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

[Tony Vargas]

Your claims of double standards and "wrecking the game" to justify your badwrong fun argument has gotten old. And yes, that's basically what you're doing by using phrases like that. If I don't play the game the way you want, I am engaging in badwrong behavior because I'm wrecking game balance and applying a double standard.

Well, the double-standard is a pretty old one, so, inevitably, discussing it gets old. And, no, game balance isn't a 'true way,' it's how you include a variety of styles and PCs in the game without forcing a 1TW on anyone. It's a mechanism of compromise, not something that needs to be compromised to cater to one style or another.

It's also not a double standard to accept magic but also want mundane classes to stay mundane.

It's exactly a double-standard. You have an heroic fantasy RPG, and it takes inspiration and tropes and bits from all over the fantasy genre, myth & legend, even a little sci-fi. That's where it gets magic, from genre, not from reality. Then it takes virtually every supernatural power it finds and drops it in a capacious spell list, but takes all the superhuman (or even remarkable) feats of the actual heroes of those stories, and tosses them in favor of 'realism.' Same sources, different standards. The very definition of a double-standard.

Now, if doing that somehow enhanced the game, maybe it'd be justified, but it just leads to class imbalances, which are bad for a class-based game.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Swimming upthread a bit for something that stuck out to me.





But, this is something I don't understand. Why are you the guardians of what is plausible. Others have said that this is plausible to them. The explanation is good enough, for them. So, considering you don't want a more complex fighter at all, don't want to play the class and most likely won't use it in your game, why do you care what the explanation is? What difference does it make to you?

Why does a class you don't want to play have to satisfy your criteria for plausibility? Why should such a class be designed with your tastes in mind at all?

I'm going to keep this simple and brief.

What makes me knowledgeable on the issue is from personal experience. I am a participant in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and in a three minute fight I will use three styles of martial arts all in one fight so trying to justify those silly mechanics with more silliness is just plain silly.

This type of thing was already done during the short run of 4th edition and that edition is no longer with us. The new edition offered a playtest and the people who actually took the surveys obviously didn't want the hoards of dissociative mechanics that 4th edition had.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What makes me knowledgeable on the issue is from personal experience. I am a participant in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and in a three minute fight I will use three styles of martial arts all in one fight so trying to justify those silly mechanics with more silliness is just plain silly.

So, what you're saying is that a D&D fighter, who fights dragons in some imaginary magical fantasy world, shouldn't ever be able to pick up a second 'combat style,' because you, IRL, can use three at once?

 

[Minigiant]

You can have a fantasy world where magic exists as well as the mundane. Been happening for decades now. With hundreds of thousands of players.

It's also not a double standard to accept magic but also want mundane classes to stay mundane. Your claims of double standards and "wrecking the game" to justify your badwrong fun argument has gotten old. And yes, that's basically what you're doing by using phrases like that. If I don't play the game the way you want, I am engaging in badwrong behavior because I'm wrecking game balance and applying a double standard.

The problem is the this whole question is argued form the wrong angle. This is why this whole thread exists.

If you let magic classes have disassociative mechanics and excuse them because magic but then deny the mundane classes dissassociative mechanics when everyone doesn't agree on, will most of the fans see the mundane class as fun and customizable?

And this thread says, no.

The 5th ed fighter can only be build to tank or deal tons of damage. It can do skills and checks but not as good as any other so it often finds it being a slot filler (the athlete when there's no STR PC, the face when there's no CHA class). Being special require player effort, group coordination, and DM allowance.

We, D&D fans, cannot have it both ways.
We cannot say "don't force things on the fighter. It must have different options", then always pick the same options and complain about the lack of options.
We cannot deny the fighter many options via complaints then say the fighter has no options via later complaints.


You can't say the fighter cannot be mythical or magical then complain that all it can do it bash brains and block hits

 

[Sacrosanct]

It's exactly a double-standard. You have an heroic fantasy RPG, and it takes inspiration and tropes and bits from all over the fantasy genre, myth & legend, even a little sci-fi. That's where it gets magic, from genre, not from reality. Then it takes virtually every supernatural power it finds and drops it in a capacious spell list, but takes all the superhuman (or even remarkable) feats of the actual heroes of those stories, and tosses them in favor of 'realism.' Same sources, different standards. The very definition of a double-standard.
.

