Level Up (A5E) What is the vision of the high level fighter?

[NotAYakk]

I don't think that there is a limit on smashing. My belief is that the limits are the game system we use for simplicity's sake is too low for what the fanbase wants.

For example, the high level 5e fighter is the Deadly Reaper Fighter. It's a valid interpretation of a high level fighter. It's a man in armor with a weapon. Very little supernature. But if you get into range of it's attacks, you take a load of damage. No cutting fireballs in half. No flight or super jump. He or she just chops the dragon to bits and hopes that it can survive until it's done.

And while it is a better "Deadly Reaper" than 3e fighters, it isn't all that good at it either.

There is a lot of fictional space that is left lacking.

But if you stay in the game's base limitations, your fighter will only be able to grow into the standard blender warrior. Nothing wrong with a blender, be people have to accept that without blantant supernatural effect, expansion of the fighter's physical or mental ability, or an automatic resource gain, the high level fighter is a blender or a machine gun.

There are a lot of things you could add to the fighter without going supernatural.

1) Proficiency in all saves, or maybe +con to all saves. Why not?
2) Indomidable that just works like legendary resist. Why not?
3) Shutdown/awesome moves.


For 3, we can look back at 4e.

"If a creature moves at least 5' within 30' of you, you can expend your reaction to move your speed and make an attack on them. If you hit them, their speed is reduced to 0 until the end of the current turn."
"When a creature is hit, you can spend a reaction to disrupt the strike if they are within range or reach of your weapon. If this attack hits, the triggering attack must be repeated with disadvantage, and if it hits the target has resistance to the damage."
"When damaged, you can spend a reaction to gain resistance to the damage. You must be wielding a shield in your hand to do this."
"When damaged, you can spend a reaction to gain immunity to the damage. You must be wielding a shield in your hand to do this, and your shield loses 1 AC; when reduced to 0, it is destroyed, but still requires a bonus action to discard. If the shield is magical and not destroyed, it regains lost AC at the end of a short or long rest."
"If you have an opportunity to spend a reaction but have none remaining, you can spend an action point instead. If you do so, you gain an additional action on your next turn. If you already have an extra action on that turn, you gain one on the next turn instead."
"When you are subject to a saving throw, you may expend a reaction to move your speed. If your new location makes you an invalid target for the saving throw, you automatically pass the saving throw."
"If you damage a creature, any saving throw they cause is rolled at advantage until the end of your next turn"
"You cannot suffer disadvantage on attacks."
"Attacks on you never have advantage."

None of these are supernatural. None of these are cutting fireballs in half.

These all change how the game is played.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

just as I thought. The part I took issue with as too magical was the charm/x per day and ask 3 questions. And all you are going on about here is combat maneuvers.

You know....if you said that before, being precise with what you found ''too magical'', we could have saved a misunderstanding. I had something in mind like the Swashbuckeler's Panache feature:
''At 9th level, your charm becomes extraordinarily beguiling. As an action, you can make a Charisma (Persuasion) check contested by a creature's Wisdom (Insight) check. The creature must be able to hear you, and the two of you must share a language.

If you succeed on the check and the creature is hostile to you, it has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you and can't make opportunity attacks against targets other than you. This effect lasts for 1 minute, until one of your companions attacks the target or affects it with a spell, or until you and the target are more than 60 feet apart.

If you succeed on the check and the creature isn't hostile to you, it is charmed by you for 1 minute. While charmed, it regards you as a friendly acquaintance. This effect ends immediately if you or your companions do anything harmful to it.''

Anyway, what had you in mind? What are cool high level features a fighter could have/do that are not already covered by a spell?

I can see stronghold, maybe followers, but those need to be actually used in a game to be beneficial. Maybe a way to recover more easily from exhaustion?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

3) Shutdown/awesome moves.

Side note: I once added to my high level rangers features to mess with a creature's legendary resistance and lair action. Druid also had a way to lessen the regional effect of high level monster.

 

[FrogReaver]

I’d say that in absence of nothing else you could make the fighter nearly impossible to kill and to control. He may not after the world as a wizard does but he ain’t going to die or be taken out of a fight.

 

[FrogReaver]

You know....if you said that before, being precise with what you found ''too magical'', we could have saved a misunderstanding. I had something in mind like the Swashbuckeler's Panache feature:
''At 9th level, your charm becomes extraordinarily beguiling. As an action, you can make a Charisma (Persuasion) check contested by a creature's Wisdom (Insight) check. The creature must be able to hear you, and the two of you must share a language.

If you succeed on the check and the creature is hostile to you, it has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you and can't make opportunity attacks against targets other than you. This effect lasts for 1 minute, until one of your companions attacks the target or affects it with a spell, or until you and the target are more than 60 feet apart.

