2) The fighter is actually the worst off of anyone without his favored weapon. 3 examples: Slayer, Paladin, Magus. Each of these can augment whatever weapon their holding with their special ability (studied target, divine bond, arcana) to get the same benefit they always do. The fighter actually loses his benefit wielding anything...
Good point. Maybe the default for martials (and really any class other than Fighter) should be that their special abilities only work with their declared preferred weapon (not group). Fighters get all of their standard bonuses for favored weapon and such to all weapons (not just groups). Period. They can literally pick up any weapon and be a match for anyone in another class who has spent all their time working with a single weapon.
Not that that changes a ton but at least it makes the crunch match the fluff (master of weapons).
Sort of tangential, but I have to wonder why "I read books a lot so I have super powers" and "My great grandmother dated a dragon so I have super powers" and "I'm really religious so I have super powers" and "I'm a hippie so I have super powers" are all things we readily accept and nod along with but "I've trained my body beyond the point of human perfection, so I have super powers" is in turn so readily balked at as absurd. Except when a monk or barbarian does it I guess.To me at least none of them seem particularly more absurd than the others.
Those others are easy to accept because for decades they have been getting that special treatment of having a reason to access higher power. "Training my body to have super powers" is so vague tho that it is harder to swallow than being given powers by higher power. Consider Cleric and Wizard. Total weaklings, they can do nothing if they lose their connection to divine/arcane magic. Good old "take away Wizard's spellbook" does wonders right?
I think you just need to give Fighter its own domains as well. Mutagen Warrior is already a thing, expand on that. Different mutations for fighting better and becoming this horrible 4 arm, winged THING. "Damn, the wizard tries to escape flying. I know, I'll just use my frog tongue to catch him like a fly". Or tech fighter, fighting with more or less sci fi tools. Go full Batman with gadgets. "Oh no, that guy is out of my reach. Good thing I got my grappling hook"
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*wizard tries to escape by flying*
NOPE, I jump at a high acceleration and swat him down to the ground.
*Wizard tries to teleport away*
I run over and rip or slash open the weakened space time and Kool Aid Man my way through his own portal.
Just remember from John Carter of Mars that power to Jump High is in the end very boring by itself.
You need more flavor than that.
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Those others are easy to accept because for decades they have been getting that special treatment of having a reason to access higher power. "Training my body to have super powers" is so vague tho that it is harder to swallow than being given powers by higher power.
I would say that historically, there's probably much more precedent for warriors whose skill and training elevated them above mere mortals than there is for people learning how shoot multi-colored beams of light from their hands. Men of superhuman strength and ability are featured in almost every mythology and many religions, typically as heroes that inspire and/or teach valuable lessons. American heroes tend to embody their virtues via sheer bad-assery, Asian heroes often share themes where their spiritual power is directly translated into physical prowess, Hindi and Greek heroes are often touched by or descended from deities, and so on. You could use all of those as possible sources for martial prowess without being any more vague the Sorcerer is on the source of its power.
Consider Cleric and Wizard. Total weaklings, they can do nothing if they lose their connection to divine/arcane magic. Good old "take away Wizard's spellbook" does wonders right?
Not really. A wizard doesn't lose his magic just because his spellbook is lost or destroyed, he just loses his ability to reprepare expended spells. He still has any previously prepared spells, his school abilities, and his bond. His power is fully intact. At the levels we're discussing, that's basically just a speed bump.
I think you just need to give Fighter its own domains as well. Mutagen Warrior is already a thing, expand on that. Different mutations for fighting better and becoming this horrible 4 arm, winged THING. "Damn, the wizard tries to escape flying. I know, I'll just use my frog tongue to catch him like a fly". Or tech fighter, fighting with more or less sci fi tools. Go full Batman with gadgets. "Oh no, that guy is out of my reach. Good thing I got my grappling hook"
Turning the Fighter into a genetically unstable monstrosity wouldn't be anywhere near the top of my list of viable fixes, but YMMV I guess. To me that completely undermines the whole spirit of the class.
