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D&D 5E Do Fighters Still Suck?

The fighter isn't the versatility in a box type of character. That is the wizard's job- to perform feats of magic that those who have not studied it cannot. If you hand out that utility to every class then all classes kind of feel the same.
go find a copy of the tomb of battle: Book of nine swords it proves this wrong it has 9 unquie fighting styles with attack manuvers boost stances and counters rated from 1-9 and less then 10% of them feel like spells (and that 10% is meant for a more gish feel.

I enjoy fighters.
OK, so do a lot of people, I don't see why that matters when no one has suggested changing your fighter subclass, or taking it away... if you enjoy the fighter today you will after new more complex subclasses are out... because it wont change what we have...



I am running three campaigns at different times and only get to be a player once every few weeks and I am playing a battlemaster fighter without multi-classing.
OK, and if you enjoy doing so...good on you.


A dex based fighter that is good with both bow and paired weapons (rapiers). Menacing attack, and trip can be used with either bow or melee attacks, that is versatility. The fun comes from applying this focused skill set to actual situations.
let me remind you what is fun for you isn't fun for everyone....


I wouldn't say the fun of playing this character would dramatically increase by adding a dozen new abilities to the character sheet which amounted to flowery descriptions of doing X amount of damage.
but would it hurt your fun in anyway if the guy at the next table over liked those flowery descriptions and wanted them?
 

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Character-defined resources like action surge are one way to handle such things. Two other ways are table conventions ("the first time you try something crazy, it just works") and new rules ("halflings count as improvised weapons for proficiency but get to add their own Strength bonus to damage on top of yours if you hit") or both.

The AD&D way would be to make up new rules. The 5A PHB encourages this approach.

except every character of every class has the 'do something cool and unque' power and it is limited to only the imagination of the player...
 

MYV

First Post
IMO the fighter, isn't bad at all (as i described in my previous posts) but I agree that it woudn't hurt if they gave him more options

They could add more manouvers or spells (for battlemaster and EK)
or, since the fighter gets the most ASI they could simply add feats, giving the fighter a unique but always different feel by managing to build feat combos like in the past editions. As in 5e, basicly no class can build combos worth their name from feats because of how limited the feat selection is atm
 


I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
Optimised fighter with magic weapon vs most of the weaker damage dealing classes. How would he compare to a Barbarian using great weapon master+polearm master, A sharpshooter ranger (both with magic weapons) or something similar? And those classes get out of combat stuff as well.

The damage from the spider staff is 2d6 (1d6 bludgeoning and 1d6 poison) or 1d4+1d6 with the bonus action attack, so the main result of it is that he has +1 AC from being able to use a shield and deals ~3 extra damage each time his bonus action attack hits. I wouldn't call him "optimized" - the feats allow him more opportunities to act when he takes the front lines, but "I have two feats" is hardly CharOp stuff.

What is evident is that this is part of the benefit of being in melee - if you're not using your reaction to make an attack, you're kind of leaving some significant damage on the table.

Fighters are good at dealing damage but so are bladelocks, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians. I think I had a Ranger deal around 120 damage in 3 rounds instead of 3 encounters on Sunday.

Sure - the feats he's taking are available to anyone, and someone with a greataxe and those feats might be dealing similar damage. But in this datapoint, you can definitely see: the fighter didn't suck. It doesn't really matter if someone might hypothetically outperform him in a vacuum - in practice, he didn't suck.
 

CapnZapp

Legend
Your text in regular, mine in bold.

As the title says. I have not seen a fighter rolle dup since late 2014 and we play a lot of D&D- 14 hours worth in the last week and sometimes 3-5 sessions a week with 3-4 DMs. The players who like fighter types are starting to gravitate towards Paladins and Rangers with some of the more adventurous making gish type PCs (Favoured Souls and Warlock/Valor Bard builds). I thought it may have just been my group but other groups seem to be doing it as well. This seems to be for the following reasons.

My first campaign had no fighters. Then they learned. The current game has two. Go figure.

1. The fighter has no damage dealing advantage over the other martial classes and is probably inferior to things like Barbarians. Rangers and Paladins tend to be using hunters quarry and colossus slayer/horde breaker to actually deal more damage than the fighters.

No, the first five levels of Fighter is very strong. Hunter's Quarry is not an option for melee.

Paladins and Barbarians are very cool too, but that does not mean you are making an error choosing fighter.

2. Strength based PCs suck at range being reduced to throwing javelins often at disadvantage. As a further kick in the balls they can only make 1 attack a round since you can only draw 1 weapon a round. Paladins can cast bless on the ranged PCs or moonbeam if they are the Oath of the Ancients. Gish PCs do not care to much at the worst resorting to cantrips or just lobbing a fireball.

