D&D 5E The Fighter Problem

[dco]

Zardnaar nailed it.

5e has mostly moved away from the tendency of later 3e and most of 4e to create character concepts defined mainly mechanically. EDIT: In an ideal world, the mechanics and narrative positively reinforce one another, and that's what 5e aspires to do with most of its class design.

However, the fighter is an exception to that trend.

Now, for people who would prefer a "class-less" D&D or a flavor-less "class-lite" D&D, they love that the fighter is designed how it is. Nothing wrong with that. But it is a glaring exception to how the rest of the 5e classes are designed.

What sticks out as a sore point is for people who are more casual gamers or newer to the game being unable to readily differentiate Champion vs. Battle Master, whereas they quickly grok the difference between a Thief vs. an Assassin. And even once they have the rules down enough to understand the mechanical difference between Champion vs. Battle Master, they still have no narrative distinction between these two subclasses.

IMO, it's not that players need a straight-jacket to tell them "here's your PC's pre-packaged story," rather it's that the human mind goes toward identifiable archetypes as a starting point, that creativity is MORE inspired by having a clearly understood springboard to launch from.

Mike Mearls' quote nailed it to me: Champion is empty calories. There's no inherent meaning in the name. There's no implicit narrative creative springboard for players to work with. For a veteran/hardcore gamer, that may not be a problem (or even an advantage). For a newer/more casual/more story-focused gamer, that may be a problem.

So this is all about the name of the subclasses and casuals?
How they diferentiate between a thief and an arcane trickster?
Do they know what is the later? If they don't know how are they going to diferentiate something?
What the hell is a monk of open hand, four elements or shadows for a casual?

I could put far more examples, at this point if the differences between a battlemaster and a champion are not clear who cares, if people only see a problem with the fighter they are coming from a very biased point of view to make an argument, because the game fails countless times. It is also a worthless problem, people should read the rules and DMs should explain things to new players that are casuals.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Everything you are saying is an egregious example of being a horrible DM. The DM isn't supposed to add or subtract weapons based on their personal preference or how a particular character is built. The DM is supposed to present the world honestly and with integrity, and if it makes sense for there to be a +1 greatsword, then it will be there. The contents of that lost tomb were determined decades (if not centuries) before the PC was ever born.

If you're going to cheat in favor of your players by including schroedinger's magic weapons, then there's no point in even playing the game.

And, to quote the Dude, that's like your opinion, man.

The DM literally can not cheat in D&D. I see their job as being a good story teller, providing fertile ground for their players to explore and engage in heroics. DMs are not a high-fidelity world simulation presenter. The world is the canvas upon which their characters tread and effect change - they are the center of the story. Their goals should be paramount to your game, not some adherance to a rigid 'this is the world, deal with it' pastiche.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think anyone is saying "expect" it, but if a certain type of weapon tends to be the most powerful in your setting (because your setting includes feats), then it makes sense for that setting that it would be a more common weapon in the world, and therefore a more common weapon for magical weapons as well. If the dagger is a fairly ineffective weapon in your world and the glaive is a highly powerful weapon in your world (perhaps because your world includes feats that benefit the glaive a lot), then it would be reasonable for magic users who enchant magic weapons to enchant a lot more glaives than daggers. In fact it would make almost no sense to spend those precious magical resources enchanting a highly ineffective weapon like a dagger when they could just as easily enchant a highly effective weapon like a glaive. Which is why I say nobody "expects" their magic weapon of choice, but they might "expect" your world to have at least some internal consistency. If you're going to include feats in your world, then your world should operate as if it has feats.

Well things like Polearms were battlefield weapons so you did not use them traveling around as such although you might have a dagger or something if you were a merchant.

Assuming magic weapons for example existed IRL greatswords would still be rare (they were only around for 50 odd years), chainmail would be the most common magical armor dating back to 300 or 400 BC, magical plate would be very rare along with rapiers, and shortswords, spears and daggers would be the most common magical weapons along with magcial bows (short bows) just due to the amount of time successive empires would have been around to craft them.

D&D 5E has a roughly 16th century level of technology and a few of the weapons in it only turned up towards the end of that era. Depending on how your game world runs if you are running a vaguely realistic world some weapons would have been around for a lot longer ergo would have more enchanted examples of them.

You made a comment about never having had only 1 encounter. Sounds like you have never played a hex crawl before or something like the Isle of Dread where you might only get 1 encounter every few days.

