D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Imaro]

So again, I will ask, what can the fighter bring to a non combat encounter that another PC could not bring near equally well if not better?

Let's say you are making a party and one player is undecided but wants to contribute meaningfully outside of combat.

He could choose a war cleric who while it has 4 less strength than a fighter, it actually succeeds at strength related tasks more often than the fighter due to guidance (hell even with 4 less STR and no guidance that only amounts to succeeding 50% vs 60%, not really a huge deal). The cleric also has spells.



He could choose a moon Druid who not only has spells, but can also turn into animals with greater strength than a fighter, turn into animals with flight, or turn into stealthy animals.

He could choose a valor bard with expertise in Strength who succeeds at STR related tasks more often than a fighter and he also has spells.

He could choose a rogue and take expertise in Athletics giving him a greater chance of success than a fighter at Athletics related tasks.

He could choose a warlock and take the at-will jump invocation giving him the ability to bypass many physical challenges.

He could choose a wizard who while not being the most capable at physical exploration tasks, he does have access to many low level spells that can simply bypass such challenges. He also has access to spells for other types of exploration related challenges. He also has powerful rituals like find familiar, unseen servant, and the like that can help accomplish exploration tasks.

Or he could choose a fighter. What does the fighter bring to exploration that is truly useful? He might have a Strength bonus 2 or 3 points higher than anyone else in the party...maybe. That means he succeeds at those tasks about 10 to 15% more than the next best party member at pure Strength checks. But, that ignores the actual non combat utility capabilities of those other classes. Those classes all have spells, or expertise, or wild shape, or rituals, that are far more important than a small boost to STR related tasks.

Let me be honest... trying to present the entirety of the fighter's non-combat effectiveness as Strength checks is both disingenuous and wrong (especially with all the examples that have been given throughout the thread that lie outside "Strength check"). If anything all you're showing me now is that everyone can contribute in non-combat effectively... especially if you think jumping far is going to overcome more or even an equal amount of obstacles (swimming, climbing, avoiding/enduring traps, etc.) overall than what the fighter brings to the table.

A player picks the fighter because he wants to be a top tier combatant who can also contribute effectively (not optimally) to the other 3 pillars.

He does this through...
1. His attributes and the extra raise(s) he can afford to spend on them.

2. Taking one or two bonus feats (Alertness... now my fighter can never be surprised or Dungeon Delver... I spot almost everything)

3. Through fighter abilities that work in non-combat situations (Indomitable: re-roll a saving throw/ Action Surge: Two actions in the time it would take another character to make one /Remarkable Athlete a bonus to all physical ability checks...

4. By selecting the EK subclass and thus getting access to spells...

5. His high level of durability and hit points which actually give him a cushion to fail in the exploration pillar that is greater than most of the other classes...

if he wants his primary (optimal) contribution to be in the exploration or social pillars and is ok not contributing as much in the combat pillar then the fighter class probably isn't what he's looking for or he needs to devote the lionshare of his feats to this... But then the name of the class should kind of tip him off to that. Basically the fighter doesn't have to be better than the other classes at non-combat because he's better than them in combat and he can still contribute effectively to non-combat.

EDIT: Just curious... can any other class do what Action Surge allows the fighter to do at such an early level?

 

[Tony Vargas]

So again, I will ask, what can the fighter bring to a non combat encounter that another PC could not bring near equally well if not better?

Let's say you are making a party and one player is undecided but wants to contribute meaningfully outside of combat.

He could choose a war cleric who while it has 4 less strength than a fighter, it actually succeeds at strength related tasks more often than the fighter due to guidance

When he can pre-cast Guidance before making the check and has nothing else to concentrate on.
Though out of combat it's not like it's inconvenient to maintain concentration, but re-casting it every 60 seconds sure doubles-down on the annoyance factor, and I'm sure concentration makes Guidance dweomer non grata in combat.

 

[tyrlaan]

I'm pretty much done arguing this one. It's clear to me what the deficiency is and I feel the counterpoints raised don't really counter the statements being made to explain the fighter's deficiency, but rather misinterpretations of it.

And that's fine. I don't really need the ENWorld community to agree with me on this - no one here is about to whip up a new PHB or something. And how one person plays is going to be different to how the next one does, and so on.


