Changing the "Caster beats Mundane" paradigm

[Max_Killjoy]

Okay, this sounds like a personal attack, but I'd like you to show your work. Especialy the part where high level character aren't statistical anomalies with little to no impact on the average.
And I really don't see how the idea that training has no bound can possibly raise the floor. If anything, it should lower it since making training that more important will make people who don't have a heavily physical job physicaly weaker by comparison.

Irrelevant. There are so many average farmers that they establish the average, ergo any one of them would need extra training on top of farm work to become super-strong.

It has nothing to do with statistics. At all.

It's about the range of capability.

In our world, no amount of training will let someone lift 10 tons, because the amount of force necessary to do so drastically exceeds what it takes to break bones and shred muscles. So, you have to change something for your fictional setting. Whatever you do to raise the maximum also raises the minimum and the "norm", because whatever you change about humans to drastically move the upper limit affects all humans -- whether that's changing what they're made of, or changing the properties of what they're made of.

"Training" is just another form of physical exertion... the farmer or laborer who engages in hard physical work for 8+ hours every day, year after year, is going to build strength and endurance to a certain degree, and if the range of human capability has shifted, then the results of that buildup are going to shift with the range.

"Boundless training" is just a different slip-cover for something like "ki" or "universe energy" or whatever... might as well call it magic.


E: now, part of what I don't get is, why are some people so dead-set against just saying "yeah, there's some 'magic' going on here" in most of these settings?

[2D8HP]

....I honestly dont know what you want or expect out of games. Do you?....

....Show me non-magical alternatives please!

Okay, I will show you:

"It was a time of adventure"


"We will use the old ways"


"YOU MURDERER!"


"Making this up as I go"

...The second faction is the "I want to play non-magic character concept X" faction, who appear to want to play Conan , or a Musketeer, or the Grey Mouser, and appear to consider the total-non-magicness of that character a core immutable essential part of the concept.....

.
Yes.

There is another way of making 3.5 martials stronger against wizards....

....why not make a class that does all that? Oh wait... I already did.

.
You have my interest!

[Jormengand]

E: now, part of what I don't get is, why are some people so dead-set against just saying "yeah, there's some 'magic' going on here" in most of these settings?

Some people want to have a character who is defined by skill rather than hacking the universe. Why a fair few people's solution to that is to hack the universe and then pretend it's skill, I don't know.

You have my interest!

My signature has a link to my homebrew signature, and if you scroll down, you'll find the "Hypermundanes project" which has a buncha classes like this.

[Cazero]

"Training" is just another form of physical exertion... the farmer or laborer who engages in hard physical work for 8+ hours every day, year after year, is going to build strength and endurance to a certain degree, and if the range of human capability has shifted, then the results of that buildup are going to shift with the range.

Effective physical training require you to push your limits away constantly. Farm work has a pretty much constant workload.
Farmers may be able to grow from below average to above average in a few years instead of a decade, but still never approach super strength because changing the range didn't change the workload.

And if you apply conservation of energy and the square cube "law", a farmer strong enough to do the work of 2 will need the energy (and food) to sustain 4. Outside of an elite topforce that's a liability and not an asset.

[Max_Killjoy]

Some people want to have a character who is defined by skill rather than hacking the universe. Why a fair few people's solution to that is to hack the universe and then pretend it's skill, I don't know.

First, I'd say that "hacking the universe" can be an expression of skill -- wizards are certainly using "knowledge and art" to accomplish their hacking.

Second, a character who simply "has some internal magic" that allows her to far exceed the limits of most people isn't really hacking the universe, it's just an "delimiter" that allows her skill-based concept to keep going beyond the normal bounds of her setting and species -- without distorting the rest of the setting.

[Jormengand]

First, I'd say that "hacking the universe" can be an expression of skill -- wizards are certainly using "knowledge and art" to accomplish their hacking.

Second, a character who simply "has some internal magic" that allows her to far exceed the limits of most people isn't really hacking the universe, it's just an "delimiter" that allows her skill-based concept to keep going beyond the normal bounds of her setting and species -- without distorting the rest of the setting.

Some people want their sword skill to be sword skill, not hacking skill or ki/chakra/internal magic/nonsense skill. But that's fine, because if someone good at swords hits someone else with a sword, they die. You don't need magic to make that happen.

