D&D 5E So what's exactly wrong with the fighter?

[Hussar]

I've had a similar thought before. When you decide to play a mage, you choose which gameplay elements you want to specialize in through your spell selection: whether you want to play a combat-focused blaster or an illusionist or a utility caster or whatever, those all fall under the category of "wizard" or "sorcerer". But when you decide to play a martial character, you make that choice at the earlier point of class selection. Picking the fighter class is not, in this sense, equivalent to picking the wizard class; it's equivalent to picking the wizard class and then picking a heavy load of nuke spells, because you're telling the game system that you want to focus on your combat strength.

Now, this is less true in 5th Edition than in previous editions because the background system gives fighters a much more open selection of skills. I have a player who always played barbarians in 3E and is now playing a fighter in 5E. What made 3E barbarians special to him was not their speed or their rage, but their extra class skills and skill points - in particular, he really liked having Wilderness Lore/Survival. Since 5E fighters have been brought up to the same level as barbarians on the skill front, he's branched out, and is really enjoying his character.

But that's an aside. Even in 5E, the fighter class still has a distinct focus on, well, fighting, while the wizard determines its focus through spells. My question is this: is there anything wrong with one model or the other? On the martial side, you pick your specialization through class; on the magic side, you pick it within your class. Sure, there might be balance issues in the details of the class features, but that's not what I'm talking about. Generally speaking, is there any reason to prefer broader or narrower classes?

Nope, there's nothing wrong with one or the other model. But, why should the models be an either/or here? I can certainly specialise my wizard at chargen - choose Sorcerer or Warlock. And, then afterwards, I get to specialise again through my spell selection.

Why not add that level of breadth to fighters? In answer to you question, I'd say that the best of both worlds is to give the option of broader or narrower to all class types.

Heck, "broader" and "narrower" might not even be the best way to conceptualize the distinction here. The fighter is focused on combat dominance, but has very broad options for how it fights. Call it broad means to a narrow end. The wizard can choose a lot of different focuses, but its particular spellcasting mechanic remains the same. Call it narrow means to a broad end. The fighter is defined by its end; the wizard by its means. So the question becomes, is there any reason to prefer end-defined classes or means-defined classes?

Actually, that's part of the problem. Fighter's don't have broad options for how it fights. You choose your specialisation at chargen, choose your weapons at chargen, and that's pretty much the sum total of decision points for the life of that character. If you choose Protection based sword and board fighters, you can't really pick up two weapon fighting and archery style later on down the line. You do get to pick one extra style at 10th (?), but, that's a pretty pale number of choices compared to any caster who can change its specialisation every day and add additional depth to those choices every level with additional spells. Heck, wizards don't even need to wait for new levels. If they find a spell book, they get to add new choices right away.

I mentioned earlier about a fighter being able to change its specialisation after a long rest with the idea that the fighter knows all specialisations at chargen, but can only focus on one at a time. It was a rough idea and certainly not without bumps. But, funnily enough, people can't wrap their heads around the fighter deciding that today he's fighting Capa Vera, and tomorrow he's doing Drunken Master, but have no problem with the wizard completely changing his entire suite of options every 8 hours.

Magic must be pretty darn easy to learn.

I gather the fighter is the mundane fighting man in D&D. They want to keep it that way. It's the straightforward, simplest class to play. I imagine WotC wants to keep such a class as a choice because some players want that.

And that's not the issue. I agree, fighter should be one of, if not the, simplest option in the game. Fantastic. But, why can't we have a simple fighter alongside a complex one. One thing that Essentials 4e did prove is that you can change up the options of a character without changing the power levels. Essentials fighters were far, far simpler than PHB fighters, but, neither was stronger than the other.

 

[Salamandyr]

Let's give credit to 5e a little bit. Fighters have a specialization, it's true, but it's a lot less extreme than in previous (*cough, cough* 3rd) editions. While my fighter is a great weapon fighter, he doesn't lose all that much if he plies his bow for a few rounds, or switches two sword and shield for a combat.

Compare this to 3rd, where the majority of a fighters resources would be bent to being good with exactly one, and only one weapon, and if you took that weapon away from them, all those abilities became useless.

In 5e, if you take away a fighters favorite toy, he's still got all of his other abilities to use; he's only at a minor disadvantage by not using his preferred style. It's not quite up to the level of "The fighter gains mastery in all martial arts" that I would like, but it's closer than we've had in previous editions.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Nope, there's nothing wrong with one or the other model. But, why should the models be an either/or here? I can certainly specialise my wizard at chargen - choose Sorcerer or Warlock. And, then afterwards, I get to specialise again through my spell selection.

