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

[Chaosmancer]

If you got advantage on Vampiric Touch at higher levels, then triple advantage, and quadruple advantage, then yes. That would be scaling.

You know, you are right, the ability modifier increasing from +3 to +5 is EXACTLY like having quadruple advantage where you roll four times and take the best result.

Also, no, I wouldn't say it scales, because it does the exact same thing when you hit. Shilellagh doesn't scale, even as your wisdom modifier and proficiency go up, because those numbers going up do not make it have a greater effect as levels increase. Getting advantage doesn't make it scale either.

Why do you need to warp the entire definition of scaling like this? I've never once said that most of these masteries are bad, or that the designers should scrap them. Yet you have dug in to make every argument you can think of that these are near perfect abilities instead of the first round of a playtest. These can be good AND need improved at the same time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

One thing you are overlooking is is the new Great Weapon Master feat also gives you +1 strength. That lets the new fighter not need to spend as many ability score increases upping his strength. A fighter can start with a 17 strength and by 8th level they can have Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Charger as well as a 20 Strength.

Or they could start with a 16 strength, get GWM to go to 17 and then get inspiring leader and increasing their charisma, followed by Heavy Armor Mastery to get a bonus to con. Or they could have taken the ASI Feat and increased their strength by +2.

Yes, every single feat increases your ability scores. I like that design, but I'm not "overlooking it" because it is more complex than just "I can take all these feats to get 20 strength"

Just adding Charger adds an average 4.5 damage a round. That puts your new fighter's damage at 6.9 more than the old without advantage, and only 2.53 points behind if they have advantage.

Shocking. Great Weapon Master PLUS Charger does more damage than just Great Weapon Master. You do realize of course that that has nothing to do with looking at the two feats side by side? Because it is a third, unrelated feat. I might as well say that the old GWM does more damage because I spent 4d10 Battlemaster dice to add to the damage. It just muddies the waters.

I think people are seriously underestimating how powerful it is that all of the feats now give a stat boost. A new fighter can basically take twice as many feats as an old one. I was playing around and built a level 20 fighter and it is ridiculous how many feats a fighter can take, without sacrificing their ability scores.

I started with 17 STR, 12 DEX, 15 CON, 8 INT, 14 WIS, 8 Cha. At level 20 I had 21 STR, 14 DEX, 16 CON, 8 INT, 15 WIS, 8 Cha with Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Charger, Heavy Armor Master, Mage Slayer, Sentinel, and Resilient (Wisdom) and Epic Boon of Irresistible Offense.

The new fighter is Amazing!

So, what would happen to this AMAZING new fighter if they scrapped that change to the feats, and went back to the old way and none of them increased your Ability Scores? Would the fighter still be amazing, or is it the FEATS which are amazing?

This is what I keep trying to say here. People are attributing the change to the wrong place. This new fighter is barely better than the old one, all it has are the weapon masteries. The other things are things that were changed MONTHS ago, and are completely different parts of the rules.

Edit: I was just looking over the mastery properties in a little more detail, looking at different possible synergies between them. Correct me if I am wrong here, but a level 18 fighter can make up to 15 ATTACKS in one round, in every thing line up! All it requires is have Polearm Master and two weapon fighting feats.

Attack 1: Any one handed weapon. Attack 2: offhand attack with nick for free and sheath both weapons Attack 3: Draw Halberd and attack. Attack 4: Halberd free attack with cleave. Attack 5: Halberd. Attack 6: Halberd. Attacks 7-12: action surge to repeat 1-6. Attack 13: bonus action Halberd attack. Attack 14: Reaction opportunity attack. Attack 15: Haste Spell.

Yep, Fighters are AWESOME!

You can't use nick twice.
You can't use cleave twice.

Even with the Dual Weilder feat, one of your two weapons must be light, and you would have to start with both of them drawn, which also means you can't repeat 1-6 with the action surge.

Not sure why we are adding the haste spell, since Fighter's don't get that.