I like Bravery as an expendable resource for the Fighter, much like Grit is for the Gunslinger. You could change it so that the Fighter has a Bravery pool that provides certain static benefits, like bonuses to Will saves and combat maneuvers, as long as he has at least one point of Bravery left, and then allow him to expend Bravery points for fantastic abilities. I did something similar in The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, but that release is very much tied to the current martial conventions, and it would be neat to take that premise and integrate it from the ground up, making it part of the main Fighter chassis and giving it as a free resource instead of hanging it on the Fighter's feats.
2) The fighter is actually the worst off of anyone without his favored weapon. 3 examples: Slayer, Paladin, Magus. Each of these can augment whatever weapon their holding with their special ability (studied target, divine bond, arcana) to get the same benefit they always do. The fighter actually loses his benefit wielding anything...
Good point. Maybe the default for martials (and really any class other than Fighter) should be that their special abilities only work with their declared preferred weapon (not group). Fighters get all of their standard bonuses for favored weapon and such to all weapons (not just groups). Period. They can literally pick up any weapon and be a match for anyone in another class who has spent all their time working with a single weapon.
Not that that changes a ton but at least it makes the crunch match the fluff (master of weapons).
I would actually prefer more people get to use various weapons unless its a class feature (bladebound magus archetype?). Mainly because i like the idea of handing out equipment as loot that the players can then use. Right now even a slightly better magical weapon may be passed over because weapon focus / specialization are so specific.
Rules wise, I'd probably give fighters weapon training starting at 1st level, 4sp / level & a strong reflex save (because physical conditioning) probably in place of the first level bonus feat. Also let fighters take an advamced training feat at level 1 (especially useful for things like fighter's finesse). Let weapon focus & specialization apply to a weapon group for anyone taking them, and fighters apply those feats to any weapon group they have WT in. Oh I'd also have armor training be -1 acp & +1 ac instead of the max dex bonus thing.
Then, of course, expanded skill unlocks. I really like the idea of skill ranks meaning something beyond just a +1 bonus.
@insaindragoon the second idea reminds me of Jumper & would be a really cool mechanic. I also love your quoted post prior and agree completely: the fighters main problem is it doesnt provide solutions to problems that aren't available to a warrior, just better odds if the problem is something is alive that shouldn't be. I'm curious if expanded skill unlocks would actually be sufficient to give fighters more narrative power while being unique (with such a system why take a fighter over a rogue?). Combining skill unlocks from different skills (fly + acrobatics, intimidate + bluff etc) would also be really cool....
Paizo! Skills unchained please!
To me that completely undermines the whole spirit of the class.
What is the spirit of the class?
Fighter is a blank paper to me. I would see it more involving to make new classes than try to make the blank paper ... bigger blank paper.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just remember from John Carter of Mars that power to Jump High is in the end very boring by itself.
You need more flavor than that.
Then just have it be like a Dragoon from Final Fantasy. A bullet-like ascension paired with a meteoric fall to unleash a devastating blow with a polearm. Is it realistic? Hell no, but there's also no reliance on magic, and takes the proposed Fighters ability to master a Weapon/fighting style and his technique through training and effort to a logical extreme in a fantastic setting.
Honestly, Smash/Cut the air and Weapon Mastery feats and Weapon Tricks are a step in the right direction, but still to tame in my opinion. If Lance the Spearbro is fighting alongside Bob the Demon Binder, Lance's growth should at least attempt to rival Bob's. I like the idea of skill unlocks giving fantastic options, and multiple in tandem unlocking further abilities. I wonder how Skill Unlocks+Weapon Training would look in such a system. Gating extreme mastery and awesome techniques to those that devote a class feature to using weapons.
As for other cool martial ideas, I would honestly just keep pointing to video games and anime. Really, most, if not all, ideas will be called anime or wuxia, the reason being is that there is a lot of anime (And Japanese video games) out there, many with great ideas for a fantastic martial (It's far easier to find examples in anime than it is in most other media) and thats why I hate the terminology. It's just an aversion to anything spectacular that ranges from DBZ to Hajime mo Ippo, despite it possibly being a sound example.
