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

[TheCosmicKid]

I know this is from the first page of the thread but, what exactly does this mean?

Did you play 3E at all?

The original Complete Arcane warlock. Point and shoot. No resources to track, very few magical options to decide between, just a big nasty eldritch blast to blow stuff up round after round after round.

It was wildly popular.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Did you play 3E at all?

The original Complete Arcane warlock. Point and shoot. No resources to track, very few magical options to decide between, just a big nasty eldritch blast to blow stuff up round after round after round.

It was wildly popular.

Yes. Im well aware of the eldritch screwdriver universal remote wielding sloppy slappy. Early 3e was the first edition i played before playing earlier editions followed by more 3e and some 5e (3/3.5 is still my fav although im quite into a lot of content especially story/plot from earlier editions)

What confused me was the decision free part.

"Do they have a simple decision free blaster caster?"

Its simple. But decision free?

I feel like the more spell choice you have the smaller your decisions have to be as they are more forgivable. Smaller effective change per decision. The less spell choice you give yourself the bigger the decision but fewer of them. Limiting yourself to what a warlock can do? Few decisions. But just USING one is a big decision. So as familiar as i am with the warlock and its non stop all day e'ryday spamalamathon of blasting, NO, i did not automatically know they were talking about warlock.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

"Decision free" has, of course, always been an exaggeration in this thread. The "hit it with a sword" fighter still has to decide what to hit and where to stand while they're doing it, can use combat actions like shoving or grappling, might have feats like Great Weapon Master to activate, and so on. But it's a lot less to juggle, for players of a certain mindset, than a long list of spells. The 3E warlock was written to appeal to the same player demographic -- possibly the first class to be so deliberately.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

"Decision free" has, of course, always been an exaggeration in this thread. The "hit it with a sword" fighter still has to decide what to hit and where to stand while they're doing it, can use combat actions like shoving or grappling, might have feats like Great Weapon Master to activate, and so on. But it's a lot less to juggle, for players of a certain mindset, than a long list of spells. The 3E warlock was written to appeal to the same player demographic -- possibly the first class to be so deliberately.

I feel like a domain wizard is the other kind of decision free. (No hard decisions about spell choice because you have a lot of them)

I see what you mean now though

 

[Hussar]

@Hussar I get the impression from your smilies that you already know your argument is facile. So I think my point stands: Conan and Heracles. Different character classes.

No, the smilies were because of the points that were made earlier which I found rather funny.

But, again, why? Why should Conan and Heracles (good examples I think) be different classes? It's not like they really do anything particularly different, just different in scale. Conan does amazing feats of strength, for a mortal. Heracles holds up the world for Atlas for a while.

In a system where every other class goes from lowly to supernatural, why should fighters get left out?

Considering the promise of being able to play Heracles is something that has been associated with fighters for decades now, I find it a bit strange to think that after all this time, we should have a completely separate class.

Then again, 3e gave us Book of 9 Swords which basically did exactly what you are talking about, so, maybe it's not that far fetched. Eldritch Knight adds casting onto a fighter, so, yeah, I could see how a sub-class of "Mythic Hero" might not be a bad way to go.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

No, the smilies were because of the points that were made earlier which I found rather funny.

But, again, why? Why should Conan and Heracles (good examples I think) be different classes? It's not like they really do anything particularly different, just different in scale. Conan does amazing feats of strength, for a mortal. Heracles holds up the world for Atlas for a while.

In a system where every other class goes from lowly to supernatural, why should fighters get left out?

Considering the promise of being able to play Heracles is something that has been associated with fighters for decades now, I find it a bit strange to think that after all this time, we should have a completely separate class.

Then again, 3e gave us Book of 9 Swords which basically did exactly what you are talking about, so, maybe it's not that far fetched. Eldritch Knight adds casting onto a fighter, so, yeah, I could see how a sub-class of "Mythic Hero" might not be a bad way to go.

Heracles does a lot of weird stuff actually. For one thing prophecy. Just not much of it. Actually heracles has a grade A brain if you pay close attention and is NOT prone to rage or senseless violence. That was a curse from hera and it wore off (i would argue nondisneyfied hera is one of thebfew major greek gods who is a bigger jerk than zeus. Id side with zeus before hera 9/10 even though hes a jerk sometimes). And he does supernatural stuff not the province of the mind or muscle per se. Also solves some problems through engineering. And political intrigue. Then again conan is certainly not a dummy either but heracles is known for his cleverness until recent times. There is more to these characters than brawn. There are things that a fighter class alone does not best model.

 

[Hussar]

Why is it whenever someone brings up an example, we spend far more time picking apart the example instead of simply talking about the point that the example was meant to illustrate? I'm sorry for not doing a complete thesis on Heracles with an annotated sidebar discussing the complexities of Greek mythology. I would have thought that the point was clear enough, but, unfortunately, it appears that it's far easier to faff about picking apart the example rather than actually trying to get to the point.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Why is it whenever someone brings up an example, we spend far more time picking apart the example instead of simply talking about the point that the example was meant to illustrate? I'm sorry for not doing a complete thesis on Heracles with an annotated sidebar discussing the complexities of Greek mythology. I would have thought that the point was clear enough, but, unfortunately, it appears that it's far easier to faff about picking apart the example rather than actually trying to get to the point.

I could say the same about you saying the two of them are basically the same. You are picking apart the validity of them being considered as signifficantly distinct from eachother are you not? You were doing the same thing with the only signifficant difference being that you were wrong about it by not considering the things they do other than feats of brawn. You were picking apart a previous person's position no? And also you use the phrase picking apart. I prefer the phrase "further analysis to reach more precision" as i assume that is the goal.

 

[Quickleaf]

Might be nice to have the option though, no? Would it somehow make the class less attractive if there was some option, down the line, that turned the class into something properly mythically inspired?

I genuinely don't know.

If you're talking about a subclass, yeah, that's pretty unobtrusive and would make for a nice option.

If you're talking about making the core class more "mythically inspired", maybe it actually would make the class less attractive to most players (who data tells us really do like the fighter)?

This is veering away from data and into opinion, but I loved playing a fighter precisely because it felt grounded. No poisons or secret guilds to fall back on, no gods to look to when the going gets tough, no spell for every situation at my fingertips. It was me, my wits, and my steel. I can understand the appeal.

To step back for a moment, there do appear to be genuine gaps in the fighter core class. For example, all classes save fighter and rogue get two features at 2nd level, whereas they only get one. Another example is that at 5th level the fighter is missing an additional feature besides Extra Attack compared to the other warrior types where Barbarians also get Fast Movement, and Paladins and Rangers also get 2nd level spells. At least I'm seeing an opportunity for additions (whether combat or non-combat focused) to the fighter in these two places.

Is there any consensus around whether something like Action Surge or Cunning Action is more valuable than most pairs of 2nd level class features, thus warranting them being the only feature a fighter or rogue gets at 2nd level?

 

[Garthanos]

I feel like a domain wizard is the other kind of decision free. (No hard decisions about spell choice because you have a lot of them)

There is a player archetype if you will who doesn't want to engage with the game mechanics. Does not want anything but obvious choices (if those) they want to participate for the fun of being with friends and similar perfectly valid reasons, it may not be super common however supporting that properly to me means supporting "I kill it with fire" and not just "I kill it with my sword".