The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Lord Raziere]

@Rhedyn:

The more recent trends in (urban) fantasy and manga are a bad example when it comes to this. We have too much power inflation going and the "magical abilities" of the characters are taking center stage a bit too much. At one point, all problems start to become (magic) and the solution is to find and combat is with (more magic), gaining more power by doing so, rinse and repeat.

The "core aesthetic" of playing a "mundane" is that, while the magic sword might be powerful, it´s the hand wielding the sword that matters. While magic might be frighteningly powerful, you can outsmart it, like defeating the Medusa with a mirror.

well thats a cultural problem when manga is concerned. its your fault for looking at pure strength characters who throw around mountains as being magical when they aren't in those settings, when that fantasy doesn't look pure training even ones with fantastical results as being magic, and thus its your fault for seeing it as magic.

[MeimuHakurei]

Hmmm… maybe?

So, I had a character who, the entire campaign, contributed exactly nothing. I hit a monster for damage, once - and then the Fighter AoE one-shot all the monsters. My damage contributed nothing.

So, when dealing with "I one-shot solo the encounter" levels of power, yes, it is impossible to contribute without similar power. (And, then, still only one character "contributes", but, at least, in theory, it could be someone else next time)

Short of that, though, it absolutely is possible for everyone to contribute. If the foes have 50 HP, I deal 25 damage, and you deal 9999, I can still take out 50 to your 100. I can still contribute.

As to whether it's bad design… it depends.

So, again, let's switch this around, and give magic hard limits, but make science - muggle power - unlimited.

Muggle science cannot affect the magical world, only other objects of science.

Muggle science cannot create robots/AI, because that breaks the action economy.

Muggle science is black boxes that defy logic, so they cannot be combined or expanded - they are what they are.

Muggle science takes too long to use to be useful in combat.

So, Wizards have their Fireball, capped at 10d6 damage, whereas muggles can nuke whole cities - outside of combat, and it doesn't affect any Dragons or Wizards living there.

That's kinda my point.

Theory is, most people believe magic isn't real IRL, therefore the whole world is muggles. Therefore everything we've accomplished - everything we can accomplish - is within the realm of possibility for "mere muggles".

Now, as in "action hero" or "wuxia" or cybernetics or anything else, and that floor goes up.

Yes, floor. Because "what we have done" is less than or equal to "what we can do".

Many people - and many systems - have muggles playing in the basement compared to their real-life counterparts.

First of all, the Fighter's "I can one-shot all these monsters in the dungeon" is outdone by casters who can say "I don't even have to encounter, let alone fight, any of these monsters to get what I want" since usually, the Fighter will either have trouble dealing with groups or the dungeon hazards/obstacles that aren't monsters.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the muggle science thing (for all intents and purposes, science usually has the same role in tabletop games as magic does, mind you) but you're more or less just stating that it's entirely possible to construct settings where casters are a lesser role than they are in the d20 systems. Which I think misses the point because we're not talking about what could be, we talk about what is.

But what I get from it is more that people are too hung-up on semantics and the idea that all exceptional feats must be magic - which is why classes from Tome of Battle or Path of War get decried as too unrealistic, too caster-like or too anime but nobody ever bats an eye at the Duskblade or Magus despite basically being wuxia/anime fighters.

[awa]

Conan does not live in a high-magic, D&D-spellcasting-style setting. The magic he beats is not the kind of magic that appears in quite a few RPG settings.

and yet Conan is vastly more versatile than any d&d martial

we could look at d&d based computer games and fiction, in those wielding a sword is typically depicted as an effective means of solving problems.

[Lord Raziere]

First of all, the Fighter's "I can one-shot all these monsters in the dungeon" is outdone by casters who can say "I don't even have to encounter, let alone fight, any of these monsters to get what I want" since usually, the Fighter will either have trouble dealing with groups or the dungeon hazards/obstacles that aren't monsters.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the muggle science thing (for all intents and purposes, science usually has the same role in tabletop games as magic does, mind you) but you're more or less just stating that it's entirely possible to construct settings where casters are a lesser role than they are in the d20 systems. Which I think misses the point because we're not talking about what could be, we talk about what is.