But, it does look like a fighter can do Attack 1, Nick free, Halberd 2, Cleave free, Halberd 3, Halberd 4, Action surge for four more attacks, Bonus action attack, and still have their reaction. Which is 12 attacks. 13 is we insist that the Fighter has haste on them.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Nah, follow them down the cliff with your Monk soft landing ability and keep punching!

That would be awesome using your left hand to slow your fall while using your right to keep pumbling them as you fell, they land with a thunk prone you make a perfect superhero landing...

 

[Asisreo]

But, again, I'm not comparing the champion to the champion, I'm trying to compare the FIGHTER to the FIGHTER.

There is no 12th level base fighter. That's not how the class system works.

Nobody really cares about base class v base class because we're never going to play like that. A player isn't going to stop playing and go "yeah, sure I'm effective because I get an extra feat due to how races work now, but actually if we had played 5e but input only this one base class into the game, I'd only be 17% more effective in damage."

If we want to know how things work in-play, then we have to make full, playable characters for each system, including subclasses and any extra feats/abilities the new system provides.

 

[Kinematics]

You've slipped a stat point there if you were using the Standard Array. It should be 14 Con or 13 Int.

Nah, he dropped both Int and Cha to 8 to be able to start Con and Wis at 14, then added the +1 stat from background to Con. Str of course started at 15, then got the +2. 15/14/14/12/8/8 is a legit starting set, and the background additions would make it 17/15/14/12/8/8.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is no 12th level base fighter. That's not how the class system works.

Nobody really cares about base class v base class because we're never going to play like that. A player isn't going to stop playing and go "yeah, sure I'm effective because I get an extra feat due to how races work now, but actually if we had played 5e but input only this one base class into the game, I'd only be 17% more effective in damage."

If we want to know how things work in-play, then we have to make full, playable characters for each system, including subclasses and any extra feats/abilities the new system provides.

Do you remember what was often said about the Hexblade? It was a subclass designed to fix the base class. What about the sorcerers? Again, there was a lot of discussion that the Clockwork soul and other powerful sorcerer subclasses were the only ones that made the base class balanced.

Sure, no one is ever going to play a fighter without a subclass, but you know what they will do? They will play a fighter with a DIFFERENT subclass. They will play with subclasses that are unearthed arcana in 2026. So, while I could check and see if the new champion, with all of their abilities numerically improved, is better than the old champion (it is. Other than the debate if a floating skill prof is worth losing remarkable athlete) what I actually wanted to see is how much better is the new base-line fighter compared to the old base-line fighter.

Do I count feats? Probably not, since featless games are a thing and the fighter doesn't get more feats as part of their class. 5e Fighter and ODnD fighter get the same number in their class structure.

Do I count improvements to species? Probably not, because every species can be any class, so any improvements to them are improvements across the board.

Do I count improvements to magical weapons? No, because there is no guarantee they will get those weapons to use them.


If you are playing a character with improved feats, improved species rules, and improved magical weapons are they a more powerful character? Of course they are, you just improved basically every aspect of the character. But if you build something with a different set of rules for classes, species, feats, and magical weapons, how are you supposed to tell what parts are improved and what parts aren't? You just threw all of them together in a pot.

This is why you have controls. You hold all things except one aspect the same, then change that aspect. That's how you see the impact of a single aspect like this.

 

[Incenjucar]

Comparing the effectiveness of a class based on its features and the effectiveness of a class within its original context are very different. The latter is mostly useful for comparing editions and determining what changes to make to cross-edition adventures. When comparing class features you want everything other than the class features to be the working the same.

 

[codo]

You can't use nick twice.
You can't use cleave twice.

Yes I was wrong. I don't know how I over looked that. (Actually I do, I shouldn't be trying to do detailed analysis late at night when I am really tired, and I am not going to lie, a bit high.) In my defense I did say correct me if I am wrong. Just ignore the edit.

