don't have the limitations other classes are stuck with. It doesn't take effort to play a wizard, it just takes spell slots.

>>50989366
>a level 20 fighter should be able to jump so good it's indistinguishable from flight
Like the Hulk? I'd rather it be the other way around, though. Like, a wizard is someone who studied a particular discipline (say, evocation) to learn how to shape force and do stuff with it, similar to how a fighter is someone who studied fighting styles to use a sword. Not as in a whole bunch of spells with the evocation tag, only the one evocation discipline and a bunch of different ways to apply it. A common hedge wizard might be kinda good at one discipline, the cream of the wizard crop is master of two disciplines, and the legendary archwizard who founded the school uses three disciplines with really good synergy and has been alive for hundreds of years.

>>50989486
That's kinda what I'm talking about though, there's a lot of talk about what the PLAYER does to make things unbalanced, but there's very little talk about how the DM is also a part of the process, and has the ability to make things interesting for all classes, no matter what the players are capable of.

Don't forget that spells have somatic/material/verbal components. Imagine a scenario where there's a permanent zone of silence over an area... or maybe the players enter a dead magic zone...or perhaps an ethereal flitcher steals the wizard's spell component pouches... or maybe a fight on an unstable platform, where concentration checks are required every round... or a fight in a deafening gale storm, where verbal components are difficult... essentially, it's also on the DM to make things interesting for everyone, beyond just the "I roll this many dice to do damage" part of the game.

>>50989600
Except all of those examples are specifically for dicking over casters, and casters are the only classes you have to arbitrarily restrict like that. You don't need to dick the rogue, and you don't need to dick the fighter. Hell, you don't need to dick the bard, paladin, or ranger either, it's just the wizard for raw power and the cleric for making multiple other characters redundant.

>>50979221
I understood the spoilered text to be a sarcastic reference to how commonplace the allusion was, such that it was worth no more than an imaginary cookie. Is it not? The other anons make me doubt myself.

>>50989600
I agree that there's a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the DM, but it is not his job to fix a broken system. And even if some brilliant, autismal super-DM manages to do just that, it only reveals that the DM is fucking brilliant. It does not detract from the system being utterly broken, to the point where only a superhuman DM can run it as intended.

A good system remains relatively balanced even in a dungeoncrawl that was only prepared 15 minutes in advance.

>>50981333
Jesus and his special snowflake backstory weren't shit when he faced the god slaying might of a handful of Romans.

>>50987553
Because it isn't. You can only do most of that stuff in 5e with heavy amounts of DM May I.

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>>50989733
I really shouldn't be laughing...

>>50989661
It's not about "dicking" someone over... rather, it's about giving them a memorable experience that forces them to make changes to their tactics, and makes them think about more than just the mechanics of their class: the windstorm and platform examples I gave also affect rogues and fighters: the windstorm would make ranged combat less of an option, while balance checks would still be required of the martials to stand up and attack; and the anti-magic field could still upset those martials with magic equipment. Essentially, the point is to give them something to triumph over, feel proud of succeeding in... and the more unusual or unique the encounter, the more likely it is that everyone at the table will be talking about it for weeks to come.
>>50989686
I don't think it's up to the DM to "fix" something broken, if it is, indeed, broken. It's like any other game, from basketball to Street Fighter: you're given a set of rules to play within, you may not always like the rules, but making an awesome play within the bounds of those rules is fun for all involved.

>>50988202
>YHWH can't transform into golden rain, or a bull, or a geese.

Your right, I guess YHWH just has to settle for creating the earth, the universe, and literally everything in it, and being literally omnipotent.

>>50986920
They were low level, but he was killed by environment damage

>>50989822
Creating shit isn't really that special seeing how up in Northern Europe they believed the universe was basically the rotten carcass of some primeval giant.

>>50990052
Bruh, I know you're mad because your mother forced you to go to church as a kid but don't start this shit. Try to look at this from an outside perspective and see how silly you are.

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>>50979221
Keebler shill confirmed. Those fucking knife eared cookie-makers are ruining this board!

>>50978715
>You'll never cast Fist

>>50984951
And, at least in the version of the stories I read, Morgan la Fey replaced Excalibur's scabbard with a fake and gave the real one to one of her cum pumps or something. Also Arthur wrestled a giant to the ground and killed it with a mundane knife, no magic weapons involved.

>>50990490
A high enough level fighter can take a giant anyways, so that's not really a good example.

>>50981533
>After that it was back to Dostoyevsky.
That's some pretty good teenage angst reading, to be fair. Crime and Punishment should be forced on all moody anti-authority dipshits with spiky hair and delusions of badassery.

But my god, I would hate to write a paper about that shit, even now...

>>50990600
I was responding to the claim that mythological warriors were only good because of magic weapons, and provided two counter examples within the myth they used to support their claim. And even a 20th level fighter would struggle to pin a giant to the ground for long enough to kill it with a mundane knife if the fighter didn't have any magic items or spells supporting him.

Unless the fighter min/maxed his feat selection for exactly that task of course. Anything is possible in 3.PF, no matter how retarded.

>>50988202
I don't think that the issue is whether he's... "capable" of turning into an animal... I think the issue is a lack of motive to change into a fucking animal.

