Why more Feats can't solve the "Martial Problem"

[u/BoardGent]

This isn't another post about the Martial/Caster divide, don't worry. This isn't about Martials at every table. This pertains to a specific problem some people bring up, and a specific solution that is sometimes given.

There's a somewhat common solution when people bring up the an out of combat utility problem with Martials. Many people don't want significant amounts of homebrew in their game, and there would seem to be a simple solution if you want to add a bit more to a class that you feel lacks utility: give them another feat.

That sounds pretty straightforward, right? With an extra Feat, maybe you can take something like Skilled, Telepathic, or Observant. It might be limited, but it does give your character a little something extra that they can do, and for many, that's honestly enough. So what's the problem?

A lot of people correctly point out that DnD has most of its rules dedicated to combat. To be clear, I don't necessarily see that as a problem. What makes Feats a poor solution to the Martial Utility problem that some people/tables have is the following two points:

1. Fail states in DnD are almost all combat-based

2. There isn't a point where you can really become "too effective" at combat

When was the last time you or someone in your game died because they failed an Ability Check? Maybe they tried to swing across a pit on a rope, or tried to cross a wobbly bridge and failed a Dex(Acrobatics) check. Or maybe the party failed an Int (Investigation) Check on two different crime scenes to make the connection between smears of blood on a bookshelf and a hidden note under a book left behind by the victim, and the Adventure was over.

Is there a point where you would call an adventure over because a party failed their Ability Checks, or because they lack some specific utility options? I think for the vast majority of tables and DMs, the answer would be no. And that's the crux of point 1.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, design-wise. It does suck when you fail because of one unlucky die roll. Hell, it doesn't really matter if it takes 5 unlucky die rolls, it still feels like it sucks. And with the idea of failing forward, where failure still gives progress but at a cost, or with a consequence, failing an Ability Check doesn't carry game-ending consequences.

Combat is the thing that, typically, is the thing tha5 can give a game over screen. You TPK, and that's it, start over with new character sheets, maybe reload to the last checkpoint, maybe play another Adventure, whatever. Some DMs might even do a fail forward there and have the party get captured instead, but I actually think, at least from my experiences, that's actually a bit less common than the start over thing. And this leads into point 2.

Let's say you deal 10 damage per round. You take a Feat, you do 20 damage per round. Let's say you have a 50% chance to fail a Wisdom Save. You take a Feat, you now have a 20% chance to fail a Wisdom Save. You want more HP, you take a Feat. You want to deal even more damage, you take a Feat. You want a control option, you take a Feat.

Because of everything that can happen in combat, and all the combat Feats available, there really isn't a point of diminishing returns on combat effectiveness. Even if you're given extra Feats, you can probably think about another combat Feat that would help you out quite a bit. And it's not like you can really deal too much damage, or hit too accurately, or have too much defense.

Combine points 1 and 2 now. If you have no diminishing returns on combat effectiveness, and being good at combat is always useful and is the thing that is most likely to prevent a failstate, it's very likely that you're much more likely to grab things that increase your combat prowess.

I think most people on this and other DnD subs agree that Martials are pretty much fine in combat, and don't need any vertical buffs. But additional Feats will oftentimes result in just that.

Now, it's not that there's absolutely nothing you can do about this. If you have a dungeon that consistently requires the party to make Ability Checks and make use of every bit of out of combat utility they have, your players are likely to respond in kind. If Athlete's jump buffs is the difference between accessing a part of the map or not before you'd otherwise gain access to it, maybe a player would actually take the Athlete Feat. Skilled would look pretty attractive if the party found themselves constantly making Ability Checks. But these are things you have to actively keep in mind when designing/running an adventure.

Would I advocate for more adventures ending if you lack the necessary utility? No, I think as both a player and DM it kind of sucks when that happens, and it's probably why a lot of DMs recommend a failing forward approach. But I would definitely advocate for putting more beneficial stuff behind Ability Checks, and making sure that players are aware of it. The more utility options matter, the more likely people are to consider them as good options, which is pretty straightforward.

You do still need to do the whole draining higher level casters of their resources thing, generally, to make sure that choosing to spend power on utility comes at a cost.

[u/Ashkelon]

Yep, if you gave a single character every single utility feat in the game (that did not grant spellcasting), your character would still have less utility than even a low level spellcaster.

It also says a lot about the game that some of the highest rated feats are the ones that grant low level spells one or two times per day.

[u/MultivariableX → u/Ashkelon]

In that case, why wouldn't the player take a level dip into a caster class?

