Expertise Dice Not Necessarily Fighter Exclusive

[I'm A Banana]

People are just mad that fighters, once in a while, for an instant, might be something resembling (with thick enough goggles) "cool".

What?

Who?

The two threads of the conversation are generally: "Fighters should have their own unique mechanic" and "Fighters should be the BEST at that mechanic, but they don't need to be alone in it!"

I don't think anyone in this thread thinks that fighters shouldn't be cool.

 

[kerleth]

An earlier poster brought up a point I had worried about before the playtest and then forgotten. There's only so much space in the core 3. It's gonna be hard to give everyone exactly what they want. In fact, impossible. I think the goal is in fact to give everyone something close enough that they won't complain, because them and the other 3 people that are playing are all fairly satisfied and can have fun with it. Having only a few systems, like adapting CS dice to multiple classes, makes the system as a whole easier to learn, AND potentially easier to tweak to your specs. It also, however, makes everything feel more alike, and care must be taken to not have a sizable number of the classes feel the same, but with different wrapping. It's a thorny issue, that's for sure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

People are just mad that fighters, once in a while, for an instant, might be something resembling (with thick enough goggles) "cool".

What?

Who?

Just the edition warriors who liked to say "4e fighters cast spells!" Nobody participating in this thread, I'm sure.

The two threads of the conversation are generally: "Fighters should have their own unique mechanic" and "Fighters should be the BEST at that mechanic, but they don't need to be alone in it!"

I don't think anyone in this thread thinks that fighters shouldn't be cool.

Those are the main threads. A few folks have compared the CS mechanic to obscure magic sub-systems. Since 'fighters cast spells' was a rallying cry of the edition war, I just commented that it made me nervous, and espoused that the CS fighter was structurally a lot more like the 3.5 bonus-feat fighter than it was like any caster.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think at this point the debate becomes a challenge for those of us who want to keep CS fighter-only: can we do better?

Right now, I think there's a 0% chance wizards, clerics, or any of the other classes we've seen so far (other than rogues) would possibly receive CS dice or a variant thereof. They have their own, completely separate mechanics.

But it would be very easy for Wizards to slap together a CS variant with some spellcasting or other special abilities to make paladins, rangers, monks, and barbarians.

So what would YOU propose to make a warlord, paladin, ranger, monk, and barbarian class that (a) doesn't use CS and (b) is more elegant and appropriate than "the paladin starts gets a few CS dice along with a few Cleric spells"?

My thoughts:

1. Barbarians = daily MP ("stamina") system. You can spend 1 stamina point to rage for one round (and when your rage is ended/interrupted you're winded until you get a short rest). You can also spend stamina points for feats of strength or endurance, extra-powerful hits when you're already raging, and so on. Your stamina regenerates when you take a long rest. The net effect is a character who can overpower even a fighter in melee in short bursts, but who doesn't have the flexibility or staying power of the fighter (nor the magic of the sorcerer).

2. Warlords = combo of daily "morale" system for healing and utility powers (all 5e healing is daily) and encounter powers ("tactics"). A warlord doesn't "go with the flow" like a fighter, he plans in advance for each tactical encounter. He also gets a few at-will abilities, of course, probably in the "give up your turn to give an ally a turn" vein.

and so on...

 

[Li Shenron]

An earlier poster brought up a point I had worried about before the playtest and then forgotten. There's only so much space in the core 3. It's gonna be hard to give everyone exactly what they want. In fact, impossible. I think the goal is in fact to give everyone something close enough that they won't complain, because them and the other 3 people that are playing are all fairly satisfied and can have fun with it. Having only a few systems, like adapting CS dice to multiple classes, makes the system as a whole easier to learn, AND potentially easier to tweak to your specs. It also, however, makes everything feel more alike, and care must be taken to not have a sizable number of the classes feel the same, but with different wrapping. It's a thorny issue, that's for sure.

Definitely something to keep in mind... I expect the 5e to be more or less the size of the PHB from either 3e or 4e, but there are people who would prefer to have it bigger like in PF, and others who would like just one huge rulebook containing all core 3, meaning that each would have to be shrunk.

Either way, the space in core is limited.

I absolutely don't want to end up with too few material... I don't think many people notice, but in the 3ed PHB there weren't enough spells to even cover the requirements to be a specialized wizard in some schools!

So rather than having too little material to each class, I'd prefer to have a shared mechanics, but then again you have to differentiate between CS options exclusive to the Fighter and other CS options exclusive to the Warlord, because if you don't keep the options different (even with same mechanic) again you end up with a Fighter that has nothing unique, and less reason to be someone's single class.

