D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter

[JamesonCourage]

Whoa, pages are flying by before I get a chance to respond. Sorry if this seems outdated, but it's been less than 24 hours, so I'll still reply.

I wasn't very clear in the argument I was making in so much that I was talking about more than one edition. The 4th Edition fighter can be a very capable ranged combatant with some work. The ranged Ranger can be a very capable ranged combatant without trying. The ranged 4th Edition Ranger who really works at doing damage from range is going to do what the hard working ranged fighter is doing and still having more left over to do even more.

Well, you mentioned 3.5 explicitly, so that's what I was responding to. It's no surprise to me that the 4e ranged Ranger, designed as a ranged striker, is better at ranged combat than the Fighter, which is designed as a melee Defender. But that's not what I was replying to.

However, what you say helps make my point. There is outcry over a wizard outclassing a rogue by using spells which can mimic skills. There is also outcry over a cleric being able to fight like a fighter and still have spells. Why is it that we don't mind having the fighter bleed into the territory that other classes are supposedly supposed to cover?

This depends, to me, on what kind of classes you want. The three pillars include Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction. Personally, I'm okay with every class being 3/3/3 across the pillars as a default, but I wouldn't want to play them that way. I'd want the Fighter to be better at Combat (maybe 4/2/2, or even 4/1/3), while classes like the Ranger are more exploration-based (so something like 3/4/1). Why is it okay for the Fighter to theoretically be better at ranged combat than the Ranger? Because I'm okay with some classes being better in one area. It's okay with me.

edit: I suppose I'm also asking why it's bad to give the fighter his own realm and his ranger own realm if we desire to have both classes. If the desire to have the fighter be the king of martial combat outweighs the desire to have both the ranger and fighter as classes with unique spheres of adventuring influence, it makes more sense to me to drop one of them (the ranger) and have it turned into a theme, lense, career path, or whatever you want to call it for other classes.

Or, the way I'd prefer, is to design them to certain areas. Give the Fighter some fighting abilities, while the Ranger gets nature-oriented abilities: he can move faster through rough terrain, hide easier, move quietly faster, etc. You end up something very different than if you turned it into a theme (or the like). Same thing for Monks, Thiefs, etc. As always, play what you like

Saying "I attempt to hit the giant with my sword; I hit 27 AC or less and do 15 damage" is not fiat. Fiat is affecting your will upon the shared imaginary space of more than just a single character.

Actually, I would say that is actually "fiat" in the way the word is being used by the OP in this thread (and his post one page back seems to back that up). That player just declared that someone else is hurt through his PC; this is potentially "more fiat than normal" if the PCs are viewed as pieces on a board, rather than being used for immersive RPing. Saying "that guy is hurt" because of my PC is just as much fiat as saying "that guy is charmed because of my PC", the consequences are just different.

However, I see what Obryn wants, and I know what pemerton is advocating for. The ability to decide what other people are doing through some sort of metagame power. The ability to compete with magic abilities that "people don't question", like Finger of Death or Knock or Blindness/Deafness. And I get that, and I empathize with it. Personally, I think it's fine for a high level Fighter (or warrior in general) to attempt to make killing strikes. It's fine if Knock isn't automatically successful. It's fine if warriors (or rogues, etc.) want to throw sand in someone's eyes.

Then we get to other areas. Gate. Wish. Teleport Without Error. Shapechange. Disintegrate. These are naturally hard for mundane warriors to compete with. Walking between worlds, teleportation, changing into a dragon, obliterating a wall in the blink of an eye; these aren't things that people associate with being mundane. So, we get a few different opinions on how to handle things:

1. Magic is strong. Wizards are powerful at high level, and that's okay.
2. Tone down spells. Wizards can't do these things, so there's no friction.
3. Longer recharge times. Wizards spells capable of such feats come back after days or weeks, not overnight.
4. Permanent cost. Wizard spells capable of such feats cost permanent resources: money, magical potential, etc.
5. Mundane is epic. Wizards are capable of such feats, but so are mundane characters. They can cut a hole between worlds (Gate or Teleport), shatter a wall with a single strike (Disintegrate), and the like.
6. Meta Resources. Mundane character gets meta resources. They can say "that guy likes me" and "retroactively change that guy's personality" to make that guy actually like him.
7. And on and on.

