Not so Mundane

One of the greatest books (in my opinion) to come out of 3.5 was the Tome of Battle (aka the Book of Nine Swords). In essence, it destroyed the idea that martial classes should be perfectly mundane, and put them solidly in line with the spell casters of similar level.

If you were from one of the classes in the ToB, you were giving fighting techniques which allowed you to do more than go 'I hit it with my sword'. Because in most circumstances, regardless of how you describe a fighter, it all boils down to 'I hit it with my sword'. No amount of poetic license is going to give you any real benefits beyond, 'I roll to hit, I do damage'. ToB fixed that. You had stances, which did different things, and you had maneouvres, which augmented your attacks and gave you nifty things to do.

This was sort-of brought over into 4e, and while I never played 4e, I could see the DNA of the ToB in it. The thing is, they didn't put it into 5e.  Not really.  And they really should have. If you look at 13th Age? They got it right -- 13th Age really makes Fighters and Rogues feel special. And that's what's missing from 5e.

Advanced 5th Edition took this a step further with maneouvres which have stances and techniques, but they still feel - for the most part - mundane. They offer some slight variance, but I think it's still fallen into the trap of believing fighters and rogues (and Marshals) are ... mundane.

And I think that they shouldn't be. A martial class - a Character Class - shouldn't be mundane. They don't have to be 'flaming elemental sword of doom', but they should very well get to the point where a Fighter can slam the ground and split it asunder with no magic weapon, and with no Feat. Just raw power.  A mage can drop 10d6 in a line with lightning bolt?  Then the fighter can charge that same line and do 10d6 to each person along the path.  A mage does 10d6 in a 20ft radius with a fireball?  A rogue slips into an area, flickering back and forth, and does 10d6 to a group of foes in a 20ft radius.  Or a barbarian leaps 40 feet across the field and slams into the ground, throwing everyone in 20 feet off their feet.

Don't even pretend that martial classes aren't empowered and borderline magical. Save that for mundane NPCs. I feel each and every Class should have that 'nobody should be able to do that' feel to them, and that should only grow as they level. I don't think everything needs to be samey (4e I believe tried that), but I think that the martial classes should have the same kind of toolbox that the spellcasters have, but tied to weapon use.

Really, 5e needs a Book of Nine Swords, but here's the thing: it should have been in the Player's Handbook from the very start. That really needs to be the default for the Fighter, Rogue, and Barbarian (and Marshal if you're doing a5e).

Like I said, 13th Age got it right from the start. The other d20 games really need to catch up to that.

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