If you succeed on the check and the creature isn't hostile to you, it is charmed by you for 1 minute. While charmed, it regards you as a friendly acquaintance. This effect ends immediately if you or your companions do anything harmful to it.''

Anyway, what had you in mind? What are cool high level features a fighter could have/do that are not already covered by a spell?

I can see stronghold, maybe followers, but those need to be actually used in a game to be beneficial. Maybe a way to recover more easily from exhaustion?

if you weren’t 100% sure what I meant you could have asked first. That also would have saved the misunderstanding.

 

[TwoSix]

I’d say that in absence of nothing else you could make the fighter nearly impossible to kill and to control. He may not after the world as a wizard does but he ain’t going to die or be taken out of a fight.

In my ideal world, the 20th level wizard can burn down the fighter's town, take all his money and make him a pariah. But if the 20th level fighter goes after the 20th level wizard, the fighter wins.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

if you weren’t 100% sure what I meant you could have asked first. That also would have saved the misunderstanding.

Dude, are you actually going to discuss what you meant?

Are you just here to pick an argument? You seem to be doing that a lot recently and that is tiring, so please engage with the discussion about what you had in mind when you said ''not what I had in mind.'' when talking about high level fighter features.

If not, dont need to add anything, I'm only here to discuss my vision of a fighter, not argue with you on how to do it. So please, refrain from any snark toward me in the future.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Neonchameleon I've written extensively on the fighter (in my old The Warrior thread), and one of the interesting discoveries I made is that – as I designed them – the old school "The fighter auto-kills enemies of a certain HD or less", the 4e-style "super reactive defender", and 5e's Action Surge fighter all are roughly comparable in terms of how many extra attacks you're getting over the course of an adventuring day.

One of the criticisms of the 5e fighter – which I think is what you're circling – is that its higher level features (from 11th-20th) are building on existing features, rather than presenting new things to do. You get more attacks, more uses of Indomitable and Action Surge, and more feats. Plus two subclass features (like most classes). Which is all cool stuff. But a player can feel like they're locked into doing the same thing, just better.

I strongly believe the mechanics and story should work together, but to focus on the mechanics for a moment, I see a couple design opportunities with any fighter redesign that aims to give them more options...

• Off-turn actions can really say a lot about a character's identity because they are the epitome of answering the question "How do you respond to the conflict around you, right now?" It's not in another round once the situation has dramatically changed. It's right now. There are good gameplay reasons to limit the presence of reactive abilities so that play doesn't grind to a crawl (like many experienced with 4e's combat), but of all classes the fighter would make a good place to explore things like PC-facing Legendary Actions, the hydra's Reactive trait, abilities borrowing language from the Mark action in the DMG (which allows off-turn opportunity attacks without expending their reaction), and so forth.
• Rather than using the old school "the fighter auto-kills enemies of a certain HD or less" to improve the fighter's combat ability, you can take the same trigger but apply different effects. So we get more than just combat functionality. For example: At 17th level, when the fighter makes an ability check opposed by a creature of CR 2 or less, the fighter has advantage. If the fighter succeeds, they may use one of the creature's non-spellcasting abilities of their choice against one of that creature's allies. This allows the fighter to weaponize monsters, to a limited degree. It also has multiple applications out of combat. For instance, the fighter could make an Intimidation vs. Insight check against a nothic, forcing it to use Weird Insight on the evil mage leading the cult which the PCs are fighting.
• Many have posited that Indomitable could become something like Legendary Resistances at higher levels. So it's familiar but much better than that feature was before. Others have suggested that Indomitable could be shared with other PCs, sort of bringing allies under the fighter's aegis or offering a supportive word, though some thought that would be too close to Bardic Inspiration.

 

[FrogReaver]

Dude, are you actually going to discuss what you meant?

Are you just here to pick an argument? You seem to be doing that a lot recently and that is tiring, so please engage with the discussion about what you had in mind when you said ''not what I had in mind.'' when talking about high level fighter features.

If not, dont need to add anything, I'm only here to discuss my vision of a fighter, not argue with you on how to do it. So please, refrain from any snark toward me in the future.

you don’t have any business demandIng I refrain from snark right after You dished it out in your last 2 posts to me, including the one I’m quoting now.

I have given 3 combat examples and 1 non combat one of my vision for a fighter. I explained that what I was referring to was your suggested charm and 3 answers effect. I’m not sure what more you want from me.

 

[Umbran]

if you weren’t 100% sure what I meant you could have asked first. That also would have saved the misunderstanding.

Mod Note:

He did. First sentence of the post: "Then what do you have in mind?"

So, let's everyone put away the snark, and converse without the head-butting, please and thank you.