D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

[Gammadoodler]

I encourage you to look back into how those suggestions came up. The process went something like this:

• a monster cold hover 20 feet up
• Yes it could & risking that weakness is why you should use one of the many options available to you as a fighter if you encounter a monster that hits your weakness. Some of them are even quite strong alongside cantrips & they don't even cause difficulties carrying or affording them given carrying capacities & low cost
• but I don't want to use a bow as a strength based fighter
• well that tradeoff was something you chose when you went all in on a strength fighter, probably for something like gwm & higher damage 2h weapons. There are strength based ranged weapons like these
• but I don't want to use those because they don't let me use all of my attacks
• well if you are concerned about that you could take these to avoid that weakness
• but I don't want to take those
• So pick some other option to fall back on should you find yourself in that disadvantageous situation, the longbow ids still pretty good as a fallback
• but that's not acceptable because a longbow with 14 strength does less damage than firebolt with 20 int so I don't want to
  • uhh.. firebolt doesn't add int to damage while the bow adds dex & because extra attack multiplies both damage dice as well as ability & weapon mods unlike firebolt that will always be the case
• but the bow is terrible
• it's more than firebolt and the specializedfighter does amazing when they are not in a situation that hits their weakness. If you don't want that weakness here is how you could be amazing with the longbow instead
• and now we are back to square one restarting the whole cycle with but I can't take everything & would have weaknesses, I don't want weaknesses... d&d choices involve tradeoffs because best in class at all things with no weaknesses would be broken to a hilarious degree.

Mathematically accurate and statistically misleading are not a one or the other situation. I said it earlier & made it fairly explicit here, I'm not against improvements to fighter but how much to improve & what tradeoffs are made is important because they do have very strong strengths already. Best in class at all things with no weaknesses that go so far as dropping to somewhat above average like the longbow without feats/fighting styles would be broken to a silly degree & the only evidence put forward for where/how much to improve fighter seems to be little more than an ever shifting "I don't want that" alongside an ever shifting whiteroom with a quantum fighter who is always constructed to be weakest at any given situation.

The point of all of that was how trivially easy it is to take the fighter's best tools and primary way of contributing away. 20 feet of elevation. And it isn't the only way. Could also be a common wall or pit. Sure, there are fallback options (which are frequently significantly worse) in the same way that a caster can just pull out a weapon in an antimagic field (they probably have a decent dex too). The point is that it is far easier to take a martials toys away in the pillar they are supposed to perform the best in.

If the fighter is intended to have severe defects in all other pillars of play mitigated by superiority in the combat pillar, they should not be so easy to so significantly disable/render irrelevant in the combat pillar especially at high levels.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I encourage you to look back into how those suggestions came up. The process went something like this:

• a monster cold hover 20 feet up
• Yes it could & risking that weakness is why you should use one of the many options available to you as a fighter if you encounter a monster that hits your weakness. Some of them are even quite strong alongside cantrips & they don't even cause difficulties carrying or affording them given carrying capacities & low cost
• but I don't want to use a bow as a strength based fighter
• well that tradeoff was something you chose when you went all in on a strength fighter, probably for something like gwm & higher damage 2h weapons. There are strength based ranged weapons like these
• but I don't want to use those because they don't let me use all of my attacks
• well if you are concerned about that you could take these to avoid that weakness
• but I don't want to take those
• So pick some other option to fall back on should you find yourself in that disadvantageous situation, the longbow ids still pretty good as a fallback
• but that's not acceptable because a longbow with 14 strength does less damage than firebolt with 20 int so I don't want to
  • uhh.. firebolt doesn't add int to damage while the bow adds dex & because extra attack multiplies both damage dice as well as ability & weapon mods unlike firebolt that will always be the case
• but the bow is terrible
• it's more than firebolt and the specializedfighter does amazing when they are not in a situation that hits their weakness. If you don't want that weakness here is how you could be amazing with the longbow instead
• and now we are back to square one restarting the whole cycle with but I can't take everything & would have weaknesses, I don't want weaknesses... d&d choices involve tradeoffs because best in class at all things with no weaknesses would be broken to a hilarious degree.

Mathematically accurate and statistically misleading are not a one or the other situation. I said it earlier & made it fairly explicit here, I'm not against improvements to fighter but how much to improve & what tradeoffs are made is important because they do have very strong strengths already. Best in class at all things with no weaknesses that go so far as dropping to somewhat above average like the longbow without feats/fighting styles would be broken to a silly degree & the only evidence put forward for where/how much to improve fighter seems to be little more than an ever shifting "I don't want that" alongside an ever shifting whiteroom with a quantum fighter who is always constructed to be weakest at any given situation.

