Unhallowed Rites, Part 3: Martial Responsibilities
Poor Antipaladin. World-shaking events are afoot. Heroes from all of the major parties are involved. And here he is stuck on the sidelines. Even his poor MacGuffin-puppy gets more plot action! And it’s not as if Antipaladin is totally mundane. Let’s not even contemplate those poor magicless rogues and fighters cluttering up the multiverse without so much as a 4th level spell slot. When you play through enough campaigns, this mess eventually become a pattern. And even beyond the well-worn battle lines of martial/caster disparity, it can feel like the less-magical PCs get the narrative shaft.
I think this has something to do with fantasy as a genre. Jon Peterson’s excellent history of fantasy gaming, Playing at the World, has this to say on the subject of the fantasy setting as a bedrock of the hobby:
The genius of the creative apparatus of Dungeons & Dragons is how it lowers the bar for contribution to the fantasy genre: it creates, in effect, a do-it-yourself kit, a checklist that prospective monster-makers or spell-weavers need merely fill in with their own fancies… Within the support system of the taxonomy, players and referees who would never attempt to author a novel can accrue fantastic narrative and worlds on an installment plan, to share in the pleasure of invention (Peterson, 201).
It’s a fascinating take. But then again, it doesn’t quite explain fantasy so much as role-playing. After all, it is possible to invent “taxonomies” based in any number of genres. The wacky lists of spy gadgets in Top Secret, the archetypal western classes from Deadlands, and the exotic alien species from Traveller all fit the bill. But what I think puts fantasy over the top is that oft-derided phrase “a wizard did it.”
Within fantasy, magic functions as a self-contained explanation. It’s a narrative Get Out of Jail Free card. And that means all us ‘prospective monster-makers and spell-weavers’ are left with a fancy that is truly free. The insane trap rooms of Grimtooth fame and the cartoon dungeon-scapes of Dragon’s Lair are not particularly bound by logic. Neither are laser-beam eyeball monsters. Neither are the literally-thousands of spells appearing in the ur-basement of our collective splat book collection.
And so, when it comes time to imagine the well and truly bizarre elements of high fantasy fame, an unfettered imagination naturally settles on magic. That means powerful rituals. That means dealing with demigods. That means ascending to the pantheon, wishing new realities into being, and infusing primal magic directly into the bloodstream of a setting. All of which leaves relatively little room for the guy at the gym to share in the spotlight.
This brings us to our question of the day! When is that last time you’ve seen a high-level D&D plot that focused on mundane rather than magical elements? How can you build adventures to make the less-magical members of the party more relevant? Sound off with your own takes on fighting-mans living in a magic-user world down in the comments!
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Antipaladin might want to contemplate just how much loyalty he feels to DQ.
His teammates – and perhaps more importantly, his puppy – are in very real danger and he isn’t allowed to stay at their side and help them.
(Also, Thief invited him to her wedding.)
In his place, I’d be considering where my loyalties really lie…
Given the format of the comic, it’s tough to fit every character thread into a short arc. Suffice it to say that Antipaladin’s time will come.
So… did Succubus take ranks in a spellcasting class, or is the ritual feeding on her fiendish spell-like abilities?
I’ll refer you to the upcoming Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic.
My group had a one-shot where everyone was a level 15 fighter (5e), no magical subclasses allowed. Despite some early disagreements we ended up having loads of fun fighting the orcish (and demonic) hordes.
Obviously this doesn’t compare 100%, but it shows that you can enjoy DnD without magic. So why not just lessen the possible impact of it?
That’s what in the rpg system “The Dark Eye” has been done. Spellcasting is alot rarer in the world, and alot less powerful in comparison to DnD. But that doesn’t mean that you end up with a full team of fighters, instead you choose a profession out of hundreds like “fisher”/”student of this-and-that school”… (basically you choose a defining background much rather than a general base class for features). It’s a fun system and magic in fact often seems like something you don’t need to get further.
As I wrote this, I was imagining “fighting armies” as a major thread for mundane characters. A wartime campaign is one of those setups where a Captain America can shine more than Doctor Strange.
I feel like the best way around it is to play on the ways a high level character is supernatural no matter their class (and to adopt a view of the game world where that is true), and perhaps to construct your magic plot devices to allow for everybody to participate.
For instance if the grand ritual requires both spellcasting mojo and skillchecks, possibly sacrifices of blood and souls to be spilled more characters can participate than if it’s strictly a put in x spellslots affair.
That doesn’t work if the non-magical PC is very invested in being truly “non-magical”. In that case I don’t think there’s much you can do though the characters who as part of their fantasy have access to powers and capabilities far beyond ordinary people, who to put a point on it can do fantastical things we real life humans can’t, will inherently be able to do things that characters limited to what we real life humans can do isn’t capable off.
