D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter: The Zouave

[Paul Farquhar]

That doesn't mean it can't be a fantasy novel/movie simulator for a lot of people.

Movies and novels aren't real either. D&D is based on story logic, not reality logic.

I think there's good and there's "professional level good". Nobody picks up a violin and knows how to play it without practice and training of some sort. Even child prodigies don't sit down at a piano and just automatically hammer out a concerto.

That's where the proficiency bonus that increases with level comes in. +2 Is average competence, increasing to +5 for awesomely good.

 

[Tony Vargas]

By the same token, someone in an army won't be trained with every weapon, just the few the army focuses on. A Roman army might be spears, javelins, gladius (short sword), shields and a few others. But "all" weapon profs includes whips and mauls and all sorts of things.

Nod. This is just another area of 'gamist' abstraction (as in, "let's not ruin the game in the name of making it a reality-simulator," not necessarily any, more nuanced/elitist/counter-intuitive, Forge sense).
In the TSR era, you got a handful of weapon proficiencies and a non-proficiency penalty with everything else, which you therefore didn't use, in fact, if you had a magic weapon, you probably used it virtually all the time - later in the same era, fighters got specialization, which saw them consistently them using one weapon prettymuch exclusively (and hosed if they didn't find a magical version of it).
3e consolidated (or "streamlined" - see thread of that name) a lot of pointless mechanics and individual weapon proficiency was one of them, proficiency beyond the couple weapons you use just didn't have significant value compared to trading the in for specialization, so proficiency in all simple or all martial weapons became fairly normal, and classes with restricted weapon lists were just proficient with the weapons on their list.
A simplification, really.

 

[Undrave]

Nod. This is just another area of 'gamist' (as in, "let's not ruin the game in the name of making it a reality-simulator," not necessarily any, more nuanced/elitist/counter-intuitive, Forge sense) abstraction.
In the TSR era, you got a handful of weapon proficiencies and a non-proficiency penalty with everything else, which you therefore didn't use, in fact, if you had a magic weapon, you probably used it virtually all the time - later in the same era, fighters got specialization, which saw them consistently them using one weapon prettymuch exclusively (and hosed if they didn't find a magical version of it).
3e consolidated (or "streamlined" - see thread of that name) a lot of pointless mechanics and individual weapon proficiency was one of them, proficiency beyond the couple weapons you use just didn't have significant value compared to trading the in for specialization, so proficiency in all simple or all martial weapons became fairly normal, and classes with restricted weapon lists were just proficient with the weapons on their list.
A simplification, really.

It's a bit sad there's no class that actually gets incentives to switch weapons on the fly (beyond Melee and Ranged weapons). It'd be a cool concept. The sort of walking armoury Fighter that uses a hammer here, then switch to a sword for that move and then finished with a axe chop. Maybe one capable of throwing weapons, no matter the type, as a bonus so they're just littering the battlefield with discarded tools and picking ones up from the fallen enemies etc. It's a cool image.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's a bit sad there's no class that actually gets incentives to switch weapons on the fly (beyond Melee and Ranged weapons). It'd be a cool concept. The sort of walking armoury Fighter that uses a hammer here, then switch to a sword for that move and then finished with a axe chop. Maybe one capable of throwing weapons, no matter the type, as a bonus

A "Right Tool for the Job" Fighter. I kinda played one in 3e, mainly because there was a dearth of magic weapons in that campaign, so I used different weapons for the bonuses I could eke out, for small tactical advantages in the situations, and, of course, for damage types or materials to overcome resistance - sometimes by trial and error, vial Full Attack and Quickdraw.
A 4e era DDI-Dragon article also had a Fighter build like that, it's at-will power, for instance, did something slightly different depending on the group of the weapon you used at the moment. Combine that with inherent bonuses, and you'd have a fighter incentivized to switch weapons on the fly.