>>50990112
>butthurt christcuck detected

>>50987414
Well, in the chart he posted, it looks like Banda was descended from Utu and Utu alone, so maybe Banda was 1/3 god somehow.

>>50988738
>The mad monk

>>50978715
They do tho.

>>50986642
"I hit it with my sword moar fancier."

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>>50978715
In some games they do.
The problem is you don't always play a game at max level, and wizardfags don't want to have limitations besides "Antimagic Field" and "out of spell slots", so even low-level casters get to shoot fireballs as easily as a fighter shoots arrows.
Casters should be slower.

>>50989733
to be fait, he told the poeple who wanted to save him to fuck off, including his own father

>>50979221
Poor guy, I can tell he left the thread out of sheer embarrassment and regret.

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>>50987370
language, dude.

this is a worksafe board.

>>50989819
>It's not about "dicking" someone over... rather, it's about giving them a memorable experience that forces them to make changes to their tactics
But your examples were specifically about scenarios designed around denying wizards their abilities for the sake of giving other players a chance to shine.
Do you really not see how anons call that dicking players over and the fact that it's necessary to disable a player for the sake of balance is a symptom of a broken system?

You're not fixing the problem, you're pretending it doesn't exist by giving the unbalanced abilities a "time out" and calling it good.

>>50995052
This. Spotlighting is definitely a thing in games, but you do that by tailoring to one character's specific skills *without* nerfing someone else.

>>50995052
Just an example. I used critical hit-negative enemies as a example to counter rogues in my earlier example. The game has aspects built into it to make things interesting for players (again, anti-magic fields exist for a reason). It's not like these obstacles will come up every encounter, and giving players a run for their money every so often keeps them on their toes.

I don't penalize my players for choosing a character class by negating their class abilities: rather, I encourage them to make use of things like their environment and thinking laterally.

If you think I'm being punishing, you're welcome to that opinion. Every so often, my players surprise me by doing something completely unexpected and fun when confronted with something unexpected--and in doing so, they make the game fun for me too.

>>50978946
"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates

Even the Greek philosophers knew to train both your mind and body. Fucking pasty-ass nerds thinking that being smart and being tough are mutually exclusive.

>>50995306
Greeks couldn't turn people inside out with their minds though.

>>50978715
Attempts to homebrew a D&D martial class equivalent to full casters have had varying success, but it generally involves taking high-level spells effects and calling them mundane instead of magical. They have massive resistances or immunities, huge modifiers to anything they do, abilities to alter reality.

But really, the problem is that casters can do everything, not that martials can't do anything.

>>50981333
Conan the destroyer

>>50988311
>bread in collar
wat

>>50981333
Counterpoint: Name one instance in real life where a high level mage defeated a powerful warrior.

>>50997518
or if they could they never made very good use of it

>>50978715
i have one rule change and strict enforcement of casting rules that i use as my guidelines in D&D 3.5
pure spell casters have no attack bonus. this moves them away from being able to contribute as more than a distraction when their spells run out. it does not leave them defenseless, but it reduces what they can do in attacks.
this fixes 90% of problems in my games. it also helps your party focus on supporting each other and acting tactically. you group your enemies up for the caster to fuck better than otherwise.
my casters think it helps draw the focus to the other players at the same time.

>>50978715
They do if you play pretty much anything but D&Dfinder

>>50979181

The problem is that his damage (and status effect) has to be single target to stay somewhat "realistic". So if you want to have super based martials and "mundane" ones in a single game, the mundane one becomes overpowered single target.

He always finds the belly of the dragon to stab, he always pins the arrow in the giants eye, etc etc. He becomes a single target murdering machine.

Or you can give him narrative control, allow him to just make shit up about the environment which he "skilfully" uses to accomplish non directly offensive effects (mobility, battlefield control and visibility) others produce with their superpowers.

>>50997799
Various KKK raids lead by Grand Wizard.

>>50979579
I read it in high school.

>>50986920
great, now I've got Ra Ra Rasputin stuck in my head again

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>>50986920
>Rasputin is dead

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>>50986920
That's not what really happened

>>50986563
Adventurer Conqueror King System has pretty strong Fighters, due to a combination of good base stats, really potent Name Level benefits, and probably the best implementation of the Cleave concept of any D&D derivative

also worth taking a look at The Nightmares Underneath's version of the Fighter, which gets some really strong stuff, like for example they deal damage even if they miss an attack, when they do hit they instead deal damage twice, among other things

>>50989600
one should never have balance be reliant on DM or Player skills, 99% of all people in the hobby are nowhere near competent enough to be trusted with that

>>50985421
>go to ivy scbool university
>get math PhD
>get spanish literature PhD
>still struggle with anima

I'm playing a warlock (5e) in a low-magic party. There's a devotion paladin all about the smites, and I'm the only one with real spell slots.

Shit I can do includes...

>Intimidate, persuade and deceive
>detect magic at will
>levitate at will
>aoe burst out a mob the pally would spend 4 turns cutting through
>identify, purify food and drink, alarm, etc as rituals.

Now the way this is set up it's not too bad. But this (highly unoptimised) tome pact build can trivialise magical traps, darkness, pit traps, most standard locked doors and hunger.

Classes like rangers and rogues are built around fieldcraft and utility, and my 'party face' warlock can casually do their jobs without sacrificing any combat potential.

