D&D (2024) 4/26 Playtest: The Fighter

Broadly speaking, I'd consider the two versions comparable. As you get higher accuracy and more attacks, things lean more towards OGWM, while lower accuracy, fewer attacks, and Str mod bumps favor the NGWM. It's hard to say exactly where the transition point is since there's so many things that can vary by character build or encounter.
That sounds about right. In most cases the new great weapon is better. The old version is really only better if you have optimized for it. You have a lot of attacks and a reliable way to gain advantage or a large hit bonus.

Something to remember is the 5e weapon master is almost universally regarded as one of, if not the most overpowered feats in the game. The 1D&D version on the other hand, is generally regarded as average. There are lots of feats that are considered as good or better than it.

I think its a pretty good sign for 1d&d warriors that the most powerful feat in 5e is only better than it's 1D&D version when you specifically optimize to take advantage of it. Especally when the 1D&D version is only an average feat.
 

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If someone really wanted to play a 2014 fighter, Ok, they have to use the 2014 rules. The intention behind making the game backward compatible isn't to give players two option and let them pick whichever one is more powerful. It is to let players use both 2014 characters and 1D&D characters together at the same table, and to let 1D&D players use old options that haven't been updated yet.
Yeah at my table there will only be one “legal” version of each thing. Might not always be the new version, depends on how things shake out, but it’s one or the other.

Like all my content rules, an exception is possible for a good reason, but that’s the general rule, bc why wouldn’t it be?
 

In place of endless arguments about which is the 'right' way to compare the old and new changes, why not simply run the analysis your favourite way so that an additional analysis is in the mix?

Feats got boosted so it's looking likely that stat boosting feats are only going to be used occasionally in specific builds unless you are running a featless campaign. Comparing the two is fairly pointless but comparing two featless builds might be useful for some who prefer those campaigns. Comparing subclasses that haven't been updated yet might be of some interest but possibly premature. Will the Banneret get additional tweaks, for example?
 

If you want to see how much the fighter has improved, then you need to look at where they were, then look at where they are. And the Champion is perhaps the WORST subclass to attempt to evaluate how much the fighter subclass matters, because it is intentionally not given any abilities that require activation or really do anything complex. It is all just raw numbers. All they have for DPR is an improved critical range and 1 per fight advantage. If I use that as my baseline, then when we get a fighter with spellcasting, well, then things would be heavily skewed.

As for what we can do with the information, we can consider if the amount of DPR increase and the survivability increases from Indomitable and Unconquerable bridge the gap that was between the old fighter and the old casters. Then we can conisder the massive boost the sorcerer and wizard received. There is actually a lot you can use information for. That is why it is useful.
That's also not the information you're providing, though. If you wanted to know that, you'd calculate the difference of a fighter and caster from 5e and the difference of the same classes from OneD&D.

The information you're giving can't be used for comparison for the casters because you'd need to compare the caster's numerical changes as well.
Crawford literally said in the video that the feat debuted in that it was for those tables that want featless games, as a compromise.

But. again, even if feats are mandatory, feats are a choice. There is nothing stopping a fighter from taking Grappler, Speedster, Resilient, and Mage slayer instead of Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Charger, and Sentinel. Trying to analyze the fighter based heavily on feat choice does not give an accurate picture.
10 minute short rests are also given for tables that want it, but that doesn't make it default. And we assume the defaults of the current system whenever we make way to compare it to another system. Unless you're saying when we compare 5e to 4e we should assume 10 minute short rests as though they're "encounter powers" just because that's an optional rule, despite what the standard rules of the 5e system says.

Also, what you're saying is no different than spells on a sorcerer. One may choose fireball, twinned spell, empowered spell, etc. While another might choose invisibility, subtle spell, etc.

Heck, the base fighter themselves have choices where they might prioritize something else besides damage. Like taking defense fighting style and equipping sword and board rather than a greatsword.

If we're comparing damage, we have to assume they're doing what they can to maximize damage within their overall builds.
Sure, it would be a perfectly fine comparison IF I WAS COMPARING THE HUMANS FROM THOSE SYSTEMS. But if I'm comparing say, the rogue, stating that the OD&D rogue is superior because I picked human and one has darkvision and the other doesn't has actually not told me anything about the Rogue.
I think we're missing the obvious way to get the results that you want only because we imagine it to be hard and time-consuming.