Combat Style, in 5e channelizes your fighter's options from 1st level, though not as profoundly as Weapon Specialization did back in the day.
At least, as magic items aren't assumed, you could have a campaign where there'd be less incentive to always use the same weapon.

so they're just littering the battlefield with discarded tools and picking ones up from the fallen enemies etc. It's a cool image.

Same 3e campaign as the above fighter, there was also a fighter-cleric, also with quickdraw. So we were both prone to drawing a weapon, finding it didn't work on the monster either, and dropping it to draw another. We also both tended to collect weapons from fallen enemies, especially throwing weapons. I had quite the collection of javelins, and, on a few occasions, I picked out, say all javelins from a specific orc tribe we'd fought, and used them on a raid, not bothering to retrieve them, to sow a bit of confusion as to who was responsible. (When it was 3.0, I'd done that with goblin javelins, too, but then, y'know, 3.5, weapon shrinkage.)

 

[Oofta]

It's a bit sad there's no class that actually gets incentives to switch weapons on the fly (beyond Melee and Ranged weapons). It'd be a cool concept. The sort of walking armoury Fighter that uses a hammer here, then switch to a sword for that move and then finished with a axe chop. Maybe one capable of throwing weapons, no matter the type, as a bonus so they're just littering the battlefield with discarded tools and picking ones up from the fallen enemies etc. It's a cool image.

Couldn't you use that with a fighter with the tavern brawler feat?

I don't know about other games, but I almost never see a fighter (or any class really) switch weapons very often unless it's upgrading to a longbow because they didn't have the funds initially or they get a magic item.

 

[Undrave]

Couldn't you use that with a fighter with the tavern brawler feat?

I don't know about other games, but I almost never see a fighter (or any class really) switch weapons very often unless it's upgrading to a longbow because they didn't have the funds initially or they get a magic item.

Sure, but it wouldn't be interesting if there was no tactical choice involved into picking the best tool for the job. Just switching weapons for flavour (with tossing involved or not) is just tedium. Maybe if the Rune Knight could only put runes on weapons you'd have reason to switch I guess.

As for other games... I dunno if that archetype even exist elsewhere honestly.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As for other games... I dunno if that archetype even exist elsewhere honestly.

Pillar's of Eternity 2.

 

[Garthanos]

A 4e era DDI-Dragon article also had a Fighter build like that, it's at-will power, for instance, did something slightly different depending on the group of the weapon you used at the moment. Combine that with inherent bonuses, and you'd have a fighter incentivized to switch weapons on the fly.

Not a bad build kick ass flavor actually only negative if I recall it might have had well "end-game fade" ie not enough support in later tiers of play. Hmmm might be something to consider for an MPIII.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not a bad build kick ass flavor actually only negative if I recall it might have had well "end-game fade" ie not enough support in later tiers of play. Hmmm might be something to consider for an MPIII.

That, and if you didn't have inherent bonuses turned on: there was no way you had a selection of 4 level-appropriate magic weapons, so you'd be giving up enhancement bonus for certain riders, depending on what your best weapon was.
If it had had an actual build option, like swapped out weapon talent for a feature that facilitated that sort of thing, rather than just presenting that feat which expanded Weapon Focus/Expertise, perhaps?

 

[Garthanos]

That, and if you didn't have inherent bonuses turned on: there was no way you had a selection of 4 level-appropriate magic weapons, so you'd be giving up enhancement bonus for certain riders, depending on what your best weapon was.

Sure but you might be giving up a +1 or a +2 for rider which yes caused it to gradually lose its shine.

If it had had an actual build option, like swapped out weapon talent for a feature that facilitated that sort of thing, rather than just presenting that feat which expanded Weapon Focus/Expertise, perhaps?

There was a magic item enchantment that would shape shift for you ....ie now its an Axe now its a Sword. And you might pick up a multi-type weapon but if you have those you just made the fast swapping not actually useful, so hrmmmm.

Or at-least it fully changed its visualization as you still get the swappy benefits the maneuver had.