A critique and review of the Fighter class

[Oofta]

You missed Fly and every illusion as well. But, yes, you are correct – spellcasters have a lot that they can do besides kill people

You made a very specific claim that all other classes are better at social and exploration.

Which, under certain circumstances, magic can overcome some obstacles. That magic can often be mimicked using items or is of only limited utility.

When it comes to social interaction, where does the wizard far exceed the fighter? Charm person isn't that helpful and has significant drawbacks, not to mention being a limited resource.

 

[SteveC]

So are you asking me to explain it for you despite my saying that fighters very much are "that" much better without contrived whiterooms? Or are you are not capable of explaining how all of that extra damage is just discardable under your comment of "They can fight well, but not that much better than the other classes"?

As someone who has played a series of one-shot adventures across the years, from levels 8 until about 14 at this point with the same characters, I can say you actually need to explain it. We have a fighter, wizard, warlock, cleric, and either a rogue or a druid depending on who is there for the session. The fighter is very good in combat, they became better with a third attack at level 11, but they are not that much better in terms of hitting and damage. The squishy characters love the fact that the fighter has a ton of HP, that's definitely true.
I have seen examples of the characters playing out for many sessions, but obviously not a campaign, since the GM runs a long session and the next one is characters at the next level.
Our least experienced, but most energetic player goes with the fighter. They like the class and that they can pretty much just do their thing in combat. The fact that this hasn't changed over years of play means the fighter is definitely designed with this sort of player in mind.
Different characters shine in different scenarios, that's what I've found. The notion that the fighter somehow is just outclassing, say, the warlock who is built around Eldritch Blast is just wrong though.
None of this is white room play, and it's with (after a fashion) experienced players and a very experienced GM.
And we all have fun. I have played a few of the different characters as the group has changed over time, and I can say that everyone enjoys combat and no one feels overwhelmingly strong.

 

[see]

Imagine if they put out a class that ONLY had social capabilities and no options in combat save for what you get from feats and one otherwise not very good subclass of it, or a minor option in it's good subclass, then someone insisted there was nothing wrong with it because they were personally okay with it.

It's not an issue of people being personally okay with the fighter; it's that the fighter is the single most-popular class in the game already. Of course there will be people who don't like any given class, for any number of reasons. But if a class is the most popular one in the game, then the class is already doing exactly what it's supposed to do - be something lots of people enjoy playing.

The way you cater to the people who don't like Coke is to sell other soft drinks, not monkey around with the flavor of Coke.

 

[Minigiant]

A fighter can't invest in charisma the same amount as a paladin?

The fighter is a two-hit wonder. Strength or dex and con. After that, they can emphasize something else if they want. Also, see my post above.

The paladin gets more out of Charisma and isn't as penalized by taking Charisma as a secondary or primary score. And in order to match the paladin in Charisma social interaction, the fighter must sacrifice even more combat ability to do so.

Or in laymen's terms, Before subclass the fighter nerfs their combat effectiveness by taking Charisma as secondary or tertiary. A paladin does not.

Now during the playtest many displayed the wish nor fighters to have base combat bonuses from INT, WIS, and CHA. But some vocal fans cried. So those ideas were weakened and turned into feats or not created at all.

 

[SteveC]

It's not an issue of people being personally okay with the fighter; it's that the fighter is the single most-popular class in the game already. Of course there will be people who don't like any given class, for any number of reasons. But if a class is the most popular one in the game, then the class is already doing exactly what it's supposed to do - be something lots of people enjoy playing.

The way you cater to the people who don't like Coke is to sell other soft drinks, not monkey around with the flavor of Coke.

I think this is an astute point: someone like me may not enjoy or want to play a fighter, but if lots of other people do, who is to say they are wrong? The thing that bums me out is that I played a fighter in a previous edition and had a blast with it. I would like to see something with different options, and more options in other parts of the game, but D&D isn't designed with me in mind. Ultimately that's probably the real answer.

 

[Minigiant]

It's not an issue of people being personally okay with the fighter; it's that the fighter is the single most-popular class in the game already. Of course there will be people who don't like any given class, for any number of reasons. But if a class is the most popular one in the game, then the class is already doing exactly what it's supposed to do - be something lots of people enjoy playing.

