A critique and review of the Fighter class

[GMforPowergamers]

You are responding to a lot of people, this is where the larger number of attacks & higher damage shines. If a monster has an AC high enough to matter it hurts nonfighters more than fighters Any monster with AC high enough to be missed with any regularity is going to skew the numbers further & further towards the fighter because the classes with fewer chances and lower damage have a larger share of their action riding on each attack yet any monster with AC as low as zombies is already a situation setup to favor the fighter's higher damage. a d20 averages 10.5, not many monsters suitable for a level11 party are going to even have 20 ac let alone 20+ & monsters that are suitable for a level 11 party will tend to fall well short of 20 AC until the GM starts customizing monsters to fix the system's design.

at level 11 everyone has +4 prof... anyone making attacks will have atleast a 16 stat but at most a 20 stat (sofar +7-+9) and most characters will have AT LEAST a magic weapon but some might have a +1 or +2 from it. making attack rolls 7-11

A rogue with a +2 dagger and 20 dex has a +11 to hit and hits for 1d4+7+5d6 (26)
A fighter with a +2 longsword and 20 str has +11/+11/+11 to hit and hits for 1d8+7 (11)
A hexblade with a +1 scimitar and a 20 cha has +10/+10 to hit for 1d6+6 (9)
A hexblade with a +1 rod and a 20cha has +10/+10/+10 for 1d10+6 (11)
(please note I gave the caster a lesser weapon for no reason other then to help the martials)

AC20 the fighter and rogue each hit 9+ and the hexblade 10+ and ELDRITCH BLAST is the same damage with 1 less to hit with a +1 less in magic

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have a feeling I’m going to regret continuing to engage on this, but I will try.

I said I found the Vecna thread “interesting” and you responded “oh so that one case proves your point and yet my 10 examples…etc”

1. No, I did not say proves. I said it’s interesting. There is a big difference between evidence and proof.
2. Your examples are not evidence because they cannot be verified. If I responded to your 10 examples with a story about my 50 examples, would you find that persuasive? Think about that.

your 'intresting' sure sounded like you were trying to use it as a proof... if you see it as not proof I am sorry.

Then there are your analogies about iPhone issues and windows stability. You are comparing your perception/opinion of game design to objective problems with technology.

I am compareing a problem I have found with something... I wish to talk about the issue, but only in the case of this game do I find people shouting down "THAT ISN"T A PROMBLE"

The 5e fighter is not crashing. You are dissatisfied with it, but your dissatisfaction is subjective.

and that dissatisfaction is what I am here to discuss in a thread about Critique of fighters.

So if you want to compare it to your phone, use something like UI design, which is subjective.

I do not know what this sentence means... what is a UI?

For example, one of my frustrations with my phone is that the button to switch to a call on hold is in the same place as the button to hang up. So if I say good-bye and switch to the call on hold, and the first call ends, the button changes and I end up accidentally hanging up on the second call. We can all agree that is a function of design, not buggy software. So then we can debate whether or not it’s good design.

and you will most likely not find people telling you "That isn't a problem" or you are "useing the phone wrong" and not 1 not 100 not 10,000 examples of people NOT having that problem disprove the problem.

edit: I hope you DON'T regret talking about it... but I also hope you have an idea why some of us feel like we are being 'dismissed'

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

You are responding to a lot of people, this is where the larger number of attacks & higher damage shines. If a monster has an AC high enough to matter it hurts nonfighters more than fighters

No, I don't think that it does. Rogue damage will go up compared to fighter damage for example, because the rogue generally only has to land a single hit out of two rolls to get the majority of their damage, whereas the fighter's damage is much more directly proportional to their chance to hit.
Of course the real winners are generally the casters, who can target weak saves to get a much higher chance of landing their effect, or just doing something effective that doesn't require rolling to hit.

Any monster with AC high enough to be missed with any regularity is going to skew the numbers further & further towards the fighter because the classes with fewer chances and lower damage have a larger share of their action riding on each attack

If you have one attack for 10 damage against AC 15, then increasing the AC to 20 will drop your damage by 2.5. If you have two attacks for 20 damage, then going to attacking AC 20 from AC 15 will reduce your damage by 10, or four times as much. The same proportion either way.

yet any monster with AC as low as zombies is already a situation setup to favor the fighter's higher damage. a d20 averages 10.5, not many monsters suitable for a level11 party are going to even have 20 ac let alone 20+ & monsters that are suitable for a level 11 party will tend to fall well short of 20 AC until the GM starts customizing monsters to fix the system's design.

Glad to hear you agree.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If you have one attack for 10 damage against AC 15, then increasing the AC to 20 will drop your damage by 2.5. If you have two attacks for 20 damage, then going to attacking AC 20 from AC 15 will reduce your damage by 10, or four times as much. The same proportion either way.

yeah miss and 'crit fumble' always hits the multi attacker the most... but the multi attacker also gets more chances to crit.

