Abilities that martials (ONLY) should have out of combat? [suggestions wanted]

[Zigludo]

You can consider this a corollary to Man_Over_Game's thread.

I'm working on some ideas for adding a couple of new features to my own campaign, but, this thread isn't about those rules. This thread is just for me taking to the GitP forums to try and plunder inspiration.

So here's the question: According to your own understanding of the fantasy of each class, and your own desires, what are some things outside of combat that you think a martial should be able to do, that other classes (for instance, spellcasters) shouldn't be able to do, despite the fact that the abilities aren't clearly spelled out by the book?

By "martials" here, I'm referring to Barbarians, Fighters, Monks and Rogues, although you don't need to limit your comments to those classes. As an example, you could say "High level Barbarians should be able to rip down wooden gates with their own hands," or maybe "High level monks should be able to levitate at will", or what have you. These examples are not all-inclusive; your answer doesn't have to refer to high level play, or be very specific at all. As long as I hear some of your original ideas which I haven't heard before, I'll be very happy.



And remember - outside of combat!

[Unoriginal]

Sorry that I don't have anything to contribute in term of answering your request (other than to say a Barbarian is already capable of tearing down a wooden gate bare-handed), but I do have one question that might be useful for you to think about:

Where do you separate martials and casters, for this purpose?

Would an Arcane Trickster be barred from doing those things? Would a Paladin?

[GreyBlack]

You can consider this a corollary to Man_Over_Game's thread.

I'm working on some ideas for adding a couple of new features to my own campaign, but, this thread isn't about those rules. This thread is just for me taking to the GitP forums to try and plunder inspiration.

So here's the question: According to your own understanding of the fantasy of each class, and your own desires, what are some things outside of combat that you think a martial should be able to do, that other classes (for instance, spellcasters) shouldn't be able to do? Despite the fact that these abilities aren't clearly spelled out by the book? Just as an example, you could say "High level Barbarians should be able to rip down wooden gates with their own hands," or maybe "High level monks should be able to levitate at will", or what have you. These examples are not all-inclusive; your answer doesn't have to refer to high level play, or be very specific at all. As long as I hear some of your original ideas which I haven't heard before, I'll be very happy.



And remember - outside of combat!

This is going to be unpopular. I accept all of the criticism here.

Martial characters should be the only ones who can run keeps and armies. This relates back to the fact that fighters originally got a free army and keep when they hit higher levels. I might extend this to more marital clerics and such, but I would make it a class feature for them.

Related to and parallel to this, martials should have advantages in social encounters; this could be because they're more in touch with the physical world while spellcasting classes are too involved in the spiritual/ephemeral world.

For certain classes, such as the monk, they should straight up be able to fly. Monks are not "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" enough for my tastes and I think they should have more stuff like that.

I would make it so that martial characters could heal people through the Medicine skill, not locked behind a feat. Combat medics are a thing; they can patch you up well enough that you're going to live and get you up and moving, but maybe not necessarily to the point that you're not going to need a doctor ASAP. Maybe just during a short rest, they can get an ally up to 1 HP by expending a hit die.

This is just off the top of my head.

[Zigludo]

Where do you separate martials and casters, for this purpose?

Would an Arcane Trickster be barred from doing those things? Would a Paladin?

Now this I should have specified. By martials I mean Barbarians, Fighters, Monks and Rogues, and to a lesser (one might say half?) extent, Rangers and Paladins. Mostly those first four. Ignoring subclasses for the purposes of the discussion because I just want as many thoughts as possible. And note also that these don't need to be things that *all* martials can do; obviously it's perfectly acceptable to say something that you would want a Barbarian to be able to do to the exclusion of Fighters, and so on.

