When did the Fighter become "defender"?

[Majoru Oakheart]

Because the bad guys can win by themselves too.

I find that it just become a test of bumping egos. Everyone can do whatever they want. No obligation to help anyone else or work together as a group. Everyone just runs off in their own direction and competes to see who does the MOST. Sometimes purposefully sabotaging the others to make themselves look good. If someone screws up, then you might as well dump them from the team and tell them to get lost. After all, everyone else in the group can already do what they do. If you have only 4 members instead of 5...well, it's less numbers but I'm sure you'll make due.

In comparison, if the Cleric's healing is the only thing that has kept you alive the last 3 fights, you are going to respect his opinion. If you would have died last battle if the fighter hadn't interjected himself between you and the enemy...then the Fighter becomes a valuable member of the team.

And more importantly, you do not need healing in the middle of a fight. That is a pure metagame construct that exists only to support the artificial divide. If you tweak the numbers, you can abolish combat healing while leaving ritual healing to get people back in fighting shape.

That's true. However, the tension in a fight is quite a bit different with in combat healing than without it. If the math is balanced to make sure no one dies in an average combat against average enemies without any healing at all, you end up in a situation where most battle feel like they weren't a challenge at all. If you all have 50 hitpoints and every battle you fight, no one goes below 10(since there is some wiggle room in the math for slightly harder encounters)...then, it all seems so...mundane.

If, on the other hand, when you fight a battle, you get knocked unconscious only to have your friend run over and heal your wounds followed by another person falling down and needing to be healed...well, it feels like you are fighting harder things. Even though the game assumed there was a healer and that's just a normal part of combat.

That's kind of the feeling that D&D goes for most of the time.

 

[FireLance]

I do not mind the fighter being "the front line" but if some dope is dumb enough to slip by into the midst of my comrades they should definitely be able to handle it. I trust them to watch my back after all.

Ironically, the edition that gave the fighter class abilities that enabled him to defend his allies better also gave the classes that were traditionally defended by the fighter better defenses and higher hit points so that they didn't need him as much.

 

[Blackwarder]

I never understood the analogy to a tank... Sure the tank is extremely armored but it's also the most leathal weapon system on the battlefield.

Warder

 

[Pickles JG]

That would be the attack helicopter. Or a load of guys with ATGMS.

The roles give characters the ability to be the best at something without being the best at everything. In my low level D&D exeprience in 3 & 2 (which would be Baldur's Gate) fighters are the uber class not wizards as they are more resilient & more damaging than anyone else.
Resilience damage & the other aspects (buffing, control) were split in 4 into the different roles & initially accross different classes. People get too hung up on the name of the classes. If there is one "martial" class then he has to be able to be good at resilience & damage output & cover ranged & melee combat (ideally by specialising in different aspects rather than doing everything at once). If there are 4-5+ classes each can be designed to cover one aspect. The fact you can't build a good ranged fighter (for example) is irrelevant as you can build a good ranged ranger. This works even better if you disassociate the wilderness parts of (the classic D&D) ranger from the combat parts.

Anyway it looks like 5 is going the way of few classes so I expect them to be very broad & I hope fighters are able to specialise in damage or mobility or protection etc but do not overshadow everyone in all aspects again.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If you all have 50 hitpoints and every battle you fight, no one goes below 10(since there is some wiggle room in the math for slightly harder encounters)...then, it all seems so...mundane.

If, on the other hand, when you fight a battle, you get knocked unconscious only to have your friend run over and heal your wounds followed by another person falling down and needing to be healed...well, it feels like you are fighting harder things. Even though the game assumed there was a healer and that's just a normal part of combat.

That's kind of the feeling that D&D goes for most of the time.

See, this doesn't match my experience at all. I'd find "going down" in the second method (where it's assumed) about on par with a "stunned" condition. I lose my action, but it's assumed I'll be up, and without too much trouble (minor action healing). I wouldn't find it any more dramatic or tension-inducing than if I was stunned in a particularly close fight in the former system (where it's not assumed you'll drop).