I think I was unclear here. When you pick wizard, sorcerer, or warlock, you are not at that point telling the system that you want to excel in combat over exploration or interaction. You make that decision only when you pick spells.

When you pick fighter, you are telling the system that you want to excel in combat over exploration or interaction. If you want to specialize in one of the other two, you pick rogue, ranger, paladin, or barbarian.

In other words, the system has two different ways of translating a basic character concept into a PC. If your concept is "mage who blows stuff up" or "mage who tricks people", that concept does not determine your class. Wizard, sorcerer, and warlock can all take the character in either direction depending on the choices you make later in character creation; instead the classes determine the mechanics and flavor of how you do whatever it is you want to do. On the other hand, if you concept is "non-magical guy who chops stuff up" or "non-magical guy who tricks people", that concept does determine your class. The former says fighter, the latter says rogue. But the classes do less to determine the mechanics and flavor of how you do what you want to do; for them, that is what is determined later in character creation, by equipment and skill choices.

So "fighters" include everyone from cavaliers to archers, but they're always going to be focused on fighting: broad means, narrow end. Whereas "wizards" are all fairly wimpy fellows who cast spells from spellbooks, but the contents of their spellbooks can focus them in a variety of different directions: narrow means, broad end.


In short, what I'm talking about here is a much earlier stage in the class development process than questions of specific resource mechanics. It's about basic class conceptualization. "What sort of characters should a given class be able to make? What's the best way to break down character concepts between classes and options?"

 

[Hussar]

Me, I just want a martial fighter, as in no spell casting, that has as many options as an Eldritch Knight.

Why is it as soon as something has access to spells, it gains a boat load of options, and everyone's groovy with that, but, adding options to purely martial classes is such a big deal?

 

[Celtavian]

Me, I just want a martial fighter, as in no spell casting, that has as many options as an Eldritch Knight.

Why is it as soon as something has access to spells, it gains a boat load of options, and everyone's groovy with that, but, adding options to purely martial classes is such a big deal?

Because magic is supposed to be magical as in able to do things mundane skills cannot. Why is that so hard to accept?

 

[Bluenose]

Because magic is supposed to be magical as in able to do things mundane skills cannot. Why is that so hard to accept?

Is it also 'supposed' to be able to do things that mundane skill can, but better? What mundane skills do you accept as beyond the ability of people who aren't highly trained in a particular area? How much training do you believe a competent fighter requires? And most importantly, why do high level characters have to use mundane skills in mundane ways that don't have a wider variety of applications than low-level characters get?

 

[Corpsetaker]

Me, I just want a martial fighter, as in no spell casting, that has as many options as an Eldritch Knight.

Why is it as soon as something has access to spells, it gains a boat load of options, and everyone's groovy with that, but, adding options to purely martial classes is such a big deal?

You have that in 5th edition so I'm not sure exactly what more you want?

Have you actually played a Fighter for several levels?

 

[Tony Vargas]

They had a mechanic for limiting wizards. No one usually followed it. You were supposed to limit the number of spells the wizard had in his spellbook.

The old max spells knowable? I recall people using it, not that it matter much - and if you ever managed to get a 19 INT, no limit.

Cost also somewhat limited the wizard at lower level. At higher levels cost became miniscule compared to resources. You often found a few opponent spellbooks that filled out your book quite nicely.

Nod. And if you had more than one wizard, you could trade spells with eachother, further making them similar but for Specialty.

5E takes more proactive measures limiting casters with the Concentration mechanic and a much more limited spell selection on each list at this point. 5E wizards are much more limited in versatility.

Not so much. Concentration mostly limits stacking, which 5e already presents limited opportunities for. Concentration spells also seem to be compensated with fairly substantial power, relatively speaking. So you cast one very effective concentration spell instead of pre-casting lots of longer duration ones - just means you need fewer slots to be fully contributing all day.

And 5e versatility is very high in a mechanical sense. You choose the spells you learn, choose spells to prep each day, then cast them spontaneously - that combines the versatility of 3.5 wizards and sorcerers into one very generous mechanic. On top of that, you have no-slot-cost rituals. Only the relative lack of bloated spell lists counts against the 5e caster's versatility.

I want this game to mirror the fantasy genre.