But what I get from it is more that people are too hung-up on semantics and the idea that all exceptional feats must be magic - which is why classes from Tome of Battle or Path of War get decried as too unrealistic, too caster-like or too anime but nobody ever bats an eye at the Duskblade or Magus despite basically being wuxia/anime fighters.

exactly what I'm talking about, there is a western fantasy cultural bias here where one thing is decried as stupid or unrealistic and another thing isn't just because they use different words to describe it. heck, the MONK is a wuxia fighter as well, core book no less. meaning ki and wuxia are a core DnD concept, and people ignore that for putting on robes and wizard hats.

[Quertus]

Deliberately making your character incompetent doesn't really count.

Oh, no, I was *deliberately* powerful. It wasn't until the group (incorrectly) complained that my character was OP that I actually evaluated his performance, and realized that he was UP.

But the idiots I was playing with weren't as smart as you, and couldn't comprehend that my character was underperforming.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the muggle science thing

I'm trying to remove any strong anti-Wizard bias, by casting the Wizard as the poor downtrodden capped character, and seeing how people respond.

[Max_Killjoy]

But what I get from it is more that people are too hung-up on semantics and the idea that all exceptional feats must be magic

My assertion is somewhat the opposite -- that it's OK for superhuman feats in a fantasy setting to be "magic", and that the problem is actually in regarding "magic" and "spellcasting" or "magic" and "spellcaster" as synonymous.

As I've said before on these threads... in the context of this discussion, magic is as magic does.

To me, where the conflict arises is in the demand some players have to play a truly, utterly, completely non-magical character, who can keep up with the most superhuman of high-level spellcasters, in a standard/typical D&D-ish fantasy setting. Something there has to give.

[Quertus]

To me, where the conflict arises is in the demand some players have to play a truly, utterly, completely non-magical character, who can keep up with the most superhuman of high-level spellcasters, in a standard/typical D&D-ish fantasy setting. Something there has to give.

Chopping off people's heads in one blow is perfectly mundane. Meanwhile, the Wizard is forced to choose between the HP minigame, or the "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't" minigame.

Conceptually, there's nothing keeping muggle power from exceeding magical power. And it's not even the underlying d20 system holding them back, either. It's purely the specific implementation of muggledom that is at fault.

[Lord Raziere]

My assertion is somewhat the opposite -- that it's OK for superhuman feats in a fantasy setting to be "magic", and that the problem is actually in regarding "magic" and "spellcasting" or "magic" and "spellcaster" as synonymous.

As I've said before on these threads... in the context of this discussion, magic is as magic does.

To me, where the conflict arises is in the demand some players have to play a truly, utterly, completely non-magical character, who can keep up with the most superhuman of high-level spellcasters, in a standard/typical D&D-ish fantasy setting. Something there has to give.

well that is kind of another semantics thing isn't it? whether or not "I Cast Fist" is magic or not, because many anime/manga/wuxia cast fist (I use the term "cast fist" to help communicate the concept to others- I personally do not like term, as it implies punching is the same as a complicated mini-ritual invoking the cosmic forces of the universe to shape itself into a programmed form and apply itself upon a target, when to me anime characters are as far from such ritualized magical nonsense as possible and I hate that they're associated with it) personally whether magic is expanded to encompass wuxia acceptable or whether normals enhanced to be wuxia is acceptable is irrelevant as long as people accept non-wizard hat people being able to contribute in a wuxia manner.

personally I would not paint all things in fantasy as being magic, as it puts this or that into an arcane box and makes people think that just because its in the arcane box you can take it out, dissect it and arcane runes will pop out explaining exactly what it is in the cosmic scheme of things with no mystery or contradiction of what you previously knew or what you think you know about things. its the kind of attitude that leads to stupid nonsense like tippyverse or other over-analysis that I'd rather avoid.

[MeimuHakurei]

Chopping off people's heads in one blow is perfectly mundane. Meanwhile, the Wizard is forced to choose between the HP minigame, or the "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't" minigame.

