D&D 5E A WOTC 5e Warlord That Would Be Acceptable To Skeptics

[FormerlyHemlock]

If your goal is to deal maximum damage while still holding a shield, then yes, the paladins win.
If you factor in defense, then the fighter wins.

If your goal is to do maximum damage while holding a shield, a multiclass abomination (Fighter 2/Warlock 2/Sorcerer X Crossbow Expert) probably wins.

If your goal is to do maximum damage without magic while holding a shield, fighter wins (though barbarian is competitive at low levels). Smiting is magic. Some people don't enjoy magic.

Personally I think trying to turn sword-and-shield into a max DPR thing is optimizing for the wrong metric. You're a tank; be a tank. Bash some guy in the face with your shield, knocking him prone, then grapple his leg with your free hand and stick it under your armpit so he can't get up, and enjoy the fact that he now has disadvantage on all attacks while your GWM buddy gets advantage on all of his attacks. You can kick the guy a few times if you feel like it for some extra damage, but the point is that once you've grabbed him, the guy is toast and you're pretty much invulnerable to him, thanks to your shield.

Concrete example: defense fighter in plate armor and shield (AC 21) shield bashes an Earth Elemental Prone (say Athletics +8 vs. the elemental's Athletics +5 means 61% chance of victory, and the fighter gets up to three attempts per turn including Shield Master) and then grapples it. The elemental needs a 13 or better at disadvantage to hit, and it does 2d8+5 damage on a hit, twice per turn. Plug "avg.2.13D?2d8+5" into the dice tool (http://maxwilson.github.io/RollWeb/Roll/) and it turns out that the elemental will do 4.53 average DPR to the fighter. Against the GWM Reckless attacking barbarian he'd be doing 24.09 DPR (halved for rage), but now he will only do 8.52 DPR against that same barbarian (again, halved for rage). Your contribution to the fight is that you cut the damage your team takes by 65%! That is awesome!

BTW, without a shield you'd be taking 7.04 average damage from the elemental once it is proned/grappled, and without Shield Master you'd have a harder time knocking it prone in the first place, but you could use your free hand to stab it twice per turn at advantage for avg.2.9A?d8+5 = 16.84 damage per turn, half that if no magic weapon. This illustrates the awesomeness of grappling: it goes from a disadvantageous fight (11.85 inflicted for 14.90 taken) to a cakewalk (16.84 inflicted for 7.04 taken) as soon as you grapple/prone the earth elemental. The earth elemental can try to break out but at only one attempt per turn it will take it more actions to break out than it takes you to re-impose the condition, and meanwhile you are beating its face in. Lesson: tactics matter even in a one-on-one fight. Don't just start making attacks, stack the deck in your favor first if you can.

 

[Hussar]

Sigh. Again, if I have to multiclass and take advantage of charop cheese, then fighters are not the combat masters. And if fighters aren't the combat masters, which was the comment which started this tangent, then what exactly are they?

Look, weapon doesn't really matter because a paladin can take the same weapons as a fighter and have the same strength. So, let's take straight up weapon damage out of the equation. (mostly) Assume 6 combats in an adventuring day with 1 short rest. That should be about 24 rounds of combat (by and large). That means that the 8th level Battlemaster is doing (max) 52 hits (2/round +2 surges) for 52xweaponxstr bonus plus 10d8 damage. IOW, the most the BM can add is 10d8 points. And that's assuming he blows all his superiority dice on damage. An 8th level paladin can add 17d8/day with smites although he is only going to be able to hit 48 times. Are 4 weapon hits really worth 7d8 damage? Maybe, close. Even with a second short rest, he's still only getting 2 more attacks and another 5d8 damage.

The only way the BM actually out damages the paladin is if you have about 6-8 encounters and at least two short rests, and three would probably do it. There are many situations where that just doesn't happen. Any shorter day and the paladin leaves the fighter in the dust.

But, again, the fighter doesn't get anything else OTHER than combat stuff. He doesn't get any detection powers, he can't Channel Divinity, he doesn't grant saving throw bonuses to other characters.

Since the fighter doesn't get anything other than combat bonuses, shouldn't he be doing significantly more damage?

Now, all this being said, I think at higher levels, say, 11+, the rules change. The fighter is likely kicking ass and taking names. Only problem is, I've had to play for about a year before that's going to happen. Talking about all the feats I can take once I'm 14th level doesn't really matter if the campaign ends at 12th. Spending most of the campaign lagging behind and then surging ahead (heh, bad pun) for the last two or three levels isn't game balance.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Assume 6 combats in an adventuring day with 1 short rest.