There is of course another, radical solution: to have less classes in the PHB. But then it becomes an edition war... do you leave out the less traditional classes such as Warlord and Warlock, thereby alienating the 4e crowd? Or do you leave out traditional classes like Paladin, Druid and Ranger, alienating everyone else?

 

[Li Shenron]

1. Barbarians = daily MP ("stamina") system. You can spend 1 stamina point to rage for one round (and when your rage is ended/interrupted you're winded until you get a short rest). You can also spend stamina points for feats of strength or endurance, extra-powerful hits when you're already raging, and so on. Your stamina regenerates when you take a long rest. The net effect is a character who can overpower even a fighter in melee in short bursts, but who doesn't have the flexibility or staying power of the fighter (nor the magic of the sorcerer).

Or... stamina/Rage could be encounter-based so that Barbarians becomes among the fighter-type classes the equivalent of what is currently the Warlock among the spellcasters.

Rage is practically the only non-at-will "martial" ability that I ever found acceptable, exactly because it is explained in terms of stamina/fatigue, but I would not object if it went from "resettable with long rest" to "resettable* with short rest"

*not necessarily completely reset, maybe just "rechargeable"

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Or... stamina/Rage could be encounter-based so that Barbarians becomes among the fighter-type classes the equivalent of what is currently the Warlock among the spellcasters.

Rage is practically the only non-at-will "martial" ability that I ever found acceptable, exactly because it is explained in terms of stamina/fatigue, but I would not object if it went from "resettable with long rest" to "resettable* with short rest"

*not necessarily completely reset, maybe just "rechargeable"

I like the general idea, but since rage specifically is a multi-round effect, it probably needs a daily timer or it might as well just be at will.

I was trying to work out warlords as per-encounter martial guys (since the same folks who hate martial encounter powers seem to already hate warlords anyway), but it would be a bit of work to make them feel natural.

 

[KidSnide]

2. Warlords = combo of daily "morale" system for healing and utility powers (all 5e healing is daily) and encounter powers ("tactics"). A warlord doesn't "go with the flow" like a fighter, he plans in advance for each tactical encounter. He also gets a few at-will abilities, of course, probably in the "give up your turn to give an ally a turn" vein.

Well, I don't have a problem with martial classes sharing the CS feature, so I would expect to see a warlord's at-will ability be a lesser version of fighter CS that are primarily given to allies (not unlike the fighter's defend ability).

As far as encounter abilities, I agree that warlords should have an encounter-based "tactical plan" ability where the party is prepped for a specific type of encounter or formation. Maybe it gives a combination of static bonuses and allowing the warlord to expend CS dice in a specific way appropriate to the tactic.

For warlord healing, I would expect any non-magical healing to consist of allowing non-unconscious characters to spend their hit dice during combat. (Maybe while also administering a potion of healing?) The idea would be that clerics can actually heal you magically while a non-magical healer can't do any better than help you to access your internal reserves. I would also hope that any warlord healing would be an optional character ability, so folks can use the class in games with no/limited hit dice or martial healing.

-KS

 

[Vikingkingq]

I really really hope they're not going to pull the Paladin even further away from it's martial roots. Yes yes there's divine this and that, but the underlying picture is a heavily armed & armoured warrior. I don't want to see it end up like some lumbering wooden combatant casting magic smites.

Yes...but from the beginning what distinguished Paladins from Fighters was that they were heavily armed and armored warriors who were magical. So I don't think there's that much distance the Paladin can go from its magical roots.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Those are the main threads. A few folks have compared the CS mechanic to obscure magic sub-systems. Since 'fighters cast spells' was a rallying cry of the edition war, I just commented that it made me nervous, and espoused that the CS fighter was structurally a lot more like the 3.5 bonus-feat fighter than it was like any caster.

1. The criticism you're referring to isn't edition warring. Not even close. It's clear and cogent mechanical critique that has been explained ad nauseam, one which targets mechanics from 3e (ToB, barbarian rage, and the like) and occasionally other games as well, and does not target not people who play any particular game. "Edition War" and "position I disagree with" are not the same thing.

2. CS does not raise this issue. Not even close. It may resemble some other games' magic systems, but it does not have the characteristic daily use limitations of D&D magic.

3. Bonus feats are cool. Combat maneuvers are cool. Reactions are cool. CS is kind of cool. So are many other things. Fighters (and, to the point, their nonmagical brethren) have can have lots of "cool" things without raising the balance and plausibility issues of daily/encounter-ly limitations or excessively discretized effects.