Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
No spell slots. More of a spell point system I guess.
D&D 5E [+]What does your "complex fighter" look like?
Mod Note:
Folks, can we please keep this to the topic requested in the OP? Thanks.
Composer99
Hero
(1) Thanks to 4e's handling and formatting of standard weapon attacks, we know that basically any codified, discretely-defined ability a player character can use can be made up so as to come across as a "spell". Suffice to say that as a result I don't have much patience for claims that martials using "spells" (however one uses the term) is bad - they're already using "spells".
(Case in point, here's Reckless Attack made up as if it were a barbarian utility power in 4e. Looks awful "spell"-like when so formatted.)
Or how about we just format it in the style of a 5e spell and be done with it?
(2) If you want martials to be able to inflict some of the more potent conditions in the game, I don't think you can get away from having limited-use resources - whether that's a points pool or dice pool or whatever you want to do - because I don't think gating an ability that stuns or paralyses an opponent, for instance, behind "is this situationally useful or not?" is going to work: the answer to that question is going to be yes.
That doesn't mean the limited-use resource has to tie back to short or long rests. (Especially in 5e where short rests aren't so short.) You could have a limited-use resource that works like focus points in 5e Adventures in Rokugan or the warrior rage mechanic in World of Warcraft, or that ties into rolling initiative, say. (Rolling for initiative would be the stand-in for the rush of adrenaline and focusing of the mind on combat that's happening in the fiction.) It could even be a recharge mechanic similar to what monsters use! (Roll a 5-6 and get back your Focus or Grit or whatever you want to call it, which you can use to fuel this trick or that technique.)
I suppose you could then just say, "well maybe martials can get by without the kinds of abilities that need limited-use resources to ration". And, sure, if that's how you want to do it. But to my mind things like a flurry of thrown daggers, knockout blows, and even paralysing strikes all are - or all ought to be - well within the remit of "heroic" tier (up to 10th level) martial capability, and many of these abilities will be too potent to simply rely on things like action economy limits.
(3) What is more, to my mind, such a limited-use resource models and reflects what is going on in the fiction, only with enough abstraction to be playable in a turn-based combat engine. You can't spam this technique or that trick or the other exploit because the circumstances (your posture/form/footing, the weapon you are wielding, the enemy's exposure to attack, whether you're unduly favouring a limb after taking a blow there, the amount of fatigue you have accumulated, among other possibilities) have to be just right - and trying to precisely ascertain those circumstances in a turn-based abstraction is a fool's game. But you can just say that "if you have the right amount of resource X at the start of your turn, the circumstances in the fiction are such that you can use this or that combat trick".
(Case in point, here's Reckless Attack made up as if it were a barbarian utility power in 4e. Looks awful "spell"-like when so formatted.)
Or how about we just format it in the style of a 5e spell and be done with it?
Reckless Attack
Barbarian class feature
Action time: None (see text)
Range: Self
Components: n/a
Duration: 1 round
You use this feature before attacking on your turn, throwing aside all concern for defence to attack with fierce desperation. Doing so doesn't require any sort of action. If you use this feature, you have advantage on attack rolls using Strength this turn. Until the start of your next turn, attack rolls against you are made with advantage.
Barbarian class feature
Action time: None (see text)
Range: Self
Components: n/a
Duration: 1 round
You use this feature before attacking on your turn, throwing aside all concern for defence to attack with fierce desperation. Doing so doesn't require any sort of action. If you use this feature, you have advantage on attack rolls using Strength this turn. Until the start of your next turn, attack rolls against you are made with advantage.
(2) If you want martials to be able to inflict some of the more potent conditions in the game, I don't think you can get away from having limited-use resources - whether that's a points pool or dice pool or whatever you want to do - because I don't think gating an ability that stuns or paralyses an opponent, for instance, behind "is this situationally useful or not?" is going to work: the answer to that question is going to be yes.