Just earlier Saitama was dismissed for being a gag character. He's still a great example of an albeit more farcical extend of a martial, with other characters from the show that make more sense like Speed of Sound Sonic, Atomic Samurai or Silverfang.
I suspect that, if you want to convince a bunch of rabid foaming-at-the-mouth Tolkien fanbois that fighters can be as awesome as wizards without being "too Anime," then as soon as you reference something called "One Punch Man" you've lost the entire thread and might as well give up.
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He doesn't really hold to the Wuxia aesthetic beyond his training. Saitama is strong because he's a parody of a children's cartoon superhero. In universe, it's quite possible he's a literal monster (people obsessed with one thing to an insane degree tend to mutate into monsters in that universe). Except instead of "Classic car monster" or "Martial arts monster" he's an "Invincible superhero monster".
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To me that completely undermines the whole spirit of the class.What is the spirit of the class?
Fighter is a blank paper to me. I would see it more involving to make new classes than try to make the blank paper ... bigger blank paper.
It's obviously not a blank piece of paper though, or people wouldn't be having conniptions at the thought of adding options for it that break their sense of what it is.
Let's look at what the CRB says the Fighter should be-
"Lords of the battlefield, fighters are a disparate lot, training with many weapons or just one, perfecting the uses of armor, learning the fighting techniques of exotic masters, and studying the art of combat, all to shape themselves into living weapons. Far more than mere thugs, these skilled warriors reveal the true deadliness of their weapons, turning hunks of metal into arms capable of taming kingdoms, slaughtering monsters, and rousing the hearts of armies. Soldiers, knights, hunters, and artists of war, fighters are unparalleled champions, and woe to those who dare stand against them."
So that's our block of thematic inspiration. This is what Paizo says the Fighter is supposed to be at its heart. Why don't we look at rising to that set ideal and a way to make the Fighter what it already says it's supposed to be?
"Lords of the battlefield"- I think the Fighter fails right out of the gate here. Being a lord implies that one is a leader, and the Fighter doesn't really have much that lends to this. I'd like to see more options for the Fighter to inspire those around him, almost giving him a path as a secondary buffer. I've tried builds like this using the feats from The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats, and IMHO it's been a really good fit for the Fighter, and a great way to help broaden his contributions to the group.
"Learning the fighting techniques of exotic masters"- Presumably this what the Fighter's feats are supposed to represent, but there are very few feats that are specific to the Fighter, and I can't think of any off the top of my head that feel like the techniques of exotic masters. What if the Fighter automatically gained proficiency in every exotic weapon that matched his weapon training group?
"...turning hunks of metal into arms capable of taming kingdoms, slaughtering monsters, and rousing the hearts of armies"- This kind of ties back up into that "lords of the battlefield" bit, but what if Fighters could share their weapon training bonus with their allies, or even just add it to the next attack made by an ally against an opponent the Fighter has struck? This would help emphasize how unique the Fighter's skills are and reinforce his ability to act as a secondary buffer for the group. The "rousing the hearts of armies" bit really seems like a call out to earlier suggestions for narrative options, such as the Fighter being able to quickly rally troops or specialist squads by putting the word out.
"Soldiers, knights, hunters, and artists of war, fighters are unparalleled champions"- So, this might seem a little obvious, but lets look at what it takes to actually be the things mentioned here. Modern soldiers are proficient in stealth and survival techniques, typically have an MOS that consists of education in a specialized skill, and rely on keen eyes and awareness to watch for potential threats and guard or locate their objectives. Medieval knights were expected to attend court, be proficient in horsemanship, hunting, and other arts, as well as being experienced leaders and athletes. Sun Tzu is arguably the most famous "artist of war", and was a master tactician, poet, politician, and warrior. Presumably he was also skilled in the equestrian arts as well as other pursuits of the nobility.
When we take into account what is involved in being a soldier, knight, hunter, or artist of war, it's clear that the Fighter falls short. The bare minimum to allow him to fulfill these expectations would involve increasing his skill points (4+Int minimum, though I think 6+Int isn't unreasonable) and expanding his class skills. After all, horsemanship is Handle Animal and Ride, guard duty is Perception, athletics is Acrobatics, Climb, and Swim, politics would include Knowledge (nobility), and the maintenance of their personal gear expected of most soldiers and hunters would probably be best represented by a Craft skill, which puts us at about 8 different expected skills, some of which aren't even on the Fighter's class skill list.