The last thing I'll say on this topic is to once again attempt to iterate the issue lest anyone claim I never explained myself.


The fighter is deficient in non-combat pillar support. This is evident due to the fighter's...
1) Heavy reliance on tools available to all PCs - skills and feats
2) Extremely minimal specialized mechanics the class possesses that can be clearly used in non-combat scenarios
3) Best fighter-specific option is to pick up wizard spells, which is wizard-specific, not fighter-specific

Clearly the fighter can do things in non-combat scenarios. However the game as written doesn't provide much in the way of making the fighter feel distinct in these scenarios.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I play a shadow monk as my main PC. They get PWT at level 3. And I disagree strongly that ki isn't really a limiting factor. It's hugely limiting. It costs 2 ki, and you only get ki back after a short rest. Most everything a monk does is around ki management. Unless you grant players a short rest whenever they want, and after each encounter (which I find highly unlikely from my own gaming experiences), it's most certainly not free. I'm out of ki almost every time by the chance I get an opportunity to rest for an hour uninterrupted, and I never use PWT. Almost always flurry and patient defense, and often darkvision when I need it.

Different playstyles. I've seen flurry used maybe twice. It's only a 33% boost at most. Mostly I've seen monks shadow jump and throw darts/shoot arrows, neither of which costs ki.

You'll get a way better damage boost out of poisons. Given how good you are at scouting, you should very frequently see trouble coming in plenty of time to poison your weapons if the threat calls for it. Sure that costs money and can't be done for easy fights, but the DMG treasure tables are extremely generous with cash.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Apparently... all casters have the exact spell to overcome any particular obstacle or challenge at the exact moment they need it... Thus making the fighter class as a whole unnecessary outside of combat... of course if you have the exact spell to overcome any particular obstacle at hand any time you need it... well that kinda (theoretically at least) obviates the need for all other classes outside of combat... Of course this hasn't been my experience at all in actual play.

You know, I'm seeing a bit of a disconnect here.

On the one hand, the Fighter is responsible for being unable to contribute to combat if she doesn't intentionally pick up optional resources and cleverly leverage every universal (albeit more frequent) element she has. On the other, the Wizard (or other caster, but it's most extreme with the Wizard) is not, and in fact is expected to severely pigeonhole himself with spells that are only useful specifically in his area of expertise and nowhere else. He's also supposed to go full-bore, completely preparing for the day before he's even left the bedroom/tent.

One of these things is not like the other. Particularly because non-combat cantrips get almost no attention either, despite the fact that I've had people specifically argue that it is completely normal, even common, for casters to intentionally avoid taking a single offensive spell or cantrip.

At 2nd level, a Wizard has eight spells known (you get six 1st-level spells from Wiz 1, and an additional two spells of up to the highest spell slot you have for every level thereafter.) The list for first-level spells is full of nice non-combat goodies, and (somewhat to my surprise, actually) doesn't contain THAT many combat spells. If you limit it only to spells which cause damage, you're going to run out of possible spells before you run out of spells you can learn. That is, the list of "damage-dealing spells" appears to be Burning Hands, Chromatic Orb, Magic Missile, Ray of Sickness, Thunderwave, and Witch Bolt--and several of these would be somewhat redundant, e.g. Magic Missile, Ray of Sickness, and Witch Bolt all achieve pretty similar ends so it would be an odd choice to take all three. Just grabbing Chromatic Orb (which lets you choose a damage type, making it a VERY flexible combat spell) and Magic Missile, and *maybe* Thunderwave, should be enough to sate any Evoker, and there's only a couple defensive spells too (Shield and Mage Armor). Plus, Mage Armor and Witch Bolt are frequently derided as not being worth the slot to cast them, though the former becomes better...once your 1st-level slots aren't needed for anything but utility!

So even with a well-equipped combat mage (Chromatic Orb, *one* of Magic Missile/Ray of Sickness/Burning Hands, Thunderwave, Shield, Mage Armor), we're still left with one spell to learn just from the initial 6, and we get two more after that. A Wizard genuinely trying to be able to do a little of everything could easily have gone Chrom Orb, MM, Mage Armor, Shield, and then pick up *four* non-combat spells, presumably picking spells that don't all cover very similar situations, e.g. not picking only spells which apply to physical challenges, but say Jump, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, and Disguise Self ~or~ Charm Person. This makes a Wizard who can majorly contribute to (say) 3 combats, two physical challenges, and a social interaction issue all with spells. And because you don't have to prepare Find Familiar once you've got the familiar, this Wizard almost CAN cast every single one of these spells--7 spells, able to prepare 5 of them. Maybe prepare Chrom Orb, Disk, Shield, and Disguise Self, and leave the fifth slot open to adapt to unforseen circumstances.

