D&D 5E Thoughts on Mearls' Comments on Fighter Subclasses Lacking Identity

MerricB's synopsis of Mike Mearls Tome Show Interview said:

Mike's biggest regret is the fighter: the subclasses don't have the identity that the subclasses of other classes have. What's a battlemaster or a champion? They were so involved in the mechanics (for simple and complex fighters), that the names don't mean anything.

Click to expand...

I thought they did a pretty good job with the subclass names and identities. The concepts are pretty simple.

• Champions are focused on self improvement and raw ability (recalling the simple mechanics of the earliest editions). The name is fairly generic, but if the goal is to rename "Fighting-man", I'm not sure I'd do much better.
• Battlemasters are focused on battlefield tactics, including tactical maneuvers and more group based abilities (recalling later editions more tactical based play, i.e. 3.5's Nine Swords material and 4e's Warlord). The name seems dead-on...battlemaster=tactical fighter.
• Eldritch Knights are sword mages (recalling Eldritch Knights and Swordmages ).

I thought Mearls' regret was surprising. Also, champion is a real winner as a class. We had players practically sparring over who got to play a champion, as they wanted mechanics to take a back seat to enjoying the game. (I generally don't allow players to play the same class in my games due to past spotlight sharing issues.) Battlemasters, on the other hand, feel the least "5e" to me of any class/subclass in the PHB. Eldritch Knight looks cool, and is what I hope to roll next time I am a player in a 5e game.

Reiterating what I said in the other thread:

I was disappointing by the design of the fighter's subclasses, and commented as much in my review of the PHB. The problem is they're entirely differentiated by mechanics and not flavour, because it equates the complexity of the class with the subclass rather than another choice.

For example, a theoretical cavalier subclass has to either be simple or complex (or in the middle), which might not satisfy some people. If they opt to make the cavalier simpler, a player who wants a complex fighter will have to choose to either play a class they don't entirely like or try and make a cavalier without actually taking the cavalier option.

Because the story of fighters is detached from their choice of subclass, you don't associate the description of a fighter with its abilities. A grizzled soldier with a sword and shield could equally be a champion or battlemaster, as could a phalanx fighter with a spear, or a mobile fencer with a flashing rapier, or the mounted knight with a lance. The description of the character tells you nothing of the build or class features.

A better design would have been tying the superiority dice to the fighter class itself. Such as allowing fighters to gain a simple class feature or maneuvers. So the complexity was independent of subclass. But they didn't go that direction.

Grrrrrrrrr you beat be to it.

I just want to say that Mike is way off the mark with his comment. The fighter is the most flavourful and versatile class out there. The best thing about the fighter at the moment is the flavour of the class is down to the player and that's the way it should be. Mike is obviously trying to shoe horn the class into some narrow minded concept that leaves us with only one option while at present we have loads.

With a fighter and it's subclasses you can create the following.

1: Tactics commander.
2: Soldier.
3: War Wizard of Cormyr Commander.
4: Ranger.
5: Scout.
6: Rogue/Thief/Assassin.
7: Bounty Hunter.
8: Sword Master.
9: Beastmaster Ranger (Use your gold to to train an animal companion).
10: Duelist.
11: Archer.
12. etc....
13: etc....

It is only limited by your imagination.

Jester Canuck said:

the other thread

Click to expand...

D'oh. Did I miss this topic in the interview discussion thread or are you referring to an older thread?

You've got some great points about how complexity choices could have been more integrated rather than all or nothing. I think the Champion was the result of my above-mentioned players whose formula for D&D is "roleplay+crits+adult beverages=fun". (The kind of players that might make snoring noises when someone says "economy of actions." LOL) The design team nailed targeting that player archetype with Champion.

Yea my problem (well one of them) with fighter that when you want to build it there is so much overlap. No one in my current group will touch a champion because it has so little flavor or choice, so battle master and eldritch knight cover everything...I would love a few alternate battle masters that had different abilities (or like spells put more maneuvers out there)

Corpsetaker said:

I just want to say that Mike is way off the mark with his comment. The fighter is the most flavourful and versatile class out there.
The best thing about the fighter at the moment is the flavour of the class is down to the player and that's the way it should be.

Click to expand...

That's not flavour in the class though, that's flavour from the player. It's being added to the PC and isn't inherent to the class concept and build.

Corpsetaker said:

Mike is obviously trying to shoe horn the class into some narrow minded concept that leaves us with only one option while at present we have loads.

Click to expand...

That's a pretty darn HUGE assumption regarding his intent. He really seems to be focusing on the fact that a "champion" and "battle master" don't mean anything. Removed from the mechanics the names have no identity, and could have been swapped and no one would have noticed.

neobolts said:

D'oh. Did I miss this topic in the interview discussion thread or are you referring to an older thread?

Click to expand...

It was easy to miss. There was a lot of different discussions going on.

neobolts said:

I think the Champion was the result of my above-mentioned players whose formula for D&D is "roleplay+crits+adult beverages=fun". (The kind of players that might make snoring noises when someone says "economy of actions." LOL) The design team nailed targeting that player archetype with Champion.

Click to expand...

It's not that the mechanics in the subclasses are bad. But imagine if the champion had a smidge more flavour and the ability to opt into maneuvers.
You can easily imagine a "weaponmaster" fighter that is the specialist with a particular type of weapon and gets improved crits with that. And the other abilities of the subclass are related to doing cool weapon things (boosting crit damage, hitting more reliably) rather than jumping or regaining hitpoints.