Then just have it be like a Dragoon from Final Fantasy. A bullet-like ascension paired with a meteoric fall to unleash a devastating blow with a polearm. Is it realistic? Hell no, but there's also no reliance on magic, and takes the proposed Fighters ability to master a Weapon/fighting style and his technique through training and effort to a logical extreme in a fantastic settingAnd so on...
Style clash is still a thing. It is not really a question of realism. It is question of style. People who say they do not like things that "are like anime" are not out of ... close mindedness out to get those cool things you saw in a video game or any other media. They are just afraid you are not taking their game seriously.
From the beginning, it is not "fair". Magic gets leeway just by being granted superiority. It is almost a rule written to the system. Breaking that means you also break the rules of disbelief that has been built into the same system. You can either directly break it for what you think is a better game overall, or Oframay basically made this thread to sneak around the rules.
This is not really condemning your post as much as saying "Yeah anime and games have cool moves, but you cannot blame people for thinking they are immersion breaking". Because immersion is not really question of realism, just belief.
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He doesn't really hold to the Wuxia aesthetic beyond his training. Saitama is strong because he's a parody of a children's cartoon superhero. In universe, it's quite possible he's a literal monster (people obsessed with one thing to an insane degree tend to mutate into monsters in that universe). Except instead of "Classic car monster" or "Martial arts monster" he's an "Invincible superhero monster".
Wow I never considered that. Damn that is a good theory.
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"(1) Lords of the battlefield, fighters are a disparate lot, (2) training with many weapons or just one, (3) perfecting the uses of armor, (4) learning the fighting techniques of exotic masters, and (5) studying the art of combat, all to shape themselves into (6) living weapons. Far more than mere thugs, these skilled warriors reveal the true deadliness of their weapons, (7) turning hunks of metal into arms capable of (8) taming kingdoms, (9) slaughtering monsters, and (10) rousing the hearts of armies. (11) Soldiers, (12) knights, (13) hunters, and (14) artists of war, fighters are (15) unparalleled champions, and woe to those who dare stand against them."
(1) The fighter's spatial influence is currently restricted to a 5-ft. radius (or 10 ft. using a reach weapon), and/or an uninterrupted straight-line bowshot. To be a "lord of the battlefield," that needs to change. Full movement plus a full attack in one round, interspacing them as he sees fit, would be a start. Drastically expanded threatened area would be nice. At higher levels, a command presence that provides big boosts to entire armies is what's needed.
(2) Get rid of enforced specialization. Give fighters proficiency with all weapons (including exotic ones) and expand weapon training a LOT.
(3) Armor training is OK for this, but sort of lackluster. I'd like to see it also provide DR and/or fortification, scaling with the AC bonus. Also, to throw a bone to the sword-and-board people, maybe make the effects stack if you use a shield as a shield instead of TWFing with it? It would be nice if they could make their armor and/or shield count towards touch AC and Reflex saves, too.
(4) Feat chains need to be condensed to feats with effects that scale by BAB. For example, the Improved Grapple feat would, eventually, subsume the entire Tetori Monk archetype. Then fighters really could master multiple styles of combat.
(5) Tactics and strategy are currently almost entirely player-driven -- although we turn a sword swing into a dice roll, relieving the player of having to be a real-life swordsman, at the same time we expect the player to be a real-life tactician and strategist, but then yell at the player if the plans seem "too smart" for the PC's Int score. This has got to break somewhere. Introducing a Knowledge (Warfare) skill and giving fighters free ranks and huge bonuses in it is not out of the question.
(6), (7) Give the fighter a class feature that makes any weapon he wields a "+X" weapon, scaling with level, and let him assign properties like ghost touch, etc. Like the paladin's weapon bond, but always active with any one weapon at a time he wants. And also give him better ability to craft arms and armor -- Master Craftsman as a bonus feat, and substitute fighter level for Spellcraft ranks?
