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

[Sacrosanct]

It's one of the worst-balanced and least capable out of combat I've seen in D&D.

That's just your opinion. Obviously many people disagree. But this bears repeating:

And while I do think the fighter can contribute well in out of combat tasks, if I were to assume that the fighter can not do those things and adhere to that argument, I guess my response would be, "If I want to play a PC that is exceptional at doing out of combat tasks, I would play one that is not called THE FIGHTER."

It's sort of in the name.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's just your opinion. Obviously many people disagree.

Not really, if you look at what Celtavian & I were actually saying. The best-balanced version of D&D - as even the most virulent h4ters will agree (often because they hate balance) - was 4e. The edition that had the most radically overpowered casters (and thus, by contrast, worst-balanced fighters, in spite of an elegant fighter class design) was 3.x - it brought us the Tier system, afterall. Again, not a lot of debate about it, though a case could be made for 0D&D to be worst-balance by virtue of being least-evolved.

Celtavian decided to group the 5e fighter with all the fighters except the 3e (and possibly, 0D&D), to say 'among the best.' While I, contrarily, excluded only the 4e fighter, to put the 5e 'among the worst.' It's not a large set, so when you say 'among the...' implying the top or bottom several, you're only excluding the bottom or top one or two.

The 5e fighter is about on par with the 2e fighter: high-DPR making it powerful in straightforward combats, proficiencies giving it something to do (if nothing that everyone else can't just as easily do) outside of combat. It's a bland, one-note design, but that note's a loud one.

The 2e & 5e fighter's exceptional DPR make them strong contributors in combat, so not among the worst-balanced examples of the class. The gap, OTOH, between them and the robust class balance of 4e, which included the fighter, is huge. Ranking second or third notwithstanding.

Rather than balancing classes, 5e empowers the DM to maintain spotlight balance in play, making problems with classes less visible at the level of an individual campaign.

Hemlock, if what you say about dissociative mechanics is true, then perhaps not waving a giant freaking edition war flag in a thread might help get your point across. The concept of dissociative mechanics is very contested and is certainly not taken as a "fact" and is generally seen as just another edition war shot. Perhaps rephrasing your issues with the mechanics might help to not get painted with the edition warrior brush.

Dissociative mechanics was made up out of whole cloth by the Alexandrian in an early "review" (h4ter manifesto) of 4e, before the book was even on the shelves. The definition is a moving target, but most of them amount to little more than a picky way of looking at abstraction. All RPGs necessarily have a lot of abstraction, and a lot of mechanics that fit one definition or another of 'dissociative mechanics,' depending on where the goal-posts have been moved, different mechanics qualify.

Prior to 4e, no one complained about or even noticed 'dissociative mechanics,' even though RPGs were full of mechanics that would meet the definitions once they were contrived. In 5e, there's very little complaint about 'dissociative mechanics,' even though there are quite a few mechanics that qualify.

Yes, it's a h4ter talking point. No, bringing it up doesn't advance any discussion.

Though, it's worth considering that the 'dissociative mechanic' attack, was very consistently directed at mechanics that helped balance the classes, particularly by improving the effectiveness of the martial classes, in 4e.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Wow. What a way to completely handwave away a valid argument in the most dismissive way possible by calling any person disagreeing with you as "h4ters", rather than actually address any of the concerns people who talk about disassociation make.

Impressive. Especially since some of your claims aren't even remotely true. For instance, I know LOTs of people who did not want a martial class like the fighter having disassociated abilities (even if they didn't call them specifically that), all the way back to at least 1981 (when I started), and I imagine much earlier.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Impressive. Especially since some of your claims aren't even remotely true. For instance, I know LOTs of people who did not want a martial class like the fighter having disassociated abilities (even if they didn't call them specifically that), all the way back to at least 1981 (when I started), and I imagine much earlier.

I remember hit points, AC, Vancian casting & the one-minute round being pretty controversial back then, too. Mostly on the grounds of 'realism.' But, in the heat of the edition war, you didn't see folks admitting to that. Instead, there was this fiction that 'dissociative mechanics,' were unique to 4e (mainly to the 4e martial classes), and the definition of dissociative mechanics was shifted around every time it was pointed out past editions had mechanics that would have been 'dissociative.'