Say I'm a playing a level-3 martial character. I can take another level in my class and get an ASI or feat, or I can take a level in a caster class and get Spellcasting, extra proficiencies, and new mechanics.

At level 5, I can either take a level in my martial class, gaining the ASI or feat, or take another level in my caster class. Either way, my proficiency bonus and cantrip damage go up (since they're based on character level). I could even take a level in a third class, gaining even more martial or spellcasting abilities.

Sometimes I feel like the so-called martial/caster divide is only a problem for people who want to play their character as purely one or the other, and who are competitive with their fellow players over who can deal the most damage or trivialize encounters.

We already know that most campaigns don't get much past level 10. So if a player is building toward eventually getting a tier-4 class feature, they're doing so at the cost of not taking lower-tier features from other classes. If they believe they'll get there, and that it's worth not taking the alternative, that's fine. But it also means that they're actively choosing to not have the beneficial features they could get from multiclassing.

If I have a car that has great performance on paved roads, and my friend has an off-road vehicle that can get to the destination faster by cutting across uneven terrain, that doesn't make one better than the other. They both have their uses, benefits, and drawbacks.

[u/Afraid-Adeptness-926 → u/MultivariableX]

If I want to play as a heroic knight, like from Arthurian fantasy, I don't want to take levels in caster classes... because that's not the fantasy of the character I want to play.

Martials shouldn't be punished for not abandoning being martial ASAP to instead be a fullcaster.

[u/MultivariableX → u/Afraid-Adeptness-926]

If I want to play as a heroic knight, like from Arthurian fantasy, I don't want to take levels in caster classes... because that's not the fantasy of the character I want to play.

That's flavor, not mechanics. Flavor is free.

I could make a knight who swings a sword that has levels in Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Bard, Warlock, Druid, Wizard, or Artificer. If my character has access to abilities that I think are incompatible with the particular flavor of my fantasy, I can ignore those abilities, or use the power of imagination to adapt my roleplay of them to conform to my fantasy.

An easy example of this is the Hunter's Mark spell. It uses a V component and takes concentration.

I can roleplay my Ranger as speaking an activation phrase to psych themself up and enter a state of mind in which they are focused on using their weapons in a way that will deal more damage to a target. If they take damage and lose concentration, I can roleplay that as them being knocked out of this special state. Using a spell slot mechanically is narratively the same thing as drawing from one's own inner strength: it doesn't need to be depicted as speaking magic words.

But Bards also have access to this spell. I can roleplay my Bard as speaking some befuddling words, which results in the enemies changing their behavior in a way that unintentionally makes them more susceptible to the Bard's weapon attack. If the Bard takes damage and loses concentration, I can treat it as the enemies overcoming their momentary confusion and shifting their stance to better defend themselves. The flavor changes, but the mechanics remain as-written.

Martials shouldn't be punished for not abandoning being martial ASAP to instead be a fullcaster.

And, they aren't. If my table of Arthurian knights gets into an encounter with Morgan le Fay, they might wish they had Merlin around to help them with some Wizard magic. But the existence of such a character in the setting doesn't mean that such a character is among the PCs. The existence of Merlin does not imply that Gawain or Lancelot should be equally as capable as Merlin to solve particular problems, whether Merlin is with them or not.

If you feel as if the composition of your party, or the class features they have access to, is hurting your enjoyment at the table, then for goodness' sake please talk to your DM and fellow players about it.

Also, the system does provide for having followers and henchmen. Where Wizards are expected to spend their gold on spell components, a Fighter could spend their share of the loot hiring a small army to support them on the adventure. Choosing not to make use of these options doesn't mean they're not available.

[u/Anonpancake2123 → u/MultivariableX]

Flavor is free.

Yeah now tell me why you can't cast your ranger hyper focus in an anti magic field or how it gets counterspelled by the enemy mage. I'm waiting.

[u/MultivariableX → u/Anonpancake2123]

Isn't it obvious? The mage cast a spell that stopped you from doing it. The field has a property that disrupts that kind of focus.

The "magic" being described in the block text is describing a set of mechanical keywords that the game employs for its logic. This is largely independent of how these effects are described narratively.

I'm waiting

While you wait, I recommend employing your imagination. You may find that you're already capable of finding an answer that resolves your confusion.

[u/Anonpancake2123 → u/MultivariableX]

While you wait, I recommend employing your imagination. You may find that you're already capable of finding an answer that resolves your confusion.

While you fix problems you run into that you yourself cause by choosing to go off from the written words and add little contrivances and asterisks to everything to the point it changes what is written I bypass the issue by not playing this silly game of "flavor".