I’ll be honest: I’m still pissed that the plot of My Hero Academia wasn’t Deku becoming Batman and schooling everybody with cunning and gadgets.
That was originally the mangaka’s plan, actually, but then he came to feel that it would be too much of a stretch to think that an unpowered Deku could defeat all those superpowered villains.
Madness! This IP is expert at coming up with BS reasons for one hero to defeat another. That’s kind of the primary draw.
4E kinda does that with the tier system, which also handily lets you know which levels you should be playing for a specific feel.
Heroic Tier is your Hawkeye and Aragorn level heroes; all martial, highly competent, can definitely hang with the mages and contribute in mundane ways.
Paragon Tier you can either start introducing some mystical power with a supernatural paragon path, or go full Batman and just be that badass. Still contributing, but it’s because you’re at and maybe a bit beyond peak mortal.
And then you hit the Epic Tier, where you’re badass enough that the universe itself starts acknowledging you. Even if you were fully mundane before, now you’re a walking story. You’re not just a guy with a bow, you’re a Godhunter, whose story is such that they can kill anything, no matter how powerful, or a Demigod, or a warrior who shrugs off death itself.
The nature of powers and class features in 4E, though, is that almost all of them (both martial and supernatural) are intended to help at the individual/small group scale. For the sweeping, epic, narrative-level stuff, you need rituals… which martials can still learn like any character by spending a feat, so that’s actually not so bad.
Never spent much time in 4e. Just a few intro adventures. The conversation that I usually hear is about “everybody felt the same.” I guess the idea is that the various encounter / daily powers felt similar to spells regardless of class. Did you ever get that impression?
I can definitely see where that came from, but I think it’s born at least partially of looking at things in a vacuum.
In actual play, those seemingly subtle differences between area sizes and shapes, pushes and pulls, and the various other secondary effects that powers have make a very noticeable difference.
For example. Every martial class I’ve played has the option to take, as their capstone power, a single attack that does about 7X your default weapon damage. Which seems pretty similar on the face of it. But even assuming that the entire party takes one of those powers, the differences between the classes make them play pretty differently: the Ranger wants to be the closest one to their target to activate their other class features, and doesn’t expend the ability if it actually kills the target; the Rogue wants to be attacking from stealth or flanking for bonus damage but aside from that doesn’t have any requirements; the Warlord wants to be adjacent to as many allies as possible; the Fighter to as many enemies.
I’ve seen it described as every class having its own unique minigame of tactical positioning for each fight. Combined with the subtly to majorly different secondary effects for every power, varied default enemy designs (I haven’t engaged with this personally, but I hear that 4E makes varied encounter design very easy), and terrain features, and it adds up to a lot of variety. I typically say that 3.5 is my favorite edition for creating characters, 5E is the easiest to teach, and 4E has the most fun combat. It has its fair share of flaws, but it also did a lot of stuff right.
Neat!
One of the toughest elements of this hobby: It takes so long to play a campaign that it’s tough for any one player to get a wholistic sense of all the relevant touchpoints. Same deal when you talk about video games. “Have you played XYZ?” type conversation tend to dead end when the dude you’re talking to has never experienced the title you’re referencing.
4e is still the Worst Edition (TM) though.
You can turn it around a little… instead of the muscle guarding the casters while they perform their ritual, the purpose of the ritual is put the non-casters in the right place to carry out their mission. Projecting them onto the spiritual plane, punching a teleport into a warded space, or perhaps enacting an anti-magic zone to shut down the big bad. The actual nature of the mission will depend on the characters, of course… kill something, steal something, sabotage something, whatever fits the skills you’ve got.
This is the “child of destiny” shtick. Or if you prefer, the “guard Frodo” shtick. Of course, it does demand that you invent a reason why the chosen one is a mundane rather than a magical PC.
Well, you could play it that way — but I was simply thinking of how to use the non-magical skillsets.
The guy who specialises in hitting things with a large axe… he’s not the child of destiny, but he and his assassin buddy are certainly going to be my first choice if I want someone to murder a god. It’s the casters who are playing the supporting roles, their ritual enabling Mr Axe and Ms Stilleto to carry out the primary mission.
That really does get into the martial/caster disparity argument, which is tangential to today’s comic. I’ll just say that it seems to me that a mage and their cadre of summoned bruisers can deal hp damage too.
Depends on the circumstances, but the point is to turn things around. Instead of focusing on the casters doing the important ritual and the martials being relegated to supporting cast, look for reasons why the casters are supporting the martials.
Anti-magic zones are the most obvious example of that… depending on the foe, it may be that the most useful thing the casters can do is shut down all magic, because that will give their martials an edge over a magic-reliant foe. Or as I suggested, the casters cannot be part of the strike team, because they’re busy performing the ritual that allows the strike team to strike.
