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

Like others have said, the Fighter class is your blank slate Warrior class, it can be the easiest or it can be the most engaging class and this all depends on the player.

Other Warrior classes include the Ranger, the Paladin, the Rogue, the Barbarian and the Monk, even the Cleric and versions of the Druid. But they all come with a built in interest-defined chassis. The Fighter is your blank slate, your clear window, your white canvas. It needs the player to define the theme of the character or it doesn't, depending on your preferred style of play.

IMO the class is perfect the way it is.

And if it isn't perfect for you and your table, the 5e engine is easy enough to pull and twist things in a way that will allow you to please your gaming group.

I suggest those that wish to modify the base class, to take a serious look at the Fighter Kits in the 2e Fighter's Handbook* for inspiration. Furthermore I strongly recommend new players to read through that book to gain a better understanding of the Fighter class. One can easily ignore the outdated mechanics.

* It's been updated for 5e use on an Enworld thread.

Rya.Reisender said:

(especially if he's not the good talked in real life)

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This may be my favorite contribution to this whole thread.

Rya.Reisender said:

But what's better is still pretty depending on your player. There could be a fighter that got 14 Cha just because his player sees him more as the talker. If I then never ask for rolls and just let people succeed based on how they role-play, he might feel he wasted his point in Cha (especially if he's not the good talked in real life). But there might also be a player who doesn't really care for mechanics and stats at all and just wants to roll play and he will probably prefer his good role-playing to be rewarded.

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If the DM is doing his job, it's not one or the other, but rather a combination of the two. If the player isn't a good talker, but has a 14 charisma, then even if what he's saying is coming out in a stutter and stumble, I'm going to understand what he is trying to say and filter that through his 14 charisma when figuring out if the result is auto success, auto failure, or in doubt and requires a roll. Similarly, if the most eloquent player is telling me what his character says, I'm going to filter that through his PC's 8 charisma when figuring out the result.

The idea behind what the PC is saying matters, though. The best idea in the world isn't going to fail because of a low charisma or ineloquent player, and the worst idea isn't going to succeed because of a high charisma or eloquent player.

Maxperson said:

And the untrained warlock having a higher charisma isn't a very good argument for why the trained fighter shouldn't be the one doing the thing. The fighter is the one who is going to know the tricks, methods, etc. It's both logical and fine for either one to perform the act, being aided by the other. PCs don't sit around tallying how many more times the warlock persuaded people successfully than the fighter, so they aren't going to know much more than both are good at persuasion, and they wouldn't be able to account for the d20 luck factor even if they tried.

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It's not a matter of characters actively tallying their own successes and failures. The entire world works this way, so the characters would have been passively absorbing that for their entire lives. It should be common sense, for everyone in the world, that skill and training are no match for natural talent.

Maxperson said:

Any time the PC acts like he is in a game with his decisions on who gets to do what, it is also metagaming. You are making decisions based on how things work in the real world(game rules). And it's a more egregious offense than giving the PC a realistic personality(this isn't metagaming at all).

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The game world is a different place from the real world, and you're ignoring that fact. There's nothing "realistic" about having your character act based on real-world physics rather than game-world physics.

Saelorn said:

It's not a matter of characters actively tallying their own successes and failures. The entire world works this way, so the characters would have been passively absorbing that for their entire lives. It should be common sense, for everyone in the world, that skill and training are no match for natural talent.

The game world is a different place from the real world, and you're ignoring that fact. There's nothing "realistic" about having your character act based on real-world physics rather than game-world physics.

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I think this gets metagaming completely backwards. Metagaming is using OOC knowledge for IC decisions. IC the characters due not know the rules of the game they inhabit. The rules of the game are an intentionally hyper-simplified abstraction of their reality. The characters are presumed to live in a 'real' fantasy world that is vastly more complex and 'noisy' than the simulation, and basically like our world, except magic. Saying "I have a +5 and you only have a +3, so I should make the check" is exactly what metagaming is. Saying "I am a renowned warrior, I will deal with this leader, he will not respect a scrawny dealer in dark secrets like yourself", is the opposite of metagaming, i.e. acting like your character, irrespective of what the 'best' result is in the outer game model.

