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

[Clint_L]

Why are there so many threads insisting that fighters need to basically be Goku at high levels? Like, why fighters particularly? Where are all the threads arguing that rangers, or monks, or rogues, or warlocks, or artificers, or barbarians need super-mega-power boosts? Is it just the fighters that have a particularly vociferous fan base?

Like, the monk thread is all about trying to buff them to be competitive with classes such as the fighter, specifically.

 

[Incenjucar]

Why are there so many threads insisting that fighters need to basically be Goku at high levels? Like, why fighters particularly? Where are all the threads arguing that rangers, or monks, or rogues, or warlocks, or artificers, or barbarians need super-mega-power boosts? Is it just the fighters that have a particularly vociferous fan base?

Like, the monk thread is all about trying to buff them to be competitive with classes such as the fighter, specifically.

Fighters and rogues are the only fully non-magical classes, and both are mediocre as a result, but rogues at least have a few extra tricks.

 

[Eubani]

Why are there so many threads insisting that fighters need to basically be Goku at high levels? Like, why fighters particularly? Where are all the threads arguing that rangers, or monks, or rogues, or warlocks, or artificers, or barbarians need super-mega-power boosts? Is it just the fighters that have a particularly vociferous fan base?

Like, the monk thread is all about trying to buff them to be competitive with classes such as the fighter, specifically.

Often in cases like this the Fighter is used as stand in for all martial classes except sometimes the Paladin, who always seems to land in a good place. I believe many think that if the Fighters ends up in a good place the other martials will follow.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Why are there so many threads insisting that fighters need to basically be Goku at high levels? Like, why fighters particularly? Where are all the threads arguing that rangers, or monks, or rogues, or warlocks, or artificers, or barbarians need super-mega-power boosts? Is it just the fighters that have a particularly vociferous fan base?

Like, the monk thread is all about trying to buff them to be competitive with classes such as the fighter, specifically.

Three obvious reasons:

1. The fighter gets diddly squat at high level; they pretty much entirely stop scaling in a way that other classes simply don't making them a poster-boy for the problem
2. The monk, rogue, and barbarian have the same problem but to a lesser extent. Fighter is where it's easiest to make the argument, partly because it's clearest and partly because it's most popular.
3. The monk's issues are a different but overlapping set.

If you look at the 5e fighter at tiers 3 and 4 one thing is immediately obvious. Between levels 12 and 19 the fighter gets precisely zero class abilities that are not either extra uses of lower level abilities or feats/ASIs that were not good enough for you to take at level 4. This is the plain and simple fact of the 5e fighter and demonstrates that there is literally no vision as to what a high level 5e fighter is supposed to look like. For all you can (and I probably have) said about the 5e monk Diamond Soul at level 14 is an awesomely good ability, Empty Body is at least interesting, and Tongue of the Sun and Moon and Timeless Body may be little more than ribbons but they are something new. Does this mean the monk doesn't need TLC (IME especially starting at level 7)? No. The monk has their own issues. But they aren't the poster child for the high level fighter's clear issues.

The other non-casters all have some major version of this. They in general don't have a lot that wouldn't be appropriate for level 1 when the primary casters are getting something new and powerful that changes their abilities at every odd numbered level (except 19). But the fighter is the one that makes this distinction both thematically and mechanically the clearest. The monk, for example, continues to get stuff every odd numbered level, even if e.g. "stops aging" will almost never come up in play, unlike a daily use of a seventh level spell (and even when it does come up it won't be more useful than a seventh level spell). So we start with the fighter; the barbarian and to a lesser extent the monk are meant to be balanced with the fighter (I'd argue the monk's more of a rogue or fighter/rogue type than a fighter) and if the fighter can have cool stuff at high level everyone can.

The monk also has issues of their own, not least of which are level scaling. The monk is, in no small part due to flurry, right at the top of the damage curve levels 1-4 but falls off a lot when the second attack goes to the martials; they get one but it's a far lower proportional increase. Stunning fist gives them a different type of offence of course - but this also falls off because as you level what you fight simply gets bigger and so has better con saves, and that from level 7-13 all the abilities they get are passive while nothing other than a die size helps their offence. This isn't a deep rooted conceptual issue so much as one of balancing.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I wish they'd put the magic weapons/armors crafting and the extra attunement slots of the Artificer on the Fighter.