>>50986874
The frame of reference is different: angels and Demons by definition serve or oppose the Godhead, the Unmoved Mover. No pagan god regardless of pantheon can compete.
St. Michael would absolutelly OWN Zeus.

>>51003039
Actually, scrap that. Jeliyel the Seraph of duality would own Zeus. Most Thrones probably also could.

>>51001343

>Gets a math PhD
>Can't use Excel and/or a calculator
>Gets a spanish literature PhD
>Why.jpg

Not the anon you were answering to but you people act like it's the most complex system ever made. Rolemaster was way harder.

>>51001343
>Playing 3.PF for like 7 years
>Invited to Anima
>Struggle with it like for a month
>No problem since then
If you have problems with Anima there can only be two reasons:
1. You have been in the hobby for like 1 or maybe 2 years at best and mostly playing freeform or rule light as fuck systems
or
2. You're mentally handicapped

Truth be told that my grandmother is Spaniard and I know some Spanish, but the math behind it isn't hard if you have a basic knowledge of highschool maths

>>51001343
>>51003246

I barely got a highschool diplma because I couldn't pass math for shit, yet I've been DMing anima for years. It's fucking easy.

>>51003246
Truth be told Anima's translation is fucking awful.

>>50987207
But that ould make him 3/4s god, not 2/3s

>>50987688
What am I, a small creature measuring seven spans of my own hand? I am enclosed in a potlike universe composed of material nature, the total material energy, false ego, ether, air, water and earth. And what is Your glory? Unlimited universes pass through the pores of Your body just as particles of dust pass through the openings of a screened window (Bhagavata Purana 10.14.11)

>>50988044
Actually Gilgamesh is 2/3s god because IIRC the sumerians believed all humans were divine (they were made from mud created from the earth with the blood of a god, if I'm not mistaking it for another creation myth)

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This thread is retarded. High level martial characters are already more powerful than Gilgamesh and Hercules.

>>51003950
*partially divine*

>>51001107
But the KKK is full of shitty NE Rangers that never got past 6HD

>>51003983
Unless you go well into Epic Levels, no they aren't mor powerful. Not than Herakles

>>51004065

Easily more powerful than Herakles. Herakles did not even do all that much, by D&D standards. Just killed a bunch of monsters and redirected a river. He'd be about level 10.

>>51004210
Gr8 b8, m8. I rel8, str8 appreci8, and congratul8. I r8 this b8 an 8/8. Plz no h8, I'm str8 ir8. Cr8 more, can't w8. We should convers8, I won't ber8, my number is 8888888, ask for N8. No calls l8 or out of st8. If on a d8, ask K8 to loc8. Even with a full pl8, I always have time to communic8 so don't hesit8.

>>51003983
Depends on the system, and in 3.PF, no they aren't. I'm still waiting on crossing 14 km in one leap like Hercules did, or lifting the celestial vault, etc.

>>51004210
Herakles was able to hold the firmament together and then make pillars to hold it up

>>51004329
Also he's supposed to be physically stronger than the actual olympic gods

>>50981333
If you mean in mythology...
Jason vs. Medea
A mob of peasants vs. Merlin
And Sigurd vs. Fafnir (Fafnir was essentially a magical shapeshifter, after all)

Those are just off the top of my head.

>>50981333
Neither opposite, but know the former exist but the later don't, I'm going to give the martials the benefit of the doubt.

>>50981333
If defeating a powerful witch counts:
Salem Trials and 2016 presidentals.

>>51003960

>le anime face
>Not understanding that levels mostly measure the power from characters of the same class and not from whole different classes that may scale completelly different
>Not understandin consistency of the game with the lore of the setting
>Not understanding what balance means in a ttrpg
>Not understanding that this is not a fucking video game

Sometimes I wonder why we let people from /v/ leave their shithole. And I say this as someone who despises 3.5D&D.

>>51004580
>2016 presidentals
that swamp drained yet?

>>50978777
You were REALLY desperate to post that, weren't you?

>>51004654
>Not understanding that levels mostly measure the power from characters of the same class and not from whole different classes that may scale completely different
But it takes the same amount of effort for a wizard to go up 1 level and a barbarian to go up 1 level.
>Not understanding consistency of the game with the lore of the setting
D&D isn't a setting. Consistency is created by the writers. If you want to talk about the various settings IN D&D, each of them has no consistency whatsoever from one edition to the next, so you can fuck about as much as you want.
>Not understanding what balance means in a ttrpg
Neither do you, apparently.

>>51004802
>But it takes the same amount of effort for a wizard to go up 1 level and a barbarian to go up 1 level.
So? They are classes that have completely different roles and, most important, that scale different so a 1 level in a lvl 17 wiz and in a level 17 barb doesn't mean the same. The oposite is true if you take a level 1 barb and a level 1 wizard and that's not bad, they fill different niches.
>D&D isn't a setting. Consistency is created by the writers. If you want to talk about the various settings IN D&D, each of them has no consistency whatsoever from one edition to the next, so you can fuck about as much as you want.
Obviously I meat the settings that use the D&D as a system and their consistency. The point is that in most settings magic plays a VERY relevant role in the world both in the form of artifacts and powerful magical individuals that use it, thus you can't simply water down the pc mages to the fighter standar if you want to be consisten with the setting.
>Neither do you, apparently.
Then go ahead and tell me how perfect balance is achieved, anon.

