D&D 5E [+]What does your "complex fighter" look like?

[Yaarel]

LOL.

For a second, I read the title as:

What does your "fighter complex" look like?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would love to see a superhuman fighter-type class, akin to a low-grade superhero like Captain America or one of the X-Men, that gets abilities they can choose from in all three pillars every level. That and the Level Up fighter & marshal would satisfy any fighter desires I have.

 

[Minigiant]

My complex fighter would look like Fighting Game Character.

Weapon Style(s) augments your basic attacks
Armor Style(s) augment offers new reaction
Special attacks would offer new actions
Super Attacks would offer expressions of your main archetype

Subclasses would determine whether you master Weapons, Armor, Strength, Speed, Skills, Magic, or Oneself

 

[Art Waring]

I am putting the finishing touches on a complex martial class that has seen years of playtesting, complete with its own power point system, over 80 abilities to choose from the "generalist" list, and currently a dozen subclasses, each with their own list of abilities to choose from in addition to the generalist list.

The class can focus on being a striker/ skirmisher, or a tank, or a support martial, but not all at once, with a limited number of ability slots.

Included are several non-combat abilities for added utility.

Soon as our artist is finished we may have a sample playtest, we will see soon enough.

 

[steeldragons]

The answers, as diverse or interesting as they have been, are essentially all the same answers.

The "Simple" Fighter is just what we all know. The "Basic" Fighter. The one with the most armor and most weapons options. The "Combat" class. What do they [need to] do?
1) hit reliably well/often
2) do reliably high -or higher than other classes- damage
3) stays on their feet longest/hardy/tough/takes the hits due to a combo of having higher/more hit points than other classes, decent/better saves, and/or superior AC.

That's all they need to do...and traditionally have done. [Know how to best] Hit stuff with weapons. Deal the damage. Stay on your feet/conscious.

So, the "Complex" fighter needs to do more than that...or, more accurately, at a minimum do those three things with more "complexity" and, then, do things in addition to those three.

So you need:
1) things you do that make your hitting better/different than other times you hit - increase attack roll bonus, increase bonus against specific foes, weapon specializations (use "reach" weapons close, extra bow/thrown attacks, et al.), count attack as magical vs. creatures requiring magical weapons, etc...
2) things you do that make your damage better/different than other times you deal damage -increase dice rolls in general, increase damage vs. specific foes, impose conditions, grapple/prone/trip, etc...
3) things that keep you on your feet better/different and under different circumstances that other times you are staying on your feet -improving saves to particular effects, increases to AC, damage reduction in certain circumstances, extra/bonus "second winds,"etc...
4) things that give the fighter non-personal combat techniques -commanding (doling bonuses to) others, battlefield/group tactics, etc...
5) things that give the fighter non-combat skills -exploration, social, and/or knowledge- of various kinds.

Call them "stances." Call them "exploits." Call them "maneuvers." Call them "feats." Whatever your reference point in the culture is or non-D&D game you're drawing inspiration from, the idea is the same one... ADD stuff to how the FIghter does what the Fighter does.

The "Complex" Fighter is the one with more option/player choices...to give the players complaining about "page count" or "[people using magic] can do this! Why can't I?" the feel that they have their lists of choices to go through and select...

Giving every Fighter (regardless of subclass/background/theme trappings) their own list of "stuff" to choose from, the array of which increases as they level. Making every Fighter as different from each other as every Mage with a different list of spells in their spellbook.

That seems to be all people want/are asking for. Seems...well, forgive the phrase, "simple" enough.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Do people feel that the fighter needs more widgets over the 20 levels, or "simply" different widgets available to choose from?

What can the battlemaster do that the other classes can't? You get to add the Superiority Die (dislike that term), but are all of those maneuvers wholly unavailable to anyone else? There are a couple that are more than just tripping and disarming. I imagine being more explicit on those would help some.

Weirdly, I generally dislike per encounter abilities, although I can see them for fighters and rogues. I can frame it better internally when I think of it as every 10 minutes or requires some kind of set-up, ammunition, or similar. In this case it helps that combats run 2-5 rounds in general. With proper framing the question of "why aren't I just spamming this?" doesn't come up.

Fightery mysteries:

• Leadership, Inspiration
• Martial Instruction
• Endurance; from physical hardship as well as from a saving throw perspective
• Heraldry; knowledge of martial peers
• Logistics, Strategic Awareness, Campaign preparedness; building a useful base camp at a dungeon entrance
• Siegecraft, Engineering

 

[Celebrim]

The answers, as diverse or interesting as they have been, are essentially all the same answers.