Double post but in addition consider what you are doing when you are comparing the Strength-based fighter using a longbow vs. Firebolt from a caster.

In that situation, you are comparing the fighter's only option to a caster's last option when all other spell slots are expended (or when the combat is so trivial that it doesn't warrant a slotted spell). It shouldn't be that close.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, It took a while to catch up...

I get the desire to have grounded fighter, I get the desire to have mythic heroes. I restate what I've said before: the key is to recognise and emphasise the tiers of play. Just accept that beyond level ten(ish), no D&D character is truly mundane. It is a magical world and even high level fighters are part of it. So keep the earlier levels more grounded, but do not be afraid to veer into some super heroism on the higher levels.

I've stated support for that solution in the past but there's one thing I dislike about it. If levels 1-10 are grounded and 11-20 are mythic then somewhere in playing from 1-20 my character suddenly jumps from being grounded to being mythic. That's actually something I don't want.

I'd prefer if certain class features had an optional mythic label. Then I could either play the mythic fighter or the grounded fighter at any level.

But what I absolutely do not want is class bloat. There are already too many classes. And I don't want level 20 town guard or level one superheroes. I want a town guard that over long career of adventuring might eventually become a superheroic mythic champion.

I actually don't have a problem with class bloat in itself. I do in a game with 5e style multiclassing. But multiclassing is optional. So I'm not as concerned with it. I think financially it makes sense for WOTC to avoid major class bloat as too much class material can seem like a barrier to entry.

And we also must recognise that a class based game cannot, nor should it ever attempt to, produce every conceivable iteration of every possible concept. It seems that a lot of people seem to want there to be a new class every time someone can think up a slightly different way of doing an existing concept. Such desires are better served by a more freeform, classless game, and I doubt D&D will ever be that.

I don't think people are asking for every conceivable iteration of every possible concept. It's just some broad ones are either missing or don't function well. There's 2 options to fix that. Either make a new class or actually update an old class. Subclasses often lack the design space to fulfill the missing concepts.

As for nerfing casters, I feel some spells should be restricted. Things that have serious adventure bypassing properties (such many teleport type spells) maybe shouldn't be just freely choosable. Perhaps some more influential spells could be siloed into a restricted category, and would be only accessible if the GM hands them out like magic items?

I think in that view the issue is most 6+ level spells.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Class bloat can and would be pretty awesome, actually. Subclasses are nice as a concept, but the core chassis were never built for a ton of variety.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Probably. The playtesting of 5e was kind of a mess. I can't say it was a huge failure, though. We just need to improve the base of the bounded accuracy d20 system, the way feats are handled, how multiclassing works, the pacing and structure of adventure encounters, and the actual guidance of the game overall.

All these things could make D&D more amazing and streamlined than it already is.

On the one hand, I felt the playtest failed at testing; it was more a public preview. On the other, the game obviously sold well. On the gripping hand, "failure" or "success" is less relevant than the resulting rules...which have a lot of holes. Underlying math (don't forget the Ghoul Surprise), most feats, class mixing, pacing/structure, and advice? Oof. I'd also add the nigh-useless CR system to the list.

Part of it is just, 5e is a child of 3e (despite many statements about it being "AD&D3," e.g. an alternate successor upholding the Advanced line.) But multiclassing, underlying math, caster power, CR little better than intuition, flawed (both poor and OP) feats, and adventure/encounter pacing issues? That's most of the problems of 3e too. 5e is a toned-down version of 3e, for good and for ill. That ramps up the argument intensity, because we're still litigating the issues we've been hitting for 20 years or more.

I just want D&D to focus on its niche and I think that it works best there but the focus on hyper-story utility feels like it will further distance itself away from the Dungeon crawl aspect.

This may be an issue then. I don't see it as "the dungeon-crawl game." I see it as "big tent," which includes crawling and a lot else besides. (Kinda surprised that you advocate so much for 5e-as-it-is though since, IMO, 4e being so well-balanced in combat makes it better for dungeon crawls. No DM hand-holding, especially if they follow the DMG's advice and don't make every encounter perfectly balanced.)
Many come to D&D, for many reasons. 4e tried to optimize for one focus and let groups decide for themselves how to handle the things that couldn't be designed for, and it was hotly controversial to say the least. 5e, meanwhile, was specifically (IIRC explicitly) sold as a "big tent." Hell, they even had to play damage control when some of their early statements to that effect became pretty clearly impossible or unrealistic.

A big tent game--by the devs' own words, a fair standard IMO--can't afford classes that emphatically refuse to engage with the pillars. That just frustrates many players. Addressing this does not require that we never ever provide classes that support abnegation (the formal term for "I just want to zone out and play"-type player preferences). But it does require that every class get, in and of itself, something meaningful to contribute to each of the three pillars.