I’ve been playing Pathfinder 2e for the last two years and the martial vs caster subject has turned into a different beast in that system.
Casters do not blatantly out-compete martials late-game thanks to a few changes. The first being that the new +/- 10 crit system makes martials crit fishing beasts that can deal amazing single target damage. The second being that rituals and identifying magic are now a generic skill challenge rather than a specific thing that only casters can do. Yes, farmers turned demon-summoning cultists are now supported by the system. And the third being that spells aren’t as “overtuned” anymore, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your own views and how the GM plans out challenges.
I love my long-running campaigns, but I really need to get into shorter arcs so I can actually try new systems. Still have only done a few intro sessions in 2e.
Still, it sounds like the solution here is “everybody can do the magical stuff.” That may be the way to have your cake and eat it too in terms of fantastical encounters and mundane characters. Of course, the “mundane” part becomes questionable at some point.
The last campaign I was in had a fairly mundane plot – standard ‘evil nobles from PC’s backstory plot to take control of PC’s home nation.’ They had some magic, but it was mostly there to augment their skulduggery rather than being the end-target of their plans.
Nice! In addition to the “war/army” theme, I was thinking that “game of thrones” was the other standard plot for low-magic high-level shenanigans.
I thought Antipaladin would have a bit more objections to Patches being put in mortal danger than that. And the whole ‘end the world’ thing.
There will be follow-up plots, have no fear.
No experience with ‘high level mundane’, but plenty of ‘high level magical’ stuff. A particular paizo AP I played had multiple magical rituals that were so complex / high DCs that my wizard was pretty much the only person who could perform them with any modicum of success (sometimes solo, sometimes with the rest of the party’s assistance).
And at least two of them had extreme ramifications if the ritual failed, and almost all of them were vital for the plot’s progression. If it weren’t for my Wizard, we’d be stonewalled by those rituals most likely, or the DM would have to alter them to be doable by non-genius-spellcaster PCs.
The APs also frequently have situations where you’re straight out of luck if you lack a specific kind of magic. Don’t have divination/arcane magic? Half the loot/artifacts does nothing for you, or you encounter a nasty permanent effect you can’t get rid of during the dungeon (e.g. blindness from Shining Child’s), or there’s a plot element you need to bypass with a astronomical arcana/religion/etc check and a very specific spell to continue (most commonly used with haunts or area hazards).
I love haunts. I just wish that there was more of a way to broadcast their obscure backstory requirements. I guess that “knocking haunt” is a thing, but that’s weak sauce guess and check type stuff. Most of the time it’s down to a GM to dribble out clues until the PCs do the highly specific thing. Bleh.
AS for Paizo APs, I do have some worries on that account. My Crimson Throne game only has two PCs, and the most magical dude is a 2/3 caster. I expect I’ll have to stretch some encounters to work for them.
I haven’t seen what you’re describing a lot in Paizo APs, as they usually diversify the ways you can achieve a goal, particularly as they went on, and why yes I have read all the 1e APs. 😛
I think the huge point you’re missing is that APs are written as a starting point. They try to accommodate as many playstyles and characters as possible, but ultimately it’s up to the GM to maybe put in more small sized loot for the all goblin party. Run exactly as written to your detriment.
Pathfinder does require some system mastery (as does any game), but I’m rather skeptical of your claims. A vaguely well put together party will steamroll most encounters and challenges. And as for low level debilitations, they can easily create interesting narrative opportunities – and show that the world has consequences more than easily healed hp damage.
Which AP did you struggle with, btw?
What is this mysterious thing called „high level D&D plot“?
It’s like a Unicorn, but for grognards/wizards.
https://external-preview.redd.it/Wzh7x95vA1OQqYapYEOOK1CgcwvFVZNGR9pNpUpsH_U.jpg?auto=webp&s=41c1b548961bd80f01504d75e7fe3be58d9a315d
It’s the thing that happens when you get past 10th level.
For serious: I became a forever GM because I was so freakin’ tired of campaigns ending after three sessions.
the Rise of the Runelords campaign gets a resurrection in two weeks.
currently we’re lvl13. The dungeon Jorgenfist felt pretty mundane but the main plot fells very „magic shit happening“
in my „under construction“ sandbox campaign one of the bbeg is sitting in an antimagic zone, with increasing spell failure chance the closer to the center they get.
It will be interesting to see if the players will ever be curious enough to get closer than the 50% zone.
