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

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean that monster hit points are elevated to the point where that effect happens rarely.

Someone mentioned before that ogres have 50 some odd hit points. I would expect that a 12th level fighter would make short work of a squad of 6. Apparently, this is not the case.

Ah, I see.

 

[Gammadoodler]

They're abstract. They're "dissociated" or whatever. But, you can imagine them how you like. FWIW.
Like, if you dislike a mechanic that touches on hp, you can imagine it in a way you find distasteful, and demand it be excised from the game.


The 12th level 5 fighter has his 2nd Extra Attack (since 11th) and can hit 3 times per round. He probably doesn't do a standard-issue 5e Ogre's 59 hp in one hit, it might take 2 or all three, IDK, there's no assumption of magic items or feats, so there's a range of possibilities....


In 5e you can move-attack-move-attack some more - everyone can, from 1st level, even.


5th, 11th, and 17th IIRC.

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Yes, I was aware of the increases in fighter capabilities. I was using a rough estimate of 20 damage for fighter damage per attack

Someone quoted this earlier, and it sounds about right for something like 2d6 + static mods + other stuff, noting that this is as big a set of damage dice as you can get from the mundane equipment list, and 'other stuff' would have to come from a class resource and/or from stuff like magic items and feats.

So roughly 3 attacks for each ogre. 6 attacks to spend at level 12 with action surge. 8 at level 17 (I might actually have been generous with the number of slayable ogres at level 20)

I also realize that it is possible to move- attack-move. But IIRC ogres are large creatures and take up 10 ft by 10 ft squares on a grid, so getting them to cluster conveniently within range of 30 ft worth of fighter movement isn't a trivial consideration.

It's certainly possible but more difficult than with smaller creatures.

That was the thought process anyway. Happy to be fact checked in greater detail if there was something I missed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Every class is predominately about combat. The Fighter's just the only one that suffers for it.

... suffers in the sense that it lacks capability outside the combat pillar compared to other classes, sure...
... and other classes can opt out of combat, like a wizard could choose no attack cantrips and few directly combat applicable spells, and probably not run out of choices too fast...

 

[Gammadoodler]

We already have a system that if you budget roughly according to the guidelines the fights take between 3-6 rounds. I don't know what you want or why. A level 6 fighter will be able to single-handedly take out that ogre, perhaps 2 if they spend an action surge ... so what's your point? You want fundamental changes to the game, I don't think they're necessary. Fair enough we have different desires.

What I want is fighters to have more meaningful capacity to kill things as they level up.

If a fighter takes a whole turn to kill an ogre at level 6, it should take significantly less time to kill that ogre at level 12, and ogres should be dispatcheable en masse by level 20.

Even a half step toward this would be nice.

Why should my level 20 fighter need to take a full turn to wipe out a number of CR 2 creatures equal to or smaller than the cast of the Golden Girls?

 

[Scribe]

Tell ya what, I'll put my solution into my 5e SRD Heartbreaker and all the Martials can be cleaving down droves of Ogres, or Orcs, or whatever let me check Vampires....hmm I dont know about Vampires, Vampires are pretty tough...

 

[Gammadoodler]

Tell ya what, I'll put my solution into my 5e SRD Heartbreaker and all the Martials can be cleaving down droves of Ogres, or Orcs, or whatever let me check Vampires....hmm I dont know about Vampires, Vampires are pretty tough...

Quoting myself here, but think I might have stumbled across something..

Make it a trait in the statblock "Minion 17" or something. "Any PC at or above the minion level listed in a creatures stat block can kill that creature with one successful strike"

Wouldn't even need to map it for all creatures. Some things maybe stay time consuming to kill while others don't.

 

[Scribe]

Quoting myself here, but think I might have stumbled across something..


Wouldn't even need to map it for all creatures. Some things maybe stay time consuming to kill while others don't.

Yeah, something similar-ish. There are tons of solutions and thats why these threads are so vexing to me.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

It's not that the high level fighter has a problem killing the ogre or were-hyenas in one round. They can typically kill multiple ogres in one round.

3 attacks (4th is capstone and i'm assuming we DON'T mean max level necessarily) with a holy avenger greatsword against an ogre will deal about 76 damage a turn assuming no expanded crit range and a +13 to hit (due to +3 weapon). 2 attacks will deal about 51. an ogre has 59 hp. at level 20 (so 4 attacks) but without a holy avenger (so no 2d10 radiant - but still a +3 weapon, because i am a merciful god), that's 58 damage - just barely enough to not kill the ogre.

so, uh, unless i'm missing something, then no. the bolded is false. they can typically kill one ogre in one round...if they have a holy avenger greatsword.

Someone quoted this earlier, and it sounds about right for something like 2d6 + static mods + other stuff, noting that this is as big a set of damage dice as you can get from the mundane equipment list, and 'other stuff' would have to come from a class resource and/or from stuff like magic items and feats.

that might have been me - and my initial calculations assumed beefy magic items (namely the same holy avenger greatsword as this post!), and i said without those magic items things would be even worse.

 

[Gammadoodler]

3 attacks (4th is capstone and i'm assuming we DON'T mean max level necessarily) with a holy avenger greatsword against an ogre will deal about 76 damage a turn assuming no expanded crit range and a +13 to hit (due to +3 weapon). 2 attacks will deal about 51. an ogre has 59 hp. at level 20 (so 4 attacks) but without a holy avenger (so no 2d10 radiant - but still a +3 weapon, because i am a merciful god), that's 58 damage - just barely enough to not kill the ogre.

so, uh, unless i'm missing something, then no. the bolded is false. they can typically kill one ogre in one round...if they have a holy avenger greatsword.

that might have been me - and my initial calculations assumed beefy magic items (namely the same holy avenger greatsword as this post!), and i said without those magic items things would be even worse.

Yeah. I was giving a pretty heaping helping of 'benefit of the doubt'.

To still arrive at a pretty unimpressive result.

 

[Oofta]

What I want is fighters to have more meaningful capacity to kill things as they level up.

Which they have. Via multiple attacks and action surges.

If an ogre takes a whole turn to kill an ogre at level 6, it should take significantly less time to kill that ogre at level 12, and ogres should be dispatcheable en masse by level 20.

At level 12 they will easily take out multiple ogres by themselves.

Even a half step toward this would be nice.


Why should my level 20 fighter need to take a full turn to wipe out a number of CR 2 creatures smaller than the cast of the Golden Girls?

You mean it might take a whole 12 seconds to wipe out Bea Arthur and company?

You can always set up arbitrary standards that can't be met. But if that fighter has GWM they will be doing around 23 points of damage per hit and will likely only miss on a 1. So it will only take 2 hits to take out a CR 2 monster. They have 4 attacks, 8 with action surge so they will likely take out the main cast in 1 round. It would take 2 whole rounds if you include regularly reappearing secondary characters. That's assuming only a 20 strength and a +1 weapon, which at that level is pretty low for most campaigns.

I fail to see the issue.