[Jama7301]

Second, a character who simply "has some internal magic" that allows her to far exceed the limits of most people isn't really hacking the universe, it's just an "delimiter" that allows her skill-based concept to keep going beyond the normal bounds of her setting and species -- without distorting the rest of the setting.

If I were to sit down and seriously define a setting, that's basically how I'd tackle things. Something about how all the world altering magic, direct divine intervention, and natural phenomena have woven a sort of magic into the world itself. Everyone has a bit of them. It's essentially the background radiation of life. For some, the spark of magic manifests as innate talents that, if cultivated, would lead to a world class chef, a legendary blacksmith, an expert tactician, reality-warping wizards, and legendary heroes. The spark of magic could amplify the 'pull' of their calling, leading them down the path, even if they never gain the ability to cast a single cantrip.

There are probably lots of points where this could go wrong, but it's a framework that I find acceptable, and it could let me explain anything from an Uberwizard to a Fighter that could cleft a mountain in twain.

[Max_Killjoy]

Effective physical training require you to push your limits away constantly. Farm work has a pretty much constant workload.
Farmers may be able to grow from below average to above average in a few years instead of a decade, but still never approach super strength because changing the range didn't change the workload.

And if you apply conservation of energy and the square cube "law", a farmer strong enough to do the work of 2 will need the energy (and food) to sustain 4. Outside of an elite topforce that's a liability and not an asset.

Are you sure about that?

Doing some preliminary digging, it doesn't appear to be the case -- rather it appears that there's a pretty direct ratio between work done / exertion, and the caloric intake needed.

(E: unless you've switched to talking about a specific setting/example, and not about the general issues.)

[Max_Killjoy]

Some people want their sword skill to be sword skill, not hacking skill or ki/chakra/internal magic/nonsense skill. But that's fine, because if someone good at swords hits someone else with a sword, they die. You don't need magic to make that happen.

The issue in the context of this thread isn't skill in that sense.

No amount of skill will allow a "like our reality" human or human-like person physically do things that enable them to keep up with D&D spellcasters at higher levels -- things like cutting through stone walls in a single stroke, stabbing through plate armor, leaping over 50' wide chasms at a dead run and continuing on the other side, deflecting a storm of arrows with their sword, etc. Those things require someone to drastically exceed human capability (unless you adjust "human capability" upwards with all the implications that come with that change).

If you want a game where a character can be viable throughout the progression simply because they're "just that darn skilled", then a system like D&D (3.x especially) isn't the system you want (unless you're going to trashcan 2/3 of the system, which looks a lot like the bad end of system Jenga). If you want to use 3.x D&D without hacking it to pieces, then characters based on pure sword skill and nothing else are going to be niche characters. (General you, not specifically you.)

[Jormengand]

The issue in the context of this thread isn't skill in that sense.

No amount of skill will let a "like our reality" human being physically do things that allow them to keep up with D&D spellcasters at higher levels. Things like cutting through stone walls in a single stroke, stabbing through plate armor, leaping over 50' wide chasms at a dead run and continuing on the other side, deflecting a storm of arrows with their sword, etc. Those things require someone to drastically exceed human capability (unless you adjust "human capability" upwards with all the implications that come with that change).

If you want a game where a character can be viable throughout the progression simply because they're "just that darn skilled", then D&D isn't the system you want (unless you're going to trashcan 2/3 of the system, which looks a lot like the bad end of system Jenga).

But you can and do have examples of people who can get through stone walls (even if it's with a low-tech grenade, it still counts!), kill people wearing plate armour, bypass chasms (if not instantly), take on armies (of archers or otherwise), and so forth. There's nothing about mundane that stops you from keeping up with the casters with a little ingenuity and a lot of character abilities which, as I said before, are limited by reality but not limited by much else. If nothing else, you can defeat wizards by shooting the bastards straight through their protective magic (see post about implying fallibility and fighters having saving throws and still not being magical). And at the end of the day, at least in core, wizards still can't heal, but there's no reason that mundanes shouldn't be able to; clerics can't create decent explosions until the midgame but there's no reason mundanes shouldn't be able to, and so forth. It doesn't have to be about doing everything a wizard and cleric can (a cleric can't do everything a wizard and cleric can) so much as doing stuff that is still useful to have despite the wizard and cleric being there.

Maybe I confused you by saying "Sword skill" - I'm not expecting a veteran only ever to use a sword. I don't expect modern soldiers only ever to shoot at things until they go away, either.

