D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter: The Zouave

[Sacrosanct]

There's this weird situation where the Wizard 'studied in a magic school for years' before level 1 but, somehow, the lv 1 Fighter is viewed as 'Farm hand picks up a sword'... If the Wizard studied for years to get to Level 1 then SO SHOULD THE FIGHTER!

who views it like that? What you describe is a commoner. A fighter also requires training to be able to do what it does. Just like a modern soldier has to go through months of training to be considered a soldier, rather than bubba who who poses with his AR15 and acts all billy badass.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Fighters are definitely a bit weird in the sense that they are both very generic and very narrow in their scope of abilities

True.
Prettymuch any hero from genre that doesn't cast spells/figure from history who wasn't a pacifist or literal thief, is most likely modeled in D&D as a fighter.
Yet, the Fighter has very few abilities - in even the editions most generous to it - beyond the very physical implied by great strength, not even the sorts of skills or extraordinary talents implied by military excellence (the Warlord got those in 4e) or political position (like a fuedal "Lord" the level title of a 9th level 1e fighter).

The consistent popularity of the fighter logically comes from the breadth, familiarity, & relateability of the archetypes it, more or less alone, is left to cover.
Not from it's mechanics which, though always lacking, have varied radically from one edition to another, without impacting that popularity.

Therefore, I think we should blame D&D itself for the fighter.

But what is "D&D Itself," when the current edition was designed using an open playtest, self-selected surveys, and social media to get input from it's existing fanbase?

that D&D has ultimately always been about combat foremost.

This has always been a criticism of D&D - and, by extension all RPGs, from TT to MMOs - and, while it's understandable, it's not really fair.

If we just look at page count, in the 5e PH Table of Contents, 'Combat' is 10 pages, 'Adventuring,' and 'Using Ability Scores' (including all skills), 8 pages each.
Now, admittedly, that's just headings. We could point to the Fighter, for instance, that all 16 of the Battlemaster's manuevers take up a whole page, indeed, of the 4 pages devoted to the fighter all but the couple column-inches taken by Remarkable Athlete, Student of War, & Know your Enemy combined, and the about half page each devoted to fluff and to the EK's spellcasting, are purely combat, so we could pad combat out to 13, on that class, alone.
Even so, the other two headings, combined, edge out combat by 3 pages.

Of course, it'd be quite the undertaking, but we could go through the remaining 72 pages of class descriptions, and evaluate how many of them are just about combat, as well. And then do the same for the 91 pages devoted to spells.

 

[doctorhook]

True.
Prettymuch any hero from genre that doesn't cast spells/figure from history who wasn't a pacifist or literal thief, is most likely modeled in D&D as a fighter.
Yet, the Fighter has very few abilities - in even the editions most generous to it - beyond the very physical implied by great strength, not even the sorts of skills or extraordinary talents implied by military excellence (the Warlord got those in 4e) or political position (like a fuedal "Lord" the level title of a 9th level 1e fighter).

The consistent popularity of the fighter logically comes from the breadth, familiarity, & relateability of the archetypes it, more or less alone, is left to cover.
Not from it's mechanics which, though always lacking, have varied radically from one edition to another, without impacting that popularity.

This has always been a criticism of D&D - and, by extension all RPGs, from TT to MMOs - and, while it's understandable, it's not really fair.

If we just look at page count, in the 5e PH Table of Contents, 'Combat' is 10 pages, 'Adventuring,' and 'Using Ability Scores' (including all skills), 8 pages each.
Now, admittedly, that's just headings. We could point to the Fighter, all 16 of the Battlemaster's manuevers take up a whole page, indeed, of the 4 pages devoted to the fighter all but the couple column-inches taken by Remarkable Athlete, Student of War, & Know your Enemy combined, and the about half page each devoted to fluff and to the EK's spellcasting, are purely combat, so we could pad combat out to 13, on that class, alone.
Even so, the other two headings, combined, edge out combat by 3 pages.

Of course, it'd be quite the undertaking, but we could go through the remaining 72 pages Of class descriptions, and evaluate how many of them are just about combat, as well. And do the same for the 91 pages devoted to spells.

But what is "D&D Itself," when the current edition was designed using an open playtest, self-selected surveys, and social media to get input from it's existing fanbase?

The page count experiment is interesting, but I don’t think it fully captures the extent to which combat dominates D&D. Even though we’ve had NWPs, skills, skill challenges, and now “pillars of adventure”, combat is by far the most intricately detailed part of D&D. Is that because it needs more detail than talking and exploring? Maybe.

Regard “D&D itself”, I intended that phrase as a reference to both the game and the culture around it. Even across editions players have come to expect certain experiences from the game.

 

[Oofta]

Fighters are definitely a bit weird in the sense that they are both very generic (almost anybody with a weapon) and very narrow in their scope of abilities (pretty much just combat, per the original post). Despite this, one major reason for its continued success is that D&D has ultimately always been about combat foremost. Therefore, I think we should blame D&D itself for the fighter.

I can't speak for anyone else, but most home campaigns I've been involved in generally more time is spent in RP, exploration and social aspects of the game than fighting.

Are there some combat heavy sessions? Sure. But then there are other games where you play most of the day and have a fight or two. If that.

Yet even in those games the person playing the fighter contributes as much as they want to.

 

[bedir than]

I can't speak for anyone else, but most home campaigns I've been involved in generally more time is spent in RP, exploration and social aspects of the game than fighting.

Are there some combat heavy sessions? Sure. But then there are other games where you play most of the day and have a fight or two. If that.

Yet even in those games the person playing the fighter contributes as much as they want to.

What elements of their CLASS contribute to that? Because anyone who says background and race is completely ignoring that the CLASS doesn't contribute to the non-combat pillars like the other 11 classes do.

 

[Garthanos]

"There's your problem: you were playing the game! Sheesh, newb mistake - never play the game... "

Avoid playing your characters abilities always use your own because you know...

 

[Oofta]

What elements of their CLASS contribute to that? Because anyone who says background and race is completely ignoring that the CLASS doesn't contribute to the non-combat pillars like the other 11 classes do.

The CLASS doesn't need to support out of combat play. That's the whole point of backgrounds in 5E.

Are they going to be as good as a rogue? Without investing in feats, no. Unless of course you multi-class. Does it matter? Not to people I actually play with in the real world.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Avoid playing your characters abilities always use your own because you know...

I just feel like that's a little old-school now that we finally have a modern D&D with Non-Weapon Proficiencies.. er, I mean Ranks..no, Training, no.... wait, I was right the first time: Proficiency.

 

[Garthanos]

I just feel like that's a little old-school now that we finally have a modern D&D with Non-Weapon Proficiencies.. er, I mean Ranks..no, Training, no.... wait, I was right the first time: Proficiency.

Eh with complete dm providence over what that might accomplish sheesh that sounds risky

 

[bedir than]

The CLASS doesn't need to support out of combat play. That's the whole point of backgrounds in 5E.

Are they going to be as good as a rogue? Without investing in feats, no. Unless of course you multi-class. Does it matter? Not to people I actually play with in the real world.

Odd that every other class has out of combat support at first level.

WotC didn't eliminate out-of-combat spells because of backgrounds