D&D 5E Thoughts on Mearls' Comments on Fighter Subclasses Lacking Identity

[Connorsrpg]

Oh, I am so glad Mike mentioned this. It is exactly what I was trying to convey in my thread where I asked people to view the fighter subclasses I had done.

And funnily enough, most criticism about them was 'these are not concepts/archetypes'. To which I was replying 'Exactly - neither are the ones in the PHB'. So I created other subclasses that used different mechanics. But, as I felt there is also room for concepts (real archetypes) I ALSO created some subclasses more bout flavour and playstyle.

This is not really about whether you like either. You can have both and Mike seems to wish there were some archetypes in there. I doubt the subclasses where you get to build the concept will be erased. They will still be there and then there may be (it sounds like) concept build in the future.

Battlemaster & Champion are not really archetypes/concepts. But you CAN build concepts/archetypes with them. Obviously some people like that and that is fine. Other people also want to see some fighter concepts (much like the other classes have been built) and that is fine too. It just makes it a little odd now. To do a duelist for example, you need to compare to a champion duelist or a battlemaster duelist. (Though some people may love that there would be 3 ways to do it). No use creating duelist concept if battlemaster builds a better one. So hard to trump these with 'flavour'.

Therefore, I tried to do both for most of my fighter archetypes. (Calling them archetypes is also a problem, when they are not). Concept AND new mechanics to play off. Seems though, new mechanics were not popular.

Here if interested: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?452131-5-Fighter-Archetypes.

Anyway, rambling, but I am sure glad Mike made the point. A point others, like myself, have tried to make. Now we have a discussion on it and there are many good posts above pointing out the difference of fighter subclasses from others.

 

[Minigiant]

They do have two choice points. The battlemaster/champion and the combat style, combat style does more to define the archetype than the other. And I think it works. We are just missing "Unarmed warrior" and "Exotic weapon warrior" combat styles.

Oh you may have something there.
Fighting Style could be reconfigured to work as a flavorful secondary subclass. Much like the Mariner one in the UA gives a situational combat bonus in order to give a flavorful noncombat bonus. At that point, the issue is power as fighting styles are rather minor.

But you could do Brawling, Cavalier, and Gladiator fighting style and feat-tax them with feats.

 

[SkidAce]

Looking at famous fantasy warriors (Lancelot, Conan, Boromir, Jamie Lanister, Madmartigan, Hercules, Indigo Montoya, John Carter, Flash Gordon) you could make an argument for each being a champion or a battle master. The choice of subclass does nothing to define the character.

You are 100% correct. That's what I am saying I like. "The choice of subclass does nothing to define the character". I prefer that.

 

[Connorsrpg]

[MENTION=63508]Minigiant[/MENTION]

Can't we have both though.

2 generic "fill in the flavor" subclasses
2-5 concept "built for the archetype" subclasses

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...bclasses-Lacking-Identity/page2#ixzz3hnsEE93p

Yes. And we do in our games - (see link above if interested).

Thanks for putting succinctly.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The problem is that some people feel that the fighter has to be 'simple' and others want to play the same concepts but with it being as complex as anyother class... the fighter was and always will serve too many masters... I'm fine with calling the more complex warrior the warlord or warblade or swordsage if it means getting more fun classes...


edit: imagine if fighter was broken into two classes, each had 3-5 subclasses, the first called WARRIOR and looked like the champion, the second was called WARLORD and was a lot like the Battlemaster...

 

[neobolts]

Except they don't choose "archetype", they just choose complexity.

Eldritch Knight is absolutely its own flavor niche.

With Champion and Battlemaster, they consciously chose meta playstyle over flavor. I'll absolutely concede that they married complexity to subclass with those options, but I think that they executed the decision to do so pretty well.

 

[Raith5]

Oh you may have something there.
Fighting Style could be reconfigured to work as a flavorful secondary subclass. Much like the Mariner one in the UA gives a situational combat bonus in order to give a flavorful noncombat bonus. At that point, the issue is power as fighting styles are rather minor.

But you could do Brawling, Cavalier, and Gladiator fighting style and feat-tax them with feats.

I agree there is some interesting design space here. I do find the fighter (and rogue) very effective but not very interesting. But I am not sure the subclass (champion/battlemaster) point is where I would want to add interesting options. It would be good to see some options around fighting style - to see the type of weapons in the hand of a fighter make a much bigger deal. Axes, spears and Swords etc could have some interesting, different (and perhaps) more dramatic effects in the hands of a fighter.

 

[Wik]

That's not flavour in the class though, that's flavour from the player. It's being added to the PC and isn't inherent to the class concept and build.

