D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[FrogReaver]

One reason "all choices being viable" doesn't really imply that one would have to be doable. It may technically be a possible choice, but it's not a choice presented by the class nor suggested by any concept a player might have...

This is soo far out in left field there’s really no point in me continuing. Happy Gaming.

 

[ECMO3]

i really fail to see how equalising choices is at all a bad thing?

I fail to see how it is automatically a good thing and if people are choosing underpowered options that implys the game is fun for them with those imbalances. I know it is fun for me.

'Oh no, i get to pick the class/subclass/species/feat/item i want to use AND get to mechanically contribute on the same level that everyone else is, this game is ruined for me',

Except that class mechanics are not a major driver in that. I am playing in one game right now as a Monk and I am contributing as much as I want.

I am played in another game today and the Barbarian in the party way overshadows other players and not in a good way. In that game I am playing a high-charisma Rogue but I almost never make a Charisma check because he is always making them and Charisma is his dump stat (I think he has below a 10). Would he be overshadowing me less if I was a Wizard? Unlikely!

That is an example of two "weak martials" that are contribnuting (one of them contributing too much).

it only reduces the meaninfulness of choices if you think that having multiple equally valued choices to pick from makes them less meaningful.

Two things. First, I think putting fluff into choices to make them more mechanically balanced would make them less aesthetically pleasing and less meaningful.

Second the relative power of a specific choice is one thing you are considering when you are making a choice and if you balance them you take out that variability and that choice. For example, aesthetics aside; if I want to choose an OP option I can't do that if all the options are the same. Similarly if I want to take an underpowered option I can't.

People want to play "god Wizards" and other people want to play "dumb fighters" and others still want to play support characters along for the ride and if you make all options equal those purposeful choices go away.

equalising viability and effectiveness lets people focus on the actually important part

Except the effectiveness is often an important part of the decision.

when choosing options which is making their character how they want to make them, or to use a food metaphor, by your preference it would mean the size of our serving is determined by the meal we pick but they all cost the same price to order, the martials only have a small portion just because they wanted the soup, whereas casters have an entire buffet table, while what we're saying is why doesn't everyone recieve the same sized plate so everyone they can eat what they want to eat and still get a satisfying portion of their meal.

This analogy is not accurate to start with unless you specify a specific level range. But to address this more head on, there are certain foods that are undeniably better for you and that is not correlated to choice or price. Further expensive options (like meat) are often objectively worse for you than other less expensive alternatives. Yet you are allowed to choose what you want to eat in the restaurant - good choices, bad choices, expensive choices, cheap choices. When you pick something off the menu you get the sides that go with it, it comes in the size it comes in and the menu offers all of the options, including the buffet. If you order the steak though you don't get to eat off the buffet.

Similarly, you open the PHB to a menu of options, certain sides go with certain options (action surge with fighters, buffet with casters) ... you order the size plate you want and the sides you want.

No one should be forced to play a Fighter or a Monk or a Wizard, but you should be allowed to choose that "small plate" if that is what you want to choose and no one should have to order off the Wizard the buffet.

Further I will go back to an earlier post, I pointed out that giving martials spells would balance them better than they currently are, that is giving them the actual "buffet" option the Wizard gets and would be far easier than other ideas to balance.

Would this fix it for you - spells (i.e. the real buffet) for all? I am guessing the answer is no, so you want everyone to get the buffet, but you don't really want them eating off the same buffet/

yeah, but even if there are trap options for casters given that they're 99% spells it's generally significantly easier to swap one out if you discover it's awful, at worst some casters are stuck with it til their next level up and there's a vastly larger options of alternate choices to pick from when they do get to change it, some martial trap options are near entire subclasses it feels like or ones you can't back out of unless your dm lets you retcon your choice.

I don't think there are actual trap options in the subclasses, a couple are very underpowered, but even there they are still generally viable. Moreover though Tasha's gives you the option to change your subclass if you do find it to be a trap. If your DM does not follow those rules that is what it is, but I think that is a table problem, not a rules problem.