[RazorChain]

Are you sure about that?

Doing some preliminary digging, it doesn't appear to be the case -- rather it appears that there's a pretty direct ratio between work done / exertion, and the caloric intake needed.

(E: unless you've switched to talking about a specific setting/example, and not about the general issues.)

Hafþór Júlíus or the mountain (GoT) is one of the strongest men in the world and his calorie intake is 10.000 or 4-5 times of average human. He needs this daily to maintain his muscle mass. So if the farmer would get to Str 18 or somesuch then he'd need 4 times more to keep his muscles (and a lot of proteins)

[Jormengand]

Hafþór Júlíus or the mountain (GoT) is one of the strongest men in the world and his calorie intake is 10.000 or 4-5 times of average human.

Irrespective of whether or not this is true, I'm probably one of the weaker people around (I won't say weakest, but probably no higher than STR 8) and my calorie intake is about 6000 per day, because I have a hyperactive metabolism. So a single example doesn't necessarily mean that strong people need a bunch more calories.

[Arbane]

Soooo... how many caiories does a FLYING FIREBREATHING DRAGON need daily? Gotta have our incredibly selectively applied realism, after all!

[Jormengand]

Soooo... how many caiories does a FLYING FIREBREATHING DRAGON need daily? Gotta have our incredibly selectively applied realism, after all!

Is it wrong that mundane characters and dragons are allowed to exist in the sa...

...silly me, of course it is. Can't have anyone playing the character that they want to, can we?

EDIT: I also find it hilarious that you brought this up in a discussion of, of all characters, the mountain. He's not allowed not to be a spellcaster because dragons!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Irrespective of whether or not this is true, I'm probably one of the weaker people around (I won't say weakest, but probably no higher than STR 8) and my calorie intake is about 6000 per day, because I have a hyperactive metabolism. So a single example doesn't necessarily mean that strong people need a bunch more calories.

Caloric balance is really a hard subject to pin down. It depends on

a) personal factors/genetics (ie your metabolism)
b) specific body composition (muscle takes more energy than fat at a given activity rate, but muscles can be more or less efficient depending on training, genetics, etc.)
c) past diet (peoples' metabolisms change relatively drastically depending on how they eat--eating too little can tank your metabolism)
d) inaccuracies in measurement of both calories in and calories out (both are notoriously subject to error, in all sorts of random directions)
e) physical activity levels--when training, Michael Phelps (the swimmer) eats around 12 000 Calories per day to maintain weight.
f) probably a bunch more factors.

But in general, people with significantly more muscle mass should eat more than people with less muscle mass. How much? Hard to say.

Edit: and flying, firebreathing reptiles (at least the super-sized draconic ones) require a whole lot more than just extra calories. Super-strong, super-light materials for wings/bones for one. A rampant disregard for the square-cube law when it comes to body heat generation. And a few other things.

[Jama7301]

Wasn't this whole Strength/Caloric intake thing related to Max's claim that "If you have humans that are the same as in this world, with no changes, they should follow consistent rules"? If I'm reading his statement right, if you divorce martials in your game from what Earth Humans can do, then this becomes a non-issue, because the physics of Fantasyland are different.

I apologize if I'm wildly misreading this though.

[Max_Killjoy]

But you can and do have examples of people who can get through stone walls (even if it's with a low-tech grenade, it still counts!), kill people wearing plate armour, bypass chasms (if not instantly), take on armies (of archers or otherwise), and so forth. There's nothing about mundane that stops you from keeping up with the casters with a little ingenuity and a lot of character abilities which, as I said before, are limited by reality but not limited by much else. If nothing else, you can defeat wizards by shooting the bastards straight through their protective magic (see post about implying fallibility and fighters having saving throws and still not being magical). And at the end of the day, at least in core, wizards still can't heal, but there's no reason that mundanes shouldn't be able to; clerics can't create decent explosions until the midgame but there's no reason mundanes shouldn't be able to, and so forth. It doesn't have to be about doing everything a wizard and cleric can (a cleric can't do everything a wizard and cleric can) so much as doing stuff that is still useful to have despite the wizard and cleric being there.

Maybe I confused you by saying "Sword skill" - I'm not expecting a veteran only ever to use a sword. I don't expect modern soldiers only ever to shoot at things until they go away, either.

I was just running with the sword part, but the same thing applies to skill in general.