I think you are right, but the details matter.

One thing I get repeatedly struck by when this topic comes up is how everyone is using the same words and says they want the same thing, but underneath that people are actually trying to fix very different problems.

For example:

a) Some people are really saying that when they play the simple fighter, they don't feel awesome enough. These people mainly want the fighter to bring more awesome moments, because they feel that "reliable" isn't actually something that brings the awesome. Some of these people straight up want to solve the problem by upping the overall power level of the fighter. These sort of people are often screaming, "Fighters need an X that lets them do 20d12 bonus damage on an attack!", justifying that sort of thing by pointing at Meteor Swarm or the light. Some of these people think that too much of that is just power creep and want to add more color of awesome without greatly increasing damage. Typically these people are, "Fighters don't need more damage, but they do need more battlefield control - things that stop enemy movement or impose conditions". What they really want is combat that is less abstract and involves more narration of what they do, even if in practice the total damage that they are inflicting doesn't change or the impact they are having on combat doesn't increase much.

b) Others are like, "What makes spellcasters more awesome is that spells have always been one of the few reliable narrative currencies in D&D." Spells as implemented in D&D are little packages of narrative force where the PC gets to say what they do and it tends to happen. This group may or may not overlap with group 'a', but naturally this group feels that fighters have to have narrative currency of their own if they are going to be in parity with spellcasters and so naturally they want to give fighters spells in some form either with the same per encounter restrictions spells usually have or with some sort of mana point system. Quite often this immediately provokes disagreement though between those that are completely happy to have mundane magic work just like regular magic and those that want mundane magic to be limited to what seems a realistic process of play.

For example, the "fighters should have spells" might be perfectly happy with, "And the foe is knocked back 20 feet" as this is the sort of reliable narrative force spells often have, where as the "Fighters should not have spells" believe that knocking back a foe should vary in difficulty based on the size, stature, circumstances, and strength of the foe forcing a test. Very often the point of contention over how to fix the system here comes down to "Fighters should have spells!" versus "Spells shouldn't be written as reliable narrative force in the first place.", with a real sticking point being, "Just how complex should the rule be anyway!" After all, if we are going to test whether the Fighter (or spellcaster!) can knockback the foe based on process of verisimilitude to realism, that's adding a lot of complexity and slowing down play. Quite often the reason spells were written as reliable narrative packets in the first place was just to keep spell descriptions simple and terse. The original designers may have felt Rule Zero in practice would make the result nuanced to circumstance and that rulings would intervene, but if so this failed because both the GMs and PCs have a reasonable conviction that if the rules say something that's how it should work.

c) Some people believe the problem is that the fighter is too generic. These people very much want the fighter to have particular class abilities that are colorful and unique and serve as a sort of guide to roleplaying the character. These people almost invariably want a very strong sub-classing system that regardless of whatever other problem the sub-classing system is trying to solve, ultimately is also making their particular fighter special.

d) But group 'c' is immediately at loggerheads with the people that believe the problem is that fighter has become overly specialized and too inflexible of a one trick pony. These people for example note that while it is possible to make a good fighter that does one thing well and shines in that situation, that will be the only thing that the fighter does well. These people believe 90% of the problem has been that design of spellcasters built almost entirely around spell slots means get more flexible whenever new spells are added as options, while martial classes which are built around siloed class abilities get more inflexible whenever newly added classes and class abilities options divide the possible things that a fighter could do ever more finely and narrowly. You'll get into huge arguments over "Fighters should be made up entirely of selectable bonus feats/manuevers/stances/etc." versus, "Fighters should not be made up entirely of selectable bonus feats/manuevers/stances/etc." because the two groups are trying to solve two different problems.

e) Another group sees all this arguing over combat mechanics as missing the point entirely. This group sees the fighter as already occupying a reasonable space in the combat pillar of play that matches or comes close to matching the spellcaster. They see the problem is that the fighter doesn't remotely have the flexibility outside of combat as the spellcaster. The fighter can only manage to be a good fighter no matter how much we tweak the combat system, whereas the spellcaster can (among other things) teleport, charm, conjure mansions into being, and wish and the fighter at best can build a campfire and tie a rope - things that tend to stop being important after like 3rd level because spells can do it all. This group is like, "How do we give the fighter ability to match spellcasters outside of combat?" To me this group has both the most legitimate complaint and yet also the most difficult to address - which is why most people tend to ignore them in favor of doing obvious easy things like advocating for more damage in combat.