In a dungeon crawl, the limited space and wards make spellcasting difficult even for a high-level wizard and they might start throwing out spells that get nullified or dispelled but the rogue can lead the way and dodge out of traps or observe their surroundings very well at-will.

Never saw anything like this myself in dungeon crawls. Concentration was no limit at all in 3e and is only a slight limit in 5e.

Even apart from that, I'm skeptical. Damage and defense spells are still great. Many others (e.g. misty step, invisibility; borrowed knowledge or enhance ability; rituals like augury and locate object;, etc.) are still good, perhaps better in confined underground spaces (and those are all 1st or 2nd level too!) If the Wizard can be confident that normal staples like fly aren't worth it, that just means they can focus better on the spells that remain and are worthwhile--which doesn't really reduce their power.

Flying and teleporting is just meaningless in base game. They can help, but they also come at an intense cost of not just a resource, but the consequences of messing up. Fighters get to be reliable.

I strongly contest the teleport claim. Many exploration puzzles can be trivialized if someone can teleport across a 30' gap, or get through unbreakable metal bars. Or for more potent ones, going straight from the dungeon back to town without traversing the land between can be extremely valuable. Few dungeons are just positioned right next to inns and shops, after all!

Fighter reliability is only an asset if they're given the opportunity, and 5e as designed fails to support this. I've run the numbers. Even a Battle Master (to say nothing of the Champion) requires 7-8 encounters and 2 (preferably 3) short rests a day to keep up with the likes of a Paladin. These design assumptions are just...wrong for most groups. Six encounters is a very long day to most. Two short rests is on the high end. Etc. The Paladin can thus either outclass the Fighter in damage output, or match him and have several utility spells on the side.

But the way D&D has moved to more outdoors and social settings based on stories with complex narratives, the experience means narrative-flavored effects become more important.

Were these ever absent? Wandering monsters and reaction tables suggest otherwise. Old-school players often refer to Cha (perhaps in not so many words) as a god stat for how it can prevent fights from happening or even turn potential enemies into hirelings. So I'm not even sure this was true in the past, and it's certainly not any more true today.

There's a difference between not using rules and not picking options that don't fit your character. That's like being mad that your dwarf cleric has to take the stats of a dwarf because you wanted your dwarf to be an elf. Just choose the elf.

My objection isn't from the player's side. It's from the DM's side. The DM has to either rule that your reflavored spells aren't actually subject to issues that would prevent magic from working, thus giving a straight power buff for fluff reasons, or that they are despite not actually being magic, which shatters my already-damaged ability to believe that they're really not spells.

That's just from your perspective. Also, using your metaphor, most people absolutely like steak with no sides at equal price to a sandwich with soup and salad. Because they get to enjoy their steak and they didn't need the soup or salad or anything outside the water. Especially if the steak is well-made.

Yes, but I used the analogy I did for a reason. Spellcasters are not just sandwich+soup+salad. You are getting less food for the same money. That's why I used the analogy structured as I did. Obviously you can rip it apart into something else that looks like your position. That's how analogies work. But the whole point was "(1) the game tells us, implicitly and explicitly, that these things are peers; (2) these things are not peers; (3) games shouldn't do that, so something has to change." A game should not mislead its players, period.

Bringing it back. You assume we shouldn't be fine with the fighter's design, but I've given my reasons why I enjoy how the fighter is designed. Sure, maybe some damage buffs for the champion fighter, but outside of that, I like the fighter and its more lax game play style.

Why does giving the Fighter something they CAN do outside of combat take that away? You keep saying this and it's completely baffling to me. Having the option to contribute something meaningful, even if it isn't dramatic or flashy or awesome, does not have to make it complicated. I've said that SEVERAL times. You can keep it simple, while expanding the areas where it has something to contribute, unless a "more lax game style" specifically and only means "I literally never want to be bothered when we're not fighting, if you bother me while we're not fighting I will lose all interest in playing."

They are compromises because they didn't need to exist nor did they need to fulfill the role given to them. What you want is so specific. You don't want a martial with utility. You don't want a martial with utility that doesn't use magic. You don't want a martial with utility that doesn't use magic with fantastical contributions.

You want a fighter with utility that doesn't use magic with fantastical contributions. Compromising means some of those things don't get precisely added.

As I said, what I actually want is ALL non-casters to have (what you consider) "fantastical" contributions without magic. Failing that, I want ALL non-casters--explicitly including Fighters--to have meaningful contributions. I cannot go any lower than that, because anything less than that isn't actually changing anything. Something has to actually change. No "well you can just use X thing that exists, but Think Different™ about it" will ever actually give me what I--and a lot of people--are looking for.

