D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: Martial Healing, Fighter Utility, and Ranger Challenges

[Klaus]

As someone who only played one 4E campaign, I don't see that edition as adding any sacred cows. That's my bias. But, I recognize that to the 4E fan, the warlord is probably their biggest sacred cow. I find this unfortunate, because I like the idea of the broader fighter class that consumes the warlord. I feel that gives the fighter an identity that it has always been lacking.

And it occurs to me that this is probably exactly what's bothering 4E fans. It's not that ideas aren't being borrowed from 4E. It's that the designers are like me. They are treating 4E as an experiment full of neat ideas, but with nothing sacred.

I'm a 4e fan ( ), and I see no problem with "warlording" being included in the fighter class, as a possible build. Specially if the fighter can "dip" into "warlording" without having to multiclass.

 

[Ratskinner]

emphasis added

Yes, the rogue having no mechanical ability at all in combat balances them with the fighter having no mechanical ability at all out of combat.

There may be a slight error in that analysis.

I must have missed the part where Fighters don't get to pick backgrounds, and aren't allowed to make ability checks outside of combat.

We are talking about degrees here. Fighters are THE class that focuses on the combat pillar of the game. Being THE premiere class in that pillar, they necessarily have to give a little bit in the other pillars.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm a 4e fan ( ), and I see no problem with "warlording" being included in the fighter class, as a possible build. Specially if the fighter can "dip" into "warlording" without having to multiclass.

I would like the same. I dislike the warlord concept, but I would be much much more willing to accept it as a fighter's (or everyone's) possibility rather than a class of its own.

 

[Klaus]

I would like the same. I dislike the warlord concept, but I would be much much more willing to accept it as a fighter's (or everyone's) possibility rather than a class of its own.

I have no problem with the warlord as a class, but a new edition is a chance to streamline things, and I see this as an opportonity not only to keep class bloat from happening, but also to expand the possibilities of a class.

When 4e came out, the warlord class made sense. But as the edition progressed, the introduction of subclasses like the Slayer and Knight signalled the possibility of a single class having more than one possible build (further explored in the dual roles of the Berserker and Bladesinger). In hindsight, the warlord could've been a subclass of Fighter, akin to the Slayer and the Knight.

 

[Sage Genesis]

We are talking about degrees here. Fighters are THE class that focuses on the combat pillar of the game. Being THE premiere class in that pillar, they necessarily have to give a little bit in the other pillars.

This might've been a convincing argument if Fighters were actually better at combat than their peers. Barbarians, Monks, and Rogues are all highly competitive with the Fighter in terms of combat ability. And I say that conservatively. In my opinion, all three of them are actually way better than the Fighter, but I accept that opinions may differ on that one. However, Monks and Rogues do have more non-combat utility than Fighters. (Barbarians are roughly on par.)

As it stands, the Fighter has the lowest of all non-combat utility. That doesn't have to mean "none at all", because he does get to pick a background of course. But it is the lowest, possibly in shared place with the Barbarian. But the Fighter gets nothing to compensate for this. The flavor text is "fighting specialist", but in truth he's pretty much mediocre compared to the other 5e classes.

 

[Iosue]

This might've been a convincing argument if Fighters were actually better at combat than their peers. Barbarians, Monks, and Rogues are all highly competitive with the Fighter in terms of combat ability. And I say that conservatively. In my opinion, all three of them are actually way better than the Fighter, but I accept that opinions may differ on that one. However, Monks and Rogues do have more non-combat utility than Fighters. (Barbarians are roughly on par.)

As it stands, the Fighter has the lowest of all non-combat utility. That doesn't have to mean "none at all", because he does get to pick a background of course. But it is the lowest, possibly in shared place with the Barbarian. But the Fighter gets nothing to compensate for this. The flavor text is "fighting specialist", but in truth he's pretty much mediocre compared to the other 5e classes.

Very much agreed. I could understand if fighter's were that much better than other classes at fighting, but every time they are put way in front, everyone else is bumped up to keep up with him. So the fighter's combat dice soon spread to the rogue, cleric, monk, barbarian... And what is especially annoying is that the extra skills the other classes get are essentially like bonus backgrounds. The monk and fighter have both dedicated themselves to fighting, but only the monk gets to choose two bonus flavorful bonus skills. The Cleric and Wizard both get bonus knowledge skills, just because of the popular conception of their classes. But for this the fighter gets none.

There's no good reason for the cleric, wizard, or monk to have more skills than the fighter. The Rogue, sure, that's his thing. But clerics and wizards get variety through their spells lists that give them non-combat abilities. It seems to me that if you gave the fighter the same number of starting skills as them, then the fighter would have the slight edge in fighting, while the casters have a bit more versatility in non-combat situations, in exchange for pure combat power. As it is right now, the fighter's edge in combat is thin, and in addition to their spellbased versatility, casters get extra knowledge. I don't even know why the monk is so skill-y.

