Shitty character concepts need to die

[Mistborn]

It's time for another shitty thread about how terrible fighters are.

So mundane classes have been getting the shitty end of the stick since forever and there is a huge amount of pushback to making them even slightly less shitty. We talk about how to make "mundanes" less shitty but it's all a lot of wasted effort because the concept of the mundane characters just is inherently shitty.

That's because the game fundamentally changes every 5-8 levels and characters need to keep up with those changes if they want to stay relevant. When you go from fighting orcs to fighting Vrocks that a fundamental change in how the game operates because the Vrock is not just an Orc with bigger numbers is has it's own superpowers on top of those numbers. You need your own superpowers to counter the increasing number of GTFO abilities as you go up in level. Mundane charters don't get the counters to GTFO abilities so they need to GTFO.

So to start with we need to stop lying to the players if there can't be a fighter class that lasts for 20 levels we can't ever make a fighter class that has that many levels.

The thing is that the idea that these low level concepts are valid at all levels is entrenched in peoples psyche. In fact most of that classes concepts that are core to D&D are pretty terrible. with there rogue and fighter both being mundane, the cleric tending to either do nothing or everything and the Wizard having all of the magic (all of it).

ah who am I kidding release the trolls

[Saxony]

To make this thread a somewhat different than its many ancestors, I'll ask the following question: How can we give people the non-magical heroes they want to play so much.... while dodging all the problems that come with it?

We're talking about games so of course we must give people what they want. I just wonder how we can do that.

Any thoughts?

[ishy]

A) Low power-level games.
B) Lie to your playerbase and give them magical powers anyway but call them non-magical, because you are lying.
C) Lie to your playerbase and tell them the fighter is totally equal to the wizard, even though he isn't.
D) Tell them to fuck themselves

[nockermensch]

To make this thread a somewhat different than its many ancestors, I'll ask the following question: How can we give people the non-magical heroes they want to play so much.... while dodging all the problems that come with it?

We're talking about games so of course we must give people what they want. I just wonder how we can do that.

Any thoughts?

Pretty much this. I don't really care about how the the conceptual space for non-magical characters is necessarily more limited, because I still have to deal with two friends that will ask the following question when I announce I'll DM again:

"Cool, how do I make the guy that whacks things with a sword?"

All that shitty discussion you guys were having on the other thread ends being useless theory-craft, because on the real world (at least the weird parts of RW where people still play pretend-elf) the current situation is:

• A part of the playerbase wants to be the guy with a sword.
• This part of the player base is at very least a significative minority. Among the people who I still can convince to play D&D, they're fully 50% of the interested people. Without them, there's no quorum to play D&D, and quite frankly, refusing gaming with friends for this reason is pure dickery.

So, how do you "fix" that? What I did was to show them the tome fighter and the tome barbarian, and they liked what they saw. Since our gaming "schedule" is like one game at each 2 months, this has been working good so far.

So, instead having yet another thread while people bitch for or against being the guy with a sword, why don't you try one of those, for change:

1) If you believe fighters should be a 5 level class, then produce this class, and then at least a couple of prestige classes / paragon paths / whatever that give them some phlebotinium source, while still being at least a bit recognizable as the guy with a sword.

2) If you believe fighters should be a 20 level class, then produce this class.

[Caedrus]

To make this thread a somewhat different than its many ancestors, I'll ask the following question: How can we give people the non-magical heroes they want to play so much.... while dodging all the problems that come with it?

We're talking about games so of course we must give people what they want. I just wonder how we can do that.

Any thoughts?

Many, actually.

I myself have often found myself trying to think of ways to stretch the boundaries of Fighter relevance subtly, as opposed to just outright breaking what people want a Fighter to look like before we even get halfway through the level range. To that end, it seems like one thing that keeps coming up for me is the notion that you can often expand the elements in the world that a mundane ability can apply to without simply removing those elements from the world.

