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

[TwoSix]

The problem is that 3pp are hit or miss. And a lot of DMs I know refuse to look through them becuse they don’t want to balance and sanity check everything PCs could bring to the table.

Their loss. There are plenty of 3pp's I trust more than WotC to put out interesting, balanced work.

 

[Corinnguard]

The problem is that 3pp are hit or miss. And a lot of DMs I know refuse to look through them becuse they don’t want to balance and sanity check everything PCs could bring to the table.

True. Is the A5e Fighter a hit or a miss? curious It has a number of things in it that put it above the 5e Fighter.

 

[HammerMan]

True. Is the A5e Fighter a hit or a miss? curious It has a number of things in it that put it above the 5e Fighter.

I don’t know. I am not currently running a game but playing in 2 and 1/2 games. None of the ones I am playing in will allow 3 party supplements.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem is that 3pp are hit or miss. And a lot of DMs I know refuse to look through them becuse they don’t want to balance and sanity check everything PCs could bring to the table.

Sure, because everything WotC puts out is balanced and sane.

A company logo is no guarantee of quality.

 

[Celebrim]

Even 3.X had a more reasonable understanding of things than this...

Yeah, well, I'm feeling like saying a similar sentence.

You're also appealing to the physics of the iron golem. Which has to transfer its weight to take a step meaning that it is unbalanced and on one leg. And if you push it at the right time when it is unbalanced then it will drive it backwards.

You try that with a pickup truck then. Or a semi. Does a wheeled stone juggernaut weighing 40 tons have the same chance of being pushed back by the "tide of iron" as a 80 lb goblin? I mean I feel you are being deliberately obstinate and insulting here, because this isn't some next level difficult to understand concept.

Can just anyone do that? No. Being that good is extraordinary. But fighters are extraordinarily good at fighting.

At first level they are just extraordinarily promising at fighting. I don't have a particular problem with something that says a 20th level fighter is capable of pushing back things with extraordinary force. I just have a problem with rules that pay no attention to the fiction, whether 'magic' or not.

You do realise that you can put the 'don't need to vacate' rules on the golem?

Which becomes exception based design, and again, introduces a new absolute rule. So now the golem can't be pushed by anything, even the god of strength, unless you write a new exception for the god of strength that says he can push things with 'don't need to vacate'. This way lies madness.

No - because it (assuming we're talking about Tide of Iron) is an unbalancing push, not a case of "batter up". If I bunch my shoulder behind my shield and take three steps forward through where the goblin is standing the goblin might have to take five steps back because it has shorter legs than I do. But it's not going to miraculously take 30 steps back. It's going to be pushed back as far as I go forward. And then, because it's a push when I stop pushing the goblin stops moving.

All of which is post facto rationalization. The mechanic says what happens, so the fiction will just have to bend to accommodate no matter what. If you can't recognize that's a very different aesthetic, well, we just won't be able to have a productive discussion.

If we are not ignoring the substance of the fiction and deciding that hits don't do wounds then we need to dump hit points as a mechanic.

More BS. Hits do and always have inflicted wounds.

But we aren't dealing with spells.

If it involves bending fiction to your will by performing the move, or is balanced by limited access to some metagame currency (slots per day, rechargeable points) then regardless of what you color it as, it is a spell-like mechanic. It is mechanics we are talking about here.

We're dealing with a game world that runs under action movie physics. Which is a real aesthetic. And a common one. And one that does not normally involve people casting spells. Is everything that happens in a Mission Impossible or Fast and Furious movie that wouldn't work in the real world to you someone casting spells?

This isn't even a rebuttal. High level characters in my game move beyond action movie physics to straight up superhero physics. It's entirely possible to build a fighter that can run down a horse while carrying a refrigerator on your back without even making that your characters schtick. It would just be one of those things you can do. But while that is beyond normal, there is no spell-like mechanic involve. You don't have to ever activate your movement speed, you just have it. You don't have to activate your encumbrance, you just have. If on the other hand the player had to declare, "I'm using one of my 3/day Stalwart Charge", then that would be a spell mechanic even if the color of it wasn't magical. This is not hard to understand.

 

[James Gasik]

Have hits always inflicted wounds? From what Gary has to say about hit points in AD&D, I find this claim dubious.

"Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck and/or magical factors."

Gary Gygax, 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook, pg. 34

He goes into more detail in the DMG, where he states the following:

I don't call "a small amount of physical harm" or "merely grazes" as wounds. Wounds, after all, would impair someone's ability to fight and act, and as we all know, D&D characters suffer no such impairments until they fall down and have to make death saves.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

For me, a short summary of what my complex {fighter-alternative-class} would be close to "Bo9S Warblade with added out of combat capabilities."
The recharge mechanic would likely need adjustment for 5e, but the "extraordinary but not magical" maneuvers available to them from the Bo9S fit the sort of things a martial class less focused on damage and more focused on tactical and interesting effects might have. - I would actually remove some of the pure damage maneuvers and add some more interesting ones even.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You try that with a pickup truck then. Or a semi. Does a wheeled stone juggernaut weighing 40 tons have the same chance of being pushed back by the "tide of iron" as a 80 lb goblin? I mean I feel you are being deliberately obstinate and insulting here, because this isn't some next level difficult to understand concept.

I'm not the one pretending that pickups and semis either take steps or weigh 40 tons. If monsters behave in ways that are very different from the normal humanoid baseline then the problem isn't with the fact that there is a baseline assumption for how creatures behave. It's with the individual monsters that are very different from the baseline but the rules don't bother to take that into account.