>>51005151
why you must troll like this anon? what do you hope to achive? you will nust bring people that actually believe this and think there are like minded individuals in here.

It is not fair to have to players spend the same amount of time playing a game that shares the same amount of goodies between them be vastly diferent ib power. The only you will gain from that is having one player feel usless and frustrated and another one feel more powerful without that much of an effort put into it.

>>51003983
>>51004210
I know this is bait (I've seen this other times), but I'll go in a rant
>>Some monsters
>Nemean Lion
Divine being, born of a nymph and a gigante
Cousin to the gods thenselves. Big enough that one of his claws was made into a sword
His skin was "invencible" and his claws could cut anything. He could shrung off being hit by Herakles's club (who was te poster boy for super strength, but we wil get there in no time)
It could shapeshift, talk, and had humanlike inteligence
>Learnean Hydra
A giant multi-headed sake. Another divine being, the Lion's brother. Cutting a head would make others grow on it's place. It' blood could kill any mortal, and was so painful that the immortals would wish to die instead (it was responsible to the dead of Chiron, who was kin to the gods of Olympus). One of it's heads was a full-out deity, and couldn't be slain by a weapon forged by mortal hands (Herakles uses a sword handed to him by Hermes, but we will et there later)
>Ceryneian Hind
A nymph blesses by Artemis. She was faster than any arrow or the very the wind. The gods thenselves couldn't catch her. She could run for an entire year without tiring. Anyone who dared hurt the Hind would face Artemis wrath
>Erymanthian Boar
Giant semi-divine boar. Could create earthquakes while stompimg. Destroyed farms and stuff
>Stymphalian Birds
Giant metal birds sacred to the god of war. Feathers were sharper than swords
>Cretan Bull
Divine bull of Poseidon. Could flatten walls, palaces and houses
>Geryon
Semi-divine giant with multiple arms and heads
>Orthus
Brother of Cerberus. A giant two headed wolf
>Antaeus
Giant son of Gaia, kin to the gods of Olympus. Could draw strength from his mother, and couldn't be slain while touching the ground
>Ladon
Another divine being, kin to the Lion, the Hydra, Orthus and Cerberus. A hundred headed dragon. Guarded the golden apples, could scare away even lesser deities and titans
>Cerberus
Divine three headed dog. Guarded the Underworld

(1/7)

>>51005265
I'll take the bait and answer, because why not
>It is not fair to have to players spend the same amount of time playing a game that shares the same amount of goodies between them be vastly diferent ib power. The only you will gain from that is having one player feel usless and frustrated and another one feel more powerful without that much of an effort put into it.

Mages don't catch up to fighters until mid levels and don't shit on them untillhigh levels, yet I don't see anyone complaining that fighters can kill low level mages with just staring at them. Having classes with different functions and that scalle different it's not a bad an unbalanced thing (and no, a high level mage can't do anything a whole party can).

Do you want a system/setting where fighters can do as much as mages or more in combat termns? You have them. As some anon up there said go and play Anima (or even other D&D settings where magic is not so fucking powerful for the average Joe, like Midnight).

>Tfw the true cancer of 3.xD&D was the druid

>>51005572
Let's see the labours thenselves (keep in mind that Herakles didn't accomplish only the labours, but he made a lot of stuff in betweeen), shall we?

>1st labour
Slaying the Lion
Herakles fins the place where the lion lives, he then scouts the region trying to find it's lair. He discovers that the Lion's cave has two entries. He collapses on with a blow of his club (could your 10th level fighter do that?) and enter thru the other. He finds the lion, shapeshifted into a woman. He percieves it's a bait and the lion takes on it's true form an attacks. They fight, herakles can't hurt it so he decides to chock the lion to death(how good is a fighter at wrestling something a few size categories above him? Not very). Makes a sword out of it's claws and uses the sword to skin the lion.

>2nd labour
Slaying the Hydra
Hermes gives him a magic sword and a hint that one of the Hydra's head was fully divine. Herakles calls his apprentice and gives him a torch to burn the Hydra's stumps. Cuts the Hydra's mortal heads without getting hit by it's blood. Fights and then kills the last head. The body is still alive so he puts a small mountain over it (He's good with swords)

(2/7)

>>51005585
>3rd labour
Capturing the Hind
Talks with a priestness of Artemis to learn about the Hydra (your fighter with cha and int penalities and no social skills is going to have a hard time gathering info. Remember Herakles has both Brains and Brawl into godly levels). He finds the hind, and runs after an entire year (remember also that the Hind was faster than wind or arrows, to keep up with that Herakles had to be of comparable speed). Non stop (your fighter flat out can't do that). When the hind thinks he was left behind, it stops to drink water. Herakles catches up, sneaks on it (how good is your fighter at sneaking?) and makes a precise shot between it's leg articulations, such that no blood is spiled. Artemis shows up very angry, Herakles begs and convinces her to not smite him (again, fighters aren't good at socializing). She agrees on the condition he frees the Hind without harm

>4th labour
Bringing the Boar alive.
Herakles goes after the centaurs to discover where the Boar dwells (social skills really aren't the fighter's forte). The other centaurs get angry and he slays the entire tribe single handed. Chiron, who was kin to the gods, is fatally wounded by one of Herakles arrows and begs the gods to make him mortal out of sheer pain (both feats are archery. But wait, I though your archer was focused on grappling... ?).
Herakles finds the Boar (look the other post to see how strong it was) and wrestles with it. He brings it back alive.

