D&D 5E Why different HD types for classes? (Another HP thread...)

[Salthorae]

If it's not a big difference, why the big complaint it's missing? If it adds little, why is it a problem? It doesn't conceptually address anything aside from the legacy that fighters get a higher number in this column that non-fighters. That's not a sufficient argument, while it may be a valid feeling.

No, the fighter is given edges in many other areas of the combat engine -- damage output, number of attacks, ability to surge, higher AC, higher hitpoints, subclass abilities, etc.

I mean, the only reason this issue exists is that Dex became a combat attribute for everyone in 5e with no costs.

Otherwise, proficiency bonus or not, if a Wizard didn't add Dex to their attack rolls they wouldn't be as good as a fighter. There might be a small # of wizards who still equaled out, but as we discovered in the grant "what is a 1st level fighter thread", 1st level PC's can have any range of starting backstories to support the mechanics of their class.

Maybe the default 5e presumption is that for those few weapons with which a wizard is proficient, they have trained at them (in however way you get there FLUFF wise) to the point of becoming combat proficient.

If there are people out there who support a farmboy turned fighter who can be proficient in ANY weapon mechanically and people don't have an issue with it from a fluff perspective, surely there is room for a wizard who is up to snuff in his few weapons in combat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One edition fits all is an unrealistic goal, however

Doesn't let it off the hook.

Endorsing dnd4vr's opinion that fighters should have a better attack bonus with weapons contradicts someone else's opinion that these are two low level characters in the infancy of their experience who are both trained in using weapons. …

Seriously, of anyone remotely familiar with the idea that wizards spend their training reading books and practicing spells, and fighter training with weapons, who's really going to think they should have equal skill with weapons?

It certainly doesn't makes sense that wizards cannot attack with spells as well as fighter.

You'd expect a wizard to attack better with spells than a fighter would, with spells. And, at first level, he does, quite unequivocally. So no worries on that point.

I did not. I also playtested. Red Box Basic Set initiate, myself. Then every edition after.

Then you're totally in the same club with dnd4vr & the rest of us! D&D is, like, your game, you get to feel proprietary about it and demand it conform to what you want!

is for everyone, but it doesn't owe you anything. You're mistaking the claim as a guarantee of happiness when it decidedly is not.

Oh, that D&D 5e owes it's very existence to the long-time fans who made it not only possible, but necessary is absolutely no guarantee that debt will be in any way honored.

Sure, right after you brush the straw off -- no one made this argument. You claimed 5e was failing as a big tent game because people, like dnd4vr were discontented. I pointed out that the size of the tent is, indeed, very big. You now claim that addressing your claim of lack of popularity with evidence of popularity is an appeal to popularity?

I never said a thing about it needing to be popular to meet the 'Big Tent' goal, rather, it needed to be inclusive (inclusivity can be very unpopular, indeed, with a majority or plurality).
You dismissed dnd4vr's complaint because the game wasn't for him. But it was. It's for all of us - and each of us.
One voice matters.

If it's not a big difference, why the big complaint it's missing?

It seems like a small complaint, to me.

No, the fighter is given edges in many other areas of the combat engine

Oh, I'm aware of how it all shakes out. The fighter gets some high sustained DPR, a 1/short rest spike, it all approximately balances out in theory once you get to that 6-8 encounter day, and it keeps BA intact.

But, it is kinda funny that it shaved off that one little difference in favor of the fighter that had otherwise endured through all editions. It's interesting how these things happen. I didn't particularly notice it until it was pointed out.

But, yeah, it's a small complaint, if it's a complaint at all. The fighter, best at fighting, is prettymuch exactly as good as everyone else at hitting his target.

No one can in 5e, so that's not a fighter specific complaint. Pick a goalpost, Tony.

Stand up to a large number of much-lower level opponents? No, not if you stand there for a few rounds. But an AE can erase them before their plinking starts to add up.