There's so many neat ideas that could have worked as a fighter subclass: the phalanx fighter (master of the shield who blocks attacks to adjacent allies), the cavalier (mounted combatant with a lance), the brawler (fights unarmed and does dirty tricks), the reckless brute (designed to take the hits and shrug off damage), the gladiator (skilled with unusual and showy weapons and gains bonuses from Charisma), the swashbuckler (dashes about the battlefield, parrying blows and dodging attacks).

Now, some of those can still be currently built. As is the class is pretty darn flexible. However, it's just as easy to not focus on a concept and have a character devoid of any flavour.

Corpsetaker said:

Grrrrrrrrr you beat be to it.

I just want to say that Mike is way off the mark with his comment. The fighter is the most flavourful and versatile class out there. The best thing about the fighter at the moment is the flavour of the class is down to the player and that's the way it should be.

Click to expand...

That is the opposite of the common meaning of "flavorful". Flavorful things already have a flavor, and generally aren't super-open to adding your own flavor to it. If something already tastes of strawberry, adding pork flavor will rarely enhance things.

Mind you, I'm not saying that being a flavorless receptacle for whatever flavor you want to add is bad. I'm just saying that that's not what's generally meant by "flavorful."

I mostly agree with Mike though. The fighter is a lot different from the other classes in that two of its subclasses are primarily differentiated by their complexity level, not by their theme. You can easily tell a Druid of the Moon apart from a Druid of the Land, because the Moon druid turns into a bear and mauls you and the Land druid burns you with moonlight. You can easily tell an Open Hand monk apart from a Shadow monk, because you'll see the Open Hand monk coming. But there's no narrative difference between the Champion and the Battlemaster - they're both "someone who hits things with other things and is really good at it."

If given infinite page count and development time, I think a good idea would have been to keep the Champion as the "generic-and-simple" fighter, remove the Battlemaster, and add a few more focused subclasses. Things like Knight (for a non-magical paladin type), Defender (emphasize protecting allies and resisting damage over dealing it), and stuff like that.

Okay, an example of what I'm thinking, what I'd do with the fighter if I could turn back time.

First, fighter subclasses have 5 abilities when most of the rest have 3-4. Dump one and just let it have one at 3, 6, 10, and 14 (or so). Or even drop things down to three.
Subclasses should all be fairly simple, granting small static bonuses and thematic abilities, which makes them more akin to, well, every other subclass. The standard bonuses, situation powers, and the occasional flavorful ability (or ribbon as they call it).

The base fighter is more powerful, possibly with an extra couple feats or some other random ability.
However, like the human there's a variant. The fighter can drop a feat for superiority dice (like Martial Adept feat but better). By doing so they forgo half their feats at set levels (the bonus ones above and beyond the regular class' ability score bumps) and instead gain the full battle master pool of options.

This would allow people to pick a flavourful subclass that has lore and unique abilities and choose their level of complexity.
Win win.

But, too late now. Would make one heck on an Unearthed Arcana though.

TO be honest, the broadness and fact that you can take a Champion Fighter and make them ANYthing, works just fine for me. EVERY class needed one of those. A "general, simple, non-specific default" of the class. The fact this was an Evoker Wizard and a Thief Rogue are really open to debate. But a Champion Fighter fills the bill beautifully.

Then add other subclasses that get more specific or add complexity or narrow [to a point] in concept. So, other than the fact that "Battle Master" really does mean nothing, and the term warlord carried waaay too much baggage, I think the Fighter worked great.

Champion = generic default
Battlemaster = added mechanic complexity
Eldritch knight = added mechanic complexity and story/narrative restrictions/specific assumptions [in this case, learning/having access to arcane magic]

I would have much preferred a "generalist Wizard" default. A "basic" thief-Rogue default. And I suppose "general/pantheon-wide or cause/alignment-specific" cleric. Specifying into Domains.

BUT, we gotta works with what we gots.

[EDIT to add] So basically,what we should see in the case of additional subclasses coming out, would [to my mind] be something like this...

Cavalier: goes in the "Battlemaster" tier. Their shtick is basically they do mounted better []. Different Mechanic complexity. Something like a "Brawler" as a subclass, would fall here also. The class complexity/differentiation is mechanically based. No explicit or implied story or narrative assumptions need be made about these guys. You can make characters of a fairly wide diversity with just their mechanics making them different from other subclasses.

Things like: Warlord, Gladiator, Knight would be en par with the Eldritch Knight. They have/need both mechanics and story/flavor assumptions to make them different enough to warrant their creation instead of just playing a champion with feats/skills/backgrounds that can give you a "gladiator" character or a battlemaster + feats/skills/backgrounds that give you a "warlord." Those options are still completely valid and available for players, but to make these concepts a subclass of their own, they need the mechanics and the flavor specificity to, for me, justify their existence.

At the same time, I would very much like bloat to be avoided. So just because someone can come up with a synonym for "warrior" that has a slightly different connotation or mechanic speciality, is not, to me, a "good enough" reason to make it a subclass.

Does any of this make sense or am I just talking out my arse/making things more complicated than they needs be?

I think the point Mearls might be missing is that the fighter subclasses NEED to be open ended to support the vast number of character concepts that fall under the heading of "fighter". The playtest used "knight" and "gladiator" subclasses - while those are much more specific (which I guess passes for flavorful) character types, these options also overlook the overwhelming number of the concepts that I could use for my fighter. Want your fighter to be a legionnaire, or duelist, or viking? Want to play Achilles, or Robin Hood, or Zorro? Sorry the rules don't support that - please pick one of the "flavorful" options provided.

Yeah, sometimes "open ended" looks a lot like "generic" or "flavorless." However, when you try to pare the fighter down to a handful of very specific concepts in the name of flavor, I think you eliminate a big part of the fighter's identity.