In terms of worldbuilding I recommend buying the Combat and Tactics PDF from a site as it has weapon lists suitable for various ages so if your world has a stone age empire you have a list of what weapons exist, same if you have a fantasy Rome or Greece. A fantasy Roman culture should not have access to Greatswords for example. A lot of people are complaining about how weak 5E monsters are but if you have people taking the most powerful feats in the game (which always turn up in character guides), combine it with powerful magical versions of those weapons of course you are going to have problems.

5E almost encourages this due to a lack of options with the feats, we have finally allowed 3pp feats to be allowed so people start picking different things.

The 6-8 encounter thing alright for Dungeon hacks, terrible for everything else.

 

[Quickleaf]

So this is all about the name of the subclasses and casuals?
How they diferentiate between a thief and an arcane trickster?
Do they know what is the later? If they don't know how are they going to diferentiate something?
What the hell is a monk of open hand, four elements or shadows for a casual?

I could put far more examples, at this point if the differences between a battlemaster and a champion are not clear who cares, if people only see a problem with the fighter they are coming from a very biased point of view to make an argument, because the game fails countless times. It is also a worthless problem, people should read the rules and DMs should explain things to new players that are casuals.

No, that's not it. The name is part of it, but look at [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]' comment above. He provides a clear narrative conception of WHAT a Champion is (or rather what it could be). It's not just "simple fighter", it has a place in the world as "warrior who champions a cause."

I agree that the naming schemes can be obtuse, but sticking to that very simple "a [noun] [verb]" conception, and avoiding phrases that exclusively focus on how it fights, I could say that...

A Thief breaks in and steals things.

An Arcane Trickster confounds and outwits through charm, magic, and mischief.

And in the case of the Arcane Trickster, the part that a new player is going to understand is "Trickster." That's a universal archetype. And a player focusing on that probably wants to wreck mischief and instigate funny business during play.

A Monk of the Open Hand is a reference to the "Te" in "KaraTe" which means "open hand." Unfortunately, that was likely lost on many players, so probably not the best naming choice, but it still brings to mind a person fighting with empty hands. And I associate an empty hand, as opposed to, for example "Way of the Iron Fist", as something associated with peace, a spreading of empty hands as a gesture of kindness or mindfulness. So I could say that...

A Monk of the Open Hand cultivates peace through non-lethality and meditation.

Whereas a Monk of the Shadows (aka Ninja) follows a secret spiritual tradition that demands obedience.

My Monk of the Shadows is probably a weaker "power sentence" because the only time I've seen one in play is recently as a multi-classed Assassin/Way of Shadows who is explicitly a Holy Slayer type. And I haven't seen Way of Elements in play, so I can't yet comment on that one.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think you hit on something that is quite a problem for the fighter here. According to WotC surveys, most games are played from levels 3-8 and it is quite rare for a game to make it to level 12+. If a fighter only starts coming into its own at levels 11+, very few players will actually get a chance to see that.

Now when the design goals for the fighter are that it is "the best at fighting", but from levels 1-10 the Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger can be just as (if not more) competent in the combat pillar, then clearly there is something wrong with fighter design. For the levels where the majority of players actually play, the fighter isn't the king of combat by any stretch.

This is basically the point of my OP. THe highest we made it to was level 13 and 14 which we have done perhaps twice, currently level 10 but it looks like we are gonna start over do to RL issues (new players, older players struggling to attend etc).

At lower levels things like Monks and some rangers actually get more attacks as fighters and to many people here are assuming fighters use Great Weapons or Polearm masters. I throw in some ranged combats for example and great weapon fighters out right suck then. Our level 10 fighter is a dex based battlemaster and pulls out a bow if needed and/or grants attacks to the sharpshooter ranger in those situations. For a primary melee weapon he uses a short sword of speed.

 

[Gradine]

And, to quote the Dude, that's like your opinion, man.

The DM literally can not cheat in D&D. I see their job as being a good story teller, providing fertile ground for their players to explore and engage in heroics. DMs are not a high-fidelity world simulation presenter. The world is the canvas upon which their characters tread and effect change - they are the center of the story. Their goals should be paramount to your game, not some adherance to a rigid 'this is the world, deal with it' pastiche.

Yeah, the level of "badwrongfun" that was on display here was mind-blowing. This is the first place I've ever heard of the idea of "designing your campaign/adventure to suit the interests of your players" as "bad DMing" or "cheating."

