Expertise Dice Not Necessarily Fighter Exclusive

[CM]

The first question I would ask is: why do these things need to be CS abilities?

Why reinvent the wheel? CS seems to be a pretty elegant system open to lots of expansion. If you break every possible maneuver down to unique mechanics by class again then you get into one of the classic complaints about 4e--that every class has its own unique power list and there are 5 different versions of a maneuver that amounts to "damage plus trip" or "damage plus daze." I could see CS ending up with a list of abilities by level, with each ability available to all, a few, or even a single class, much like the 3rd edition spell lists (or indeed, the existing 5e spell lists).

If each class has its own resource system then you're back to paladins expending their divine focus to knockback enemies, barbarians invoking primal might, rangers spending their quarry dice, etc--a dozen different fiddly subsystems when one elegant system could suffice. In fact, I would include rogue's sneak attack in here, as well. Sneak attack could easily be rebuilt into a version of combat superiority that the rogue can only unleash with advantage. It could also let the rogue power all those sneaky rogue tumbling escape maneuvers if he needs to focus on defense rather than offense (for those times he doesn't have advantage). But that's a topic for another thread.

And the second question would be, if they do need to be CS abilities, why can't they be a combat style option for the fighter? And if they don't need to be CS abilities, what unique abilities might work better for the Warlord or Barbarian or Ranger class's schtick?

Why can't the Warlord have those features? Fighters get all those + CS maneuvers.

Why do you have to do that in order to hit the archetype of a combat commander? Can't you just have fighter who employs helpful CS maneuvers balanced with other CS maneuvers?

The 4e warlord makes a lot of concessions to the fighter in terms of armor and shield proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, hit points, and healing surges. The fighter is strictly better in all those categories. In return, the warlord gets to do some things the fighter cannot--namely, provide healing for allies through a variety of ranged and area effects.

Presumably, the 5e warlord will also make some concessions in terms of raw power in order to provide access to healing (or temp HP or whatever floats the wotc boat). Frequent healing (or even temp HP) is something that I don't think most people would see as appropriate for the fighter class (aside from something like Second Wind).

I think other classes should get other spellcasting methods, too. Sorcerers and Warlocks are beginning that process already, and I'd encourage them to go father. I've pointed out that I don't think either one should need "spells," either, and I'd be entirely happy with a Channel Divinity-based cleric, leaving Vancian magic to be a Wizard-based thing.

Well, wotc doesn't seem to be going in that direction. Warlocks get both spells and their own unique feature, invocations. Sorcerers get spells and sorcerous powers. Clerics get spells and channel divinity. They all gain them at different rates and at different levels, but they use the same general framework. I feel that CS and the martial classes should be the same.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

This is certainly an interesting discussion. I don't know if expertise dice should become the martial equivalent of spells, but it's certainly something worth looking at. I mean, now's the time, right? It's certainly a compelling thought.

But, that doesn't mean it will work. I do like that each class is being built around its own mechanic.

In many ways, the same principle applies to classes like the warlord. Perhaps the fighter should steal some of his stuff. Mike Mearls already mentioned that maybe the warlord would work better as a specialty that any class could take. If so, then the traditional warlord would be a fighter with leaderish combat maneuvers and the Commander specialty.

The point it, now is the time to experiment with these ideas.

 

[Vikingkingq]

A couple thoughts:

1. I think part of the issue with people (myself included) being unwilling to see the CS mechanic spread beyond the Fighter is that, for the longest time, the Fighter didn't really have much in the way of unique and active class abilities. Given that CS was only recently given to the Fighter class due to overwhelming feedback that people hated the plain Fighter, the fear is that now the Fighter class' spotlight is being taken away and the class will return to where it is.

That being said, right now the CS dice give a really good mechanical sense of the fluff of the Fighter being the master of martial combat who can do things with bits of metal that no one else can. However much the hesitancy mentioned above might be a bit kneejerk, I think this second point is valid.