(3/7)

>>51005597
>5th labour
Cleaning the Stables.
Meets with King Augeas (socialize). Re-routs two rivers by hand in a single day (can a fighter do that? kek).

>6th labour
Defeating the Stymphalian Birds.
The Birds lived on a swamp unable to support human weight, and too deep to just go thru.
Herakles uses a magic rattle given to him by Athena to scare them away (but your fighter isn't buddies with the goddess of strategy, is he?)

(4/7)

>>51005610
>7th labour
Bringing the Cretan Bull alive.
(Look the other post to see how strong the Bull was). Herakles goes into Creta, meets with King Minos and they talk with words. Herakles finds the Cretan Bull and wrestle it. He then brough it back to Thebas by ship.

>8th labour
Stealing the Mares of Diomedes
Herakles sneaks into Diomedes home (again, how good is your 10th level fighter at sneaking), takes the mares at the night and flees. Diomedes and his men pursue Herakles, so he flees into a peninsula and cuts it off from the continent with an axe, turning it into an island (your fighter definively can't do that). He then fights and kills Diomedes (Diomedes was a semi-divine giant. Herakles used his axe. So your fighter is amaing in grappling, sword, axe and bows. How many feats do you need to do that?)

(5/7)

>>51005627
>9th labour
Steaing Hypolita's belt.
While traveling to Themiscyra he stops at Lycus, as a gift for the King's hospitality Herakles beats and conquers the rival kingdom of Bebryces.
He goes as himself and convinces Hypolita to give the belt to him. Hera then appears to the other amazons and convinces them to fight Herakles. He kills an entire army of amazons.

>10th labour
Stealing Gerion's cattle.
Trying to find Gerion's land he stops at Troy. He lays siegle, conquers and sacks the city on his lonesome (or with a handful of studends, depending on which version of the legend you follow). All in a few weeks, while all the armies of Greece took 10 years to conquer Troy.
Herakles is trying to find Geryon's land and ends up lost in a desert (he's looking for the sea). He gets angry because of the geat and fires an arrow at the sun. Lo and behold, Helios, the sun god appears holding his arrow (the arrow actually reached the sun!) and praises Herakles for his courage at trying to strike the sun. Helios then gives him a giant flying cup/charriot/boat to take him anywhere he wants to go. He then fights with Orthos and kill it with a blow from his club. He finds Three-Headed Geryon and kill him with arrows.
He takes the cattle, but Hera scares it away. Herakles then spends an entire year tracking it across the globe (can your fighter track very well?).
Hera then turns a river into a sea so Herakles couldn't pass it with the cattle. Herakles answes by layering the river-turned-sea floor with enough rocks to turn it shallow.

(6/7)

>>50978715
The fighter class is supposed to be underwhelming outside of close combat. If you want fighter but with superpowers, choose a different class like paladin, monk, ranger, etc.

This is not an MMORPG where you need every class to be perfectly balanced.

The fighter is basically a guy who is good at fighting. If you want to be something more than "the guy who is good at fighting" then you're supposed to multi class, you know? Like everyone else does.

Its not a very good class by itself but its very strong when combined with other stuff.

Its a mundane class. Its like you're choosing to be a commoner but want to have superpowers so you don't have to feel like you're a commoner.

There is literally nothing wrong with fighters and more I see melee x casters complaining threads, the more I'm sure that the people complaining are retards who never played PNP RPGs and are here for the sole purpose of shitposting.

>>51005649
>11th labour
Stealing a golden apple
Herakles takes a boat through the mediterran and ends at Egypt. There they try to sacrifice him to the gods, he break the chains he as bound and slay everyone he can catch. Steals a boat to continue his travel. There's a landmass on the way, so he strikes the earth with his sword and separates Africa from Europe, creating the Gibraltar Strait (yout level 10 fighter definitively can't do that) so he can continue.
On his way he finds Antaeus (see other post). They fight, Herakles out-wrestles him and crushes him until he dies.
He finds the garden of the Herispedes and there he finds Atlas. He convinces Atlas to steal an apple to him while he holds the sky on Atlas' place (can your fighter hold the sky? Of course not).
Atlas comes back with a few apples, and Herakles tricks him into holding the sky again.

>12th labour
Stealing Cerberus.
He fins Orpheus and learn from him how to enter the Underworld.
There he talks with Hades, his uncle, and askes if he can take Cerberus for a walk.
Hades agrees, as long as Herakles subdues Cerberus with his bare hands and Cerberus isn't harmed.

Keep in mind that all those Labours were just the start of Herakles adventures.
Later on he traveed with the Argonauts, helped the gods kill the gigantes, rescued Prometheus, disguised himself as a woman and lived as a woman for an entire year without anyone noticing, made war with several kingdoms, out-wrestled a god, etc.

(7/7)

>>50978715

Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords effectively fixed fighters forever.

It inspired a whole D&D generation how a high level fighter is supposed to be. Fluffwise and mechanic wise.

