A critique and review of the Fighter class

[Garthanos]

Why? In essence the heirloom fighter here would be the warlock multiclass subclass, getting invocations. This doesn't mean you can't have 4e style artifacts that care about how long they get on with their wielder.

There is an ulterior motive in this thread, and one is making fighters better and more versatile in later tiers and overall subclasses seem a poor mechanism to achieve that... adjust all subclasses and make more end game scaling in them? seems like a broad amount of work as opposed to adding something flexible to the core class.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The big issue here is that I can imagine all fighters as battlemasters - but heirloom fighter is somewhat more specific and is therefore much more appropriate for a subclass. I don't think its a good way to strongly escalate fighters in T3 and T4.

 

[Garthanos]

In the old editions everything supported the fighters

• Fighters got the best combat items

my +2 sword was not better than a Robe of the magi

• Fighters got strongholds and domains first. And better ones.

Which never entered play at any table I saw...

• NPCs would talk to the fighters first.

kind of a pittance...

The big issue here is that I can imagine all fighters as battlemasters - but heirloom fighter is somewhat more specific and is therefore much more appropriate for a subclass. I don't think its a good way to strongly escalate fighters in T3 and T4.

The idea is to make it like an epic destiny where you build into it .... Not everyone is an heirloom fighter ... everyone may choose fated wielder but they may also choose an empowered bloodline like Son of Numenor or Blood of Zeus, or Athenas Get or Fated Ruler or any of a number of options which could be inspired by 4e EDs.

In the recent King Arthur movie the character was a monk/rogue and had to learn to use Xcalibers might which allowed him to go into a hyper speed berserk and clear tons of minions.

 

[Minigiant]

my +2 sword was not better than a Robe of the magi

The treasure charts were very biased.
The party would find +2 sword +2 plate, and +2 shield TWICE before they rolled a robe of the magi.
If you rolled for treasure, the wizards would only get scrolls fora long time. Even the 5e charts are biased 2-3 to 1 for warriors.
And the written adventures were chocked with fighter gear. Clerics and Wizards got scrolls.

Again the older editions used class favoritism to balance fighters.

 

[Garthanos]

The treasure charts were very biased.
The party would find +2 sword +2 plate, and +2 shield TWICE before they rolled a robe of the magi.

So? I already hit off the board accurate steady freddy, its not valuable to get 2 of them not really excepting the party has more than one fighter or your DM did the gold cost to level LOL
.

If you rolled for treasure, the wizards would only get scrolls fora long time.

I saw DMs provide whole levels worth of spell books the books of a defeated magic user as treasure. In practice... the random rolls too were fully optional as there was no reason given to not just give whatever Treasure a DM thought was appropriate (there was poor to non-existent instruction on why that might not actually be appropriate or when or what levels to give magic item x.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

my +2 sword was not better than a Robe of the magi

If you're going to compare common items with epic items then no wonder you have issues. @Minigiant really understates the case.

Using the AD&D 1e treasure tables 15% (61-75) of magic items were armour and shields, 11% (76-86) swords, and 14% (87-00) all other weapons combined.

Of the swords 40% (46-85) were +2 equivalent or above (I'm including the flame tongue and luck blade). Which means that on a default magic item roll you had a 4.4% chance to get a +2 or better sword.

By contrast the Robe of the Archmagi was on table III.E.5 (where Table III.E was the misc magic items tables). Table E.5 was only found on a 58-60 on the magic item results - or 3% of all magic items. And the Robe of the Archmagi required a result of 01. To put this into perspective each of the Sword +5 Defender, the Sword +5 Holy Avenger, the Sword of Dancing, the Sword of Wounding, the Sword of Life Stealing, the Sword of Sharpness, and the Vorpal Sword were almost four times as likely as the Robe of the Archmagi. (And that before you get into the Robe of the Archmagi being alignment restricted).

And if you're complaining about a Robe of the Archmagi when you have Plate Mail +3, a Shield +3, and a Sword of Life Stealing then I'm afraid that's on you.

If you don't have that sort of level of kit when the Robe of the Archmagi appears then there are two serious possibilities - exceptionally lucky dice or class favouritism in favour of the wizard.

The idea is to make it an epic destiny.... Not everyone is an heirloom fighter ... everyone may choose fated wielder but they may choose an empowered bloodline or Fated Ruler or any of a number of options which could inspired by 4e EDs

Oh, Epic Destinies are more than fine with me

 

[Garthanos]

If you don't have that sort of level of kit when the Robe of the Archmagi appears then there are two serious possibilities - exceptionally lucky dice or class favouritism in favour of the wizard.

I picked those at random mostly but I was provided a level 9 fighter with a +2 sword... don't remember other details but I remember treasure indeed being once like I mentioned an entire level worth of spells in one book. (So yes that particular case may have been a DM favoring wizards)

Oh, Epic Destinies are more than fine with me

The ability of players to influence the story via Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies ... I like and they open the way to proper end game advancement. To those that do not have the easy excuse "magic"

 

[HammerMan]

The treasure charts were very biased.
The party would find +2 sword +2 plate, and +2 shield TWICE before they rolled a robe of the magi.

Even then you roll 3 times and 1 time comes up as a +2 sword and 1 time you get the robes they STILL get a better

Again the older editions used class favoritism to balance fighters.

Yes but even then it’s a bad balance

 

[Minigiant]

So? I already hit off the board accurate steady freddy, its not valuable to get 2 of them not really excepting the party has more than one fighter or your DM did the gold cost to level LOL

Elemental damage, hand me downs to the cleric for favors, and equipping your squire.

I saw DMs provide whole levels worth of spell books the books of a defeated magic user as treasure. In practice... the random rolls too were fully optional as there was no reason given to not just give whatever Treasure a DM thought was appropriate (there was poor to non-existent instruction on why that might not actually be appropriate or when or what levels to give magic item x.)

Tht's the whole point.

OS D&D was designed round NOT doing that.

Once you take out the class favoritism towards the Fighter, you need to replace them with mechanics. But Old School players did not want the fighter to be complex. And that's how a fighter with the 2nd worst exploration and social ability got past the playtest surveys and into 5e.

 

[James Gasik]

Although whether or not DM's used random magic tables is subject to debate. Or whether or not you used published adventures, which generally had more magic items than the treasure tables would allot for, but did, in fact, have a glut of +1 longswords and potions of healing.

Most DM's I know used the "haha nope" technique. If they did use random treasures, if they rolled something they knew would disrupt the game, guess what? They rolled again.

I had a DM who insisted on random rolls all the time, and this came to a head when the Deck of Many Things hit play, and my character drew the card (The Key, I believe) that gave him a magic weapon.

The resulting +5 quarterstaff made my Wizard a terror in melee combat, to the point I didn't need to bother with lower level offensive spells!

I should mention further that this was a game set in Taladas (Krynn's other continent), so I was a Minotaur Wizard with 19 Strength to begin with...

Anyways, I'm pretty sure after that, my DM switched to the "haha, no" school of thought. Or just picked out magic items to be found.