In my campaigns, I have different tiers of magic and the players have access to a very narrow subsection of those tiers. World shaking rituals and the like are frequently outside the players’ ability to influence directly, as that kind of magic is almost exclusively the purview of NPCs. If a player wizard is like a soldier with a gun, an NPC is like a chemist. Both use chemistry at a very basic level to accomplish their goals, but the PC has sacrificed flexibility and creativity for speed and reliability. The PC and the NPC can have a mutually intelligible conversation about how chemistry works, but only the NPC can do the procedure without being actively guided through every step.
One of my most recent campaigns had a very mundane solution to an inherently magical problem. One of the PCs was a noble, 3rd in line to inherit a wealthy province. Said province was being harassed by fey and the PC rapidly became the last member of her house. The goal of the campaign was to raise enough soldiers and support to reclaim her home while also figuring out why the fey were attacking. This involved lots of court intrigue, some classic adventuring, and some heists. It also involved a side of dating sim since the PC was a very eligible match and a lot of her potential allies would only sign on if she married their heir.
All of this eventually led to the discovery that the PC’s distant ancestors had bound an archfey; an archfey that certain groups of fey wanted to free. The magic binding this creature was tied to the PC’s name. It could only be freed when no one had the PC’s last name. So not only were people trying to assassinate her, but it turned out that a lot of those marriage proposals would have freed the archfey too. When it turned out the person she ultimately decided to marry was secretly the head cultist behind the entire plot, it made for a tremendously fun murder-date.
Long story short, even though plots are frequently magical, spellcasters frequently have no more influence than martial types do because spellcasters can’t cast plot magic.
Important context: that noble PC at the center of the murder-marriage polyhedron was a fighter. The other two players were a thief and a wizard, childhood buddies of the noble.
I think you’ve got a strong contender for “ideal solution.” The same thing goes for sci-fi plots where the computers guy is the only one that can possibly do the thing. Getting a bit of extra insight because of your technical training is one thing. Same deal with opening new options (hack into the golem!) because of your class flavor. But gating success behind specific spells, absurdly high Arcana checks, or other “you failed this encounter when you chose to be a fighter” technicalities seems like a one-way trip to a bad time.
There’s a sense from some players that “plot magic” is BS and only the spells written in the book ought to exist. They’re right in a sense: it does make for a less consistent world. But on the other hand, it tends to make a more interesting game.
I concur! Class options should always provide new opportunities, so I’m all in favor of letting wizards tweak the warnings protecting a building if they can get into the creepy basement where the runes are.
Regarding the existence of plot magic, I see your point and have a counter argument. I’m not a fan of superheroes generally, especially as PCs. So why are the PCs hyper skilled and deadly and very few other people are? Well, a fair number of them go down the plot magic skill tree instead. You want to learn how to open a demonic portal? Spend 20 years praying in a monastery to Orcus. Most plot relevant magic could be learned by PCs, but only if they’re willing to dump an absurd amount of money and more importantly, time, into the project. That’s why high level NPC wizards are frequently masters of both, because they’ve got all the time in the world to get good at these two very different skill sets.
“Reports of the caster/martial disparity are greatly exaggerated.” – some of guy
Ah yes, the forum’s favorite thing to debate/complain about, save for alignment. I’ve found that actual play tends to be more helpful than theorycraft, and in my experience as GM player proficiency with the system and tendency to optimize matter far more than whether they’re playing a martial or caster. This has stayed consistent across systems, save perhaps for PF2e where it’s difficult to play a significantly optimized character (but as Paizo continues to publish content at breakneck speed, we’ll no doubt get there) as well as difficult to play a caster who isn’t a healbot who feels like they contribute to the party with their primary class feature (spellcasting)*.
The caster/martial disparity is a bogeyman that masks much more fundamental issues with the hobby that transgress systems – an inherent and often unaddressed toxicity that cannot be resolved with game mechanics. But that’s a different topic.
Instead of nerfing spellcasters into the ground like PF2e, you can go the 5e route* and not even try to balance anything. Or just play mythic in PF1e and watch the game fold in on itself. Or the shenanigans of 3.0/3.5… 80 AC gishes with constant concealment, about a million attacks per turn. Don’t get me started on PoW/ToB. I’ve seen powergamers try to optimize PbtA/FitD and it’s equal parts ugly and hilarious. Optimizing in Fate is just an exercise in extreme pedantry.
None of this is inherently bad, either. The problem arises when one or more players aren’t having fun because they aren’t getting to do cool stuff while often more experienced players hog the show, or their character can’t do the things they want because the rules of the game don’t let them. This can happen with any class, in any system. This is a table issue – game balance is a highly commendable, if highly challenging goal but you cannot solve a player issue with game mechanics.
*Disclaimer: I really like most systems for what they are, I’m just aware each has their own strengths and flaws.
I get the reaction. As you say, it’s a popular topic of conversation. But this old chestnut is explicitly not the thing I’m looking at today.
