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

[deganawida]

We have five DECADES of lore, surely there has to be at least ONE fighter who is a legend, who is not a god, right?

The only one that I think can meet your comparison is Huma Dragonbane.

 

[Shardstone]

The more I think on it, the more I think that 1D&D needs to steal from the new 5E Lord of the RIngs and take Magical Successes.

In Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, a magical success is a special kind of success. When you make a skill or ability check and you have a feature that enables a magical success, you're invoking the inherent supernatural powers of Middle-Earth to do something incredible but not impossible. Some examples are Legolas skipping over stones that are falling to get across a crumbling bridge, or lifting a massive statue by yourself to throw it out of the way.

All martials should be able to achieve magical successes IMO, by spending some kind of resource — I suggest HD, since I like the aesthetic of pushing your skill beyond its limits but stressing your body out in the meantime. You could probably deepen the system into two tiers, minor magical successes and heroic magical successes, with the first coming online at 3rd level and the second coming online at 11th level. This would give martials a lot of agency with a pretty streamlined and easy to use system (Lord of the RIngs Roleplaying has a lot of examples to use and guidance for not making this into an absurd game mechanic).

Combine this with my suggested change to how weapon masteries are handed out, and then add in some "magical success" special features to weapon mastery, things like cutting through ANY material, or killing something immortal with a crit, or turning all damage from a high level spell to 0, and you'd have a "down to earth" martial that can do heroic things that capture a wide variety of fantasies while giving you a lot of buttons to hit and have fun with as a matial player.

I don't think this will happen, but it really would create my ideal Fighting Man.

 

[deganawida]

The more I think on it, the more I think that 1D&D needs to steal from the new 5E Lord of the RIngs and take Magical Successes.

In Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, a magical success is a special kind of success. When you make a skill or ability check and you have a feature that enables a magical success, you're invoking the inherent supernatural powers of Middle-Earth to do something incredible but not impossible. Some examples are Legolas skipping over stones that are falling to get across a crumbling bridge, or lifting a massive statue by yourself to throw it out of the way.

All martials should be able to achieve magical successes IMO, by spending some kind of resource — I suggest HD, since I like the aesthetic of pushing your skill beyond its limits but stressing your body out in the meantime. You could probably deepen the system into two tiers, minor magical successes and heroic magical successes, with the first coming online at 3rd level and the second coming online at 11th level. This would give martials a lot of agency with a pretty streamlined and easy to use system (Lord of the RIngs Roleplaying has a lot of examples to use and guidance for not making this into an absurd game mechanic).

Combine this with my suggested change to how weapon masteries are handed out, and then add in some "magical success" special features to weapon mastery, things like cutting through ANY material, or killing something immortal with a crit, or turning all damage from a high level spell to 0, and you'd have a "down to earth" martial that can do heroic things that capture a wide variety of fantasies while giving you a lot of buttons to hit and have fun with as a matial player.

I don't think this will happen, but it really would create my ideal Fighting Man.

Stealing that! Brilliant suggestion!

 

[W'rkncacnter]

What he said was "pushing away and knocking prone a bunch of mooks that have surrounded them is an impossibility".

That is simply false. It may sound cool but it is not true.

god, you are adamant to not acknowledge what he meant, huh?

Attack- shove prone
Extra Attack - unarmed strike with advantage because enemy is prone
Tavern Brawler Bonus action - grapple
Action surge Attack - grapple 2nd guy
actuon surge Extra attack - shove prone second guy

okay, fair enough. still not particularly relevant, but fair enough.

Combining prone and grapple will give an enemy permanent disadvantage attacking you (or anyone else), while you have permanent advantage attacking them. You can do this to two enemies at once and with action surge you can put it in place on both in a single turn. To break those conditions the enemy has to spend an entire action to TRY to remove the grapple and that will usually fail if you are a max strength fighter with athletics proficiency. That doesn't always work, some enemies are too big to shove or grapple (although precious few if you are a rune knight), some enemies have teleportation to get out of it, some are immune, some don't use attacks, and sometimes other party members won't want enemies prone, but this works effectively on a whole lot of enemies in a whole lot of situations.

once again - THIS IS NOT WHAT @Incenjucar WAS TALKING ABOUT. i SHOWED YOU WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT. THIS IS A DIFFERENT THING ENTIRELY.

