D&D General Requesting permission to have something cool

[Paul Farquhar]

It would be nice if some of these people who complain that fighters are not as powerful as wizards would just play a wizard already! My experience is that wizards are in short supply, but fighters are a dime a dozen.

 

[Minigiant]

It would be nice if some of these people who complain that fighters are not as powerful as wizards would just play a wizard already! My experience is that wizards are in short supply, but fighters are a dime a dozen.

But they don't want to play wizard.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But they don't want to play wizard.

Why not? If power is what matters to that player, shouldn't they just choose what they think is the most powerful class?

Or if power doesn't matter, WTF are they moaning about?

 

[Oofta]

But they don't want to play wizard.

Then play a barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, monk, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, warlock, consider multi-classing or one of the subclasses of rogue or fighter that has spells. Look into 3PP if there's not enough options already.

It's not like the game is lacking for options. It also can't have every single option that anyone ever can want.

 

[Remathilis]

But they don't want to play wizard.

Yup. They want all the versatility and power of a spellcaster, but with full armor, heavy weapons and no downsides to casting (spell slots, concentration, VSM components, or antimagic).

Which is why if you want that versatility, you need magic and magic's tradeoffs. If you don't want that versatility, we're back to arguing power balance. But we keep hammering on how some people want Thor, some want James Bond and some want Boromir to be the iconic fighter power level.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You are correct. The fighter (and rogue, and to a lesser degree the barbarian) should NOT be mundane. They should be magical.

The fighter should never be "dude with a sword". The fighter should be "dude with supernatural ability who channels it into his sword". He should be born of the Gods, have dragon's blood in his veins or heir to the giant's legacy. He should breathe fire, sheath his weapon in energy, sprout wings and fly, and at 18th level have abilities that start "once per day, when you die..." The rogue should be walking through walls, disappearing Batman style during conversations, stealing hit points to provide him temp hp, or using supernatural aim to guarantee the next hit they make is a crit. The barbarian is riding this line already, lets push him over with rages that channel primal powers. There should be NO mundane subclasses and they should be looking at the bloodhunter and the monk for the level of supernatural ability all classes have bare minimum.

A cleric isn't a village priest. A rogue isn't a common pickpocket. A wizard isn't a local scribe. A fighter shouldn't be a town guard of infantryman. Mundanity is for NPCs.

To be fair, there seem to be a good many players who don't want to play a supernatural character, fighter or otherwise. Many fantasy stories players may use as inspiration feature non-supernatural characters in fantasy settings (like the "bard" in the recent D&D movie). Are we saying here that such players should just take a hike?

 

[Minigiant]

Why not? If power is what matters to that player, shouldn't they just choose what they think is the most powerful class?

Or if power doesn't matter, WTF are they moaning about?

It's not about power.

It's about fantasy.

D&D 5e and most 5e 3pp don't provide martial fantasies. It's all magic warriors.

Again they all keep making magic fighters.

Has anybody made a master swordsman fighter subclass yet? Or an expert marksman Fighters subclass?

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Why not? If power is what matters to that player, shouldn't they just choose what they think is the most powerful class?

Or if power doesn't matter, WTF are they moaning about?

Aesthetics.

People are trying to frame this thing as if it about some unhinged thirst for power or whatever, but what people want is for the classes to be more balanced so that they don't feel like sidekicks if they pick the "wrong" archetype. I retired my previous fighter because I got into some major sidekick territory and it sucked.

 

[Cadence]

Yup. They want all the versatility and power of a spellcaster, but with full armor, heavy weapons and no downsides to casting (spell slots, concentration, VSM components, or antimagic).

Which is why if you want that versatility, you need magic and magic's tradeoffs. If you don't want that versatility, we're back to arguing power balance. But we keep hammering on how some people want Thor, some want James Bond and some want Boromir to be the iconic fighter power level.

Legalos, Gimli, or Aragorn... but Boromir?

(I still remember a friend in 5th grade when we all seemed to be reading this and she got to that scene. She was crushed :-( ).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's not about power.

It's about fantasy.

D&D 5e and most 5e 3pp don't provide martial fantasies.

Sure it does, I see lots of people playing fighters with no complaints.