But, that's because my mind will process the norms, and things that are frequent become more mundane. That is, the more I drop in combat with no real dangerous effect, the more dropping in combat becomes mundane to me. In the former situation, getting lower on HP is tension-inducing because going down is a really bad thing; in the latter, getting lower on HP isn't unless I'm low on healing surges, the system just throws a stunned condition on me a few times a fight (which is fine in its own right).

But, really, if I went from 50 HP down to 10 in a fight where it's not assumed that dropping twice per fight is par for the course, then I'm probably feeling some tension, because I'm close to being down. Things like good in-combat healing make this feeling ease some (Mass Cures from 3.X), but a small window between down and dead raises tension since I might be one-shot (down at -1 but dead at -10 in 3.X, and monsters often hit harder as you level).

They're both mundane in different ways. The more frequently they're thrown on me, the more mundane they become. But, really, forcing me down a couple times per fight isn't more tense because I feel like I'm almost dead (that's only true after two failed death saves, not because I dropped). No, forcing me down might be tense if the party needed to act but I couldn't contribute, which is about the level of being stunned (which might be mildly irritating if I skip a good number of turns, like many people complain about when you "go down early in a fight and miss the rest of it").

Just my take on it. I, personally, don't feel like fights are any "harder" when I'm dropped multiple times, unless that actually makes a difference. As of the point you've assumed that and factored that in, you've deliberately relieved the tension (not to mention that the frequency also relieves tension), and it's just the same combat routine again ("ho hum, lost 40 out of my 50 hit points; how mundane!"). As always, play what you like

 

[Doug McCrae]

I never understood the analogy to a tank... Sure the tank is extremely armored but it's also the most leathal weapon system on the battlefield.

Artillery, I'd say. In WW2 it caused more deaths than any other weapon system.

 

[Blackwarder]

Artillery, I'd say. In WW2 it caused more deaths than any other weapon system.

Which is why artillery is the queen of the battlefield

As a former tanker I can tell you that there is nothing more leathal on the battlefield than a tank and I got tons of respect for my friends in the artillery corps, we call them the ground forces air force (and we call the air force the foreign military most friendly to us ) but on the modern battlefield the tank is the ultimate fighting machine.

In D&D terms, the tank is that insanely armored fighter wielding a two hander and going medieval on his enemies ass. Either that or the heavy cavalry. It's only relations to a defender is the fact that you will need to go through him if you want to attack this behind him.

Warder

 

[Shadeydm]

You jest, but I think the artificial segregation of combat roles into healer/tank/damage is, in fact, an overgrown bug of the system. One which was overlooked for the longest time because it promoted team play in a game where you want everyone involved. And then it just kind of exploded because that's what people did.

I, for one, would much rather have everyone be an independent unit capable of doing what they need to do in order to win a combat. It would be much easier to balance monsters and encounters across group variations if each class was such.

I enjoy many of the team work synergies built into 4E having witnessed a brutal rogue and a shielding swordmage working in tandem its both fun and amazing. I'm not so sure how much fun it was for the DM though lol.

 

[Blackwarder]

I enjoy many of the team work synergies built into 4E having witnessed a brutal rogue and a shielding swordmage working in tandem its both fun and amazing. I'm not so sure how much fun it was for the DM though lol.

I didn't only witnessed this, I built this in my 4e games.

But than you have the problem of promoting system mastery instead of world mastery.

Warder

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The moment someone decided that the Wizard should have less hit points and no ability to use heavy armor but the Fighter should have a lot of hit points and access to heavy armor, there was a role distinction.

Excelling at physical combat requires a lot of training and experience. Excelling at magical mysteries requires a lot of training and experience. So naturally, some guys choose to focus on training for combat, while the others focus on magical mysteries. But to actually adventure through the fantasy world, you need to be able to deal with mystical threats just as well as combat threats. And so, the old Wizard with a weak physique was knowledge of the arcane powers had to accompany the guy with the big sword and armor. The latter ensured that the former would not have to go toe to toe with non-mystical threats.