Oh, and this Wizard also has 3 cantrips (or four, if the right kind of elf). Which could easily be Fire Bolt, Prestidigitation, and Mage Hand--giving an incredible amount of utility while providing a solid, reliable damage source (that will scale with level to out-do first-level spells, eventually). The enormous potential of the non-combat cantrips always seems to get lost in this debate, and I'm not really sure why.

So, I ask you: why is it okay to blame the Fighter for not picking up feats, but it's not okay to blame the Wizard for failing to learn useful non-combat spells? And that doesn't even get into the Cleric and Druid, who can prepare anything on their class list, in addition to having 2 free prepared spells for every odd spell level they can cast (+2 to +10 prepared spells). (I will note, however, that the Bard, Sorcerer, and Warlock aren't quite as well-off; there's a reason I haven't mentioned them, because their varyingly-limited spell selection does make it harder to pull this off, though Warlock in particular has ways to get around this.)

 

[Pickles III]

Funny... action surge seems much more versatile.

You would think so but I can't think of anything that you are likely to want to do that a thief could not do EVERY round. I am, open to suggestions as there is obviously a failure of my imagination.

 

[Imaro]

You would think so but I can't think of anything that you are likely to want to do that a thief could not do EVERY round. I am, open to suggestions as there is obviously a failure of my imagination.

Search for and disable a trap in one round??

EDIT: This was actually brought up earlier in the thread...

 

[Pickles III]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] Thieves can do that. Vanilla rogues are not so lucky its true

Edit: sorry for slightly changing the goalposts .

 

[Imaro]

You know, I'm seeing a bit of a disconnect here.

On the one hand, the Fighter is responsible for being unable to contribute to combat if she doesn't intentionally pick up optional resources and cleverly leverage every universal (albeit more frequent) element she has. On the other, the Wizard (or other caster, but it's most extreme with the Wizard) is not, and in fact is expected to severely pigeonhole himself with spells that are only useful specifically in his area of expertise and nowhere else. He's also supposed to go full-bore, completely preparing for the day before he's even left the bedroom/tent.

I'm also seeing a disconnect here... because now, once again the claim that the fighter cannot contribute to non-combat at all without optional resources, etc arises... when this is patently false. skills from class and background alone allow him to contribute. As to your second point no one is saying the wizard cannot have non-combat spells... what's being said is that he doesn't have the versatility in spell selection where every exploration problem can be approached like that. As an example, how does Jump or Spider Climb help a wizard swim? If he has Jump... hows does that help him climb? If he has Spider Climb... how does he jump. If he has Spider Climb, Levitate and Jump how does that help him avoid or resist a room that fills with poisonous gas? There's a trade off of versatility and flexibility when acquiring a limited number of spells and depending on them to carry you through the exploration pillar, especially when your physical abilities are lacking... but it's usually ignored in these discussions.

One of these things is not like the other. Particularly because non-combat cantrips get almost no attention either, despite the fact that I've had people specifically argue that it is completely normal, even common, for casters to intentionally avoid taking a single offensive spell or cantrip.

Boy are you telling me...and yes we've discussed cantrips... guidance is a cantrip, but it takes up your concentration slot (can't use other concentration spells while maintaining it & damage/extreme conditions can cause you to loose it)... takes an action to cast (can't be cast in a surprise or unexpected situation), requires touch to cast on someone (so again you need to be near enough to cast it on whoever needs it) and it literally gives a +2/2.5 bonus on average... That's basically the bonus of a trained proficiency at low levels... I'd rather just have the trained proficiency than have to jump through those hoops and take up a casters concentration for a +2.5 bonus to a roll...