[Laserlight]

Walk down the street without people making warding signs, going well out of their way to avoid you, etc. Order pizza without the delivery guy saying "I'm not going there, that's the wizard's place, they probably want a sacrificial victim." Invite a date home without them saying "Oh...you're a magician. I know I said I was into some freaky stuff, but Being Turned Into A Living Statue is really freakier than I meant." Get invited to social events by people who don't have mental shields. Buy a house without the neighbors moving away as soon as they find out about you.

Sure, that warlock SAYS he's a Lawful Good Divine Soul, but are you going to let your teenager who's behind in school go over and get tutoring from a warlock?

[Mercurias]

As part of an old forum post RP, I once played the sole swordsman in a group full of increasingly powerful mages. While they learned how to tamper with the laws of space and time, he was usually doing one of the following:
-Building/Crafting: There’s a lot to be said, if you’re a person reliant on weapons, for being able to craft more arrows, repair your own armor, or adapt your armor on the fly by, for example, riveting a loop or hook to one’s armor in order to thread rope through it for climbing.
-Inspecting equipment: I always operate under the belief that a wielder of sufficient skill will be able to tell whether or not the tool or other item in their hands is of good quality or not. This could be as much as granting inspiration on Investigation checks.
-The physical stuff: Need someone to leap a five foot gap, climb a wall, dig a trench, swim across a river, or chop down a tree? Anything involving athleticism is going to be easier to a trained martial character.
-Tools, Tools, Tools: Wizard gesturing to use Minor Illusion as a distraction? Toss a ball bearing in the corner and let the tapping noise draw enemy eyes. Most martial characters get some kind of access to tools, either through their base class or their backgrounds. Leaning into those for versatility is a good thing. If I were playing a Dwarf character, for example, I could use Mason’s Tools to, say, etch arrows into the stone walls of dungeon so the group has an easy indicator on how to get out if they need to leave in a hurry. A lot of martial characters have high strength, so feel free to use it for things like a net, a ten foot pole, etc. to make yourself more versatile.

[Frozenstep]

A martial character, at least the strength-based ones, are a sign of immediate combat power. It can be a little difficult to judge how powerful a caster is or how much of their magic they have left, but a big burly dude who isn't injured and isn't exhausted is quickly and easily identifiable as a threat.

This works to dissuade those that would trouble the party (a suspicious figure breaks from the crowd to follow you, but you notice him glance at your barbarian and pause, seeming to think twice, before he leaves), and inspire confidence in those that can work with the party (the soldiers who are nervously holding their line listen to your fighters commands to flank the monster while he occupies its attention, able to believe this man could do it because the forces he wields are ones the soldiers understand).

While appearing weak despite being powerful can be useful in some situations, appearing strong in a way that anyone can understand is also very useful. A cantrip can be impressive, but it may not be enough, and needing to expend a spell slot to demonstrate something impressive is already a loss depending on the situation, and may inspire more fear then confidence. The thought of working alongside a spellcaster, especially a powerful one, can be nerve-wracking, since they don't know how much control the casters really have over their powers, or fear getting caught in an AoE. Working alongside a very skilled martial character though might be comforting, since a skilled warrior has control over themselves (well, maybe not the barbarian...but even then, if the barbarian goes in and turns into a whirlwind of anger and steel, the people supporting him will be glad he's on their side and be comforted that they're not in immediate risk).

Even among people with more knowledge of magic, a martial character might still be more inspiring. A wizard on your side is an advantage, sure, but they can always escape with invisibility/teleportation, so there's always a risk of being abandoned. A martial character though (at least, before magic items) is stuck there with them, so they might be more inclined to face danger knowing the martial won't vanish on them.

[Contrast]

The trick is finding things they can do that don't step on other classes toes - letting a fighter do wall running kinda causes problems for monks and so on.

One option might be to grant certain classes the ability to use the automatic success variant rule on p239 of the DMG for specified stats (or types of checks specifically depending how tight you wanna control it) once they hit a certain level. It encourages them to jump the chasm or swing from the chandelier etc.