Conceptually, there's nothing keeping muggle power from exceeding magical power. And it's not even the underlying d20 system holding them back, either. It's purely the specific implementation of muggledom that is at fault.

I'm thinking that nobody here doubts that nonmagical characters can match or surpass spellcasters from a purely conceptual level. I still think that one of the following should be given in a fantasy setting where magic exists to not have disparity issues D&D typically has:

-Solving problems with magic is never clearly the better option over relying on mundane skills, be that through inherent risks or limitations. Spells being accessible and reliable like in 3rd edition doesn't necessarily break this rule as long as the nonmagical approach is similarly reliable/powerful. Most Warhammer-based RPGs add severe danger to using magic, whereas Spheres of Power makes it so you cannot excel in all areas, forcing you to be great at a few spheres or decent at several.
-Magic is not the only way in the setting to achieve fantastical results. While magic is typically the umbrella term for all things supernatural, some settings do have comparable power sources distinct from that (Hi-Tech for instance). Many splats like Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Battle in 3.5 attempt this to varying degrees of success.
-There's no pretense about magically gifted characters being notably or dramatically superior to those who can't use it. This is the option that systems like Ars Magica go for, so all players are expected to play some kind of spellcaster.

[Max_Killjoy]

Chopping off people's heads in one blow is perfectly mundane.

If you're talking about in combat, against a foe who is actively fighting back, that's in the same realm as "mother lifts car off her child". It's an edge case, an exceptional & abnormal event, within the scope of things that have happened but not within the scope of things one can ever expect to happen right there in front of them.

Meanwhile, the Wizard is forced to choose between the HP minigame, or the "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't" minigame.

I honestly do not know what you're talking about there.

Conceptually, there's nothing keeping muggle power from exceeding magical power. And it's not even the underlying d20 system holding them back, either. It's purely the specific implementation of muggledom that is at fault.

Not if you have a setting in which the distribution range of human ability resembles what we see in the real world, AND you have the sort of spellcasting that

As soon as you start pushing that upper bound further upward, you drag the lower bound and the average, mean, and median with it, changing what your general population is capable of and thus the setting in general.

The only way to extend non-spellcasting abilities past that upper bound without changing the setting significantly is to give the non-spellcasters access to what are, for that setting, fantastic non-"muggle" abilities.

That is, if you want your Fighters to keep up with your Wizards, in D&D and with a typical D&D-ish setting, then your Fighters have to become "not-muggles" as they go up in level.

The third alternative, besides "not-muggle Fighters" and "change the setting to change what 'muggles' can do" is "reduce what Wizards can do to the point that it doesn't quickly blow past 'muggle' range".


Of course, looking at 5e's Fighters, I'm pretty sure that's a full-on example of "not-muggle Fighters" even if they have some trouble keeping up with Wizards still... the number of attacks in a round alone beggers the notion of "muggledom".

[Quertus]

I'm thinking that nobody here doubts that nonmagical characters can match or surpass spellcasters from a purely conceptual level. I still think that one of the following should be given in a fantasy setting where magic exists to not have disparity issues D&D typically has:

-Solving problems with magic is never clearly the better option over relying on mundane skills, be that through inherent risks or limitations. Spells being accessible and reliable like in 3rd edition doesn't necessarily break this rule as long as the nonmagical approach is similarly reliable/powerful. Most Warhammer-based RPGs add severe danger to using magic, whereas Spheres of Power makes it so you cannot excel in all areas, forcing you to be great at a few spheres or decent at several.
-Magic is not the only way in the setting to achieve fantastical results. While magic is typically the umbrella term for all things supernatural, some settings do have comparable power sources distinct from that (Hi-Tech for instance). Many splats like Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Battle in 3.5 attempt this to varying degrees of success.
-There's no pretense about magically gifted characters being notably or dramatically superior to those who can't use it. This is the option that systems like Ars Magica go for, so all players are expected to play some kind of spellcaster.

You missed (at least)

- Magic and Mundane skill are additive (ie, it's generally smarter in 3e to cast invisibility on the Rogue)
- everyone is magic (there is no disparity between x and Y when y does not exist).