Then you want a game of mighty martial heroes consistently defeating terrifying monsters, including evil NPC casters, occasionally with the help of a mcguffin magic item or spell or some exposition provided by a friendly wizard or what-have-you. You'd also want to play a lot of solo games, since ensemble casts are unusual in genre - LotR being the prominent exception.

But, games do have to make concessions to balance and playability, if they're to be decent games (though, if they have other selling points, they may not have to in order to be financially successful, relatively speaking). So having PC casters makes sense, and having them contributing more than friendly casters typically do in genre was the right way to go - D&D just took the 'contributing' a little to far, and casters too often ended up dominating play, particularly in certain editions and/or at certain levels.

D&D also didn't go far enough in giving the fighter mechanical ways of modeling what genre heroes do - maybe the thought was that they didn't need mechanical modeling, IDK, I wasn't in Lake Geneva chatting with Gygax & Arneson at the time... :shrug:

But, threads like this happen because the D&D has consistently failed the fighter on either or both of two fronts: being able to deliver on what the corresponding heroic archetypes can do in the genre, and being balanced with other classes.

The only problem with Fighter is that whenever someone tries to improve the class or give it real options or depth, the last step they invariably take is to scratch out the word "Fighter" from the top of the page and write in a new class name. So Fighter is always Fighter, and it gets pushed in to an ever-narrowing box.

If it's like a Paladin or EK and involves grafting spellcasting or magical abilities to the Fighter, that's not such a bad thing.

But it's also not the only design hurdle that keeps tripping up attempts to improve the Fighter. Another big one is that an idea will come up to make the fighter better - Martial Damage Dice in the Next playtest, are a perfect example - and, in a few cycles, /everyone/ is getting the full benefit of that idea, and the fighter is back to being a baseline that does nothing of it's own.

In 5e, there are sub-classes or archetypes that get something. In the case of the EK, it's pretty good (wizard spells) but not unique. In the case of the Battlemaster, it's not so great but no on else gets CS dices (as yet). Not like MDDs which virtually everyone got before they were dropped from the playtest...

 

[Celtavian]

Is it also 'supposed' to be able to do things that mundane skill can, but better? What mundane skills do you accept as beyond the ability of people who aren't highly trained in a particular area? How much training do you believe a competent fighter requires? And most importantly, why do high level characters have to use mundane skills in mundane ways that don't have a wider variety of applications than low-level characters get?

Yes. Magic is supposed to be more powerful at similar things than mundane skills. Isn't that why you call a magic user to do things mundane skills cannot accomplish? What would be the point of wizards or magic users in fiction if the same things could be accomplished by mundane means?

When your siege engines can't break down the castle wall, call the wizard to create a hole in the wall or beguile the gate warden to let you in. If you can't get two kings to make peace, call a wizard to force them to make peace through magic. If you need to find out where the evil monster's lair is, call a seer to find out. Isn't that the point of magic users in fiction? To do things that the mundane characters in the world can't do with their usual means, so you call in Mr. Mysterious Powerful Wizard guy to do it?

Remember Dragonslayer? They sent a contingent to acquire a wizard to kill the dragon. In Lord of the Rings it was a wizard that guided the hands of the heroes to destroy Sauron. Merlin put Uther and Arthur on the throne of England and acquired them both Excalibur.

If you read books, you should know the answer to your question. It is a resounding yes, magic is supposed to do things a mundane skill can do, but much better.

 

[Celtavian]

Not so much. Concentration mostly limits stacking, which 5e already presents limited opportunities for. Concentration spells also seem to be compensated with fairly substantial power, relatively speaking. So you cast one very effective concentration spell instead of pre-casting lots of longer duration ones - just means you need fewer slots to be fully contributing all day.

Do you play 5E? Or are you theorizing? Concentration is a high cost that makes a caster often choose between offense and defense leaving them very vulnerable to attack. There are no save or die spells. All spells in general work to set up someone else in the party because the caster can't stack spells to kill himself. Even more so than any previous edition, the caster is extremely dependent on the martials to do damage while he supports them with effect spells and buffs. I have played a wizard to level 16. It is not as you think it is. In fact, it is very painful at times. You have to make some very careful spell choices. You have to make sure you don't make too many mistakes or you die. You can't do the old powerhouse defenses of casting fly and invisibility or other such defenses. You'll likely still get killed, especially at higher level where the monsters do a ton of damage.