[strangebloke]

The distinction isn't that martials can do things that casters can't. That's not currently true for anything. The distinction in this edition is that martials can do many things without expending resources. So the only thing that martials need to do is be more capable of non-resource-based out of combat utility.

Which they mostly do already.

• Rogues have great skills. Their OoC utility should be self-evident.
• Fighters can spec into skill use or other forms of OoC utility. They're SAD and unlike rogues they don't really need higher than a 16 even in their main stat to keep up. They're totally fine not spending an ASI on stats or combat ability until level 8. Ritual caster, inspiring leader, healer, observant, skulker, X Elf Magic, prodigy, etc.
• Barbarians honestly need GWM to deal good damage, but beyond that they also don't need higher than a 16 in anything. Still, they've less utility. Perhaps a perk that helps them with intimidation would be interesting?
• Monks by default don't have much. They need their ASIs for AC and damage, and beyond that they just have mobility. So perhaps you could give them some other kind of perk? Make them really really insightful? Its worth noting that Shadow Monks have tons of OoC utility.
• Rangers have tons of OoC utility, and are also SAD, meaning that they're more able to spec into whatever.
• Paladins are MAD, but they have healing and a few OoC spells. They're probably one of the lowest ones here.

Overall, I think barbs could use a buff in general and monks could use a buff to their OoC abilities.

The only OoC, resourceless thing that casters have and martials don't is ritual casting. And that's, like, a single feat. And most casters are not ritual casters anyway.

[Rukelnikov]

Walk down the street without people making warding signs, going well out of their way to avoid you, etc. Order pizza without the delivery guy saying "I'm not going there, that's the wizard's place, they probably want a sacrificial victim." Invite a date home without them saying "Oh...you're a magician. I know I said I was into some freaky stuff, but Being Turned Into A Living Statue is really freakier than I meant." Get invited to social events by people who don't have mental shields. Buy a house without the neighbors moving away as soon as they find out about you.

Sure, that warlock SAYS he's a Lawful Good Divine Soul, but are you going to let your teenager who's behind in school go over and get tutoring from a warlock?

Clerics and Bards would disagree, their spellcasting actually acts as a magnet for people.

[Man_Over_Game]

Barbarians can lift things, eat things, drink things. They can cause a show (duplicating the Enthrall spell). At higher levels, objects break when the object hits them. They share a kinship with beasts and savage creatures.

Fighters can read an enemy and determine their weaknesses. They know telltale signs of an ambush. They can protect their allies from a sudden explosion. They expect, and react, to danger of any kind, even if that includes subterfuge or treachery.

Rangers are super stealthy. They can gather any medicine they need from the wilds. They can tame (or even convert) animals to assist them, given time and resources.

Monks are highly resilient. They give off a calming presence while also appearing non-threatening (bonus to Persuasion?). They have a slight about of foresight, and can sense living (or unliving) beings when they concentrate.

[strangebloke]

Came up with a pair of abilities for Monks and Barbarians.

Monk: 7th level: spiritual awareness. You have blind sight out to ten feet. As an action you can extend this range to 20 feet until the start of your next turn.

People want to be playing blind monks anyway, might as well let 'em. Makes you a great scout and watchdog.

Barbarian: (added to feral instinct): You can advantage on Wisdom checks to determine if someone is lying.

Thought about something with intimidation, but I can easily see a lot of barbarians not really wanting to intimidate people. "Good instincts" about who to trust seems very barbarianesque.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Part of the problem with the question is that, by default, "martials" are defined by what they do in combat, and nothing more. (That is, after all, what "martial" means.) Barbarians and especially fighters are constrained by this fact; their archetypes are so centered around fighting that almost anything you can do outside of combat is, at best, adjacent to that archetype. That pretty much just leaves feats of strength/endurance and maybe displays of incredible skill (cutting a falling apple into neat wedges with a sword, for instance).
For anything beyond kicking down doors and party tricks...there's nothing out-of-combat that fighters can do, but there could be stuff that specifically Jac the fighter can do. Jac might know enough guys to find out what the party needs to know, or recognize the runic script on the magical trap and direct the sorcerer in disabling it, or cook some really tasty food, but none of that is fighter-ey.
I guess you could argue that any generic "tribal powers" you'd see fantasy First Nations types use could arguably fit barbarians, but that justification seems kinda...weak.