(8) Kingdoms are currently under the purview of "DM fiat," which means the fighter is no better at winning them than the wizard or the commoner. Military and political influence should be baked directly into the class instead. I don't care if Bob's fighter is itinerant and has no keep or troops of his own. If General Kirthamo the 15th level fighter walks into a totally foreign kingdom on an other plane of existence, within a week they should be declaring him the acting Imperial Warlord, because he should be that awesome at all things warfare.
(9) This means being able to reach them and reliably hit them. Which means seeing through displacement and mirror images and projected images, knocking flying monsters out of the sky with a thrown weapon, and so on.
(10) See last sentence of (1), above.
(11) I would like a game designer to actually open the U.S. Army Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks. And make sure that even a 10 Int fighter (or 8 Int human fighter) has the class skills to cover all of the contents (that would include Acrobatics, Climb, Disable Device, Jump, Heal, Perception, Sense Motive, Survival, Use Magic Device (especially!), and a slew of Knowledge skills), and enough skill points to invest heavily in all of them, plus an MOS.
(12) Loot the Samurai and Cavalier classes completely, and hand their class features over to the fighter instead. And the entire Gunslinger class, too, if the fighter chooses guns as a weapon training group.
(13) I'm actually OK leaving that to the Ranger.
(14) See (5), above.
(15) (1) and (8), above.
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I had wanted to stay away from this thread... but I had an interesting idea so here it is:
At level 4 and every 4 levels after - the fighter counts as flanking any foe on the battlefield for any other ally. The fighter must be within line of sight or otherwise be 'visible' to the opponent for this effect to work. The fighter declares the foe he is flanking and any ally that is adjacent to that foe can consider that foe flanked by the fighter. This represents the fighters ability to control a battlefield.
At level 10 and every 5 levels after - the fighter can as a free action, allow any ally on the battlefield use of any feat he currently knows. He can only do this once per round and can not make use of the feat if he does so. At level 15 the fighter can use two feats - he retains the use of one of them. At level 20 the fighter can use three feats - and retains use of three of them.
(like teamwork feats but more of a give than a share).
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(8) Kingdoms are currently under the purview of "DM fiat," which means the fighter is no better at winning them than the wizard or the commoner. Military and political influence should be baked directly into the class instead. I don't care if Bob's fighter is itinerant and has no keep or troops of his own. If General Kirthamo the 15th level fighter walks into a totally foreign kingdom on an other plane of existence, within a week they should be declaring him the acting Imperial Warlord, because he should be that awesome at all things warfare.
Actually, that isn't true. Which is why when I write fighter fixes, I give them abilities that interact with those rules. Generally an easy one is making them count as multiple individual which scale with level for the purpose of mass combat so that the fighter can combat a whole army without issue, and other things like provide bonuses as a general, make it easier to use the kingdom building rules to create and heal armies, etc.
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Sort of tangential, but I have to wonder why "I read books a lot so I have super powers" and "My great grandmother dated a dragon so I have super powers" and "I'm really religious so I have super powers" and "I'm a hippie so I have super powers" are all things we readily accept and nod along with but "I've trained my body beyond the point of human perfection, so I have super powers" is in turn so readily balked at as absurd. Except when a monk or barbarian does it I guess.
To me at least none of them seem particularly more absurd than the others.
I totally agree. High level fighters should be just as much world-shattering heroes as high-level spellcasters are.
It's worth looking at legends of ancient Celtic heroes. One could play a game of Hurley (hockey with less rules) against 150 opponents and win. Another could throw a spear at an opponent, jump on the spear, ride it towards the target, and then jump off the spear and behead the target just before the spear hit. Realistic? Of course not! They're high-level epic heroes.
But even if you do want realism, there's a really easy solution to that: magic is unrealistic, so it shouldn't work on high-level fighters. They can shrug off any spell, and maybe magic even stops working near them if they want it to. That would seriously tip the balance to the other side, and I'm only arguing for it in order to shove the realism argument down the throats of the spellcasters.
