D&D 5E yes, this again: Fighters need more non-combat options

Hussar said:

Are you seriously going to claim that Know your Enemy and 2 Feats grants the same versatility as 14 levels of casting? .

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No. In fact I didn't say such BS. You just made it up yourself. I meant precisely what I wrote.

I need no identity. I need no Mearls either.

I wonder if the player you have might be a little bit selfish? I have a player that is/was. I will fill you in. Player built a Monk. He had a few good stats but... put a weak stat in strength. Didn’t like the fact that he didn’t have enough good stats to have a high strength too. Except he did have enough stats for a high strength...he put that score there and put a higher score in another ability.

IMO your player picked the wrong class or selected the wrong skills/traits. What does the player want to do? Is it impossible to do? Is there someone else in the party that does it better? Do they feel the need to be the best at someone else’s shtick?

Imaro said:

You're complaining you don't have magical abilities but if you want that as a fighter then play an Eldritch Knight.

EDIT: It just seems silly to say as a fighter I can't do stuff like fly or talk to animals or cast rituals when there is a specific subclass that opens the door for abilities like this and a feat that allows you to do much more in the area of casting rituals.

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This is why this conversation never goes anywhere. Talk about missing the point.

The point isn't that I want my fighter to have magical abilities. The point is, I keep being told that the fighter options that he gets are EQUAL to whatever everyone else gets. And that's flat out not true. That fighters are just as versatile and can contribute just as much in other pillars and that's not true. No two feats is going to come anywhere near the versatility of casting.

So, why not give the fighter a bit of extra goodies just to bring him up to par?

It's not about making magical fighters. It's about making fighters actually interesting to play outside of combat, just like all the other fighting classes.

Sacrosanct said:

And I don't know if I really agree with that. The fighter does have an identity. It has the most well known identity in fantasy--the fighting man. The warrior. The soldier. The knight. And each of those does have an identity outside of combat. It all depends on what you as a player want that to be. The gruff mercenary who hangs around in taverns or does boxing on the side, or the famous athlete, or the knight who is charismatic and spreads his or her ideals to the world. Just because it isn't narrowed down into a much more specialized archetype like every other class doesn't mean it doesn't have an identity.

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All soldiers, mercenaries, and athletes belong to the fighter class (for the sake of argument), but it's a squares and rectangles thing. You can't add "gruff mercenary" mechanics to the fighter core class, because not all fighters are gruff mercenaries.

Li Shenron said:

No. In fact I didn't say such BS. You just made it up yourself. I meant precisely what I wrote.

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Then, I'm sorry, I entirely missed your point. What did you mean?

Hussar said:

This is why this conversation never goes anywhere. Talk about missing the point.

The point isn't that I want my fighter to have magical abilities. The point is, I keep being told that the fighter options that he gets are EQUAL to whatever everyone else gets. And that's flat out not true. That fighters are just as versatile and can contribute just as much in other pillars and that's not true. No two feats is going to come anywhere near the versatility of casting.

So, why not give the fighter a bit of extra goodies just to bring him up to par?

It's not about making magical fighters. It's about making fighters actually interesting to play outside of combat, just like all the other fighting classes.

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Emphasis mine... who actually said this (I've seen some claim the fighter has enough in those pillars to contribute, which personally I agree with)? Furthermore once we do that do we also need to bring any class that isn't on par with the fighter in combat up to his level? If not... why not?

Imaro said:

Emphasis mine... who actually said this (I've seen some claim the fighter has enough in those pillars to contribute, which personally I agree with)? Furthermore once we do that do we also need to bring any class that isn't on par with the fighter in combat up to his level? If not... why not?

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I think I'm seeing the difference here. You see the fighter as having "enough" to contribute and that's good enough. I don't. I think the fighter is quite useless outside of combat. He's not in the same league as the rest of the group. Those two feats, even presuming they both get spent on non-combat feats, just aren't going to bring the fighter up to barely competent standard.

I dunno. Maybe it's what I've seen in play. We've had multiple fighters in every campaign, and not one has remained single classed. Or, rather, people took one class for their "role play" suite of stuff and then took fighter for the combat oomph.

I'm just rather tired of the fighter being the "also ran" class. But, hey, you're not seeing this in your games. That's great.

I AM.

I am seeing this in my games.

So, obviously, you don't need anything to fix the class.

I DO.

If you don't have problems with the class, that's great. That's wonderful. But, why is it that every time someone does have a problem with the class it becomes, "Well, you have these problems because you just don't know how to play properly". Is there some particular reason you can't let us have a mechanical fix?

FrogReaver said:

I think your dataset needs narrowed down. Of characters that are level 4 or above and are fighters do they use feats?

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The dndbeyond monthly updates have fairly detailed analysis of their datasets, and IIRC Crawford responded to such points when he tweeted about this.

Gives numerous examples of how Action Surge is a powerful out of combat feature unique to the fighter class.
Everyone complaining about lack of out of combat Fighter features ignores it.

Mistwell said:

I disagree. Fighters are the most popular class, but they were still only 12.5% of the classes taken. Which means if a majority of Fighter players use feats, that would be only 7% of the players. Which is why that data does not prove what you're trying to prove with it.

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I’m not sure I’m trying to prove anything with it, but fair enough. I’m pretty sure that if the fighter was a significant outlier, they’d have mentioned it though. It’d be weird not to.

Strawman. I never said or implied anything about the legitemacy of this discussion. It's a perfectly legitemate discussion. Additionally...ability score increases ALSO change skill checks out of combat, so I am not even sure a no-feats game has any more of an argument than a feats-game in this context.

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What do you call it when the argument I’d have to have made for the straw man you’re accusing me of to exist, isn’t the one I made?
Anyway, every other class gets things that are theirs out of combat. Getting higher stats (by a fairly small margin. We’re talking +1 modifier increase to two stats, over the course of a dozen levels, beyond what other characters get. Nowhere close to the rogue’s expertise, and cunning action.

The most the fighter gets is Action Surge, which can be done at most once per “scene”.

Why not? If Expertise for a rogue is a specific ability that helps them out of combat, why is expertise as an option (because you could have taken it as a feat) not helpful to see?

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It’s transparently just the prodigy feat. Even if you made sure to make it every single non combat feat in the game, it’s just what they already have, which is 2 extra feats, over a dozen levels. Any class should be getting something for every pillar beyond the base 2 skills before level 4, imo. Every other class does.

Now, if you took the skill feats from UA, and gave the fighter one of their choice on top of anything else they already get, minus the +1 stat, I’d support that. Obviously bug fix the ones that are weirdly balanced first.

Or just something like Jack of All Trades, like I’ve said, or a third skill at level 1. He’ll, a tool of their choice could work, with the stuff in xanathars that makes it easier for noobs and less improvisationally inclined players to see the use of tools.