Basically, populating the world with interesting phlebotinum separate from your person that is best exercised through mundane prowess. Or, alternatively, introducing limits on wizard phlebotinum that can be countered through mundane prowess. Or simply digging around for as many things as possible that can get under the radar (for example, a seemingly psychic "danger sense" that lets you avoid snipers or granting yourself extra actions will generally be okay with the audience that wants to play "mundane" guys, while throwing a mountain will not be. Smashing people through a wall also seems to be something people will be okay with).

For example, being really good at taming, training, and riding things becomes more important when you can ride more fantastical things. Being able to forge things really well matters more when you have better phlebotinum to forge things out of. Having the power to wring the best performance out of a sword matters more if being able to swing a magic sword just right allows you to do more impressive magical shenanigans with it.

A few things that come to mind, in no particular order:

- Unlike in D&D, fliers are not terribly stable, and a few flaming arrows are good enough to make the griffin go tumbling to the ground. (Ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWatmDmKGDA). Moreover, it's not hard for you to become good at hitting things with a sword AND throwing javelins.

- In general, fighters can diversify to gain new tricks easily instead of having to constantly reinvest in the same trick to keep it relevant ( a core flaw with Fighters v Wizards in D&D before you even think about different conceptual space limitations )

- Etherealness is easier to counter by just using alchemical silver or cold iron (as in simply unenchanted iron) or something that's easily attainable. Whatever fits your setting.

- Ranged attacks from extreme range take substantial penalties to a point that trying to, say, have the giant eagles rain boulders down on people isn't terribly effective for things other than a bombardment. Perhaps simply being grounded and having a footing (or not) can affect accuracy. Maybe having non-perfect flight affects accuracy since you're constantly required to be moving. Maybe this just all applies to a sort of "Careful Aim" action which requires you to be still and carefully line up your shot that takes penalties if you don't have a stable footing. Spells don't get thrown accurately from 900 feet away and will scatter, perhaps like grenadelike effects.

- Teleportation is either short range, or involves actual gates being opened that just anyone can jump through (or pry open with a fairly easy to get alchemical item... kinda like the forensics guys prying open the portals in that crappy movie Jumper)

- Magic is somewhat toxic (kinda like how there's potion toxicity in the Witcher), and a more physically fit person can handle more buffs in their system (or gearing up like Iron Man) without experiencing awesome but not so beneficial side effects (which may or may not be backgrounds for things in the Monster Manual). As such, "can have more buffs or wear more magic items" is an ability that comes through on the list for the fighter guy. Sure, they might not be creating all the buffs themselves, but they can put more of them on and create more combinations and such. It's kind of a sneaky sidestep to get the more "mundane" types to be more magically relevant.

- Fighters need to be better at actually playing Basketball Defense. That is, making it so that they can actually interpose themselves between threats running by them 10 feet away... even without long reach. Letting them mess around with the action order or use reactive or readied actions better... that sort of thing.

- Simply take away the fact that wizards act really fast without breaking stride. I mean, seriously, we're talking about guys who are, in the space of 6 seconds, casting a number of complex spells, moving, still being fully defensive and evasive, and so forth. The timescale on which D&D wizards at mid-high levels act makes me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRP5JxITkI . Except, unlike Rita, they're running around and maintaining defensive stances (perhaps by doing Avatar The Last Airbender style martial dances). Instead, simply making a powerful spell slower, telegraph more (perhaps to the point that ambush is very difficult), and lower the mage's defenses -- all of which are the case in many media presentations of spellcasters -- would do a some good for giving the Fighter some room to breathe. Though that's not really a case of giving the Fighter extra capabilities within his conceptual space, it is a case of helping to even the score without really taking away the cool factor of wizards (indeed, the lead-up to a powerful spell is considered by some to be part of the cool factor).