However, you had me at, "Solving problems with magic is never clearly the better option".

Perhaps, however, you simply meant, "is not always" instead of "is never"?

[Rhedyn]

I swear we already did this in this thread, but it might have been another.

Point is, if you don't assume that people without magic have any right to be strong in a world with magic, and thus those with magic are inherently more powerful, a TTRPG where you choose to be either a magic user or a non-magic-user is probably not going to be a reasonable proposition. Particularly if there is otherwise a sense that character choices are otherwise 'balanced.'

If you have the world altering magic of high fantasy, then you at least need anti-magic, which is magic.

Others have been talking about Wuxia characters, I don't consider that as what people are talking about when they want to play a "mundane". Many can't handle these kind of characters in their games. I'm not one of those people, but this whole issue only exist for those kind of people (or those who only play D&D).

But yeah in a ttrpg, anti-magic or artifact weapons should just be part of the "mundane" character class after a certain point. (Or you go the Savage Worlds route where you can call any magical ability mundane, it does a lot to balance casting/martial outside of that, but there is that failsafe).

[Lord Raziere]

If you have the world altering magic of high fantasy, then you at least need anti-magic, which is magic.

No its not. Its in the name: ANTI-magic. don't be semantically paradoxical.

[Max_Killjoy]

well that is kind of another semantics thing isn't it? whether or not "I Cast Fist" is magic or not, because many anime/manga/wuxia cast fist (I use the term "cast fist" to help communicate the concept to others- I personally do not like term, as it implies punching is the same as a complicated mini-ritual invoking the cosmic forces of the universe to shape itself into a programmed form and apply itself upon a target, when to me anime characters are as far from such ritualized magical nonsense as possible and I hate that they're associated with it) personally whether magic is expanded to encompass wuxia acceptable or whether normals enhanced to be wuxia is acceptable is irrelevant as long as people accept non-wizard hat people being able to contribute in a wuxia manner.

personally I would not paint all things in fantasy as being magic, as it puts this or that into an arcane box and makes people think that just because its in the arcane box you can take it out, dissect it and arcane runes will pop out explaining exactly what it is in the cosmic scheme of things with no mystery or contradiction of what you previously knew or what you think you know about things. its the kind of attitude that leads to stupid nonsense like tippyverse or other over-analysis that I'd rather avoid.

I don't think it's semantic at all.

It's giving the non-spellcaster characters "permission" to exceed normal human limits without being "just more spellcasters". It's "allowing" them fantastic capabilities of a different sort.

In this context, by grossly exceeding normal human limits through special training and/or ancient secrets and/or raw determination and willpower and focus, the "wuxia" character becomes "magic". Not a spellcaster, not tapping into the arcane flow of energy in the world (or maybe they are, depending on how you treat "ki/chi/qi"), not to be confused with a wizard, but still "magic" in the sense of fantastic, in the sense of doing things an order of magnitude or more outside of normal human capability.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't think it's semantic at all.

It's giving the non-spellcaster characters "permission" to exceed normal human limits without being "just more spellcasters". It's "allowing" them fantastic capabilities of a different sort.

In this context, by grossly exceeding normal human limits through special training and/or ancient secrets and/or raw determination and willpower and focus, the "wuxia" character becomes "magic". Not a spellcaster, not tapping into the arcane flow of energy in the world (or maybe they are, depending on how you treat "ki/chi/qi"), not to be confused with a wizard, but still "magic" in the sense of fantastic, in the sense of doing things an order of magnitude or more outside of normal human capability.

and I don't like the term magic being applied to that, because its confusing and generic-izing. can't things be fantastic and beyond human norms without magic being bandied about?

this makes me want to make a fantasy setting where everyone says "there is no such thing as magic" despite a bunch of fantastic things and capabilities being there. almost out of spite and subversions sake.

[Quertus]

If you're talking about in combat, against a foe who is actively fighting back, that's in the same realm as "mother lifts car off her child". It's an edge case, an exceptional & abnormal event, within the scope of things that have happened but not within the scope of things one can ever expect to happen right there in front of them.