I mean, the idea is that they are able to deal with the magical perils of their native fantasy setting by having access to all equipment so they can cover themselves with a boatload of magic items.

That's the Fighters' power source: magical loot.

Rogues could go the same way, or go with another supernatural power source, like a shadow-touched soul or being favored by Fate or Lady Luck.

 

[ChameleonX]

My proposed fixes:

Second Wind
You gain an extra use (so 5 total) at 15th level.

Action Surge - 2nd Level
Once per turn, you can take an extra action in addition to your regular action and a potential bonus action. You can't use this extra action to take a Magic Action.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until the next time you roll initiative for combat. At 15th level, you can use it twice per combat.

Vigilance - 2nd Level
You are always alert to danger while traveling, even when performing other activities. You also gain a +5 bonus to passive perception checks to notice hidden threats when you are actively standing guard over an area or creature(s).

Remarkable Athlete - 7th level
You gain proficiency in the Athletics skill, or another skill of your choice from the Fighter skill list, if you were already proficient in Athletics.

In addition, you choose two of your skill proficiencies that use Strength or Dexterity; you gain Expertise with the chosen skills, as well as all ability checks using Constitution.

Indomitable - 9th level
When you fail a saving throw, you can expend a use of your Second Wind, without regaining hit points, to succeed on the saving throw instead.

Weapon Specialization- 11th level
You gain access to special abilities called Specializations, which are upgrades to the Weapon Mastery effects of your weapons. Choose two of your Weapon Masteries; you unlock the Specialization for that mastery. Only you gain these benefits with the weapon, and you can change them after a long rest.

At 15th level, you can choose another Specialization.

Unconquerable - 17th level
When you use your Indomitable feature, you also regain hit points as if you had used Second Wind. In addition, you gain resistance to all damage until the end of your next turn.

-------------

Here is an example of Specializations. Each one can be used once, and then you have to wait until you roll initiative to use it again.

Great Cleave (Cleave)
When you use the Attack action, you can replace one of your attacks with a great sweep of your weapon; make a single melee attack with it against any number of creatures you choose within your reach. You make a separate attack roll for each target.

Lacerate (Nick)
When you hit a creature with the extra attack of the Light property, you can inflict a bleeding wound that reduces it's hit points by your Str or Dex mod at the start of each of its turns until someone uses an action to stop the bleeding with a successful Medicine check (DC 15).

Hamstring (Slow)
When you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to it, you can reduce the creature's speed to 0, and it can't benefit from bonuses to speed. It can make a Con save at the end of each of its turns to end the effect.

Ring the Bell (Sap)
When you hit a creature with this weapon, it becomes Dazed. It can make a Con save at the end of each of its turns to end the effect.

Sunder Armor (Flex)
When you use two hands to hit a creature with an attack using this weapon, it gains vulnerability to all damage until the end of your next turn.

 

[Shardstone]

Fighters using raw magic to do heroic physical feats is not anime, its global mythology. There are countless tales all over the world about people doing something impossible as a feat of willpower, skill, and badassery. Beowolf is the best example.

Beowolf survived sea dragons at the bottom of an ocean. He solod countless monsters. He was just a mortal.

If my high level fighte cannot be beowolf but your high level wizard can summon meteors or imprison gods, there is a problem.

Wanting to emulate beowolf at high levels is not wanting to be goku. Stop using reductive arguments and whataboutisms, its so cringe

 

[Chaosmancer]

How is that relevant? So what the Wizard is Robin, that hardly makes the fighter "ordinary"

The point is the fighter can do impossible things like Batman. People are running around acting like he can't.

Because if every potato farmer in the world can do the same "impossible" thing then it isn't actually impossible, is it?

IRL surviving the bite of a Cobra, without medical attention is about a 5% chance. That's real easy to model in DnD, you just are going to have to require a nat 20. At a DC 10 check, that means you need a -10 modifier which you would get at a constitution score of.... -10.

