D&D 5E Class Analysis: Fighter and Bard

[Andor]

There is no 'magic'. Magic is flavor. There are just mechanics, and what a number of people here is asking for is having mechanics which are specific to each class allowing all characters to stand roughly on equal ground along progression.
I know this is not an issue for everyone, and that's fine, but it is so for a non-negligible part of the playerbase, and if in front of that the only option D&D has to offer is 'go play another game', well, then that would be disappointing indeed.

If that is your stance, then why would you have a problem playing an Eldritch Knight or a Paladin and ignoring the fact that some of your abilities as fluffed as "magic"?

The fact that some abilities are flavored as magic or non-magic is the only point of contention in this entire thread....

 

[Uskglass]

If that is your stance, then why would you have a problem playing an Eldritch Knight or a Paladin and ignoring the fact that some of your abilities as fluffed as "magic"?

The fact that some abilities are flavored as magic or non-magic is the only point of contention in this entire thread....

That's why I said specific mechanics. And those mechanic should be suitable to modelling a martial combatant, although of incredible might and prowess.
Besides, the Eldritch Knight and Paladin are not up to scratch compared to a full caster at high level.

There are two instances here:
- Relative balance across classes
- Mechanical distinctiveness for the different archetypes

For instance I think the Weaponmaster provides a viable mechanical base, but would need significantly enhanced maneuvers at high level to achieve both goals.

 

[Jack the Lad]

I realize we're using theatre of the mind but you still can't use medium creatures to mob someone with dozens of attacks around. You have spacing issues. If Boromir gets his back to a tree he cuts out one or two attacks a round and swings the math to his benefit. If he's surrounded he can use his action surge to cut down half the orcs around him and it will be well worth taking a few AoO to reposition to a better place.

Try actually gaming out the scenario rather than thinking 24 orcs = 24 melee attacks per round.

Going to chime in here: 24 orcs absolutely does = 24 melee attacks per round, because opportunity attacks are Reactions, and you only get 1 per round. Capricia has already mentioned this, but it honestly can't be emphasised enough.

It makes putting your back up against a tree exactly the same as standing in an open field and thereby reduces the exercise to a pure numbers game. Once the Fighter has made his single swipe at a passing creature, any number of them can do a conga right line past him in complete safety. I hate it.

Don't move the goal posts. My claim was that a D&D fighter in a similar situation would have a similar ending. Lots of dead orcs, halfings get away, fighter dies eventually. You claimed the champion would "Go out like a chump." Others were claiming it took only a few rounds to drop him.

Anyway, let's do this. With 6 Ability Score Increases under his belt our Fighter can have stats of 20/20/18/13/11/9, so +6 Initiative (4 Dex/2 Remarkable Athlete) with 20 Str and 20 Con, making him statistically likely to win initiative against 18 of the Orcs. We'll have them start in move + attack range of each other, because if you game out a scenario where the two sides begin out of range it becomes a weird cold war of shufflestep spacing and readied actions. If there's a simple way I'm missing for the Fighter to gain advantage with a spaced start, though, I'm happy to look at this again in light of it.

Round 1:

• The 6 orcs who won initiative rush in and surround the Fighter, dealing 3.65 damage each and bringing him down to 167 HP.
• The Fighter uses Action Surge and makes 6 attacks, felling 3 of the orcs. 21 orcs remain.
• The 18 orcs who lost initiative conga line past. The Fighter wounds one of them with an OA. After their attacks he's on 101 HP.

Round 2:

• 3 orcs, 11 damage, 90 HP.
• The Fighter makes 3 attacks, killing 1 of the 3 orcs in contact with him and injuring another. 20 orcs remain.
• 18 orcs conga past, dealing 58 damage and leaving the Fighter on 24 HP. The Fighter holds his OA to finish off the orc he hit last time, killing it. 19 orcs remain.

Round 3:

• 2 orcs, 7 damage, 17 HP.
• The Fighter kills the 2 who just hit him.
• 17 orcs conga past, dealing 62 damage and taking the Fighter to -45. He injures one before he goes down.

The Fighter killed 7 orcs, and 17 remain.

Bonus Round 4:

• A Wizard who's been watching the whole time (invisibly) casts Fire Storm, incinerating all 17 of the remaining orcs at a single stroke, whether they make their saves (20% chance) or not. He could have done this at the beginning of the encounter, of course, but he wanted to give the Fighter a chance to strut his stuff.
• He then uses his Transmuter's Stone to cast Raise Dead on the Fighter without expending a spell slot.
• He then pats the Fighter on the head and says "Maybe next time."