Shocking. Great Weapon Master PLUS Charger does more damage than just Great Weapon Master. You do realize of course that that has nothing to do with looking at the two feats side by side? Because it is a third, unrelated feat.

The thing is that in your comparison the old fighter and new fighter have the same strength. Because the new Great Weapon Master grants a +1 STR that the old one doesn't, the only way for that to happen is for your old fighter to have an extra ability score improvement. I am not adding anything extra, I am just comparing like to like. Two feats to two feats.

So, what would happen to this AMAZING new fighter if they scrapped that change to the feats, and went back to the old way and none of them increased your Ability Scores? Would the fighter still be amazing, or is it the FEATS which are amazing?

I don't know why you insist that we can only compare 5e and 1D&D by comparing elements in isolation with out looking at the bigger picture. I am comparing the old fighter to the new one, not just focusing exclusively on one feat. I don't particularity care which version of the Great Weapon Master feat is more powerful. I care a hell of a lot more about which version of the fighter is more powerful.

 

[Asisreo]

Do you remember what was often said about the Hexblade? It was a subclass designed to fix the base class. What about the sorcerers? Again, there was a lot of discussion that the Clockwork soul and other powerful sorcerer subclasses were the only ones that made the base class balanced.

Sure, no one is ever going to play a fighter without a subclass, but you know what they will do? They will play a fighter with a DIFFERENT subclass. They will play with subclasses that are unearthed arcana in 2026. So, while I could check and see if the new champion, with all of their abilities numerically improved, is better than the old champion (it is. Other than the debate if a floating skill prof is worth losing remarkable athlete) what I actually wanted to see is how much better is the new base-line fighter compared to the old base-line fighter.

What I'm saying is that the subclasses are too tightly nested into the base class to try to really say anything about them isolated.

Some base classes are weak and have strong subclasses. Some classes are strong and have weak subclasses. That dynamic might not remain stagnant across editions. They may want fighter subclasses to be where the power is.

Do I count feats? Probably not, since featless games are a thing and the fighter doesn't get more feats as part of their class. 5e Fighter and ODnD fighter get the same number in their class structure.

Do I count improvements to species? Probably not, because every species can be any class, so any improvements to them are improvements across the board.

Do I count improvements to magical weapons? No, because there is no guarantee they will get those weapons to use them.

Feats aren't optional so far in OneD&D so you can exclude them from the 5e fighter, but ignoring them in the OneD&D fighter is like ignoring new spells available to the sorcerer. There won't be a RAW featless OneD&D game, the DM would have to change the base rules to disallow feats.

Species are also a mandatory mechanic and you don't get a choice to go featless as a OneD&D human fighter.

Magic weapons are usually excluded anyways because they're very DM dependent, unlike the other class features.

If you are playing a character with improved feats, improved species rules, and improved magical weapons are they a more powerful character? Of course they are, you just improved basically every aspect of the character. But if you build something with a different set of rules for classes, species, feats, and magical weapons, how are you supposed to tell what parts are improved and what parts aren't? You just threw all of them together in a pot.

It doesn't matter what parts have improved or not. What matters is the overall player experience. If they get access to the same feats, but the feats have improved, then the class has improved.

Just like giving a sorcerer access to better spells improved the sorcerer.

You can try to forcefully isolate the base classes with crude assumptions and estimated translations, but what merit is there to that? What meaningful knowledge is there to be gained? That the OneDnD base fighter is carried by its new options? Okay, what insight does that give us in practice?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't know why you insist that we can only compare 5e and 1D&D by comparing elements in isolation with out looking at the bigger picture. I am comparing the old fighter to the new one, not just focusing exclusively on one feat. I don't particularity care which version of the Great Weapon Master feat is more powerful. I care a hell of a lot more about which version of the fighter is more powerful.

I think "how do the two mix and match?" is a legitimate question.

And the new fighter is from memory almost strictly stronger without feats. Weapon Masteries vs Nothing and Second Wind moving to daily at low level, Indomitable getting better.