Rogues and monks have it a bit easier, since their archetypes extend beyond shanking and punching. Rogues already have a bunch of things they're designed to do out of combat—sneak, disable traps, pick locks, find hidden stuff, swindle the foolish, etc etc. No patch needed.
I haven't played the 5e monk, but I'm pretty sure it has some eastern-martial-arts-esque noncombat abilities. Just about anything in Naruto could arguably fit the monk, as could things in the original Dragon Ball (and probably Z/Super if you scaled them down). After all, those stories' authors were drawing on the same ultimate source of inspiration as the D&D monk.

One quick critique of noncombat abilities in general. Because of how D&D handles noncombat challenges (particularly its simplistic skill system), it's really, really hard to design a noncombat challenge that involves the whole party. Combat, that's easy; almost the entire game is built around giving every character a role to play in combat and finding ways to work together. But noncombat challenges are usually set up as "One character with X skill/ability does this while the other players watch, then they rotate roles".
If you want a fun noncombat challenge for the whole party, make sure everyone has something to do. This means designing a complex challenge composed of individual tasks that cater to each PC's unique noncombat talents.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One quick critique of noncombat abilities in general. Because of how D&D handles noncombat challenges (particularly its simplistic skill system), it's really, really hard to design a noncombat challenge that involves the whole party. Combat, that's easy; almost the entire game is built around giving every character a role to play in combat and finding ways to work together. But noncombat challenges are usually set up as "One character with X skill/ability does this while the other players watch, then they rotate roles".
If you want a fun noncombat challenge for the whole party, make sure everyone has something to do. This means designing a complex challenge composed of individual tasks that cater to each PC's unique noncombat talents.

This, I think, is the key. Anything that can be trivialized by a single check or spell isn't worth the time. Narrate and move on. Anything that requires the whole party (or a significant subset) to work together is worth making a big deal out of.

So picking a single lock with no one around to catch you is not worth spending any significant time on. Narrate and move on.

Picking a lock with patrols may be important. The rogue is busy picking the lock, while the others keep watch/scout, create diversions, etc. The wizard might keep silence up on the lock area while the fighter and the cleric watch the corridors and prepare to deal with guards. Etc. Note this works even if success is assured. What the rogue is rolling for is how fast they can pick the lock, and how quietly. The lookouts are rolling to see how far ahead they notice the patrols and how successfully they hide or distract. The wizard is spending resources.

[Laserlight]

Clerics and Bards would disagree, their spellcasting actually acts as a magnet for people.

It's pretty setting dependent. There are some settings where everyone does magic or knows someone who does and it's no big deal. There are some settings where any caster is suspect, at best.

CHA casters won't necessarily avoid this--I certainly know people in real life who are high CHA but who I don't trust at all, and if you thought they were not just con artists but actual mind-manipulators, wouldn't you avoid them?

Of course, it also depends on how hard it is to tell whether someone is a caster. I'm assuming that by the time you're moderately high level, most people can tell or you have a rep. But in some settings, "a powerful warlock" looks just like "that lady on the corner with the roses and the yappy little dog".

[Mjolnirbear]

It would almost be easier to just take out non-combat abilities from casters to even things out.

Then mix them up and make them rituals anyone with the skill can do. Like Pass Without Trace can be a ritual the ranger and rogue get automatically, and for them, it represents not magic but skill

[Rukelnikov]

It would almost be easier to just take out non-combat abilities from casters to even things out.

Then mix them up and make them rituals anyone with the skill can do. Like Pass Without Trace can be a ritual the ranger and rogue get automatically, and for them, it represents not magic but skill

I think I remember an edition trying to do something like that...