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Prior to 4e, no one complained about or even notice 'dissociative mechanics,' even though RPGs were full of mechanics that would meet the definitions once they were contrived.

False. Just because no one had coined a term for it doesn't mean no one noticed or minded. I'll give you an example which predates 4E: GURPS's Luck ability is usable once per hour of table time, not game time, which is one reason I've always hated it: it's a Heisenfeature, not an objective capability. In v4 SJG gave it a variant limited by game time instead, so apparently there were other people who didn't like the original way either.

 

[Celtavian]

I run 5e.

You run it differently than I do then.

Lol. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but it's still funny.

I did not. But that was funny.

I give 5e full credit for being less broken than 3e as far as class balance goes. 3e was, however, the most broken ed of D&D, by far. Even the experimental early rulesets weren't as radically class-imbalanced as 3e. 5e is probably vying with 2e for second most-broken class balance in an edition of D&D. Even so, if 5e were simply following on the heals of 3.5, that could be seen as an improvement. But it follows Essentials, which followed 4e, so the class-balance trend is sadly to the negative. 5e's saving grace is that it's very up-front about leaving the tools out for the DM to fix those issues in play.

I've already admitted I don't want class balance in a fantasy game. I feel it is inappropriate for a fighter to have the breadth of power of a wizard. We've had this discussion. I don't think either of us will change our viewpoints.

I do agree. 4E was very balanced. That is why I didn't like it. Wizards did not feel like wizards. They did not sufficiently stand out from the other classes to make the name wizard meaningful. Then again none of the classes did to me. I was tired of the small number of combat choices in 4E very early on. I could have scripted 4E combats after a while. At wil, at will, encounter power. My players were using encounter powers even when it was completely unnecessary within the fiction to do so just because they could and felt they should or they were wasting them. When I had players blowing encounter powers for no other reason than "I might as well because I can", I was done with 4E. I want resources to expended when the stuff hits the fan. Not because the resource is constantly available. Encounter powers went completely against the fiction I wanted to create by encouraging a player to use a resources meant to emulate fighting ability that they did not need to use. I used to choke on encounter powers. Oh man, I hated encounter powers. Just thinking about them pisses me off.

Really, even the most basic things: surviving in the wilderness, providing leadership, negotiating, dealing with kings. Fighters have just been profoundly limited outside of combat in D&D. 5e Backgrounds help a bit in that they make everyone more well-rounded, but that doesn't excuse the fighter class for being so narrow.

How can they not survive in the wilderness? Outlander allows you to do that quite easily. A ranger I just ran tracked a troll down leading the party without the mage casting a single spell. The ranger is quite capable in the exploration pillar. You can add some out of combat flavor with backgrounds quite easily in 5E. Why couldn't a fighter with seven feats use one or two to expand his skill selection or other abilities if you want to do that. Skilled gives four skills for one feat. You can even buy him Healer for some out of combat healing. You can buy the fighter Inspired Leader to give the party temporary hit points every short rest. If you want him to be a great diplomat, you could write up a feat for that as well. Fighters have seven feats. Plenty of room to provide some non-combat utility.

Not /severely/? Maybe not. But all 5 of the arguably-martial sub-classes in 5e are functionally similar, in that they contribute little or nothing beyond DPR in combat. The fighter is unique in how little he contributes outside of combat. If you combined the fighter and rogue into a single class, with the DPR of the fighter, and skills and out of combat goodies of the rogue, you still wouldn't have a broken class.

Not particularly true. The fighter and barbarian are the most narrow in terms of DPR. The fighter is the best at pure DPR, while the barbarian the best at taking DPR.

The ranger is extremely versatile and the most capable in the exploration pillar. I was quite happy and surprised at how well the ranger does leading a group in the exploration pillar. No one can lead the entire group through difficult terrain allowing much faster travel and sustain them in the terrain without having to carry a huge amount of rations. They are quite good at scouting. If you give them a background with access to Thieves' tools, quite good at disarming traps and picking locks.

The paladin is a capable secondary healer. He provides powerful defensive options to the group. He has some crowd control capabilities and group buffs. His high charisma allows him to negotiate with kings without having to resort to magic which is very dangerous in this edition. If you cast charm person or friends[/I in 5E, the target does not forget. Once released they may seek retribution. It's not like 3E where you could cast these spells over and over again to maintain control. It's very hard to do. If someone dispels them, you're in trouble. It's much easier to have a paladin or bard face man do the talking. If you really want to, you can build a fighter capable of doing so, but it is not optimal.