Here is a hot take on trap options - IMO investing in a high Constitution is a trap, probably the most common trap option I see in play and one many players deny is a trap or worse suggest is optimal. Many, many players make Constitution their #2 stat regardless of class but unless they are a race/class/subclass that works off Con (Dhampir/Barbarian/Rune Knight) most characters would be better mechanically with Constitution being their 4th or 5th highest stat. The ramifications for going with say a 16 Con and 12 Wisdom on a Fighter or Rogue or even Wizard, instead of reversing those, is generally going to gimp your character more than your subclass selection will.

 

[ECMO3]

I don't think the ability to willfully build a bad character ever disappears from any TTRPG, that, y'know, lets you build your character.

Extremely high ability scores precludes the ability to build a truely bad character, even purposely. It does not preclude making purposeful bad decisions in game though.

 

[ECMO3]

Game balance is an older concept than TTRPGs, EGG was openly trying, however baroquely and unsuccessfully, to build balance into the system back in the 1e DMG.

That is irrelevant. Being an old concept does not make it true and this proves nothing.

Balance is a positive quality that games can posses.

There is no actual evidence at all to support this claim. This is entirely underpinned in feeling and supposition.

If you want to argue that balance is bad, you have a very difficult uphill battle. You're going to need more than the standard-issue unverifiable anecdote from an anonymous internet source, or fallacious appeal to popularity.

My argument is as strong as yours. Stronger if you consider the implicit relationship suggested by the popularity of the most balanced version of the game and other versions

Of course whenever that is stated, the response is that does not show balance is bad, and that is true it doesn't, but there is nothing to show that it is good either.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That is irrelevant. Being an old concept does not make it true and this proves nothing.

That game balance is a bad rather than a desirable trait for games is an extraordinary claim.

If you want to prove an extraordinary claim, you'll need strong evidence.

Stronger if you consider the implicit relationship suggested by the popularity

Fallacious appeals to popularity are not such evidence.

I mean, this was supposed to be a thread about problems with the fighter, and it's progressed to arguing whether balance is a thing.

Extremely high ability scores precludes the ability to build a truely bad character, even purposely. It does not preclude making purposeful bad decisions in game though.

Purposefully bad decisions are bad enough, to be sure.

But what do extremely high ability scores have to do with willfully building a bad character? They're not generally forced on players....

 

[Oofta]

That game balance is a bad rather than a desirable trait for games is an extraordinary claim.

If you want to prove an extraordinary claim, you'll need strong evidence.


Fallacious appeals to popularity are not such evidence.

You claim that balance is inherently good, it's not. Correct me if I'm wrong but @ECMO3 is simply pointing out that there's no reason to believe that. Balance is neither good nor bad, it's just one factor of many.

Personally I don't think it's measurable or all that important. The classes are different, to a lage degree it's comparing balance between them is apples and oranges.

But since it's something that can't easily objectively be measured you just declare it so and that the game suffers for it. That it matters to a significant percentage of the player base. With no justification.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You claim that balance is inherently good, it's not..

It's a positive quality for a game to have.
The only plausible sense in which it's "not inherently good" is a moral one. Sure games aren't inherently good or bad in a moral sense. The life's work of Jack Chick and Patricia Pulling, notwithstanding.

That's not relevant, of course.

 

[Oofta]

It's a positive quality for a game, the only sense it's not 'inherently good' is a moral one, games aren't inherently good or bad in a moral sense. That's not relevant, of course.

We disagree. Repeatedly stating that it is a positive quality, necessary at all, or even measurable, changes nothing.

Meanwhile nobody is saying balance is a bad thing either.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The concept of game balance is not something made up out of whole cloth specifically for these discussions, like the Oberoni Fallacy, or CaW/CaS or Dissociated Mechanics.

 

[Oofta]

The concept of game balance is not something made up out of whole cloth specifically for these discussions, like the Oberoni Fallacy, or CaW/CaS or Dissociated Mechanics.

I didn't say the concept was made up. I said it's not as important to most people as it is to you. That and many people don't see the same level of imbalance you see.