My last 3.X campaign I mostly dropped the concept of finding magic weapons entirely and just provided magical oils that permanently applied bonuses or other properties to their equipment. I've found that solves most of the problems associated with magic sword overload.

 

[Mistwell]

Fighting Style: Paladin and Rangers get this too, it is not unique

Irrelevant to the point I was responding to.

and the only scale fighters will see from it is Riposting Battlemasters and their 3rd attack, weak.

Not even a fighting style, so I don't even know what you're referring to here. As I explained, the fighting styles benefit an element of bounded accuracy, which by-definition scales, so what does that have anything to do with a Battlemaster? It's a generic benefit for all fighters.

Second Wind: 1d10 + Fighter level respective of HP totals and how hard a difficult CR monster can hit you is nothing compared to Lay on Hands or the monk ability. Should be a straight 3x Fighter level.

And yet it scales, which is what I was replying to. Nobody was saying it was perfectly equal to some other element in the game which also scales, I was just replying to "doesn't scale". It does.

Action Surge. It's for one round per rest until 17th level, that's pretty static.

No it's not. It grants a complete additional action. Your additional action carries with it however many attacks you have, and number of attacks scales with level. Therefore it's an ability which scales per level. Even the guy you were agreeing with agrees with me that action surge scales well with level.

Feats. Everyone has access.

1) irrelevant, I was replying to whether it scales, not if someone else also gets it, and 2) even if I were making an argument about uniqueness (which I was not) fighters uniquely get more feats than any other class in the game.

Indomitable. Paladin aura and monk save ability are MILES better. Should be like Legendary Resistance where you choose to "auto-save" if you fail.

Irrelevant. It scales with level. Again, you're conflating "not as good as I'd make it" or "not as good as some other classes ability" with "doesn't scale".

Extra Attack: All Fighter Extra attacks come too late, they should get theirs first (4th as opposed to 5th, and 9th as opposed to 11th).

Question: Does extra attack scale with level? Answer: Yes.


We're talking past each other, but I don't see how I have any fault in that. This is the point I made in the post you quoted, "Every single Fighter ability in your list either scales or benefits a Bounded Accuracy game feature (which of course scales)".

You keep replying to the strawmans of "as good as X ability" or "not unique". I didn't make those arguments about how good X ability is compared to Y ability nor whether X ability is unique in the post you're quoting, so why do you keep replying to me as if I did?

 

[Mistwell]

Well things like Polearms were battlefield weapons so you did not use them traveling around as such although you might have a dagger or something if you were a merchant.

But that's the real world, not a world with magic and feats that benefit polearms more than most weapons and adventurers and dungeons. In that kind of world, the guys making magic items are the ones most likely to be making them for adventurers who plunder dungeons and slay dragons, more than guys who guard caravans from bandits.

Assuming magic weapons for example existed IRL

Yeah that's missing the point. It's specifically NOT for in real life. That's why I mentioned the kind of setting you'd find where feats and magic weapons are parts of them.

It's your setting. You're the one that included both magic weapons and feats which tend to benefit: 1) polearms, and 2) two-handed weapons, and 3) longbows, more than any other types of weapons. Those three types of weapons should be the ones MOST likely to be found as magic weapons in a setting like that, because in your world adventurers tend to do the most amount of killing with those types of weapons thanks to the feats they have access to in that setting. So why isn't the setting you created reflecting the availability of the magic items and feats you put in that setting? It's not an internally consistent setting if the magic weapons you are most likely to find are some of the least likely to have been the choices of those who use weapons in that world, and if the rarest magic weapons to find are the ones most likely to have been the choices of those who use weapons in that world, thanks to the feats that exist in your world. I just can't think what the motivations of the magic users who create magic weapons would be, to focus on creating magic weapons which adventurers find the least useful and ignore the ones that adventurers find most useful. What the heck are they making magic items for, if it's not to aid an ally, or themselves, or sell it to people who want it and can afford it? Are the magic weapon creators in your world just madmen? Are they all just fanatics of longswords and daggers and shortbows, or followers of a God who favors those weapons? What's the internally consistent logic for this in your world?

You made a comment about never having had only 1 encounter.

No I've had one encounter before, but I've never seen that as the standard. Even when we had only one encounter, we expected it somewhat likely we'd have another, and therefore had to reserve resources in case that happened. Even in the hex crawls we do, we usually have more than one encounter. Sleeping in the open is dangerous, if nothing else. I just think balancing the game based on the assumption of going nova for one battle is not a wise course of action. Talk about a 5 minute adventuring day, this suggests a 30 second adventuring day! Particularly in a game intended to have quicker combat (so you can fit in more stuff per game session, and accommodate shorter game sessions) I just don't think that would be a good thing to focus on. It's not really a 5e-centric concept, and probably someone who prefers that would prefer a different RPG.

