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

[Chaosmancer]

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.

No problem

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.

If we need two feats to two feats, why not give the new Fighter Crafter or Musician? Why MUST we give them a feat which will increase damage, then pretend like the new fighter's class abilities are allowing them to deal more damage when it is the feat choice?

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.

Well, for my second analysis... I wanted to know which feat was more powerful. I don't care if you didn't care about that, I was just curious.

But, to your question on why I am insisting at looking at the fighter class abilities compared to the fighter class abilities, well, I thought I answered it, but I can explain it again.

Every species has been buffed
Every feat has been buffed
Character creation defaults to allowing more feats and languages
Many of the base rules for weapons, unarmed strikes, and skill checks have been buffed.

If all I did was take the 2014 fighter class and rewrite it word for word into the One DnD books.... it would be more powerful as a full kit, because every single aspect of the kit was improved. There haven't been any notable nerfs at that level of the game design. But they didn't just copy and paste the 2014 fighter, they gave them a new subsystem that improved their damage output.

So, to me, "which ruleset leads to a stronger fighter" is so self-evident as to not need analysis. The one where everything has been improved is better.


But, "does a little more damage" is not where I think we should be focusing on for the fighter. Now, if the new fighter actually was doing 1.5 times the damage of the old, that would change things, but as I showed... it isn't. And "doesn't deal enough damage" was never a real concern for the fighter in 2014. There were other things that we wanted. Other aspects of out-of-combat utility, in-combat supernatural effects, and ect that were discussed as a way to bridge the gap between fighter and other classes.

But, if you are only worried about damage between martials, well, there was a new video from Treantmonk out today. He looked at the Barbarian Berserker. No charger feat, same build (for the most part) as the fighter... and it did about 8 pts more of DPR under his analysis. 58.3 vs 50.44. Does that indicate a problem? I don't know. He immediately started speculating on other, non-champion fighters doing better damage, but this is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about. Do all barbarians do more damage than all fighters? Is it just the Berserker? Is it just the champion? What if he had made different feat choices for the barbarian? What if he had included reaction attacks, which he did not?

There are so many variables to change or consider, it is difficult to just take this information and make a conclusion about it. So why did we introduce these variables?

 

[Valetudo]

The game doesn’t reward you for going golf bag. You pick a fighting style, and that fighting style basically deciding if you go Sword and Board, Two Hander, or Ranged. The Defense style that gives a bonus to AC is the more versatile.

But there is literally no reason to have more than two weapons: Your main one and a ranged option if you don’t have one. If you’re going heavy armor, you’ll pick up some hand axes or javelin because you didn’t invest in DEX and that makes you more accurate. If you’re ranged you might have a rapier in case you need to melee. Losing the benefit of your Fighting style, and potentially feats, is not worth going for a different load out. And damage type are basically meaningless in about 99% of encounters.

5th right now is like this but I'm hoping monster get a resistance and vulnerability upgrade that makes weapon choice more important instead of just the highest dpr.

 

[codo]

This was the basic question. Is the new fighter stronger than the old fighter or are they stronger only due to the new feats? So if you gave the old fighter the new feats would they be stronger?

We're at cross-purposes. I meant that if you have the two versions of the fighter picking from the same pool of feats (or forced to take only ASIs) I think the new fighter is still slightly stronger. It's not just the impact of feats that's buffed the fighter.

Why does if matter if they are stronger because of the feats or because of the class. They are still stronger. Fighters get two extra feats vs most classes. The extra fighter feats are class features, that make the new fighter stronger.

I guess I just don't really see the point of analyzing each individual feature in isolation and not looking at how everything interacts together.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Maybe they do, but then isn't it worth knowing how much of the power comes from the class and how much from the subclass? If we never seperate them, how are we supposed to know which way to judge 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.

Only partially true. There is a feat which is simply the ability score improvement feat. And it was specifically included to allow for "featless" games.

True, species is mandatory. Is the fighter stronger now because Dwarves get Tremorsense? Or do we count that for the Paladin's class power? The reason I don't tend to look at species, is because species are universal, they apply to everything.

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?

