D&D 5E Being strong and skilled is a magic of its own or, how I learned to stop worrying and love anime fightin' magic

[lingual]

In AD&D the "one man army" rule I do not ever think I ever seen in practice, was basically the fighter could attack up to your levels worth of zero levels in a round ie 10 for a level 10 and 20 for a level 20 presumably they weren't all directly adjacent to you and you could move between or lunge carry through them while doing that? but not sure it was all that clear.

It was basically that. The rounds were a full minute hack then so it made more sense.

 

[Garthanos]

'Silenced' would also be a reasonable add.

As far as the durations, most of the spellcasting effects that inflict these have encounter-length durations at the cost of concentration and/or a save every turn. Martial version could require less to maintain, or be easier to inflict. Or they could have or be some kind of rider on a crit.

From a player-facing side, I see it going both directions. Being disabled in combat isn't fun, but fighting threatening enemies is fun. Seems like mileages may vary.

Encounter long durations would be workable even against the players as long as the dm didnt have it be prolific.

Crits are kind of meh unpredictable and non-tactical.. not my favorite *but I suppose Champion could use something

I just think one needs to be careful before giving the longer duration afflicting effects to npcs/monsters as the players enter a lot more fights... end up a bunch of maimed characters and particularly melee types get attacked more often too.

 

[Garthanos]

It was basically that. The rounds were a full minute hack then so it made more sense.

Yes I knew the context. I first heard of "one man army" though in a sort of D&D context in Chain mail they referred to the level 8 analog "superhero" that way ...allowed him to inspire fear in entire enemy squad (enough for them to quit the battle I think? but I could be misremembering) and similar things and I think the 4 enemies he could attack may have been 4 groups of enemies? but it was kind of a hard read. Not sure AD&D followed through completely or well on the sense of awesome. I know 3e had a greater cleave that allowed one to attack all enemies in reach and 4e fighter had similar but in power form... including one that allowed one to harm any enemy who came in reach during the turn (if you were capable of performing opportunity attacks). Spending a whole minute... ie what would be 10 rounds now with one die roll and one decision point was not even something my players and I liked even then.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Encounter long durations would be workable even against the players as long as the dm didnt have it be prolific.

Crits are kind of meh unpredictable and non-tactical.. not my favorite *but I suppose Champion could use something

I just think one needs to be careful before giving the longer duration afflicting effects to npcs/monsters as the players enter a lot more fights... end up a bunch of maimed characters and particularly melee types get attacked more often too.

Any duration is kinda workable as long as there is counterplay available and a cost benefit decision made to inflict the condition.

Attaching a mechanic solely to crits makes the ability less tactical, but does make crits more impactful (and to my mind, more thematic). It gives you a chance to feel like that perfect strike really did ring a creature's bell rather than "haha..you lose all these hp..and if you don't die..then it hasn't impacted your capabilities in the slightest".

But you could have both. Some abilities on demand or at the cost of some resource, and some passive debilitation on a crit.

The player-facing side would have to be addressable either through some combination of making the abilities infrequent and/or hard to execute on the monster side, or through the existence of player-facing resources to address the debilitations.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Some more buff I feel the fighter could get, stuff like:
Unlimited attacks of opportunity
Bump up the damage die size of weapons they’re using
Give and receive a better flanking bonus than other classes
Armour and shields get +1 extra AC
Treat any melee Weapon as having thrown property(adjust range for light/heavy, double distance of weapons that already are thrown)
Automatic proficiency in athletics and perception, bump to expertise if you take regular proficiency
Incorporate Soldier? background’s ‘military rank’ feature as inherent fighter property, scales with level
Additional flat bonus to to-hit
Recover 1 free hit die of hp at the end of battles

 

[Willie the Duck]

why not we have sorcerer wizard and warlock... all three could just be a flavor of a single mage class... in fact the warlock is very much the simplest of these, with the sorcerer inbetween. there is no reason we can't have a martial weapon class that is as complex without worrying about the overlap. We can call it warblade, or swordsage, or warlord, or demi god, or anime sword guy... it doesn't have to be called fighter

I agree that D&D can never please everyone. On this paticular issue, I am less pessimistic. I just don't see why we couldn't leave the current Fighter the same (or marginally improve it within the mundane paradigmn). Then add a mythic martial that is capped in complexity, power and versalitity by the current Wizard.

Have to agree. There's no specific issue with including this in the game. As to why it isn't/I suspect it won't* is simply that I don't know how many people have a problem with this role being filled with paladins and hexblades -- this 'but not using spells' part (plus it needing to be part of the fighter class) seems to be a requirement I see people having here, but not in gamerdom at large (here I'm using Reddit and in-person as my primary sources).
*and here make your voices known when we get to the class-portion of the playtest on the update edition.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, now do it in full armour + your weapons, instead of in shorts.

And with 1,276,553 gold, 7,218, 912 silver, etc. in coins, because nobody seems to track that bulk or weight.

 

[Maxperson]

In AD&D the "one man army" rule I do not ever think I ever seen in practice, was basically the fighter could attack up to your levels worth of zero levels in a round ie 10 for a level 10 and 20 for a level 20 presumably they weren't all directly adjacent to you and you could move between or lunge carry through them while doing that? but not sure it was all that clear.

We used it. We were 5th or 6th level and were fighting goblins or kobolds or something with less than 1 hd and were attacking 5 or 6 times a round.

 

[Cadence]

And with 1,276,553 gold, 7,218, 912 silver, etc. in coins, because nobody seems to track that bulk or weight.

Do the current things the stats give look a lot better in comparison with what the world records in the1200-1500s would have been?

 

[Garthanos]

And with 1,276,553 gold, 7,218, 912 silver, etc. in coins, because nobody seems to track that bulk or weight.

yeh exactly what a feature to drool for.