To me the important thing to realize is that everyone's GOALS are not mutually exclusive, but the MECHANICAL CHOICES are mutually exclusive. If you insist on a particular mechanical solution to the problem, you may meet your own goals while denying the goals of other people who also want "the complex fighter" even if those people don't disagree with your goals.

The interesting question then is not, "Do fighters need to be more complex?" as I think they clearly have been going in the wrong direction for like 40 years, nor is it, "Is there a mechanical solution that fixes one of the issues some people have?", because I think almost everyone here is going to agree "Yes" to both question. The really interesting question is there a mechanical solution that addresses everyone's goals. This solution needs to address everyone's complaint without forcing a large group with a valid complaint to make huge sacrifices. And typically, the sticking point on this is that people whose limited goals were solved by some existing mechanical solution are very angry that everyone in the conversation doesn't see that solution as the solution. Some of them don't care about goals other than their own. Others believe that attacking an existing solution is trying to take something away from them (for example, players who felt the Warlord class finally gave them something that they always wanted get really angry if someone suggests the Warlord class shouldn't exist).

 

[Haplo781]

Do people feel that the fighter needs more widgets over the 20 levels, or "simply" different widgets available to choose from?

What can the battlemaster do that the other classes can't? You get to add the Superiority Die (dislike that term), but are all of those maneuvers wholly unavailable to anyone else? There are a couple that are more than just tripping and disarming. I imagine being more explicit on those would help some.

Weirdly, I generally dislike per encounter abilities, although I can see them for fighters and rogues. I can frame it better internally when I think of it as every 10 minutes or requires some kind of set-up, ammunition, or similar. In this case it helps that combats run 2-5 rounds in general. With proper framing the question of "why aren't I just spamming this?" doesn't come up.

Fightery mysteries:

• Leadership, Inspiration
• Martial Instruction
• Endurance; from physical hardship as well as from a saving throw perspective
• Heraldry; knowledge of martial peers
• Logistics, Strategic Awareness, Campaign preparedness; building a useful base camp at a dungeon entrance
• Siegecraft, Engineering

You can't spam your fancy combat tricks because they rely on exploiting a weakness in your opponent's defense or on some kind of deception. Once you've used one, all the enemies in the fight are on guard for it.

 

[Reynard]

Let's assume you could cr

I think you are right, but the details matter.

One thing I get repeatedly struck by when this topic comes up is how everyone is using the same words and says they want the same thing, but underneath that people are actually trying to fix very different problems.

For example:

a) Some people are really saying that when they play the simple fighter, they don't feel awesome enough. These people mainly want the fighter to bring more awesome moments, because they feel that "reliable" isn't actually something that brings the awesome. Some of these people straight up want to solve the problem by upping the overall power level of the fighter. These sort of people are often screaming, "Fighters need an X that lets them do 20d12 bonus damage on an attack!", justifying that sort of thing by pointing at Meteor Swarm or the light. Some of these people think that too much of that is just power creep and want to add more color of awesome without greatly increasing damage. Typically these people are, "Fighters don't need more damage, but they do need more battlefield control - things that stop enemy movement or impose conditions". What they really want is combat that is less abstract and involves more narration of what they do, even if in practice the total damage that they are inflicting doesn't change or the impact they are having on combat doesn't increase much.
b) Others are like, "What makes spellcasters more awesome is that spells have always been one of the few reliable narrative currencies in D&D." Spells as implemented in D&D are little packages of narrative force where the PC gets to say what they do and it tends to happen. This group may or may not overlap with group 'a', but naturally this group feels that fighters have to have narrative currency of their own if they are going to be in parity with spellcasters and so naturally they want to give fighters spells in some form either with the same per encounter restrictions spells usually have or with some sort of mana point system. Quite often this immediately provokes disagreement though between those that are completely happy to have mundane magic work just like regular magic and those that want mundane magic to be limited to what seems a realistic process of play. For example, the "fighters should have spells" might be perfectly happy with, "And the foe is knocked back 20 feet" as this is the sort of reliable narrative force spells often have, where as the "Fighters should not have spells" believe that knocking back a foe should vary in difficulty based on the size, stature, circumstances, and strength of the foe forcing a test. Very often the point of contention over how to fix the system here comes down to "Fighters should have spells!" versus "Spells shouldn't be written as reliable narrative force in the first place.", with a real sticking point being, "Just how complex should the rule be anyway!" After all, if we are going to test whether the Fighter (or spellcaster!) can knockback the foe based on process of verisimilitude to realism, that's adding a lot of complexity and slowing down play. Quite often the reason spells were written as reliable narrative packets in the first place was just to keep spell descriptions simple and terse. The original designers may have felt Rule Zero in practice would make the result nuanced to circumstance and that rulings would intervene, but if so this failed because both the GMs and PCs have a reasonable conviction that if the rules say something that's how it should work.
c) Some people believe the problem is that the fighter is too generic. These people very much want the fighter to have particular class abilities that are colorful and unique and serve as a sort of guide to roleplaying the character. These people almost invariably want a very strong sub-classing system that regardless of whatever other problem the sub-classing system is trying to solve, ultimately is also making their particular fighter special.
d) But group 'c' is immediately at loggerheads with the people that believe the problem is that fighter has become overly specialized and too inflexible of a one trick pony. These people for example note that while it is possible to make a good fighter that does one thing well and shines in that situation, that will be the only thing that the fighter does well. These people believe 90% of the problem has been that design of spellcasters built almost entirely around spell slots means get more flexible whenever new spells are added as options, while martial classes which are built around siloed class abilities get more inflexible whenever newly added classes and class abilities options divide the possible things that a fighter could do ever more finely and narrowly. You'll get into huge arguments over "Fighters should be made up entirely of selectable bonus feats/manuevers/stances/etc." versus, "Fighters should not be made up entirely of selectable bonus feats/manuevers/stances/etc." because the two groups are trying to solve two different problems.
e) Another group sees all this arguing over combat mechanics as missing the point entirely. This group sees the fighter as already occupying a reasonable space in the combat pillar of play that matches or comes close to matching the spellcaster. They see the problem is that the fighter doesn't remotely have the flexibility outside of combat as the spellcaster. The fighter can only manage to be a good fighter no matter how much we tweak the combat system, whereas the spellcaster can (among other things) teleport, charm, conjure mansions into being, and wish and the fighter at best can build a campfire and tie a rope - things that tend to stop being important after like 3rd level because spells can do it all. This group is like, "How do we give the fighter ability to match spellcasters outside of combat?" To me this group has both the most legitimate complaint and yet also the most difficult to address - which is why most people tend to ignore them in favor of doing obvious easy things like advocating for more damage in combat.