- Introduce ways that mundane actions can influence the magic system, such as if you could simply start thinking in another language to foil a mind reader or misdirect a diviner by understanding what kinds of mundane things and actions leave a trail in the aether. Or even simply things like letting Link bat a ball of magic lightning back at Ganondorf in a glorified Tennis match.

- Phlebotinum that can be accessed via mundane actions. It makes a big difference if you can FORGE things out of orichalcum or magicite or if you can TAME fire elementals. That sort of thing.

- Play the mundane things as far as they can go. I mean, that sounds obvious but people often forget it. For example, an observant person might be just as good at tracking an invisible foe or disbelieving illusions via noticing discrepancies as True Seeing, or have such effective Sense Motive or forensic skills that they can basically read minds or divine actions.

- When you see a Fighter with a given type of weapon, armor, whatever, you generally have some sort of rational expectations as to what sort of a guy you're fighting. In D&D with spellcasters this is often not true. One thing I've sought to do in my own projects to level the playing field is to limit wizards a bit more to a point where you can conceive of their limitations (e.g. "A Beguiler" or "A Pyromancer") and then have indications of what they are that can give you rational expectations (for example, if they have a certain kind of catalyst or talisman, or if their skin is necrotic and they're wearing bone armor, or recognizing the stance of the Firebenders, or whatever). Basically, attaching things to their powers that give clues as to what their powers are without actually seeing all of their powers being used, rather than simply having them all come from just waving your hands. Though that's not really a case of giving the Fighter extra capabilities, it is a case of helping to even the score without really taking away the cool factor of wizards.

ah who am I kidding release the trolls

I enjoy the idea of using trolls as the tactical equivalent of paratroopers by launching them from catapults and letting them regenerate on target.

[Avoraciopoctules]

To make this thread a somewhat different than its many ancestors, I'll ask the following question: How can we give people the non-magical heroes they want to play so much.... while dodging all the problems that come with it?

We're talking about games so of course we must give people what they want. I just wonder how we can do that.

Any thoughts?

Bake it into the system that ANYONE can pick up and use some kinds of magic? "Magical" heroes can use magic differently but everyone can speak magical command words or mix reagents.

When I think of a "non-magical" character I want to play, I default to an adventure game protagonist. And in Kings Quest, you are just a dude. Wizards are visibly different from you, but there is nothing keeping you from rifling through some spellbooks and figuring out a magical solution to a problem.

Then again, adventure game protagonists are rarely Fighters, or even Rogues. They are Puzzle Solvers. But even in Quest for Glory, where you can explicitly be a Fighting Man, you often resolve challenges by gathering a toolbox of magical stuff and using them to improvise a solution.

I don't think I've ever seen someone complain that the Fighter in Quest for Glory was too magical.

[ishy]

So Avoraciopoctules when you want to play a non-magical character you want to play a character that solves it's problems with magical solutions?

[Avoraciopoctules]

If I'm given challenges that demand a magical solution, then yeah, pretty much.

[Wrathzog]

There's a lot of good ideas in this thread.

Wrathzog withdraws coolly.

[Username17]

This is all depressingly Elennsarish. Again. People like Wrathzog want:

• To play a character who does not have abilities requisite to accomplish things at level X.
• To play at level X.
• To succeed anyway.

Then they want to be told that succeeding at a level X adventure with a character lacking level X abilities was accomplished through some combination of Chuck Norris style bad assery and extreme cleverness. This is of course total unmitigated horse shit. Take this actual unrequested example:

When I think of a "non-magical" character I want to play, I default to an adventure game protagonist. And in Kings Quest, you are just a dude. Wizards are visibly different from you, but there is nothing keeping you from rifling through some spellbooks and figuring out a magical solution to a problem.

See, what Avoraciopoctules wants to play is an underdog. This is a shitty desire that literally cannot be accommodated. In a novel you can have a plucky hero succeed at a million to one shot because there is a god damned author and all probabilities are actually 100% or 0% with in-world probabilities announced in an ad hoc fashion. In an RPG, there are actual mother fucking probabilities, and if the shot is really a million to one you can try every day until you die of fucking old age and not get even remotely close.