And 5e versatility is very high in a mechanical sense. You choose the spells you learn, choose spells to prep each day, then cast them spontaneously - that combines the versatility of 3.5 wizards and sorcerers into one very generous mechanic. On top of that, you have no-slot-cost rituals. Only the relative lack of bloated spell lists counts against the 5e caster's versatility.

And the concentration mechanic. And Legendary Resistance. And Bounded Accuracy making it quite possible for a creature to save. And the expensive cost of spells. And the lack of high level spells slots. You can't teleport twice per day until at least 15th level. You can never really cast fly on the entire party for long periods of time. It is extremely costly in time and material components to make teleportation circles. There are a lot of stop gaps on casters in this edition. I can only surmise you haven't tried playing the game the much and thus don't realize how many there are.

Then you want a game of mighty martial heroes consistently defeating terrifying monsters, including evil NPC casters, occasionally with the help of a mcguffin magic item or spell or some exposition provided by a friendly wizard or what-have-you. You'd also want to play a lot of solo games, since ensemble casts are unusual in genre - LotR being the prominent exception.

Gee. In my campaigns that happens all the time, so I guess D&D is mirroring that quite well. Martials kill terrifying monsters quite often in 5E. They are the primary damage dealers in this edition. Given saves aren't astronomically high in this edition, they make it more often than prior, especially paladins.

But, games do have to make concessions to balance and playability, if they're to be decent games (though, if they have other selling points, they may not have to in order to be financially successful, relatively speaking). So having PC casters makes sense, and having them contributing more than friendly casters typically do in genre was the right way to go - D&D just took the 'contributing' a little to far, and casters too often ended up dominating play, particularly in certain editions and/or at certain levels.

5E has toned this down considerably from 3E. Far more than you give it credit for.

D&D also didn't go far enough in giving the fighter mechanical ways of modeling what genre heroes do - maybe the thought was that they didn't need mechanical modeling, IDK, I wasn't in Lake Geneva chatting with Gygax & Arneson at the time... :shrug:

Explain what the genre heroes do. I've read Conan, he hits things. I've read Launcelot, he hits things. Arthur hits things. Grey Mouser is a rogue and does rogue stuff with a little magic. Fafhrd hits things. Gwydion Son of Don hits things and has some magic user levels. What characters are you talking about? And what do they do that can't be accomplished by the fighter? Give me some book examples of mundane fighting men that weren't Gods that do something with mundane skills the fighter can't.

But, threads like this happen because the D&D has consistently failed the fighter on either or both of two fronts: being able to deliver on what the corresponding heroic archetypes can do in the genre, and being balanced with other classes.

If it's like a Paladin or EK and involves grafting spellcasting or magical abilities to the Fighter, that's not such a bad thing.

But it's also not the only design hurdle that keeps tripping up attempts to improve the Fighter. Another big one is that an idea will come up to make the fighter better - Martial Damage Dice in the Next playtest, are a perfect example - and, in a few cycles, /everyone/ is getting the full benefit of that idea, and the fighter is back to being a baseline that does nothing of it's own.

In 5e, there are sub-classes or archetypes that get something. In the case of the EK, it's pretty good (wizard spells) but not unique. In the case of the Battlemaster, it's not so great but no on else gets CS dices (as yet). Not like MDDs which virtually everyone got before they were dropped from the playtest...

I'm not sure what you're looking for. There are other classes to mirror different types of martials. Fighters are fine in 5E. They are highly effective. They are not severely outclassed by casters. Having seen them played in a few campaigns now, fighters have often proven more effective than casters in the most important fights due to not having to deal with Legendary Resistance. As far as the rest, if you want to mirror a skilled fighter, make a fighter-rogue or use one of your feats to buy skilled. DM should be able to work in non-combat challenges for you just as he does for other classes.

I don't see what you're talking about in 5E. I can understand what you're talking about if you're just looking at the books and theorizing. In play fighters are quite nasty. Backgrounds do give them some skill diversity. They even have a few abilities that are nice in a non-combat sense like the Champions proficiency in all physical skills. The Battle-master's ability to assess opponents. 5E fighter is one of the most balanced and capable I've seen in D&D. Not sure what more you want unless you're pushing for anime style capabilities. I would prefer that not be in the game myself. I want fighters to be the mundane fighting man. I would not enjoy a game that turns them into anime guys causing earthquakes with their blades or leaping over mountains. I'd rather D&D just accept those players will find another game that allows them to do those type of things and stick with the fantasy level they've been at for most of their existence.