D&D 5E Another Fighter: the "Heroic" Fighter

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I am not familiar with "gated Maneuvers", could you elaborate?

Like Warblade and spellcasters. Level requirements for taking certain manuvers.

So like spells you can have more powerful stuff "gated" by certain levels and not immediately available.

Gives more design space for more powerful manuvers since they can't be selected immediately and also solves the issue of "I'm picking a manuver at higher levels now that I didn't think was good enough to be in my first round of choices..."

LU Fighter goes all in on this, but I'm just suggesting maybe 2 additional options to choose at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 15th where you need to be 5th level etc. to take.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Since I don't have LU and don't plan to get it, I have to make do with what I can come up with on my own.

Also if it's not a question of budget and you are interested in this Heroic Fighter concept, IMO it's worth the price of the pdf just to mine that version for ideas! (amoung other potentially cool stuff)

 

[Vaalingrade]

So notes on the Warlord:

I LOVE having a new Leadership feature. 11/10. Would Play.

Inspiring Action's movement power is too powerful. Either half speed with no AO, or just full speed, IMO. Remember that this is bonus movement.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Like Warblade and spellcasters. Level requirements for taking certain manuvers.

So like spells you can have more powerful stuff "gated" by certain levels and not immediately available.

That's a cool idea. Savage Worlds works exactly like this, and I've been impressed by this part of its system in a game we're in right now.

 

[Neonchameleon]

IME nearly all Paladins and most Clerics (not even some) suffer the same issue when in Heavy Armor, but that is also because the other classes benefit more (or at least nearly as much) by wearing other armors. I'll not dispute what you are saying otherwise, I just don't think Stealthing is normally the role of Fighters.

Only fighters, paladins, and some clerics are proficient in heavy armour by default in 5e. And stealth is one of those skills where secondary stealth can matter. There's almost no merit in a second person in the party having Thieves' Tools as only one person can get at the lock at a time. But there are times when you want the entire party to stealth past a bored sentry - and being the worst in the party is a problem. (Never mind that thanks to 5e armour rules non-heavy armour wearers seem to have a median Dex of 14).

Frankly, I feel there are way too many casting classes, but I am swimming against the tide in this instance, sadly.

Frankly I feel it's not the number of classes - it's that wizards get access to everything (and clerics and druids do similar). My preferred approach would be to dump the wizard entirely - and add a number of sorcerer subclasses for some of the schools (especially one for necromancy). And if there isn't already one an illusionist bard.

Anyway, I know often we butt heads more than have fruitful conversations, so I want you to know I appreciate this back-and-forth and look forward to your responses.

Thanks - and me too.

 

[DND_Reborn]

But there are times when you want the entire party to stealth past a bored sentry - and being the worst in the party is a problem.

Then often the Fighter might be towards the bottom, but there is a good chance the Cleric is as well as any Paladins.

If the entire group needs to stealth past a location, you'll probably fail because someone will roll poorly. Spells like Pass Without Trace because almost a necessity if you want an entire party to stealth anywhere IME.

Frankly I feel it's not the number of classes - it's that wizards get access to everything (and clerics and druids do similar). My preferred approach would be to dump the wizard entirely - and add a number of sorcerer subclasses for some of the schools (especially one for necromancy). And if there isn't already one an illusionist bard.

I am not for dumping the Wizard class, itself, but I agree that having specialist schools (with non-access opposition schools) is better and want to see one of two types of casters (not just wizards):

1. the generalist. you won't have powerful spells, but you'll have a wide variety you can cast fairly often.
2. the specialist. your focus is going far and fast, you have very few spells and can't cast them often, but they are powerful.

To your point, a generalist might have access to a lot of different types of spells, but their spell progression would be delayed and many would focus on utility IMO.

As where the generalist would progress RAW as far as spell level is concerned, but would have maybe half the slots. Also, they would have restrictions on what they can access, like maybe just one to three schools.

Anyway, I am meeting to play tomorrow so I'll post about some of my discussion with the table probably Sunday.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Then often the Fighter might be towards the bottom, but there is a good chance the Cleric is as well as any Paladins.

If the entire group needs to stealth past a location, you'll probably fail because someone will roll poorly. Spells like Pass Without Trace because almost a necessity if you want an entire party to stealth anywhere IME.

