D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Vaalingrade]

Not in 4e D&D. Hit points represent resilience relative to an opponent. In 4e D&D the closest to an "atomic" representation of power is the XP value of the creature, which is a function of level and solo/elite/standard/minion status.

Not in any D&D. Like ever, actually.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Blade killed a bunch of vampires with single punches and kicks. And he is just a dhampir with high states within the human range.

I wanna be Blade. Blade is cool.

I recommend Vampire the Masquerade.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And this is the sort of prescribing narrative I don't care for. The ogre is an ogre that has an objective existence.

Seriously, it's imaginary. It has no objective existence, or even subjective existence. What it is, what it can do, how tough it is, whether it exists - all entirely arbitrary.

Maybe the PCs fight it, maybe they befriend it. Maybe they win, maybe the ogre wins. Maybe they leave it alone, but re-encounter it several levels later.

I mean, if they befriend it, and make a real difference to it, some of it's stats might change, like it's alignment. If they win, obiviously, it's stats change, as it's dead. If the ogre wins, maybe it takes an NPC Warrior level or some equivalent. If it's several levels latter, the PCs stats have certainly changed and the ogres might have.

And when the demigod and the blacksmith decide to face the ogre together? What then?

For playability, I'd stat the blacksmith more like a minion, but that's a variant I've toyed with, not part of the system.
Practically, you'd use the minion stats, the blacksmith would loose initiative badly to the demigod, who would one-shot the ogre.

Most reasonably, you wouldn't run a game for a 4th level and 16th level PC.

For completeness: that an Ogre has 1 hp or 100 hp or whatever is obviously not a setting fact (unless your setting is some fourth-wall breaking comedy thing). It's a mechanical state of affairs that is only relevant to game play.

True, hp are an extreme abstraction that delivers a decent compromise between playability and genre emulation (and gives simulation a miss, tbh). As unsatisfying as they often are as simulation, narrative device, or balanceable game element, they are one of the better ways of handling PC durability that I've seen, and certainly simpler than those I might judge superior. For handling monsters/NPCs/objects they have some issues. But for PCs, arguably a good mechanic.

I'm not sure a minion mechanic would help the issue we're seeing here with 5e. 5e has fighters scale primarily in terms of damage and primarily by getting extra attack. That makes them very good at single-target DPR because of the AC, hp, and damage bonuses have always worked in D&D makes multiple attacks against a single target, frankly, a bit broken.
Thus, if you tune a high level fighter to keep pace when grinding down a single high-hp target (the most potent use of multi-attack, the class's most potent feature), the class will fall behind when trying to mow through many targets (and indeed, everywhere else but single-target DPR). It's like requiring the wizard to divide up his meteor swarm damage among the enemies who fail their saves, instead of doing the full damage to all of them...


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[pemerton]

Not in any D&D. Like ever, actually.

Maybe. But I'm more confident defending my special case of the general claim!

 

[Minigiant]

I recommend Vampire the Masquerade.

Nah. VTM nerfs thinbloods and dhampir worse than D&D.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not sure a minion mechanic would help the issue we're seeing here with 5e.

I've got no view on 5e design, other than that I don't care for it and I don't play 5e D&D.

But I do have an answer to the OP question: a mundane high level fighter looks like REH's Conan, who can kill a pack of were-hyenas with bow, sword, and his bare hands. And I do know of one version of D&D which reliably produces that sort of fiction: 4e D&D.

 

[pemerton]

You seem to be confusing objective with verisimilitudinous. Whilst personally I feel objectivity of the setting and robust rule-fiction coherence is I am really not going to worry about completely hypothetical nonsense like peasant rail guns. Like if that's an example of issues with a system then I'd say the system is in pretty excellent shape!

But you seem to think the demigod with the blacksmith buddy is a big problem for 4e!

 

[pemerton]

You seem to be confusing objective with verisimilitudinous.

Objective has a few meanings. None of them entail that using minion rules for statting NPCs/creatures means that those NPCs/creatures are not objective.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

This assertion is question-begging.

No, you are drawing invalid parallels from other non-D&D universes that don't follow D&D rules.

Because? What else should a high-level fighter be doing, if not cutting their way through a crowd of werewolves (or ogres, or velociraptors, or whatever).

We are talking about D&D with D&D rules, not a comic book. (A Velociraptor is 10 hp. A Deinonychus is 26 hp. An Allosaurus is 51 hp.)

We are not talking about a Fighter surviving a long, drawn-out fight against a crowd. We are talking about one-shotting D&D monsters with decent hit points. Werewolves and Ogres are 58 and 59 hp each, respectively. Using your Conan example, you appear to be saying that a high-level fighter should be dealing 60 damage with each unarmed strike, and should be taking out a dozen werewolves, ogres, or allosauruses in only 3 rounds. How about a dozen hill giants? Wyverns? Where is your HP limit on one-shot kills?

* Later edit to my commentary: I spaced that this was not a 5E-specific conversation. It is obvious I'm only coming at this from a 5E perspective. Of course there are games where the design allows for one-shotting traditionally scary monsters. Your preferences are valid.

 

[Remathilis]

What other things should probably be on this list if you were to create a mundane fighter?

He looks a lot like what the 5e fighter in playtest 7 is: a collection of "inner reserve" abilities that make him reliable, not flashy. The 5e fighter is reliabe: his abilities mostly are there to circumvent bad dice rolls. Advantage on subsequent attacks, rerolling saving throws, adding SW to skill checks. He doesn't necessarily do anything unique, but he does everything that base characters do far more reliably. (Except for skills, where rogues edge them out in reliable use).

Of course, that's not really all the sexy. It's all steak and little sizzle. But then again, we are talking mundane. If we don't want mundane, I direct you to any of the numerous threads where we endlessly argue about what is beyond mundane...