The point of the magic = technology argument is that the fighter is actively refusing to get that training and then complaining he never gets nice things. A high level fighter without any magic, is that way becuase he chose to be that way. From level 3 in the base game. At every stat advance if you use feats. At every level past first with multiclassing allowed, the Champion chose to avoid learning how to dip into that grab bag of tricks. Presuambly becuase the player was having fun that way.

So why do you want to strip the player of his ability to make that choice? If he wanted to fly all he had to do was pick a Monk or Barbarian instead...

A high level Fighter without any magic might have chosen to be that way because their player read the Fighter Design Goals article and thought it sounded awesome:

The Fighter Is the Best at . . . Fighting!

• Other classes might have nifty tricks, powerful spells, and other abilities, but when it’s time to put down a monster without dying in the process, the fighter should be our best class.

The Fighter Draws on Training and Experience, not Magic

• Fighters master mundane tactics and weapon skills. They don’t need spells or some sort of external source of magical power to succeed.

The Fighter Exists in a World of Myth, Fantasy, and Legend

• [...] while the fighter draws on mundane talent, we’re talking about mundane within the context of a mythical, fantasy setting. Beowulf slew Grendel by tearing his arm off. He later killed a dragon almost singlehandedly. Roland slew or gravely injured four hundred Saracens in a single battle. In the world of D&D, a skilled fighter is a one-person army.

The Fighter Is the Toughest Character

• The fighter’s many hit points and high AC renders many monsters’ attacks powerless.

And most importantly..

A High-Level Fighter and a High-Level Wizard Are Equal

• Too often in D&D, the high-level fighter is the flunky to a high-level wizard. It’s all too easy for combinations of spells to make the wizard a far more potent enemy or character, especially if a wizard can unleash his or her spells in rapid succession. A wizard might annihilate a small army of orcs with a volley of fireballs and cones of cold. The fighter does the same sword blow by sword blow, taking down waves of orcs each round. Balancing the classes at high levels is perhaps the highest priority for the fighter, and attaining balance is something that we must do to make D&D fit in with fantasy, myth, and legend. Even if a wizard unleashes every spell at his or her disposal at a fighter, the fighter absorbs the punishment, throws off the effects, and keeps on fighting.

...that's the Fighter class I want to play.

 

[Cybit]

Going to chime in here: 24 orcs absolutely does = 24 melee attacks per round, because opportunity attacks are Reactions, and you only get 1 per round. Capricia has already mentioned this, but it honestly can't be emphasised enough.

It makes putting your back up against a tree exactly the same as standing in an open field and thereby reduces the exercise to a pure numbers game. Once the Fighter has made his single swipe at a passing creature, any number of them can do a conga right line past him in complete safety. I hate it.



Anyway, let's do this. With 6 Ability Score Increases under his belt our Fighter can have stats of 20/20/18/13/11/9, so +6 Initiative (4 Dex/2 Remarkable Athlete) with 20 Str and 20 Con, making him statistically likely to win initiative against 18 of the Orcs. We'll have them start in move + attack range of each other, because if you game out a scenario where the two sides begin out of range it becomes a weird cold war of shufflestep spacing and readied actions. If there's a simple way I'm missing for the Fighter to gain advantage with a spaced start, though, I'm happy to look at this again in light of it.

Round 1:

• The 6 orcs who won initiative rush in and surround the Fighter, dealing 3.65 damage each and bringing him down to 167 HP.
• The Fighter uses Action Surge and makes 6 attacks, felling 3 of the orcs. 21 orcs remain.
• The 18 orcs who lost initiative conga line past. The Fighter wounds one of them with an OA. After their attacks he's on 101 HP.

Round 2:

• 3 orcs, 11 damage, 90 HP.
• The Fighter makes 3 attacks, killing 1 of the 3 orcs in contact with him and injuring another. 20 orcs remain.
• 18 orcs conga past, dealing 58 damage and leaving the Fighter on 24 HP. The Fighter holds his OA to finish off the orc he hit last time, killing it. 19 orcs remain.

Round 3:

• 2 orcs, 7 damage, 17 HP.
• The Fighter kills the 2 who just hit him.
• 17 orcs conga past, dealing 62 damage and taking the Fighter to -45. He injures one before he goes down.

The Fighter killed 7 orcs, and 17 remain.

Bonus Round 4:

• A Wizard who's been watching the whole time (invisibly) casts Fire Storm, incinerating all 17 of the remaining orcs at a single stroke, whether they make their saves (20% chance) or not. He could have done this at the beginning of the encounter, of course, but he wanted to give the Fighter a chance to strut his stuff.
• He then uses his Transmuter's Stone to cast Raise Dead on the Fighter without expending a spell slot.
• He then pats the Fighter on the head and says "Maybe next time."