Rather than the optimization discussion, I’m talking about plots that cater to highly-magical PCs and no one else. When it comes to plot-relevant set piece encounters (e.g. today’s dark ritual), the PCs that don’t have access to intense magical training basically don’t get to participate. See Zarhon’s comment about Paizo APs for reference.
If you’ve listened to the Find the Path Podcast (no offoliation), they do a pretty darn good job of handing this. Generally speaking, there’s usually something for everyone to do in the big climatic scenes, but nobody whines when the rogue disarms the hall full of scary traps, the barbarian lifts the gate through sheer strength and rage (remember, lift with your legs), or the ranger tracks through the wildness. As long as everyone gets a time to shine and no one hogs the spotlight, this is really isn’t a real issue. But for some reason (see my above post), some folks get really annoyed when the spellcasters get to do the thing they’re good at. It’s okay to sit back and let the other players get to have their turn.
Mostly, I wanted to make a Mark Twain reference. Fight me, James Fenimore Cooper!
traps
gates
tracking
the climactic ritual
One of these things is not like the others. When you’re sitting down to invent a satisfying conclusion to an adventure, strength / survival / disable device checks are seldom the key. Having access to dispel magic, or teleportation, or disintegrate, or legend lore are more likely to make the difference. These things often called out explicitly in modules as “skeleton keys” that unlock specific paths to victory.
I would love to see more encounters that focus on non-magical actions as similar keys to victory. Sadly, they are harder to design. The closest I’ve seen is some of the computer-based challenges over in Starfinder, but even there it amounts to little more than “roll a check to proceed.”
This isn’t “whining.” This is trying to make more diverse character types relevant to high level play.
I’m pretty sure an Oathbreaker Paladin has more slots than a [Suc/Inc]cubus without a class. I’m pretty sure BBEG just didn’t think ObP could pull off the ritual negligee.
This highlights one of 5E’s greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses: The balancing power of an adventuring day.
In 5E with an adventuring day martials and casters are actually pretty balanced in-combat. (It’s outside of combat where non-Sorcerer casters outperform martials with their utility spells) Without one even a Sorcerer will outperform martials.
This is why I like the way Pathfinder 2E changed rituals. Now, you need a primary caster who makes the check relating to the tradition of magic the spell originates from (Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion), but you also have secondary casters who assist with the ritual and can help by making other related checks which depend on the spell. Also, the primary caster doesn’t have to actually be a caster, so you could conduct a ritual with a Fighter trained in Occultism or something if you really wanted to.
I imagine Wander stabbing his sword into a colossus:
https://i.insider.com/5a70eff2af61d85b028b468a?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp
To me, the obvious plot thread for a “mundane” high-level campaign is a wacky martial arts tournament. I don’t know if you’d want to have a rule where you outright ban magic, but hopefully the allure of Level 16 Barbarians and Monks and Swashbucklers going at each other while shouting Dragonball references would encourage players not to build a regular Wizard.
In my own campaigns, I think I tend towards non-magic climaxes, or at least non-magic-requiring climaxes. My Iron Gods/Second Darkness campaign ends with a battle on a technology-using alien starship, while my highest-level planned campaign climax is summed up as “Kill Grigori Rasputin, then go down to Hell and kill him again!”. Even The Moonscar, a 16th-level module I’ve run whose entire plot is “there are demons on the moon, go kill them” doesn’t require any magical skill – take the portal the plot provides and reduce everything beyond it to 0 HP.
I guess those are all fantastical scenarios, but I think that’s very common in high-level situations for two reasons: a) because it’s cool and you have the option of fighting demigods at higher levels, and b) it’s harder to make a high-level “mundane” threat that can be taken seriously. You can absolutely make, via the rules, a 20th-level fighter villain who punched so many rats that he can now survive dozens of arrow wounds and falls from space without any magic whatsoever, but that really rubs up against that ol’ suspension of disbelief compared to a demon or undead or even a super-enlightened monk who can do such things. As a result, the high-level bestiary stuff tends to be pretty fantastical, further pushing people in that direction.
Good one! I’ve always had trouble constructing those plots though. It feels so… artificial I guess?… when you have a series of encounters lined up one after the next. Have you seen any plot arcs that use the trope especially well?
I always see dudes reference head-canon in these scenarios. “You become a demigod when you hit high levle!” But if that were a thing, I’d love to see it supported in the setting fluff. Otherwise you’re left with fantasy BASE jumpers:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/falling-damage
I haven’t directly run or seen a tournament arc, though I know Paizo just released one. It sounds like in the last book, the tournament has been interrupted in some way, as they often are. I would think that the key to success would be to make the opponents (or more likely, opponent teams) stand out with big personalities and wacky abilities and strategies that can be foreshadowed. It might also be good if there’s a round-robin sort of thing with mandatory non-lethalness. Then the PCs can lose a match or two and still be in the tournament, letting them learn, adapt and form rivalries, while allowing the GM to make REALLY hard opponents.
