D&D 5E (2014) Are Wizards really all that?

[FrozenNorth]

Well I guess our would-be Marilith better fabricate a few longswords, then.

Or, you know, just bring some along since True polymorph lasts an hour and swords are cheap.

 

[Fanaelialae]

First of all, I was responding to @Mort regarding wizard versatility -- they brought that up.

Beowulf was good at killing, at swimming and at getting killed by a dragon. The fighter can do all of those things (except maybe the last one, it being 5E). Achilles was good at killing, running and sulking. Gilgamesh was good at murder and wrestling. Your mythic fighter archetypes are literally just killers who are good at sports. I get that at very high levels fighters should probably be able to perform superhuman feats, but the scope of their abilities remain fairly focused on murdering things.

Beowulf was also charismatic and a leader. Given the nature of mythic heroes, he likely would have been great at anything he tried, from hunting to smithing. Just because the poem doesn't explicitly call out his skills doesn't make them appropriate. I feel like you're being reductionist in order to try to justify why the fighter shouldn't have any versatility.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, this hypothetical party is 11th level, so the enemies are trying to hit DC 17, in most cases while not being proficient in the save, in some cases having a +0 to the save.

And quite often having magic resistance and have advantage on those saves and/or legendary saves. And often having bonuses, sometimes even high bonuses on those saves. What you described is a pipe dream. There's no way that so many encounters are all going to miss saves.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I though we were talking about high level fighters.

It seemed to me that the comparison was overall, not just at high level. High level simply offers more dramatic demonstration because little can match the ridiculous power of many 7th+ spells.

I still don't understand why someone is playing a fighter if they want the breadth of versatility the wizard allows, or even what that would look like.

It is not, strictly speaking, a desire to have identical versatility. It is that the Wizard is SO incredibly versatile...while if anything becoming more and more capable of replacing the Fighter if they so choose...that is the issue.

Very early, you don't have enough spell slots to eclipse your Fighter colleagues. It's not hard for a Fighter to do better than what 2 spell slots can achieve. But once you get past that point, once you're in the middle tiers, Wizards specifically (and full casters generally) pull well ahead. Especially because the resting mechanics depend on incorrect assumptions about what players (and DMs) want to do. Partial casters likewise pull ahead of total non-casters. The Paladin is simply a stronger class chassis than the Fighter, especially the Champion, which lags well behind the Paladin in damage output unless specifically fed more and better magic items (mostly magic weapons with high bonus damage, but other bling certainly helps.) Or, to phrase that another way, Paladins can very, very easily put out equivalent damage to what the Fighter can do (being nominally "just as strong" at combat as the Fighter is) while still having spells left over for doing other things. Sure, it might not be tons of spells. But it's still a gap.

The thing we were sold on, back during the playtest, was that the Fighter would be (pretty much unequivocally) the best at...well, fighting. And that other classes would legitimately have to make sacrifices in order to get their extra benefits. In practice, that is simply not true. Fighters are about as good at combat as Paladins and Rangers, and multiple types of full spellcaster (e.g. War or Storm Clerics, Moon Druids, Bladesinger Wizards, Hexblade+Blade Pact Warlocks) can generally keep up with the Fighter in terms of fighting ability while having a HUGE pool of versatility on the side.

If Fighters are meant to be an equally valid option, they should either get special stuff that makes them stand out (be true specialists that cannot be matched by others), or they should be versatile enough to contribute to a variety of situations in the same ultimate manner as other classes, but in a different specific method or style. Otherwise, it is disingenuous or even outright deceptive to pretend that Fighters and Wizards are meant to be equally valid (NOT utterly identical, just equally valid) options in cooperative play.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Okay, fine. Wizards can get lots of fist attacks as a Maralith. They aren't go to be nearly as effective as a fighter as they are not going to have six weapons ready to use. It's pretty clear that I was talking about single target damage, which true polymoph into the Maralith fails to achieve.

If the issue is single target damage, rather than 8 attacks, the wizard can True Polymorph into something that does a great deal of damage instead, like a dragon.

Meanwhile, the poor fighter is still stymied by being unable to communicate the vizier’s plot before the wedding takes place.

 

[Maxperson]

Or, you know, just bring some along since True polymorph lasts an hour and swords are cheap.

Awesome. Encumbrance and bulk are things, so a wizard carrying around 6 swords, which he can only get one out round, is awesome! So he uses his action to become a Maralith and pulls out one sword. The next round he pulls out a second sword and either attacks twice or spends his action to get a third sword. Round 3 he either attacks 3 times with swords, or spends his action to pull out a 5th sword. Round 4 he can actually attack with 6 swords if he hasn't attack yet. Otherwise he's still pulling out swords. And that's if he didn't trip over them and die earlier in the dungeon.

 

[Maxperson]

If the issue is single target damage, rather than 8 attacks, the wizard can True Polymorph into something that does a great deal of damage instead, like a dragon.

Meanwhile, the poor fighter is still stymied by being unable to communicate the vizier’s plot before the wedding takes place.

Why is the fighter not fighting whatever the wizard is fighting? And how does your white room wizard always have exactly the right spell memorized?

 

[Reynard]

Beowulf was also charismatic and a leader. Given the nature of mythic heroes, he likely would have been great at anything he tried, from hunting to smithing. Just because the poem doesn't explicitly call out his skills doesn't make them appropriate. I feel like you're being reductionist in order to try to justify why the fighter shouldn't have any versatility.

I don't even know what you are arguing for anymore. A minute ago you wanted to be able to rip arms off enemies and now you want the fighter to be king. You keep shifting the goal posts and taking every counter point as a remonstration of your preferences.

 

[Mort]

I still don't understand why someone is playing a fighter if they want the breadth of versatility the wizard allows, or even what that would look like.

Who's talking about the breadth of versatility the wizard allows?

I'm talking about SOME effectiveness, outside of DM fiat, other than in combat.

Feats do allow some sure, but EVERY class gets those. Fighters get a few more but, if they want to keep up in their supposed best pillar (combat) they generally get used there.

As for some ideas? Well, I like expanding fighter maneuvers outside of combat (applied to skills etc.) as provided by Tasha's. But expanding the HD would be nice so it's not severely limited. The playtest looks like it has already started down this road, will see where they go with it.

 

[Yaarel]

I outright stated in my post that my examples were a starting point for T1 and T2. It would be kind of weird if the fighter were barren of utility in T1-2 and then suddenly exploded with options in T3. The natural way to design it is to build from the ground up.

For this reason, I feel the level 1 Fighter needs to have tool proficiencies. Maybe even expertise.

The entire concept of the Fighter is how to utilize items − weapon, armor, sand in eyes. At the upper tiers the items are magic items.