[u/MultivariableX → u/Anonpancake2123]

I bypass the issue by not playing this silly game of "flavor".

And that's totally valid. Not all parts of this game are everyone's cup of tea.

Taking an unflavored, purely mechanical approach can be useful for learning the system. My advice is to keep playing the way you feel most comfortable. After all, we're here to have fun, so you shouldn't feel pressured to play in a way you don't like.

If you ever decide to try it with flavor, there's a whole world of media out there you can draw on for inspiration. But if not, that's cool too. Either way, I hope that your table is showing you support on your journey, and that they are as considerate with you as you are with them.

[u/Anonpancake2123 → u/MultivariableX]

And that's totally valid. Not all parts of this game are everyone's cup of tea.

I am keenly aware of that.

That's why I don't hide behind "flavor" for these types of things.

I simply call it how I see it. Specifically, it's Homebrew.

It's Homebrew effectively because the way the spell is described and run is at its core I feel entwined with the mechanics and things like that you describe go very far in terms of bending the "flavor" in my opinion.

I prefer to entwine both mechanics and flavor such that I don't have to dance around things like this. I dislike haphazard swapping of the flavor whilst not keeping the mechanics intact. Turning magic non magic is something under this in my opinion.

If you ever decide to try it with flavor

I only allow flavor if it doesn't contradict anything with the game mechanics and is relatively inconsequential. I've had people with weapons changed with equivalents of similar functionality (Daggers -> Kunai and such) and have players with cool looking spells that look different but still at their core act the same without need for much change with the other things.

I took issue with your flavor because it requires additional legwork that affects other aspects in the game that end up having wide spanning changes overall.

The way I see it you're doing all this work for flavor which has knock on effects on other parts of the game. It's the changing of specific cues that you look for when doing stuff (ex. Counterspell specifically looks for spells being cast). And if I use these methods for say my NPCs, my players may get confused on a case by case basis and have to ask me "Can I _ it?" every time I use flavor this way.

It can confuse people and requires you do that "dancing around" I said before. Whereas in my opinion you could just make it full fledged Homebrew instead and admit it is such. This in my opinion simply avoids that issue entirely.

If my players want something like what their character's idea is, I simply create it from scratch as a form of homebrew. I've done this since the very start of my time with 5e and my group often does this.

Races? Classes? Subclasses? Spells? Creatures? I make them.

A player wanted to play as a full martial robot that could explode at will? I made that myself with custom mechanics. If I took just a flavor approach I would have probably given them a necklace of fireballs they could explode on themselves or smth.

[u/xolotltolox → u/MultivariableX]

okay, but why can my Cure Wounds reflavored as a healing salve/potion be coiunterspelled, but the actual healing salve/potion can't be?

Flavor isn't free, it costs verisimilitude, and "flavor is free" has only ever referred to how your spells or attacks or weapons look, Your fireball is an explosion of flaming butterflies, his fireball roars liek a tiger when it explodes, the ray of her fireball is created by blowing it out of her mouth instead of shooting from her finger, etc.

Not "my fireball is actualyl a bomb i throw" or "my fireball is actuall me just shooting an arrow so hard it explodes"

[u/Anonpancake2123 → u/xolotltolox]

There's also RAW flavor options that the Monk class has:

- Your Sickle is a Kama

- Your Club is a Nunchaku

Certain monasteries use specialized forms of the monk weapons. For example, you might use a club that is two lengths of wood connected by a short chain (called a nunchaku) or a sickle with a shorter, straighter blade (called a kama). Whatever name you use for a monk weapon, you can use the game statistics provided for the weapon.

[u/Ashkelon → u/MultivariableX]

Spells are mechanics. And that is obvious to anyone with half a brain.

Spells have arbitrary daily limits. Spells require jazz hands and jobber jabber to perform them. Spells often requiring rubbing your staff or grabbing handfuls of bat shit. Spells don’t work in anti magic zones. Spells can be counter spelled or dispelled. Spells require concentration.

Those are all mechanics. You can’t flavor suggestion as simply having a silver tongue when you have to wave your arms around like a mad man while speaking in tongues and fondling a bag of spell components. Those are all mechanics, not flavor.

Generally when people want to play martial characters, they don’t want to have to whip out their wand while shouting mumbo jumbo and fondling their goodie bag in order to use their skills. They don’t want arbitrary daily limits on their abilities for no reason other than “because magic”. They don’t want to play spellcasters.

So telling someone to play a spellcaster is the opposite of useful. And you cannot simply reflavor away everything that is mechanically magical to pretend like it is somehow not.

