>>98902247
Giving a warrior the ability to parry/reflect spells doesn't move the needle much, because the power gap is a result of the Fighter being less useful in any situation that isn't just swinging a sword at enemies.

If you're up against an enemy mage, the warrior can now kill that mage more easily. But the players could probably already do that by just having the party mage cast counterspell. And the warrior hasn't become any more useful when it comes to turning invisible, teleporting, summoning demons, raising the dead, or all the other various forms of utility.

Bridging the gap either involves bringing mages down to the level of a mundane warrior, or raising warriors up to the levels of superhuman where they can redirect a river through pure muscle.
Parrying spells can be part of that, but it won't fix anything by itself.

>>98902284
>Bridging the gap either involves bringing mages down to the level of a mundane warrior, or raising warriors up to the levels of superhuman where they can redirect a river through pure muscle.
neither of these are difficult changes and yet people pretend like its such an impossible task

>>98902247
As >>98902284
said, the issue is mage's utility, not ways to fuck up the wizards.

AMF and related factors neuter the mage, but that is a flat toggle of 'is the the wizard/cleric/sorcerer useful or not'.

>>98902361
It's become an impossible task because people have this bizarre fixation in D&D and D&D adjacent properties that warriors are just action heroes while wizards can do absolutely fucking anything. Neutering magic pisses off mage players; boosting martials pisses off the 'blood and grit' martial players alongside the particularly egotistical mage players. The change people talk about in this instance is the zeitgeist around this shit, not individual groups. Even individual tables can be pretty resistant to changing their game up.

>>98902361
caster players don't want to play low power casters and fighter players don't want to play high power fighters.
When games try to do either of those things, it gets hated, for example people here, absolutely hate PF2e (which has low power casters) and D&D 4e (which has high power fighters)

>>98902399
>It's become an impossible task because people have this bizarre fixation in D&D and D&D adjacent properties
But D&D literally did that back in 4th edition. It just didn't catch on for whatever reason.

>>98902408
>caster players don't want to play low power casters and fighter players don't want to play high power fighters.
thats called just balancing the levels
a level 1 wizard shoots magic missile twice a day and no one has a problem with that
a level 20 fighter with epic feats should be able to divert a river like hercules without any magical or divine aid, nobody will have a problem with that either
but people act like the only options are fireball at level 1 or having no utility other than strength checks at level 9

>>98902284
The issue is really that magic's been stuck in very big buckets instead of properly building on internal divisions, largely for the honest reason that lengthy lists of bespoke condition removal are too fundamental of an assumption to spell design and the Cleric's blowouts are from it taking a massive online blowup to finally get people to pay attention to what it can do outside the "primary" curative role that just doesn't work properly without a generalized grab bag

>>98902361
Because it's a tedious slog to do "properly" starting from a previous body of work as you have to sit down going over every "kind" of problem you want to stay in (or even add to) scope, how every spell you want to keep fits into them even with some layers of "extended" problem-solving, and then re-allocate the niche-allotment accordingly in a way that still meaningfully guides functional party compositions

And even then you're probably still getting complaints if you don't devise longer-term resource subsystems for the martials to make comparable "Obvious Big Buttons" at all sensible, because a LOT of this shitshow is really just the clear spotlight of sudden proactive shifts rather than a legitimate structural issue. Just look at how ludicrously over-buffed the Cleric got for 3e in the efforts to remove built-up assumptions typecasting them as pure healbots. The forums ranting and raving about CoDzilla did not stop it, because the wider consumer base and playtesters STILL did not get the message!

>>98902408
Given how mere community consensus on "cut off at 6th" went in 3.5, I'd expect BECMI-style overt play tiering to be ABLE to fix it, but good fucking luck getting that through to WotC product design and marketing.

>>98902423
Because presenting classes by formalized power source+role with abilities in proto-VTT prepared keywording that completely segregate the "tactical skirmishing" from utility sucks the flavor out of it. It may be a passable system, but it just is not D&D

>>98902284
>to the levels of superhuman where they can redirect a river through pure muscle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA9iNF6tBek

>>98902473
> redirect a river through pure muscle
Give any level 0 commoner a shovel, few months to swing it, and he can do the same. Martials aren't doing anything special, they just do the mundane more efficiently.

A game should commit to the idea, if magic is inherent to a majority of creatures and materials, there shouldn't be any fully mundane creatures or materials; if not magical, then some kind of other kind of power acting as an equalizer.
Ancient humans conquered tigers because we can commune, build, plot, and throw really hard as an equalizer. If magic's only equalizer is other magic, the mundane cannot exist - those refusing to use it go extinct in a living world that isn't just sacred cows reimagined from 70s - 80s literature and film pop culture.
Otherwise, magic must be rare and unknown, and there must be limitations on both player options and encounters available for the GM to use.

>>98902247
...no because the gap is HEAVILY in utility.
It'd be something interesting for a subclass/mid game feat/whatever you want to call it but not a dedicated class.

>>98902247
Let me say the same shit that has been already said, but from an other angle:
All classes are supposed to be at least decent in a fight.
Making the fighter better in a fight doesn't earn him any special place, as everybody can already fight well enough, and the DM will likely balance encounters around the party abilities anyway.
Meanwhile, the wizard does shit the fighter can't even attempt.
The wizard can't be replaced easily, if you don't have one there's a real chance your next adventure will involve kidnapping, befriending, or hiring one.
If you don't have a pure martial, it's quite unlikely your mission will be to go get one.