Not really. Maybe I give muggles too much credit. But, IMO, it should be the strange exception when anything isn't one-shot by the trained Fighter.

The record is, what, in the hundreds for "consecutive soldiers killed in melee"? That's what a PC Fighter should look like.

I honestly do not know what you're talking about there.

Fireball, SoD? Those should be (and are) weak sauce next to what power a muggle can bring.

Not if you have a setting in which the distribution range of human ability resembles what we see in the real world, AND you have the sort of spellcasting that

"That…" ?

You're not playing the reject muggles, you're playing the PCs, the best of the best that humanity has to offer. If there was anyone better, you'd be playing them, instead.

Conan is an OK Fighter (there's better IRL), and has what skills?

You're playing at least that.

Or, at least, that's my opinion of what muggle PCs should be.

As soon as you start pushing that upper bound further upward, you drag the lower bound and the average, mean, and median with it, changing what your general population is capable of and thus the setting in general.

You keep saying this.

First, it doesn't have anything to do with what I'm talking about. OK? Are we clear on this point?

Now that that's out of the way, since you keep saying this, let me say that I largely agree. But not completely.

If I open up a university - the first the world - I have now raised the ceiling of "education" above "high school level". But that does not mean that everyone across the world magically becomes more educated, just because I have raised the ceiling.

Yes, there are limits on physical capabilities, bone structure, etc. Yes, it is possible that one world's idea of "muggles" may die if transported to (the 2e representation of) the physics of our world, because their "mundane" capabilities were being secretly augmented by magic. You'll get no argument from me.

But, as others have said, that "alternate physics" doesn't have to work by the rules of our physics, and could have the same average, mean, and median, while still having a larger upper bound.

The only way to extend non-spellcasting abilities past that upper bound without changing the setting significantly is to give the non-spellcasters access to what are, for that setting, fantastic non-"muggle" abilities.

Well, no. The only way to do so for "our world"? Sure. But "a different world" can have different physics (like Dragon flight or whatever) that is secretly aided by magic while still being thought of as mundane.

Also, the limits of things like "skill" in our world have not necessarily been reached. So I have no problem with a world defining the "cap" for skill at something way above what we happen have witnessed IRL, and still calling it "mundane".

That is, if you want your Fighters to keep up with your Wizards, in D&D and with a typical D&D-ish setting, then your Fighters have to become "not-muggles" as they go up in level.

Have to? Not necessarily. See my talk of the Muggle class earlier this thread. But I think that making Fighters "not-muggles" is the *best* option - especially since muggle players are so reluctant to let their characters do anything, or to communicate how they picture muggles accomplishing anything.

I mean, seriously, had anyone in this thread other than me given muggles serious credit for being able to accomplish anything, conceptually, in a game, or IRL?

This is why I agree with you that "muggles as a PC concept" needs to die in a fire, because no one will let them do anything.

Well, no one except me.

The third alternative, besides "not-muggle Fighters" and "change the setting to change what 'muggles' can do" is "reduce what Wizards can do to the point that it doesn't quickly blow past 'muggle' range".

I'll continue to insist that it doesn't.

Also, "balance to the table".

Of course, looking at 5e's Fighters, I'm pretty sure that's a full-on example of "not-muggle Fighters" even if they have some trouble keeping up with Wizards still... the number of attacks in a round alone beggers the notion of "muggledom".

And this is why Jet Li had to be filmed in slow motion, because the audience couldn't believe that muggles could move and attack that fast.

[Friv]

I mean, seriously, had anyone in this thread other than me given muggles serious credit for being able to accomplish anything, conceptually, in a game, or IRL?

Well, I was doing it until I got tired of trying to argue to Max that his personal preferences do not constitute objective fact, and wandered away for twenty pages only to come back and find that Max was still arguing that his personal preferences were objective fact. So I'm probably going to just wander off again. But yeah, otherwise you can consider me in your camp of arguing that (a) people don't give muggles enough credit and (b) raising the ceiling of training does not in any way raise the floor.