I suppose you could also make a “Pokémon Gym” type of thing where the point is to defeat a set of specific opponents, each of which has a theme and is encountered in an area that directly benefits them (a misty dungeon where they can see perfectly, for example). All of these do risk getting away from the “mundane” idea, but that’s in part because there aren’t that many ways to keep tournaments fresh without opponents with strange abilities. (See every tournament Shounen ever.)
I don’t mind interpreting high-level martials as simply being ludicrously badass in the old Greek hero style (after all, the high-level martial PC is the same). I just feel like it would be hard for them to in-universe anchor a plot by themselves as “the badest dude that ever lived.” Give them an army, maybe, or some cover like being a master monk or ultimate barbarian warlord, and maybe it’ll work.
Or perhaps a crazed master duelist out for revenge, and the real challenge is finding them and figuring out what they want so you can stop them. Or maybe just copy the Joker. In general, high-level “mundane” foes probably require more minions, intrigue and mystery to work.
You didn’t watch Avatar: The Legend of Aang 🙁
That isn’t a question but a fact 🙁
Remember when Aang was on spirit world having fun with a face-stealing spirit? What was doing Katara meanwhile? Keeping watch. So Aang got all the fun, right? Aang is hte one doing the good stuff, right? Wrong. She got a duel with Zuko, and lost to him. If the magic-users of the party are bussy with a ritual the martial guys aren’t on a corner but on the spotlight for they are the only ones that can act. How is that when the heroes need to stop the BBEG ritual there is always the dragon to defend him, but when the party is doing the ritual the fighter is just there gathering dust? 🙁
Naw dawg. I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender.
https://c.tenor.com/InrbppWYBB0AAAAS/america-hurricane.gif
It is a weird example though, as Katara and Aang are both “magic users.”
I would point towards Sokka as a better example. Dude had a whole arc about how he felt useless, culminating in his “master plan” moment of destroying a bunch of Fire Nation airships. And if the solution to this probelm is “think of a genius plan every session to stay plot-relevant,” I’ma just roll up a bender.
But the “think of a genius plan every session to stay plot-relevant” challenge is cool 🙂
That’s the fun part: It’s an option for every player regardless of class or mechanics. Making it mandatory is the problem.
Make it mandatory outside game.
No genius play
No food 😛
don’t underestimate the importance of dust.
someone has to collect it, might as well be fighter.
To gather dust is that halflings are, if they deem themselves to be useful for once 🙂
I started writing a fantasy tabletop RPG rule system when I realized this:
“Fantasy is a genre about magic – magic items, magic spells, magic creatures, magic users, magic rules, magic locales. Magic and what seems to be it is what separates reality from this fantasy.”
This explains why people want and expect so much magic in their fantasy. Consider the Twilight movies and books. Consider the Harry Potter movies and books. Remember that Harry Potter has a land in a Universal Studios theme park but Conan the Barbarian doesn’t. Part of it is the intended audience’s age, but Conan ain’t a caster and the most notable characters in an official Harry Potter work are casters.
Mind you, non-casters can still narratively contribute but in different ways. “Keeping watch” and “killing lots of foes without casting spell slots” are potentially useful, but likely moreso is “I made our party fly away” or “I teleported our party into position” or “I AM our party’s special effects department!”
Actually, they had to shut down the Conan theme park because kept punching the camels then laughing…
Lol
I’ve always liked stuff like “raging flyer” for this reason:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers/paizo-rage-powers/raging-flier-su
You get to be so good at barbarianing that you become samurai jack:
https://id.pinterest.com/pin/59461657563562534/
I’ll pimp again Ars Magica as a roleplaying game that’s basically built around the very idea that the affairs of wizards do not often mix with those of the “mundanes”.
And it does this through two major differences with the typical D&D campaign. The first is that the passage of in-game time is a central part of gameplay: mages who want to improve in magic do not do so by exploring random caves and incinerating random goblins, but by cloistering themselves in their laboratories and reading old books, writing illegible notes, and mixing questionable reagents. It takes a lot of time, so entire seasons fly by in narrative seconds.
The second is that players are supposed to create two or more characters: a mage and at least one non-mage. That way when their mage character is busy, they can play another character. This even also to split the players into two or even three groups and yet have each player be in all groups — no need to wait passively while the GM focuses on the other players.
Huh. Given my interest in “you get to play multiple PCs” parties (my mega-dungeon and dragon riders games both worked on this principle) it would be nice to have a little guidance on how to do it well. Thanks for the recommend!