The rogue is amazingly fun in play in 5E. I haven't played a rogue since maybe 1E. I did not enjoy 3E rogues, though they could be powerful. 5E rogues are amazing. Maybe on paper they don't appear very strong to some, in play they have performed well in every campaign I've run them in or played one. Their capabilities are very applicable in a lot of combats. If you are able to buy Resilient: Con, they have four good saves by high level. All three archetypes have attractive abilities be the killer assassin, the extremely stealthy thief, or the versatile arcane trickster. Rogue is a very satisfying and versatile class. A half-elf rogue starts with something like 8 skills and two or three tools. Very versatile capabilities given magic can no longer solve all the ills of the world.

The monk is still a bit mad. It gets better as you level. You need a good Dex, Con, and Wisdom for a good monk. His best abilities come after level 6. He's sort of a watered down fighter prior to level 6. Once he gets going, he can be pretty tough and versatile. His mobility is second to none.

It's one of the worst-balanced and least capable out of combat I've seen in D&D. Which isn't saying anything different than what you're saying, really, since the fighter hasn't varied wildly over the last 40 years, and the worst-balanced (the 0E, probably, maybe the 3e, though that's unfair as it's the casters who were the source of imbalance) and the best balanced (4e fighter, again, mainly because of the other classes), respectively are all we're excluding. The 5e fighter is fairly typical of the narrow strengths and broad failings of the D&D fighter: high damage, low contribution outside of that.

I think it is one of the better balanced out of combat fighters due to backgrounds and the reduced ability of magic to do mundane tasks. Even the simple ability to climb well is useful in this game because a wizard doesn't want to waste a memorization slot or a spell slot on spider climb or fly in less than dire circumstances.

The fighter feels like he matters in this game because the caster no longer has the resources to deal with enemies, mundane obstacles, and the like alone. Limited number of spell slots making them very precious. Lack of easy access to disposable magic items. Concentration mechanic doesn't allow stacking of things like invis. and fly. Familiar is very weak and killable past the low levels and can't avoid being seen very easily due to a lack of skills.

This is one of the first editions I've seen in a long time where you can build a Stealthy dex-based fighter that can move ahead with the rogue on scouting operations because he is no longer tied to heavy armor. Stealth for a fighter is as good as Stealth for any class other than a rogue or bard.

I'm not seeing the same limited fighter you are. I think you can build some different types of fighters as long as you're willing to pay feats for something other than combat enhancement.

Calling broader or more fantastic abilities 'anime' doesn't make them undesirable. The alternatives are really to bring the fighter up to the excess-of-genre level of D&D casters, or pull casters down to the shy-of-genre standard of the fighter, or strike a balance closer to genre. If you don't want "anime-style" fighters, then you should settle for sub-genre-powered casters, the kind that have only a trick or two, if any, that's combat-useful, and mostly provide exposition and the occasional plot-important ritual or item-based magical mcguffin, that would balance with that.

I don't want those type of abilities for fighters. Fighters are fine as is.

In the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, the fighter killed three of five young dragons in a big fight. My wizard only managed to kill one. The fighter did the most damage to Tiamat and landed the killing blow to finish her. My wizard did next to no damage to her. The fighter killed the dragon prophet in one round using Action Surge. The EK Archer was the most dangerous member of our group.

I'm just not seeing what you're seeing in actual play with the fighter. I'm seeing the most versatile and effective fighter builds for things other than combat in any edition of D&D I can recall. Fighters are highly effective in battle. They can participate in activities they wouldn't otherwise have been able to in the past without multiclassing with backgrounds, spending money on expanding language and tool proficiency, or simply spending a feat on something unusual like Inspiring Leader or Healer. I guess our experiences differ with the 5E fighter. Both of which I've seen used effectively on top of the fighter's excellent combat ability.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I remember hit points, AC, Vancian casting & the one-minute round being pretty controversial back then, too. Mostly on the grounds of 'realism.' But, in the heat of the edition war, you didn't see folks admitting to that. Instead, there was this fiction that 'dissociative mechanics,' were unique to 4e (mainly to the 4e martial classes), and the definition of dissociative mechanics was shifted around every time it was pointed out past editions had mechanics that would have been 'dissociative.'

