macmacfire

My biggest problem is that searches don't fucking work anymore. It now defaults to searching the channel you're in, but what if I'm look for a particular message and I don't know what channel it's in? Then there's also searching PMs is so much more complicated now and doesn't even show you who sent the message in the results.

Now THIS is a real Swiss Army Man.

As someone has mentioned, "Pass" and "Fail" are not the only possible outcomes of any given roll. That's why there are numbers on the dice besides 1 and 20.
Also, the GM doesn't usually(and also shouldn't, with everything else they need to keep track of) memorize every aspect of all their players' character sheets - they don't necessarily KNOW if the check is impossible to pass or fail.

I don’t know if 5th has that as an official rule or it’s a common house rule.

It's mentioned somewhere in Chapter 8 of the DMG.

Magic should be powerful, yes, but non-magic users should be able to function.

I’ve always house ruled that it didn’t make sense for a character to fail at the thing they’re the best at.

House Ruled? That's RAW. Crit Fails and successes only apply to attack rolls and death saves. And that's how it should be.

You put that WAY better than I did.
And yeah, At this point Casters really can just do everything martials can, better, and more. There's just no denying that.

Most spells also used to cost something to cast other than a spell slot. When your only limitation is 8 hours of rest, magic scales wildly out of control.

This post I made just...keeps coming back, doesn't it?

Or play a system with better design instead of trying to force the wargame to be anything other than what it was designed to be.

Okay fair, I suppose. That is part of why I mention Pathfinder in the post, though, so...Eh. Whatever.

No I absolutely agree with you on both of those points - Martials need more resourceless abilities, and casters are too strong and nerfing them is an absolutely essential step. People are too resistant to nerfs, but PF2e casters are just as competent as ever - they were made less omnipresent because the problem isn't just in how absolutely shafted martials are(though that is definitely a big, BIG issue that WotC seems to not even be trying to hide anymore), it's the fact that magic is too cheap for such powerful effects, while martial abilities are just as if not more expensive for less.

Honestly, the main example I turn to regarding both of those points, and WotC absolutely hating martials, is one single ability - Commander's Strike.

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks[1, ah ah ah] and use a bonus action[2, ah ah ah] to direct one of your companions to strike. When you do so, choose a friendly creature who can see or hear you and expend one superiority die[3! ah ah ah]. That creature can immediately[This Count Dracula joke doesn't apply here...] use its reaction[4! 4! Ah Ah Aaaahhh!] to make one weapon attack, adding the superiority die to the attack's damage roll.

Have you figured out what the muppet vampire was counting? That's right, Resources spent by this fighter ability! And the total count is FOUR. FOUR ENTIRE RESOURCES SPENT BY THE PARTY, THREE OF THE FIGHTER'S AND ONE OF THEIR ALLY'S, ON ONE ABILITY. SPELLS NEVER COST MORE THAN ONE SPELL SLOT EVEN AT 9TH! WHAT THE FUCK?? Let alone the fact that all you're getting for it is...A single extra attack from an ally that turn. With a bonus to damage, sure, but that only applies if it hits. And to add insult to injury, it says "immediately," so the one getting it can't even delay it to decide the optimal target or save it for a particularly sticky situation.

The game and its players seem to just put more expectations on the non-magical people for them to be able to do anything than casters, who can just do things with no strings attached.

When power levels of the degree of modern TTRPGs are expected of characters, D&D sort of becomes a game all about your options and which you choose when. If certain characters have inherently MORE options to pick from in such a setting, that means they are essentially objectively better by default.

Also, “martial” in this case specifically refers to Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues.

Don't discount Monks! They're generally regarded as the worst class in the game, as they're essentially fighters that deal less damage in exchange for a resource that lets them use cool abilities...for a short time. Yeah, I know they're technically? magical, but they function and present as a martial class, poorly at that.

The disparity is choice and impact. Because of their lack of choices, it can seem difficult to have an impact on the game, mechanically. A good DM can make up for this in a variety of ways, but when you’re just looking at the rules or white-rooming a character, the problem does tend to become a bit obvious…if overblown.

Also don't discount, being able to play out-of-combat scenarios. Casters get utility like Pass Without Trace, Spider Climb, Prestidigitation, Friends, and then the fact that most of them are charisma-based for some strange reason, which is THE out-of-combat stat. I know my suggestion in particular doesn't really address that, and is more focused on the more-abilities and/or allowing interesting choices part that you mention after that, but I do absolutely want things like 3.5e's Moment of Perfect Mind, and whatnot.

I like your thinking. Also have you read the most recent playtest? In it second wind is the limit break resource, at later levels they can use it to ad to skill checks and gain extra movement without provoking opportunity attacks, in addition they have weapon mastery properties that are control oriented.

I haven't! Nice to know I'm having similar ideas, I suppose, though this has a much different execution.

If you’re interested though, I was thinking about rewriting a samurai class that was effectively fighter fueled by ki with eldritch invocations. It was a little too powerful in it’s last build but faired just fine alongside the other classes I made for the game it was played in.

Hm, that is pretty neat. Though I think it would work better as a monk subclass, I do want more "pseudo-this-other-class" subclasses, especially for martials.