True. But it isn't the fighter's fault ranged is flawless in this game. Suggestion, try running with GWM but not SS if you're really bothered by this.

3. Dex based melee tends to be underpowered along with dual wielding which uses the bonus action. That bonus action is often better off used for Polearm Mastery, Great Weapon Fighting, or moving around hunter mark/hex or casting quickened hastes or whatever.

Yes, two weapon melee fighting is a trap option. Doesn't mean the fighter class is.


4. Most classes casting spells.

Sorry but how is this a dig against Fighters?

The game is definitely not stacked towards full spellcasters, so don't worry about it.

5. Other classes tend to be better targets for haste/twinned haste. THis is due to spells like hex/hunters mark and advantage to hit that Barbarians and Avenger Paladins can easily get.

Okay, you got me. That's way too specific for me to have an opinion on, except: do you choose class at level 1 based on what ONE buff spell does or does not do...?

Sure fighters have other class abilities as well but something like action surge tends to pail against Paladins auras to saves which in effect makes Paladins proficient in all saves at level 6.

Yes, Paladins are awesome and very strong. But sometimes you simply don't want the look and feel of a Paladin. Alternatively: okay, so go play a campaign full of Paladins. Perhaps you're ready to play a Fighter next time, no sweat! :)
 

go find a copy of the tomb of battle: Book of nine swords it proves this wrong it has 9 unquie fighting styles with attack manuvers boost stances and counters rated from 1-9 and less then 10% of them feel like spells (and that 10% is meant for a more gish feel.


The majority of those maneuvers and stances seem more like spells than anything else. I would say the purely martial aspect of those options represent 30% or less at a glance. For the record I count spontaneously healing yourself and allies because you hit something, flying, teleporting, suddenly doing elemental damage, etc. to be magical.

There are still a fair amount of martial abilities left but they all feel like the same thing all over again with slightly different attack/damage bonuses.

OK, so do a lot of people, I don't see why that matters when no one has suggested changing your fighter subclass, or taking it away... if you enjoy the fighter today you will after new more complex subclasses are out... because it wont change what we have...

I welcome new subclasses, so long as they are not all full of power creep. If all the new subclasses are clearly better performers than existing subclasses then yes we have a problem.


let me remind you what is fun for you isn't fun for everyone....

Certainly, which is why there are more fighting options that just the fighter class.

but would it hurt your fun in anyway if the guy at the next table over liked those flowery descriptions and wanted them?

Not a bit, as long they didn't come with power creep. Again, new options are fine unless they hands down relegate the older options to poor choices.
 


The majority of those maneuvers and stances seem more like spells than anything else. I would say the purely martial aspect of those options represent 30% or less at a glance.
I think you are doing a major disservice here...again I would go with a much larger non magic %

For the record I count spontaneously healing yourself and allies because you hit something, flying, teleporting, suddenly doing elemental damage, etc. to be magical.
yea, of the 9 schools 3 of them were mostly magiac and 6 of them were mostly not...

There are still a fair amount of martial abilities left but they all feel like the same thing all over again with slightly different attack/damage bonuses.
well part of that can be fixed with a 5e make over... just like the spells got. Instead of a power at level X that gives 2 attacks and one at level y that gives 3, and one at level z that gives 4, or the mtn hammer line (+2d6 damage and ignore dr, +4d6 damage and ignore dr, ect) can be combined and scale somehow...

I welcome new subclasses, so long as they are not all full of power creep. If all the new subclasses are clearly better performers than existing subclasses then yes we have a problem.

Not a bit, as long they didn't come with power creep. Again, new options are fine unless they hands down relegate the older options to poor choices.

the problem is people (maybe not you) are too quick to call power creep. If a new fighter sub class, or a full class (someone said warblade up thread) did less damage then a fighter, had less attacks but lots of extra options, and once per short rest could thereticly nova to do more single round damage then a fighter, but still less single round damage then a disintagrat at level 11, is that power creep?
 

the problem is people (maybe not you) are too quick to call power creep. If a new fighter sub class, or a full class (someone said warblade up thread) did less damage then a fighter, had less attacks but lots of extra options, and once per short rest could thereticly nova to do more single round damage then a fighter, but still less single round damage then a disintagrat at level 11, is that power creep?

Quite a bit would depend on what exactly was included in those " lots of extra options" and how plentiful they were. Doing a little less damage for a few options might seem balanced at a glance but if those options had significant effects such as replicating magic or inflicting nasty action-denying conditions then it would be a closer call.
 

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