Why would that be the assumption?

Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day.
...
In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through the day

The assumptions you provide significantly weaken the fighter, who should be getting another rest in there.

The only way the BM actually out damages the paladin is if you have about 6-8 encounters and at least two short rests, and three would probably do it There are many situations where that just doesn't happen.

That's the balance assumption. If that's not happening, then the DM's campaign is biasing the game in favor of daily resources, yes, and a short-rest character like a fighter or a warlock might feel the pinch. But you can't expect the designers to balance the game to a playstyle they're not presuming. (The end point of this line of thinking is that every individual encounter should be balanced, which has its own trade-offs)

But, again, the fighter doesn't get anything else OTHER than combat stuff. He doesn't get any detection powers, he can't Channel Divinity, he doesn't grant saving throw bonuses to other characters.

CD and saving throw bonuses are DEFINITELY combat stuff.

CD is useless without a subclass, so we can compare CD, in your case, with advantage on all melee attacks for a round.

That is, compare advantage on all melee attacks for a round with the strongest DC abilities which are (1) +CHA to attacks and damage (I'd wager advantage adds more damage at most AC's), (2) restrain an enemy (effect of adv to allies, disadv. to that enemy until they die or escape), and (3) advantage on attack rolls against one creature. Your feature is just as good as any CD feature, if not better.

Saving throw bonuses is still combat stuff, and it's at 6th level, so you compare it with a +1 to hit and damage on all attacks (the benefit of bumping up your STR), or +1/level HP (bumping your CON) or some feat. Again, comparable, if not better.

For out of combat utility, compare Divine Sense with artisan's tool proficiency or an EK's weapon bond, both of which fill the same general design space - ribbons not meant to be useful in every situation, but occasionally meant to be very useful. Champions don't get a ribbon, but that's sort of the Champion's schtick. Curiously, the Knight homebrew doesn't get a ribbon, though it could really use one.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay, so, the conversation has since drifted outside of the bounds in which meaningful mathematical analysis can be done, so I'm probably just going to not do that (unless people really want the crunched math, in which case I'll do it tomorrow or the day after).

That said, though, I do think there are two very meaningful points that can, and should, be addressed here. Plus the minor point that I think it's...more than a little unfair to be bringing in homebrew content for a comparison between the classes.

1) "The Fighter is balanced in the combat pillar, and the other pillars."
This is a bit of a problem, at least compared to most of the other rhetoric I've seen on this forum. Back during the heyday of the "what is wrong with the Fighter" threads,* one of the topics that came up rather frequently was "the Fighter doesn't get any 'meaningful' non-combat features." People debated what "meaningful" meant, of course, but the far more common response was "the Fighter is the best at combat, that's why it isn't so great at other things; people demanding more non-combat stuff are demanding unfair favoritism." But now, in this thread, we seem to be admitting that even when the Fighter goes all-out for combat, they're only slightly better than someone else going all-out for combat--and the Paladin can always choose to spend daily resources on non-combat stuff, while the Fighter cannot. Even Second Wind (roughly 5.5+level, once per rest) doesn't quite stand up to Lay on Hands (5*level, can be used to remove disease/poison); it takes at least 3 short rests per day at that level to exceed LoH at level 5, and 4 per day at level 10 (the formula being: # of short rests = 5*(level)/(5.5+level)), though slightly lucky rolls can make early-level SW competitive with LoH.

The bigger point, though, is that the Paladin can cast several potent non-combat spells instead of doing extra damage, whereas the Fighter can never get more than "one extra action's worth of effect" per short rest. The Fighter, even if she goes balls-out damage, is well within the whims of random variation, in terms of extra damage she can deal, while never bringing more to the non-combat table than an artisan tool proficiency (most of which are...very narrow in application) or (generally) an extra +1 or +2 to some skills (and five extra feet of jump distance!). So the Paladin appears to be, at very worst, only a single notch below the Fighter in terms of...well, fighting, while having numerous party-friendly passive/always-on abilities and the ability to "exchange" some of that fight-might for other stuff--presumably only when it would be really useful, so there's never a question of "lost" utility for it.