I mean, it is a major change in 5e, related to BA, that numbers tell so heavily that even the least of foes, in large enough numbers are not just a threat, but a rapidly overwhelming one. The key to beating those odds is taking out large numbers of them quickly, and unlike full casters, the fighter doesn't have the tools to do that in 5e, but, ironically did, in 4e, 3.x/PF, and even 1e. That he was also nigh-invulnerable to those same least foes in 1e (assuming a bit of magic armor, anyway), 3.x/PF (unless they were re-cast as swarms), or 4e (unless re-cast as minions or swarms), notwithstanding.

 

[clearstream]

Seriously, of anyone remotely familiar with the idea that wizards spend their training reading books and practicing spells, and fighter training with weapons, who's really going to think they should have equal skill with weapons?

For me where this argument fails is that it conflates "attack bonus" with "skill with weapons". In 5e, skill with weapons is more than simply attack bonus. A fighter could even in instances have a lower attack bonus than a wizard, and still in play have better skill with weapons due to their class features and options that make them more effect in using weapons.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Before you say anything, "Yes, yes, another hit point thread... ARG!"

(Deep breath...)

Okay, so I posted about this in my other thread, but not wanting to derail that I decided to start fresh.

Why do different classes have different HD types?

Now, for the purposes of my question, I am making an assumption that you prescribe to the "abstract" HP camp where HP are a combination of several factors: physical endurance, mental endurance, skill, luck, favor, sixth-sense, etc. If you are in the "HP = meat only (or meat mostly)" camp then larger HD size makes sense for warriors and lower ones for weaker wizardy-types.

You could argue a fighter is "tougher" and can take a beating better, sure, but in the same light I can argue a rogue could have better luck or a wizard a better sixth-sense. Are those weighted less compared to physical endurance? Do you think a battler's skill is superior in combat so they get more HP? Well, wouldn't a caster be better at resisting the damage caused by other spells? HP don't differentiate between the source of the damage, so to say a barbarian gets more HP, even to resist the damage from spells, doesn't make much sense if those HP are earned during a career where the character mostly resisted weapon and natural attack damage.

Also, since front-liners tend to have better Constitution scores anyway because they want more HP, what impact would a flat universal d8 have? Would it hurt them that much, really?

FWIW, I don't really have an issue with HD, this is more about understanding a consistent and logical rationale for different HD sizes if you subscribe to the abstract HP concept.

I wouldn't kill yuourself trying to understand the logic of it. Abstract mechanics tend to fall apart no matter what when you start thinking of specific elements. What I will say is this is one part of the game that has always felt right to me. It is true, if you are equally dividing HP into luck, physical endurance, etc, then you could make an argument that a rogue should be as HP durable as the fighter. But I don't think that feels right. There are these other aspects to HP, but the physical part intuitively seems most significant (again, even if the logic of it breaks down). Plus just having fighters be more durable in combat makes sense to me. And having wizards be kind of feeble makes sense too.

 

[Ashrym]

You don't need 4 tiers. A class feature for the fighter would be just fine.

Until someone on the internet complains clerics train more for combat than wizards. It's a double standard to support 1 opinion and ignore the other. 5e simply doesn't use proficiency to indicate better training. It indicates basic training.

You'd expect a wizard to attack better with spells than a fighter would, with spells. And, at first level, he does, quite unequivocally. So no worries on that point.

Except that's not true. A 1st level elf fighter or variant human or any other race choice to add ability to use spells at 1st level can have that 16 ability score and +3 attack bonus and 13 DC saves. It's completely irrelevant of the class and completely dependent on the race choices made just like the weapon use examples.

It's another double standard to look only at the bonus instead of the package. In both cases it's everything else that makes one better than the other.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Until someone on the internet complains clerics train more for combat than wizards.

I could see it - as any nice thing one may try to give the fighter - spreading out like Extra Attack to some cleric domains, that way.

5e simply doesn't use proficiency to indicate better training. It indicates basic training.

Then why does it scale with level?
And, why would that be an impediment to a class feature?