I should have quoted you before, because you went back and edited your post to change it, and now with this post are trying to act like you never said what you originally did. That's classy.


For the record to everyone else, my response wasn't to Tony's edited version. It was to the version that said that anyone who brought up disassociated mechanics was just a h4ter, and prior to 4e, no one ever complained about things like disassociated mechanics. End stop. Tony added those other sentences acknowledging people complained later in his edit.

 

[Tony Vargas]

False. Just because no one had coined a term for it doesn't mean no one noticed or minded. I'll give you an example which predates 4E: GURPS's Luck ability is usable once per hour of table time, not game time, which is one reason I've always hated it: it's a Heisenfeature, not an objective capability. In v4 SJG gave it a variant limited by game time instead, so apparently there were other people who didn't like the original way either.

That game-time limited variant would still fit the definitions of 'dissociative mechanics' used in the edition war.

I should have quoted you before, because you went back and edited your post to change it, and now with this post are trying to act like you never said what you originally did.

Edited back. You now have room to willfully misinterpret what I said as a claim no one ever complained about anything. Make the most of it.

Yes, there were /lots/ of complaints about D&D, some of them very persistent. But, they weren't about dissociated mechanics. They rand the gamut from lack of realism, to baroque mechanics, to poor balance, to failure to model genre, and on and on. But those complaints never conflated mere abstraction into 'dissociated mechanics' and pretended it was intolerable, not until the edition war.

I've already admitted I don't want class balance in a fantasy game. I feel it is inappropriate for a fighter to have the breadth of power of a wizard. We've had this discussion. I don't think either of us will change our viewpoints.

I do agree. 4E was very balanced. That is why I didn't like it.

Yeah, and I appreciate your honestly in that.

In that sense, we're really in agreement. We both realize that the fighter has been consistently short-changed in D&D, you just find that positively desireable.

How can they not survive in the wilderness? Outlander allows you to do that quite easily.

Nod. Any PC might be good at that, if they have that background. They might be good at a lot of other things, as well, by virtue of their class, or already be good at the woodsy stuff, and be able to take another background.

Not particularly true. The fighter and barbarian are the most narrow in terms of DPR. The fighter is the best at pure DPR, while the barbarian the best at taking DPR.

I think 'the best' isn't as definitive as it sounds. They're both high-DPR classes, so, really, is the Rogue, just in a very different way.

The ranger is extremely versatile and the most capable in the exploration pillar.

Also not a martial class, unless you're talking about the UA variant...

The paladin is a capable secondary healer.

Also not a martial class.

The rogue is amazingly fun in play in 5E.

Given the right campaign emphasis, any class can be - class can even be irrelevant, with other RP considerations having more to do with the fun of the character. The 5e rogue is less marginal in combat than the AD&D rogue, and actually delivers on it's non-combat abilities better than it did with 'special' abilities in AD&D. It's about on par with the 3.x rogue, really. Maybe a little less stand-out, because the gap between proficient and non-proficient is narrower.

The monk is still a bit mad. It gets better as you level. You need a good Dex, Con, and Wisdom for a good monk. His best abilities come after level 6. He's sort of a watered down fighter prior to level 6. Once he gets going, he can be pretty tough and versatile. His mobility is second to none.

Also, (ironically, as an archetypal 'martial artist), not a purely martial class (supernatural Ki abilities).

I think it is one of the better balanced out of combat fighters due to backgrounds and the reduced ability of magic to do mundane tasks. Even the simple ability to climb well is useful in this game because a wizard doesn't want to waste a memorization slot or a spell slot on spider climb or fly in less than dire circumstances.

Not a false statement, but a misleading one. The fighter has /never/ been well-balanced out of combat. Among the best (top 2? top 3?) in a field of 5, all of which are bad, is really not saying much.

The fighter feels like he matters in this game because the caster no longer has the resources to deal with enemies, mundane obstacles, and the like alone. Limited number of spell slots making them very precious.