It's not a double standard at all. For one, there is PLENTY of literature and myths out there of heroes doing non-superhero things, and not having any superhero powers at all. Even right next to other magical creatures in the same book. Once you understand that, you'll understand how your entire premise is flawed.

If you let magic classes have disassociative mechanics and excuse them because magic but then deny the mundane classes dissassociative mechanics when everyone doesn't agree on, will most of the fans see the mundane class as fun and customizable?

And this thread says, no.

And the thread about "do you enjoy fighters", there is an 80% response rate of them saying yes. Not to mention decades of D&D where people had fun with mundane fighters. Or the survey results, which was a HUGE indicator that that's what people wanted, as evidenced by the inclusion of a champion fighter.

Seriously, this whole idea of "If I'm not having fun because the fighter doesn't have enough bells and whistles, then no on is" is one of the most baffling positions I've seen. Even if I discarded all of the above, all this thread proves is that there is disagreement. Most certainly not what you're claiming.

The 5th ed fighter can only be build to tank or deal tons of damage. It can do skills and checks but not as good as any other so it often finds it being a slot filler (the athlete when there's no STR PC, the face when there's no CHA class). Being special require player effort, group coordination, and DM allowance.

Objectively untrue. Rather than list them again, maybe you need to reread this thread, because many people have quite literally spelled out how this is not true. I know you've read the thread because you've replied to some of them, so maybe you have short term memory issues?

We, D&D fans, cannot have it both ways.
We cannot say "don't force things on the fighter. It must have different options", then always pick the same options and complain about the lack of options.
We cannot deny the fighter many options via complaints then say the fighter has no options via later complaints.


You can't say the fighter cannot be mythical or magical then complain that all it can do it bash brains and block hits

No one is making that argument. The people who want the fighter to be mundane rather than magical are the same ones who are NOT complaining about "all it can do is bash brains and block hits." It's actually the opposite. Those of us preferring a mundane fighter keep saying that it's not limited to bashing brains or blocking hits, because of this and that and this. The people complaining about only being able to bash are the same ones who want a magical or mythical fighter.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's not a double standard at all. For one, there is PLENTY of literature and myths out there of heroes doing non-superhuman things, and not performing any superhuman feats at all.

There are also plenty of literature and even myth in which a character who professes magical powers has none, so by the same flawed logic, we could make all would-be casters charlatans.

And, there are plenty of examples in literature & myth of heroes without any magical powers doing superhuman and extraordinary things beyond RL mundane 'realism.'

You're applying two standards. Genre for magic, RL 'mundane' otherwise.


That's demonstrably a double-standard.

You can't say the fighter cannot be mythical or magical then complain that all it can do it bash brains and block hits

We're rather a heterogeneous group, so yes, we can want both a more mythical, capable fighter with many options, and demand that it be held to a contrary-to-genre RL standard of mundanity that renders it an optionless beatstick. We can't agree. Some demand stark caster supremacy, others nuanced caster supremacy, some might even want casters to be as limited and vulnerable as they're sometimes depicted in genre, making them virtually unplayable as heroic PCs.

There's a method of compromise that better games use to resolve such conflicts and let everyone play the sort of character they want without stepping on eachother's toes, it's called 'balance.' But that's anathema to D&D.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There are also plenty of literature and even myth in which a character who professes magical powers has none, so by the same flawed logic, we could make all would-be casters charlatans.

And, there are plenty of examples in literature & myth of heroes without any magical powers doing superhuman and extraordinary things beyond RL mundane 'realism.'

You're applying two standards. Genre for magic, RL 'mundane' otherwise.


That's demonstrably a double-standard.

Still not a double standard. Take the most popular fantasy book out there. Is it a double standard that Gandalf has magic, but most of the dwarves don't? The argument you're presenting is a preposterous one. The game world is the same, regardless of who lives in it, and everyone plays by the same rules. Every player is given a choice as to what type of PC they want to play. DMs are applying the same standard to everyone in their gameworld, whether that be inspired by The Hobbit or some other book or movie--all classes are held to the same genre standard. There is no double standard. you are the one who seems to be making the argument to ignore any myth or literature where mundanes are mundane, because this book over here happens to have someone who was magical. Your entire argument is based on the presumption that a person can't be mundane in a world with magic. Otherwise it makes no sense because I can apply the same LoTR standard to every PC, and have both mundane and magical together.