Rya.Reisender said:

Still think this is very group-dependent.

If we look at it, there are two ways of handling persuasion. You let the player state what he does and decide on how well it was done if a roll is needed, if it is at advantage, a normal roll or even disadvantage. Or, you let the player roll and ask him to act it out well / bad depending on roll result.

But what's better is still pretty depending on your player. There could be a fighter that got 14 Cha just because his player sees him more as the talker. If I then never ask for rolls and just let people succeed based on how they role-play, he might feel he wasted his point in Cha (especially if he's not the good talked in real life). But there might also be a player who doesn't really care for mechanics and stats at all and just wants to roll play and he will probably prefer his good role-playing to be rewarded.

As a DM it might be a bit hard to tell what your players enjoy the most at times, so I'd advise any player to just talk to his DM if something hinders his enjoyment.

In this case, the player already did that, though from the OP it's not quite clear yet what the actual problem is. So the first thing I'd do is talk with that player and figure out why he thinks his fighter has nothing to do out-of-combat. I'd ask him how he sees his character. What should he be good at out-of-combat? Does he have an issue because of the bad skill modifiers or does he have an issue because the rules don't list fighter-specific actions you can do out-of-combat and he has a hard time making up ideas himself?

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Back in 3e, there was a blog post on Giant in the Playground that presented a different way to handle the Diplomacy skill, in which relationship & risk vs. reward judgment applied substantial modifiers. I think there's a salient lesson from that post which can be applied to your examination of Charisma checks:

Acting a role in a convincing manner and establishing a convincing line of reasoning are two separate skills, either (or both) of which can apply to interacting with a NPC.

A player who is not a good actor him or herself can still apply convincing reasoning toward a parlay or negotiation or crafting a reasonable lie. As a DM I've ruled automatic successes (i.e. no need to roll) in both cases.

cfmcdonald said:

I think this gets metagaming completely backwards. Metagaming is using OOC knowledge for IC decisions.

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We agree on the definition, at least.

cfmcdonald said:

IC the characters due not know the rules of the game they inhabit. The rules of the game are an intentionally hyper-simplified abstraction of their reality. The characters are presumed to live in a 'real' fantasy world that is vastly more complex and 'noisy' than the simulation, and basically like our world, except magic.

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Agreed. Their world is complex, and the rules in the book are a simplification of those rules. It is basically like our world, except as noted.

cfmcdonald said:

Saying "I have a +5 and you only have a +3, so I should make the check" is exactly what metagaming is.

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They wouldn't know the numbers, based on the rules in the book; but they would understand the more-complex reality, which those rules reflect. Remember, they actually live in this world, and they see a million subtle details that emphasize who is better at this sort of thing.

You might think that training is more important than talent, but that's only true about our real world, and not the game world. The rules in the book tell us that this is one of those areas where the game world is different, in the same way that it has magic and elves.

cfmcdonald said:

Saying "I am a renowned warrior, I will deal with this leader, he will not respect a scrawny dealer in dark secrets like yourself", is the opposite of metagaming, i.e. acting like your character, irrespective of what the 'best' result is in the outer game model.

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That's only true if your character cares more about his image than he cares about success, which is an unfair burden to put on a player. Nobody should be forced to act irrationally in order to participate in the game.

The fighter should know that the warlock is better at this, because it's true, and all evidence supports that truth. Claiming that he's better suited to the task than the warlock is, because he's a renowned warrior, is a weak argument; and everyone knows that it's a weak argument, because evidence doesn't support it. (Unless the DM introduces new rules to support the claim, in which case that would be the truth.)