A more interesting mechanism to make fighters more awesome can be found in DCC, and was also tried in a playtest version of D&D Next (but didn't quite make it into the final version, unfortunately):
Fighters (and rogues, I think) would get special dice (expertise or superiority dice, I think they were called) that they can use for all sorts of things, like increasing the damage they deal, decreasing the damage they receive, but also all sorts of other things. The dice would start small (1d4, probably), but increase in size and number as you level up, so you could end up with 3d8 or more at some point. And as you level up, you get access to more ways to use these dice, giving fighters their own sort of quadratic growth. You get these dice every round, and if you get multiple, you could use one die for to-hit, and another to reduce damage, for example.
I forgot the list of all the things you could use them for, but I think they included extra damage (only 1 die), sneak attack (multiple dice), bonus to hit, parry (reduce damage, great for wading through hordes of mooks), and a lot more. I'd certainly be for adding dice to saving throws too. High level fighters need to be tenacious and unstoppable, so the ability to boost saves fits perfectly. It's an inexhaustable resource, which is very martial, and it won't bend reality the way spells do, but it will make fighters a lot better at the things they can already do, while introducing interesting decisions beyond "do I use power attack or not?".
But I also think skills need to remain more relevant at high levels, and fighters need to get more of them. More importantly, they need to become more reliable. A rogue who maxed out his disable device should be able to pick every lock he finds. DCs shouldn't be going up at the same speed as skills.
I also think fighters should excel with every single weapon. That a fighter has to focus on one specific weapon and sucks with any other type of weapon, feels very unfightery to me. A fighter should be able to attack effectively with anything.
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Actually, that isn't true. Which is why when I write fighter fixes, I give them abilities that interact with those rules. Generally an easy one is making them count as multiple individual which scale with level for the purpose of mass combat so that the fighter can combat a whole army without issue, and other things like provide bonuses as a general, make it easier to use the kingdom building rules to create and heal armies, etc.(8) Kingdoms are currently under the purview of "DM fiat," which means the fighter is no better at winning them than the wizard or the commoner. Military and political influence should be baked directly into the class instead. I don't care if Bob's fighter is itinerant and has no keep or troops of his own. If General Kirthamo the 15th level fighter walks into a totally foreign kingdom on an other plane of existence, within a week they should be declaring him the acting Imperial Warlord, because he should be that awesome at all things warfare.
I think the only real issue with using the kingdom building and mass combat rules from Ultimate Campaign is that it's not (at least in my experience) a commonly used subsystem at most tables, so there's this whole extra layer of rules that everyone has to learn to explore that as a Fighter fix. I think basic mechanics that are abstractions of those rules, or that can "click in" to those rules but don't require them to function, would probably be more amenable to a wider audience, and thus more viable as a solution.
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I think the only real issue with using the kingdom building and mass combat rules from Ultimate Campaign is that it's not (at least in my experience) a commonly used subsystem at most tables, so there's this whole extra layer of rules that everyone has to learn to explore that as a Fighter fix. I think basic mechanics that are abstractions of those rules, or that can "click in" to those rules but don't require them to function, would probably be more amenable to a wider audience, and thus more viable as a solution.
Oh it is a definitely niche system, same applies to me putting downtime stuff into my homebrew. But it's generally difficult to make mechanics that apply to the high-scope stuff like building kingdoms and manipulating armies using the standard-scope mechanics without it having to be rather vague or not fitting with a large amount of individuals that will take the class.
So I just take the path of least resistance and make mechanics that interact with the mechanics that are already in that area. If the table doesn't use them, then they don't use that aspect of the class.
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But even if you do want realism, there's a really easy solution to that: magic is unrealistic, so it shouldn't work on high-level fighters.
> Adventurer, open door
Granted, you could still zifmia the poor guy.
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snip
Ah yes, immersion. Belief. The only issue I have with that argument in defense of the mentality is that it disregards the person who wants said "wuxia" for their character. They obviously don't believe it to be clashing and bad. Are they wrong? The vehement opposition comes off as a wrongbadfun way of thinking. The person who wants said "wuxia" isn't trying to break immersion or ruin the other's game, just adding to the world in a way that feasibly makes sense. A Dragoon Jumping Fighter (Just using this for argument's sake) isn't really clashing against anything in the game, just the preconceived idea of what a Fighter should be. Even if you leave out magic explicitly, it's hardly even on the clash scale.