[Quertus]

Well, I was doing it until I got tired of trying to argue to Max that his personal preferences do not constitute objective fact, and wandered away for twenty pages only to come back and find that Max was still arguing that his personal preferences were objective fact. So I'm probably going to just wander off again. But yeah, otherwise you can consider me in your camp of arguing that (a) people don't give muggles enough credit and (b) raising the ceiling of training does not in any way raise the floor.

Nice to know that there was someone else. Darn senility. Best thing about my senility is how much fun it is to reread old threads.

Emphasis on "training", btw. I agree with Max that raising the cap on physical capabilities does (or can do) strange things to physics.

[PhoenixPhyre]

8 aimed crossbow bolts in 6 seconds (a level 20 5e fighter can do this with only a single feat) seems a little fantastic to me. So does dodging a dragon's breath with no damage on an empty plain with no cover (rogue). And the rogue's doing it from level 6.

And Quertus, a fighter being able to one-shot anything is
a) a peculiarity of a particular high-optimization build of one edition
b) very vulnerable to things like terrain or (heaven forfend) flying creatures
c) only good for things that can be defeated by HP damage (which is not all that many).

No one doubts that martials can do a lot of damage (if conditions are right and they're wearing a large country's GDP in magic items). What they are much more limited at is everything else. Heck, a 3e fighter can't even be a leader of men effectively, because he has crap for skill points.

[Max_Killjoy]

And this is why Jet Li had to be filmed in slow motion, because the audience couldn't believe that muggles could move and attack that fast.

So have a few other on-screen martial artists, notably Bruce Lee.

I don't think this really changes the argument.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Emphasis on "training", btw. I agree with Max that raising the cap on physical capabilities does (or can do) strange things to physics.

Here's the thing. To keep up anywhere close to a caster, you have to break the (earthly) laws of physics good and hard. Because that's what casters are doing from level 1. No amount of training can get you even close. You'd need a Charles Atlas superpower. Which is explicitly fantastic.

Even "non-magic" fighters are straight up fantastic from levels 6 on (in 5e at least) and should be accepted as such. Fantastic =/= spell-casting. I'd be totally fine with a tier 3 (levels 11-16) monk doing wire-fu/wuxia stuff. Heck, a Sun Soul monk can shoot non-magical (ie work just fine in an antimagic field) blasts of radiant energy from his fists starting at level 3.

[Jakinbandw]

8 aimed crossbow bolts in 6 seconds (a level 20 5e fighter can do this with only a single feat) seems a little fantastic to me.

I thought it was nine crossbow bolts in 6 seconds? You can shoot one as a bonus action if you're using a one handed weapon, and a hand crossbow is one handed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I thought it was nine crossbow bolts in 6 seconds? You can shoot one as a bonus action if you're using a one handed weapon, and a hand crossbow is one handed.

I was going for the even more fantastic heavy crossbow. The things that (in real life) take quite a while to span and usually require a crank. Crossbow Expert lets you ignore the loading property, so you can do 8 with Action Surge even without the bonus action for a hand crossbow.

[Max_Killjoy]

I was going for the even more fantastic heavy crossbow. The things that (in real life) take quite a while to span and usually require a crank. Crossbow Expert lets you ignore the loading property, so you can do 8 with Action Surge even without the bonus action for a hand crossbow.

It's an entirely fantastic and even ridiculous image in my head, of a guy in chain-and-plate fan-cocking an arbalest that normal soldiers strain against the crank forever to reload just once.

[PanosIs]

It's an entirely fantastic and even ridiculous image in my head, of a guy in chain-and-plate fan-cocking an arbalest that normal soldiers strain against the crank forever to reload just once.

This is largely irrelevant though, it's a peculiarity of a specific system at a specific level and doesn't say anything about pretty much anything. No matter how much we pretend D&D is simulationist there are cinematic elements and Action Surge is a largely cinematic element.

Muggles can be balanced with spellcasters for the purposes of combat quite easily. For the trivial example, say that every fighter is trained so he can take 3 turns for every turn the spellcaster makes. (Just an example, obviously not a solution, but the point being that for a specific purpose, it's quite easy to keep things in balance)

It's a totally different thing to have narrative balance (The wizard can do X world-altering magick)

[Max_Killjoy]

This is largely irrelevant though, it's a peculiarity of a specific system at a specific level and doesn't say anything about pretty much anything. No matter how much we pretend D&D is simulationist there are cinematic elements and Action Surge is a largely cinematic element.