Which brings us back to Ishy's choices:

A) Low power-level games.
B) Lie to your playerbase and give them magical powers anyway but call them non-magical, because you are lying.
C) Lie to your playerbase and tell them the fighter is totally equal to the wizard, even though he isn't.
D) Tell them to fuck themselves

That's exhaustive. There is no secret bonus fifth option where John Carter's jumping ability stays relevant after the Phlebtonium characters are hopping between planets as a regular thing.

However, I would like to add a caveat to A, which is that I'm not sure that the people who claim that they want to play Swordy McSwordface actually are adverse to gaining phlebtonium sources later on. I can't recall anyone ever throwing a tantrum because they got an artifact sword, nor can I recall anyone ever turning down a supernatural ability that came from a prestige class or being in any way upset that they gained demonstrably magical or psionic powers as a quest reward or as a result of immortality or whatever.

In short, for all the people whining and bitching about how they want to play 20th level Fighters, I don't think there is a shred of evidence that anyone would be upset if Fighter was 10 levels long and then they started getting levels of Angel Knight or Thunder Lord or something. When people actually talk about signature D&D swordologists, they tend to mention names like "Lord Soth", who fucking became a death knight and now his signature attack is casting a 20-die fireball!

If you literally cap the bullshit classes at bullshit level and then let people take real classes afterwards, I think everyone would be pretty much fine with that. Hell, I think something similar could be done for NPC classes. If everyone had an "Apprentice Level" or "Background Level" or some shit where they took a level of Farmer or Aristocrat or something, I think that could slake peoples' desire to be something intensely shitty and useless like a courtesan or whatever without actually ruining the game by having them take levels of Expert until no one left at the table could say with a straight face that they weren't holding everyone back by being so fucking lame. You just let people write Farmer on the character sheet, but then that class is finished and they have to graduate to classes on the Heroic Tier List and stop taking a dump on the game.

-Username17

[Mistborn]

AHA, the text wall doesn't stop from getting any taller

You can mostly go fuck yourself because the answers to "how to keep the fighter relevant while game changes" is not "stop the game from changing". If you want that go play 4e.

Pretty much this. I don't really care about how the the conceptual space for non-magical characters is necessarily more limited, because I still have to deal with two friends that will ask the following question when I announce I'll DM again:

"Cool, how do I make the guy that whacks things with a sword?"

nocker you are and continue to be an irredeemable piece of shit. The answer to that question is easy because "the guy that whacks thing with a sword" is not the same concept as totally mundane character.

Mundane sword guy is a shitty concept but the are a rainbow of other potential sword guy concepts that are not shit. For example even in core we have the Paladin. He's a sword guy that also has powers granted by his god. So the Paladin swords people but has divine magic and the his conceptual space is not limited by mundane nonsense. So when say he has to deal with say flying adversaries he can just grow angel wings or summons a Pegasus.

This is all depressingly Elennsarish. Again. People like Wrathzog want:

• To play a character who does not have abilities requisite to accomplish things at level X.
• To play at level X.
• To succeed anyway.

Then they want to be told that succeeding at a level X adventure with a character lacking level X abilities was accomplished through some combination of Chuck Norris style bad assery and extreme cleverness. This is of course total unmitigated horse shit. Take this actual unrequested example:

When I think of a "non-magical" character I want to play, I default to an adventure game protagonist. And in Kings Quest, you are just a dude. Wizards are visibly different from you, but there is nothing keeping you from rifling through some spellbooks and figuring out a magical solution to a problem.

See, what Avoraciopoctules wants to play is an underdog. This is a shitty desire that literally cannot be accommodated. In a novel you can have a plucky hero succeed at a million to one shot because there is a god damned author and all probabilities are actually 100% or 0% with in-world probabilities announced in an ad hoc fashion. In an RPG, there are actual mother fucking probabilities, and if the shot is really a million to one you can try every day until you die of fucking old age and not get even remotely close.

