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

[redrick]

That's an unfair example. In the one, the character gives an example outside the game (Errol Flynn) as well as another descriptor (swashbuckler). There's also no description of subclass. In the warlock part of the example, you're referring to something right out of the book and not really adding anything.

Which is the whole damn point. If someone shows up at the table and just pulls a subclass randomly and says "my character is a warlock who made a deal with a timeless alien being" they don't need to add anything more. People can fill up the character with outside knowledge from the PHB and Lovecraft. But if someone says "I'm a human fighter" or "I'm a dragonborn battle master" we have nothing to work with.

It takes just as much effort to say "my dragonborn fighter moves like Errol Flynn as he buckles his swash" as it does to say "my warlock was dying and made a pact with a psychopomp in exchange for a longer life" or "my grandfather sold his soul a beining known as Aseoth and I have inherited his debt". The inherent flavour of the warlock doesn't mean you can't go your own route, saying a Fey patron was really a deceptive arch devil, the Fiend was an elemental primordial, or the Great Old One was a ilithid Elder Brain.

You're not bound by the provided flavour any more than you are restricted by the example names or suggested personality traits.

There doesn't need to be a description of subclass, because the subclass isn't the most flavorful part of a fighter character. That's where we both agree. Some are saying that this is good, and others are saying that this is bad. But, for the sake of argument, the fighter doesn't have to be so evocative as Errol Flynn or swashbuckler. The player can just say, "My fighter is a knight." And then she can go from there. She can come in with a lot of flavor and story about her knight and tell everybody about it during the first game, or she can develop her understanding of the character over time. The game makes no assumptions for her. The Fighter is just a regular old chicken breast. Maybe she wants to slather on a bunch of spices of her choosing. Maybe she actually likes the taste of chicken breast, and is happy to leave it at that.

The Warlock, as you say, relates to a character type written up in the book. But, the problem was, and I am taking this example from actual play with real players, the player in question didn't actually want the full flavor package of the PHB Great Old One warlock. Unfortunately for her, she didn't realize that, because she didn't have the opportunity to fully internalize that flavor package while she was flipping through the PHB skimming the descriptions of various character classes. (Now, lest you say, "well, she should have started with Basic", this player had played a basic fighter once. A dwarven fighter criminal, who worked as a legbreaker for some smugglers at the docks.) The player didn't realize that the Warlock flavor package didn't work for her until a couple of sessions revealed a strong disconnect between her understanding of the character and the DM's understanding of the character, and the DM's attempts to plug her rough sketch backstory into the campaign. (We all gave a brief writeup to the DM, and he spat us back a sort of "plugged in" version, with place names, factions and deities filled out.) It was frustrating, because she came away feeling like she was Doing It Wrong. (And, for all I know, the DM felt the same way — he was a first-time DM just reading the PHB and trying to make sense of it.)

I think Moonsong's distinction of "active support" and "passive support" is a very good one. The Warlock provides a ton of active support for character concepts. It's loaded with some really cool flavor, and I know some people who've really enjoyed their Warlocks for this reason. The fighter, on the other hand, presupposes very little flavor and say, "paint me." The fighter works so well for that, because there's a fighter in every novel with a sword in it. Finding a model for your fighter is easy as pie. So it can get away with less active support for character concepts, because there's so much support to be drawn from elsewhere.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This argument is essentially "we can't have X because some DMs are dicks". Which isn't a particularly great argument as it can be applied equally to every side or position.

It's also an argument that's profoundly at odds with DM Empowerment. 5e trusts its DMs.

 

[redrick]

It's always better to have something than nothing. It's always better to have the choice to create and add lore than have no choice and have to create lore. Because you can always choose to ignore what's there.

This is the fundamental point of disagreement. Some players feel this way. Other players do not. Some people would rather replace than create. Other people would rather create than replace. This is one of the most common reasons cited for people preferring, say, Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. Fans of Forgotten Realms say, "It's got all this lore, and if I don't like it, I can ignore it or replace it or refluff it." And fans of Greyhawk say, "The world hasn't detailed out to the n'th degree, so when I look at the map, it's covered in areas where I can create what I want, without having to clear away a bunch of official, published lore."