That doesn't mean the limited-use resource has to tie back to short or long rests. (Especially in 5e where short rests aren't so short.) You could have a limited-use resource that works like focus points in 5e Adventures in Rokugan or the warrior rage mechanic in World of Warcraft, or that ties into rolling initiative, say. (Rolling for initiative would be the stand-in for the rush of adrenaline and focusing of the mind on combat that's happening in the fiction.) It could even be a recharge mechanic similar to what monsters use! (Roll a 5-6 and get back your Focus or Grit or whatever you want to call it, which you can use to fuel this trick or that technique.)
I suppose you could then just say, "well maybe martials can get by without the kinds of abilities that need limited-use resources to ration". And, sure, if that's how you want to do it. But to my mind things like a flurry of thrown daggers, knockout blows, and even paralysing strikes all are - or all ought to be - well within the remit of "heroic" tier (up to 10th level) martial capability, and many of these abilities will be too potent to simply rely on things like action economy limits.
(3) What is more, to my mind, such a limited-use resource models and reflects what is going on in the fiction, only with enough abstraction to be playable in a turn-based combat engine. You can't spam this technique or that trick or the other exploit because the circumstances (your posture/form/footing, the weapon you are wielding, the enemy's exposure to attack, whether you're unduly favouring a limb after taking a blow there, the amount of fatigue you have accumulated, among other possibilities) have to be just right - and trying to precisely ascertain those circumstances in a turn-based abstraction is a fool's game. But you can just say that "if you have the right amount of resource X at the start of your turn, the circumstances in the fiction are such that you can use this or that combat trick".
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
It still doesn’t consume an arbitrary resource that refreshes on a rest. If you are not understanding that distinction then you are not understanding the point.
Neonchameleon
Legend
But this distinction is one that's already been accepted by anyone who hasn't dropped 5e. The base5e fighter has limited use Action Surge and Second Wind. The Battlemaster has maneuver dice. And the Level Up fighter is on a point system. For that matter Barbarian Rage is limited use that refreshes on a rest.
Fundamentally the point people claiming "consumes an arbitrary resource that refreshes on a rest is a spell" are making is that they reject the existing way that 5e fighters (and barbarians and monks) work as well as Battlemasters because that ship already sailed. They are also saying that fighters who pace themselves the way real world athletes do are unacceptable.
And unless they are explicitly offering some alternate form of complexity (e.g. risk/reward) then I'd say that the approach that says "what little complexity there currently is in the 5e fighter is unacceptable" are doing nothing more than clogging up this thread with a position that, while you might consider it defensible, (I do not) is entirely against the spirit of a [+] thread.
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Vaalingrade
Legend
I'd argue that the things the game calls 'spells' are spells and the things that the game does not call spells are... not spells.
Apparently though, powers "feel like spells" to some fraction of the player base, and thus they are rejected.
Ironically, in 2e, you could have an ordinary Fighter able to use spells, but I never heard anyone complain about it.
(Savage Fighter Kit from the Complete Fighter's Handbook as an example).
Ironically, in 2e, you could have an ordinary Fighter able to use spells, but I never heard anyone complain about it.
(Savage Fighter Kit from the Complete Fighter's Handbook as an example).
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Lest I be misunderstood (hard to imagine, I know) let me say it again: while there are some who go on and on about 'dissociative mechanics', that's not the issue I have with it. I just dislike the aspects of the game in which the decision-making is based on whether to consume resources in this fight or a future fight. Is it completely avoidable? No. But neither do I particular enjoy classes in which that kind of decision-making is core to the class, which is why I tend to not enjoy pure casters.
The last thing I want is for the few classes that currently minimize it (Fighters, Rogues) to suddenly start requiring it.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
5e Tome of Battle with maneuvers and stances. That is what I want.
Cap'n Kobold
Hero
That's fair. The best way to deal with that for the mythic "complex fighter" that would normally run off short rest resources is to have a couple of abilities with long durations that last until the next short rest. So the character that chose them would be considered to have that effect on all the time rather than have short-rest resources to spend for other effects.
