A critique and review of the Fighter class

[Neonchameleon]

Upthread I proposed this:

Hero Points
At 3rd level, select an ability score. When you fail a check (not attack roll or saving throw) with that ability, you may re-roll it. You may do this as many times as your proficiency bonus, and you regain all uses on a short rest. Whenever your proficiency bonus increases you may select an additional ability.

One of the reasons I like this, and am realizing that a reason some of you may NOT like it, is that it's highly generic and malleable: you can take the abilities in any order you want, and flavor their use however you like, to represent the skills/talents of any archetype.

But I think some people really like having abilities that are named and flavored to fit a specific archetype.

Is that right?

It helps with but does not solve one of the core problems with the fighter. There are several. Off the top of my head:

• The base fighter as it currently exists out of combat is no more effective than a standard commoner with the same stats
• Most fighter subclasses are no more effective out of combat than a commoner played by a player with loaded dice. This is one of those (it's effectively "Super-advantage" on skills based on a given stat).
• The fighter doesn't come with anything significant to counter magic as it levels up. In particular there is a lack of "gap closers" like the ability to sprint more or faster at higher levels (I find it a travesty that martial characters mostly have unchanged speed) and the ability to e.g. parry magic.
• The fighter does not allow for a complex tactical character when the barbarian exists for the simple hitty warriors. (And the rogue suffers here as well, to a greater degree)

Your solution solves the first one and none of the rest.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I find it much easier to read threads like this if I mentally replace "problem" with "thing I don't like". Maybe I should write a Chrome extension that does that for me automatically.

 

[Minigiant]

The good news is this means it’s possible to be in the middle and get it just right.

(Not that I agree with your assessment, or at least that the general principle that it’s hard to design mechanics that are “just right” doesn’t especially apply in this case.)

It's not that hard to hit the sweet spot on a few specific aspects of a few archetypes.

The issue trying to the hitting the middle why attempt to do everything.

The issue is "I want to replicate 50 different types of warrior in real life historical and fictional fantasy media in 6 pages of the PHB with art and charts" You are going to miss that bullseye 999 out of 1000.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

It's not that hard to hit the sweet spot on a few specific aspects of a few archetypes.

The issue trying to the hitting the middle why attempt to do everything.

The issue is "I want to replicate 50 different types of warrior in real life historical and fictional fantasy media in 6 pages of the PHB with art and charts" You are going to miss that bullseye 999 out of 1000.

Does it have to be just six pages?
I mean the Wizard has a somewhat narrower archetype than the Fighter, and how many pages does its choice of class abilities take up?

 

[Minigiant]

Does it have to be just six pages?
I mean the Wizard has a somewhat narrower archetype than the Fighter, and how many pages does its choice of class abilities take up?

It doesn't.

But that's my point.

The wizard covers 8 pages before you count all the spells. And that's after the warlock, artificer and sorcerer all taking some archetypes.

The fighter is 6 pages INCLUDING Maneuvers. And the barbarian, ranger, and paladin only take up a few narrower but classic archetypes. The ultra-religious temple guard is still a fighter even with the paladin existing.

That's the problem. The traditionalists want the fighter to be a blank slate but don't want to offer the mechanical paint to paint all those archetypes.

If they didn't want the fighter itself to hold all those mechanics then the mechanics should have when to another subsystem or the base system.

5e is a game that says the fighter can be a hoplite but makes spears weak, shields weak, no phalanx, and no bonuses to knowing military stuff.

 

[Neonchameleon]

5e is a game that says the fighter can be a hoplite but makes spears weak, shields weak, no phalanx, and no bonuses to knowing military stuff.

Being fair pikes were weak as a one on one weapon and only get good when you have about a hundred of them. And spears, backed by duelist style and Polearm Master, are one of the strongest melee weapons in the game unless you have a lot of other uses for your bonus action.

That said there's a good case for making Greek Myth heroes mostly Paladins of Glory (for whom spear + shield is probably optimal anyway). And ordinary hoplites NPCs

 

[Minigiant]

Being fair pikes were weak as a one on one weapon and only get good when you have about a hundred of them. And spears, backed by duelist style and Polearm Master, are one of the strongest melee weapons in the game unless you have a lot of other uses for your bonus action.

That is kinda my point.

It is an archetype that requires a feat and fighting style to do the combat stuff and a subclass or feat to do the noncombat stuff.

