D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Corpsetaker]

I actually gave examples of things I think would be fitting and interesting for a mid to high level fighter to do in post #322. Here is a short recap:

*Getting expertise in athletics or treating a roll of 9 or less as a 10 for Athletics checks would be fitting and flavorful.
*Doubling the damage they deal to objects and structures is another such ability that could work.
*Flat out giving them a climb and swim speed so they don't need to make athletics checks to do those tasks would work too.
*Doubling their jumping distance so they could make amazing leaps would be cool.
*Doubling their carrying capacity so they can move large terrain would be amazing.

But the issue was never what can't a fighter accomplish. It was what can a fighter accomplish that some other character could not accomplish equally well if not better. I get that some people want the fighter to be at the bottom rung in terms of non-combat capability. I however would like for the party to every now and then say, "wow, glad we brought a fighter along to help us get past this (Insert exploration related challenge here)."

As things are, pretty much anyone with a decent strength score and training in athletics can contribute just as much to exploration as a fighter. All classes have access to the exact same non-combat abilities the fighter does (feats and skills). That effectively means the fighter is at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to any pillar other than combat. Basically every class gains some features that contribute either meaningfully or uniquely to non-combat scenarios such as spells, rituals, cantrips, expertise, etc.

1: With Athlete you basically have a climbing speed because your movement is no longer halved. You can basically climb at full speed.
2: With the same feat you are allowed to stand up from prone by only spending 5 feet of movement.
3: With the same feat you can make a running high jump by only moving 5 feet. Nothing wrong with that.
4: Why do you need to double their carrying capacity? No DM is going to allow you to carry 50 suits of plate mail even though if you were only looking at it weight wise you probably could but because of the sheer mass you couldn't store them on your person. With a strength of 20 you are able to carry a hell of a lot of weight (300).

5: Athletics. Your Strength (Athletics) check covers
difficult situations you encounter while climbing,
jumping, or swimming. Examples include the
following activities:
• You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid
hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface
while something is trying to knock you off.
• You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull
off a stunt midjump.
• You struggle to swim or stay afloat in treacherous currents,
storm-tossed waves, or areas o f thick seaweed.
Or another creature tries to push or pull you underwater
or otherwise interfere with your swimming.

6: So you want automatic success when it comes to Athletics I assume?

I would also like to turn your attention to this little bit.

Improvising an Action
Your character can do things not covered by the actions in
this chapter, such as breaking down doors, intimidating
enemies, sensing weaknesses in magical defenses, or calling
for a parley with a foe. The only limits to the actions you can
attempt are your imagination and your character’s ability
scores. See the descriptions of the ability scores in chapter 7
for inspiration as you improvise.
When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in
the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible
and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine
success or failure.

Have fun.

 

[Mistwell]

At the risk of swirling down an overly specific drain hole these are usually narrated is such a way that they do not lead to massive HP loss by multiple characters.

Really? That's not my experience at all. Heck, some classic 1e adventures resulted in TPKs (or could) from those things I mentioned.

I suspect this might be a chicken and egg thing - you might not be doing much exploration in your games in terms of challenges from exploration, and therefore you don't see much use from certain abilities during such challenges very often. Increase your sample size of such challenges, and I think you will see a more representative sample of the use of these abilities.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Really? That's not my experience at all. Heck, some classic 1e adventures resulted in TPKs (or could) from those things I mentioned.
.

Dwellers of the Forbidden City. Hello? Yes, I remember dying twice in that damn module. Once falling while trying to climb down the vines, and another falling with the smashed rope bridge. Note that both of these happen at the start of the adventure lol

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, congratulations, @Imaro. I concede the thread to you. Not because your arguments have won me over; I still feel the Fighter gets a total short shrift. I'm leaving because I'm not interested in discussing with someone who cannot argue without insulting the honesty, intellect, or preferences of the people he or she argues against. The repeatedly nasty, mean-spirited tone of your posts has finally become too much for me. I hope we can have more pleasant conversations in a different thread, on other topics--particularly because I really would have liked discussing some of the points you made here (such as the issue of choice).

Edit: I guess it was actually Sacrosanct that brought up that point (I had read that portion of the thread from my phone, and got some names mixed up). Still, the point was made.

 

[Pickles III]

Really? That's not my experience at all. Heck, some classic 1e adventures resulted in TPKs (or could) from those things I mentioned.

I suspect this might be a chicken and egg thing - you might not be doing much exploration in your games in terms of challenges from exploration, and therefore you don't see much use from certain abilities during such challenges very often. Increase your sample size of such challenges, and I think you will see a more representative sample of the use of these abilities.

I haven't played 1e in over 30 years but I don't remember anything like that happening. I remember a TPK caused by a roof collapse in one of the tournament dungeons but that was triggered by a fireball so must have been in combat so not sure if that counts.

I did not play it much - I moved on to thinks I preferred as soon as I discovered them. I really don't like the ie classic style of huge dungeon featuring lots of poking with poles & other meticulous Standard operating procedure style play, or the record keeping minutely detailed resource management side of the game which is what exploration conjures for me. I have very rarely got the excitement I get in fun combats from "exploration" though there are plenty of dull combats too.

 

[Imaro]

Well, congratulations, @Imaro. I concede the thread to you. Not because your arguments have won me over; I still feel the Fighter gets a total short shrift. I'm leaving because I'm not interested in discussing with someone who cannot argue without insulting the honesty, intellect, or preferences of the people he or she argues against. The repeatedly nasty, mean-spirited tone of your posts has finally become too much for me. I hope we can have more pleasant conversations in a different thread, on other topics--particularly because I really would have liked discussing some of the points you made here (such as the issue of choice).