 

[Nikosandros]

I actually disagree with the whole premise that being good/bad at combat is balanced by expertise or lack thereof in other areas. I like the 4e model in which all classes are equally adept at combat (even though in any given encounter some characters will have a chance to outshine others). I'd like to extend that with a solid system for exploration and social interactions in which all classes may contribute.

 

[GX.Sigma]

This might've been a convincing argument if Fighters were actually better at combat than their peers. Barbarians, Monks, and Rogues are all highly competitive with the Fighter in terms of combat ability.

Well, that's the problem right there, isn't it? Fighters should be better fighters than Barbarians, Monks, and especially Rogues!

I actually disagree with the whole premise that being good/bad at combat is balanced by expertise or lack thereof in other areas. I like the 4e model in which all classes are equally adept at combat (even though in any given encounter some characters will have a chance to outshine others). I'd like to extend that with a solid system for exploration and social interactions in which all classes may contribute.

They're kind of locked into it by tradition. The definition of the Fighter is "guy who is best at fighting." The definition of the Rogue is "guy who isn't as good at fighting, but has lots of special skills." If you make all classes equal in all pillars, you end up with more of a storygame (which is what 4e largely was), as opposed to the strictly first-person roleplaying of 0e-3e.

 

[Li Shenron]

Very much agreed. I could understand if fighter's were that much better than other classes at fighting, but every time they are put way in front, everyone else is bumped up to keep up with him

...

There's no good reason for the cleric, wizard, or monk to have more skills than the fighter. The Rogue, sure, that's his thing.

I agree. I think it would be best to remove all those bonus skills to non-Rogues. They are not really needed, but unfortunately every now and then both the gamers and the designers are carried away by thoughts such as "it makes no sense for a Cleric not to have Knowledge Religion". It is a reasonable thought, but it's not true enough. What happens if your Cleric doesn't have Kn:Religion? The Cleric still obviously knows about his religion, just like a Wizard knows about his spells, but he doesn't know about others. And should that be mandatory to all Clerics? In the real world, most priests are actually concerned only with their religion, not with others, they don't need to know the rites, festivities, hierarchy and rules of somebody else's religion. I have played at least a couple of Clerics in 3e without taking the Kn:Religion skill, and they worked totally fine. Giving Knowledge Religion to all Clerics means to take one common archetypal element of clerics ("being versed in all religions of the world") and change it from "common" to "mandatory". Incidentally, in some campaign settings this can even be detrimental, if the settings wants religions to be esoteric and hostile to each other.

Wizard's mandatory/automatic Knowledge Arcana is a bit more understandable to me, at least because the Wizard class is based on the archetype of the arcane scholar who gets all her powers from books, and alternative archetypes are moved to different classes such as Sorcerer and Warlock.

At least the current playtest packets offer some freedom, because you don't have to have exactly Religion and Arcane respectively, you can choose something else. But then again, why not just saying that Clerics and Wizards are generally more educated and have access to libraries, and therefore granting them any one Knowledge skill of choice? It would be better, although I still believe it would be even better to don't give them any bonus skill at all.

They don't really need more skills than the other classes, and this creates only an escalation of "if Clerics get 5, why Fighters get only 4?". If we think that 4 skills are too few, let's increase the skills granted by Backgrounds to 5 or 6. I think 4 are plenty enough (especially considering that most skills are just bonuses, and can be used untrained), and it should be left to each gaming group to increase this number.

 

[Sage Genesis]

I actually disagree with the whole premise that being good/bad at combat is balanced by expertise or lack thereof in other areas. I like the 4e model in which all classes are equally adept at combat (even though in any given encounter some characters will have a chance to outshine others). I'd like to extend that with a solid system for exploration and social interactions in which all classes may contribute.

I like 4e a lot, but even there the Fighter is kind of behind in terms of non-combat powers. He's got the least amount of skills, no aptitude for rituals, and no Utility powers that are really applicable outside of combat. The Fighter sort of makes up for it though, by virtue of being really, really good at combat.

But your statement is a bit off. Being bad at combat is not balanced by expertise in other areas. I feel that as long as all characters can have a certain baseline competence in all three pillars, it's alright to make them a few degrees better at specific ones. The Rogue is competent at combat, but his focus is clearly more on the areas of exploration and interaction (depending on how you build him). The Monk is slightly less good at these things than the Rogue, but his supernatural powers allow him to be a bit better at combat. So that balances out. The Fighter though? Man, that guy only has minimal competence in all three pillars. He has nothing special that elevates him in terms of exploration/interaction, and his combat abilities (mainly maneuvers) are worse than the Monk's and Barbarian's.