[Man_Over_Game]

It would almost be easier to just take out non-combat abilities from casters to even things out.

Then mix them up and make them rituals anyone with the skill can do. Like Pass Without Trace can be a ritual the ranger and rogue get automatically, and for them, it represents not magic but skill

I think I'd be fine with that, except that spells are mechanically different than "really complex skills".

Spells can be countered, require components, can be detected, and can straight up be unusable in an Anti-magic field.

This is also before trying to figure out the difference between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" non-combat spells. Is Jump a non-combat spell? What about Compulsion?

Something like that would require a really big overhaul of the system. I think it might be better to just find specific spells and duplicate their effects, similarly to how the Monk can get a Jump effect.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think I remember an edition trying to do something like that...

I think I'd be fine with that, except that spells are mechanically different than "really complex skills".

Spells can be countered, require components, can be detected, and can straight up be unusable in an Anti-magic field.

This is also before trying to figure out the difference between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" non-combat spells. Is Jump a non-combat spell? What about Compulsion?

Something like that would require a really big overhaul of the system. I think it might be better to just find specific spells and duplicate their effects, similarly to how the Monk can get a Jump effect.

I'm actually (slowly) working on a homebrew for that purpose (except I call them incantations and they're explicitly magic, just magic that anyone of the right level can do if they learn how and pay the cost). And it's actually pretty darn easy.

1. Strip out the spells. Start with all the ritual spells, then add in a lot of the long-cast-time ones. Leave anything that has direct combat potential or short duration, including most summons.
2. Attach an expensive material component to each one, as well as an ability check (different ones need different ability/proficiency combinations). Casting one successfully requires a check against a scaling DC, as well as cost and time.
3. Change the Ritual Caster features (and feat) to give discounts or added effects to certain incantations (so wizards get better at doing arcane incantations, etc).
4. Profit.

[Kyutaru]

Barbarians
- Knock - The barbarian shoulder charges a wooden door, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
- Warcry - Shouting with all his lungs, the barbarian scares the ever living hell out of everyone.
- Spirit Walk - Entering the spirit realm, the barbarian may speak with his ancestors for guidance.

Fighters
- Zorro - The fighter is skilled enough to strike with precision cutting away solely what he wants.
- Flourish - Brandishing your weapon in an impressive way, nearby watchers are intimidated.
- Parkour - Fighters constantly think on their feet and find bizarre methods of getting around.

Monks
- Lightning Reflexes - The monk cannot drop anything. If you throw something at him, he's catching it.
- Sense Presence - Monks have honed their skills to supernatural levels, sensing living things nearby.
- Weightless - Through poise, balance, harmony, monks have a light step and can safely rest on anything.

Rogues
- Use Poison - The rogue is the only one who can safely use poisons, and he can make them too!
- Gambling - Proficient at all manner of shady dealings, the rogue is a master of all forms of carousing.
- Vanish - Rogues are just as swift at disappearing as they are at appearing from stealth, quickly leaving the room even by relatively impossible means whenever your head is turned for even a brief moment.

[TyGuy]

Training/sparring
Meditation for monks

[thereaper]

Off the top of my head...

Fighters/Barbarians:

- Hold their breath for hours
- Track scents
- Dispel magic effects by hitting them hard enough
- Cut/smash their way through dungeon walls and walls of force
- Jump dozens of feet
- Cut holes in space itself for a plane shift effect
- Make other people better simply by being there to provide leadership
- See invisible things based on the way the air flows around them
- Magical creatures inexplicably become wowed by their greatness

Rogues:

- Be able to weasel out of any contract or mental command
- Be able to read surface thoughts simply by watching them
- Have their words act as a Suggestion or Charm Person effect
- Sneak past Walls of Force
- Perform alchemy to produce pseudo-magical chemicals
- Senses magic based on the way their teeth chatter
- Always knows the answer, or knows someone who does
- Performs surgeries and sets breaks to heal injuries

[Mjolnirbear]

I think I'd be fine with that, except that spells are mechanically different than "really complex skills".