But rather than making characters that will never exist and grabbing data that really doesn't have a use-case outside of theorycrafting, how about we make the whole range of fully-built fighters on both systems and compare them to find the damage.
And again, to go back to the source of this debate. In Treantmonk's recent Barbarian video, he flat out stated what his goal was. His goal was to see if the loss of the -5/+10 mechanic had hurt the damage potential of the classes. That was his goal. That is NOT my goal. I don't care over much about that feat, and even if I did, it was rather trivial to just analyze the feat itself to see what difference that made. MY goal was to compare the differences between the class. Sort of like homebrewing it. If you homebrew the fighter class, and want to compare it, you compare it to the non-homebrewed version.
Well, you're comparing damage since that's the only metric you've brought up. To me, its pretty obvious that if GWM is allowed to exist in your analysis, then it would be appropriate to add it into the discussion since it is the highest damage feat in the game that we know of.

You wouldn't really analyze the damage of fighters if you gave them both regular clubs.

Yes, obviously the wizard isn't going to get much benefit out of charger. But they might get a lot of benefit out of Warcaster, which was also improved in the same manner. And again, you just can't help but mix the class and subclass like they are identical. The Fighter does not have the option to crit with lower attack rolls. The Champion does. When we get literally every single other subclass, none of them will have that ability.
The fighter's subclass is an option, so yes they have an option to crit at lower rolls. In fact, the champion doesn't have the option, they just get it.

And what a wizard gets out of warcaster, as I said, has nothing to do with the fighter and their damage since a warcaster wizard affects neither even in comparison.

Which is why I wouldn't lie to them and say the fighter only has a 17% damage increase. I'd tell them that Weapon Masteries have only added about a 17% increase to fighter damage, and that is the only appreciable DPR difference between the 5e fighter and the OD&D fighter without feats.
It isn't about it being a lie, its about it being misleading, which it kinda is.

If you present that information as-is, you'll make it sound like playing a OneD&D fighter won't have any real damage increase. But when you account for feats and races and other system contexts, that isn't true at all.

If you saw an article that said "Elon Musk has less money in his bank than last year, only having $20,000 in his checking account, half of last year's total, not including his investments and savings," you'd probably think "this article is trying to clickbait me by withholding the important information that gives the proper context." Whether it was intentional or not, you'd recognize the case where the information given was misleading and could fool people just glancing at the information into thinking that something outside of reality is true, even if you don't explicitly say it.

And then, if someone said that their justification for publishing the article is that the audience should research it for themselves and it would be obvious, you'd probably blacklist that publication.
 

That's also not the information you're providing, though. If you wanted to know that, you'd calculate the difference of a fighter and caster from 5e and the difference of the same classes from OneD&D.

The information you're giving can't be used for comparison for the casters because you'd need to compare the caster's numerical changes as well.

You are correct that I only showed part of the information needed. I thought that was fairly obvious? Why would I need to calculate the difference between the 5e classes after all, it has been done to death. I can literally just google it.

And as for the numerical changes for the spellcasters, well, if you can figure out the numerical advantage of being able to permanently remove spell restrictions by level 9 and the ability to swap your entire spell list around with an hour's prep... I'd love to see it, because other than "holy crap!" I can't think of a way to put numbers to that.

10 minute short rests are also given for tables that want it, but that doesn't make it default. And we assume the defaults of the current system whenever we make way to compare it to another system. Unless you're saying when we compare 5e to 4e we should assume 10 minute short rests as though they're "encounter powers" just because that's an optional rule, despite what the standard rules of the 5e system says.

Yes, if I wanted to accurately compare the healing and resource recover of Hit Dice versus Healing Surges, I would assume 10 minute short rests, then note that many tables use hour long short rests. Why is that bad?

Also, what you're saying is no different than spells on a sorcerer. One may choose fireball, twinned spell, empowered spell, etc. While another might choose invisibility, subtle spell, etc.

Heck, the base fighter themselves have choices where they might prioritize something else besides damage. Like taking defense fighting style and equipping sword and board rather than a greatsword.

Yes, and?

If we're comparing damage, we have to assume they're doing what they can to maximize damage within their overall builds.
I think we're missing the obvious way to get the results that you want only because we imagine it to be hard and time-consuming.

No, we don't assume that. Note that no one has decided to use the Mordenkainen Presents species (which are valid to use as they have been stated to follow the same design philsophy) or the new Goliath, all of which have multiple options to add proficiecy bonus damage to the attacks.

I mean, if the new Goliath is in the PHB, then is would be "fair" to add the Goliath and their +prof mod fire damage to the OD&D version and then they outdamage the 5e version even more, because that option wasn't even available in the 2014 PHB. And such an analysis would be instantly flagged as misleading... so why wouldn't it still be misleading to compare two classes using two different versions of.... everything?

But rather than making characters that will never exist and grabbing data that really doesn't have a use-case outside of theorycrafting, how about we make the whole range of fully-built fighters on both systems and compare them to find the damage.

Because we don't need to?

Let's take that analysis I just did a little bit ago for the level 5 version of GWM. The OD&D version looked like this.