A high level Fighter without any magic might have chosen to be that way because their player read the Fighter Design Goals article and thought it sounded awesome:

And most importantly..


...that's the Fighter class I want to play.

FWIW, all of the PvP tests I have ran have had martial characters destroy spellcasters (highest test I ran was 16th level); assuming that when a character dies, the character respawns next round with full everything. The non-scaling of spells by character level is BRUTAL, and at higher levels, Mage Slayer is a nasty, nasty feat. (Didn't have 9th level spells defined at the time, and the monk starts annihilating everyone)

Also, GWF + Fighter against mass mobs = hilarity. The cleave is super, super brutal. Spellcasters are nasty against groups, but they get very overwhelmed very easily when you get past the 25-35 monster mark. (Especially due to lack of AC, and their ability to defend themselves is limited greatly by concentration)

I do think casters will be more powerful if you don't allow feats and if you don't have magic items at all. That said, their power in theory vastly overstates their power in practice, just because those spell slots used up for utility add up in a hurry. You don't usually have to jump over more than one gap a day, or open one door a day, but when you have to do 5-6 of those things every day, casters end up in serious trouble.

Also, concentration is ridiculously limiting in practice. It also helps deal with the 5MWD, because casters are no longer incentivized to save all of their spells for a single fight.

 

[GrumpyGamer]

The 24 orc example proves nothing other than banded accuracy keeps the entire monster manual relevant. The spell caster is not going to kill 17 of them as the orcs are not going to bunch up unless the caster has suprise. In addition they are not going to conga up to the warrior and sacrifice themselves unless we are talking about cultist orcs.

What they are going to do is run between trees throwing axes and javelins, starting in cover and ending in cover, damaging both a spellcaster and fighter (champion) equally well.

Lastly this is a stupid comparison as the horde breaker archetype is a ranger.

 

[LapBandit]

FWIW, all of the PvP tests I have ran have had martial characters destroy spellcasters (highest test I ran was 16th level); assuming that when a character dies, the character respawns next round with full everything. The non-scaling of spells by character level is BRUTAL, and at higher levels, Mage Slayer is a nasty, nasty feat. (Didn't have 9th level spells defined at the time, and the monk starts annihilating everyone)

Also, GWF + Fighter against mass mobs = hilarity. The cleave is super, super brutal. Spellcasters are nasty against groups, but they get very overwhelmed very easily when you get past the 25-35 monster mark. (Especially due to lack of AC, and their ability to defend themselves is limited greatly by concentration)

I do think casters will be more powerful if you don't allow feats and if you don't have magic items at all. That said, their power in theory vastly overstates their power in practice, just because those spell slots used up for utility add up in a hurry. You don't usually have to jump over more than one gap a day, or open one door a day, but when you have to do 5-6 of those things every day, casters end up in serious trouble.

Also, concentration is ridiculously limiting in practice. It also helps deal with the 5MWD, because casters are no longer incentivized to save all of their spells for a single fight.

By all means detail your PVP tests and their methodology here so we can examine them and be convinced.

 

[Manbearcat]

• He then pats the Fighter on the head and says "Maybe next time."

But the thing you're not considering is that the Fighter has the edge here over the Wizard. Due to his multiple attacks and Action Surge, the Fighter can actually pat multiple people on the head and say "Maybe next time" while the Wizard can only do this to one person. That is some serious action economy advantage in moralizing your failed (formerly dead) comrades that the Fighter has over the Wizard.

However, he probably has to (1) pat them on the back with sufficient vigor (Athletics check so Remarkable Athlete applies), (2) remember the relevant parts of ye ole Newt Rockney speech "Maybe next time" (History check so pretty much toast) and (3) say those words in a sufficiently inspiring way (Performance or Persuasion so pretty much toast)...which yields an 87.2 % failure rate (no that isn't a real calculation). Ok, so maybe his action economy advantage isn't an advantage.

 

[Jack the Lad]

FWIW, all of the PvP tests I have ran have had martial characters destroy spellcasters (highest test I ran was 16th level); assuming that when a character dies, the character respawns next round with full everything. The non-scaling of spells by character level is BRUTAL, and at higher levels, Mage Slayer is a nasty, nasty feat. (Didn't have 9th level spells defined at the time, and the monk starts annihilating everyone)

PvP is meaningless, you don't need your spells to scale by character level, and War Caster cancels out Mage Slayer. Oh, and saves literally don't matter; Wall of Force immediately wins a 1-on-1 fight against any non-caster.

