A critique and review of the Fighter class

[GMforPowergamers]

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

i have laid out at 10th and at 20th what fighters have over martial casters and again and again no one can show me any individual ability equal to a 6th level spell... but they can't even find a combination of feat + feature that can

edit: let alone the versatility some classes have with spell slots... a sorcerer/wizard/cleric/bard/druid would not need to have A 6th level spell like a warlock would

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

Yep. People who think the class is sub par will continue to make noise until it improves. In the meanwhile I'll just play a bard or something and contribute considerably more than a guy with no spells and a paltry one extra feat in the level people actually play.

At minimum, fighters should get an extra background, since the stuff they learn in fighter academy is so minimal other classes can slap full casting on top of it with little loss.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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.

And if they say those things they are right. For them. They don't think it's a problem. And, in a way, I am using the phone wrong.

But this is completely different from "my iPhone locks up every time I do X" with the response, "mine doesn't do that so you are wrong there's no problem." Which is the kind of analogy you are trying to make.

Do you see the difference?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And if they say those things they are right. For them. They don't think it's a problem. And, in a way, I am using the phone wrong.

having the button somewhere that it is easy to push (I don't really know if it is or just a made up scenario) IS a problem and you should be able (and in most non D&D circles you could

But this is completely different from "my iPhone locks up every time I do X" with the response, "mine doesn't do that so you are wrong there's no problem." Which is the kind of analogy you are trying to make.

except that is the problem we have... our game locks up

Do you see the difference?

no I don't...

We had to come to out of game agreements to not out do martial characters... and it ended up (in every non 4e edition) that after a while every just played casters...

my last 3 campaigns run we have had 4 players, 6 players, and 3 players (1 person over laps all 3 and 2 of the 4 were in the 6) we have had 0 non multiclass fighters. I have 4 of these people who WANT to play fighters and have instead gotten to play sword bard, hexblade and hexblade/paliden/bard.'

13 characters at character creation (4 starting at 5th and 9 starting at 3rd) I did have 1 person in the starting at 5th level start with 3 levels of fighter (eldritch knight) and 2 levels of wizard (bladesinger) but he never went back to fighter.

now we have a slightly higher rate of death then most talk about on here, so we had 3 redo characters and the 3 person game gained a 4th... of those 7 characters 0 had fighter at all.

not once did we miss out on the fighter mechanics... but we DID miss out on the fighter fluff. INfact the #1 request is to play a bard and refluff it as nonmagical so they can play a fighter and have cool options...


our game is broken we have 3 classes no one ever ues except to multi,,, our request is simple, make those classes better OR make new classeslike them with options

 

[Bill Zebub]

Well, you might want to buy a different phone. Don’t know what else to tell you.

 

[Scott Christian]

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

I understand players wanting more than what the class (or rules) give. To the player, it feels as if their fighters are inadequate when compared to other PC classes. And they can feel that way. But, since many many players don't feel that way, wouldn't it be better to discuss it as a houserule, and its possible outcomes, rather than a complaint?

That said, in my experience, those players will always want more. Regardless of a change, a houserule, or issuance of a magic item. They will always feel their character is underperforming.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I understand players wanting more than what the class (or rules) give. To the player, it feels as if their fighters are inadequate when compared to other PC classes. And they can feel that way. But, since many many players don't feel that way, wouldn't it be better to discuss it as a houserule, and its possible outcomes, rather than a complaint?

That said, in my experience, those players will always want more. Regardless of a change, a houserule, or issuance of a magic item. They will always feel their character is underperforming.

Agreed. I would actually think a house rule discussion would be interesting. But starting from a position that the fighter isn’t even viable, and that this is an incontrovertible fact, doesn’t exactly invite participation.

 

[Oofta]

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

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.

We clearly disagree. Hardly the end of the world. But that's all there is to it, I don't think we need a change to the fighter you do. I'm not saying my opinion, experiences or preferences are any more valid than anyone else's. I do get a bit tired of all this though, it's not going anywhere. I sincerely doubt anyone from WOTC cares what you or I think. I'd be amazed if they pay much attention to these forums. But even if they do I'm going to express my opinion: I think fighters are fine, I don't think we need another class. I don't know what niche that other class would fill that isn't already filled by one of the fighter subclasses, the paladin, the ranger or the hexblade. If you can do things that are as powerful as spells but you call them something else, they will still be spells in my book because a rose by any other name and all that.

I am not telling you that the problem you're having isn't real to you. The question is better stated as: is it a big enough problem for enough people to change the rules? Neither one of us can answer that, but my guess is "no".

 

[see]

Agreed. I would actually think a house rule discussion would be interesting. But starting from a position that the fighter isn’t even viable, and that this is an incontrovertible fact, doesn’t exactly invite participation.

There are some people who simply can't wrap their heads around the fact that not everyone has the same tastes as them. They accordingly look at D&D most popular class (measured both by D&D Beyond and WotC surveys) and declare that because it's not their flavor of fun, it must be defective. They'll deny other tastes exist, denying that the WotC surveys are valid and (as seen earlier in this thread) claiming that fighters are only popular on D&D Beyond because people are being forced to play them. If you point out to them that they're perfectly free to choose from a dozen other classes to play something more to their taste, they will complain that you're being dismissive, because if someone doesn't truly understand that tastes vary, they conclude that in a good game design every option should be tailored to their own taste.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

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.

Casters are just as good as fighters without using their spells. Wizards are made significantly better than fighters at out of combat scenarios because of their spells.

Many people seem to think they are, I'm not one of them.

Has your group made any changes to their games to limit the power of casters at all?

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.

How is that relevant? Even if a caster has only a 25% chance of having a relevant spell that they are willing to apply to a situation, that is still 25% better than not having spells.

Once again, where Y is never negative, X + Y is always going to average higher than X.

You seem to be trying to play both sides, I'm not really sure any more.

I am of my own opinions, but if you have to lump me into a side, it would be on the "Fighters have less out of combat class abilities than other classes" rather than the "Four skills, a background feature and nothing else is just as useful as four skills, a background feature, and fifteen potentially useful class features".

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.

I do not feel that "Perfection is unattainable" is an adequate excuse to not seek improvement.