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

[Tales and Chronicles]

Differentiating weapons more, especially by having monsters be more or less vulnerable to different kinds of weapon damage, would change so much about combat for the better! It would give a reason for characters to be proficient in more than one, and therefore make it matter that fighters have so many. It would force more tactical play, and it would give a reason to keep a magic weapon that wasn't your favorite.

Sadly I think the survey showed that more tactical module would be less well received. Unless you count this a being ''more differentiation for weapons'' in which case I think that the community would love such system.

No need to be fiddly. Have different material useful against a specific enemy type. Have light rules for increasing the + of your weapon. You could even give an edge to the fighter to enhance their weapons themselves on downtime.

And for the love of god, avoid having a magic weapon ignore 90% of the game resistances/immunities! Magic should only be a trait as powerful as Cold-iron or Silvered.

 

[NotAYakk]

Differentiating weapons more, especially by having monsters be more or less vulnerable to different kinds of weapon damage, would change so much about combat for the better! It would give a reason for characters to be proficient in more than one, and therefore make it matter that fighters have so many. It would force more tactical play, and it would give a reason to keep a magic weapon that wasn't your favorite.

One of the design principles of 5e was to do away with the golf-club-bag of weapons.

It isn't ... all that iconic to have a golf-club bag of weapons you swap between.

It adds complexity without much in the way of tactics.

Making "knowing all weapons" useful is not a goal. "Making fighters useful" is a goal. "Fighters know all weapons" need not be a route to that goal.

OTOH, maybe there are people who really want a golf club bag of weapons and swap them. I am not against making that plausible.

But if we hard-code it in monsters, we in effect force it on players.

On the other hand, if we do away with the idea that knowing a 2nd fighting style is as good as knowing the 1st, and once you have "combat expertise" picking up fighting styles is like a wizard collecting a new spell (a small cost, not a large one), and we put the advantage of using a hammer instead of a sword as part of the fighting style not the monster, then we have a way to make swapping weapons be something a PC can invest in, instead of something obligatory or suboptimal.

We could still screw it up.

But "solving" this by having monsters have 1/2 and 2x damage to weapon types is a 4x power swing via golf-club bag, and that is just going to force it on people whose concept it doesn't match.

Also, attunement limits make golf-club bags suboptimal.

 

[Neonchameleon]

5e magic is much weaker compared to other editions.

This IME is largely mythmaking, houserules, and very rare games being pushed beyond the design goals.

5e magic is much weaker than 3.X magic. Compared to AD&D magic, the AD&D wizard had a soft-cap at level 10 and most of the spells they learned were treasure. Also they had to prepare each individual slot.

A wish can go southwards. A level 20 fighter if he wins initiative and goes all out has soem chance to obliterate a CR20 dragon if he got some magic stuff on him..

In short the fighter needs spell buffs, magic items, and most importantly a particularly stupid or arrogant dragon who lets them get into reach.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

A level 20 fighter if he wins initiative and goes all out has soem chance to obliterate a CR20 dragon if he got some magic stuff on him..

Depending on said magic stuff (which is at the DM discretion, so in now way a guarantee), I think that's pushing it a litte.

I do not see your problems at all. If you want to have a fighter aquire nobility, lead armies, then go for it. You do not need rules for that, do you?

To quote @FrogReaver '' and if you want your character to make a pact with the devil, or say your magic powers comes from a dragon ancestors, then go for it, you do not need rules for that, do you?'' Yet both of them are considered to be enough, not only to be a feature, but to be full classes!

The fact than a character can use a rule does not mean it removes the need for a narrative concept where a character gain special features by using them, over what the others can normally gain from it.

 

[Coroc]

I think what you're missing is there's a fairly large camp of players that DO want rules for it, specifically player-facing rules that are not strictly dependent on DM fiat to work.

You're welcome to explain to them that they shouldn't want what they want, of course.

Yeh it is like this:
If you play in my campaign, which goes to level 20, and you got the opinion, that at level 9 you should be the proud baron of an estate, with 200 level 1 fighters equiped with chainmail, shield and spear, for you to command them around to your pleasure, than that might be where my campaign is going - but maybe at level 9 you are rather stuck at the 587th level of the abyss, and a not so nice demon lord is commanding you around at his pleasure.

Which of the two applys, i as the DM do decide, not any books with rules.

 

[Coroc]

Depending on said magic stuff (which is at the DM discretion, so in now way a guarantee), I think that's pushing it a litte.


...

This IME is largely mythmaking, houserules, and very rare games being pushed beyond the design goals.

5e magic is much weaker than 3.X magic. Compared to AD&D magic, the AD&D wizard had a soft-cap at level 10 and most of the spells they learned were treasure. Also they had to prepare each individual slot.



In short the fighter needs spell buffs, magic items, and most importantly a particularly stupid or arrogant dragon who lets them get into reach.

Yes i did push it a little, because the discussion is not leading to any improvement of the game. If you want everybody to be a king at a certain charlevel then play birthright, it supports that playstyle.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One of the design principles of 5e was to do away with the golf-club-bag of weapons.

It isn't ... all that iconic to have a golf-club bag of weapons you swap between.

It adds complexity without much in the way of tactics.

Making "knowing all weapons" useful is not a goal. "Making fighters useful" is a goal. "Fighters know all weapons" need not be a route to that goal.

