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Martial power level
(lemmy.zip)
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Yeah, as mentioned by Aielman15, Fighters tend to not have a good Charisma. So it's actually not just that Martials only have skills, but they are usually worse at those skills compared to Casters (barring Rogue, who is only outclassed by Bard). (Note: I use Martial here to mean "class without the Spellcasting pr Pact Magic features in their base class" and Caster to mean "class that counts fully for Spellcasting multiclassing and Warlock.)
Martials tend to excel in Strength, Dexterity, and/or Constitution and usually be middling at best in other stats. Since there is only one skill associated with Strength: Athletics, while, other stats have at least 3 each (except Constitution) a Strength based character will be worse at skills than other characters. Of course the relative strength of the different skills will vary depending on your table, but I think we can at least all agree that the Charisma based ones tend towards the top. They also don't get any more Proficiencies or Expertises than any other class (Bard and Rogue are again the exceptions).
In essence, pointing to the skill system doesn't really help, as Martials aren't usually any better than Casters at them, or are even worse in some cases.
What you are saying sure does highlight an impalance in the system, one that is probably hard to solve without removing what is "core dnd". Decoupling skills from attributes is one step. Maneuvers for all another. I don't know what else to do without starting to make it not dnd. And honestly I don't really need to do anything. There is apparently something out there called Advanced 5e for those that want "dnd but more". For me there are a thousand and one systems out there for me to like.