Remember when I said you can't be Batman this what I was talking about there.

[Avoraciopoctules]

What about FATE? My understanding is that you can totally play a useless muggle in that, and it gives you points to exert more control on the story that could hypothetically fuel your ridiculous moon logic puzzle solutions.

[CapnTthePirateG]

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/go ... evel.?pg=1

People are seriously flipping their shit when I suggest we should cap fighters.

I have no idea what they want.

[Mistborn]

So after thinking about what would be an example of a non failure sword guy class I thought

shit let's be Frank and write up an entire class to illustrate this concept.

Fiery Sword Guy
"My sword is on fire."
Fiery Sword Guys are masters of armed combat who also weild the power of fire. It dosen't really matter how they do this maybe it's some kind of crazy martial arts style maybe they're granted their powers by a god with the fire domain, maybe they're part fire elemental who cares.

Level:	Abilities:
1:	The Sord.... Is on Fire, Flame Slash
2:	Fire Resistance
3:	Flame Javelin
4:	Hot Feet
5:	Burning Charge, Bonus Feat,
6:	Pyrotechnics DR 5/-
7:	Flame Shield
8:	Rocket Shoes, Penetrate Fire resistance
9:	Fireball, Fire Imunitly
10:	Flameshift, Elemental Communion
11:	Bonus Feat
12:	DR 10/- Orb of Fire
13:	Elemental Apotheosis
14:	Flamestep
15:	Meteor Swarm
16:	Detonate
17:	Bonus Feat
18:	Summon Fire Elemental Monolith
19:	Burning Wish
20:	Win D&D

Spell-like abilities(Sp) all the Fiery Sword Guys spell likes abilities have a caster level equal to the Firey sword Guys class level and have a save DC equal to 10+1/2 lhis class level+ his charisma modifier

The Sord.... Is on Fire (Su) The Fiery Sword Guy can make any weapon he is wielding burst into flames as a free action this cause the weapon to deal an extra 1d6 points of fire damage and gain an enhancement bonus equal to 1/3rd his character level. The extra fire damage improves to 2d6 at level 5 3d6 at level 10 4d6 at level 15 and 5d6 at level 20. The Fiery Sword Guys weapon loses these propties when it leaves his hand

Flame Slash (Su) once every 1d4 rounds as a standard action the Fiery sword guy can slash his sword to crate a 15ft cone of fire that deal damage equal to his weapon damage (reflex save for half). At 7th level this attack's area increase to 30ft and deals double damage, at 13th level this attack's area increase to 60ft and it deals triple damage

Fire Resistance starting form 2nd level the fiery sword guy has fire resistance 10 plus his class level

Flame Javelin (Su)Starting form 3rd level as a standard action the Fiery Sword Guy can throw a javelin of fire. This is a ranged touch attack that deals 1d6 points of fire damage per class level.

Hot Feet (Ex) at 4th level the Fiery Sword Guy's base land speed increases by 20 feet.

Burning Charge (Su) Starting from 5th level The Fiery sword guy can as a full round action fly twice his base land speed as though he had perfect maneuverability and then make a full attack. Using this ability counts as a charge for the purposes of things that care about charging. Obviously

Bonus Feat: at 5th 11th and 17th level the Fiery sword guy gains a bonus feat off the fighter list.

Pyrotechnics (Sp) staring form 6th level the Fiery Sword Guy can cast pyrotechnics at will

Flame Shield (Sp) starting from 7th level the fiery sword guy can wreathe himself in fire gain the benefit of the Fire shield(hot shield) spell. he can suppress of resume this as a free action.

Rocket Shoes (Su) staring from 8th level the fiery sword guy can fly (60ft perfect maneuverability) by shooting fire from his feet.