2. "Having less than 2 short rests per day is just a mistaken choice by the DM."
From what I've heard, this is not actually the case. That is, nearly every group I've heard discuss the topic has said that the average is 1 a day, with the occasional day with 2 and even some days with none at all; days with 3 or more are rare or even unheard of, even when there are more than 6 encounters. The book can say there's two, sure--but the condition is so soft that I think most DMs don't even realize that it really, seriously matters for certain classes. While I wasn't a member of ENWorld at the time, I did voice this as a criticism back during the playtest--having some classes primarily or near-exclusively dependent on short rests for their critical abilities, while others are primarily or even exclusively long-rest dependent (and a rare few, like the Rogue, are largely rest-independent) would lead to one or the other getting shortchanged. My fears were focused on the short-rest classes, mostly because a short rest is now an hour long--taking more than two a day means, for most adventuring parties, that you spend nearly as much time not doing anything as you do adventuring (3 hr SR + 8 hr LR = 11 hrs resting, vs. 13 hr doing *everything else*).

Despite the mechanical and personal incentive (for players) and the advice of the books (mostly for DMs), the evidence I've seen suggests that 5e players and/or DMs favor taking fewer than the expected number of short rests per long rest--closer to one every three encounters rather than every two. The Paladin is (largely) unfazed by this trend, if indeed it is a trend--while the Fighter is pretty significantly penalized by it, to the tune of losing a third of its daily bonus damage. Although I have frequently stated my distaste for forum polls, I have created one just to get a sense of how "people who read the 5e section and choose to vote" (a small, woefully unrepresentative sample, sadly) tackle the short-rests-per-long-rest issue, for anyone interested in voting.

*which I guess you could say were the, or at least a, "first wave" of 5e criticism around here, followed by the "Warlord debate" threads which are now the current long-running discussion

 

[Hussar]

The thing is KM, my point is, that even with that second short rest, or even a third, the BM fighter which blows ALL his dice on damage is just equal to the paladin.

Shouldn't the combat king be doing more damage? How is a fighter the combat king when other characters do the same damage? After all, isn't the paladin supposed to be trading damage for healing, detection powers, saving throw buffing AND his CD power? Shouldn't a fighter and a paladin, using the same weapons, see the fighter doing considerably more damage? Remember, the only reason the fighter in my example was even close to the paladin is because he blew every single superiority die on damage. A Champion is SOL here. He's not even in the same ballpark.

No matter how you slice it, my character is maxed out doing 13 points of damage per attack. He simply cannot do any more than that. The paladin does exactly the same damage - 13 points per hit, PLUS a potential extra 17d8 dice of damage. My four, or even six extra attacks can't come close to matching that, even with me hitting more often. Three short rests gives me 8 more attacks. A max damage 104 damage. I cannot do more damage than that. The paladin gets 17d8 bonus damage - not counting any bonuses from Channel Divinity. That's a max of 153 points. The paladin is out damaging my BEST damage by 50%. If I was a Battlemaster, I could just about equal his damage. Maybe beat it by a bit.

Again, how is a fighter the combat master?

 

[mellored]

Look, weapon doesn't really matter because a paladin can take the same weapons as a fighter and have the same strength. So, let's take straight up weapon damage out of the equation.

And here's the error i was talking about. Their base damage is NOT the same, unless your talking below level 6.

i.e. at level 6, the fighter can have 20 Str, while the paladin only has 18 (and a nice aura).

1d8+5 * 60% = 5.7 damage
1d8+4 * 55% = 4.675

Fighter does 20% more damage.

an adventuring day with 1 short rest

The DMG says to have 2 short rests per day.
And yes, short days favor those with 1/day features.
Long days favor those who have more at-will powers.

blows all his superiority dice on damage.

Your selling the maneuvers short.

Trip attack, adds damage, AND the possibility of advantage on following attacks.
Or riposte, which adds an reaction attack, and damage (if it hits).

 

[I'm A Banana]

But now, in this thread, we seem to be admitting that even when the Fighter goes all-out for combat, they're only slightly better than someone else going all-out for combat--and the Paladin can always choose to spend daily resources on non-combat stuff, while the Fighter cannot.

In my view, the classes seem to be roughly balanced within the pillars, yes. Couldn't speak for those that imagine the Fighter is giving something up to be better at combat. I can say that I agree with Mearls that the fighter subclasses aren't as flavorful or narratively interesting as most other subclasses, and that can certainly contribute to a perception that they've got little on offer outside of combat abilities. In the Champion's case, this is even demonstrable - they don't have an apprentice-tier fluff ability. Likely, this is intentional (in the name of simplicity!), but it certainly means that a Champion doesn't have any special way to contribute to stuff outside of combat.

The bigger point, though, is that the Paladin can cast several potent non-combat spells instead of doing extra damage, whereas the Fighter can never get more than "one extra action's worth of effect" per short rest.