If we're staying specific to D&D, what does a Fighter have, even if we include tricks and setting-appropriate technology, that's going to equal a Wish or Miracle? How long is it going to remain satisfying for the player of the Fighter PC to have to go through all this planning and edge-pushing and terrain-using and effort... just to accomplish what the level 15+ Wizard PC or Cleric PC can do with a handwave?

[RazorChain]

But you can and do have examples of people who can get through stone walls (even if it's with a low-tech grenade, it still counts!), kill people wearing plate armour, bypass chasms (if not instantly), take on armies (of archers or otherwise), and so forth. There's nothing about mundane that stops you from keeping up with the casters with a little ingenuity and a lot of character abilities which, as I said before, are limited by reality but not limited by much else. If nothing else, you can defeat wizards by shooting the bastards straight through their protective magic (see post about implying fallibility and fighters having saving throws and still not being magical). And at the end of the day, at least in core, wizards still can't heal, but there's no reason that mundanes shouldn't be able to; clerics can't create decent explosions until the midgame but there's no reason mundanes shouldn't be able to, and so forth. It doesn't have to be about doing everything a wizard and cleric can (a cleric can't do everything a wizard and cleric can) so much as doing stuff that is still useful to have despite the wizard and cleric being there.

Maybe I confused you by saying "Sword skill" - I'm not expecting a veteran only ever to use a sword. I don't expect modern soldiers only ever to shoot at things until they go away, either.

I personally would still use another system. Maybe because I can run 5 different systems right now and 5 more with little prep.

But what you are discussing is tech against magic. This comes into conflict in for example supers and modern day with magic. Why should I have armor spell when I can just buy armor or why do I need magic missile when I have an assault rifle.

And this is fine if the settings contain the technology involved. Problem with D&D is niche protection or the reason why wizards cant use armor

[Cazero]

Are you sure about that?

Doing some preliminary digging, it doesn't appear to be the case -- rather it appears that there's a pretty direct ratio between work done / exertion, and the caloric intake needed.

(E: unless you've switched to talking about a specific setting/example, and not about the general issues.)

I mentioned the square-cube "law" for a reason. Two, actualy.
The first reason is the implied diminutive returns wich neatly prevent the überfamer problem.
The second is evoking the math, and more specificaly curves of math functions. If you zoom enough on a curve (any continuous curve, with any continuous equation, no matter how complex), it will look linear. Real world examples are a very narrow portion of the curve centered around the average value of one, so they naturaly look linear. But if you start looking a bit further than the square/cube of one, the square/cube ratio keeps growing faster and faster.

So no, I'm not sure about that, I don't know the exact equations, and I don't really care about what they look like because in the fantasyland where trained superstrength is a thing, I can pretend that a different equation that looks the exact same in the real world range is the one that applies.

[Jormengand]

Wasn't this whole Strength/Caloric intake thing related to Max's claim that "If you have humans that are the same as in this world, with no changes, they should follow consistent rules"? If I'm reading his statement right, if you divorce martials in your game from what Earth Humans can do, then this becomes a non-issue, because the physics of Fantasyland are different.

I apologize if I'm wildly misreading this though.

The trouble is, if "The physics in fantasyland are different" then you have to take that to its logical conclusion or risk massive dissonance, and taking it to its logical conclusion massively changes the setting. You can do it, but the humans you get won't feel like humans and the setting will change wildly.

I was just running with the sword part, but the same thing applies to skill in general.

If we're staying specific to D&D, what does a Fighter have, even if we include tricks and setting-appropriate technology, that's going to equal a Wish or Miracle? How long is it going to remain satisfying for the player of the Fighter PC to have to go through all this planning and edge-pushing and terrain-using and effort... just to accomplish what the level 15+ Wizard PC or Cleric PC can do with a handwave?

Wish and miracle are pretty wishy-washily defined spells, so you'll excuse me if I look at some other ninth-level spells. Some of them, like meteor swarm and storm of vengeance, are just an advanced excercise in hurting things, which fighters should be pretty damn good at anyway ("I nock three arrows to my bow and fire them, and do that again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, because if Lars Andersen can do it, why can't I?"). Astral projection is an advanced exercise in not dying, which fighters should be able to manage anyway. Elemental swarm, gate, SNAIX, SMIX and shambler are all just "I get friends", which a fighter should be able to do. Soul bind prevents resurrection, but since the soul has to be willing to return, killing people so hard that they don't want to come back would achieve that anyway. Time stop is just being faster, but a veteran can already be faster. And I don't know that there are any circumstances where specifically doing negative levels (as opposed to doing a sword through the face) is the best thing to do anyway.

