D&D 5E Fixing the fighter (I know...)

[5ekyu]

I mean, if only one person get to roll then yes, the second best is useless and mostly just resorts to say "I help".

But the rest? It's always a good idea to ask everybody to roll just because the dice are fickle and you never know. So that is an interesting build... though, don't you need proficiency to attempts certain skill functions?

That said, I don't find the 5e skill system to be THAT engaging in itself...

In no particular order... proficiency required - for the dex based skills acrobatics, stealth, sleight of hand, some performance - proficiency is not normally required. For some tools, it may be, but if those fit the character you can get that tool thru background. Thieves tool come to mind and tgry are easy to get especially with the create- your- own background default. So, there might be some I missed or GM specific but it's not the norm for DeX at least.

Asking everybody to roll, in 5e, depends on the gsme. Default rules allow any ability check that doesnt meet DC to provide some progress eith setback if the GM wants. So, in a game where the GM doesnt just tun it binary pass-fail, then a lot of low bonus or no bonus rolls likely give you more trouble than its worth. The progress with setback is one of the more engaging aspects of the 5e skills for us.

But, in our games, it's not rare at all for the second best or others yo need to engage at things. So, having +5 or more in all the wisdom and dex skills gives you a lot of strong options to work with. It opens a lot of doors.

And all this still left the wood elf room for elven accuracy and sharpshooter at 4th and 6th, so by 7th had an 18 dex. Might have gone to 20 dex at 8th, dont recall. Course I saw a similar Samurai build that took one dex and benefits from the wisdom persuasion thing plus the samurai three advantsfecturns on demand to get sttong use out of sharpshooter with triple accuracy and useful non-combat skills in the dex and wisdom areas.

 

[Garthanos]

Tantamount to swimming from Götaland to Denmark, huh?

But is he carrying several squads worth of armor while doing it...

 

[CleverNickName]

The thing is, this whole thread is based on a false premise. The premise is that there is this apparent need to make fighters equal to casters. That's not the issue. The basic issue is this:

Fighters play the same game all the way through. From 1st level to 20th level, a fighter doesn't really change a whole lot. Sure, they might succeed more often and they can do more of the same stuff they could attempt at 1st level, but, they can't do anything actually different.

Casters, OTOH, do not. They play completely different games at 1st level and at 20th level.

This is a very good point, and very well explained. So maybe to patch the fighter, we take the Fighter's Combat Style ability and twist it a bit, until it more closely resembles the Arcane Traditions of the Wizard? It would make the choice of style a bit more important, it would scale up in power as the fighter gains levels, and it would make each "style" of fighter a little more distinctive.

ARCHERY​

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Marksman: Beginning when you select this Combat Style at 1st level, you gain a +2 bonus to Attack rolls you make with Ranged Weapons.​

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Fletcher: You gain proficiency with Fletcher's Tools. Once per long rest, you are able to create, salvage, or scavenge a number of arrows or crossbow bolts equal to your Dexterity (Fletcher's Tools) check, provided there are sufficient raw materials at hand.​

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Overland Scout: starting at 6th level, you may cast longstrider and pass without trace on yourself (only). You may cast each spell once per long rest.​

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Camouflage: Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking Actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.​

​

Expert Marksman: at 14th level, your ranged weapon attacks are never at disadvantage due to range, and they ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.​

And so on and so forth.

Now, this is never going to be as powerful or as versatile as a wizard's spellbook, and that's intentional: the wizard's Arcane Traditions are supposed to be wizard subclasses, and we don't want to do replace the Fighter's subclasses.

 

[Garthanos]

Then you've also got examples like Perseus

Perseus may have been a rather item heavy/dependent example

• The helmet of Hades to make him invisible
• A magical bag to contain Medusas head (might have actually maintained its ability to stone).
• Winged sandals.
• The mirrored shield. (let it redirect spell attacks for fun)
• And lets call it a Vorpal Blade

 

[Hussar]

I sure seems like if not for anything else, we can all agree the jumping rules in the game need to be tweaked lol



I'm not sure why you would say that after the many examples of legendary feats that a current champion fighter can do have been given. If a person can defeat a T REX (or even dragons) all by themselves with nothing but a sword, that's pretty legendary. And it's a common folklore story about legendary heroes doing just that (Martin, St. George, etc). Then you've also got examples like Perseus, Jason, or a half dozen other heroes just from the Greek pantheon who didn't do anything that a champion fighter couldn't do.