To me the important thing to realize is that everyone's GOALS are not mutually exclusive, but the MECHANICAL CHOICES are mutually exclusive. If you insist on a particular mechanical solution to the problem, you may meet your own goals while denying the goals of other people who also want "the complex fighter" even if those people don't disagree with your goals.

The interesting question then is not, "Do fighters need to be more complex?" as I think they clearly have been going in the wrong direction for like 40 years, nor is it, "Is there a mechanical solution that fixes one of the issues some people have?", because I think almost everyone here is going to agree "Yes" to both question. The really interesting question is there a mechanical solution that addresses everyone's goals. This solution needs to address everyone's complaint without forcing a large group with a valid complaint to make huge sacrifices. And typically, the sticking point on this is that people whose limited goals were solved by some existing mechanical solution are very angry that everyone in the conversation doesn't see that solution as the solution. Some of them don't care about goals other than their own. Others believe that attacking an existing solution is trying to take something away from them (for example, players who felt the Warlord class finally gave them something that they always wanted get really angry if someone suggests the Warlord class shouldn't exist).

Good post. Thanks for sharing.

Maybe one way to look at the situation holistically is to reference the idea of 4E's roles and power sources (hopefully without inviting an edition war). If someone wants to play a martial controller, that talks about both the aesthetic and mechanism they are looking for. It's less about "complex fighter" and more about being able to be a controller and still embrace the martial look and feel of playing a fighter. Of course for that to work the underlying system needs to be able to accommodate those roles and power sources.

 

[Haplo781]

I think you are right, but the details matter.

One thing I get repeatedly struck by when this topic comes up is how everyone is using the same words and says they want the same thing, but underneath that people are actually trying to fix very different problems.

For example:

a) Some people are really saying that when they play the simple fighter, they don't feel awesome enough. These people mainly want the fighter to bring more awesome moments, because they feel that "reliable" isn't actually something that brings the awesome. Some of these people straight up want to solve the problem by upping the overall power level of the fighter. These sort of people are often screaming, "Fighters need an X that lets them do 20d12 bonus damage on an attack!", justifying that sort of thing by pointing at Meteor Swarm or the light. Some of these people think that too much of that is just power creep and want to add more color of awesome without greatly increasing damage. Typically these people are, "Fighters don't need more damage, but they do need more battlefield control - things that stop enemy movement or impose conditions". What they really want is combat that is less abstract and involves more narration of what they do, even if in practice the total damage that they are inflicting doesn't change or the impact they are having on combat doesn't increase much.
b) Others are like, "What makes spellcasters more awesome is that spells have always been one of the few reliable narrative currencies in D&D." Spells as implemented in D&D are little packages of narrative force where the PC gets to say what they do and it tends to happen. This group may or may not overlap with group 'a', but naturally this group feels that fighters have to have narrative currency of their own if they are going to be in parity with spellcasters and so naturally they want to give fighters spells in some form either with the same per encounter restrictions spells usually have or with some sort of mana point system. Quite often this immediately provokes disagreement though between those that are completely happy to have mundane magic work just like regular magic and those that want mundane magic to be limited to what seems a realistic process of play. For example, the "fighters should have spells" might be perfectly happy with, "And the foe is knocked back 20 feet" as this is the sort of reliable narrative force spells often have, where as the "Fighters should not have spells" believe that knocking back a foe should vary in difficulty based on the size, stature, circumstances, and strength of the foe forcing a test. Very often the point of contention over how to fix the system here comes down to "Fighters should have spells!" versus "Spells shouldn't be written as reliable narrative force in the first place.", with a real sticking point being, "Just how complex should the rule be anyway!" After all, if we are going to test whether the Fighter (or spellcaster!) can knockback the foe based on process of verisimilitude to realism, that's adding a lot of complexity and slowing down play. Quite often the reason spells were written as reliable narrative packets in the first place was just to keep spell descriptions simple and terse. The original designers may have felt Rule Zero in practice would make the result nuanced to circumstance and that rulings would intervene, but if so this failed because both the GMs and PCs have a reasonable conviction that if the rules say something that's how it should work.
c) Some people believe the problem is that the fighter is too generic. These people very much want the fighter to have particular class abilities that are colorful and unique and serve as a sort of guide to roleplaying the character. These people almost invariably want a very strong sub-classing system that regardless of whatever other problem the sub-classing system is trying to solve, ultimately is also making their particular fighter special.
d) But group 'c' is immediately at loggerheads with the people that believe the problem is that fighter has become overly specialized and too inflexible of a one trick pony. These people for example note that while it is possible to make a good fighter that does one thing well and shines in that situation, that will be the only thing that the fighter does well. These people believe 90% of the problem has been that design of spellcasters built almost entirely around spell slots means get more flexible whenever new spells are added as options, while martial classes which are built around siloed class abilities get more inflexible whenever newly added classes and class abilities options divide the possible things that a fighter could do ever more finely and narrowly. You'll get into huge arguments over "Fighters should be made up entirely of selectable bonus feats/manuevers/stances/etc." versus, "Fighters should not be made up entirely of selectable bonus feats/manuevers/stances/etc." because the two groups are trying to solve two different problems.
e) Another group sees all this arguing over combat mechanics as missing the point entirely. This group sees the fighter as already occupying a reasonable space in the combat pillar of play that matches or comes close to matching the spellcaster. They see the problem is that the fighter doesn't remotely have the flexibility outside of combat as the spellcaster. The fighter can only manage to be a good fighter no matter how much we tweak the combat system, whereas the spellcaster can (among other things) teleport, charm, conjure mansions into being, and wish and the fighter at best can build a campfire and tie a rope - things that tend to stop being important after like 3rd level because spells can do it all. This group is like, "How do we give the fighter ability to match spellcasters outside of combat?" To me this group has both the most legitimate complaint and yet also the most difficult to address - which is why most people tend to ignore them in favor of doing obvious easy things like advocating for more damage in combat.

To me the important thing to realize is that everyone's GOALS are not mutually exclusive, but the MECHANICAL CHOICES are mutually exclusive. If you insist on a particular mechanical solution to the problem, you may meet your own goals while denying the goals of other people who also want "the complex fighter" even if those people don't disagree with your goals.

The interesting question then is not, "Do fighters need to be more complex?" as I think they clearly have been going in the wrong direction for like 40 years, nor is it, "Is there a mechanical solution that fixes one of the issues some people have?", because I think almost everyone here is going to agree "Yes" to both question. The really interesting question is there a mechanical solution that addresses everyone's goals. This solution needs to address everyone's complaint without forcing a large group with a valid complaint to make huge sacrifices. And typically, the sticking point on this is that people whose limited goals were solved by some existing mechanical solution are very angry that everyone in the conversation doesn't see that solution as the solution. Some of them don't care about goals other than their own. Others believe that attacking an existing solution is trying to take something away from them (for example, players who felt the Warlord class finally gave them something that they always wanted get really angry if someone suggests the Warlord class shouldn't exist).

Great post but for the love of my eyes, more paragraph breaks please.