OTOH, maybe there are people who really want a golf club bag of weapons and swap them. I am not against making that plausible.

But if we hard-code it in monsters, we in effect force it on players.

On the other hand, if we do away with the idea that knowing a 2nd fighting style is as good as knowing the 1st, and once you have "combat expertise" picking up fighting styles is like a wizard collecting a new spell (a small cost, not a large one), and we put the advantage of using a hammer instead of a sword as part of the fighting style not the monster, then we have a way to make swapping weapons be something a PC can invest in, instead of something obligatory or suboptimal.

We could still screw it up.

But "solving" this by having monsters have 1/2 and 2x damage to weapon types is a 4x power swing via golf-club bag, and that is just going to force it on people whose concept it doesn't match.

Also, attunement limits make golf-club bags suboptimal.

First of all, no change is going to be welcomed by everyone, so no matter what we do something will be "forced" on someone.

Secondly, as it currently stands why do we have different types of weapon damage at all? They're always grouped together and it never matters.

Third, I understand attunement would be a problem. Why not give fighters a class feature that allows them to seamlessly switch attunement between weapons? It would be unique, and in keeping with who fighters are.

Expanding and enhancing fighting styles is a good idea, I admit. Could be awesome with some development.

Honestly, I think we could use a little bigger golf bag sometimes, especially if it is primarily a fighter class thing.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

One of the design principles of 5e was to do away with the golf-club-bag of weapons.

It isn't ... all that iconic to have a golf-club bag of weapons you swap between.

But if not, you end up with 5e where you have blanket ''on/off'' resistance, where players do not change their weapon type, dont change their playstyle etc

Not saying it does not work. But its a little basic and reductive. I dont think anyone wants to go back to the old ''DR 5/adamantium +3''. But having the Eladrin stablock like this:

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
Medium fey (elf), chaotic neutral
Armor Class 19 (natural armor)
Hit Points 127 (17d8 + 51)
Speed 30 ft.
11 (+0)	10 (+0)	16 (+3)	18 (+4)	17 (+3)	13 (+1)
Damage Resistances cold; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-cold iron attacks
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages Common, Elvish, Sylvan
Challenge 10 (5,900 XP)
Fey Step (Recharge 4–6). As a bonus action, the eladrin can teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space it can see.

instead of having a magic weapon that ignores most of the game resistances, is not too complicated.

It would force the players to do a little research and lore checks to know which weapon to use, then getting them. So what if the fighter needs to carry a quiver of silvered arrows, a adamantium hammer and a cold-iron spear in addition to is trusty masterwork +1 weapon in case he has to fight enemy X? Wizard have to guess and prepare their spell for special contingencies, why shouldn't the fighter?

You never hear a wizard complaining: ''arrrghg I have to prepare cold spells in addition to my illusions and armor spells because we are going against a fire salamander in the Forest of Cinder''!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

5e magic is much weaker compared to other editions. Only 1 spell to concentrate on, only 1 slot of level 6-9, the only thing that makes up for it is the weak saves. Damaging spells are much weaker especially. Where in other editions a fireball could wipe out a group of enemies, no matter if they save or not, this is not the case anymore.

A wish can go southwards. A level 20 fighter if he wins initiative and goes all out has soem chance to obliterate a CR20 dragon if he got some magic stuff on him..

I do not see your problems at all. If you want to have a fighter aquire nobility, lead armies, then go for it. You do not need rules for that, do you?
If your 20 rogue leads a guild, yea then he just does it, and got some purpose and hooks besides the normal adventuring stuff.

So what do you think makes the level 20 mage so much more interesting? He maybe got a tower and a hunchbacked assistant by then, how impressive.

The level 20 mage has 9 levels of spells that can transport the party across planes of the world, create almost any object, read minds, and transform pretty much anything into anything else. They get to make interesting decisions in what they have available, and are of great use to the party due to their capabilities in the social and exploration pillar, while still matching the fighter in the combat pillar.

Frankly I have very little interest in giving extra fighting styles etc to the fighter, because I find combat buffs that just give bigger numbers are a) Boring, and b) unnecessary. As you say, fighters do OK when throwing numbers at the enemy: I'd rather see more interesting tactical options, which I believe that Level Up will be instituting.

Where I find the issue with Fighters lies is outside of combat. In the adventuring day that is usually seen in a lot of games, the wizard and other casters simply dominate the exploration side of the game, and also do better at the social. It is this inequality that I find to be the biggest and hardest question posed by the thread.

Talking about imbalances of previous editions is irrelevant. We're here to address the imbalances of this one.

 

[Coroc]

First of all, no change is going to be welcomed by everyone, so no matter what we do something will be "forced" on someone.

Secondly, as it currently stands why do we have different types of weapon damage at all? They're always grouped together and it never matters.

Third, I understand attunement would be a problem. Why not give fighters a class feature that allows them to seamlessly switch attunement between weapons? It would be unique, and in keeping with who fighters are.

Expanding and enhancing fighting styles is a good idea, I admit. Could be awesome with some development.

Honestly, I think we could use a little bigger golf bag sometimes, especially if it is primarily a fighter class thing.

Like your honest judgement, but again, if someone wants to run around with 7 weapons he has to aquire a carriot and a mule in my games, I do not use encumbrance rules, but it is either a two handed weapon or a shield. A ranged weapon a sidearm and 1-3 daggers, and that is it. And with 5e as you pointed out that is more thna enough.