And no, this isn't some insane wahoo way out there request. It's literally, exclusively, "Give the Fighter some meaningful contributions outside of combat." That's it. That's all. I just want the Fighter to be included in the stuff the game says is vitally important to play.

I don't understand why you're so vehemently on the hill of taking away the current Fighter. People actually enjoy it. You might not, but I don't see why that gives you the need to want to take away from the things others like.

Again, you present this as me snatching away something from you, and I just do not get it. The only meanings I can see for the things you've said are:
1. "I don't ever want to be bothered by things outside of combat, so if I even have one feature that interacts with that, I'll be bothered by it. Thus, we have a zero-sum game: you getting what you want guarantees I can't have what I want, so you're not allowed to ask for what you want."
2. "I cannot see how it is possible to have non-combat features that aren't simple and straightforward, so anything you change will necessarily create dramatic complexity, ruining my experience, so you're not allowed to ask for what you want."

That's why I've replied as I have. The first is people not wanting to be bothered, which they can quite easily do by...continuing to ignore any rules irrelevant to their interests. It is pointless to design the game around what people refuse to interact with. The second is....simply a disagreement about the implementation of rules that do not exist, which is hella premature and comes across as arguing in bad faith. Presuming that the things someone wants cannot possibly be compatible with your interests, and thus they must be the ones to always compromise without question, is not kosher. If you want to hear why people pursue what they do, granting the possibility that their desires can be fulfilled without destroying the things you like is kinda step 1 on that road.

No. I didn't ask for examples. I already understand what you want. I don't understand why you want it so badly.

Because D&D needs to be big-tent; the designers said it was big-tent; the players demanded that it be big-tent; the rules present themselves as big-tent. Because, if D&D is to survive, it cannot afford to pigeonhole archetypes. And yes, a Fighter that is not equipped to do things outside of combat, other than things literally everyone can do, is pigeonholed. Either they should admit that, or address it, but something has to change.

I am philosophically opposed to class design that does not say, but in practice provides, "you, Myrmidon, you don't get anything for participating in key parts of the game." I disagree with design that openly goes that direction for tabletop gaming meant to be long-term (e.g. not a Pandemic game, where you're meant to start and finish in a single sitting, but stuff like D&D, where playing a dozen sessions would be on the low end of intended play experience), but if the game is at least honest about doing that, I can accept that that's just a game not interested in providing what I'm looking for. And yes, this is an extremely deep philosophical commitment on my part; I genuinely believe that it makes games worse to provide archetypes that are simply not furnished with meaningful tools to interact with core, fundamental gameplay loops.

And since I know this will invite this criticism because it always does, no, "things everyone gets" are not enough, not in the game of 5e as designed. They could have been, in theory, but in practice the things everyone gets are such piddly-nothing stuff compared to what actual dedicated class features look like that I cannot accept them. It would require a FAR more radical re-design of 5e to get the common features up to the level that I'd be happy with them, and because I'm aware that's a non-starter for most folks, I don't even bother pursuing that avenue.

I still don't understand what exactly you're missing by not playing that character you want in D&D. And how missing that is gamebreaking for you rather than just a mild inconvenience.

What makes this a big deal?

Because D&D, as a game, is something I care about, and would like to feel included in, and have been told I'm supposed to feel included in. Because D&D, as a historical entity, has struggled with this specific issue for literally decades and it still remains an issue, even though multiple systems (DW, 4e, and 13A, to name a few) have solved it quite nicely. Because D&D, as a product, is marketed as a band of adventurers, peers joining together for mutual benefit, not Casters & Caddies.

Like...there's literally not much more to it. My beliefs regarding how cooperative multiplayer game design should work inform this. My emotional investment in this specific subculture, and the explicit statements of the people creating the game associated with that subculture, inform it. My understanding of what D&D is "supposed" to be, as stated by the creators themselves, inform it.

How is that difficult to grasp? I care about it for the same reason I care about the design of classes in FFXIV--I play the game, I spend a lot of my time interacting with the community, I read and understand the statements made by the developers, and I advocate for the things I like and criticize the things I don't. What more do I need? Why do I need to justify to you why I want this?

Honestly this is kind of hilarious given the way things worked out with 4e. Because y'know what one of the biggest criticisms of 4e was? "I can't play a Fighter who does damage" (prior to the Slayer subclass anyway).
"Okay but...you can? Fighters are one of the highest-damage classes that aren't straight-up Strikers, and you can easily build to do even more damage."
"Yes but I can't choose not to be a Defender."
"Oh, well then what you actually want is a Ranger, they're a really good Martial Striker."
"NO, that's NOT what I want, I want a FIGHTER, I want it to SAY 'Fighter' on my character sheet and be a kick-ass attacker."
"Oh...okay...but like...you'll actually, truly get everything you want if you just accept that 'Ranger' is the name for the thing you want to play, a person who kicks huge ass with mighty thews and pure skill with weapons, no supernatural power required."
"No, it MUST be an ACTUAL Fighter or it's not acceptable."
"Alright, well, guess you got what you wanted with Slayer."