If we want to talk about a Paladin using their spells out of combat, we should also talk about a Fighter using Action Surge outside of combat (double skill checks, for instance, or move + 2 dashes). In both cases, you're giving up damage capacity to do other things. As par for the course with action Surge, the Fighter seems to spike harder for a shorter duration on these. But at this point we're moving the goalposts pretty far away from "Fighters aren't overshadowed in a fight," which was my goal. If we can agree that fighters aren't inherently disadvantaged in combat, I'm happy to move onto what issues they face outside of it.

2. "Having less than 2 short rests per day is just a mistaken choice by the DM."
From what I've heard, this is not actually the case. That is, nearly every group I've heard discuss the topic has said that the average is 1 a day, with the occasional day with 2 and even some days with none at all; days with 3 or more are rare or even unheard of, even when there are more than 6 encounters. The book can say there's two, sure--but the condition is so soft that I think most DMs don't even realize that it really, seriously matters for certain classes. While I wasn't a member of ENWorld at the time, I did voice this as a criticism back during the playtest--having some classes primarily or near-exclusively dependent on short rests for their critical abilities, while others are primarily or even exclusively long-rest dependent (and a rare few, like the Rogue, are largely rest-independent) would lead to one or the other getting shortchanged. My fears were focused on the short-rest classes, mostly because a short rest is now an hour long--taking more than two a day means, for most adventuring parties, that you spend nearly as much time not doing anything as you do adventuring (3 hr SR + 8 hr LR = 11 hrs resting, vs. 13 hr doing *everything else*).

I wouldn't say it's a mistake, I would say it's something that biases the game away from short-rest-recovery characters like fighters and warlocks if you do it as a default. While I think the pacing variation is kind of fascinating (1 short rest for 6 encounters is...gonna be rough in like a third of those encounters, hp-wise), I don't think you can hold the game's feet to the fire for not designing to gameplay behavior that works around its guidelines. The DMG clearly states what it expects. It's fine if you don't follow those expectations, but then you can't expect everything in the game to work exactly the same as it would otherwise. It'd be like playing 4e without each of the four roles - viable, possible, even fun, but certainly not what the game is presuming you're doing.

The thing is KM, my point is, that even with that second short rest, or even a third, the BM fighter which blows ALL his dice on damage is just equal to the paladin.

Shouldn't the combat king be doing more damage?

Like I pointed out, I think that's a flawed assumption. 5e classes don't have hard roles. ANY character played as a damage-dealer should be able to meet some baseline damage potential. Any character played as a tank should have a baseline of staying power. Any character played as a controller should have some baseline ability to deny. Any character played as a leader should have some baseline damage negation (healing, AC spikes, disadvantage to enemies, etc.) and buffing.

While there's some variation in the extreme ends of the bell curve for how easy it is to pull off some of these (ie, if you want to be a leader-fighter, you're going to have to focus on it, but if you want to be a striker-fighter you can do it without thinking; if you want to be a leader-bard, you can almost stumble into it, but if you want to be a striker-bard, that'll require some special attention), ultimately there is a sort of rough parity IMXP. My controller-sorcerer isn't the most natural thing for a sorcerer to do, but he does it, and he's good at it. I'm also not getting into a wang-measuring contest just because the low-level Sentinel/Polearm Master Fighter might have denied more actual damage to the party, though. Baseline is all that's necessary, my sorc hits the baseline nicely, I'm a happy camper.

No matter how you slice it, my character is maxed out doing 13 points of damage per attack. He simply cannot do any more than that. The paladin does exactly the same damage - 13 points per hit, PLUS a potential extra 17d8 dice of damage. My four, or even six extra attacks can't come close to matching that, even with me hitting more often.

It's true, when you compare novas at level 8, a fighter with a d8 weapon and +5 STR has an average potential damage of 114 from 12 attacks during surge rounds over the course of the day, while a paladin with the same STR and weapon could do seven smite attacks for 143 average potential damage, pulilng ahead by 29 points of damage! So I guess it does actually come close to matching that. Given what was said upthread about ~20 points of damage not being much at level 5, I'd say this still falls within the bounds of rough balance, personally (especially considering the extra ASI/feat the fighter has under their belt - a CON bump, if nothing more, which might contribute another round or so to fighting after the paladin drops). You were beating his butt regularly circa level 5-6, he pulls a head a bit by level 8, it's kind of a rounding error either way, close enough to parity for the messy work of adventuring, I think.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Alright, well, as I've said--that isn't an argument I was making. I'm pretty sure I've been on record, repeatedly, as saying that I think the Fighter is, more or less, on-par with the other "heavy melee" classes (Paladin and Barbarian) as far as damage is concerned. I have only and exclusively been arguing--again, as I believe I have said--that I don't see a substantial damage advantage for the Fighter, at least for the first half-or-so of the game.