>>51003960
This is clearly not the case with the presence of purposefully worse classes such as Warriors and Adepts.

>>51005692
You mean the ones literally designated as NPC classes?

>>51005578
>Mages don't catch up to fighters until mid levels and don't shit on them untillhigh levels
>sleep

>>51005692
You mean the classes that splicitly called as being weaker than player classes?
The cross of martial/caster problem is that the book apresents both options as being equally good. The book flat out lies at your face.

>>51003960
So all magic is supposed to be the equivalent of a strong man with a +1 broom in his hands just to appease the vocal minority that whines that everything isn't equal ?

Not only does it fuck world building massively in so many ways that I can't even fucking express it without going over the cap

It also gives in to low T boys with constant penis envy. Do we really want these people to win?

>>51005757
>So all magic is supposed to be the equivalent of a strong man with a +1 broom in his hands just to appease the vocal minority that whines that everything isn't equal ?

That's one way to do it, but there's also the option of actually giving martials stuff to do other than "I hit it" from level 1 to 20 with the only change being slowly increasing numbers.

Which is, you know, the option that most people actually suggest.

>>51005578
Anon, not only is D&D not a moba as to character growth, but also you must play very shity wizards if you cannot beat a fighter since lvl 1

Not only that, even if that was true to go up a lvl when you are starting is so much faster than to increase a lvl when you are in mid to high level campaigns.

>>50987303

>what brothers me most

>>51004654
So a level 15 fighter and a level 3 wizard should be in the same party because their levels only compare to their own class?

>>51005901
Just because I used the word scale it doesn't have to reference a moba, anon. I'm the one complaining about people using mmrpg video game logic aka "everything must be equal" to balance pnp games

>>51005585
>>51005597
>>51005610
>>51005627
>>51005649
>>51005662
You're forgetting the part where Hercules is a demigod. Give your fighter a huge racial bonus to all stats, rolls, and saves and you would be able to do even more ridiculous shit than that.

>>51006042
>mostly
Don't miss key words, anon

>>51006302
yet you think that character advancement in D&D should use the moba formula and that blatant ivory tower game design is ok.

>>51006344
So 6 and 3

>>51006310
MOST greek heroes were demigods. It was pretty much expected that a hero was a demigod. Even some actual historical figures like Alexander the Great were rumored to have divine heritage.

>>51006310
Achiles is a demigod
Ajax is a demigod
The greek mythology has more demigods you can shake a stick at
None of them is like Herakles
I'm not forgetting anything. The whole point of his (or yours, I'm still talking with the same person?) post is that a level 10 fighter was more powerful than Herakles. If you need to have arbitrary bonuses, then you're wrong.

And, no, he couldn't pull it off with racial bonuses. You'll need atribus well into the 50~60 range (or even over that) to pull some of this stuff off. Not at level 10.
There's hige racial bonus and there's arbitrarily high stats.

You need a high-level Epic Character to pull it off.

>>51006302
Not that Anon, but I think what he meant was that in a Moba, "not everyone is equal at all levels" works because games are relatively quick and there's a strategy in picking someone weak early but strong late so they can scrape by long enough to get that power with the assistance of someone strong early and weaker late. But, Tabletop RPGs are comparatively much much longer, taking weeks, months, or years in a campaign with any real leveling up, and since a party member needs to be useful the whole way through since it goes on far too long for anyone trailing off to be fun, it's far less tolerable for party members to be vastly unbalanced.

>>51006474
Not the same anon.
Of course a lvl 10 fighter is not as strong as Hercules.
I wouldn't even consider him a pure fighter.

Also, Greek mythology is ridiculous. DnD is based on classic sword and sorcery, a lvl 10 fighter would be more comparable to Fafhrd or Conan.

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>>50978715
There's your ultimate fighter bro

>>50978715
Just force casters to specialise if they want access to real power. It'd be more interesting, both from a narrative and gameplay perspective.

>>51006746
That whole discussion started because someone was saying herakles was weaker than a DnD level 10 fighter

>>50978715
In sensible games, they are. Try playing something other than deendee.

>>51005659
problem is even in close combat Fighter is underwhelming, at least in 3.5

>>51006746
>DnD is based on classic sword and sorcery
that comparison completely falls apart when you look at pretty much any class besides Fighter and Thief

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For some reason, martials need to be realistic, while casters have no logical ceiling.

Even Hercules has limits. For martials to reach that level, you would have to go Hulk anger bullshit.

>>51006797
>>51006797
As he pretty much said >>51007069 , those 7 posts were just me going on an autistic rant because someone was wrong on the internet.

>DnD is based on classic sword and sorcery
I'm not a huge Sword'n'Sorcery fan, but I think DnD full casters are well above S'n'S casters.
Also, usualy in S'n'S the casters are ust the villains, right?
The turth is that D&D supports much more than just Sword and Sorcery games. So having all martial classes bound by the conventions of that genre makes no sense.

>>51007296
Oops, meant for >>51006746

>>51006310
Virtually all mythology spellcasters are also at least semi-divine or have some deity's assistance.

>>51007370
Also, pretty much all mythology magic is pretty underhelming by D&D standards

>>50986840
Didn't Sumerians believe a child could have multiple fathers? Gilgamesh would have one human mom and two divine dads getting it on.