So, in DnD you have to effectively be DEAD ten times over, before your chances of failing that DC are "realistic". So saying that Fighters are extraordinary for being able to make that save is misleading at best, and outright ridiculous most of the time. Anything with 3 hp and a positive constitution score is more likely to survive a cobra bite in DnD than an IRL person.

Because people claimed Batman can do impossible things, implying that somehow D&D fighters couldn't.

So since when is Batman IRL? You can't just remove the context of DnD from the discussion of DnD

I did not say throw them into a pit and not die. Lots of people can do that, have done that. What I said is beat a Tiger to death while naked with your bare hands or Grapple and restrain a tiger with your bare hands.

Jack Reacher might manage that, but like Batman he is a character, not an actor. Characters, like D&D fighters, routinely do impossible things. Tom Cruise would not manage to beat a Tiger to death while naked with his bare hands and neither would Ben Afflac.

Tom Cruise and Ben Afflac aren't Action Movie Heroes. Shocker. This is my shocked face. Who would have guessed that actors aren't really the characters they portray.

But you do really get the point while you are whizzing by it. "Jack Reacher might manage that, but like Batman he is a character.... Characters, like D&D fighters, outinely do impossible things."

Yeah, a high level fighter beating a tiger to death is ROUTINE for characters like this. Do you think Tigers are serious threats to Dragons? Do you think the Demon Lord Graz'zt fears being left in a pit with a Tiger, because he might die? Sure, we can say "but it would be impossible for anyone to do IRL!" but it misses the point that we don't consider Tigers serious threats in most DnD games. The context matters, barely impossible feats (because give the human a spear and the tiger suddenly is very much at risk of being killed) are things we expect from mid-tier CHARACTERS.

It doesn't matter if a real life person couldn't do this. We depict people doing things no real life person could ever do all the time in media. But to be on the same level as high level casters, we really need high level warriors to get past the level of John Wick and Jack Sparrow.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Fighters using raw magic to do heroic physical feats is not anime, its global mythology. There are countless tales all over the world about people doing something impossible as a feat of willpower, skill, and badassery. Beowolf is the best example.

Beowolf survived sea dragons at the bottom of an ocean. He solod countless monsters. He was just a mortal.

If my high level fighte cannot be beowolf but your high level wizard can summon meteors or imprison gods, there is a problem.

Wanting to emulate beowolf at high levels is not wanting to be goku. Stop using reductive arguments and whataboutisms, its so cringe

Also, there's nothing wrong with 'anime'.

Getting all up in arms about being anime is like being up in arms about being 'books'.

It's the empty criticism of 2011 12 year olds.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why are there so many threads insisting that fighters need to basically be Goku at high levels? Like, why fighters particularly? Where are all the threads arguing that rangers, or monks, or rogues, or warlocks, or artificers, or barbarians need super-mega-power boosts? Is it just the fighters that have a particularly vociferous fan base?

Like, the monk thread is all about trying to buff them to be competitive with classes such as the fighter, specifically.

Rangers are currently doing decently. They need a little bit more, but they have spells and abilities like being able to turn invisible by spending a spell slot at level 13 (only ten levels after casters got Invisibility, so progress). So the framework is in place to give them a little more.

Monks have ki, which really should be a martial wide resource it seems, so again, they have the structure needed to improve, and their high level abilities get into the realm of the epic, with their ability to seperate their own soul from their body. They just need to be better.

Barbarians JUST got a big boost to this sort of thing with Primal Knowledge. It needs some tweaks, the ability to call on it without spending a combat resource like rage for one, but they are getting the framework for better things.

Artificers just need better crafting rules. Once that is in place, they are perfectly fine and able to do incredible things. Half the problem with creating a good crafting system is balancing usability versus the sheer power it gives artificers.

Warlocks are fine, they need some mechanical things, but they do fine in the narrative.


Fighters and Rogues lack the framework for advancement past tiers 1 and 2. We are still discussing whether it should be possible at all, and not if the source allows for them to do even more. This is why fighters and rogues get more discussion. Additionally, barbarians, paladins and rangers all get what the fighter gets. We already know that Weapon Masteries will be extended to the Ranger and Paladin, so we don't need to worry about that as much as figuring out this core issue.