*Edit: There is a difference between champions can never be legendary or do legendary things (a false position that is not the point of this thread) and how to we improve the out of combat functionality of champions while adhering to the design requirements of the class (which is the point of this thread). Arguing the former is out of scope and not going to achieve anything. Arguing the latter is in scope, and is something that we can have productive discussion about as long as people stick the point and don't start making hyperbolic claims like the former.

Umm, no they can't. A lone fighter vs a dragon or a T-rex is a snack. If your fighters are soloing these monsters, you are being very, very nice to the fighter.

Like I said, there is a hard ceiling which ties into the whole, Fighters don't really get anything outside of combat. You mentioned your recreation of your earlier edition character. But, that character's functionality was based on its background, not on its class. All the out of combat stuff you got had nothing to do with the class. Put that same background on any other class and you get the same result.

It's not hyperbole. Fighters literally are playing a different game than casters. A fighter cannot do anything at higher levels that it couldn't at least attempt to do at lower levels. It gains ZERO breadth of play. It gets better at one thing and that's hitting stuff with lumpy metal things. Every other class branches out. Fighters don't. Mostly because of arguments like this where any attempt to actually add any breadth to the fighter slams up against that ceiling. You want to be more than Conan? Too bad. That's as good as it gets if you're a fighter. If you want to be more than Conan, play a different class.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

While heroes are legendary, etc. so are world-record holders who were entirely focused on their events when those records were set.

/snip

Bingo! There's that hard ceiling. Fighters MUST NEVER do anything that a real world person can't.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A fighter cannot do anything at higher levels that it couldn't at least attempt to do at lower levels. It gains ZERO breadth of play..
... A lone fighter vs a dragon or a T-rex is a snack.

A fighter gains zero breadth as it levels, sure, but its not like a T.rex (CR 8) has a lotta breadth over a crocodile (CR 2) - check out their bite attacks. It's a bigger croc with bigger numbers and a tail attack it can't use going mano-y-dino with a lone 8th level fighter! (It can, but it's not as good as biting.)

Really, the T.rex is the monster equivalent of a Champion Fighter, that way.

(Dragon could be a different story, of course.)

But, yes, if he loses, the fighter, is just a snack. 200lb of primate just doesn't fill up a huge lizard...
...OK, unless you subscribe to hp as meat, then the CR24 dragon chowing down on a 20th level fighter is going to feel like it ate a ton.

All the out of combat stuff you got had nothing to do with the class. Put that same background on any other class and you get the same result.

Nod. When looking at a class, its worthwhile to look at how it rises above the baseline. Under BA, it's really only Expertise that rises above in terms of skills.
Anything you can get from a background or race - skill, proficiency (weapon, armor or tool) - doesn't really count for much.
Then there's DPR, every class grinds it out, via Extra Attack, Sneak Attack, or/and scaling Cantrips. And then layers resources atop it - spells (spells & more spells), smite, ki, action surge, rage.

It's not hyperbole. Fighters literally are playing a different game than casters. . It gets better at one thing and that's hitting stuff with lumpy metal things. Every other class branches out. Fighters don't.

It seems, from comments MM has made, that class design balance is rooted in damage potential - slots have a hp value, whether damage or for healing - and without much regard for combos or situationality(?)
So the fighter, all single-target-DPR all the time, is weighted the same as much more varied or versatile designs.

You want to be more than Conan? Too bad. That's as good as it gets if you're a fighter. If you want to be more than Conan, play a different class.

I'm not convinced the fighter stacks up to Conan. He wasn't just a barbarian, but a thief, pirate, general and king. You don't get backgrounds after the fact, nor multiple ones like in 4e (were, only one of them granted a benefit, before anyone freaks), so a PC Conan'd be faking a lot of it. Then there's the range of arms he used to seemingly great effect, from loincloth & dagger to archery to axes to sword & full mail he was pretty capable. Most versions of D&D make fighters more specialized than that. And there's the big pile of dead bad guys thing 5e, specifically, doesn't do too well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Umm, no they can't. A lone fighter vs a dragon or a T-rex is a snack. If your fighters are soloing these monsters, you are being very, very nice to the fighter.