Ok so two things. The poster did not say it wasn't practical, he said it was impossible, those are different statements.

he was referring to a specific trope. that trope is impossible. you were referring generally to shoving a bunch of opponents. that's just typically impractical.

Second I use action surge all the time to knock enemies prone.

no, you do it once per fight at most.

For example if you are fighting 4 trolls and you use action surge and prone all of them and then use all your move to back up they get 4 opportunity attacks on you with disadvantage and they lose 12 attacks on their turn. You are talking away a reaction and 8 attacks and giving them disadvantage on the 4 attacks they get. If you have mobile or they have already used their reaction they don't even get an opportunity attack with disadvantage.

or. you know. they just...stand up on their turn and act normally (barring losing half their movement, but a lot of the time that won't matter anyway).

I don't see a problem at all with what I said.

the problem is that you are still not understanding what you are addressing. you keep saying "oh you can prone these people at level 20" when that's not all he's describing.

all you're doing is being a distraction at this point.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Probably the closest would be Drizz't or Bruenor. There were others who started off as Fighters, but then took levels in a caster class. So, pretty much proving your point.

Yeah, I thought about both of those too. The strongest enemy I can find Drizz't fighting alone is a MArilith, who is CR 16. Which is really impressive, but the game goes to CR 30, and the enemies we have Wizard's fighting can even reach that. (Didn't Raistlin fight an aspect of Takisis, Queen of Darkness and Evil Dragons?)

Bruenor is a bit harder for me to pin down, he never seems to fight anyone alone.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Yeah, I thought about both of those too. The strongest enemy I can find Drizz't fighting alone is a MArilith, who is CR 16. Which is really impressive, but the game goes to CR 30, and the enemies we have Wizard's fighting can even reach that. (Didn't Raistlin fight an aspect of Takisis, Queen of Darkness and Evil Dragons?)

according to the demogorgon page on the forgotten realms wiki, drizz't did defeat demogorgon...by "being a channel for magical energy", whatever that means. i'm not gonna buy maestro to find out.

Bruenor is a bit harder for me to pin down, he never seems to fight anyone alone.

from what i can find, he died to a pit fiend.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That won't work for me. I need the mechanics to prevent not only me, but other Batmans from exclipsing Superman.

Then learn self-control. Seriously, if you don't want powerful fighters who can actually fulfill the fantasy of powerful fighters, then level cap them and then have the self-control to follow through with that. Stop insisting the rest of us have to be shackled to you.

Drizzt Dourden, Bruenner Battlehammer, Caramon Majere, Abdel Adrian, Kelemvor, Havilar, Erivis Cale. That is seven right there.

I would also say Dove Falconhand, but that might be a stretch as she is a chosen of mystra.


Drizzt BEAT Demogorgon as a well as the Ghost King.

Kelemvor was so powerful he became a God!

Cale took on Mephistopholes and Kesson Rel (albeit with help)

Yes we do. That was easy.

Drizz't beat Demogorgon? Hmm, that didn't show up before.
Does Research

Wow.... WOW.... talk about cherry-picking. To quote " Drizzt Do'Urden defeated Demogorgon in Menzoberranzan by acting as a conduit for a barrage of magical energy, released upon him and held by the kinetic barrier of an illithid hive-mind."

So Driz'zt Defeats Demogorgon with the aid of an Ilithid hive-mind and did so by acting as a conduit for magical energy. Not because of his skills or talents or power, but because he was a basically a living lightning rod.

Meanwhile, Raistlin solo's an aspect of Takhisis, a CR 30 aspect of a God.

Totally comparable.


As for the Ghost King... well, according to the wiki, that's just a flat lie. Again, quoting the wiki

"Seeing his [Cadderly's] wife and some friends in danger, his need to act called out and something answered. Reciting off unknown spells, he creates a flying horse and carriage out of a cloud and rides down to rescue the fighters below displaying godlike power in the form of potent and great unknown spells.