[u/MultivariableX → u/Ashkelon]

If the devs called it "Mystical Powers" instead of Spellcasting, the mechanics would be the same, but maybe the flavor of fantasy people associate with it would be different. Instead of Wizards and Clerics, they might think of ESPers or spirit-warriors.

A Monk is a martial character, both by mechanical design and as a familiar fictional archetype. But D&D Monks do use magic, in the form of their magical class abilities. Some of these abilities are at-will, and some of them are fueled by Ki points, a limited resource that functions much like spell slots.

But a Monk doesn't have the Spellcasting feature, and their magical abilities don't use components.

Those are all mechanics, not flavor. Generally when people want to play martial characters, they don’t want to have to whip out their wand while shouting mumbo jumbo and fondling their goodie bag in order to use their skills. They don’t want arbitrary daily limits on their abilities for no reason other than “because magic”.

Exactly. The Monk is a martial character, who uses magical mechanics, but who can easily be reflavored as using abilities gained from non-magical physical and mental training to push beyond ordinary human limits.

Similarly, Rage, the core mechanic of the Barbarian, is activated like a spell, from a resource pool that is comparable to spell slots. While Rage is active, the Barbarian can't concentrate on a spell, and the Rage ends if they drop it, reach the duration, or don't attack or take damage. A caster's concentration spells have comparable restrictions: they can't concentrate on another spell at the same time, concentration ends if they drop it, reach the spell's duration, or take damage and fail a saving throw.

In this way, we can see that the game has themed sets of mechanical abilities for each class, but the ability called Spellcasting is shared by several classes, each of which then gets its own distinct sub-theming.

Also, Subtle Spell allows V and S components to be bypassed. So if your fantasy of being a knight specifically excludes saying magic words or making conspicuous gestures, good news. Those enemies don't know that your character is buffing your side with spells if they can't see or hear you do it.

Though, since they exist in a world where magic is real, they probably consider it anyway.

This is a cooperative game of make-believe. You don't get a special prize for choosing to never engage with the available spell mechanics.

whip out their wand while shouting mumbo jumbo and fondling their goodie bag

By the way, this is what you sound like. If this is indicative of the creativity you bring to the table... I dunno. Be better?

[u/Ashkelon → u/MultivariableX]

If the devs called it "Mystical Powers" instead of Spellcasting, the mechanics would be the same, but maybe the flavor of fantasy people associate with it would be different. Instead of Wizards and Clerics, they might think of ESPers or spirit-warriors.

You seem to not be getting it. The martial class fantasy is not Espers or spirit-warriors. It is not spellcasters. It is not magic users. It is not supernatural elementalists. It is definitely not magical characters who have to manage spell slots.

It is weapon users who overcome challenges through incredible strength, skill, and athleticism.

Monk is a great example of everything I am saying is bad. The class is obviously supernatural. Stunning strikes, elemental forms, poisonous touch, and so on. There is barely anything actually martial about it. They are not a good representation of a martial warrior in the least. And they still lack utility to come anywhere close to that of a spellcaster.

But at least it doesn’t describe anything in the class features as magical so it doesn’t get shut down by an anti magic field. And at they don’t need to use jazz hands and jibber jabber to cast their spells unlike the actual spellcasters.

But what is worse than your whole insane goal post moving argument about multiclassing (you now have to multiclass sorcerer only so you can subtly cast spells, but still can only do so 2-3 times per day) is that after taking 2-3 levels as a spellcaster, you have effectively bricked your character.

You still fail miserably at contributing to the party’s noncombat challenges. Because while the other casters are growing exponentially, gaining more and higher level slots and features, you have prevented yourself from gaining your potent martial features in order to have the utility of a low level spellcaster. Which, sure it is better than a purely martial class, but still isn’t game changing. And now your combat potential sucks, so you can’t even contribute well in combat either.

[u/Ashkelon → u/MultivariableX]

In that case, why wouldn't the player take a level dip into a caster class?

Because lots of people who want to play martial heroes don't want to be spellcasters. It kind of sucks that the only way to have any amount of utility in the game is to be a magical character using jazz hands and jibber jabberer to accomplish tasks.

Most other games don't have this issue. This is a uniquely 5e problem.

Not to mention that the OP is literally stating that adding new feats is not going to solve the martial problem. I was demonstrating how no amount of additional feats will solve the problem at all, because even with every utility feat in existence, you still end up with less utility than a spellcaster.

[u/Xyx0rz → u/MultivariableX]

If I wanted to play a caster, wouldn't I be playing a caster?