So now when I say, "Okay, well, if there's no roles, I want Fighters to be able to meaningfully contribute to non-combat, just like others balked at Fighters that had innate Defender features before," I'm told that I'm the wrong and bad one for wanting to piss in casual players' cheerios.

Maybe, if such casual play is so goddamn important, we should have more than one class to carry that weight?

Despite how it sounds, I have faith that there must be some reason why the absence of this theoretical fighter causes such a huge stir in the community. But I can't tell if that reason is something I should be rallied behind or not.

People come up with huge arguments sometimes to put others down. I don't really care about the well-being of WoTC but I'm not going to blindly rally behind some argument that was generated for no purpose than to express hate to it. That's just not very motivating to me.

I have done my best to avoid any such arguments, hence why I focus on the actual statements made by the developers (e.g. referring to D&D Next/5e as a "big tent" edition, the books explicitly treating the classes as peers) or on abstract principles of game design (e.g. "how should a cooperative game be designed?") That way, I literally cannot be putting anyone down.

People get so mad about this, but for what? Where's the anger coming from. How is it this frustrating that even a thread that started with an innocent basis goes up to 45 pages in less than a week?

Because this is an issue that's been simmering for twenty years. 4e addressed it. 5e reverted most of that. People are sick and tired of feeling like saying "I prefer playing Fighters" makes you a second-class citizen of D&D-land. Feeling marginalized and forced to either play along or put up with just straight less than others get sucks. It turns what should be a delightful funtime experience into a constant reminder that the things you like are "supposed" to suck compared to Magic, because Magic Is Awesome And Always Will Be.

Not to mention, If I were to make a homebrew class with a martial, this debate would seep into the homebrew idea. You said it yourself, the critics can tear the homebrew apart. But why? Why can't I just make my contest-based martial without it being the "fix" to the martial debate?

Well, that's gonna happen even if you're making homebrew in a relatively uncontroversial portion of the game. The problem there is that pursuit of change invites anyone who's interested in change to comment--and thus the internet, with its characteristic heedlessness, will summon the entire spectrum of people who have feelings about change. Both the extreme "all change is bad, do nothing" and "nothing is good, change everything" and everything in between. When there's already such hardened lines, the battlefield breaks out anywhere someone brings up the possibility of changes.

My response to you specifically got way overlong, so I'm posting this now, and will reply to the other quotes I'd collected after. And...yeah I'm not even going to bother trying to catch up to the posts made in between. If it matters, I'll check them out later, but for now the thread is moving too fast for me to 100% keep up.

 

[FrogReaver]

I encourage you to look back into how those suggestions came up. The process went something like this:

• a monster cold hover 20 feet up
• Yes it could & risking that weakness is why you should use one of the many options available to you as a fighter if you encounter a monster that hits your weakness. Some of them are even quite strong alongside cantrips & they don't even cause difficulties carrying or affording them given carrying capacities & low cost

I can't make heads or tails of this point so skipping it and maybe you can elaborate.

• but I don't want to use a bow as a strength based fighter
• well that tradeoff was something you chose when you went all in on a strength fighter, probably for something like gwm & higher damage 2h weapons. There are strength based ranged weapons like these

IMO. IF he actually needs GWM or another combat feat to be good at melee combat (my contention) then the tradeoff isn't a fair one. IMO. The tradeoff you are suggesting for the str fighter becomes 1) be good at melee combat or 2) don't be good at any aspect of combat.

• but I don't want to use those because they don't let me use all of my attacks

This is something I just now realized:

Thrown Weapon Style is enough to grant a str fighter some extra range while making all his attacks and works well when coupled with Great Weapons. So Str Fighters at least have some short ranged options with minimal investment. I can't believe this point isn't brought up more often!

The 30ft range bothers me but using such weapons at disadvantage at long range is still likely better than using a longbow with 14 dex.

• So pick some other option to fall back on should you find yourself in that disadvantageous situation, the longbow ids still pretty good as a fallback
• but that's not acceptable because a longbow with 14 strength does less damage than firebolt with 20 int so I don't want to
  • uhh.. firebolt doesn't add int to damage while the bow adds dex & because extra attack multiplies both damage dice as well as ability & weapon mods unlike firebolt that will always be the case

The argument is that the DPR of firebolt is higher in the 20 int vs 14 dex situation and it's demonstratably true. 14 dex isn't a trivial investment either. It means you didn't put that 14 in something like wisdom or cha.