Personally, I tend to go for options 3 and 4, with a mix of 2. You want to do that? Fine, you can, but you don't get that spell back for a while, and you never know when you might need it (or maybe you do -and that's okay with me, too). Maybe teleporting as a permanent attribute loss (unless you use circles, have an extremely rare component you could quest for, etc.). Maybe you can't just use Divination magic for everything you need to know, or if you do find stuff out, you can't communicate it by any method.

But that's more on-topic than the quote I replied to. So maybe I'll chime in more on that later. As always, play what you like

It sounds an awful lot to me like you're trying to tell me how my game is, or else asserting that "non-existent immersion" and "not bothering putting it together logically" are necessary traits of 4e and similar games. This is just one post of many like this; it's kind of a theme.

I agree; I don't find there to be much productive conversation to be had with certain posters, and this is no exception to that observation. The badwrongfun posts kinda go against how I feel in general: as always, play what you like

Why do we have "Because I want to" which, as far as I can tell, serves no purpose but to mock and make caricature of something we don't like

If this is how you feel, then you should probably stay clear of saying things like this (said one page back):

Appeasing one side requires embedding metagame tools in the system (or at least providing them) while appeasing the other requires denouncing them as heresy and burning the witches who they feel turned D&D into a newt.

So, your side is simply enabled, but the other side wants your side to be "denounced as heresy and burned as witches"? That statement also "serves no purpose but to mock and make caricature of something we don't like."

You probably shouldn't say stuff like that if you don't want others to, as well. Just a thought. As always, play what you like

 

[WarlockLord]

I'm gonna weigh in on the fiat issue, and say that any mechanic that involves me haggling with the DM in combat is not good for the game. This is why, for instance, D&D Next's skill system is terrible - it encourages arguing with the DM that you can use your religious lore to open a lock because your character lived with the Thug Monks of Lockpicking, who picked locks to grow closer to God. The same principle applies here. I don't want to argue that my fighter is so awesome that he can fit a sword through a full helm's eyeslit for a full hour because I want to make a blinding strike. I don't want to deal with people who try to use the lightning bolt spell to create gamma radiation to bypass electrical resistance, nor use silent image to create gamma radiation because, hey, silent image can create light, light's in the EMR spectrum, my wizard has a genius intellect and knows about science, and gamma radiation is similar. Or shoot magic missiles at atomic nuclei because they never miss. Having a bunch of well thought out rules prevents this kind of crap. Because at the end of the day, these things don't come down to "creativity" but down to "who can bs the DM?"

 

[billd91]

Okay. Then replace with another term of your choice. I think the meaning of what I'm going at has become clear over this thread if it wasn't at first.

Yeah, I think we eventually came to understand the general gist even if the term fiat doesn't really apply. I think you're more getting at the fighter's lack of ability to manipulate game reality other than by an attritional mechanic. Wizards summon storms, control their movement in campaign altering ways, bypass hit point attrition completely, and create stuff from nothing. Fighters fight and most fighting is done through hit point attrition. None of that is necessarily fiat, but it does pull levers in the game that martial and mundane characters can't.

I'm unconvinced, however, that they need to be able to do so as long as what they are able to do is fun and relevant to the game and for the players at the table. I can certainly agree that ways to bypass hit points to gain effects provides some tactical depth, so I like the way PF's maneuver system works and would like to see it developed further.

I also wouldn't mind developing martial classes like the fighter into being better masters of equipment. One of the central features of magic item random selection in 1e was a significant weighting of options away from wizard-friendly items and toward martial items. Magic armor and swords are far more common than wands, staves, and bracers of armor. Magic weapons, or at least powerful weapons of significance, are iconic in legends from Beowulf to King Arthur, to Charlemagne, Thor, and every samurai down the line. I could see class abilities involving a weapon or armor growing with the heroism of its wielder and taking on a legendary status of its own.

 

[Manbearcat]

Actually, I would say that is actually "fiat" in the way the word is being used by the OP in this thread (and his post one page back seems to back that up). That player just declared that someone else is hurt through his PC; this is potentially "more fiat than normal" if the PCs are viewed as pieces on a board, rather than being used for immersive RPing. Saying "that guy is hurt" because of my PC is just as much fiat as saying "that guy is charmed because of my PC", the consequences are just different.