Sure, miracle and wish provide a bunch of abilities, but that's just because they refer you to lists of things you could do anyway.

[2D8HP]

because dragons!

.
Dragons are AWESOME!!!

I want Dragons.

...then this becomes a non-issue, because the physics of Fantasyland are different...

.
In my earlier post answering "what do you want"

Okay, I will show you:

"It was a time of adventure"


"We will use the old ways"


"YOU MURDERER!"


"Making this up as I go"

.
....the last scene is from Raiders of the Lost Ark which is set in living memory. No man could physical do all that Indian Jones does in that scene and still walk. I also doubt that any pair of trousers could survive that, nor that the hat would stay on!

But it was AWESOME!

So no, not really mundane, but no spells were cast (okay, one ritual spell was cast later, which did not end well for the caster), that's what I want.

Here's another scene (with a DRAGON!):



Fire breathing Dragons don't exist.

But I want to imagine a Knight on horseback charging one with a lance.

I also want to imagine agile quick witted Rogues saving said Knight, and I don't want either of them to need to stand aside while some neckbeard wearing a pointed hat and a blue bathrobe with stars and moons sewn on it, gestures and mumbles.

Is that too much to ask?

[Jormengand]

Dragons are AWESOME!!!

I want Dragons.

Next thing I know, you'll be wanting dungeons too! You're so hard to please!

Is that too much to ask?

For some people, apparently.

[Cosi]

It's a serious question. You rail against any reason for a powerful BBEG to let the PCs live long enough to pose a serious threat, yet refuse to offer an alternative reason.

That's not really hard:

1. Destroying resources. Killing people who are weak prevents you from recruiting them. Even if you think you can't recruit them, other people might, and might retaliate for destroying them.
2. Honor. It's not unreasonable to imagine a culture where attacking someone substantially weaker than you is strongly frowned upon.
3. Resource expenditure. Teleporting in to kill someone and teleporting back is already two mid level slots, plus whatever divinations you cast. You can't do that for every enemy.

You forgot:
* the "Conan" concept doesn't change, but does gain fantastic elements despite still being "totally unmagical", and the setting utterly ignores this, and the players and DM suspend their disbelief successfully without issue.

You're playing a language game. Max thinks that "magical" and "fantastical" are synonyms. You can say they aren't, but you're not rebutting any of his points. You need to provide some reason your definition is better, and I think that case is hard to make because I don't see a better term for "everything beyond our world" than "magic". Are you willing to admit that both Wizards and Fighters should be getting "fantastical abilities"?

There is another way of making 3.5 martials stronger against wizards: give them abilities that imply the fallibility of spells compared to their martial abilities.

Yes, that is called "giving them magic". It's also stupid, because countering magic doesn't give you anything to actually do. You still can't make any declarations that advance the plot in the way that plane shift or raise dead would. You just get to say "nope, doesn't work". That's not an interesting character.

When I hit a wizard with a longsword, it shouldn't deal 1d8+something of his plot armour points in damage, it should cut his head off because I'm one of the greatest swordsmen who's ever lived, dammit, and I actually know how to kill people -

So what, he doesn't get any say in the matter? Offense beats defense because that's your concept? What about his concept?

So we can give the veteran the chance to find locations where you can go to plane shift.

"Go to the planar portal" is a first level ability. That is, by definition, not a high level ability. plane shift is high level specifically because it does not require you to do any extra work to make your ability function. An ability that requires you to do extra work is, by definition, not equal to plane shift.

What else? Wizards can send long-distance messages, so why not let veterans craft an "Envoy firework", which sends a message over a long distance with ingenuity and gunpowder? Clerics can heal hit point damage, and to be honest, why shouldn't veterans be able to do that? I can bring people back from the dead (for a certain value of "Dead", I'll admit), why can't veterans be able to? Sure, less "Raise dead" and more "Revivify", but still pretty helpful. Why shouldn't a veteran be able to manipulate and influence people like a wizard, sorcerer or bard does, when that's also something people can do in real life? Hells, why can't a veteran build a small flying machine, like a hang-glider with an ego? And why not let them create pseudo-alchemical items, healing poultices, and honest-to-goodness explosives (fun fact: you can make smoke bombs out of sugar and anything that will make the burning faster).