 

[dco]

No, that's not it. The name is part of it, but look at [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]' comment above. He provides a clear narrative conception of WHAT a Champion is (or rather what it could be). It's not just "simple fighter", it has a place in the world as "warrior who champions a cause."

I agree that the naming schemes can be obtuse, but sticking to that very simple "a [noun] [verb]" conception, and avoiding phrases that exclusively focus on how it fights, I could say that...

A Thief breaks in and steals things.

An Arcane Trickster confounds and outwits through charm, magic, and mischief.

And in the case of the Arcane Trickster, the part that a new player is going to understand is "Trickster." That's a universal archetype. And a player focusing on that probably wants to wreck mischief and instigate funny business during play.

A Monk of the Open Hand is a reference to the "Te" in "KaraTe" which means "open hand." Unfortunately, that was likely lost on many players, so probably not the best naming choice, but it still brings to mind a person fighting with empty hands. And I associate an empty hand, as opposed to, for example "Way of the Iron Fist", as something associated with peace, a spreading of empty hands as a gesture of kindness or mindfulness. So I could say that...

A Monk of the Open Hand cultivates peace through non-lethality and meditation.

Whereas a Monk of the Shadows (aka Ninja) follows a secret spiritual tradition that demands obedience.

My Monk of the Shadows is probably a weaker "power sentence" because the only time I've seen one in play is recently as a multi-classed Assassin/Way of Shadows who is explicitly a Holy Slayer type. And I haven't seen Way of Elements in play, so I can't yet comment on that one.

He provides his conception, other people like me have provided others, if this is a discussion of what you like there is no point for it. If what you want to tell me is that only one view is correct because of some meager reasons like the construction of phrases, the lack of imagination of some people, divagations about casuals, etc then I can say your are wrong and projecting your subjective qualms with a pair of names.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And yet it scales, which is what I was replying to. Nobody was saying it was perfectly equal to some other element in the game which also scales, I was just replying to "doesn't scale". It does.

Nod. Maybe literal/gross-numeric 'scaling' isn't quite what they're getting at?

At 1st level, Second Wind restores, on average 6 or 7 hps. A 1st level fighter has between 9 (CON 8, yeah, right) and 15 hps (CON 20, yeah, right). So, really, about half your hps, which is nothing to sneeze at. Leaving CON out of it, healing 2-11 hps when you have 10, is pretty good, on average a little better than half your hps, maybe all of 'em (not that you can use it when you're at 0). At 2nd, though, healing 3-12 hps out of 15 is not quite a snazzy, it's still about half you hps on average, but if you're at 1 hp and roll max, it doesn't /quite/ get you back up to full. d10 +20, OTOH, when you have over 100 hps, not that big a deal anymore, is it? It's scaled, but it's scaled /slower/ than the hps you have to need restoring and the damage you're likely to take.

5 hps/level, conversely, scales from healing about half a paladin's hps (before CON) at 1st level, to healing almost all of 'em at 20th. Though the action cost and the fact you can divvy it up vs recharge it on a short rest are also very significant differences. :shrug:

No it's not. It grants a complete additional action. Your additional action carries with it however many attacks you have, and number of attacks scales with level. Therefore it's an ability which scales per level. Even the guy you were agreeing with agrees with me that action surge scales well with level.

The value of an action scales with level. Well, as long as you have actions that scale with level, that is. The fighter does: the attack action w/extra attack. Use your Surge for anything else (as is often suggested when the complaint 'fighters are useless outside of combat' comes up) and it's not scaling so much. FWIW (not much, IMHO, but I though I'd mention it).

even if I were making an argument about uniqueness (which I was not) fighters uniquely get more feats than any other class in the game.

There's nothing unique about getting a little more of what everyone else gets.
That's just the crux of traditional fighter design/concept, really, it's still a 'bigger numbers' class. It gets more hps (mostly), attacks more often (eventually), hits for more (at will) damage (on average, over 6-8 encounters), gets higher stats or more feats, acts twice in one round of choice between short rests, etc... If it did anything unique the hew & cry would go out "everyone should be able to do that!" Heck, that happened repeatedly throughout the playtest.