All respect to Obryn, I don't see how that could be fiat. Its not fiat any more than a Wizard casting a single target attack spell, rolling to hit, and doing damage.

However, I see what Obryn wants, and I know what pemerton is advocating for. The ability to decide what other people are doing through some sort of metagame power.

Precisely. This is fiat. That is what my posts outlined. There is no metagame leveraged in interfacing with the basic attack system.

If this is how you feel, then you should probably stay clear of saying things like this (said one page back):

So, your side is simply enabled, but the other side wants your side to be "denounced as heresy and burned as witches"? That statement also "serves no purpose but to mock and make caricature of something we don't like."

You probably shouldn't say stuff like that if you don't want others to, as well. Just a thought. As always, play what you like

Wow. You have not been keeping score if that is your sense of things. In this very thread its readily available (amongst dozens others that you have been a part of). Its connotation is irrelevant. Its a very real thing. Its my understanding that you are not of age to have been playing D&D before 3e. As such, its highly unlikely that you've been saturated by the D&D culture's intense antipathy for metagame play from the late 80s with the "Dragonlancing" of AD&D. Saying that the greater D&D culture has had a visceral reaction to metagaming from 2e onward is akin to saying "water is wet." I mean, this isn't even controversial. A considerable portion of the anti-4e sentiment is an exact byproduct of 4e's friendliness toward the metagame; and you can see it in this thread writ large (and plenty of others that you have participated in). I'm a bit baffled at your response here. What I wrote isn't even close to provocation. Its blatant truth. It doesn't mean that being antagonistic toward the metagame is badwrongfun...nor does it mean that endorsing it is goodrightawesome. Its just categorically true of the D&D culture.

Meanwhile, the response of "Because I want to" which is observably and patently destructive to a table...is pretty self-evident; don't you think? I mean if you asked your player "How did you do that", what would you say to them when they belligerently proffer "Because I want to" as narrative justification/resolution for the action in question?

How you can compare those two is beyond me. Read the thread again (and any other thread regarding metagame mechanics/agenda) and tell me that D&D culture is not viscerally opposed to metagame play...demanding the tools that make it available to be excised from canon.

 

[Obryn]

Where do you put this one?
Player: "I want to blind him. I use a dirty trick to gouge his eyes. I rolled a 19 on my combat maneuver.
DM: That hits! He's blinded for one round.

Good on the fiat; my issues with it ... god, what is it, 20 years ago now? ... are that it's still simply a sub-par maneuver the way it's written.

To use a more extreme example, if I have the ability to summon a handful of sand out of a top hat every 24 hours, that's a high degree of fiat, but ...

But mostly, I fear this...
Player: "I spend my expertise dice to use my Blinding Strike. After bashing him with my shield, I'm going to gouge his eyes." I roll a 19 to-hit; how's that?
DM: "Hmmm, he's a canny combatant and wearing a full helm. I don't think that'd work on him. Nope."
Player: "I used my expertise dice! He's Blinded! Come up with some explanation to explain how I blinded him!"

I don't fear that sort of thing at all, probably unsurprisingly.

Alternatives:
Player: "Well, then I hit him in the helm hard enough that it spins around obscuring his vision."

or... (in the enemy's stat block) "Great Helm: Immune to blindness."

or... "He's blinded; tell me how you did it."

or... "Despite his greathelm, you manage to deliver a savage blow to his helm, making him see stars."

I don't actually have much of an issue with any of those; I just expect some level of parity on this sort of level with casting. Would a greathelm help against a Blindness spell or Glitterdust? I think it's appropriate that it helps just as much here. I'm tired of magic functioning because "magic."

-O

 

[Obryn]

It's an interesting example you've posited. My sense of things is that the further back you go through the editions, the more spells look like the second option. I don't think they were codified as they have been with the intent of granting wizard players additional control over the game, however. I think spell effects were rendered increasingly specific and objective and arbitrary in order to balance character abilities, speed up the game, and remove some of the DM's influence. I look at your "player fiat" as an unintended (if natural) consequence of this path of development.

Thing is, I think the magic system personified by the first option is bad game design. If anything, I think the second should be the goal.

