D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Micah Sweet]

I skipped a lot of your build stuff, because most of it is just silly to me. I especially don't get why you are wasting time of false life and shield while in a city or town and not fighting.

But the rest of this is just... kind of hilarious. Yeah, Hold Person only targets a single person at base level. Yes, again, any attack within 5ft is an auto crit. But you seem to never have fights with one big heavy. Taking out the enemy bruiser, who likely doesn't have LR or a high wisdom is critical.

Also, "never more than one lost action per bad guy" are you not understanding how HUGE that is? The enemy is forced to ignore your party, potentially for an entire round. IF you time it right, you can essentially get two rounds of combat. Most fights are three rounds. That isn't an encounter ender? It can turn a hard fight into a cakewalk. Fear is a much smaller area, and since the enemies run away, they just come back later.



And if the enemy is low wisdom and will fail even with advantage? Seen it happen. It was actually a demon and they had advantage the entire time, took them three rounds to shake off the spell, WITH people hitting them.

Situational, sure, but when you have ten different "situational" encounter enders, it stops becoming a rare occurrence.



Sure, it happens. But a spell that wins the fight half the time, still wins half of the fights. And no martial character can do that. None of them have the kind of reach or ability to, in a single action, win a fight.

But how would you explain a martial character doing that? Explanations for how are built into magical and supernatural solutions. Come up with a good explanation for how the martial ends the fight without magic or its equivalent and you've got me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Which is exactly the problem at hand: people seeing something they personally can't accept--up to and including things normal humans can and routinely absolutely do like 'come up with a contingency plan' or 'swim in the Misssissippi' and immediately not only decide they're humanly impossible, but actively supernatural regardless of what actually matters: the in-universe mechanics and contexts of those abilities.

Batman's planning is a completely mundane product of his ingenuity.

Wolverine's healing factor is the result of his naturally occurring (in some continuities) X-gene.

Juggernaut's Crimson bands of Cytorrak are magical.

Why?

Because the writer said so. No matter how brutally some people may want to torture words, especially 'magic' and 'supernatural' to be a catch-all for 'fictional'.

Well, yes and no.

Batman making a contigency plan sounds mundane and something any normal human can do.
Batman creating a secondary sleeper persona, buried in his psyche, in case of mind control. Okay, "I live in a world where mind control is possible" means that in theory coming up with a plan for that is possible, but it is certainly fantastic to create an entire subconcious, secondary mind to protect yourself against psychic attacks.

I can make a contigency plan. I can't create a secondary mind inside of my mind. Batman did, and I wouldn't be shocked to hear a writer say he has a third personality buried under that one.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Once more with feeling:

If something is not supernatural in-universe, it is not supernatural. It may be fantastic in its meta context, but something's status as magical or supernatural is relative to the work in which it exists.

I don't know if I agree with that. This would mean that Bending from Avatar isn't supernatural. And I find it hard to say that lifting rocks with your mind isn't supernatural in some way.

Also, you get into fuzzy territory with things like "true names". Speaking the name of fire, to call upon the fire in existence to do what you want... technically doesn't need to be supernatural. You are learning a language and speaking to a non-human intelligence. But, if someone could actually talk to fire and make it act like a puppy... I feel like that is supernatural.

I think we do need to accept that, if not magic, at least the term supernatural has to come from the perspective of the Earthling audience.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

But how would you explain a martial character doing that? Explanations for how are built into magical and supernatural solutions. Come up with a good explanation for how the martial ends the fight without magic or its equivalent and you've got me.

ok, let me pull up the list of a5e combat maneuvers...uh...

how about i stride around the battlefield and hit half the enemy force so hard they get major concussions and forget what walking is for a moment? or bully the boss with that. or maybe i'll just go full chiropractor and bruise someone's spine. actually, no, i think i'll just let the rest of the party burn the bbeg's legendary resistances and then stab him straight through the brain. i can do it six times in a row if i really need to get it off.

like, you literally main a version of the game where martials can do this kind of stuff without magic. i'm kind of baffled you're demanding an explanation here.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are we assuming the universe has people who have properties like humans in real life?

No and nor should we.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't know if I agree with that. This would mean that Bending from Avatar isn't supernatural.