The insight it gives us in practice is that a rising tide lifted all ships. If we know all the changes to the OneDnD base fighter are really coming from the feat choice, then we know Weapon Mastery isn't very impactful, and we are right back where we started with the other classes outshining the fighter. Because other classes get feats too.

I don't know if everyone else has put this together or not, but when I've played casters I've often felt frustrated because I needed to take an ASI increase instead of a feat, because spell save DCs were FAR too important to not have my stats higher, unlike strength or Dex versus AC. But that has also changed. Used to be a wizard who took Warcaster and Spell Sniper fell behind on their spell DCs by level 9 and 10. Now? Warcaster gives a +1 to your stat. Spell Sniper gives +1 to your stat. Fighters aren't the only ones who are going to be able to get stronger abilities AND increase their raw numbers, though they will hit the ceiling sooner.

That is the sort of insight that comes from figuring out if the power is in the class, or in the rules. Seeing how the rules are going to affect EVERYONE and using that to make sure that the classes that needed the biggest boost up are actually getting a big boost up.

 

[Valetudo]

How are these weapon masteries gonna affect the monk? He could use flex and nick maybe?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why does if matter if they are stronger because of the feats or because of the class. They are still stronger. Fighters get two extra feats vs most classes. The extra fighter feats are class features, that make the new fighter stronger.

I guess I just don't really see the point of analyzing each individual feature in isolation and not looking at how everything interacts together.

Because the 2014 fighter ALSO got two more feats compared to most other classes (one more than rogue)

It STILL wasn't considered stronger than the Paladin, or most spellcasting classes. It STILL felt like it was falling behind. Now, maybe the feat improvements will help with that. But seeing that the old fighter and the new fighter are basically identical other than Weapon Masteries, and seeing the impact those masteries had, is valuable to seeing if that gap started closing enough. And you can't tell that when you muddy the waters by giving one option all the weaker material.

 

[codo]

If we need two feats to two feats, why not give the new Fighter Crafter or Musician? Why MUST we give them a feat which will increase damage, then pretend like the new fighter's class abilities are allowing them to deal more damage when it is the feat choice?

You started out comparing the damage of the old Great Weapon Master to the new one. I thought we were talking about optimizing damage on a fighter. After all that is the fighter classes primary schtick.

You don't think that when comparing whether the old or new fighter does more damage, that we should pick the feat that does the most damage? Again, extra feats are fighter class features. More powerful feats are fighter class feature. If you want to compare something else like versatility or survival, just state what we should be looking at, so we are all on the same page.

So, to me, "which ruleset leads to a stronger fighter" is so self-evident as to not need analysis. The one where everything has been improved is better.

If it is so self-evident, why are you arguing so much with me for pointing it out? Rather than just agreeing with me and focusing on the specific points you are interested in.

 

[Valetudo]

Treantmonks got a video comparing both versions. I think the new version came out ahead by a bit when it comes to dpr. Now did it catch up? Uh, I mean did you see the sorcerer? Yeesh!

 

[ZetaShift]

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.

Tbf ASIs are feats so you can absolutely compare the two assuming they only choose ASIs. Or even non-combat feats, like actor or inspiring leader.

 

[codo]

But seeing that the old fighter and the new fighter are basically identical other than Weapon Masteries, and seeing the impact those masteries had, is valuable to seeing if that gap started closing enough. And you can't tell that when you muddy the waters by giving one option all the weaker material.

The fighters are basically identical other than Weapon Masteries... and the large buff to second wind, and the large buff to Indomitable, the several large buff the the Champion subclass (a free floating skill, free advantage, and Defy death make it impossible to for a fighter to be killed while he has any second wind uses left with indomitable.)

Again I just don't see how evaluating everything in isolation is any help. Synergies between abilities are a huge deal in D&D. I just don't see how you can actually evaluate an ability without looking at how other abilities can effect it. Look at the old weapon master feat, it is widely regarded as one of the most powerful feats in 5e. The thing is it actually sucks, unless you have a reliable source of advantage or another large boost to hit. Without it, the -5 to hit is just to crippling to actually be worth using.