Both are valid approaches! There are times when I prefer the former, and there are times when I prefer the latter. But I, and many others, would disagree with you when you say, "It's always better to have something than nothing." Sometimes, it is better to have nothing, because there are no preconceived notions when you build your own something. Try painting a wall with a light color, after somebody else has painted a complicated design with rich, dark colors.

 

[Jester David]

There doesn't need to be a description of subclass, because the subclass isn't the most flavorful part of a fighter character. That's where we both agree. Some are saying that this is good, and others are saying that this is bad. But, for the sake of argument, the fighter doesn't have to be so evocative as Errol Flynn or swashbuckler. The player can just say, "My fighter is a knight." And then she can go from there. She can come in with a lot of flavor and story about her knight and tell everybody about it during the first game, or she can develop her understanding of the character over time. The game makes no assumptions for her. The Fighter is just a regular old chicken breast. Maybe she wants to slather on a bunch of spices of her choosing. Maybe she actually likes the taste of chicken breast, and is happy to leave it at that.

Which is great if you're starting at level 1. If you're starting at level 3 or 5 or 10 that stops working so well. Or you're making a replacement character and need it quickly. Or if you're doing a one-shot.

The Warlock, as you say, relates to a character type written up in the book. But, the problem was, and I am taking this example from actual play with real players, the player in question didn't actually want the full flavor package of the PHB Great Old One warlock. Unfortunately for her, she didn't realize that, because she didn't have the opportunity to fully internalize that flavor package while she was flipping through the PHB skimming the descriptions of various character classes. (Now, lest you say, "well, she should have started with Basic", this player had played a basic fighter once. A dwarven fighter criminal, who worked as a legbreaker for some smugglers at the docks.) The player didn't realize that the Warlock flavor package didn't work for her until a couple of sessions revealed a strong disconnect between her understanding of the character and the DM's understanding of the character, and the DM's attempts to plug her rough sketch backstory into the campaign. (We all gave a brief writeup to the DM, and he spat us back a sort of "plugged in" version, with place names, factions and deities filled out.) It was frustrating, because she came away feeling like she was Doing It Wrong. (And, for all I know, the DM felt the same way — he was a first-time DM just reading the PHB and trying to make sense of it.)z

So... we shouldn't have inherent flavour because new players who don't read the entries and are being DMed by new DMs, and don't discuss their character concept with their DM might have problems?

Isn't that a bit of a niche problem?

 

[steeldragons]

And renaming the "champion" into "the gladiator" and giving it flavour related to be trained to fight on behalf of other people does nothing to fundamentally change the class.

Come now. The term gladiator comes dripping in preconceived baggage, backstory, setting assumptions, and the need for mechanical specificity. It is hardly a term that could stand in as "the simple build fighter guy" and you know it.

 

[Corpsetaker]

I think Mike has made this claim on a personal level because none of the surveys say anything about the state of the current fighter. I'm sorry but the fighter is finally at a stage that I love and I don't want Mike to try and change it based on a personal feeling his has.

 

[redrick]

Which is great if you're starting at level 1. If you're starting at level 3 or 5 or 10 that stops working so well. Or you're making a replacement character and need it quickly. Or if you're doing a one-shot.


So... we shouldn't have inherent flavour because new players who don't read the entries and are being DMed by new DMs, and don't discuss their character concept with their DM might have problems?

Isn't that a bit of a niche problem?

Are new players who can't read and re-read and fully understand the chapters on character classes, character species and character backgrounds a niche problem? And don't have several hours to sit down and fully map out their character with their DM before the first session? I'll admit, I'm basing this entirely off my own experience. It's anecdotal and not statistical, and my experiences might be niche.

Nobody's saying you can't have the flavorful classes and subclasses! The Warlock is great! Chock full of flavor. All I'm saying is that there are circumstances and players for whom all of that flavor is not so good. One of the successes of 5e is that it caters to both. It manages to have a flavor-packed Warlock, and put it next to a broad, open fighter. The Rogue comes in second, in that category. Sometimes, for folks like Moonsong, it's a bummer when the flavorful class happens to fall on a category in which they'd rather have the full freedom to create their own flavor, and for others, like maybe you, it's a bummer that the Chicken class is one where they'd rather have some more baked-in flavor options right out of the book.

