D&D 5E The Fighter Class and superiority dice

Sezarious said:

Hi all. I've been recently reading through 5th edition and I quite like it, but coming from 3.5, I'm not quite sold on the fighters superiority dice. In fact I don't like them at all

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No problem. The Champion archetype never uses that mechanic, so there's always an alternative.

because they seem to infer to me that I can no longer make a trip attack, disarm or sunder without having to I suppose "spend the extra energy".

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While your DM might infer that, I'm fairly confident stating (from a position of no authority whatsoever) that 5e's /intent/ is for the DM to let you try whatever the heck you want. So your Champion could, on any given round that it seemed appropriate, try to trip someone, hit their weapons, grapple, bullrush, feint, trash-talk, bait, disembowel, or otherwise do something cool/effective/dramatic. The DM might say it doesn't work or call for a check that you're likely to fail, but that doesn't mean you can't do it, just that you failed.

Nor can I purchase my favourite fighter feats cleave, great cleave and whirlwind attack.

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5e fighter /do/ eventually get a lot of attacks at "Full BAB," so in a sense you don't really need to.

I would be inclined to make just a couple of tweaks in house that I am proposing would sound reasonable to a DM.

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5e is very open and encouraging to DMs when it comes to introducing their own house rules. It offers no such encouragement when it comes to accepting proposed house rules from players who are hoping to make their characters better.

I just found in 3.5 that two different fighters could have drastically different combat styles based on the feats they picked, so my reaction when I saw the changes was surprise.

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The 5e fighter does get a choice of Style at first level, and of archetype at 3rd, and that does add to something like 15 or so more or less distinct sorts of fighters. Add a background, and, while it's not customized in as much detail, nor modeled with such confidence as in 3.5, you can get quite the range of concepts down in a general way.

Does that sound reasonable, or am I living in the past?

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The latter, I'm afraid. If you keep looking at the Champion, squint just right, and feel out what your DM will let you get away with, you might find that you can get something like the same concept out of a 5e fighter as a 3.5, it's just less a matter of the build and more a matter of what happens in play.

The cleave feat was one of the most popular in 3rd Edition. I don't think they should have just given it to a great weapon fighter user.

Superiority dice in general seem like a nice new mechanic. Fighters deserve something special, and this comes across even better than just having extra feats (which other warriors could take). I'd be curious what results you found if you imported them into 3rd Edition, and I'd be inclined to use 3rd Edition's feats in 5th Edition.

I can certainly allow the 3rd feats to be purchasable in my campaign and I think my dm would allow me to do the same. It will take some time to get the results though. I would also be nearly inclined to allow players the option to swap the improved critical abilities for a 3rd ed fighter feat to experiment. After all, in 3rd ed, not all fighters were into specialising with criticals. I once had a player who's fighter specialised in grappling, unarmed and improvised weapons. He wasn't optimised for maximum damage, but he was really good at taking enemies alive.

Tony Vargas said:

While your DM might infer that, I'm fairly confident stating (from a position of no authority whatsoever) that 5e's /intent/ is for the DM to let you try whatever the heck you want. So your Champion could, on any given round that it seemed appropriate, try to trip someone, hit their weapons, grapple, bullrush, feint, trash-talk, bait, disembowel, or otherwise do something cool/effective/dramatic. The DM might say it doesn't work or call for a check that you're likely to fail, but that doesn't mean you can't do it, just that you failed.

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How do you think 5E accomplishes this? D&D combat has always been abstract, and has generally gone with combat sub-systems to resolve these sorts of manoeuvres. Is there something in 5E that allows PCs to, let's say, break an opponent's arm if you put them in an arm lock?

LostSoul said:

How do you think 5E accomplishes this? D&D combat has always been abstract, and has generally gone with combat sub-systems to resolve these sorts of manoeuvres. Is there something in 5E that allows PCs to, let's say, break an opponent's arm if you put them in an arm lock?

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No, and there really shouldn't be - just as there shouldn't be a way to make someone completely helpless by grappling. You shouldn't be able to make an end-run around the opponent's hit points like that.

The PHB has rules for shoving, which is basically bull rush and trip, and grappling which ought to be called "grabbing" - you hold on to your foe so he can't leave, but he's not particularly hindered in his actions. The DMG has optional rules for disarming, as well as various options for getting past opponents (overrun, shove aside, tumble).

They did have maneuvers for fighters in the earlier playtest, but it ended being a choice for the battlemaster class, as a nod to complexity. Where overall maneuvers makes complete sense for all martial classes. So you are left with house rules to make the fighter class interesting. But the fighter has always been the poster child for simplicity when looking at pre-3E versions of the class.

That's a good point. The Battlemaster is there precisely for the kind of players who enjoy doing cool maneuvers in a fight (though I think it could have gone further into the kind of territory covered by the 3e Tome of Battle - but then again, that might be something for another subclass or another class entirely), while the Champion is there for the players who just want to kick ass and take names. Arguing "Why can't the Champion trip opponents?" is sort of missing the point.

LostSoul said:

How do you think 5E accomplishes this?

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Through DM fiat.

D&D combat has always been abstract, and has generally gone with combat sub-systems to resolve these sorts of manoeuvres. Is there something in 5E that allows PCs to, let's say, break an opponent's arm if you put them in an arm lock?

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5e presents the core conceit of the game as something along the lines of 'player describes action, DM determines resolution' (either summarily, or by stating a check & DC). While spells are something of an exception to that, having spelled-out(npi) effects, that's the sort of central dogma of 5e.

So, you would say: "I try to put him in an arm lock."

And the DM would say anything from "OK, he's in an arm lock" to "roll to hit" to "roll STR + Athletics, DC 20" to "You can try, but he gets to attack you as a reaction if you do" to "You fail."

Whether the consequences of the target trying to escape from said arm lock include a broken arm or dislocated shoulder would, likewise, be the DM's call.

Tony Vargas said:

And the DM would say anything from "OK, he's in an arm lock" to "roll to hit" to "roll STR + Athletics, DC 20" to "You can try, but he gets to attack you as a reaction if you do" to "You fail."

Whether the consequences of the target trying to escape from said arm lock include a broken arm or dislocated shoulder would, likewise, be the DM's call.

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I'd probably give the target a saving throw (in the round after a successful grapple check, assuming the target doesn't escape) to avoid the broken bone. I wonder if that sort of thing would throw a wrench into the system - if you should go through HP like [MENTION=907]Staffan[/MENTION] suggests. My gut feeling is that it would still work okay.

I like the Battlemaster fighter, and a I like the champion.

On reflection however, I would have preferred a third option along the lines of a mix of "always on" 13th Age style fighter abilities, and limited combat dice based Battlemaster maneuvers.