Bending is literally shown and discussed to be spiritual in nature.

 

[Micah Sweet]

ok, let me pull up the list of a5e combat maneuvers...uh...

how about i stride around the battlefield and hit half the enemy force so hard they get major concussions and forget what walking is for a moment? or bully the boss with that. or maybe i'll just go full chiropractor and bruise someone's spine. actually, no, i think i'll just let the rest of the party burn the bbeg's legendary resistances and then stab him straight through the brain. i can do it six times in a row if i really need to get it off.

like, you literally main a version of the game where martials can do this kind of stuff without magic. i'm kind of baffled you're demanding an explanation here.

I expect they provide better lore than you just did. Your silly descriptions aren't convincing me of anything. And those are explanations. What I'm talking about is having this stuff happen with no explanation at all, ie, "I'm just that good".

 

[Chaosmancer]

But how would you explain a martial character doing that? Explanations for how are built into magical and supernatural solutions. Come up with a good explanation for how the martial ends the fight without magic or its equivalent and you've got me.

The same way I explain everything.

1) Those are the rules in the book, that allow me to do that. "Why can your druid heal as a non-spell bonus action?" "Because that is what the ability says"

2) Whatever fits for the particular character. I had a rogue whose uncanny dodge came from him beginning to overcome his anxiety. He was always that fast, he was just overthinking things because of trauma, and so at level 5 he had worked through it enough to overcome that. Why can my non-magic using Beast Barbarian grow fangs, claws and back tentacles? Because the spirits of the forest were enraged when the necromancer he is hunting defiled a sacred grove, and are inhabiting his soul. Why did the Storm Herald barbarian catch everything on fire when they raged? Because they had fire elemental blood in their veins. Why was my artificer able to cast thorn whip? He made a steel cable weapon.

You want the explanation before the ability and before the character. That isn't how this works. The explanation is the LAST part, the first part is actually creating the ability.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Bending is literally shown and discussed to be spiritual in nature.

But the spirits are a natural part of the world, and people are born benders. It is in their blood. So, are spirits supernatural? What about disembodied souls, if souls are natural, is a disembodied soul natural?

And again, true naming. Is speaking another language supernatural?

I will fully agree, magic needs to be called out as magic in-universe for it to be magic. But the term "supernatural" is a term that stands opposed to "natural". And in the context of a fantasy world, what is natural for that world can get very very fuzzy. So, I think it is fine for Supernatural to be established as from the perspective of the audience, as it makes the clearest sense as "opposed to the Earth IRL"

 

[NotAYakk]

No and nor should we.

So, a non-magical martial in 5e who can
1. Move so fast they teleport up to 500' as a bonus action
2. Can hit the ground producing a 50' area of effect. Creatures other than you in that area of effect take 10d8 damage and fall prone; they can make a strength saving throw to take half damage and not fall prone.
3. Has a movement speed of 200'.
4. By taking an action, can charm any creature they talk to. Whenever the charmer or their allies damages them or their allies, they get a wisdom save against the charm.
5. Does not take damage from falling.
6. Can jump up to 100'.
7. Whenever they hit a creature, can move up to half their speed and attack a creature they have not attacked yet this turn. If it is an ammo weapon, this uses a new ammo. If it is a thrown weapon, use the first creature's location for the origin of this new attack. These are all extra attacks beyond the usual number.
8. Regains 1 HP per expended HD per turn. Can spend a HD to increase this healing rate by the roll plus your constitution bonus.
9. Rolls initiative twice. Acts on both initiative counts.
10. Has Dexterity bonus extra reactions.
11. Can expend a reaction to being hit to move half your speed. If this makes you an invalid target to the attack, the attack misses.
12. Can expend a reaction to making a saving throw to move half your speed. If this makes you an invalid target to the effect triggering the saving throw, the effect no longer applies.
13. Can throw energy blasts using their determination. As an action, pick a location you have line of effect to within 100'. All creatures within 20' of that location must make a dexterity saving throw or suffer 8d6 fire damage (1/2 damage if they succeed). Unattended objects in the area that are flamable catch fire.

is totally not supernatural?

Got it.