What do people want from a non-casting physical character?

[Endarire]

(And I don't mean, "Doesn't want to or can't use spells/powers/etc.")

Magic does everything.  So does psionics.  Stances, maneuvers, and extraordinary abilities have their place, and people repeatedly want to make characters that rely on, say, killing people well in direct combat, or that sneak well, or steal well, or are more relatable to real life characters.

Mechanically, however, what do people especially want from these classes, roles, and archetypes?

Standard Disclaimer: Wanting or liking non-casters/non-manifesters is OK and doesn't make you a bad person.

[SolEiji]

Thats a broad question.

I supppose one wants to be able to do whatever the gimmick of the class does well... and at least be able to contrubute to everything else which isn't its gimmick.  Casters manage this by doing everything well.  "There's a spell for that." and it works.  Mundanes have a harder time, as their only option is "skill points" which is both inferior to spells and often not given out.  The Fighter is a prime example: 2+Int and a poor selection means that the fighter fights, and nothing else.

I've always been a fan of multipurpose maneuvers or being able to turn your weapons into tools, and its something I work into my homebrew when I can.  For example, if your gimmick is two-weapon fighting, I might say that you are able to obtain a climb speed by stabbing your weapons into a surface and using it as climbing axes.  Or a maneuver which destroys ethereal creatures also effecting other ethereal things, like breaking down force effects.

The other thing of course is that eventually you're going to get into fairly supernatural stuff the higher you go.  That's not to say you manifest flaming swords or shoot mind bullets from your eyes, but you certainly become superhuman, getting into Bleach or DBZ territory in absurd amounts of speed, power, and endurance.  Sadly this is where a lot of melee classes fail.  WotC expects the mage to go from "nerd who can clap and turn on the lights" to "gandalf claps and turns off the sun".  Meanwhile a knight is expected to go from a "simple soldier with a sword and shield" to "still a soldier, but with a shinier sword and shield".  If you're going to have a world where the big cheeses can send down meteors and stop time, mundanes are going to need to be equally fantasical in what they do: be strong, fast, and tough.

[RobbyPants]

In the most simple answer, I'd say: figure out what all of the mini-games are in your game (combat, social, bypassing hazards, etc) and give each class the ability to do something in every mini-game.

(I answered you broad question with a broad answer. )

[InnaBinder]

In the most simple answer, I'd say: figure out what all of the mini-games are in your game (combat, social, bypassing hazards, etc) and give each class the ability to do something in every mini-game.

(I answered you broad question with a broad answer. )

The problem with this being that it can make the choice of class largely meaningless.  If every class is able to contribute meaningfully in every situation, then the choice of class becomes a mostly aesthetic one.  On the other hand, if some classes are able to contribute to more situations than others, then you wind up where those are obviously superior choices, and are left with the common refrain of why someone would take an obviously inferior choice.

Ultimately, in answer to the OP, my response would be that I'd like a non-casting physical character to be able to contribute to at least a couple of situations that a casting, non-physical character is not able to.  That way, both roles feel valuable at different times.

[steenan]

I'd like the non-magical classes to start with mundane skills, but scale them up to the mythic level. Like: 
1-6: Mundane, within realistic human range.
7-12: Superhuman, but without violating basic physics and psychology
13-20: Styled as "not spellcasting", but might as well be magic

So, at level 9 I want to jump onto a three-story building, shoot someone from twenty paces while blindfolded, sneak through a well-lit room with several guards in it, read details of someone's emotions from their body language or bluff them into revealing an important secret, open any kind of lock in a minute, improvise some explosives in av evening from what I can find in a forest. Of course, not everything with any character - but a reasonably wide range.

At level 15 I want to visit Moon by climbing clouds or intimidating winds to take me there, shoot someone who is in the next city, sneak into king's chamber while all guards in the palace are looking for me, deduce all important facts of somebody's past after observing them for a minute or persuade them to kill their best friend, walk through closed door, destroy a building by shouting at it.


In game mechanics, it can be done in two ways: either by giving non-casting classes various "powers" representing superhuman abilities (but without limiting most of them to combat, as 4e did), or by reworking the skill system so that skills are not limited to mundane uses. In general, gaining levels should improve and widen what one can do, not just increase numbers.