And I note that in D&D this sort of "realism" restriction doesn't apply to wizards. Gust of Wind can move an earth elemental pretty reliably. Eldritch Blast can, via Repelling Blast, have an at will push effect that has nothing to do with target size and weight. D&D is a cinematic game that runs on Hollywood Physics - and . And yes I accept that you write massive spell blocks in order to make things marginally less unrealistic - but that is not baseline D&D.

Which becomes exception based design, and again, introduces a new absolute rule. So now the golem can't be pushed by anything, even the god of strength, unless you write a new exception for the god of strength that says he can push things with 'don't need to vacate'. This way lies madness.

Only because you are introducing bad exceptions. I literally pointed out that a 4e dwarf reduces the distance they are pushed. This is reduced not eliminated unless the reduction is to zero. Which it is in the case of Tide of Iron. If your Iron Golem reduces the distance they are pushed by 10 or even 15 foot then it doesn't miraculously mean that they can't be pushed by the God of Strength. When you write bad rules and then claim the result to be madness the problem is with your bad rules.

In the meantime in the name of "realism" you are making it impossible to do something I literally used to do in combat as a not particularly skilled re-enactor. Just because you think that extreme edge cases might cause problems.

More BS. Hits do and always have inflicted wounds.

Nice of you to warn me that more of your BS was incoming.

When you are wounded you get weakened and less effective. Hits do not and never have had the debilitating effect of wounds unless the person being hit is reduced to 0hp. On one hp they are just as strong, fast, and competent as on full hp. When you take something more than a flesh wound you take significant time to recover. When you exert yourself you also take time to recover - with the high end being e.g. marathon runners taking about a month. Which is about as long as it takes to recover in the grittiest D&D editions.

Hit points are only wounds in the way that protagonists of most action movies take wounds. Almost entirely either (a) cosmetic or (b) to add pacing and tension. With basically none of the real world consequences of wounds. @James Gasik has posted Gygax' comments on what hit points are - and yet you insist in defiance of the mechanics that they are wounds. And that they are wounds in a way that isn't the same sort of wounds as happen in your average action movie, with mostly cosmetic impact.

This isn't even a rebuttal. High level characters in my game move beyond action movie physics to straight up superhero physics. It's entirely possible to build a fighter that can run down a horse while carrying a refrigerator on your back without even making that your characters schtick.

The problem here is that your game is not D&D using the rules as written. I have no doubt that Celebrim!D&D is a decent game - but it is not actually relevant to normal games of D&D. This is a thread about D&D 5th Edition (from the tags); Celebrim!D&D is approximately as relevant to that as GURPS or Fate. You can make suggestions as to how to improve 5e using your version of the game - but it is a different game and the only thing confusing the two does is causes confusion.

In actual, published D&D first level fighters use action movie physics for their hit points. Also in actual, published D&D a Level 20 fighter uses the same encumbrance and exhaustion rules as a level 1 fighter - with the only differences being (a) the Level 20 fighter probably has a Str of 20, probably up from 16 at first level, and (b) they have higher Strength and Constitution saves. You know what hasn't changed? Their speed. They are still moving at the same 30ft per round (double if they take the dash action) as they were at first level. And the speed of a horse is 60ft per round (doubled if they take the dash action) and that hasn't changed as the fighter levels up.

Or to sum up in actually published D&D a level 20 fighter without outside magical assistance can probably carry about 25% more than a level 1 fighter before being slowed by encumberance. Not "a refrigerator on your back". And other than burning an Action Surge or two on dash a level 20 fighter without outside magical assistance runs at exactly the same speed as a level 1 fighter (although are more likely to pass endurance checks and so can run further). This is what the actual rules of D&D 5e make happen.

So while @Celebrim D&D is apparently better than D&D 5e in the capabilities of a high level fighter it is a different game that works differently. And talking about how yours works just shows you have house rules that are not part of D&D 5e and are only relevant when proposing improvements to D&D 5e. Please stop confusing the published game for your house ruled version.

It would just be one of those things you can do. But while that is beyond normal, there is no spell-like mechanic involve. You don't have to ever activate your movement speed, you just have it. You don't have to activate your encumbrance, you just have. If on the other hand the player had to declare, "I'm using one of my 3/day Stalwart Charge", then that would be a spell mechanic even if the color of it wasn't magical. This is not hard to understand.

In the real world I think we can agree there are no spell like mechanics involved in being an athlete. But also in the real world athletes can't and don't sprint at top speed all the time while they are running. They pace themselves. They decide when to jog to maintain their stamina and when to sprint. They don't have specific game mechanics in the real world but need them in game because the turn-based stop motion that the game uses isn't realistic, but chunks the fantasy world into digestible chunks.

Your position is not hard to understand. It is just one that turns fighters into unrealistic untiring robots rather than people who pace themselves and behave like real world athletes. Meanwhile your average professional sportsman who saves their energy and only sprints occasionally because they can't do it all the time is, in your wild world, a spellcaster. Your position is not hard to understand intellectually. It just reflects a poor understanding of the real world and makes your fighters unrealistic.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

For me, a short summary of what my complex {fighter-alternative-class} would be close to "Bo9S Warblade with added out of combat capabilities."
The recharge mechanic would likely need adjustment for 5e, but the "extraordinary but not magical" maneuvers available to them from the Bo9S fit the sort of things a martial class less focused on damage and more focused on tactical and interesting effects might have.

yeah, I think that the current warlock is what should be looked to. You have X number per short rest able to be used, and a list of maneuvers known... you can reuse the same ones, or use different ones.

- I would actually remove some of the pure damage maneuvers and add some more interesting ones even.

yes

 

[Celebrim]

I don't call "a small amount of physical harm" or "merely grazes" as wounds.

Ok. Well, we'll have to disagree over whether a person covered with cuts and bruises is wounded. I guess we should just call healing spells, "Cure cuts and bruises" now.