If you excised the Champion and the Battlemaster, and replaced them with a series of more flavored, specific subclasses (even without changing the mechanics), I think you might lose something from the game. Though, who knows. I'm certainly open to hearing about what Mearls and Co might have come up with.

 

[Minigiant]

]
That's what the Battlemaster is. In the playtest, it was called Weaponmaster for a bit, then changed to Battlemaster.

I liked Weaponmaster better.

I'd go

Champion -> Warrior
Battlemaster -> Weaponmaster

Have to disagree strongly with that. Most heroic archetypes you see in the genre can't be anything but a fighter - again, because they don't cast spells, aren't berserkers, and aren't sneak-thieves/assassins - but the fighter doesn't do them justice. It's a rare hero who is just a melee badass or just a great archer, which is as far as you can get with a Champion of Battlemaster. They're DPR-optimizeable 'Strikers,' and that's it.

The fighter can function as a defender with the protection fighting style. They do it better with feat and even better with the marking variant.

It's only healer, leader, controller, and blaster they can't do. But there's no nonmagical version of any of those in 5e.

You're right that there are a few flavors of melee-badassedness that do fall through the cracks between the Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk.

There's more than a few.

The flaw of making the fighter very vanilla and very generic is that you spread it's focus. By doing that you handle everything at a poorer quality. The only way to counter it is to actively search out the gaps. And Mearls said they spent so much time trying to make those subclasses, they didn't notice a lot of other things in the fight.

Really it's a case of this:

A) You handle 75% of the fighter archetypes in a so-so manner with generic archetypes and fail on the other 25%.

OR

B) You pick 5-6 archetypes and do them great and do the other 100 fighter archtypes later sometime maybe.

Where you stand is based on we 5-6 archetype the design team would choose.

If they pick "Sharpshooter" "Cavalier" "Duelist" "Defender" "Eldritch Knight" "Heavy Weapon Master" and "Tempest"...

...and you just want a sword and board knight with High Str and Con... You are fine with either but prefer B.

...and you want a polearm master with High Str and Dex... You are fine with either but prefer A.

... and you want a trident and net unarmored gladiator with High Str and Cha... You hate both option but there's a chance with B and enough lobbying you can get your retiarius quicker.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I liked Weaponmaster better.

I'd go

Champion -> Warrior
Battlemaster -> Weaponmaster

I was thinking the Champion was so much like the (Essentials) "Slayer," and that it fits the "I just kill things" connotation better. Warrior is decidedly generic, and was a 3.x NPC class.

The fighter can function as a defender with the protection fighting style. They do it better with feat and even better with the marking variant.

Even granting all that (and the marking variant lets anyone play at defending, so I'm not sure it helps), they still don't do it very well, /and/ you're still playing a class that has it's most potent abilities concentrated on DPR, and working at cross purposes against that.

At best, the fighter is tough and expendable enough to make a decent meat shield. I don't know that I'd agree that's on par with defender, but the similarities are obvious.

It's only healer, leader, controller, and blaster they can't do. But there's no nonmagical version of any of those in 5e.

Heh. 'Only,' yeah.

So is it up to the Champion, Battlemaster, Thief, Assassin, or Berserker to take up all that slack?

The flaw of making the fighter very vanilla and very generic is that you spread it's focus. By doing that you handle everything at a poorer quality. The only way to counter it is to actively search out the gaps. And Mearls said they spent so much time trying to make those subclasses, they didn't notice a lot of other things in the fight.

I doubt it was the two non-casting fighter-sub classes that distracted them from coming up with more - I'm guessing it was the 30 or so magic-using sub-classes that absorbed much of their attention.

One way to avoid spreading focus is, of course, to narrow it. Have more than 0 non-caster classes and more than 5 non-caster sub-classes, and the two non-casting fighter sub-classes won't have so much ground to cover.

 

[Psikerlord#]

For me, I would have liked them to use Champion = Warrior and Battlemaster = Warlord.