>>51004482
>>Jason vs. Medea
Medea murdered Jason's kids then fucked off in a sun-chariot while he moped like a pussy and eventually died when his rotten ship fell apart and smashed his head.

Maybe you mean Odysseus and Circe, but he cheated.

>>51006391
Where do you even get that idea from? Heck, I don't even like class systems but if you have one the least you can do is understand how those classes progres through levels and how the powerlevels behave. On top of that behavior each character has a defined role/niche in a party you have to preserve during those levels so that nobody gets frustrated because someone else can do their job better and that's a resonable thing about which one can complain. Complaining that a guy with sword can't do the same things as someone who can bend reality it's stupid because they are different classes designed for different roles.

Also
>You keep forgeting the other point a made which is that if you are playing in a setting where magic users are fucking powerful lorewise then you simply can't depower the character magic user. If you want to cap the system to be consisten with the setting do it, but again this is not a fucking video game where everything has to be equal in terms of utility/damage/whatever, in a "real" world some things (particulary reality bending powers) are going to be better than others (particulary hitting things with a stick)

>>51006508
I get what you mean, but I would argue that what makes balance in pnp is the role distribution, not so much the power curve (which, of course, matters), and the fact that you can still fill your role even if other class gets far more options than you do (mage vs fighter, for example). But it's not right to ask for a fighter to have so many options as a mage in systems/settings where magic is so dominant/powerful, mostly because it doesn't make sense in game scenario and it's just aimed to fullfil some people's wishes. Again, there are settings/systems where you fighter can blow up things even harder than a mage or where magic is not that powerful or is a lot harder to use (I mentioned both Anima and Midnight) but asking for it in most of D&D it's just no understanding anything.

>>51011813
>But it's not right to ask for a fighter to have so many options as a mage in systems/settings where magic is so dominant/powerful, mostly because it doesn't make sense in game scenario and it's just aimed to fullfil some people's wishes
That honestly comes down to writer fiat.
You know what game has very powerful magic, but still does not invalidate others? Riddle of Steel.
You know what game has powerful magic and makes it a point to let you know RIGHT AWAY that a mage is a peerlessly dangerous opponent that must be dealt with asap?
Shadowrun.
Do you know what game has incredibly powerful magic, but obscures their strength to the player, has options for superhuman abilities from mythos around the world yet does not allow the player access to them, and fronts that all options are in fact equal to each other in terms of usefulness and viability when they are pointedly not?
3.PF.
Your understanding of D&D is that it is the way it is and that is perfectly fine because you are ignoring the fact that it is a game to be played, not a book to be read. In a novel, it is perfectly fine for a protag to be flat out better than another, but in a GAME, you must accept that you must cater to the fact that you have certain obligations to uphold, and one of them is following up on presentation.
3.PF does not say at any point that magic > martial, does not hint at it, does not explain it to the player. It is entirely disingenuous compared to say, Shadowrun or Scion which tells you flat out that supernatural/magical abilities > mundane versions fullstop. Further, every other edition of D&D gave martial characters something to call their own. Even in 2e, Fighters were the best face to face dude you were going to find, and alone in the entire game had the combat power to back it up. >>50988944 is entirely correct that people complained that playing a mage was not easy mode enough, and Wizards, not understanding what they were doing, did away with the class locked feature.

Taking this thread in another direction because it's shitty;

How do you guys actually go about buffing Fighters in your games? Give them super strength? Anime special attacks? Or just make them really good at combat, enough so that the magic/martial divide is patched up?

>>51012605
I don't play D&D. If for some reason I do, I just tell people to play something other than fighters.

>>51012605
Barbarians (specially with AFs and substituition levels), Psychic Warrior and Tome of Battles classes are rather viable. As long as the Casters aren't min-maxed, at least. Refluffed gish-in-a-box characters can also make do. So I would tell my players to play that.

>>51012650
*ACFs*

I can't think of a single magic caster with significant power that wasn't half god or some shit outside of D&D.

>>51012605
I DM only 4E DnD sessions only and if others want to play other system, they get to DM instead.
Pretty fair and somehow I always end up the DM.

>>51012617

The 'just don't play DnD' meme is fucking stupid. There is nothing wrong with DnDs core mechanics of d20 rolls, AC, class based character growth. It's classic, it's simple, everyone knows it. The problem is entirely in the power of spells and classes, which can be fixed without changing any of the core resolution mechanics.

>>51012766
That's quite a lot of the system that has something wrong with it.
And while it's subjective, the swinginess of a d20 is absolute garbage.

>>51006310
Yet everybody forgets the part in where all examples used for Wizards are demigods, angels, half-demons, etc. So is ok for a caster but not for a wizard, kinda odd and unfair, don't you think?

>>51005659
Kill yourself.

>>51012815

Name fucking one. Have you ever played OSR? Examined the base mechanics of DnD for use as dungeon crawler? I'll fucking wait. It's pretty damn ingenious.

>d20 swing being bad
The swinginess favors the underdog. The swinginess creates stories.

>>51012847
>name fucking one
The classes and power balance and spells, like you mentioned anon.
That is a huge portion of any given book or splat. Spells especially.

