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

[RotGrub]

But then it's fair to say what qualifies as disassociated for one person can easily be different for another, right? In other words, it's subjective and therefore handy for describing personal taste but not so handy for objective criticism.

I'd argue that you can build a fighter without any disassociated powers. You'd be hard pressed to argue that basic maneuvers like trip, pull, pin, grab, disarm, death blow, etc are disassociated. It's only when you start to add in powers that control the narrative or seem magical that subjectivity enters the picture.

 

[RotGrub]

I always viewed that as description, not a class feature/rule. E.g. you still can't use a Holy Avenger even though that paragraph says "all" weapons.

I think it informs the player that you will get to use magic, just not directly like the wizard.

In 2e, unless it's a low magic campaign, you'd be hard pressed to find fighters at high level not using any magical items. At high level is damn near impossible to play without them. In general, ideal of the fighter in 2e is more akin to perseus and his godly magical item collection.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In 2e, unless it's a low magic campaign, you'd be hard pressed to find fighters at high level not using any magical items. At high level is... near impossible to play without them. In general, ideal of the fighter in 2e is more akin to perseus and his godly magical item collection.

Perhaps. My favorite fighters were one who had no magic items at all and moderate strength (she was a 20th level NPC for the Long Fangs) and one who at 7th level had no magic items but did have a psionically Empowered sword as a companion. The sword could do things like Double Pain on a hit or Accelerate him. I've never been a fan of the huge item collection, and one of the things I appreciate about 5E is that "immune to nonmagical weapons" is much rarer now.

BTW I only remember Perseus having a shield from Athena and some kind of magic wallet for food or something. Am I forgetting others? Jack the Giant Killer might be a better example of someone with lots of magic items: he had magic sword, a cloak of invisibility, shoes of swiftness, a cap of knowledge, and a pouch of holding (essentially). He might be the only hero in all of literature who would actually exceed 5E's attunement ceiling, by one item.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

BTW I only remember Perseus having a shield from Athena and some kind of magic wallet for food or something. Am I forgetting others? Jack the Giant Killer might be a better example of someone with lots of magic items: he had magic sword, a cloak of invisibility, shoes of swiftness, a cap of knowledge, and a pouch of holding (essentially). He might be the only hero in all of literature who would actually exceed 5E's attunement ceiling, by one item.

Yes. Hades' Helm of Darkness for concealment, Hermes' winged sandals for flight, and an adamantine sword (a harpe, potentially even the one used to castrate Cronus since it was given by Zeus). The magic wallet might be a particular perspective on the bag given to him to carry Medusa's head in. He was pretty thoroughly decked out, and if all of those items required attunement I suspect he, too would have exceeded the 5e maximum.

 

[tyrlaan]

I'd argue that you can build a fighter without any disassociated powers. You'd be hard pressed to argue that basic maneuvers like trip, pull, pin, grab, disarm, death blow, etc are disassociated. It's only when you start to add in powers that control the narrative or seem magical that subjectivity enters the picture.

Clearly you can build a fighter without any disassociated powers, especially since it seems evident that my claim is valid - it's subjective what qualifies as "disassociated".

I'd also say "control the narrative" is a mutable descriptor as well - couldn't you argue that trips, pulls, pins, grabs, disarms, and certainly death blows 'control the narrative'?

 

[Ashkelon]

I'd argue that you can build a fighter without any disassociated powers. You'd be hard pressed to argue that basic maneuvers like trip, pull, pin, grab, disarm, death blow, etc are disassociated. It's only when you start to add in powers that control the narrative or seem magical that subjectivity enters the picture.

It depends on how much prejudice you have.

HP are actually one of the most disassociated mechanics ever invented. You PC should not have a clue what they are, but the player does, and often makes decisions based on the amount of HP left.

Then in 5e, you have things like HD, second wind, Action Surge, superiority dice, and indomitable which are are disassociated for various reasons.

But, most people don't care about disassociated mechanics. In fact, they like them. For example gunslinger class from pathfinder is very popular and its mechanic (grit) is entirely disassociated. Luck related feats and abilities are also quite popular, and entirely disassociated.

Really, only a few people seem to dislike disassociated mechanics, and they aren't even equal in their treatment of them. What they generally mean is they don't like such mechanics on martial warriors. They are perfectly fine with such mechanics on spellcasters or other complex PCs. They are perfectly fine with such mechanics that are ingrained parts of the system (saves and HP). It is only when agency is given to martial PCs that a these people get up in arms about disassociated mechanics.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't worry about disassociated mechanics in D&D. The baseline of D&D already has them in HP and AC and only by redefining these terms could a character associated himself to his or her character sheet. Such systems work only on computers as the number bloat skyrockets.

Frankly a lot could be done if fighters had "expertise with improvised attacks, shoves, and grapples". Then fighters would have incentives to diarm, trip, push etc as they are note accurate than straight damage. It works in my groups old freeform game. The question is if D&D is okay with fighter having 90% success rates on trips against non fighters.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But then it's fair to say what qualifies as disassociated for one person can easily be different for another, right? In other words, it's subjective and therefore handy for describing personal taste but not so handy for objective criticism.

Yes and no. Individual personal tastes aren't completely random; they tend to line up. When a movie is a big hit, the people who like it mostly like it for similar reasons; when a movie is a flop, the people who dislike it mostly dislike it for similar reasons. It can be valuable to examine these reasons - heck, I'd say that this is most of what criticism is. They may not be completely objective, since some people will still differ from the norm, but they're regular enough that it would be improper to dismiss them as subjective. They're statistical, lying in the border zone between subjectivity and objectivity. Like how we can say "men are taller than women": not universally true by any means, but generally true, a trend.

The upshot of this is that when someone says that they do not think a mechanic is dissociated, we can't say, "No, it totally is, your opinion is wrong" (as long as he's using the word correctly). But we can look at a mechanic and say, "Most players think this is dissociated, so if we're trying to avoid dissociated mechanics we should probably change it."

I'd also say "control the narrative" is a mutable descriptor as well - couldn't you argue that trips, pulls, pins, grabs, disarms, and certainly death blows 'control the narrative'?

That's a character controlling the environment. When we say a player "controls the narrative" we mean he's dictating things that his character isn't. Like if the rogue had a "Fence" ability that actually put a friendly merchant in a convenient location. The character doesn't have the ability to conjure human beings out of nowhere, but the player does.

I should be clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with mechanics like this. One of my favorite RPGs, the Fate system, is largely built around them. I'm not condemning them. I'm just trying to explain that there is a real distinction here, and game designers ought to be aware of that distinction in order to maintain a consistent style.

Yes. Hades' Helm of Darkness for concealment, Hermes' winged sandals for flight, and an adamantine sword (a harpe, potentially even the one used to castrate Cronus since it was given by Zeus). The magic wallet might be a particular perspective on the bag given to him to carry Medusa's head in. He was pretty thoroughly decked out, and if all of those items required attunement I suspect he, too would have exceeded the 5e maximum.

Yeah, Perseus was something of a Christmas tree. But as far as epic heroes go he's very unusual in this regard. The only other guy I can think of with multiple magic items is Thor.

 

[Hussar]

Since we're still kicking the disassociated horse a bit, let's not forget Inspiration. That's about as dissociated as it gets.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Since we're still kicking the disassociated horse a bit, let's not forget Inspiration. That's about as dissociated as it gets.

Yes, it is.