And Yes - magic weapons/buffs/fighting styles/superiority dice/etc can change the math back into the longbows favor, but it's not simply about doing slightly more damage than the firebolt. The point is that it's much too low of damage altogether on a class whose sole reason for existence is combat.

• but the bow is terrible
• it's more than firebolt and the specializedfighter does amazing when they are not in a situation that hits their weakness. If you don't want that weakness here is how you could be amazing with the longbow instead

There's some major nuance missing here. No one has a problem with the fighter having weaknesses. The question is whether the level of weakness compared to the power of his strengths is fair especially when compared with other classes like the Wizard. Many of us here look at that and say no.

• and now we are back to square one restarting the whole cycle with but I can't take everything & would have weaknesses, I don't want weaknesses... d&d choices involve tradeoffs because best in class at all things with no weaknesses would be broken to a hilarious degree.

When you argue against things other people don't say or believe it doesn't make your position stronger.

Mathematically accurate and statistically misleading are not a one or the other situation.

There's nothing statistically misleading about DPR - it's just expected value for damage.

an ever shifting whiteroom with a quantum fighter who is always constructed to be weakest at any given situation.

The most seen quantum fighter is one that has all the combat feats, maxes all stats, takes all fighting styles, has all subclass features and has all out of combat feats. The people pointing out that the fighter can't have all those things simultaneously aren't arguing for a quantum fighter but for a realistic one.

 

[Minigiant]

And we also must recognise that a class based game cannot, nor should it ever attempt to, produce every conceivable iteration of every possible concept. It seems that a lot of people seem to want there to be a new class every time someone can think up a slightly different way of doing an existing concept. Such desires are better served by a more freeform, classless game, and I doubt D&D will ever be that.

I'd rather 1 or 2 more classes than WOTC forcing themselves to make no ideas and producing another overpowered Twilight Cleric.

I'd rather have a new class that represents the many ways to supernatural warriors appear in fantasy than watch WOTC struggle to create 2 more magic fighter subclasses, 2 more magic barbarian subclasses, and 2 more magic rogue subclasses

Path of the Magic Lazers Barbarian? Yawn.
Give me Achilles, Samson, Aculard, Wolverine, Aragorn, Wonder Woman,and Red Sonja.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The fighter is superior in what is in many, if not most games the most important pillar(xp, treasure, time taken during games, etc.), and the wizard is superior in the other lesser pillars. I do think the fighter could use a bit of help in the other pillars, but if he's kicking wizard rear in combat, things are working as intended.

Except that it's not. It really, really isn't. Even if you had consistently 8 encounters a day and 3 short rests, the Fighter is not worlds better than the Wizard at combat, especially not the Champion. A Wizard that focuses even half of their spell slots on combat, so long as they aren't being really really inefficient (e.g., casting area of effect spells on singular targets) can keep up pretty well with a Fighter. Cantrips, likewise, keep up quite well--they may not be exactly equivalent, but if they were, that would be blatantly a problem, wouldn't it? The Fighter is supposed to completely outclass the Wizard in combat, and it just, straight, does not do that. It's better, but it's not WAY better.

I believe that this analysis also assumes that the battlemaster never crits which would further increase the impact of the superiority dice.

Ah, yes, you're right! So the Battlemaster should be even further ahead.

When you are attacking that many times, it comes up quite often.

Not really. We can all do basic math and know the percentages. The fact remains that while the 20th level wizard is critting once per 20 cantrip castings(20 rounds worth) on average, the fighter is swinging 80(assuming no action surges at all) times over the same 20 rounds and critting 12 times on average.

And that's the weakest and least played(in my experience) fighter subclass.

One: only for Champion Fighters, not all fighters. Two: Each of those crits only adds 1 weapon die, not the full suite. So sure, the Wizard may only get one crit per 20 rounds, but that's turning 4 dice into 8 dice. So the only thing that Champion Fighter is bringing is 8 extra damage dice per 20 rounds. I'm pretty sure a Wizard can manage, through using regular spell slots rather than cantrips, to get a total of 8d10 at least once in twenty rounds.

The accuracy thing is overblown. If the fighter is at +2 and the wizard is at +4, that 10% extra to hit just means 1 more hit every 10 attacks, or if you're using cantrips(2.5 full 4 round fights). That piddly amount of extra damage isn't that meaningful.