Not only that, be we have literally decades of game play to look at, and tens of thousands of players who like it, to have magic be the mystical part and mundane to stay mundane. There's a reason why things like the OSR are still popular despite the last edition to officially support it was over 15 years ago, and a reason why there was a huge response of gamers to bring back a mundane fighter class.

We're rather a heterogeneous group, so yes, we can want both a more mythical, capable fighter with many options, and demand that it be held to a contrary-to-genre RL standard of mundanity that renders it an optionless beatstick.

This right here says it all. The very fact that you think that if a class is mundane, they are "an optionless beatstick" despite numerous people giving example after example of how that is not true, tells me that you aren't even willing to get outside of your bias box or have an intellectually honest conversation.

 

[Uchawi]

Except that mma and three minute fights have there own constraints so it is not fair comparison. I have also study martial arts for 30+ years but that has little bearing on a fantasy world where sharing techniques or even magic is the path to your own demise. So in that context having common maneuvers versus more exotic ones that are hard to learn or used less frequently makes perfect sense.

 

[Ashkelon]

Also important to note that there are no examples of myth and literature of "normal" humans who are able to go toe to toe with the likes of giants, 40 ft long dragons, or other huge + sized creatures. Even an ogre tends to be a tough fight for the best "normal" warriors.

So we have a huge disconnect. We have a "normal" fighter who can somehow survive a 100 foot fall without breaking a single bone, can withstand being hit repeatedly by creatures the size of giants, who can somehow manage to harm creatures larger than elephants with melee weapons, but is somehow must also restricted to reality when it comes to anything else. It makes no sense. You would have to be superhuman to stand up to a dragon, a demon, or a storm giant, but high level D&D fighters do so regularly.

3e at least captured the superheroic nature of a high level fighter. A high level 3e fighter could bench press 1000s of lbs, could cut through solid admantium doors with a single blow, could leap 50 feet in the air, and could wrestle a giant and win. 5e fighters are downright mundane compared to that, which is why it makes absolute no sense that they an expect to win a fight against huge sized monsters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Still not a double standard. Take the most popular fantasy book out there. Is it a double standard that Gandalf has magic, but most of the dwarves don't?

Wow, strawman much? How did you get from heroes in fantasy displaying superhuman feats, to dwarves not casting spells?

LotR really wasn't too crazy, if you held casters to the standard of Gandalf, they'd never exceed 5th level or so. But we don't hold casters to the standard of what Gandalf actually did, or even what he was rumored to be capable of, instead, D&D casts a wide net and pulls 'spells' from all over myth, legend and literature (and movies). Hold Portal, Pyrotechnics, and maybe a few others from Gandalf (or maybe just the Ring of Fire Elemental Command & Staff of the Magi/Power). Polymorph Other from Circe. Prismatic Spray from Mizirian. Magic Missile and Shield from Roger Corman's 'the Raven.' Wall of Force and Disintegration rays from effing science fiction. ESP, Magic Jar, Astral Projection and others from Theosophy.

One character in one source doing one supernatural trick once rates a spell in D&D.

you are the one who seems to be making the argument to ignore any myth or literature where mundanes are mundane, because this book over here happens to have someone who was magical. Your entire argument is based on the presumption that a person can't be mundane in a world with magic. Otherwise it makes no sense because I can apply the same LoTR standard to every PC, and have both mundane and magical together.

Heroes in genre do things that normal people IRL can't. Doubly so in myth & legend. D&D doesn't do a good job of modeling such things.

Mizirian the Magician, uses The Excellent Prismatic Spray in one scene in one short story, and Prismatic Spray makes it into the D&D wizard's repertoire. One character in one relatively obscure story uses one supernatural power once, and it justifies adding a 7th level spell to the game. That's one standard.

Fergus mac Roth punches the top off a mountain, then he does it again. He's not even a demi-god or anything, nor is he the only guy in Celtic mythology to do that sort of thing. Beowulf tears a monster's arm off with his bare hands. Count Brass literally takes a massive bull by the horns and forces it to it's knees. Multiple archetypal characters displaying a superhuman, but not supernatural ability, but in most editions of D&D, fighters can't even make particularly effective unarmed attacks thanks to niche-protection for the Monk. That's the other standard.