That's always been the story. Spells are a daily resource, whacking with a weapon or making checks are unlimited, so spells can be much more powerful. I know it looks, on paper, like 5e casters - relative to 3e or earlier casters - have fewer daily spell resources. But, they also can use those resources more efficiently. Neo-Vancian casting means that no slot is ever wasted due to an un-needed spell being memorized into it, for instance, and gives casters at-will spells to spam when slots aren't called for.

Lack of easy access to disposable magic items.

Relative lack of magic items doesn't exactly hurt casters - it makes their spell resources more valuable by contrast.

This is one of the first editions I've seen in a long time where you can build a Stealthy dex-based fighter that can move ahead with the rogue on scouting operations because he is no longer tied to heavy armor.

With 3.x/Pathfinder being the rest of the 'first' such editions. So, really, it's the second such edition - and, that, only in the sense of the semantics of the 'fighter' class label.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You run it differently than I do then.
I do agree. 4E was very balanced. That is why I didn't like it. Wizards did not feel like wizards. They did not sufficiently stand out from the other classes to make the name wizard meaningful. Then again none of the classes did to me. I was tired of the small number of combat choices in 4E very early on. I could have scripted 4E combats after a while. At wil, at will, encounter power. My players were using encounter powers even when it was completely unnecessary within the fiction to do so just because they could and felt they should or they were wasting them. When I had players blowing encounter powers for no other reason than "I might as well because I can", I was done with 4E. I want resources to expended when the stuff hits the fan. Not because the resource is constantly available. Encounter powers went completely against the fiction I wanted to create by encouraging a player to use a resources meant to emulate fighting ability that they did not need to use. I used to choke on encounter powers. Oh man, I hated encounter powers. Just thinking about them pisses me off.

That was excact the reason why I quit 4e too. Thus I xp´d you.

How can they not survive in the wilderness? Outlander allows you to do that quite easily. A ranger I just ran tracked a troll down leading the party without the mage casting a single spell. The ranger is quite capable in the exploration pillar. You can add some out of combat flavor with backgrounds quite easily in 5E. Why couldn't a fighter with seven feats use one or two to expand his skill selection or other abilities if you want to do that. Skilled gives four skills for one feat. You can even buy him Healer for some out of combat healing. You can buy the fighter Inspired Leader to give the party temporary hit points every short rest. If you want him to be a great diplomat, you could write up a feat for that as well. Fighters have seven feats. Plenty of room to provide some non-combat utility.

In 4e I noticed, that the fighter was quite narrow. Utility abilities were better spent at combat tricks. Ranged attacks were a waste...
Multiclassing was impossible...

In 5e you can multiclass, chose background, archetype and take feats to supplement your out of combat abilities. Admittedly you need your DM to allow most basic player options to be really versatile... but without that, backgrounds allow for great variety in playstyles.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In 4e I noticed, that the fighter was quite narrow. Utility abilities were better spent at combat tricks. Ranged attacks were a waste...
Multiclassing was impossible...

Multi-classing and hybrids were both available in 4e, it also introduced Backgrounds and Themes (5e backgrounds sit somewhere between the two, really), and retained 3.x style feats. So there was quite a bit of character customization available, in general.

But, yes the fighter class was more narrowly defined in terms of role: it was a very effective defender, and could be a fairly impressive secondary striker.

But the range of things you could do with martial concepts was still broad, because there were more martial classes (4) and 'builds' (8 in the PH1) than there were martial classes (3 in the PH1) in 3e, or are purely-martial classes (0) and archetypes (5) in 5e.

Still, every ed of D&D has fallen short when it comes to doing justice to martial archetypes. Mostly because of caster dominance (most extreme in 3.x), but also in 4e, in spite of casters being better balanced, for want of a martial 'controller.'

In 5e you can multiclass, chose background, archetype and take feats to supplement your out of combat abilities.

And in 3e you could choose a class, feats, multi-class, & PrCs or in 4e class, build, feats (including mutli-class feat), Paragon Path & Epic Destiny (and Backgrounds, Themes and hybrids in the 2nd year it was out). 5e is not exceptional in the types or range of options it offers - it's 'behind' compared to 3.x and 4e, really, but only because it's relatively new and free of 'bloat.' Lack of bloat isn't exactly a bad thing.

Admittedly you need your DM to allow most basic player options to be really versatile... but without that, backgrounds allow for great variety in playstyles.

Opting in feats and creating custom backgrounds can help a lot.