Not even close. a t rex has AC 13 and 136 HP.

• Multiattack. The tyrannosaurus makes two attacks: one with its bite and one with its tail. It can't make both attacks against the same target.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: (4d12 + 7) piercing damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 17). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the tyrannosaurus can't bite another target
• Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: (3d8 + 7) bludgeoning damage.

A level 20 champion with GWM is gonna have about 224 HP and about a +11 to hit. So pretty much every attack is going to hit, even if the fighter has disadvantage from being grappled by the aforementioned bite. Even without action surge, there are 4 attacks per round doing about 2d6+5 each. Then factor every hit from an 18-20 is a critical hit. And then action surge. I'm not even talking about if the fighter would have magic items by then (which they would, and is another advantage of the fighter--being able to use the most magic items out of the box). At an average of 48 damage per round, with an action surge, that's 96 points of damage just in the first round before the T rex can even attack (the fighter is going to have a 20 DEX by then, which is a +5 modifier to AC and initiative over the T Rex). Dead in round two without even having to use the second action surge.

Gonna be a snack? Not even close. And if a person with nothing more than a two handed sword can devastate a T REX, that's as heroic as almost every other heroic act from mythology or folklore.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If you want to be more than Conan, play a different class.

Okay, first of all, there is no such thing as "more than Conan".

But secondarily, I'm not exactly shocked and dismayed by the revelation that different classes exist for players who want to play different character archetypes.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I didn’t want to hijack the other thread. And I know we’ve had dozens of these discussions. But there’s always a key part that seems to be missing in those other discussions, one I mentioned in that thread. That is, looking at the fighter class in total context. I.e, “casters can do X, and fighters can’t” while ignoring all the things fighters can do that casters can’t.

Late to this party, but in my mind the only problems with the Fighter are below. To be fair, I think these are general design issues that I have with 5e, but they seem to be more prevalent with Fighters.

1. Reliance on short rests. Boy, do Fighters need short rests. This particularly affects the Battlemaster, but I think the short rest mechanic doesn't work well for the way the tables I play at like to structure encounters (2-4 Hard or harder encounters per adventuring day). This means the game, by design, doesn't support our preferred play style as well as we'd like. Warlock and (to a lesser extent) Monk both fall into this category, too.
2. The Champion can be incredibly boring to play unless you've got feats. Even then, lots of combats can still be boring. You're a great character and are very effective, but it does get a bit boring. And I love to play Fighters. The subclass needed something else to do. I understand liking simple, but there's simple and then there's simple.
3. Attuned items don't really work all that well for classes that are very equipment-driven, like Fighters. The more interesting items that have odd little rider effect are all attuned, and that means that if your DM likes to give out mostly interesting items and doesn't like bland +1/+2/+3 items, you'll be stuck with an interesting sword, interesting armor, and then one other item. I've played several campaigns now where we've ended up with a handful of minor items with narrow abilities that nobody could use because we were out of attunement slots.
4. Indomitable is one of the worst abilities in the entire game. Of the classes I've played I would only put it behind Barbarian's Brutal Critical and Cleric's Destroy Undead. The saves you're likely to use this on are saves you've got a terrible chance to make. Rerolling a save you've got a terrible chance to make, has a terrible chance to make. It's such a feels-bad ability that I'm not shocked it's one of the last ones added during playtest.
5. Abilities of the class gained level 12 and up, with the exception of the absurd Extra Attack (3), are generally not worth it. Action Surge (2) is good, but it comes so late that it doesn't do much. Champion's level 18 ability is quite good, but again, it comes extremely late. It's competing with 9th level spells, here. Again, this is a general criticism I have for most of the end game, as I think all class abilities gained between levels 12 and 20 are not powerful or impactful enough. The notable exceptions are some (not all) capstone abilities, spellcasting, Rogue/Monk abilities, and a few subclass abilities.

Note that power-wise, I've never had a problem with Fighter. I've never felt like the class has needed anything in terms of more power.