Spells can be countered, require components, can be detected, and can straight up be unusable in an Anti-magic field.

This is also before trying to figure out the difference between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" non-combat spells. Is Jump a non-combat spell? What about Compulsion?

Something like that would require a really big overhaul of the system. I think it might be better to just find specific spells and duplicate their effects, similarly to how the Monk can get a Jump effect.

Does it do damage? Impose a status effect? Require a saving throw? Those would be combat spells.

I know it's not that easy. Bless does none of those things, but is definitely a combat spell. Invisibility has obvious combat and non-combat applications. But the concept isn't that much different than what 5e already did in largely eliminating "use a spell to make the rogue useless" abilities like previous iterations of Knock.

By removing them, then making them accessible even to pure martials, it makes the abilities more universal and helps combat the martial-caster divide. There is no law that says pure martiales must not have any magic or mystical ability. And if its optional, you can still play the completely magicless characters if you prefer. But D&D is high magic. Magic permeates everything. There's no reason a compétant adventurer can't learn à ritual to hide better or to jump further.

Monte Cook created a whole system around daily rituals and small magics. I think it would work quite well, if one was planning such a significant overhaul.

[cajbaj]

A user on /tg/ made a thing like Eldritch Invocations for martials that give out of combat abilities. Given at 3, 7, 11, and 15 for barbs, fighters, monks, and rogues, and 7th and 13th for rangers and paladins. Really just a proof of concept but some were good. Here's a couple good ones.

Paragon of Truth
Monk, Paladin
11th level
Your peace of mind and equanimity has reached lofty heights. When you speak to a creature who can understand you and are telling the truth to the best of your ability, you can cause that creature to know without any doubt that you are telling the truth.

Primal Shout
Barbarian, Ranger
7th level
You can bellow with the force of a lion's roar. As an action, you can make everything you say on your turn audible up to 1 mile away. Any creatures within 30 feet who can hear you are deafened until the start of your next turn.
You can also choose to whistle in this way. If you do so, your whistle is audible up to 1 mile away, but creatures within 30 feet of you are not deafened.

Scaler
Fighter, Ranger, Rogue
While wielding handaxes or daggers in each hand, you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

Trickshot
Fighter, Ranger
7th level
Your marksmanship is legendary. As an action, you can make a single ranged weapon attack against an object or a consenting creature within range of your weapon. This attack never misses.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think I'd be fine with that, except that spells are mechanically different than "really complex skills".

Spells can be countered, require components, can be detected, and can straight up be unusable in an Anti-magic field.

This is also before trying to figure out the difference between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" non-combat spells. Is Jump a non-combat spell? What about Compulsion?

Something like that would require a really big overhaul of the system. I think it might be better to just find specific spells and duplicate their effects, similarly to how the Monk can get a Jump effect.

I'd have gone with "say everyone has a little magic and give every class a short list of spells they can cast," but that's obviously not going to gel with everyone's idea of fantasy. Maybe you could get away with calling them out as "things which should be impossible for a normal human to do, but by exteenth level they've broken past those limits".

[Zigludo]

Hey guys, poking my head in to say, thanks for all the ideas, it's a lot of help. I know this thread might seem a bit disjointed and aimless but it's turning out exactly the way I was hoping; please continue along these lines lol

I'd have gone with "say everyone has a little magic and give every class a short list of spells they can cast," but that's obviously not going to gel with everyone's idea of fantasy. Maybe you could get away with calling them out as "things which should be impossible for a normal human to do, but by exteenth level they've broken past those limits".