0.6x9.3x3 = 16.74
0.1x6.3x3 = 1.89
+3 added to a single attack in the set, once per turn (prof bonus at level)
Total for new 21.63 DPR

Now, let's say that I wanted to know what sort of difference the Battlemaster would make for this. Not in terms of utility, because things like push are very difficult to measure, but just in pure damage numbers. So, I can use Goading attack, as all it does for a rider is focus damage on me, and then add the damage. If I go nova and add three dice at 5th level, that would be 3d8, which is just an extra 4.5 per hit. It doesn't get increased on crits per the new rules so it would be.

0.6x13.8x3 = 24.84
0.1x6.3x3 = 1.89
+3 added to a single attack in the set, once per turn (prof bonus at level)
Total for new 29.73 DPR

So the nova for the Battlemaster is worth about 8 pts of DPR, though it should be noted that wipes a 5th level battlemaster out almost completely. I don't need to build an entirely different fighter with an entirely different species and entirely different feat choices... I can literally just look at the pieces and add or subtract them as needed.

Well, you're comparing damage since that's the only metric you've brought up. To me, its pretty obvious that if GWM is allowed to exist in your analysis, then it would be appropriate to add it into the discussion since it is the highest damage feat in the game that we know of.

You wouldn't really analyze the damage of fighters if you gave them both regular clubs.

Of course I would, the problem is that such an analysis is obvious. Two fighters with the same number of attacks, using the same weapon, with no ability to add more damage.... do the same damage. There are no differences between them.

This is why in my first analysis, the one where I was looking at fighter versus fighter, I really was only looking at cleave. Because I wanted the difference in the weapon mastery system, which is the only change that affects the fighter playstyle between the two classes.

The fighter's subclass is an option, so yes they have an option to crit at lower rolls. In fact, the champion doesn't have the option, they just get it.

But it is misleading. I could say that 5e wizard's have the option to wear heavy armor, and I could be technically correct (there are 4 ways to do it I can think of) but my phrasing implies something very different than the reality of the situation.

And what a wizard gets out of warcaster, as I said, has nothing to do with the fighter and their damage since a warcaster wizard affects neither even in comparison.

But the same thing making people claim I must account for Charger's bonus damage when comparing GWM to GWM is the exact same thing letting the wizard take warcaster and improve their spell casting DC. So those things are related.

It isn't about it being a lie, its about it being misleading, which it kinda is.

If you present that information as-is, you'll make it sound like playing a OneD&D fighter won't have any real damage increase. But when you account for feats and races and other system contexts, that isn't true at all.

If you saw an article that said "Elon Musk has less money in his bank than last year, only having $20,000 in his checking account, half of last year's total, not including his investments and savings," you'd probably think "this article is trying to clickbait me by withholding the important information that gives the proper context." Whether it was intentional or not, you'd recognize the case where the information given was misleading and could fool people just glancing at the information into thinking that something outside of reality is true, even if you don't explicitly say it.

And then, if someone said that their justification for publishing the article is that the audience should research it for themselves and it would be obvious, you'd probably blacklist that publication.

So tell me, in a massive post where I talked about how the feats were overrepresenting the damage, and how the species choice was unfair... how could someone have come away not knowing anything at all about the feats and species?

Doubly so, when my post was a response to the original idea of this increase in damage, and how it was an inaccurate view of the changes to the fighter class?

Yes, obviously if I was talking to someone with no idea about any of the changes to OD&D, I'd include the context. I'm not talking about throwing contextless numbers out, that is in fact what frustrated me so much with Mistwell's initial post. It claimed a 50% damage increase from the old fighter to the new fighter, and that all skills were improved by the ASI increases from the feats. But both claims turned out to be suspect. The damage increase was largely from the feats, not the fighter changes, and the ASI increases presented didn't go to ability scores for skills, but to strength for more damage. And in fact, the feats given to the fighter who had that increase in damage contribute nothing to skill checks, and only because Alert was free did it come up to try and make that claim. If given to the other fighter via the Strixhaven or Dragonlance rules, the old fighter would have superior checks according to the standard set.

But considering my post was a RESPONSE why must we assume that the information I presented would be presented without context? That makes no sense. I don't need to restate the context of a response every time I post.
 

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.
I wonder if Monsters will have special interactions with Masteries? Like, this monster resists that one, this monster has a weakness to it, etc...
 

You are correct that I only showed part of the information needed. I thought that was fairly obvious? Why would I need to calculate the difference between the 5e classes after all, it has been done to death. I can literally just google it.

And as for the numerical changes for the spellcasters, well, if you can figure out the numerical advantage of being able to permanently remove spell restrictions by level 9 and the ability to swap your entire spell list around with an hour's prep... I'd love to see it, because other than "holy crap!" I can't think of a way to put numbers to that.