[SneeR]

I would actually go a step further than steenan.
They say that a +4 bonus is a significant one in D&D, meaning maxed ranks at first level means something that is an achievement. By perhaps 3rd or 4th level, most samurai, knights, archers, and olympic sportsmen can be properly emulated in dedicated builds (as normal people actually are, generally). I would say then, that beyond 4th level, things are simply superhuman.

So:
1st-4th: average to maximum human capacity
5th-10th: beyond human: slicing ropes off of someone from across the room without risk of harming them
11th-15th: epic like nobody's business: Kratos if he were a bald Super Saiyan
16th+: godlike legends: produce weapons from nothing, full-attacking everyone in the room  and killing fools with a particularly stern look

I want mundanes to have a schtick and slowly become able to do anything related to that schtick. So, intimidation can produce heart attacks or mind control, sneaking can make invisibility and the ability to slip through the cracks in the planes, and chopping stuff is not limited by what you can touch.

[Unbeliever]

This may be redundant with my other post on Endrarie's endless threads of questions (tm), so apologies.

I like Kratos.  I like Conan (REH, Dark Horse Comics version).  I also like any number of awesome fencers and samurai I've seen.

Those are totally sufficient on the scale of ridiculous awesomeness to me.  What I think I'd like to see is:

1)  truly interesting combat options.  I want to be able to slice the hamstring of the minotaur and have it really matter, I want to be an impenetrable wall of steel, to inspire like it's Saint Crispin's Day or whatever.  One of these options can be buckets of damage, but I want other ones. 

2)  have meaningful non-combat options.  Whether these be stealth, athleticism (running, jumping, climbing), social skills, and so on.

Ideally, these would not be easily emulated by one of the caster's 40 spells they can cast in a day.  If I'm the impenetrable wall of steel at 12th level, I had better be superior, in at least some fashion, to Solid Fog.  Although that might be a bad example b/c that spell is probably totally broken.

[veekie]

In the most simple answer, I'd say: figure out what all of the mini-games are in your game (combat, social, bypassing hazards, etc) and give each class the ability to do something in every mini-game.

(I answered you broad question with a broad answer. )

The problem with this being that it can make the choice of class largely meaningless.  If every class is able to contribute meaningfully in every situation, then the choice of class becomes a mostly aesthetic one.  On the other hand, if some classes are able to contribute to more situations than others, then you wind up where those are obviously superior choices, and are left with the common refrain of why someone would take an obviously inferior choice.

Theres differences in approach(though casters violate that, by being able to contribute to every situation in pretty much every way), you want everyone to be able to participate, to a major  degree in their speciality, and to a moderate degree anywhere else. This does not necessarily mean participate in the exact same way, since I'm sure you can establish at least 3-4 basic approaches for any particular domain of problems and from there permutate out actual abilities.

[Shadowhunter]

I would actually go a step further than steenan.
They say that a +4 bonus is a significant one in D&D, meaning maxed ranks at first level means something that is an achievement. By perhaps 3rd or 4th level, most samurai, knights, archers, and olympic sportsmen can be properly emulated in dedicated builds (as normal people actually are, generally). I would say then, that beyond 4th level, things are simply superhuman.

So:
1st-4th: average to maximum human capacity
5th-10th: beyond human: slicing ropes off of someone from across the room without risk of harming them
11th-15th: epic like nobody's business: Kratos if he were a bald Super Saiyan
16th+: godlike legends: produce weapons from nothing, full-attacking everyone in the room  and killing fools with a particularly stern look

I want mundanes to have a schtick and slowly become able to do anything related to that schtick. So, intimidation can produce heart attacks or mind control, sneaking can make invisibility and the ability to slip through the cracks in the planes, and chopping stuff is not limited by what you can touch.

I think WotC came out and said in one of their articles that Olympic archers are 7th level rangers carried over into the game.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060120a
Ah, there it was.

Note: The article contains a few of other... less enlightened ideas.