I'm sorry you feel that way... but if you feel I insulted you or anyone else in this thread feel free to report the post to the mods... personally I'm not seeing it but I could be wrong.

 

[Ashkelon]

1: With Athlete you basically have a climbing speed because your movement is no longer halved. You can basically climb at full speed.

The point of a climb speed is not the swiftness of the climbing, but the removal of the need to roll. I would be fine with a climb speed of 1/2 your normal speed for example. By a certain level, a competent athlete should not really be impeded by mere cliffs. Imagine if The Man in Black had to make climb checks to climb the cliffs of insanity? Even with a 75% chance of success for every 50 feet climbed, he would have eventually failed and fallen to his death. Not very heroic is it? The athlete feat does nothing to affect your chance to successfully climb something. Not to mention that climb speed is pretty much only relevant in combat. Outside of combat, it doesn't normally matter whether or not it takes 5 or 10 minutes to climb an obstacle.

2: With the same feat you are allowed to stand up from prone by only spending 5 feet of movement.

Again, another purely combat oriented feature. It doesn't affect non-combat capabilities at all.

3: With the same feat you can make a running high jump by only moving 5 feet. Nothing wrong with that.

A very minor boost, as you only need to run 10 feet to make a running jump normally. Not to mention that in most non-combat situations, you can easily get a 10 ft run in before jumping.

4: Why do you need to double their carrying capacity? No DM is going to allow you to carry 50 suits of plate mail even though if you were only looking at it weight wise you probably could but because of the sheer mass you couldn't store them on your person. With a strength of 20 you are able to carry a hell of a lot of weight (300).

Exceptional carrying capacity allows you to interact with your environment in ways that are useful for exploration. No path across a chasm? Uproot a tree and make a bridge with it. A giant boulder in your way? Move it aside with your exceptional strength. Exceptional strength is one of the most common advantages of heroes from myth and legend, and is one of the most useful for exploration.

5: Athletics. Your Strength (Athletics) check covers
difficult situations you encounter while climbing,
jumping, or swimming. Examples include the
following activities:
• You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid
hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface
while something is trying to knock you off.
• You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull
off a stunt midjump.
• You struggle to swim or stay afloat in treacherous currents,
storm-tossed waves, or areas o f thick seaweed.
Or another creature tries to push or pull you underwater
or otherwise interfere with your swimming.

Sure, but anyone can do that. That isn't unique to the fighter. The wizard with 18 Strength and proficiency in athletics is just as good as the fighter at all of that.

6: So you want automatic success when it comes to Athletics I assume?

Nope, not really. Expertise or reliable talent in athletics would certainly help the fighter in the exploration pillar, but strictly needed. I would rather have unique capabilities and talents than automatic success on athletics checks.

I would also like to turn your attention to this little bit.

Improvising an Action
Your character can do things not covered by the actions in
this chapter, such as breaking down doors, intimidating
enemies, sensing weaknesses in magical defenses, or calling
for a parley with a foe. The only limits to the actions you can
attempt are your imagination and your character’s ability
scores. See the descriptions of the ability scores in chapter 7
for inspiration as you improvise.
When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in
the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible
and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine
success or failure.

Have fun.

And again, how is that unique to the fighter. The fighter is just as good at improvising as anyone else. Everyone else also happens to get unique and powerful abilities for outside of combat.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And again, how is that unique to the fighter. The fighter is just as good at improvising as anyone else. Everyone else also happens to get unique and powerful abilities for outside of combat.

The fighter is better at improvising. Most improvised actions require an ability check without proficiency, and fighters gain a bonus to that. Fighters also have higher stats than anyone else.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The fighter is better at improvising. Most improvised actions require an ability check without proficiency, and fighters gain a bonus to that. Fighters also have higher stats than anyone else.

Having no other option doesn't make you better at improvising, it just makes you more dependent upon it. Champion Fighters gain a small bonus to untrained ability checks, with 3 out of six abilities. That's not very significant.

And improvising isn't always a skill check, sometimes it's talking the DM into ruling in favor of an off-label use of a spell - and the potential there is vast.

 

[Ashkelon]

The fighter is better at improvising. Most improvised actions require an ability check without proficiency, and fighters gain a bonus to that. Fighters also have higher stats than anyone else.

That is actually rather debatable honestly.

First off, I think you are wrong about improvised actions. You can improvise with Athletics and Acrobatics. Most improvised actions will have proficiency bonus included, so remarkable athlete won't apply. And, yes the fighter gets 2 more ASIs than anyone else, but they don't gain their first until level 6, and their second until level 14. So for the first 5 levels of the game, you have just as many stat boosts as everyone else. For levels 6-13, you only have +2 stats compared to everyone else.

Secondly, with ability scores capped at 20, the fighter is no better at improvising STR related tasks than a STR valor bard, a STR bladelock, or anyone else who decided to go for a 20 Strength.

Third, many classes gain ways to outshine the fighter at STR related tasks. Any cleric with guidance can actually better at strength checks than you. A warlock with hex can be better at strength constests than you. Anyone willing to spend a slot on enlarge will have advantage to STR checks and doubles their carrying capacity, giving them greater means of improvising. A moon druid can turn into creatures with more Strength and greater carrying capacity. A bard or rogue could have expertise, giving them greater Athletics totals for better improvisation. A barbarian eventually gains primal might and +4 STR.

So, all in all, the fighter really doesn't win out all that much with the whole "better at improvising" thing. At best, he gets a +1 bonus to his STR rolls a little bit faster or a +1 bonus to DEX rolls when he has maxed out STR. Hardly what I would consider being better at everyone else when it comes to improvising.