One thing you'll quickly notice when looking through 5E D&D is that most classes have some form of spellcasting. The spellcasting system is a really powerful way to not only give players more options on how to play, but also just makes the decision-making process from moment to moment kind of more interesting.
It's also kind of an odd system, when you look at it: a Wizard might have a mix of utility spells like Detect Magic, Sending, or Leomund's Tiny Hut along with very combat-focused spells like Fireball or Summon Elemental.
This creates a tension - while many spells are Rituals, and can generally be cast for free outside of combat, the more times you send a 25-word voice message long-distance in a day, the fewer giant explosions of fire you can produce.
I've talked a lot on this blog about how excited I am to try Draw Steel, which I think really makes part of its mission to make playing a Martial character just as fun and interesting as playing a Spellcaster character - these distinctions don't really exist in Draw Steel, because everyone's just using a few abilities they gain from their classes, subclasses, and sometimes kits.
There's an elegance to Draw Steel's abilities, which feels a little more like a Blizzard RPG like World of Warcraft or Diablo (both Blizzard and MCDM are headquartered in Orange County). But I'm not really advocating for D&D to go the same route:
People love the endless possibilities of an ever-expanding spell list.
And so, we're presented with an interesting challenge:
Can we come up with something that is as versatile as spells that we give to martial characters, but that feels distinct?
To be clear, this is not something we could bolt on to 5E. Even if there's a (probably correct) sense that martial characters lack the utility and choices that a spellcaster could use, this would add so much to these classes that I'd really want to just do a thorough redesign.
I think where I'd start is to give martial characters something like an equivalent to cantrips and leveled attacks.
One of the things that honestly kind of surprised me when I started playing D&D was that martial often just "take the attack action," and a Ranger shooting a bow, a Rogue stabbing with a dagger, or a Barbarian slashing with a greataxe all basically work the same way.
Weapon Masteries, I think, kind of gave weapon attacks something like the effects of a cantrip. Slow is pretty much what you get from Ray of Frost, for example.
While I really like Weapon Masteries, I think what I'd probably do is get rid of them and instead attach them to these "cantrip" attacks.
Picture this: you're playing a Paladin, and at 1st level, you get two "basic strikes." You could pick "Vexing Strike," which gives you advantage on your next attack if you hit, or "Grazing Slash," which guarantees your Strength bonus on a melee attack.
Different classes might gain access to different basic strikes. Rogues might get access to those that thematically fit more with the kinds of weapons a rogue would use.
We need not be limited to the weapon masteries - indeed, I think we could potentially re-create some melee cantrips in this way. Booming Blade, or something along these lines, could be an option, perhaps flavored less as something magical and more like you inflict some injury on their legs that damages them (with, like, piercing damage) if they move. Something like Shocking Grasp, that prevents opportunity attacks, could be another.
Now, there's a question of scaling: most Martial Classes get Extra Attack at level 5, and then things like Radiant Strikes, the Fighter's third (and later fourth) attack, and such give them some scaling.
We could give these basic strikes scaling with level similar to cantrips, though we don't want to double-dip too much.
Indeed, we could just get rid of Extra Attack and make the damage scaling work with these and the "leveled strikes" we haven't covered yet. But one really big advantage of Extra Attack is that it smooths out the probability of hitting and missing. Especially at higher levels, when combat takes a lot more time, missing with your only attack on a turn feels really awful, but having more attacks means you're less likely to do nothing on your turn.
Thus, we'd need to figure out the proper scaling to ensure that this remains balanced.
Now, if we wanted to go the simplest route, we could give martials the same 9 levels of "leveled strikes" and the same number of "strike slots" that casters get.
Naturally, some of these strikes would probably be big combat abilities. I imagine you could have things like Whirlwind (you do damage in an emanation around you, maybe with a Dex save for half) or Titanic Strike (you make an attack and deal something like 6d8 damage to a target and knock them prone). You might also have some more utility options: something like Temper Weapon, where you could give a weapon an attack and damage bonus of +1 for 8 hours or something.
This could also be a place to get some tools for social and exploration encounters.
A couple things would have to follow from this:
First off, some of these "strikes" or "maneuvers" or whatever you want to call them would probably be redundant with other class abilities.
You'd also likely need to dial back some class abilities in general to deal with the new power martials would get (Wizards are arguably the most powerful class in the game, and they get barely any actual core class features beyond their spellcasting feature).
How would half-casters work? I could imagine giving Rangers and Paladins similar half-progression with martial strikes the way that they do with spells. Artificers are a little weirder - I'd argue that Alchemists, Artillerists, Cartographers, and Reanimators probably should actually be full casters anyway, while you could treat Battle Smiths and Armorers in a similar manner to Rangers and Paladins.
There's also a potential downside: the simplicity of martial characters can sometimes be appealing to players first learning how to play D&D. While I, as someone with over ten years of experience with D&D, find the Champion Fighter pretty dang boring, I also get that it's a really solid option if a player only want to have to remember more or less how to make attack rolls.
This would basically make every class as complex as a full caster. And while generally my experience with most players is that even beginners don't shy away from complex classes (even when they maybe should,) it might still be helpful to have something a little simpler and approachable for those who prefer it.
Still, I think there's a lot of open design space if we were to give martial characters the same kind of customizability that spellcasters get.
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