Tanglefoot Bags

I love the idea behind these things. But they’re so good that I had to ban them in the games I DM.

so I think it’s an open question whether it’s worse to get hit with an enervation or a tanglefoot bag.

[Prime32]

So:
1st-4th: average to maximum human capacity
5th-10th: beyond human: slicing ropes off of someone from across the room without risk of harming them
11th-15th: epic like nobody's business: Kratos if he were a bald Super Saiyan
16th+: godlike legends: produce weapons from nothing, full-attacking everyone in the room  and killing fools with a particularly stern look

Generally it's lv1-5 and 6-10, but otherwise yeah. 4e comes out and says this by dividing level advancement into Heroic, Paragon and Epic tiers; 3.x has it more subtly in that most prestige classes start at lv6 - prestige classes aren't something a normal person can possibly achieve.

Actually, it could be interesting to go 4e-style and gestalt PrCs with your normal advancement - casters don't get as much benefit since their PrCs advance casting anyway.

[oslecamo]

So:
1st-4th: average to maximum human capacity
5th-10th: beyond human: slicing ropes off of someone from across the room without risk of harming them
11th-15th: epic like nobody's business: Kratos if he were a bald Super Saiyan
16th+: godlike legends: produce weapons from nothing, full-attacking everyone in the room  and killing fools with a particularly stern look

Generally it's lv1-5 and 6-10, but otherwise yeah. 4e comes out and says this by dividing level advancement into Heroic, Paragon and Epic tiers; 3.x has it more subtly in that most prestige classes start at lv6.

The epic/godlike tier actualy goes from levels 20 to 30.

Just take a look at the monsters. At level 20 you're not suposed to be fighting gods. You're suposed to be fighting the top minions of the gods (balors, pit fiends, solars), which altough quite powerful, are still away from a true god.

[Prime32]

The epic/godlike tier actualy goes from levels 20 to 30.

Just take a look at the monsters. At level 20 you're not suposed to be fighting gods. You're suposed to be fighting the top minions of the gods (balors, pit fiends, solars), which altough quite powerful, are still away from a true god.

The scales are different in 3e and 4e though; the kinds of things lv30 4e characters do could probably be achieved at lv15 in 3e.

[zugschef]

just a few QUICK thoughts...

i think the point is to find a niche for every character concept. and in order for mundanes not being totally overshadowed by casters you need to drastically reduce the amount of spells and the effects which can be achieved with spells. as soon as you have spells which transform a caster into another class, you have the same problem.

next thing is what frank & k did: bab and feats need to be worth a damn. then provide nice combat options. and push skills. for running up walls you shouldn't need to take a feat or cast a spell. you should need fukken skill. just look at jackie chan's stunts he sometimes seems to be able to run up walls...

another idea would be converting spells into skills. a lot of systems actually do that. why do casters who learn fly immediatly know how to maneuver when airborne? this would also reduce the amount of spells because spells scale...

now i need to take a shower; going to a party tonight.^^

[oslecamo]

The epic/godlike tier actualy goes from levels 20 to 30.

Just take a look at the monsters. At level 20 you're not suposed to be fighting gods. You're suposed to be fighting the top minions of the gods (balors, pit fiends, solars), which altough quite powerful, are still away from a true god.

The scales are different in 3e and 4e though; the kinds of things lv30 4e characters do could probably be achieved at lv15 in 3e.

Doesn't change the fact that in 3e pit fiends/solars/balors are still 20ish level enemies. If your character can rape those at level 15, something is off in the system.

[Prime32]

The epic/godlike tier actualy goes from levels 20 to 30.

Just take a look at the monsters. At level 20 you're not suposed to be fighting gods. You're suposed to be fighting the top minions of the gods (balors, pit fiends, solars), which altough quite powerful, are still away from a true god.

The scales are different in 3e and 4e though; the kinds of things lv30 4e characters do could probably be achieved at lv15 in 3e.

Doesn't change the fact that in 3e pit fiends/solars/balors are still 20ish level enemies. If your character can rape those at level 15, something is off in the system.

I was talking about both PCs and their enemies - gods/pit fiends are stronger in 3e than in 4e, and a 4e god is equivalent to an lv15 3e encounter (more or less).