Depends on your DM - and on who you're stealthing past. You can't go past anywhere serious - but bored and distractable guards, yes. (And I encourage my players to do this).

I am not for dumping the Wizard class, itself, but I agree that having specialist schools (with non-access opposition schools) is better and want to see one of two types of casters (not just wizards):

1. the generalist. you won't have powerful spells, but you'll have a wide variety you can cast fairly often.
2. the specialist. your focus is going far and fast, you have very few spells and can't cast them often, but they are powerful.

To your point, a generalist might have access to a lot of different types of spells, but their spell progression would be delayed and many would focus on utility IMO.

As where the generalist would progress RAW as far as spell level is concerned, but would have maybe half the slots. Also, they would have restrictions on what they can access, like maybe just one to three schools.

I'm not even sure the generalist is a desirable thing given the history of D&D - although 4e and 5e do it the right way by making specialists beter at their own spells than generalists are.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Depends on your DM - and on who you're stealthing past. You can't go past anywhere serious - but bored and distractable guards, yes. (And I encourage my players to do this).

So, an interesting happened in our game today. As DM, normally if the entire party is trying to stealth I have every one roll for their PCs and use the lowest roll vs. the passive perceptions (or rolls if paying attention). Of course, someone usually rolls low, so it makes it really hard for the group to stealth.

Today I took a different approach, perhaps something overlooked or never really thought applicable to stealth... working together (group checks). So, if half the group makes the check vs. the passive perceptions, the whole group succeeds.

This allows even the fighter in heavy armor to make it because the more proficient character help them and show them what to do, etc.

I've never done it this way before, I honestly it worked well and I liked it, so I'll probably apply it to stealth and other skills more often in the future.

I'm not even sure the generalist is a desirable thing given the history of D&D - although 4e and 5e do it the right way by making specialists beter at their own spells than generalists are.

Well, it was really the default in many ways, the specialist not being introduced until 2E, when school specialists got an extra spell slot of each spell level IIRC. I don't see 5E doing it at all, so I am not sure how you think 5E does it the right way? Having never played 4E, I can't say.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Today I took a different approach, perhaps something overlooked or never really thought applicable to stealth... working together (group checks). So, if half the group makes the check vs. the passive perceptions, the whole group succeeds.

This allows even the fighter in heavy armor to make it because the more proficient character help them and show them what to do, etc.

Oh definitely. Me, I prefer something more like skill challenges where the proficient people get to help - but it's a decent simple way to do things. And it does penalise the fighter slightly.

Well, it was really the default in many ways, the specialist not being introduced until 2E, when school specialists got an extra spell slot of each spell level IIRC. I don't see 5E doing it at all, so I am not sure how you think 5E does it the right way? Having never played 4E, I can't say.

That's not quite true. 1e had Illusionists which were a specialist as a curated separate class and school specialists were introduced with Unearthed Arcana. But with specialist wizards in UA, 2e, and 3.X you got more spells of your specialty (or in the case of diviners in 3.X you had one divination spell per level as a freebie and were only locked out of one school). In 4e and 5e your spells in the school you've focused on get extra effects - so for example evocation specialists get to protect allies from ground zero evocations while high enough level illusionists can make their illusions part real. Far more interesting and evocative than just extra spells.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That's not quite true. 1e had Illusionists which were a specialist as a curated separate class and school specialists were introduced with Unearthed Arcana.

Really? I just looked through UA and there is nothing about specialists other than the Illusionist subclass, which I totally forgot about in 1E lol!

Yes, in that one case/school, they made it into a whole subclass with spells all its own. But nothing in UA about any other sort of specialist wizard. Not until 2E came out did we really have specialists for each school.

In 4e and 5e your spells in the school you've focused on get extra effects - so for example evocation specialists get to protect allies from ground zero evocations while high enough level illusionists can make their illusions part real. Far more interesting and evocative than just extra spells.

Oh, I see what you mean about 5E then. Most of the school traditions really aren't that great IMO so I wasn't even thinking of them... IMO really only Divination and Transmutation has much to offer.

Personally, I would love a "generalist" subclass for Wizard myself. The only wizard (multiclassed) I played in 5E so far was War Magic, and even that I wasn't thrilled with. Other players in my games have been Divination and Abjuration only I think...