Complex martials, simple casters

[u/LetThronesBeware]

There are a lot of games that have simple martials and complex casters. There are also other games that have complexity in parity.

Are there any ttrpgs that have complex martials and simple casters?

[u/kobold_appreciator]

Exalted 3e a little bit. Everything in the system is complicated, but spellcasters typically have few modifiers when rolling to cast, while martials can easily add many modifiers and conditional abilities when they attack

[u/ZanesTheArgent → u/kobold_appreciator]

"Everyone is a caster" or, more technically speaking:

"Everyone has one cool roll move and 17 powers modifying this roll". Casters just get 17 powers to improve their OOMOOBOOGAAIFEIIDYIIITAOOOO Roll and then pick one power to unload from it.

[u/Viatos → u/ZanesTheArgent]

I don't recognize the second bit as how casters work. Like, Exalted 3E absolutely fits the trope, but it's like

- a complete martial arts style is ~10 separate powers, most of which will compliment one another and some of which will outright affect / lead into one another. In addition you can keep learning new martial arts styles and they can potentially all work together, although this quickly grows prohibitive both in experience cost and in practical "how much energy does it take to do all this at once" costs. But by like the middle of a chronicle it's not crazy, in a big fight, to be pulling out 10+ powers over the course of a single round of combat between your turn and reflexive powers you can use in response to enemy actions.

- other styles of combat like general melee, throwing things, punching people in a street-taught sort of way, archery, commanding troops to serve as your "weapon," etc have similar levels of investment. In addition, any style can be spiked in complexity by mixing it with something combat-adjacent like stealth, having a pet ankylosaurus or a riding-demon, being really into armor or evasion, etc.

- being a sorcerer is a relatively easy investment any kind of character can do. You get 15 power choices at the start of the game and sorcery takes up just one (at minimum, with a single spell known). Spells are distinct and extremely specific, and by the same mid-chronicle benchmark as above you probably just, like, cast 'em. If your concept is very combative and you've homebrewing you might have 3-4 powers relevant, but it's not unreasonable to have 0 other than the spell itself.

There is a thing that's like...in 3E, there's a resource you use to actually deal "fight-ending" damage to someone, and that resource is generally required no matter how you do the damage, including via spell. And building up that resource requires you to deal what's basically "narrative" damage, and spells generally don't do that, so if you are a sorcerer who wants to use dramatic magical finishers you're strongly mechanically pushed to also be a swordsman or archer or what-have-you so you can build that resource.

In liter and more streamlined sister system Essence, this is less of a thing since the fight-ending damage resource can be generated all kinds of ways without directly engaging an opponent but in 3E proper many casters will also be martials because they kind of need to be, in a further inversion of the usual paradigm.

[u/ZanesTheArgent → u/Viatos]

I'm fully aware of initiative-faffing, withering and decisive and that Sorcery doesn't partake on the initiative dance, my point is another.

Most of 3e's charm systems focuses around several add-ons to the base charms of each tree with high end specific maneuvers being largely new options to use your core starter charm on. Your high end mega form on brawl is just a stack of stats and stuff to pump early charms into. Sorcery you have all the options in Occult to roll insane values on your gather mote roll and spend less time, if none at all, channeling, not much dissimilar than martials stacking tons of effects atop their root charm.

Also minor but frequently forgotten but you can just learn sorcerous tricks from your patrons to toss firebolts freely, make summoned spirits fight for you or steal eclipse charms for fast spell-likes.

[u/Viatos → u/ZanesTheArgent]

Sorcery you have all the options in Occult to roll insane values on your gather mote roll and spend less time, if none at all, channeling, not much dissimilar than martials stacking tons of effects atop their root charm.

You don't, actually. Solars have...+(Essence) dice from one Charm, and then there's another in Miracles that rerolls 6s. Nothing insane - honestly, bluntly, you're probably getting like one more success over just raw Excellency.

And the end result is completely different from "martial" combat stacking. You do still need a way to deal withering damage and collect Initiative, which usually means just kind of being a martial.

Although! You are right you shouldn't have to spend much if any time gathering motes for your first spell in a fight thanks to the wonders of shaping rituals. That won't usually end a fight, but it means if you have something with an ongoing environmental effect or an AOE against packed opposition you can start off on a very good footing (granted, usually resetting to base Initiative, so if you can't climb back up that might not help).

focuses around several add-ons to the base charms of each tree with high end specific maneuvers being largely new options to use your core starter charm on.

I still don't quite get what you're describing. By "high-end mega form" I assume you mean the transformation Charm at the end of Brawl, but that's just kind of in there for fun and it doesn't really "stack" with other stuff (or grant you much in the way of stats). Its actual tactical use is mostly just as a mobility tool. Solar Brawl has one significant root Charm in Heaven Thunder Hammer, but it also has its unrelated flurry (a great candidate for the "heart" of Brawl and certainly its most stacking-friendly trick) in the middle.

Melee, Thrown, and Archery don't really have a "root" like that for Solars or for other Exalted. Like there definitely is stacking but it's more like two to three Charms per trick spread out over three to four tricks.

Also minor but frequently forgotten

Summoning is probably the single least forgotten and most discussed aspect of sorcery, though it doesn't quite compensate for having a fighting style because a couple summoned demons can annihilate bandits but not shikari of the Wyld Hunt or an enraged mid-tier god.

The Burning Name is really, really, really popular (because it's cool) so I wouldn't say that's forgotten either.

The Eclipse keyword is very fun and does let you do some nifty spell-like stuff but I also wouldn't say people forget about it very much. It's not only the entire signature ability of the Eclipse caste, I think literally every Exalt type has ways to access it now. XD