Exactly the same argument applies to Champion's extra crit dice. Even at maximum level, getting 8 encounters a day, four rounds per encounter, four attacks per round, plus two Action Surges every rest (and assuming 3 short rests a day), you're looking at a totla of 8*4+2*4 = 10*4 = 40 Attack actions, or 160 attacks. At a 15% crit rate, that's 24 bonus damage dice (not static damage, JUST dice), for an entire day. For an optimized crit-fishing Champion, that would probably be 3*(2d6) = 6d6 bonus damage per fight. A Wizard dropping a single fireball-or-better spell every combat that hits at least two targets gets that damage automatically. Between Arcane Recovery and Signature Spells (picking fireball and, presumably, something more utility-helpful like fly, invisibility, tongues, or major image), a 20th-level Wizard can throw out 3 (base) + 3 (Arcane Recovery) + 4 (Signature Spells) = 10 fireball spells every day, meaning they could even drop them on single targets four times a day and still keep up with the entire damage bonus Champion offers. While still having all of their spells that aren't 3rd level available for doing whatever the hell they want.

This is what I mean when I say that the Fighter is not blowing the Wizard out of the water. It just isn't. The Wizard can, with slight investment and just a little bit of forethought (e.g., as stated, not using fireball this round if there's only one enemy left), meet or beat the Fighter at his own game, while still having all the other resources at their disposal available for other things.

The Fighter does not excel at combat. It does okay; if you follow the "6-8 combat encounters, 2-3 short rests per day" paradigm, it keeps up with other front-line warriors like Paladin. It does not stand head and shoulders above other classes in combat. It simply, truly, does not.

I suppose the alternative is to be permissive and validate something when I simply disagree?

No. But it would help a lot if you stopped assuming that adding utility to the Fighter would mean taking away what you like about the class. That is needlessly combative. It would be a hell of a lot more helpful if you instead presented it as, "Okay, well, I really, REALLY like the Fighter being extremely simple. Not having to worry about things. Just relaxing. Hearing about the stuff you want, I'm concerned that that would mean the playstyle I value--being able to just relax and hang out, more or less--would get pushed out, and not really have other options to take." That's something that can actually be worked with, as opposed to, "Okay, how about you surrender all the stuff you actually like, so that this thing I care about doesn't change," which is where we're at right now.

that is a fair point you got any idea what the competing visions are as right now they are kinda murky?

From what I can tell, the competing visions present in this thread are...

1. Keep It Simple, Streamlined. Any change, no matter how small, to the Fighter is A Problem because it would disrupt the distilled simplicity, the "I can just turn my brain off and not care" aspect of the class, thus everyone else must compromise.
2. Let Them Play Too! The Fighter, as it is, is simply not sufficient and must change. Anything that doesn't actually change the Fighter, or provide said change across all of its subclasses (in their own ways), is inadequate and unacceptable.

You can probably tell which of the two I align with just from that summary.

I find it pretty simple. Being a sword-swinger and being a spell-caster is ultimately a matter of aesthetic. Having simple gameplay with relatively few choices and widgets, or more complex gameplay with more choices and widgets, is ultimately a matter of playstyle preference.

You should be able to combine your preference of aesthetic and your preference of playstyle in as many possible permutations as possible. If there are simple sword-swingers, there should also be complex sword-swingers. If there are complex spellcasters, there should also be simple spellcasters.

100% agreed. There should be casters as simple as Champion Fighter is simple (or very very close, if that much simplicity is too difficult.) 4e proved it was possible with its Elementalist Sorcerer. And there should be martial classes that are of at least somewhat comparable complexity to complex casters like Wizard.

Do I think it's wrong for people to play those games? Absolutely not. But another thing I don't understand is why does D&D have to carry that burden?

Because it is the big tent. By design, by explicit designer intent. D&D declared it was seeking to carry that burden.

Some have said it's been marketed as such, but I still haven't seen anything official saying D&D is optimized to play all kinds of games. Even the creators make it clear that some fantasy styles would need homebrew adjustments if you were to incorporate them.

Do you have citations for that? I haven't seen it. I have seen, for example, Mearls explicitly saying on Twitter that it was originally intended that legit martial healing be part of 5e, before they hamstrung themselves with the whole "Specialties" thing.

But Pathfinder does it better. And I think it's good that D&D has a separate niche distinct from those games as it prevents a monopoly via popularity. If you want to play a game where the high-level fighter feels like a superhero, play a marvel TTRPG. This isn't about kicking others out of the game or genre either, it's about advertising great, underrated systems that keep on being swallowed by the TTRPG behemoth D&D.

PF1e is the same rotten garbage design as 3e though. I only go to PF1e when I want an absolute gonzo experience, because that's the only thing it does "well"...for a given definition of "well." It's hellish to run such things as a DM though, so few people are willing to try.

This isn't me being dismissive about how the people that want D&D to cover their genre feel. It's me explaining why changing the system's themes from the ground up to generalize the system could needlessly uproot the other TTRPG's. I don't think we should have all our eggs in one basket.