Pierce fire resistance (Ex) Starting from 8th level the Fiery Sword Guy can ignore an amount of fire Resistance equal to his character level

Fireball (Sp) starting from 9th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Fireball as a spell-like ability usable at will

Fire Immunity (ex) starting from 9th level the Fiery Sword Guy is immune to fire

Flameshift (Sp) Starting from 10th level the Fiery Sword Guy can cast Planeshift as a spell-like ability four times per day but he may only use it to travel to and from the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Elemental Communion (Sp) Starting from 10th level the Fiery sword guy may may cast Commune as the spell up to three times per day

Orb of Fire (Sp) starting from 12th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Orb of Fire as a spell-like ability usable at will

Elemental Apotheosis: at 13th level the fiery sword guys type changes to elemental [Fire] and he gains all elemental immunities

Flamestep (Sp) starting from 14th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Dimension Door as a spell-like ability usable at will unlike most spell-like abilites this is a move action rather than a standard action.

Meteor Swarm (Sp) starting from 15th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Meteor Swarm as a spell-like ability usable at will

Detonate (Sp) starting from 16th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Detonate as a spell-like ability usable at will

Summon Fire Elemental Monolith(Sp) Starting From 18th level the Fiery Sword Guy can summon a fire monolith this is identical to and outsiders summon ability and can be use three times per day

Burning Wish (Sp) starting from 19th level the Fiery sword guy gains the apility to cast Wish as a spell-like ability three times per day

Win D&D (ex) at 20th level the Fiery sword Guy wins D&D.

[fectin]

I might translate "low power level games" into "not crazily high-powered games," but there are still a few options you missed:

E) Fuck balance. Adam plays Gandalf; Bob plays a crippled hobbit; both enjoy it.
F) Plot points! People who play fighters are the specialist of snowflakes, and receive metaplot or metagame powers.
G) Fuck real characters, right in the ear. Wizards roll on the "raped by demons" table, just for funsies.
H) Everyone else loses combat effectiveness. All spellcasting has a minimum time of [level] minutes (or whatever), all items go away, and everyone else acts 1/3 as often.
I) THUNDERDOME! All arena combat, all the time. Not exactly a solution, but it prevents the (even worse) out of combat disparity.
J) Squads. Adam is a wizard, Bob is a regiment.
K) Entourage. Fighters are inherently charismatic, and have organizations of thousands working for them. That's a little ironic, because they still lose in combat, but they get to just have all kinds of stuff: equipment, intel, money, etc.

[virgil]

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/go ... evel.?pg=1

People are seriously flipping their shit when I suggest we should cap fighters.

I have no idea what they want.

Don't suggest, do.

[Foxwarrior]

These people really do exist in great numbers!

Caedrus's ideas seem like pretty good suggestions of ways to nerf casters without making casters weak and boring.

Lord Mistborn: Why is it so wimpy? Dimension Door five levels late? Getting only one new class ability each level should justify at-will more or less by itself; no need to rub it in by raising the levels on those things.

Fectin: F is the same as B; J and K are the same, E and G are the same. Stop wasting letters.

[fectin]

No, they aren't.

B is "fighters punch the universe to planeshift," F is "fighters get infinite rerolls." Those are fundamentally different classes of rule.

J and K are similarly fluffed, but not the same: J is a mob, K is a guy with a mundane powersource for his out-of-combat dominance.

E and G are apples and oranges. Was that a typo?

[Mistborn]

Lord Mistborn: Why is it so wimpy? Dimension Door five levels late? Getting only one new class ability each level should justify at-will more or less by itself; no need to rub it in by raising the levels on those things.

I wrote the thing very fast. It wasn't meant to be a tome level class anyway. Still it get's limited flight and pounce at level 5, all day flight at 8th, some spiffy fire attacks, this is supposed to be a fightery class with some fire abilities not and kind of full caster.

[fectin]

LM: The real problem with the wizard-fighter dichotomy is that the fighter is useless out of combat. That the wizard also pisses right in the fighter's rice bowl is just icing on the cake.