This is basically what I'm going for with this thread. The impetus for it was a discussion in Man_Over_Game's thread; it centered around the idea that the nonmagical classes have class features that very clearly specify abilities that they can perform in-combat which "should be impossible for a normal human to do" (for instance a Bear Totem barbarian can survive a dragon breathing fire on him ten times while in the nude), but have relatively few superhuman abilities similarly specified when it comes to the other two pillars of the game. On the other hand, magic spells do not lack for utility in the realms of exploration and social interaction.

Of course there are things that the rules provide "martials" to do outside of their class features; that is, freeform role-playing and the ability check and skill systems. But these lack the built-in niche protection from spell-casting classes that spellcasting provides against nonmagical classes, for various reasons that I don't intend to get into right now.

On the note of separating these abilities from spells, flavor-wise: ideally for me, these "martial" abilities would be at-will or always-on so as to differentiate them from spells.

Monte Cook created a whole system around daily rituals and small magics. I think it would work quite well, if one was planning such a significant overhaul.

For the project I'm working on, my goal is less of a 'significant overhaul' and more of a neat little add-on that any DM can plug right into their existing game of 5e without breaking anything.

[Man_Over_Game]

What's funny is that 4e actually did something akin to Mjolnirbear and PheonixPhyre's suggestions in the form of Utility Powers.

Basically, your standard powers were used to deal damage, heal, or control the battlefield, and your Utility powers were used for everything else. You wanted a super jump? Got it. You wanted to create solid platform that you could climb or use for cover? Got it.

It's kind of interesting to see how history repeats itself. I believe that 4e had a lot of amazing ideas, they just weren't implemented well (specifically: Roleplaying, skills, adapting).

[GreatWyrmGold]

The impetus for it was a discussion in Man_Over_Game's thread; it centered around the idea that the nonmagical classes have class features that very clearly specify abilities that they can perform in-combat which "should be impossible for a normal human to do" (for instance a Bear Totem barbarian can survive a dragon breathing fire on him ten times while in the nude), but have relatively few superhuman abilities similarly specified when it comes to the other two pillars of the game.

Which is part of why I personally think the "three pillars" idea is hogwash. The game is (and has always been) centered around combat, combat, combat, with exploration letting you get to combats you want and social encounters letting you avoid combats you don't want. The devs have been trying to pull away from that for ages, but they haven't been able to change the core systems built around the "combat first" style that continue to drag it into the forefront.
You can play a game which balances equally on all three "pillars," of course, but the DM needs to shoulder most of the weight for two and not much for the third. Is it any surprise that most DMs don't have the time, energy, and/or motivation for that?

[PhoenixPhyre]

What's funny is that 4e actually did something akin to Mjolnirbear and PheonixPhyre's suggestions in the form of Utility Powers.

Basically, your standard powers were used to deal damage, heal, or control the battlefield, and your Utility powers were used for everything else. You wanted a super jump? Got it. You wanted to create solid platform that you could climb or use for cover? Got it.

It's kind of interesting to see how history repeats itself. I believe that 4e had a lot of amazing ideas, they just weren't implemented well (specifically: Roleplaying, skills, adapting).

The problem with Utility powers is they were dominantly still combat things. They didn't do damage, but they were "shift 3 squares" and things like that. And they were much weaker than they should have been.

[Man_Over_Game]

Which is part of why I personally think the "three pillars" idea is hogwash. The game is (and has always been) centered around combat, combat, combat, with exploration letting you get to combats you want and social encounters letting you avoid combats you don't want. The devs have been trying to pull away from that for ages, but they haven't been able to change the core systems built around the "combat first" style that continue to drag it into the forefront.
You can play a game which balances equally on all three "pillars," of course, but the DM needs to shoulder most of the weight for two and not much for the third. Is it any surprise that most DMs don't have the time, energy, and/or motivation for that?

This is very true. Trying to create a social environment that's engaging, creative, fluid and evolving with 5e's skill system is extremely difficult.

Trying to occupy an hour of time for a fight? Let me spend 5 minutes in the Monster Manual, and another 5 on the battlemap.