I don't see it as "changing" anything. The game has been more than dungeon crawls since at least 2e. Remember how 3e's marketing included "back to the dungeon"? You can't have a "we have to return to our roots!" campaign if the game never left its roots to begin with. And I dunno about you, but it seems pretty clear to me that the rest of the game has been moving away from a hardcore dungeon-crawler focus for...basically its entire run. 3e, 4e, and even 5e have all shown that fans have a huge interest in high-narrative gaming. ENWorld's campaign settings and Pathfinder's adventure paths have shown people really, truly enjoy "telling a story" through play, rather than just doing insane underground tomb heists.

When viewed through that lens, it seems a lot more to me like "we should keep focused on dungeon-crawling" is trying to deny or revert the changes that have already occurred...for everything except Fighters (and non-casters more generally).

It doesn't have to carry that burden, but it does carry that burden. Over half the TTRPG market plays one game, and the hundreds of other games divide up the rest of the base. It's much easier to find games and support if D&D is the type of game you prefer, so obviously people want to shift D&D into the modes of play they like.

Agreed, though I think it goes further, and it's that the developers intentionally presented the game as doing so--embracing a huge panoply of different approaches and styles as all equally valid, all equally "D&D."

Wouldn't it be better if we, as a community, brought the other systems to people's attention? I don't like Pathfinder personally, but I've introduced it to people that now play it weekly. Call of Cthulu was my first TTRPG that I expanded out of D&D for and its one of my favorite systems.

If we keep putting the emphasis on D&D, won't we just obscure the other systems that really should be getting the attention they deserve?

It might even bring people who think they dislike TTRPG's into the game because now they work with technology and body-modifications rather than spells and swords and they think its awesome.

Better, perhaps. I certainly speak fondly of 13A and Dungeon World. But that's a question of ideal result--"what would produce the best possible world if it succeeded?"--vs. what actually works in practice, aka, "what strategy is most likely to succeed?"

And I hate to break it to you, but D&D is the only game in town for a LOT of people. The majority of the hobby, even. Making outreach to those fans who would like to like the game more, if it had things that appealed to them better, is sound business sense.

1) This is the D&D forum. We're gonna talk D&D

2) 'Go play another game' is historically how people have tried to punch dissenters out of the community for being threats to 'tradition'.

Absolutely. I didn't want to specifically accuse Asisreo of this because, as stated, they come across relatively genially. But yeah. It's a frustrating and dismissive argument that we've all heard a thousand times.

Like, to give an example. I actually quite enjoy playing Shadowrun 5e. Do you know how hard it is to find a SR5 group online, doubly so if you can't stand the "street level" rules? (Read: starting off super duper ultra weak, being focused on petty neighborhood crime, that sort of thing.) I once spent three months looking for a game that wasn't Street Level. In the end, I gave up, because no one was offering one. Nowhere I looked. Not on Reddit, not on GITP, not on Myth-Weavers, nothing. This is a game that does still show up, albeit in low amounts, on Roll20's statistics for game groups--and I still could not find a single "regular" game of Shadowrun 5e anywhere.

At this point, for a lot of folks, the only game they'll get to play is 5e, because that's the only game most people are willing to run. When you only have one choice, it sucks for that one choice to have such limitations, particularly when the books themselves don't support that with their descriptive and fluff text. They treat the classes as peers--not precise perfect equals, but as equals-in-concept, teammates, people who all pitch in and all accept an equal slice of the reward. Just as a jury of your peers need not be made of people who share your education level or income, but who are your peers before the law.

 

[Azzy]

They don't lack sufficient resources, though. The fighter has 7 ASI's and can easily get to 20 strength, 20 dex and a high(16-18) con. They can be very good at both ranged and two handed strikes.

I'd feel like this was more of an effective retort if feats didn't cannibalize ASIs and previous arguments for fighters didn't aso depend on having feats as well.....

 

[FrogReaver]

Except that it's not. It really, really isn't. Even if you had consistently 8 encounters a day and 3 short rests, the Fighter is not worlds better than the Wizard at combat, especially not the Champion. A Wizard that focuses even half of their spell slots on combat, so long as they aren't being really really inefficient (e.g., casting area of effect spells on singular targets) can keep up pretty well with a Fighter. Cantrips, likewise, keep up quite well--they may not be exactly equivalent, but if they were, that would be blatantly a problem, wouldn't it? The Fighter is supposed to completely outclass the Wizard in combat, and it just, straight, does not do that. It's better, but it's not WAY better.

I've not actually crunched the numbers but I bet a wizard gearing up for damage in an actual long adventure day as you describe can outdamage a highly optimized str battlemaster fighter in a typical one of those days. At least by late tier 2.