Also, GWF + Fighter against mass mobs = hilarity. The cleave is super, super brutal. Spellcasters are nasty against groups, but they get very overwhelmed very easily when you get past the 25-35 monster mark. (Especially due to lack of AC, and their ability to defend themselves is limited greatly by concentration)

Also, concentration is ridiculously limiting in practice. It also helps deal with the 5MWD, because casters are no longer incentivized to save all of their spells for a single fight.

They do a lot better than Fighters, that's for sure. And I've already posted a bunch of times about how Concentration simply doesn't break to damage once you're past level 6 or 8.

I do think casters will be more powerful if you don't allow feats and if you don't have magic items at all.

I went with no feats or magic items because that was the scenario Andor presented.

That said, their power in theory vastly overstates their power in practice, just because those spell slots used up for utility add up in a hurry. You don't usually have to jump over more than one gap a day, or open one door a day, but when you have to do 5-6 of those things every day, casters end up in serious trouble.

I mean no offence when I ask this, but have you played 5e very much? A level 15 Wizard (to match the level 15 Fighter in our example) has 18 spell slots, can regain up to 7 (though more likely 2 higher level ones) with Arcane Recovery and is very likely to be able to cast some of his utility spells as rituals. If we assume 6 utility spells per day, even 2 of which are cast as rituals, that leaves 16 for combat; 2 per encounter at the top end of the '6-8 per day' guidelines.

The 24 orc example proves nothing other than banded accuracy keeps the entire monster manual relevant. The spell caster is not going to kill 17 of them as the orcs are not going to bunch up unless the caster has suprise. In addition they are not going to conga up to the warrior and sacrifice themselves unless we are talking about cultist orcs.

What they are going to do is run between trees throwing axes and javelins, starting in cover and ending in cover, damaging both a spellcaster and fighter (champion) equally well.

Lastly this is a stupid comparison as the horde breaker archetype is a ranger.

You can throw a Handaxe 20 feet and Javelin 30 feet without incurring disadvantage. Fire Storm targets 10 10x10x10 cubes within 150 feet. How spread out are we talking, realistically?

Also, why would the orcs be more willing to stand toe to toe with the Fighter than engage in hit and run tactics that allow them to bring their numbers to bear?

 

[Cybit]

By all means detail your PVP tests and their methodology here so we can examine them and be convinced.

Oo, convince me with more sarcasm, I'm all eyes.

Short version
1st
5th
9th
14th levels

5 players, FFA, went for 3 hours real-time, most kills win. Average HP, normal stat array, feats were OKd, no multiclassing. Usually took place on a random pathfinder map, either forest w/ clearings or in a castle or what not. Each player had access to every potential build in the PHB for each class at the appropriate level except they only had Abjuration and Evocation Wizards (not one of each kind of specialist). They got to choose their characters, and went at it. When you died, you spawned on your initiative the next round with all resources returned.

IIRC, Barbarians and Monks won all of them. (Charm is far less useful when everyone realizes they can just beat the hell out of the caster). The 1/2 damage from all non psychic rage power & shadow step for monks are super brutal. Also, fireball throwing monks w/proficiency in all saves = hilarity.

 

[Ashkelon]

FWIW, all of the PvP tests I have ran have had martial characters destroy spellcasters (highest test I ran was 16th level); assuming that when a character dies, the character respawns next round with full everything. The non-scaling of spells by character level is BRUTAL, and at higher levels, Mage Slayer is a nasty, nasty feat. (Didn't have 9th level spells defined at the time, and the monk starts annihilating everyone)

Also, GWF + Fighter against mass mobs = hilarity. The cleave is super, super brutal. Spellcasters are nasty against groups, but they get very overwhelmed very easily when you get past the 25-35 monster mark. (Especially due to lack of AC, and their ability to defend themselves is limited greatly by concentration)

I do think casters will be more powerful if you don't allow feats and if you don't have magic items at all. That said, their power in theory vastly overstates their power in practice, just because those spell slots used up for utility add up in a hurry. You don't usually have to jump over more than one gap a day, or open one door a day, but when you have to do 5-6 of those things every day, casters end up in serious trouble.

Also, concentration is ridiculously limiting in practice. It also helps deal with the 5MWD, because casters are no longer incentivized to save all of their spells for a single fight.

Your PvP tests must be flawed. Reverse Gravity, Forcecage, and many other spells can completely destroy the fighter with no saving throw allowed. There is no way a level 13+ spellcaster could ever lose to a fighter. Even a DC 17 hold person can cause the fighter some serious trouble.