“When is that last time you’ve seen a high-level D&D plot that focused on mundane rather than magical elements?”
This is how I GM actually. I like stories of war, defense, and expansion. This generally means politics will also be involved. That being the case, most times the villains are martial heroes of their lands aided by a magician of sorts. But the threat? That’s a nonmagical thing. People are always going to be driven by greed and desire to conquer.
And for as much fun as the Ironfang Invasion is, it eventually delves into “M(agic)WMD” territory when it really could have stood up on its own as a fight between the enemy commander in chief surrounded by her guards and the player character team sent to stop her.
Eventually, you’ll have to take down the enemy general, and it’s easy for that to be a high level warrior.
That’s too bad. I was interested in that one since I recently came out of a “The Black Company” re-read.
I don’t know that martial characters inevitably feel inferior to casters interms of plot or mechanically.
To begin with the mechanical point, clealy, this is highly system-dependent. It also depends on what qualifies a “successful” character. In D&D 3.5, the gold standard of blasting, even into epic levels was the “mailman” sorcerer, so named because it not only did high damage, but did it consistently. The build almost never offered saves and preferred doing force damage, making it remarkably effective even against the most resilient enemies. Nevertheless, sorcerers in 3.0/3.5 inevitably come out below wizards because of their limited spell lists. This goes to the core of the issue with martial characters as blasters: versatility is often more valuable than higher damage numbers. As others have observed, there were melee builds in 3.0/3.5 that were highly effective—take the hulking hurler or spirited charge builds for example—but these builds, while effective at dealing high damage, struggled to ensure they remained relevant in a broad variety of combats, e.g., fighting ethreal creatures. The upshot is that, while melee characters can be effective at doing damage, they lack the versatility of their magic-using counterparts to some extent. That the Tome of Battle martial classes were generally considered to be the highest tier martial classed (3), evidences the value added by the versatility of maneuvers. This versatility is, in turn, reflected in the Echo Knight and Battlemaster in 5E. This is to say, martial classes can be balanced vis a vi casters mechanically, primarily when given some versatility in abilities that tends to be otherwise lacking from martials.
Turning to whether martial characters inevitably play a lesser role in world-shaping events, I propose that martial characters involved in worldshaping events is more heroic/epic what-have-you. By way for argument, I present for your consideration three examples: The Odyssey, the Discworld series, and Berserk.
In the Odyssey, the drama is largely because Odysseus is just a dude who is pretty good with the bow. His survival of an improbable journey against all odds works because is just a human who is pitted against legendary beasts and even spiteful gods. Sure, other heroes have incredibe powers, (Hercules) or a bunch of magical gear (Perseus), but Odysseus just has his cunning. It is this power disparity between him and his foes that makes his cunning victories all the more rewarding.
I think Discworld is illustrative in a few helpful ways. To start with the up-font example: Rincewind, whose whole deal is that he is a wizard who can’t cast spells. Indeed, Rincewind is closer to a rogue stat-wise than a wizard, and his woeful lack of power is what makes him so lovable. For instance, facing the ultimate mage armed with a half-brick in a sock. Martial characters involved in matters of world-shaking import are forced to resort to solutions that are, at once, imaginative, and relatable. It is the human solutions to the supernatural that can underscore the power of human ingenuity, which takes me to my second disc world example: The Last Hero, in which Cohen the barbarian beats Fate in a game of dice by cutting his d6 die in half. It’s one thing for a caster to go toe-to-toe with cosmic powers on equal footing, and quite another for a clever human to beat a deity at their own game.
Berserk touches on many of the themes already articulated while adding its own: magic is inimical to the human condition. The nature of magic is that it accomplishes without effort. If the human condition is to constantly strive, then magic, which just “does,” is at odds with a more process-oriented view. If what is valuable in an experience is the process rather than the achievement, and the process which attaches value, then magic seems to ellide a critical step: the doing. I propose that the “mystical incantation” is, a perhaps implicit, reaponse to this, by forcing some sort of action on the part of the caster. The difference, however, is in the causality. The incantation must feel as if it has a close causal tie to the events, like Saruman chanting on Orthanc when the fellowship tried to cross over the Misty Mountains. The point is that magic should, but often does not, feel like an exertion on the part of the mage.
All of this is to say that, while martial characters do often suffer mechanically, they can be more than just the heavies! Martial characters are closest too us in character design. While I’ve never cast fireball, I have LARPed enough to know a bit of spear-fighting. Martial characters can be uniquely human in a fanciful setting, and can feel particularly satisfying when used to accomplish the “impossible.” So anyway, that’s why I like non-magical characters.