You made am interesting statement. "Their game." But... it's not just their game, it's everyone's who sits at the table, and it shouldn't be a matter of seriousness as much as it is a matter of A) Fun, and B) Properly scaling fantastic combat prowess. I realize their game is the game as is, but isn't the game as is already something that's been facilitating over the top martials?
"Immersion breaking" just guess back to the arbitrary nature of anything being wuxia or anime. If you allow Barbs, Monks and Ninjas, congratulations, a high jumping fighter now fits right in. I'm not saying those aren't immersion breaking in their own way, but at least acknowledge that the proposed style clash has existed for a long time, and disallowing a Fighter to have some fun at this point is arbitrary, since the "breaking" you mentioned is already in the system.
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Then just have it be like a Dragoon from Final Fantasy. A bullet-like ascension paired with a meteoric fall to unleash a devastating blow with a polearm. Is it realistic? Hell no, but there's also no reliance on magic, and takes the proposed Fighters ability to master a Weapon/fighting style and his technique through training and effort to a logical extreme in a fantastic settingAnd so on...
Style clash is still a thing. It is not really a question of realism. It is question of style. People who say they do not like things that "are like anime" are not out of ... close mindedness out to get those cool things you saw in a video game or any other media. They are just afraid you are not taking their game seriously.
From the beginning, it is not "fair". Magic gets leeway just by being granted superiority. It is almost a rule written to the system. Breaking that means you also break the rules of disbelief that has been built into the same system. You can either directly break it for what you think is a better game overall, or Oframay basically made this thread to sneak around the rules.
This is not really condemning your post as much as saying "Yeah anime and games have cool moves, but you cannot blame people for thinking they are immersion breaking". Because immersion is not really question of realism, just belief.
When you compare level 6 and level 16 the only aspect of the game that doesn't get a "style clash" is the martial.
Enemies went from "Oh, it's a Worg. It drags you into the bushes and eats you." all the way to "You're fighting a Nascent Demon Lord capable of becoming a soul engine and it's up to you to keep him from taking his second step toward becoming a full deity"
Skills went from "those things that everyone wishes they had more ranks of" to "Don't worry, I have just the spell for this"
People you talk to went from "Mostly a bunch of town rabble and occasionally a Lord" to "You're now strong enough to have Kings and Queens requesting your company, you're buddies with the world's resident Sage of Time or whatever, and if the need be there's a Silver Dragon who owes you a favor and some brewskies"
Spells went from 'Oh I make that guy unable to move for a few rounds" to "this man will go on a quest for me and if he even thinks about disobeying me his body will be wracked in pain as he wastes away, or I can go and visit a God if I felt up to it, or I am going to create my own personal customized dimension!"
Fighters went from " I can hit you twice" to "I can hit you like 4 times or something"
The fact that everything else at high level play engages in "style clash" compared to low level play, expect for Fighters, is actually significantly more "suspension of disbelief breaking" than Fighters jumping like a FF Dragoon.
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The unchained action economy doesn't do enough, but it is improved. Casters still get to break it in ways martials can never hope for.
For example, in every edition of D&D except 3 & 4 martials break the action economy and casters don't.
Those were also editions that single weapon fighter types got at best, two swings per round at the high end levels. And there were no such things as swift or immediate actions. Lets be aware of the apple/orange comparisons here.
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Those were also editions that single weapon fighter types got at best, two swings per round at the high end levels. And there were no such things as swift or immediate actions. Lets be aware of the apple/orange comparisons here.
You're forgetting 5E. Which, for all its flaws, does allow Fighters to make four attacks a turn at full bonus and move as well, and heal himself to boot. The most attacks any full caster can ever get is two. And in terms of spells, only Sorcerers can do Quicken Spell at all.
5E is by no means a perfect system (I actually quite prefer Pathfinder) but it did do some stuff about C/MD. Probably not enough in many ways, but it did some things.