D&D (2024) 4/26 Playtest: The Fighter

[ZetaShift]

Let's make the wizard the incapable one for a few decades than. Fun and fair for everyone, right?

Tell you man, the second that happens the community will rally against wotc and burn the company HQ to the ground

 

[mellored]

But it doesn't make weapons different.

It makes weapon styles feel different.
Weapon styles feel different already.

At level 7, a longsword and battleaxe are the same for a fighter.

At level 1-6 they are different for the fighter.
And for the barbarian, or anyone who takes the feat, they remain different.

Otherwise, why not just drop the weapon table? Barbarians can chose to do 2d6 damage, or 1d10 with +2 AC.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They don't have Heavy Armor, which had received quite a big buff as the Heavy Armor Mastery feat now lets martials reduce all incoming BPS damage by their PB for every hit. The Ranger would need 2 feats for that. As well as the natural advantages of having higher possible AC with heavy armor.

And both paladins, fighters, and barbarians gave far more effective damage mitigation built into them making them much harder to down.

Disagree. Medium armor with a good dex is sufficient to be in the front-lines. Shields are preferred obviously. And I don't count feats for things like this, because while the Heavy Armor Master is very nice, the frontline Paladin might have decided to pick a different feat, and still be viable on the front line

Tbf, that was the PHB's description of fighter.

Plus, what I mean isn't that fighters are the only class that can just pull out a bow, but that they are more effective outside of their preferred build than the other classes.

The new Paladin does kinda mess with that fantasy.

Right, so let's toss what the PHB said aside, and look at it again. Because the more I think about it? The more the classic fighter's have classic equipment. They don't have five weapons, or three weapons. They often have one weapon. So what if the fighter was the master of weapons not because they could have more masteries than everyone else, but because they can easily utilize every weapon to have the mastery effects they want?

That still wouldn't cover out of combat utility, but it would I think be a smoother and more elegant version of this system.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Classes should be different, and we don't need 12 different simple options.

Why not? "Sorry new player, I know you want to play a pious cleric, but there isn't a simple version of that. If you want a simple character you have to play a fighter" is stupid, as is "sorry fighter player, we need to keep the fighter simple for reasons, it is going to be you"

As for why the fighter? Tradition i guess.

Flavor wise, making the barbarian the simple class and let the fighter be the weapon master/warlord would make more sense IMO. But that's going to require a new edition.

So... absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Because, let's be honest here, Barbarians ARE simple. They are super simple and easy to play. They don't need a simplified version of them, because they are the simplified version.

 

[Chaosmancer]

At level 1-6 they are different for the fighter.
And for the barbarian, or anyone who takes the feat, they remain different.

Otherwise, why not just drop the weapon table? Barbarians can chose to do 2d6 damage, or 1d10 with +2 AC.

That is something that has been suggested in the past. What's wrong with the idea?

 

[mellored]

That is something that has been suggested in the past. What's wrong with the idea?

Yea, I made that suggestion.
You can read the responses as why people didn't like it.

Armaments, replacing equipment with more interesting options.

Class now comes with Armaments. These represents both the weapons and armor you have, as well as the training you have with them. Default flavor is given, but can be adjusted by the player (i.e. metal armor might be wood). You can only have 1 armaments active at a time, and they don't stack...

www.enworld.org

 

[Bluenose]

Let's make the wizard the incapable one for a few decades than. Fun and fair for everyone, right?

"Wizards deal with magic. If you don't attack them with magic, don't carry magic, they're dependent on mundane abilities and some pretty cantrips. And they're probably not going to win a fight with you as they don't tend to wear much armour or practice hard with weapons. Sure, you'll want a wizard along to deal with magical monsters and they'll be really useful then, but a lot of the time a good scout with a bow is more useful." Grand Sergeant-at-Arms Kondri Bernat, Legion of Valour holder.

It'd never get past a single playtest, of course. Far too much devotion to magic being the universal best solution to every problem among parts of the fanbase and, I think, to a fairly large degree the design team.

 

[Parmandur]

Remove ability scores

Hard line of "No" for that. Rolling d6's for scores is essential to D&D.

 

[HammerMan]

THAT ESSENTIALY is the problem.

Weapon Mastery is 4e Martial At-Will Exploits aka Martial Cantrips

By default, your cantrip is linked to your weapon.
At level 7 a fighter gets Weapon Expert which lets them swap out 1 cantrip each LR.
At level 13 a fighter gets Weapon Adapt which lets them lean 1 cantrip.

LAME!

Yeah if that is the case then they should scale at 5th 11th and 17th

 

[HammerMan]

That's not being well rounded. You're not doing well outside your specialization, You are just not Wizard-Terrible at it.

And with how Extra Attack is handed out like candy, there are over 5 other classes who are more well rounded than the Fighter.

Before level 11 warlock barbarian ranger and paliden get extra attack and if other subclass show up that will be some bards and wizards