The scale of things you can do doesn't increase as rapidly in 4e as in 3e.

[SneeR]

The epic/godlike tier actualy goes from levels 20 to 30.

Just take a look at the monsters. At level 20 you're not suposed to be fighting gods. You're suposed to be fighting the top minions of the gods (balors, pit fiends, solars), which altough quite powerful, are still away from a true god.

The scales are different in 3e and 4e though; the kinds of things lv30 4e characters do could probably be achieved at lv15 in 3e.

Doesn't change the fact that in 3e pit fiends/solars/balors are still 20ish level enemies. If your character can rape those at level 15, something is off in the system.

Sorry, but D&D isn't balanced, and the CR system is nobbed up the bum so hard it can't even pretend to walk right.

Besides, we are talking hypotheticals. In a vacuum, I would want these thing out of a system like D&D, if it could be balanced as such.

[midnight_v]

  Agreed with above poster. Hypothetically, you can say at level 20 we can go god slaying. Really for what its worth level 20 pcs' can just be handed DR - 0 and it wouldn't matter much. Epic level as it stands really doesn't exist... its just too undersupported to be considered.

There are some really good posts above and yes I believe Frank and K  have it right with the feats both combat and skill, and also that 4th has it right by taking what we said all along and making it official aka Tiers of play. So yeah co signing with the above posters.

More towards the original post though... I don't think people know what they want out of non-casting physical characters.  I've been at this for years and across many forums and I see people wanting:
"My character to contribute to the party w/out being broken, and w/out being too @#@% anime!"
I hear those sentiments repeated most often. I've also found that the above means something like "I want my character to be a low-level concept, doing high level things" which as you can imagine is as incompatible as it sounds.

On some level the idea of certain things have to be checked at the gate.
"Is it possible for a human samurai, to walk through a thin place, into hell. That he may confront the Demon King, slay him, and free his anscestors from the bore of souls."

Or can only casters do things like that. I think people want the physical characters to be able do do things like that on a conceptual level but that it causes dissonance, cause no "Human" can do that without magic. . .

  So there are some issuses there, I've said it before but what we people really need is an explanation of why in the D&D world people become superhumans. (those who don't cast spells anyway)

[veekie]

So there are some issuses there, I've said it before but what we people really need is an explanation of why in the D&D world people become superhumans. (those who don't cast spells anyway)

Steal the fluff from Exalted? All it takes is Essence(the equivalent of pp and levels) applied in the right way to change the world.

[midnight_v]

So there are some issuses there, I've said it before but what we people really need is an explanation of why in the D&D world people become superhumans. (those who don't cast spells anyway)

Steal the fluff from Exalted? All it takes is Essence(the equivalent of pp and levels) applied in the right way to change the world.

Never played exalted, just looked at the pretty pictures in passing, so I can't say.

Here's what I've been thinking here in the last 10 minutes. . . make XP a real thing. Which would be defined as  the same thing as "ambient magic" the stuff that powers or underwrites the universe, or whatever mumbo jumbo we decide to use there.
Mages use rituals and gestures(or whatever) to manipulate this force.
Clerics are granted control over it by their Gods.
Druids do it by become "one" with an enviornment (enviorments feed and thrive on it it would be the reason there's an oasis in the desert)

Everyone else? People who aren't actively trying to  putting it to use?
Absorb it into themselves. Like that old move where the dudes would cut off each others heads get struck by magic lightning and live forever... or those scenes in skyrim when you absorb the dragons souls etc... except well way more imperceptable, in that it happens slowly and NO one can see it happening.
 Further, this wouldn't be limited to how badass you are in combat but is a measure what you DO determining how powerful you are.

Basically, give a literal in game meaning to Xp = Badassery, and say "Oh the more Xp you have the more the universe obeys you."

I may be off an a wild idea, because I just read a book by Paulo Coello, "The Alchemist", and it full of thoughts like "As long as your pursuing your personal legend, the universe will conspire to give you what you dream" so thats where some of this thought process is coming from I think.
Sound logical?

[veekie]

Thats basically it yeah. You have power running inside you, and so your actions change the world, and redefine the impossible.