At 2nd level, a Wizard has eight spells known (you get six 1st-level spells from Wiz 1, and an additional two spells of up to the highest spell slot you have for every level thereafter.) The list for first-level spells is full of nice non-combat goodies, and (somewhat to my surprise, actually) doesn't contain THAT many combat spells. If you limit it only to spells which cause damage, you're going to run out of possible spells before you run out of spells you can learn. That is, the list of "damage-dealing spells" appears to be Burning Hands, Chromatic Orb, Magic Missile, Ray of Sickness, Thunderwave, and Witch Bolt--and several of these would be somewhat redundant, e.g. Magic Missile, Ray of Sickness, and Witch Bolt all achieve pretty similar ends so it would be an odd choice to take all three. Just grabbing Chromatic Orb (which lets you choose a damage type, making it a VERY flexible combat spell) and Magic Missile, and *maybe* Thunderwave, should be enough to sate any Evoker, and there's only a couple defensive spells too (Shield and Mage Armor). Plus, Mage Armor and Witch Bolt are frequently derided as not being worth the slot to cast them, though the former becomes better...once your 1st-level slots aren't needed for anything but utility!

So even with a well-equipped combat mage (Chromatic Orb, *one* of Magic Missile/Ray of Sickness/Burning Hands, Thunderwave, Shield, Mage Armor), we're still left with one spell to learn just from the initial 6, and we get two more after that. A Wizard genuinely trying to be able to do a little of everything could easily have gone Chrom Orb, MM, Mage Armor, Shield, and then pick up *four* non-combat spells, presumably picking spells that don't all cover very similar situations, e.g. not picking only spells which apply to physical challenges, but say Jump, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, and Disguise Self ~or~ Charm Person. This makes a Wizard who can majorly contribute to (say) 3 combats, two physical challenges, and a social interaction issue all with spells. And because you don't have to prepare Find Familiar once you've got the familiar, this Wizard almost CAN cast every single one of these spells--7 spells, able to prepare 5 of them. Maybe prepare Chrom Orb, Disk, Shield, and Disguise Self, and leave the fifth slot open to adapt to unforseen circumstances.

Seriously... Jump allows one to contribute in a meaningful way to exploration but being trained in Athletics with a high Strength doesn't. I'm not even understanding the criteria for meaningful or effective anymore. FInd Familiar and Disguise self I'll give you... but I'm also not understanding how Tenser's allows one to contribute to non-combat pillars effectively either... carrying stuff is now meaningfully contributing to non-combat?

Oh, and this Wizard also has 3 cantrips (or four, if the right kind of elf). Which could easily be Fire Bolt, Prestidigitation, and Mage Hand--giving an incredible amount of utility while providing a solid, reliable damage source (that will scale with level to out-do first-level spells, eventually). The enormous potential of the non-combat cantrips always seems to get lost in this debate, and I'm not really sure why.

Prestidigitation and Mage Hand... incredible amount of utility? I am seeing quite the double standard if we're claiming Prestidigitation and Mage Hand give an "incredible" amount of utility... Mage hand is cool in niche situations where I can't reach something... but I'm not seeing these examples as affording the type of contribution, flexibilty and versatility a fighter with a high athletics brings to the table...

So, I ask you: why is it okay to blame the Fighter for not picking up feats, but it's not okay to blame the Wizard for failing to learn useful non-combat spells? And that doesn't even get into the Cleric and Druid, who can prepare anything on their class list, in addition to having 2 free prepared spells for every odd spell level they can cast (+2 to +10 prepared spells). (I will note, however, that the Bard, Sorcerer, and Warlock aren't quite as well-off; there's a reason I haven't mentioned them, because their varyingly-limited spell selection does make it harder to pull this off, though Warlock in particular has ways to get around this.)

I don't think anyone is doing this. What people are saying is that spells usually are kind of niche, one specific situation type of things and it's very unlikely, without a significant nerf in combat capability, that a caster is going to be able to cover the wide area of the other pillars that the fighter's high physical abilities and proficiency in athletics will... and this i before we even get into the bonus feats and class abilities... What we've said is if a fighter wants to be more focused on the exploration pillar or social pillar he has the resources to do so.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro Thieves can do that. Vanilla rogues are not so lucky its true

Edit: sorry for slightly changing the goalposts .

Okay... stabilize two fallen comrades in the same round... My point is that the Rogue's bonus action is limited to certain actions while the fighter's isn't.

Edit: and even though we're discussing non-combat let's not forget it can be used in combat as an extra attack as well...