The Ghost King is defeated but escapes to the Shadowfell, where he recovers rapidly. He returns and is defeated a second time, disappearing to the Shadowfell again. Cadderly uses Catti-brie as a conduit to enter the Shadowfell to finish off the Ghost King. In the end, Cadderly defeats the Ghost King at the cost of his life and becomes the new Ghost King, forever reinforcing and guarding the ward containing the rift left by the old Ghost King."

So, The Ghost King (an empowered Draco-lich) does not get defeated by Drizz'zt but by a 20th level cleric.

Kelemvor became a god, multiple wizards have turned down godhood because it would make them too weak. (Raistlin famously)


Erivis Cale did not defeat Mephistopheles, he was KILLED by Mephistopheles, and this was AFTER he had gained a shard of divinity. And, like you said, defeating Kesson Rel was a team effort, and one of the major people on that team was again a High level cleric, while another was the chosen of a god if I am reading the information correctly. Kesson Rel himself was a mutli-classed level 20 character.


So, out of your seven I've already discussed in this post and others four of them, and I've shown that you have flat out been wrong about multiple feats. But let's look at Caramon Majere.... and I can't find a single notable fight for him. He doesn't even seem to kill a dragon in the entire saga. So, sure, he's famous, but looking around he's only supposed to be 12th level, so even if he did have some amazing fight to show how awesome he is... a 20th level fighter should be better.

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Oh my good frickin lord. Abdel Adrian IS LEVEL 3, MAYBE LEVEL 4!!!! You put a level 4 fighter down as an example of what a 20th level fighter should be!! And he is a Bhallspawn with magical powers!!!!

You just listed well known fighters. That's all you did here, isn't it.

Just to complete the list, Havilar's greatest feat.... killing a Mummy. And she didn't even do it, her sister did it with magic by blowing up a volcano. Havilar was defeated by a Succubus.


Yeah, sure was easy to list all these people who AREN'T on the level of "personally fought an Archdevil to a standstill". The closest you got was Erevis Cale, who was killed by an Archdevil and only defeated a powerful mortal with a divine shard in them... with the help of a chosen of a god and a powerful priest.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The only one that I think can meet your comparison is Huma Dragonbane.

Yeah, he does seem to be the closest. He dies in the fighting, and was using a weapon specifically designed to kill dragons, but he did make the goddess feel pain with the single blow he got in...

The same goddess that Rasitlin defeats.

I don't want to say he isn't a cool character, he is. I love a lot of these characters or at least their archetypes. The problem is, if I'm looking for parity... mages just get to be cooler and more powerful across the board. And these are much clearer examples than trying to talk about Batman or Captain America, because these are straight DnD examples.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You know, I'm almost glad for ECMO3's ridiculous attempt, because it just highlights the issue, doesn't it? Without looking, you can't tell the difference between a level 4 fighter, and a level 20th fighter in a story based way.

Heck, look at Erevis Cale's official statline. Male Shade Rogue 6/ Fighter 3/ Cleric of Mask 11/ Divine Agent 2.

He is a level 3 fighter. Even if you combine that with the level 6 rogue, that is 9 levels.... while he is a level 11 cleric.


Caramon Majere? Official material has him as level 9

Drizz'zt do'Urden? Ranger6 Fighter8 Rogue2 Dervish1 Barbarian1. All martial characters at least.


So here we have a list where a level 4 fighter is being compared to a level 9 fighter is being compared to a character with 11 levels of cleric and 9 martial levels, to a Ranger/Fighter/Rogue/Dervish/Barbarian.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The only fighter I'd consider a legend in D&D (and even Drizz't was pretty explicitly a ranger in most sources) was Sir Robilar. Fighter 13. The main things he had going for him were that he was a PC fighter at Gygax' table, and had one on one games with Gygax - and Rob Kuntz was a very skilled and smart player. Robilar of course did a lot of what he did with a collection of magic items that made him resemble a Christmas Tree, DM fiat, and by then being immortalised - with the other PCs in the wider group being about the same level (higher level was for NPCs) and were working under OD&D spell acquisition rules.

And in the lore Robilar was explicitly the commander of (Medium) Rary's forces; Rary being a wizard played by Brian Blume