That's a good thing. Loose mechanics (like the fighter) means broad interpretations. It's like in older editions, where you could have the same character class/race combination and still have one character be a pirate, another a barbarian raider, and a third a canny knight. The second you tie mechanics to flavour, you're stuck there. Which is fine if someone wants that flavour, but the second someone wants to cover something else, they're hooped. The fighter SHOULD be broad, and lacking in specific flavour.

After all, 99% of the military types in our own world would be called "fighters", and no one can say that a Roman Legion, a Gaulish barbarian, a viking warrior, and a navy SEAL are at all similar.

That's a pretty darn HUGE assumption regarding his intent. He really seems to be focusing on the fact that a "champion" and "battle master" don't mean anything. Removed from the mechanics the names have no identity, and could have been swapped and no one would have noticed.

Sure, but then, the same can be said about "fighter". The fighter in our 5e game is a battlemaster with a shield. And he rarely even draws his weapon. In fact, the eladrin wizard has used his melee weapon more often than our "fighter". No one really frets over the fact that his character 'class' doesn't actually reflect what he does in game (which is, grant temp hp, give advantage, and prevent his allies from getting hit).

It's not that the mechanics in the subclasses are bad. But imagine if the champion had a smidge more flavour and the ability to opt into maneuvers.

They can opt in. Feats exist, after all. And as I say above, I don't think the champion SHOULD have that flavour. It's just a mechanical "this is the simple fighter option. Have fun." This is a great design aspect of 5e - you can pick your level of complexity, and then flavour to taste. SOO much better than, say, Pathfinder, which requires a lot of rules-ese to get the flavour you want.

You can easily imagine a "weaponmaster" fighter that is the specialist with a particular type of weapon and gets improved crits with that. And the other abilities of the subclass are related to doing cool weapon things (boosting crit damage, hitting more reliably) rather than jumping or regaining hitpoints.

Sure. But then you get to the point where "I'm an expert in the falchion. I'm the only fighter in the group. I specialize in a weird weapon... as the GM, you either award us common magical weapons that I can't use, or only give us magical weapons that I can use that threaten the believability of the world".

We've had weapon-masters before. They seldom work well in -any- edition of D&D. They basically turn into a feat tax system, where you either specialize in a weapon to stay at "par", or you skip doing that and fall behind.

There's so many neat ideas that could have worked as a fighter subclass: the phalanx fighter (master of the shield who blocks attacks to adjacent allies),

It exists, and it's called the "protection" fighter style. It's pretty awesome.

Also, that's not what a phalanx is. You're thinking a legion style.

The phalanx really didn't have much to do with shields. It was more about creating a wall of pikes that made a frontal assault impossible. Which was why the phalanx was so vulnerable to the flanks and rear, and why the people that used it, such as Alexander the Great, wound up relying instead on heavy cavalry.

the cavalier (mounted combatant with a lance),

There's a feat for that.

the brawler (fights unarmed and does dirty tricks),

And that.

the reckless brute (designed to take the hits and shrug off damage),

That's a barbarian. And I'm glad the fighter doesn't compete with the role of another class.

the gladiator (skilled with unusual and showy weapons and gains bonuses from Charisma),

Fighter with the Entertainer background, which makes perfect sense. If you want the charisma bonuses, make him or her a battlemaster. But then, in 4e, we complained about people using whatever ability score they wanted to modify physical attacks...

the swashbuckler (dashes about the battlefield, parrying blows and dodging attacks).

Both rogues and monks do that as their schtick. And again, I'm glad the fighter doesn't step on other classes' toes. Also, there's a new fighting style that does that as well.

Now, some of those can still be currently built. As is the class is pretty darn flexible. However, it's just as easy to not focus on a concept and have a character devoid of any flavour.

And I disagree. It's better to have a class that's written clearly and concisely, and let the players build their flavour off that. This is MUCH easier than trying to remove the flavour written in and then modifying for your own purposes. It's going to be a lot easier to make a samurai in 5e right now, as written, than it would be to use a fighter in, say, pathfinder to do the same thing.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think MM's comment indicates he doesnt understand his own Fighter class. The fighter champion and battlemaster are the clean slates that dont come with baggage - you make them your own by customising them. Theyre supposed to start out vanilla. Then you can then go in any direction with the champion or BM. To quote Kung Fu Panda: There is no secret ingredient.

 

[neobolts]

Sure. But then you get to the point where "I'm an expert in the falchion. I'm the only fighter in the group. I specialize in a weird weapon... as the GM, you either award us common magical weapons that I can't use, or only give us magical weapons that I can use that threaten the believability of the world".

When a player does this, I would end up giving them a named weapon that "evolves" alongside the character. A spiffy mythical falchion that levels alongside you seems more palatable than a slightly better falchion around every corner.