Conceptual Problem - Fighter vs. Ranger

[trancejeremy]

While it's certainly true that popular culture was behind adding more classes to the game, I think the real main reason is that people simply want to play them

Back then, people would read a book or watch a movie/show and think "Hey, I'd like to play that in a game".

And D&D was open enough that they could do that. Sure, maybe it doesn't make sense, sure some things overlap, but D&D was always meant to be a game first.

Nowadays it seems like people want to simulate things first, worry about the game later.

The Monk was clearly from Kung-Fu. The Ranger obviously from Tolkien. The Paladin from 3 of Hearts, 3 of Lions.

The Assassin was from I think the first Kane novel, where Kane had a sidekick named Arbas the Assassin.

Arthur is an interesting one - while I would imagine that the movie Excalibur probably was the reason for the Cavalier class, some versions of the stories probably would put Arthur and many of his men as Barbarians.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I loved the Barbarian. Great class IMO.

 

[Meophist]

-And then, with the 90s & 2000s, the inevitable influences like "badass anti-heroes" + "manga" creeped in, and D&D had to adapt....thus they created cool archetypes like Dragonborn Warlord etc.
(which are not inferior to the previous archetypes, but have no precedents in any mythological and/or literary text)

Sorry for nitpicking a little, but are you saying that the Warlord class doesn't have any precedent in any mythological and/or literary text or that it came from the "anti-hero" or "manga" influence?

 

[Ranganathan]

There are a few really easy ways to fix this.

1. De-couple skills from classes. Not class specific abilities or specialties like rogues being thieving bastards. But don't make fighters have 2 skills and rogues have 6. Make those automatic for rogues and still give everyone the same reasonable number of skills, say 4-5.

2. Make armor a style choice. Give fighters a level based bonus to AC like they get to to-hit and let armor be a preference instead of a requirement. Or give them a minimum AC bonus, say +5-6 and if they want more they take better armor. This opens up a few of those characters to the fighter archetype certainly.

3. Make weapons a style choice. In a similar manner, give fighters a decent minimum damage die type or bonus damage to all weapons so they can use whatever they want instead of the weap with the best numbers or choosing to suck.

4. Rangers, Warlords, and Barbarians are their own things and more power to 'em. But they're really too close to fighters. With changes above you only have outdoorsman, leadership, and rage as distinguishing features. Those could easily be optional features as part of a broader fighter class. This is also a callback to 2E and their class structure. Which I liked honestly.

 

[Li Shenron]

So, there was an article on the WotC site a couple weeks ago that they didn't know what to do with the fighter class because it was "insufficiently well-defined" or some such. I think the problem may be that, as they've tried to define the niche of other classes, WotC has largely defined the fighter class by what it is not, as opposed to what it is.

One possibility for definining how it could be, is taking inspiration from oriental martial arts where they differentiate between a -jutsu and a -do.

A -jutsu art is all about the techniques and carries no superior purpose (e.g. ethical) because the techniques *are* the purpose, while a -do art treats the techniques themselves as the mean to achieve a higher purpose to (put in blunt and naive terms) become a better self. So you have jujutsu vs judo, kenjutsu vs kendo, karatejutsu vs karatedo... The sword techniques taught in kenjutsu and kendo might be practically identical, but kenjustu sees them as the purpose (i.e. learn how to fight) while kendo sees them as the mean (e.g. learn how to improve). This is very simplistic, but just as an idea...

So one way to conceive the Fighter class could be (without any oriental flavor), someone who studies a "jutsu".

It means studying:

- how weapons work, what are the best to use in different situations and depending on your own talents
- how combat works, what are the tactics that succeed, how do you understand and anticipate the opponents etc.
- how to get physically and mentally better prepared for combat

Then the individual character can also turn this into a "do" based on her own purposes, unlike other classes who instead start from a "do" (the Paladin's "do" is justice and stopping evil, the Ranger's "do" is her way of living and dealing with the wild...) and eventually see weapons and feats etc. as mere tools to improve their chances.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For me, one key aspect of the fighter has been mechanical simplicity. When I make a fighter, i dont want too much fuss over in play options. Thisis one reason shifting vancian style powers to the fighter in 4e didn't appeal to me very much. Multiple attack i like. High bab i like. Good damage output i like. Weapon specialization I like. With fighters, i say keep it simple and make sure they have superior base attack rolls, damage, etc.

 

[Blue Thunder]

Sorry for nitpicking a little, but are you saying that the Warlord class doesn't have any precedent in any mythological and/or literary text or that it came from the "anti-hero" or "manga" influence?

*I think "Warlord" is a military rank, rather than a mythical archetype;
that's why, in my opinion at least, in literature, folklore & myths we encounter warriors, (who may or may not become "lord"s in time) instead of clear-cut Warlords.

*The manga influence is, the way I see it, manifests itself in depiction of unrealistically large swords carried by Dragon-men etc.

As I said, these are also cool...it's just that putting them side by side with kung-fu monks, Celtic-like Druids, medieval knights and middle-earth elves sometimes looks like a too-rich gulash ( which is a personal opinion and not intended to provoke)


As trancejeremy said, we look for simulation first and the game later, so maybe it's just me.

 

[Meophist]

*I think "Warlord" is a military rank, rather than a mythical archetype;
that's why, in my opinion at least, in literature, folklore & myths we encounter warriors, (who may or may not become "lord"s in time) instead of clear-cut Warlords.

Warlord seems to me as leader-type warrior. The name seems to be deliberately vague enough to encompass any such character, whether it's a bandit lord or front-line general.

*The manga influence is, the way I see it, manifests itself in depiction of unrealistically large swords carried by Dragon-men etc.

I went looking around the 4th-edition art and the weapon sizes don't seem particularly unrealistic. I've seen some with rather impractical designs, but that's somewhat of a different issue.

One thing I feel I should point out about manga, and other Japanese media, is that they typically aren't all that creative in terms of things like race design. Most of them come from their own or other mythologies or legends. If they're not using that, most fantasies are based on humans.

I can't really think of much that's similar to the Dragonborn who aren't just bigger and meaner lizardfolk from Japanese media. I can think of a few human-like characters who can transform into dragons, but both those series started at least a decade and a half ago(one started in 1989 in something called "Dragon Magazine" it seems).

With the possible exception of allowing the mundane characters to do super-human feats more noticeably, I don't quite see much anime/manga/Japanese game influence in 4th.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I disagree. It is a popular class and it would lose a lot of its appeal as a theme.

The ranger used to be a fighter variant. I guess a theme would not be sufficient to cover all aspepcts of the ranger, I agree...

Maybe it should be a fighter subclass instead.

 

[Hassassin]

My two cents. Your thoughts?

They should make the core four classes more general than others.

Cleric is a holy warrior, who uses both magic and weapons.
Fighter is a dedicated combatant who can use any weapon.
Rogue is a scout or a mobile skirmisher with a wide array of skills.
Wizard is a dedicated magic user, weak when out of spells.

You can combine, specialize or reskin those to cover almost any character concept. More "advanced" classes cover some of those more specific concepts with unique abilities, but the player should be able to make his paladin either using the paladin class or combining cleric and fighter in his preferred ratio. Both approaches should result in a viable character, even if they have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses.

Similarly an arcane spellsword is a fighter/wizard build, or you could reskin the cleric and limit your spell selection. A ranger could be a fighter/rogue specialized in nature skills, or a cleric/rogue for a spellcasting ranger.