Saelorn said:

We agree on the definition, at least.
Agreed. Their world is complex, and the rules in the book are a simplification of those rules. It is basically like our world, except as noted.
They wouldn't know the numbers, based on the rules in the book; but they would understand the more-complex reality, which those rules reflect. Remember, they actually live in this world, and they see a million subtle details that emphasize who is better at this sort of thing.

You might think that training is more important than talent, but that's only true about our real world, and not the game world. The rules in the book tell us that this is one of those areas where the game world is different, in the same way that it has magic and elves.
That's only true if your character cares more about his image than he cares about success, which is an unfair burden to put on a player. Nobody should be forced to act irrationally in order to participate in the game.

The fighter should know that the warlock is better at this, because it's true, and all evidence supports that truth. Claiming that he's better suited to the task than the warlock is, because he's a renowned warrior, is a weak argument; and everyone knows that it's a weak argument, because evidence doesn't support it. (Unless the DM introduces new rules to support the claim, in which case that would be the truth.)

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How do they know this without inspecting each other's character sheets? I work in software, and I think I'm better at it that many of my peers, but I'm sure many of those same peers think they are better than me. How do we know which is right? It's in fact very hard to know/prove because it's a complex domain with noisy outcomes, sort of like persuading people.

Saelorn said:

The fighter should know that the warlock is better at this, because it's true, and all evidence supports that truth. Claiming that he's better suited to the task than the warlock is, because he's a renowned warrior, is a weak argument; and everyone knows that it's a weak argument, because evidence doesn't support it. (Unless the DM introduces new rules to support the claim, in which case that would be the truth.)

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This is just not true in an ingame sense. I think a lot of this discussion forgets the Social Interaction section in the DMG pg. 244. NPCs have a starting attitude of friendly, indifferent, and hostile. That attitude isn't going to be the same for every PC in the group. In many situations, the Warlock will be looking at a hostile reaction compared to a fighter looking at a indifferent or even friendly attitude. In many cases having certain PCs present might sour the social interaction.

The reason this topic is even an issue is that the GM isn't doing their job of creating interesting NPCs. If all of the NPCs are 1-dimensional and that a simple CHA check will determine the interaction, then yes the fighter is at a disadvantage.

However, with all other factors being equal, a fighter is going to have a better starting attitude with most NPCs than a warlock.

When NPCs are actually fleshed out, then social interactions become much more interesting.

This is the reason why I find much of the discussion so strange about how the fighter is at a disadvantage here. Fighters have more non-combat options in this edition than any other. IME, they never suffered in previous version and were usually the leader of the party.

Ironically, paladins were typically not good in social situation due to their built-in ideology (and usually created more issues because of the mandatory LG alignment). Also, for almost every other class CHA was a dump stat.

In my current group, the warlock player is so bad at social interactions that the rest of the party won't let him speak. Because despite his high CHA he actually says things in character that completely sabotage most every social interaction. His faux pas are legendary.

Stats are just not the whole story. Backgrounds, NPC attitudes, Roleplay by the player all are much more important than Deception/Intimidation/Persuasion rolls.

cfmcdonald said:

How do they know this without inspecting each other's character sheets? I work in software, and I think I'm better at it that many of my peers, but I'm sure many of those same peers think they are better than me. How do we know which is right? It's in fact very hard to know/prove because it's a complex domain with noisy outcomes, sort of like persuading people.

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The real world is a more complex domain than the game world is. In the game world, Charisma applies equally to all charisma-based skills, so you can judge how well a warlock persuades someone based on how well they can dance (or more-to-the-point, how strong their spells are); just as you can estimate someone's ability to climb or swim, based on how well they swing an axe.

Yes, there is noise, and that noise can make it difficult to see the relevant factors. The d20 roll does a good job of modeling that (you need a lot of data, before the underlying factors can be felt, but the actually relevant factors are fairly straightforward (far more-so than in real life), and the correlations are always true. You don't survive to adulthood, witnessing thousands of data samples going by each day, without picking up the trends.