Here’s hoping Antipaladin at least gets an encounter thrown his way while working the guard. I really can’t stand DMs that sideline PCs for stringy reasons, or because a certain player is unlucky, that’s not fair.
Today’s story – I was partaking in a modern game, with a large party, set in an academy. There was a water polo event, and our party got entered by the local variety of alpha bitch. Fun times for everyone, right? Except for one of us – my character was wheelchair bound, and unable to participate in the swimming event, since she was still stuck at level 0 (also pretty annoying, because nearly everyone else had their spells/abilities already). So, they had me hand out raffle tickets, which one of our physically active party members won, and I was cut out of the prize because I didn’t compete.
I don’t fully blame my DM for this – part of it is my fault for creating a disabled character knowing that the game would require physical activity from each character – but it still sucked to be sitting there cheering them on for eight hours and be denied even a morsel of the spoils. So, I relate to poor Antipaladin here, man’s doing his best, and he HAS magic, and the party won’t let him participate?
Unfortunately my story here lacks a nice ending – my character is oft-bullied by NPCs and some party members alike, and consequently struggles to get more involved with the fantastic parts of the game. For non-magical PCs, my first thought would be an anti-magic or wild magic zone, but that just inverts the problem and makes mages resentful. The ideal solution here is to not create a situation that requires magic to be useful in the first place. A story about a man beating down a bunch of bibbity bobbity bull with his own two god-given fists is just as compelling as your standard fantasy shenanigans, if not more so. Try mundane threats! Or make magic vulnerable to cold iron, if you really want to keep it around. The sky’s the limit here for Dan’try the Fighter to blend a nice three-wizard smoothie and leave his squishy casters squealing with admiration (or, more likely, seething with confused jealousy. Wizards don’t like to be upstaged.)
“Oh no! Something is attacking, I’ve got it!”
“And we’ll help!”
“No, you have to complete the ritual!”
My how the turn tables…
It’s a good point. This is the equal and opposite thing, and it’s also something we want to avoid.
So here’s the question: How do you create an interesting encounter where the mage “completes the ritual” while the rest of the party also contributes? What does that look like in practice?
Well, the obvious answer is to make the ritual (or similar activity) a mechanical challenge on par with the outside fight. However, that’s a nightmare of added complexity and balance problems, and the only system I know of that goes into that kind of depth is Shadowrun.
In Shadowrun, interfacing with a machine to hack it or pilot it (or both) has its own set of mechanics, with rounds, actions, and contested checks. Stereotypically, this means that once any hacking needs to be done, the rest of the party can pack up and go home for the night, but because hacking only occurs at three times the speed of normal combat, it is very possible to have both going on simultaneously for an epic showdown where the hacker is engaged in virtual contests over control of the pursuer’s drones/satellites/radios/what-have-you, while the rigger drives like mad to evade enemy vehicles and deploys drones to run interference, while the rest of the crew fires their guns at enemy drones/vehicles and repels boarders.
Disclaimer: I’ve never actually played Shadowrun. I read through several sourcebooks and created a handful of characters, but I have zero on-the-ground experience. I offered to GM it at one point, and told the potential players that unless one of them wanted to play a decker (hacker) I’d be sidestepping this issue entirely by giving them NPC(s) with the necessary skills, whose success and failure would be driven entirely by what was narratively appropriate/interesting (or perhaps my mercurial whims; who can say?) rather than hard mechanics.
So yeah, I guess those are my two solutions. Sidestep the issue entirely by making one group NPC(s), or give both groups a mechanical challenge. For D&D, maybe you could use something like 4E’s skill challenges for the ritual (although at that point you may as well just let the martials contribute to the ritual the same way), or let the casters control their familiars as those fight alongside the martials.
My Shadworun experience is limited (and weird). But every time I’ve seen it done within my circle, simultaneous wet work/decker encounters were avoided like the plague.
For my money, I think that part of this problem lies in the under-utilized “exploration” pillar of design. Spells can be useful in combat, but those self-contained little balls of rules are equally useful in abstract problem solving.
I suppose I’m looking for something akin to equipment tricks that can be baked into the system:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/equipment-trick-combat/
But even there, it’s on the encounter designer to create scenarios that allow group contributions rather than “I solve it with a single spell.” And as you say, that’s hard. This is why combat tends to become a default, as everyone is designed to contribute to punching things for HP damage, while relatively few are mechanically positioned for eldritch puzzle-solving. And as I said in the OP, because eldritch scenarios are an attractive part of the genre to noodle with (especially at high level), casters tend to become the only relevant players in far too many encounters.
Their are systems where everyone is a spellcaster to some degree the main question is what the spells are for: enhancing personal combat power or blasting/summoning stuff. (RQ:G comes to mind but it presumably also applies to the runequests that I haven’t looked at)