Except that's not true. A 1st level elf fighter or variant human or any other race choice to add ability to use spells at 1st level can have that 16 ability score and +3 attack bonus and 13 DC saves. It's completely irrelevant of the class and completely dependent on the race choices made just like the weapon use examples.

So wizards can't be proficient in weapons, at all, unless they choose a race that gives them a weapon proficiency?
So not just like, at all.

Now, admittedly, as soon as your EK starts casting spells, you have a rather serious comparison between him and the wizard... who might be a Bladesinger with Extra Attack.

 

[clearstream]

So wizards can't be proficient in weapons, at all, unless they choose a race that gives them a weapon proficiency?
So not just like, at all.

For me, the meagre weapons list a wizard gets without the Elven racial very much counts as less skilled with weapons. To count the Dex bonus, the wizard will wield dagger, dart or light crossbow. If we're comparing ranged weapons, then fighter has a +2 edge on attack; or if we're comparing melee weapons, fighter has a +2 edge on damage. And that is on top of other features contributing to their skill with weapons.

So just like, yup.

 

[Tony Vargas]

For me, the meagre weapons list a wizard gets without the Elven racial very much counts as less skilled with weapons. To count the Dex bonus, the wizard will wield dagger, dart or light crossbow. If we're comparing ranged weapons, then fighter has a +2 edge on attack; or if we're comparing melee weapons, fighter has a +2 edge on damage. And that is on top of other features contributing to their skill with weapons.

So just like, yup.

To be clear, you are asserting that, having taken racial perks out of it, at 1st level, attacking with a weapon, with the same bonus to hit (maybe not damage, maybe not the same weapon, maybe a crappy weapon with a lower damage die) as the class that's "best at fighting with weapons" is just like having the same INT as the wizard, but not being able to cast spells, at all.

 

[clearstream]

To be clear, you are asserting that, having taken racial perks out of it, at 1st level, attacking with a weapon, with the same bonus to hit (maybe not damage, maybe not the same weapon, maybe a crappy weapon with a lower damage die) as the class that's "best at fighting with weapons" is just like having the same INT as the wizard, but not being able to cast spells, at all.

Ashrym said -

A 1st level elf fighter or variant human or any other race choice to add ability to use spells at 1st level can have that 16 ability score and +3 attack bonus and 13 DC saves. It's completely irrelevant of the class and completely dependent on the race choices made just like the weapon use examples.

To my reading, @Ashrym was referencing weapon use examples that expressly relied on taking Elven Weapon Training. @Ashrym's comment drew my attention to the fact that once race choices are included, a character can have spells at 1st level just as much as they can have access to more skillful weapons.

Even if I thought skill with weapons was only about the attack bonus, I would still feel that @dnd4vr's hope can't reasonably be addressed (i.e. that a wizard should never have a better attack bonus than a fighter). The ability modifier swing in D&D is 5 points (points-buy) or 9 points (4d6k3), so at first level the proficiency modifier difference would need to be more than that to guarantee wizards were always worse than fighters. And if they are that much worse than fighters, we run into the kinds of problem that bounded accuracy is designed to address.

Say we did impose a crushing disability with weapons on wizards - for the sake of argument, let's go with −10 at level one! (Or we give fighters +10, which will force up ACs so much as to amount to the same thing.) Why in any case would a wizard prefer their dagger over any one of their much better damage-dealing cantrips such as d10 at 120' with fire bolt that uses their best ability modifier for its attack bonus? We can whip up edge cases, like a fire immune creature and a wizard with only one damage-dealing cantrip and spell slots exhausted... I think I'd like fighter to shine in more than just such edge cases.

It is better to have a game system where skill with weapons is multi-dimensional... which is really what 5e offers.

 

[Coroc]

As someone who plays almost exclusively full casters, I agree wholeheartedly. Except that last sentence, there are definitely more punishing situations involving d4's than rolling them.

You mean stepping on one of them? On some hard underground? Being barfoot?