2. Fighter, the Paladin, the Warlord, the Rogue, the Ranger, the Barbarian is way too many classes under one mechanic. Rogues already have their mechanic, Paladins (and Rangers?) have magical abilities, and Barbarians have Rage. So making CS dice = Arcane/Divine spellcasting in terms of numbers of classes covered I don't think is or should happen.

3. However, it might be possible to do a Warlord that used a dice mechanic without stepping on the Fighter's toes. For example - the Warlord's dice abilities should be mostly directed outward (temporary HP, giving advantage/disadvantage in different situations, granting extra movement and reactions, etc.) save for one or two abilities they can use on their own. Another possibility is to allow the Warlord to share dice with Fighters, so that the classes synergize.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the designers have realized the CS mechanic is just too good to be fighter only, they are going to want to expand the concept to other classes.

 

[Grimmjow]

they make just make a warlord like version of the fighter, somthing to take instead of sharpshooter for example

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Just to point out - the warlord can't be built entirely around CS, because as they've made a big deal of pointing out, 5e marks the return of the "adventuring day" as a basic unit of time. This means healing mechanics have to be daily resources, and expertise dice are (obviously) not daily. I guess you could have CS dice for some warlord powers and a "Channel Martial...ity" ability for healing, but that's kind of kludgy. I say keep CS for fighters and come up with suitable different mechanics for other martial classes. Maybe warlords could be mp-based like sorcerers, but with "morale" instead of "willpower." Use morale points to buff, heal, and encourage yourself and your allies. Kills two birds with one stone: gives players a non-Vancian healer, and keeps the warlord as a class with its own mechanics that doesn't step on the fighter's toes.

 

[triqui]

Fighters as a collection of bonus feats and static bonuses works.

Maybe for you, and some players and playstyles, but obviously not for everybody. "Fighters are dull" was one of the major complaints back in 3.X. Just like "warriors shouldn't have spells" was a major complain with 4e powers.
It's hard to balance both, because differerent views have different desires, but I can say, without a doubt, that fighters being a collectoion of bonus feats and static bonuses does not work for everybody.

 

[Vikingkingq]

Just to point out - the warlord can't be built entirely around CS, because as they've made a big deal of pointing out, 5e marks the return of the "adventuring day" as a basic unit of time. This means healing mechanics have to be daily resources, and expertise dice are (obviously) not daily.

If the Warlord had a CS dice ability that allowed an ally to spend a HD and gain temporary hit points that expired at the end of combat, wouldn't the loss of HD keep the adventuring day on track, since you'd basically be moving HP regeneration in time?

 

[Li Shenron]

Just heard in the latest Penny Arcade podcast (at about the 8:28 mark) that the Fighter's expertise dice mechanic might apply to other classes later on. This was in reference to Jerry asking if there was a "grant a +2 to your friend's attack" use for expertise dice... and Mearls responded that it depended on what they do with the Warlord, "as this mechanic might show up in another class too".

Thus, there's no guarantee it will remain a Fighter exclusive mechanic, and instead might become more of a martial combatant mechanic (the same way the spell mechanic is not for any one class, but for multiple classes that can cast spells.)

So we're back in the loop of "trick #1 shouldn't be exclusive of class X, why can't my class Y do the same?", DONE! "nobody's playing class X anymore, give it something unique!", here's trick #2 ! "trick #2 shouldn't be exclusive of class X, why can't my class Y do the same?", DONE! "nobody's playing class X anymore, give it something unique!", here's trick #3 ! "trick #3 shouldn't be exclusive of class X, why can't my class Y do the same?", DONE! "nobody's playing class X anymore, give it something unique!", here's trick #4 ! ...

Or, they are just getting short on ideas for the Warlord class, to which I'd suggest to avoid the class completely and just merge its possible abilities into those available to the Fighter through CS (this way you have any gradient on the Fighter-Warlord scale without even bothering with multiclassing).

 

[Shadeydm]

Not just martial characters I could totally see spell casters getting a variation of these action dice. They could be spent to do things like change a close burst into a burst or a cone, or exclude allies from damaging spells or change a fire spell into lightning etc. Heck you could even call them metamagic dice.