Yes, if I wanted to accurately compare the healing and resource recover of Hit Dice versus Healing Surges, I would assume 10 minute short rests, then note that many tables use hour long short rests. Why is that bad?



Yes, and?



No, we don't assume that. Note that no one has decided to use the Mordenkainen Presents species (which are valid to use as they have been stated to follow the same design philsophy) or the new Goliath, all of which have multiple options to add proficiecy bonus damage to the attacks.

I mean, if the new Goliath is in the PHB, then is would be "fair" to add the Goliath and their +prof mod fire damage to the OD&D version and then they outdamage the 5e version even more, because that option wasn't even available in the 2014 PHB. And such an analysis would be instantly flagged as misleading... so why wouldn't it still be misleading to compare two classes using two different versions of.... everything?



Because we don't need to?

Let's take that analysis I just did a little bit ago for the level 5 version of GWM. The OD&D version looked like this.

0.6x9.3x3 = 16.74
0.1x6.3x3 = 1.89
+3 added to a single attack in the set, once per turn (prof bonus at level)
Total for new 21.63 DPR

Now, let's say that I wanted to know what sort of difference the Battlemaster would make for this. Not in terms of utility, because things like push are very difficult to measure, but just in pure damage numbers. So, I can use Goading attack, as all it does for a rider is focus damage on me, and then add the damage. If I go nova and add three dice at 5th level, that would be 3d8, which is just an extra 4.5 per hit. It doesn't get increased on crits per the new rules so it would be.

0.6x13.8x3 = 24.84
0.1x6.3x3 = 1.89
+3 added to a single attack in the set, once per turn (prof bonus at level)
Total for new 29.73 DPR

So the nova for the Battlemaster is worth about 8 pts of DPR, though it should be noted that wipes a 5th level battlemaster out almost completely. I don't need to build an entirely different fighter with an entirely different species and entirely different feat choices... I can literally just look at the pieces and add or subtract them as needed.



Of course I would, the problem is that such an analysis is obvious. Two fighters with the same number of attacks, using the same weapon, with no ability to add more damage.... do the same damage. There are no differences between them.

This is why in my first analysis, the one where I was looking at fighter versus fighter, I really was only looking at cleave. Because I wanted the difference in the weapon mastery system, which is the only change that affects the fighter playstyle between the two classes.



But it is misleading. I could say that 5e wizard's have the option to wear heavy armor, and I could be technically correct (there are 4 ways to do it I can think of) but my phrasing implies something very different than the reality of the situation.



But the same thing making people claim I must account for Charger's bonus damage when comparing GWM to GWM is the exact same thing letting the wizard take warcaster and improve their spell casting DC. So those things are related.



So tell me, in a massive post where I talked about how the feats were overrepresenting the damage, and how the species choice was unfair... how could someone have come away not knowing anything at all about the feats and species?

Doubly so, when my post was a response to the original idea of this increase in damage, and how it was an inaccurate view of the changes to the fighter class?

Yes, obviously if I was talking to someone with no idea about any of the changes to OD&D, I'd include the context. I'm not talking about throwing contextless numbers out, that is in fact what frustrated me so much with Mistwell's initial post. It claimed a 50% damage increase from the old fighter to the new fighter, and that all skills were improved by the ASI increases from the feats. But both claims turned out to be suspect. The damage increase was largely from the feats, not the fighter changes, and the ASI increases presented didn't go to ability scores for skills, but to strength for more damage. And in fact, the feats given to the fighter who had that increase in damage contribute nothing to skill checks, and only because Alert was free did it come up to try and make that claim. If given to the other fighter via the Strixhaven or Dragonlance rules, the old fighter would have superior checks according to the standard set.

But considering my post was a RESPONSE why must we assume that the information I presented would be presented without context? That makes no sense. I don't need to restate the context of a response every time I post.
Okay, look. It seems like we're not going to come to an agreement in this matter within the next 100 pages of this thread, so instead, can we agree that in terms of player experience, a character using a fighter will be more versatile, harder to kill, and deal more damage than if they made a 5e fighter?
 

I wonder if Monsters will have special interactions with Masteries? Like, this monster resists that one, this monster has a weakness to it, etc...
Some monsters have immunity to prone. Possibly some to push. Resistance to physical attacks is also a thing.

But I really doubt it will "immune to graze".

Maybe a DM will allow cleave to work against a hydra?
 

Some monsters have immunity to prone. Possibly some to push. Resistance to physical attacks is also a thing.

But I really doubt it will "immune to graze".

Maybe a DM will allow cleave to work against a hydra?
Yeah that could be interesting: creatures with multiple heads having a mention that stuff like Cleave or Nick can work on their separate heads. Maybe some creatures are harder or easier to Vex.

Any interactions better than simple ‘more damage’ and ‘less damage’ would be cool.
 


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