[Mistborn]

LM: The real problem with the wizard-fighter dichotomy is that the fighter is useless out of combat. That the wizard also pisses right in the fighter's rice bowl is just icing on the cake.

If you notice I did throw in some out of combat stuff. This was a shitty example I wrote in like 30 min don't read too much into it. Anyway the combat/non-combat thing is a whole other can of worms.

[Foxwarrior]

Fectin: No.

B is "fighters punch the universe to planeshift", F is "The presence of fighters causes the universe to punch itself, creating one of those 'purely random' temporary planar portals nearby". Unless you just meant for Fighters to autosucceed on saves while running pointlessly on the ground far below the battle.

J and K are sufficiently similar to fit under the same category, using the level of reductionism Ishy established. Whether the mob is better at fighting or at mining gold is just details.

G is just what you get when you take E and try to make people who are prone to envy accept it.

[Avoraciopoctules]

So after thinking about what would be an example of a non failure sword guy class I thought

shit let's be Frank and write up an entire class to illustrate this concept.

Fiery Sword Guy
"My sword is on fire."
Fiery Sword Guys are masters of armed combat who also weild the power of fire. It dosen't really matter how they do this maybe it's some kind of crazy martial arts style maybe they're granted their powers by a god with the fire domain, maybe they're part fire elemental who cares.

Level:	Abilities:
1:	The Sord.... Is on Fire, Flame Slash
2:	Fire Resistance
3:	Flame Javelin
4:	Hot Feet
5:	Burning Charge, Bonus Feat,
6:	Pyrotechnics DR 5/-
7:	Flame Shield
8:	Rocket Shoes, Penetrate Fire resistance
9:	Fireball, Fire Imunitly
10:	Flameshift, Elemental Communion
11:	Bonus Feat
12:	DR 10/- Orb of Fire
13:	Elemental Apotheosis
14:	Flamestep
15:	Meteor Swarm
16:	Detonate
17:	Bonus Feat
18:	Summon Fire Elemental Monolith
19:	Burning Wish
20:	Win D&D

Spell-like abilities(Sp) all the Fiery Sword Guys spell likes abilities have a caster level equal to the Firey sword Guys class level and have a save DC equal to 10+1/2 lhis class level+ his charisma modifier

The Sord.... Is on Fire (Su) The Fiery Sword Guy can make any weapon he is wielding burst into flames as a free action this cause the weapon to deal an extra 1d6 points of fire damage and gain an enhancement bonus equal to 1/3rd his character level. The extra fire damage improves to 2d6 at level 5 3d6 at level 10 4d6 at level 15 and 5d6 at level 20. The Fiery Sword Guys weapon loses these propties when it leaves his hand

Flame Slash (Su) once every 1d4 rounds as a standard action the Fiery sword guy can slash his sword to crate a 15ft cone of fire that deal damage equal to his weapon damage (reflex save for half). At 7th level this attack's area increase to 30ft and deals double damage, at 13th level this attack's area increase to 60ft and it deals triple damage

Fire Resistance starting form 2nd level the fiery sword guy has fire resistance 10 plus his class level

Flame Javelin (Su)Starting form 3rd level as a standard action the Fiery Sword Guy can throw a javelin of fire. This is a ranged touch attack that deals 1d6 points of fire damage per class level.

Hot Feet (Ex) at 4th level the Fiery Sword Guy's base land speed increases by 20 feet.

Burning Charge (Su) Starting from 5th level The Fiery sword guy can as a full round action fly twice his base land speed as though he had perfect maneuverability and then make a full attack. Using this ability counts as a charge for the purposes of things that care about charging. Obviously

Bonus Feat: at 5th 11th and 17th level the Fiery sword guy gains a bonus feat off the fighter list.