I'll just note - my own preference is for some degree of player fiat. However, the system you outlined would intrigue me enough (if spelled out) that I'd look into it and evaluate it on its merits.

-O

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'll just note - my own preference is for some degree of player fiat. However, the system you outlined would intrigue me enough (if spelled out) that I'd look into it and evaluate it on its merits.

There's a lot of alternate D&D magic systems out there.

Personally, I was thinking of the GR Psychic's Handbook, a skill-based psionics system. Hardly without flaw, but a much better foundation for how the d20 system ought to work (for things supernatural or natural).

For example, Telekinesis is a skill. The skill lets you move objects, it doesn't give a limited set of possibilities for what happens when you do that. If you want to throw sand in someone's face or poke them in the eye with an object you're ccontrolling, you're in the same boat as the fighter (and hopefully you're using the PF combat maneuvers or something that serves the same purpose). The skill clearly and objectively describes what your character can do, everything external to your character is left up to either system rules that are not on your character sheet, or to the DM.

***

With regards to your concept of player fiat, I'm generally not a fan of it, but I like it under certain circumstances. The biggest problem I have is when it is incorporated into character abilities. This conflates the player and the character. The ability of a player to exercise fiat should not be dependent on what character he is playing (which I believe you would agree with), and thus I see no reason to incorporate it into any class mechanics. Give me a separate and explicitly metagame system to allow a player to exercise narrative control beyond the in-game actions of his character (action/fate/plot/etc. points are one good example, but surely not the only one). Doing that is inherently more balanced, preserves everyone's sense of reality, and makes it inherently optional.

 

[Obryn]

With regards to your concept of player fiat, I'm generally not a fan of it, but I like it under certain circumstances. The biggest problem I have is when it is incorporated into character abilities. This conflates the player and the character. The ability of a player to exercise fiat should not be dependent on what character he is playing (which I believe you would agree with), and thus I see no reason to incorporate it into any class mechanics. Give me a separate and explicitly metagame system to allow a player to exercise narrative control beyond the in-game actions of his character (action/fate/plot/etc. points are one good example, but surely not the only one). Doing that is inherently more balanced, preserves everyone's sense of reality, and makes it inherently optional.

Being a 4e fan, I naturally have no issues with metagame resources, in general.

I am not certain they should be excluded from class abilities, however, because (1) I'm not certain of the balance issues inherent in such a system and (2) I personally don't see a problem with the player having knowledge and access to mechanics that the character doesn't. But! This is another potential landmine issue that I'd rather skip around here, for fear of further derailment.

-O

 

[Sunseeker]

With regards to your concept of player fiat, I'm generally not a fan of it, but I like it under certain circumstances. The biggest problem I have is when it is incorporated into character abilities. This conflates the player and the character. The ability of a player to exercise fiat should not be dependent on what character he is playing (which I believe you would agree with), and thus I see no reason to incorporate it into any class mechanics. Give me a separate and explicitly metagame system to allow a player to exercise narrative control beyond the in-game actions of his character (action/fate/plot/etc. points are one good example, but surely not the only one). Doing that is inherently more balanced, preserves everyone's sense of reality, and makes it inherently optional.

I think there's a level wherein the player/character dichotomy is both too strong and too weak.

There are times when the instructions of what happens in a spell, a power, an attack or what have you are so rigid that it gives the player no room to play. It's no better than pushing a button in a video game. There are times when such things are so vague or lacking in any kind of prose as to leave a player drawing a blank on how to express their action.

I think all powers/spells/attacks should include some level of prose to assist in player narration, but shouldn't dominate it or ignore it.

 

[Stalker0]

I think there is a middle ground here, and it results primarily around the kinds of saves the fighter could provoke.

The main source of contention would like be wisdom (will) saves. For example, I don't think anyone would have a real beef with a fighter being able to stun or blind a monster, especially if a check was involved.

Its the "goading" types of attacks that I think is where people draw the line. The "hold the line" kind of power that could make a mind flayer rush the fighter (even if it required a wisdom check) just seems too extraordinary for many players.

But I think if we left fighter powers in the realm of the physical, stuns, blinds, forced movement, immobilization, etc...I think those can be explained even without the presence of magic to most people's satisfaction.