And I know I have stated, at least elsewhere, that the bigger problem is that people talk about a significant damage advantage for the Fighter, and use this alleged significant advantage as justification for the Fighter getting effectively nothing (well, other than a relatively narrow ribbon) to contribute in terms of non-combat, from its class mechanics. It gets the same amount everyone does from Background, sure--but literally every other class, even the Barbarian (well, Totem Barbarian, anyway) picks up substantial ability to contribute to both of the other pillars beyond class skills and background benefits. As far as I can tell, the Champion and Battlemaster straight-up don't, and the standard Eldritch Knight (limited to Abjuration and Evocation) doesn't get a whole lot either.

(Also, my statement about "an extra round's worth of effect" was meant to cover precisely what you said with the "additional dash action" or the like. I am highly unconvinced of the non-combat applications of Action Surge, at least partially because no DM I've had has ever required round-like adjudication of non-combat situations...except in 4e skill challenges, which every "old school" type seems to make signs-against-evil when they hear.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Alright, well, as I've said--that isn't an argument I was making. I'm pretty sure I've been on record, repeatedly, as saying that I think the Fighter is, more or less, on-par with the other "heavy melee" classes (Paladin and Barbarian) as far as damage is concerned. I have only and exclusively been arguing--again, as I believe I have said--that I don't see a substantial damage advantage for the Fighter, at least for the first half-or-so of the game.

Cool, we're in agreement about that. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] doesn't seem to agree, based on his complaints about his fighter getting overshadowed by variously sorcerers, rangers, rogue/battlemasters, and paladins.

And I know I have stated, at least elsewhere, that the bigger problem is that people talk about a significant damage advantage for the Fighter, and use this alleged significant advantage as justification for the Fighter getting effectively nothing (well, other than a relatively narrow ribbon) to contribute in terms of non-combat, from its class mechanics. It gets the same amount everyone does from Background, sure--but literally every other class, even the Barbarian (well, Totem Barbarian, anyway) picks up substantial ability to contribute to both of the other pillars beyond class skills and background benefits. As far as I can tell, the Champion and Battlemaster straight-up don't, and the standard Eldritch Knight (limited to Abjuration and Evocation) doesn't get a whole lot either.

I think that the point of comparison is the 3rd level fluff ability within the Fighter subclass. So, proficiency in artisan's tools for a Battlemaster, or the Weapon Bond for an EK, and doodly-blank-nothin' for the Champion. The utility of these abilities is much more campaign-dependent than the combat abilities - a paladin might never encounter a fiend, while our Battlemaster brews healing potions in their downtime. Or the opposite might occur. In both cases, it's kind of up to the ability owner to make the most of their ability.

(Also, my statement about "an extra round's worth of effect" was meant to cover precisely what you said with the "additional dash action" or the like. I am highly unconvinced of the non-combat applications of Action Surge, at least partially because no DM I've had has ever required round-like adjudication of non-combat situations...except in 4e skill challenges, which every "old school" type seems to make signs-against-evil when they hear.)

I can say that as a DM, if a Fighter wanted to make another skill check because Action Surge, I'd be happy to let 'em. It's a significant resource they're spending on that skill check. But again, out-of-combat stuff is much more variable by campaign than combat-based stuff, which is why it's kind of hard to evaluate and compare across noncombat abilities. You can say that Weapon Bond is useless, but then Eddie gets a magical axe he can leave as a calling card embedded in his last victim and can call it back to his hand as a bonus action from anywhere on the same plane and suddenly it's a bigger campaign element than detecting a skeleton ever was. These things are VERY context-dependent. Though I certainly wouldn't object to fighters getting some better (or at least more evocative) level 3 fluff options in general.

But my point is, they have them, and so they're meeting that threshold of rough balance for me. Battlemasters brew potions; EK's summon their swords. Champions don't do squat, but that's kind of the Champion's schtick, so as much as I'd like to see them with a ribbon, I don't find fault with WotC for not giving one to 'em out of the gate.

 

[mellored]

It's true, when you compare novas at level 8, a fighter with a d8 weapon and +5 STR has an average potential damage of 114 from 12 attacks during surge rounds over the course of the day, while a paladin with the same STR and weapon could do seven smite attacks for 143 average potential damage.

If the fighter took lucky, and got 3 extra hits per day...

3 * 1d8+5 = 28.5 damage.
Which makes the fighter 0.5 damage behind.


If he took savage attacker
1.31 * 12 = 15.72
... that feat is still bad.