If making your viable mundane requires you to fundamentally alter the setting (adding gunpowder, aeroplanes, and whatever else), you've basically admitted that mundane characters are not viable as is. We already know that you can make mundanes work by adding tech, because Shadowrun has done that for decades.

Some people want to have a character who is defined by skill rather than hacking the universe.

Wait, Wizards aren't skilled? Every single person who isn't a mundane is just lucky? It seems like your "make mundanes viable" pitch requires a lot of pretty fundamental alterations to the rest of the game. Mundanes automatically win in combat because they're good at swording, which means no one is commensurately good at defensive magic. Mundanes develop new tech, which changes the era the game is emulating. "Skill" is defined as excluding "magic". All those things are carving out chunks of the game way bigger than "you can say your guy isn't magic until he hits the number you want".

[lesser_minion]

Soooo... how many caiories does a FLYING FIREBREATHING DRAGON need daily? Gotta have our incredibly selectively applied realism, after all!

Dragons don't do flying and firebreathing all the time (or even that often), and, unlike the fighter, haven't been arbitrarily forbidden from doing, having, or being 'magical'.

Some people want their sword skill to be sword skill, not hacking skill or ki/chakra/internal magic/nonsense skill. But that's fine, because if someone good at swords hits someone else with a sword, they die. You don't need magic to make that happen.

I've said it several times in this thread, but 3e D&D has an existing precedent in the bard that sufficient skill in a mundane activity results in magical powers. It's also not clear why a fighter would never sing, shout, or mentally recite a litany while in battle, nor is it clear why none of these things should have no effect. So you certainly could justify magic and even spellcasting as being part of the fighter concept. More easily than you could justify them being part of the wizard concept, interestingly.

I mentioned the square-cube "law" for a reason. Two, actualy.
The first reason is the implied diminutive returns wich neatly prevent the überfamer problem.

Isn't the square-cube law about how strength relates to mass (i.e., strength is proportional to 'size' squared, while mass is proportional to 'size' cubed)? I don't see how it applies to two different groups of broadly human-sized individuals who, in the proposed setting, clearly violate the "square" part anyway.

As for the claim that a farm requires a fairly consistent workload, if your limits can be pushed further than a real world human's, then a rural environment has plenty of opportunities for you to do so. Real-world farmers have found uses for all sorts of machines, vehicles, and draft animals for centuries, if not millennia, almost any of which could be replaced by a human if they could be strong enough. And one would presume that one human with the strength of a shire horse is cheaper than a human plus a shire horse would be.

Lathes (for making tools) used to be horse-powered -- with your setting change, those can be replaced with human-powered lathes, for a substantial saving. You can plough fields by hand and do as well as a horse- or ox-drawn plough; carry goods to market without the aid of a vehicle or animals; quickly dam watercourses to flood unused fields with rich silts (or to avert flooding, of course); and more.

Your setting change would result in far less technology and far fewer animals being needed in the fields, and you'd likely see people finding their way to cities, monasteries, temples, etc. far 'sooner' than in the real world -- where they would presumably become priests and philosophers. With abundant priests and philosophers, and with physical types being both comparatively rare and extremely valuable in the fields, forges, and workshops, magic-users would become incredibly abundant compared with D&D, potentially forcing purely-physical fighters out of the armed forces entirely. I don't think such a setting would have anything close to the traditional D&D fighter or rogue, except possibly as "magitechnician" archetypes (with power armour and warbeasts and mechs, oh my!).

While it sounds pretty cool, I don't think this really accomplishes your goals.

[Jormengand]

Yes, that is called "giving them magic".

It's quite clearly not. Beating up a summoned creature isn't magic, making a fortitude save isn't magic. Mettle isn't magic even though it gives you the ability to make better saves against magic (in a way that isn't just geddouttatheway). Shooting through protective spells isn't magic either.

It's also stupid, because countering magic doesn't give you anything to actually do. You still can't make any declarations that advance the plot in the way that plane shift or raise dead would. You just get to say "nope, doesn't work". That's not an interesting character.

I for one like my high-level characters to be able to defeat appropriate-level combat challenges, because that's a thing that I can do.

So what, he doesn't get any say in the matter? Offense beats defense because that's your concept? What about his concept?