Muggles can be balanced with spellcasters for the purposes of combat quite easily. For the trivial example, say that every fighter is trained so he can take 3 turns for every turn the spellcaster makes. (Just an example, obviously not a solution, but the point being that for a specific purpose, it's quite easy to keep things in balance)

It's a totally different thing to have narrative balance (The wizard can do X world-altering magick)

Who said anything about simulationist? D&D couldn't "simulate" its way out of a wet paper bag.

Anyway, many cinematic elements are quite blatantly fantastic, and any character with access to them is off in the fantastic part of the scale.

While you immediately dismiss it, I think it's telling that the level of adjustment that you had to go to first was "three turns for every one" -- consider what that really means for a moment.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Who said anything about simulationist?

Right. This is something no other person can do, even in-universe. And he's absolutely firing that many shots in that time-span, as he can hit different targets with them separated by 640 feet (even without Sharpshooter). This is a level 20 fighter being fantastic even by the standards of a fantastic setting. The 5e DMG even calls high-level characters "superheroic". The Guy at the Gym (even in the most generous forms) need not apply.

And combat is not the problem here at all. Fighters (and barbarians and ...) keep up just fine in combat. It's the rest of the game that (supposedly) they suffer in. This is true in 3e as well, except worse, because 3e fighters can barely access the skill system either and have to spend all their bonus feats just to make weight in combat.

[Quertus]

Here's the thing. To keep up anywhere close to a caster, you have to break the (earthly) laws of physics good and hard. Because that's what casters are doing from level 1. No amount of training can get you even close. You'd need a Charles Atlas superpower. Which is explicitly fantastic.

Other than the D&D standards (like HP), did you find my description of the Muggle class to break physics?

[PanosIs]

Right. This is something no other person can do, even in-universe. And he's absolutely firing that many shots in that time-span, as he can hit different targets with them separated by 640 feet (even without Sharpshooter). This is a level 20 fighter being fantastic even by the standards of a fantastic setting. The 5e DMG even calls high-level characters "superheroic". The Guy at the Gym (even in the most generous forms) need not apply.

And combat is not the problem here at all. Fighters (and barbarians and ...) keep up just fine in combat. It's the rest of the game that (supposedly) they suffer in. This is true in 3e as well, except worse, because 3e fighters can barely access the skill system either and have to spend all their bonus feats just to make weight in combat.

Except that whether the caster/martial disparity is an issue outside of combat is very arguable. I don't find the fact that a Fighter can't teleport to be an issue and in most of my games the characters' participation in the social and exploration sections of the game depends mostly on the player playing them rather than if they're playing a caster or a martial character.

Yes, there are spells that make some aspects of the game trivial, but I find that the parts of the game usually trivialized are the parts the players don't feel like playing out. You're not really going to prepare Knock if you have a Rogue in your party and the Rogue isn't going to feel useless because you could plausibly prepare Knock.

Which are the parts of the game a Fighter can't participate in?

[Quertus]

Except that whether the caster/martial disparity is an issue outside of combat is very arguable. I don't find the fact that a Fighter can't teleport to be an issue and in most of my games the characters' participation in the social and exploration sections of the game depends mostly on the player playing them rather than if they're playing a caster or a martial character.

Yes, there are spells that make some aspects of the game trivial, but I find that the parts of the game usually trivialized are the parts the players don't feel like playing out. You're not really going to prepare Knock if you have a Rogue in your party and the Rogue isn't going to feel useless because you could plausibly prepare Knock.

Which are the parts of the game a Fighter can't participate in?

Player > Build > Class. Agreed. Who's sitting in the driver's seat matters more than what they're playing, as a general rule.

My bloody sentient potted plant (who considered things like "moving under their own power" and "ability to use items / push buttons / otherwise manipulate their environment" to be super powers beyond his kin) could participate in nearly any minigame, so…