The way you cater to the people who don't like Coke is to sell other soft drinks, not monkey around with the flavor of Coke.

You can be a fan of something and despise how it is set up.

Example: Every hardcore American football fan. Probably basketball, baseball, and other football too. Don't know about hockey. Never heard "Get this bum off the (censored) team!!!!" during hockey conversation.

 

[Neonchameleon]

OK fine.

But otherwise my point stands re this thread, and I've raised this topic with you personally via PM (and never got a response).

This exact thread (or copies of it, in various forms) about 'Martials suck and Casters rock' seems to crop up on a weekly basis (the thread I PMd you about existed on three separate variants on the main board that day) with the same small group of people, complaining about the same thing, they've been complaining about, for 7 years now.

You know what turns threads into threads? People taking the opposite side. Your admittedly relatively decent attempts to show that if you dump a large amount of optional resources into the social skills of a fighter and make extensive use of what is the most controversial splatbook in official 5e (Tasha's) you can have a character with social depth but that can't match the breadth of a spellcaster that isn't trying hard have probably added two or three pages to this thread on their own.

Having the same group of people trying to defend the arrant nonsense that is the proposition that the fighter is not significantly behind just about every single other class except the barbarian in both the social and exploration pillar (unless you pick one of the three and a half* post-Tasha's subclasses, counting the Battlemaster as the half) for about seven years is what make the threads go long rather than get declared a very cold take.

Now I can understand defending the indefensible because you enjoy arguing; in the past I've defended the proposition that water isn't wet (it's only some things that come into contact with water that are wet). But the simple fact of the matter is that the fighter base class has literally the minimum possible out of combat ability from the intersection of all 5e classes. It has the fewest skills of any class - and gets nothing else to help out of combat. I think all of the pre-Tasha's non-Eldritch Knight subclasses (including the pre-Tasha's battlemaster) although it might just be almost all have a minor out of combat ability (normally at level seven) and that's about it; yes the Banneret has possibly the strongest of these abilities with Persuasion Expertise.

Ultimately your two builds are an excellent work of practical character optimisation and pushing the limits of what can be done with the 5e fighter when you know the source material well. But pretending they are in any way representative or that in any way they come without a significant cost in terms of feats is deceptive. As for that matter is pretending that they are dominant builds just because they can put down one or two big numbers.

I could find you hundreds of versions of this exact same thread on this forum, largely dominated by the same negative voices.

It's tiring, and it makes a forum designed to encourage discussion, do the exact opposite.

So disengage. When I was a participant in the edition wars what made me keep going was the volume of stone cold lies and backed by utter nonsense and very occasional valid points deployed by the h4ters. There are, so far as I can tell no lies in the critiques of 5e fighters.

If you're tired (and I too would be tired if I had my points routinely demolished) why do you keep coming into these threads to defend an indefensible position? No one is forcing you to keep them going.

 

[Bill Zebub]

and make extensive use of what is the most controversial splatbook in official 5e (Tasha's)

So....you are deeply unhappy with the fighter, but when WotC releases a product that maybe helps solve that problem you dismiss it?

 

[James Gasik]

Then explain how all of that extra damage is just discardable under your comment of "They can fight well, but not that much better than the other classes"

They are better much sooner for various reasons relating to low monster AC & all the bonuses added to each attack that don't apply to casters. Level 11 is relevant because it's the point where they are so much better it begins overloading the system & you wind up with combat where LWQF rather than LFQW is the norm without increasingly contrived whiteroom scenarios. Ironically that inversion is largely caused because so many of the things 5e did to put a damper on the worst of 3.x's LFQW problems combine on each end of the scale to simply reverse the problem rather than limit it.

What bonuses are we talking about? Fighting styles? Because Paladins get some of those too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's not an issue of people being personally okay with the fighter; it's that the fighter is the single most-popular class in the game already. Of course there will be people who don't like any given class, for any number of reasons. But if a class is the most popular one in the game, then the class is already doing exactly what it's supposed to do - be something lots of people enjoy playing.

The way you cater to the people who don't like Coke is to sell other soft drinks, not monkey around with the flavor of Coke.

It's 'popular' because it's the one people are forced to start with.

And it's bad at what it does because it's been simplified so as to be the one people are forced to start with.