I guess if you are a gambler 3 attempts to do 1d8+5 with 3 chances to crit is better then 2 attacks (two weapon/off hand) 1 for 1d4+5 and the other at 1d4 BUT if either hits add 5d6

 

[Oofta]

That is basically what I did for my Warlord/blade hack: Expand upon BM maneuvers for a full class in the same way that the Wizard class expands upon the spells of an Eldritch Knight.


If you read my post and got "casters are basically on par with fighters" as the overall point for out of combat interactions, then you may have skipped a bit.
Casters are basically on par with fighters before you factor in spells was the point I was making about non-combat interactions. Thats . . . a little different.


Social interaction challenges are not limited to face to face, persuasion and insight checks, in which enchantment or detect thought etc spells might be usefully employed. Why are you talking to these people in the first place? Are you trying to get somewhere? Obtain information? Avoid combat?
With a little creativity, there are lots of spells that can help with these. If you go to bed knowing roughly what your group intends to try to achieve the next day, and can adjust your spells, you can help even more.


No one is reasonably complaining that any PC is pointless. Every PC has access to ability checks and every player can roleplay amongst the party to improve the rest of the group's overall enjoyment.
But if that is all you get to do, and the other members of the group get to contribute more to the success of the party, then people can start feeling left out, or that you're not pulling your weight.


Could you possibly point out where you're getting that sentiment from please? I thought that I have read all the posts in this thread, and most of the similar ones, and I do not think that I have seen many people suggest that fighters should be the optimal choice for something outside of combat at all. It is possible that people have, but I just have them on ignore so haven't seen it.


I have been on both sides of this. I have played a utility wizard, OK in combat, but mostly contributing in other situations, and was actually asked to tone it down. I was dominating most of the out of combat situations to the detriment of the fun of some of the other players simply because I was being so helpful and able to solve so many problems.
I have since made a point of trying out some fighters particularly at higher levels, to see if the group was actually justified in asking me that, and found out that there was a huge disparity in my experience between the two classes.
Now, it is entirely possible that my groups' playstyle (which does tend towards all three pillars fairly evenly rather than more combat) is just significantly different to the majority of other groups that our respective experiences just do not translate across.


Again: why are you interacting with these people? What does your group want to achieve?


No single spell is useful for everything. But when you're a caster, you don't have one single spell, you have several. And each extra spell you are able to cast is a class ability that may be applicable to the situation above and beyond your ability checks.


If you roll a d4 and a d6 and pick the better roll ten times, are you likely to have higher numbers as often as if you just roll a d4 ten times?

So casters are not better than fighters except when they are? Either wizards are made significantly better than fighters at out of combat scenarios because of their spells or they are not. Many people seem to think they are, I'm not one of them. Wizards don't have access to every spell in the book in many campaigns, nor do they always get the foresight or opportunity to prepare exactly the right spell. Unless of course the wizard is really Batman, in which case you always have exactly the right thing prepped. Even when wizards do save the day with a spell, good for them! Yay team! It doesn't make my fighter any less worthy or any less of a participant in the game.

You seem to be trying to play both sides, I'm not really sure any more. Perfect balance is an illusion. Rules that will work for all tables under all scenarios is an impossible goal. I think fighters work fine as they are, with backgrounds they can be quite flexible and because they only really "need" two stats (if that, an archer fighter may not get into the scrum very often) they have more flexibility than a lot of other classes. Feel free to disagree.

 

[Oofta]

...
edit: I hope you DON'T regret talking about it... but I also hope you have an idea why some of us feel like we are being 'dismissed'

I just want to say that disagreeing with someone doesn't mean your concerns are "dismissed". It's just disagreeing. Reasonable people can disagree, sometimes there is no good solution. I don't think it would hurt the fighter to get some extra out of combat oomph, I'm just I don't think it's necessary and I'm not sure how much would be enough.

 

[Scott Christian]

All of this rings as: I want to be a fighter but have more stuff than what fighters get.

It seems like a well-worn loop.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I just want to say that disagreeing with someone doesn't mean your concerns are "dismissed". It's just disagreeing.

this is a great example... what amount of threads about fighters have we... just me and you... gone back and forth with you discounting every example and dismissing all problems as "well that doesn't effect me"?

Reasonable people can disagree, sometimes there is no good solution.

reasonable people when they disagree do not tell the other person that the problem they are having isn't real.

I don't think it would hurt the fighter to get some extra out of combat oomph, I'm just I don't think it's necessary and I'm not sure how much would be enough.

I don't care what you call the class... You can keep your fighter if they give me a warblade or a swordsage or a warlord.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

All of this rings as: I want to be a fighter but have more stuff than what fighters get.

It seems like a well-worn loop.

that is pretty close to what I want.

I would be fine with a 2 attack d10hd all weapon all armor class that gets special abilities they can choose from that level up with them...

I would be giving up action surge, indomitable, 2 attacks, the 2 extra feats... in exchange for leveled exploits somewhere between the 4e fighter/ranger/warlord and the 3.5 Bo9S classes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

All of this rings as: I want to be a fighter but have more stuff than what fighters get.

It seems like a well-worn loop.

For a reason: fighters keep being denied good stuff in favor of constantly being told There is no War in Ba Sing S... Oceana.