Quite frankly, in 3.5, all sorts of things beat all sorts of other things. Mind blank beats dominate monster and is lower-level. Greater dispel magic has a 50-50 chance to beat epic spells. And if you're objection is seriously that the mundane is too good at his job, that's score 1 for mundanes who actually do stuff.

"Go to the planar portal" is a first level ability. That is, by definition, not a high level ability. plane shift is high level specifically because it does not require you to do any extra work to make your ability function. An ability that requires you to do extra work is, by definition, not equal to plane shift.

Yeah, but, like, the veteran ability doesn't just do that.

If making your viable mundane requires you to fundamentally alter the setting (adding gunpowder, aeroplanes, and whatever else), you've basically admitted that mundane characters are not viable as is. We already know that you can make mundanes work by adding tech, because Shadowrun has done that for decades.

I mean, yeah? As in, yeah the veteran is better at tech than the wizard? It's not like a hang glider with an ego or literally anything remotely explosive are beyond people's capabilities at this point.

All those things are carving out chunks of the game way bigger than "you can say your guy isn't magic until he hits the number you want".

I mean, "My sword guy is good at sword fighting" isn't really "Carving out chunks of the game". Or more to the point, it shouldn't be, because sword guys should already be good at swords.

I've said it several times in this thread, but 3e D&D has an existing precedent in the bard that sufficient skill in a mundane activity results in magical powers. It's also not clear why a fighter would never sing, shout, or mentally recite a litany while in battle, nor is it clear why none of these things should have no effect. So you certainly could justify magic and even spellcasting as being part of the fighter concept. More easily than you could justify them being part of the wizard concept, interestingly.

I'm aware that something I don't want to do is possible but that doesn't help me do what I want to do.

[Chaosticket]

I encourage people to think of alternatives to wanting "Mundane to Beat Special".

Technology is more likely to work. If magic is limited to certain people with the right Intelligence/Wisdom/charisma and only if they pursue it then what about everyone else?

What about nonmagical inventors? When does someone find the right combination to make gunpowder? Think about armies of thousands of people with Firearms.

[Jormengand]

I encourage people to think of alternatives to wanting "Mundane to Beat Special".

I mean, half of the problem here is that special so readily beats mundane...

[Pex]

"Training" is just another form of physical exertion... the farmer or laborer who engages in hard physical work for 8+ hours every day, year after year, is going to build strength and endurance to a certain degree, and if the range of human capability has shifted, then the results of that buildup are going to shift with the range.

I am suddenly reminded of the old movie "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules". It's Ancient Greece and the Stooges are friends and traveling with the Hero, who is not Hercules. The Hero is just some average guy. They're all captured and become slaves on ship. Through the act of rowing the Hero becomes steadily stronger. Eventually he becomes as strong as Hercules, and the Stooges use him to get rich and famous.

I think weird things sometimes.

[Max_Killjoy]

I encourage people to think of alternatives to wanting "Mundane to Beat Special".

Technology is more likely to work. If magic is limited to certain people with the right Intelligence/Wisdom/charisma and only if they pursue it then what about everyone else?

What about nonmagical inventors? When does someone find the right combination to make gunpowder? Think about armies of thousands of people with Firearms.

Changing the setting to include technology that really starts to level the playing field is a whole different discussion, and you get something that might be called "Napoleonic Fantasy" or "Flintlock Fantasy", heading forward into other eras -- could be fascinating as settings, but they're not really the sorts of setting typical to D&D or other games that have the fantasy version of the problem being discussed here.

Of course, several of the modern-era WoD settings have an issue similar to the one being discussed, but they take the choice path of "If you don't have magic, you don't matter." If you're not a Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc, then you're very likely to be a "meaningless nobody" whose best hope is to go completely unnoticed by the powerful things just around that corner, just behind that door, just over that hill...

[lesser_minion]

EDIT: We're on the second to last page. Do we want another thread?

I'm aware that something I don't want to do is possible but that doesn't help me do what I want to do.

My view is that there is a need to justify not doing it. Whether it's by introducing a new setting element so that it only works for music, or by having a bard that works differently to the current 3rd edition one, you can't make a fighter without 'magic' until you've considered why their skill at arms doesn't itself result in magic.

This sort of magic fits aesthetically, makes sense, and avoids a huge number of potential pitfalls with fighters. And clearly makes everything be about their skill at arms, not about brute strength or ki or hacking or invoking divine power or anything similar. I'd strongly recommend just merging the two classes, even if you do want to go back and change the bard so that it has less magic.