Pyrotechnics (Sp) staring form 6th level the Fiery Sword Guy can cast pyrotechnics at will

Flame Shield (Sp) starting from 7th level the fiery sword guy can wreathe himself in fire gain the benefit of the Fire shield(hot shield) spell. he can suppress of resume this as a free action.

Rocket Shoes (Su) staring from 8th level the fiery sword guy can fly (60ft perfect maneuverability) by shooting fire from his feet.

Pierce fire resistance (Ex) Starting from 8th level the Fiery Sword Guy can ignore an amount of fire Resistance equal to his character level

Fireball (Sp) starting from 9th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Fireball as a spell-like ability usable at will

Fire Immunity (ex) starting from 9th level the Fiery Sword Guy is immune to fire

Flameshift (Sp) Starting from 10th level the Fiery Sword Guy can cast Planeshift as a spell-like ability four times per day but he may only use it to travel to and from the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Elemental Communion (Sp) Starting from 10th level the Fiery sword guy may may cast Commune as the spell up to three times per day

Orb of Fire (Sp) starting from 12th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Orb of Fire as a spell-like ability usable at will

Elemental Apotheosis: at 13th level the fiery sword guys type changes to elemental [Fire] and he gains all elemental immunities

Flamestep (Sp) starting from 14th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Dimension Door as a spell-like ability usable at will unlike most spell-like abilites this is a move action rather than a standard action.

Meteor Swarm (Sp) starting from 15th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Meteor Swarm as a spell-like ability usable at will

Detonate (Sp) starting from 16th level the fiery Sword Guy can cast Detonate as a spell-like ability usable at will

Summon Fire Elemental Monolith(Sp) Starting From 18th level the Fiery Sword Guy can summon a fire monolith this is identical to and outsiders summon ability and can be use three times per day

Burning Wish (Sp) starting from 19th level the Fiery sword guy gains the apility to cast Wish as a spell-like ability three times per day

Win D&D (ex) at 20th level the Fiery sword Guy wins D&D.

Daventry Style [Stunt]
By spending a Fate Point and an object from inventory, the Adventurer may eliminate an obstacle to progress. Perhaps they play a flute so well that the Guardians of the Underworld are too busy dancing to bar the living from entry. Perhaps they hurl a pie into the face of a yeti, and it falls from a cliff while temporarily blinded. The item is always lost, so in the example of the flute, the flute must be dropped, given away to a dancing skeleton, or broken by the end of the scene. Further, the Player must make some kind of pun about the situation.

The obstacle is only removed for this Scene, and could recur later.

[Previn]

To make this thread a somewhat different than its many ancestors, I'll ask the following question: How can we give people the non-magical heroes they want to play so much.... while dodging all the problems that come with it?

We're talking about games so of course we must give people what they want. I just wonder how we can do that.

Any thoughts?

1) Define specifically what mundane is. 'Non-magical' doesn't really cut it.
3) Define the limits of magic.

If at that point you have conceptual room for your mundane, you're fine. If you don't go back and broaden your 'mundane' or limit your magic. Frank's example of needing to be able to keep up with plant hopping being common, is an assumption, not a given that magic makes plant hopping common or even available. Shadowrun, FantasyCraft and WHFRP all lack it for example.

There isn't anything that specifically precludes mundane from being able to contribute in magical settings. There is a specific problem with D&D magic not letting mundanes have any conceptual space.

[Mistborn]

Daventry Style [Stunt]
By spending a Fate Point and an object from inventory, the Adventurer may eliminate an obstacle to progress. Perhaps they play a flute so well that the Guardians of the Underworld are too busy dancing to bar the living from entry. Perhaps they hurl a pie into the face of a yeti, and it falls from a cliff while temporarily blinded. The item is always lost, so in the example of the flute, the flute must be dropped, given away to a dancing skeleton, or broken by the end of the scene. Further, the Player must make some kind of pun about the situation.

The obstacle is only removed for this Scene, and could recur later.

I'm just going to assume I'm being trolled here.