I am literally saying "those things you mentioned as the problems with the system are actually a rather large part of the system by volume"

>>51012847
Also, the swinginess sort of invalidates things like being a super genius or the strongest man ever in actual play.

>>51012847
>The swinginess favors the underdog. The swinginess creates stories.
That's a fucking lie, this isn't a book in where narrative dictates the outcome of situations, this is a game in where mechanics do, and mechanics in 3.PF never favored martials and it fucking shows.

>Playing a conjurer focused specialist wizard with abrubt jaunt and other nice stuff
>Literally making the warblade want to commit sudoku
>We're 5th level
Having a great time to be honest

>inb4 that guy
Sure, but I had a bad time with the previous char (monk) and nobody threw me a bone, they even mock me, so now is my turn

>>51012944
Btw, it's more than assured that this char won't last either, GM is already pullshit shit out of his arsewhole to hinder me, but at least I know he has to go into that extremes to threaten me.

>>50985660
I judge martial ability based off of monk since the shit they get is the most obvious to judge with for when it becomes clearly superhuman. Running on water by level 9 is a very helpful reminder for what kind of heroes the party should be by then.

>>51012847
>The swinginess creates stories.
Not true in the slightest in actual play.
For a single heroic crit roll, you get frustrated players who keep missing dozens of important rolls which is why competent DMs always know when to bullshit the results so the plot moves on and the players are happy. Especially when due to the laws of probability, monsters powerful attacks often get crits which DMs know to fudge if the players are on their last legs due to bad rolls.

Do remember most of the stories in tg are satire and should be taken as such.
Your personal experience using the ruleset with your group surpass all.

>>51012847
Yeah, that's why flat bonus to damage is worse than dice bonus to damage...oh wait, it isn't, and the same happens with rolls.

>>50978715
That's how martials work in my game. High-level martials can throw stone buildings, run across clouds, see the world like it's in slow motion, and make entire armies cower with a steely glare. Martials are incredibly versatile combatants who can pull crazy stunts at the drop of a hat, from slicing everything in a thirty-foot radius with a single swing to grabbing an enemy and dragging them against a wall so hard their face shreds off like a cheese grater.

>>50981591
>>50978900
>subhuman autistic dumbfucks arrive
see>>50978802

>>51013279
>It's internal consistent that martials always get the shorter end of the stick and that they always end being worse than casters in those hideous editions
Fuck off

>>51013256
we really need easier ways to play that level of punchiness(see also Fist of The North Star, Ricky-Oh, Souten Kouro, and probably several other things I'm forgetting about)

>>50978715
Because people need to feel special and system mastery is their drug of choice.

>>51013722
I mean the monk even has quivering palm to fill the role of stuff like the "five step death punch" or fist of the north star's "you're already dead"
It's more just a question of properly balancing the abilities. I think you could achieve it with some variation of the base model of the classes without just jumping to book of nines sword shit for wacky kung-fu magic, though that could work too and I think that format is suited to certain roles and classes.
I think the mindblade class could actually work a lot better with the book of nine swords style rather than the psychic kensai thing it has going on.

>>51014703
>I mean the monk even has quivering palm to fill the role of stuff like the "five step death punch" or fist of the north star's "you're already dead"
yeah but he normally only gets it at like level 9 or so, and it's of very limited use

honestly I think a lot of the issues with Martial classes would be solved if more games included Minion/Mook rules

>>51003179
Rolemaster is a freak of nature and literally concentrated autism (not speaking on the actualy *quality* of the game itself, btw). It doesn't count since pretty much nothing else is like it.

>people still play the dregs of 3.5, i.e. Pathfinder and D&D 5e: Apology Edition

>>50998833
Congratulations you changed literally nothing aside from making CoDzilla abuse their spells instead of their melee capability.

>>50979250
Wouldn't he be a monk?

>>50984736
We've basically power creeped real mythology.

At what point did magic in fiction become so bonkers? Gandalf certainly wasn't on par with a D&D wizard, and he was an *angel*.

>>50988044
It also helps that units of 12/24 make a nice rectangular shape for stacking and transporting goods.

>>50988688
I've been arguing this for years.

The level magic is at in D&D just destroys any sense of tension, consistency, or sanity. How is any kind of politics possible when magic exists? When people can come back to life?

How can any semblance of an economy even be possible when magic violates conservation of mass? When there's no rarity to anything?

Even The Elder Scrolls universe isn't that wonky, and that's a world where water IS mana.

>>51018594
>How is any kind of politics possible when magic exists? When people can come back to life?
That would make one hell of a succession crisis

>>51007370
That's because in real human mythology, there has never been such thing as some kind of "arcane" magic apart from the divine influence of god or gods (or the devil or devils).

To be magic was to be touched by the divine. Gandalf was an Angel. Merlin was half demon. Moses was an avatar of God's will. Witches were given power by the devil, etc.

>>51012766
Also, none of my friends want to play anything else.

We keep coming back to it because it's the only thing that isn't hated by at least one person.

>>51003179
Anima is rolemaster with a spanish coat of anime.

>>50978745
>magic
>realistic

I know you were sarcastic but keep the b8 down.

>>51018328
It doesn't even fix clericzilla properly, since one of their meleezilla spells is "you have full BAB"

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>>51004664
Nah but Globalism royally shit itself when the big C days finally came to an end