So it only works if you commit to making feats, fighting styles, and subclasses for all the archetypes you jam in the fighter. Which the 5e designer team didn't do until TCOE. And they still aren't finished because there are still more fighter archetypes not covered and few of them scale to tier.

That said there's a good case for making Greek Myth heroes mostly Paladins of Glory (for whom spear + shield is probably optimal anyway). And ordinary hoplites NPCs

It's a bad case to me. Doing this is admitting that 5e screwed up and using the next best thing. A fantastical hoplite need not be powered by divine magic just to work.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That is kinda my point.

It is an archetype that requires a feat and fighting style to do the combat stuff and a subclass or feat to do the noncombat stuff.

It's the non-combat stuff that concerns me. And you don't need a feat to work with spear and shield - just to be among the best fighters around. Meanwhile your fighting style is what a fighting style is for.

So it only works if you commit to making feats, fighting styles, and subclasses for all the archetypes you jam in the fighter. Which the 5e designer team didn't do until TCOE. And they still aren't finished because there are still more fighter archetypes not covered and few of them scale to tier.

No game can cover every possibility.

As for not scaling to tier the problem is there isn't enough there to scale. The impact of tier 1 things done well should often be multlipicative - but there simply aren't enough things to multiply.

It's a bad case to me. Doing this is admitting that 5e screwed up and using the next best thing. A fantastical hoplite need not be powered by divine magic just to work.

I'm not saying that a fantastical hoplite needs to be powered by divine magic. I'm saying that most of the heroes of Greek myth were literal demigods and as such powered by divine magic. And I'd be more than happy with Odysseus as a rogue and Achilles as a barbarian.

 

[Minigiant]

It's the non-combat stuff that concerns me. And you don't need a feat to work with spear and shield - just to be among the best fighters around. Meanwhile your fighting style is what a fighting style is for.

Spear and shield is weak and puts the fighter around or below a cleric until Tier 2 if you lack the feat and fighting style. Then you need the noncombat stuff. So the build doesn't work till level 8.

No game can cover every possibility.

As for not scaling to tier the problem is there isn't enough there to scale. The impact of tier 1 things done well should often be multlipicative - but there simply aren't enough things to multiply

Of course you can't cover everything. But 5e and many fans claim D&D covers so many warrior archetypes but doesnt want to introduce the mechanics.

I mean it doesn't scale to tier 2 and up. Not that many play Tier 3 or 4. But that's why also.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Spear and shield is weak and puts the fighter around or below a cleric until Tier 2 if you lack the feat and fighting style. Then you need the noncombat stuff. So the build doesn't work till level 8.

The feat is good enough that it's well worth taking at level 4, putting them ahead of Sword & Board despite the lower Str. And no the fighter isn't "at or below the cleric" at levels 1-3; Second Wind and Action Surge are both pretty impressive abilities compared to level 1 spells and at least some subclasses, like battlemasters, are solid at level 3 - and the dueling style lets you hit harder than the cleric will with a longsword. Basically you give up 1 damage per attack Vs a longsword at L1-3 which isn't the end of the world.

As for the non-combat stuff, I disagree. Again taking a battlemaster as your build you get your background at level 1 - and at level 3 you get three maneuvers and you can afford to give up one of them without serious costs (because you still have your best two picks for combat) to get the ability to use superiority dice on History, Investigation, or Insight.

When the only actual problem is one damage per hit compared to a longsword I'm not seeing the problem as huge.

Of course you can't cover everything. But 5e and many fans claim D&D covers so many warrior archetypes but doesnt want to introduce the mechanics.

I mean it doesn't scale to tier 2 and up. Not that many play Tier 3 or 4. But that's why also.

It absolutely does scale to Tier 2. Various feats are close to gamebreaking in T1 and ASIs and the good combat feats multiply the effect of each other so you generally get a lot of benefit from two ASIs and one feat (two in cases like Sharpshooter + Crossbow Expert). But this caps out after three.

The fighter however almost stops scaling at L11 (or in rare cases L12); they have a complete Feat + Full Stat combo, and three attacks. This is definitely a T2 combo and should utterly roll anyone in T1.

The Barbarian is a worse case, stopping at L5 or 6 with a good subclass. Their levels 7 and 9 features are meh and bad respectively, and their level 11 feature looks good on paper but in practice it will stop half an attack then you'll go down to two papercuts. And you don't get the closeness of the multiplier in the 4-6-8 ASIs