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

[Zardnaar]

I can't really argue with most of that. I will say though that I think the "nonmagic fighter" or for that matter a non-magic PC is an antiquated design concept as well. When we talk about grognards, I think that needs to be thrown into that bin too.

So I will by your theory that the splatbooks are what the 5E community want from fighters, but I also think the focus on "magical" fighter options is because I think that is what most 5E fans want as well.

I've played a lot of 5E Monks, Fighters and Rogues but I've never had a desire to play one that is non-magical and I think that is pretty common in 55E. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have ever played a character 4th level or higher in 5E that could not cast a spell of some type.

Are they wanting it because it's magical or because the non magic options kinda suck?

Non magical fighters pre 3E kick ass for example and in OSR.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't agree that Rune Knight is much better at 3rd and 4th level. Even with a low intelligence, being able to use Blade cantrips at level 3, while also having 2 spell slots is pretty effective for a melee fighter.

RK is substantially better at level 5th and 6th level though, I will admit that, and they are more flexible.

Note I reard ranged fighters as just better hence Rune Knight being number 1.

But that's the 3 best fighters along with Battlemaster assuming the BM and EK players know what they're doing (which a few don't tbf).

 

[James Gasik]

Are they wanting it because it's magical or because the non magic options kinda suck?

Non magical fighters pre 3E kick ass for example and in OSR.

They did, though I think we have to look at the possible reasons why.

-Exceptional Strength.
-"Exceptional" Constitution.
-AC that doesn't suck.
-Ability to stack Dex and Armor.
-Weapon Specialization.
-"Cleaving" low level foes.
-Better potential for hit points.
-Magic item tables.
-Better combat tables/Thac0.
-Better saving throw advancement.
-Sweet, sweet Kits (2e).
-Extra Attacks.

Now all this isn't true for all Fighters. You might not have stats above 16. You might be playing without UA if you're a 1e Fighter. You might have a terrible Dex. Your DM might not roll random items or use published modules. You might just suck at rolling d10's for hit points.

But it isn't impossible to imagine how all these options worked together to make the Fighter a powerhouse, especially in light of:

-lower monster hit points.
-lower monster AC (this one surprised me, my memories are of constantly having to deal with low AC enemies and not really caring with my Fighters, but looking through the monster books, it's surprising how many powerful foes in 1e had relatively normal AC's. 2e seems to have adjusted this, however).

Digging up one of my old sheets, I have a Fighter 13 with 19 Strength, dual-wielding +3 weapons with specialization, and he gets 7/2 attacks per melee with a Thac0 of 1, dealing 1d8+12 damage per hit, which means his average damage against AC -10 is still like 28.8 and a Great Wyrm Red Dragon has like 108 hit points on average, meaning it could die inside of two rounds of combat! And as for saving throws, between my Ring of Protection, Cloak of Displacement, +3 armor (2e rules), luckstone, and Scarab of Protection, there's a lot of saves I can only fail on a 1. And as if all that wasn't bad enough, I still had about 120 hit points enemies needed to chew through before I had to run away and let my regeneration heal me back up, lol.

Now though? A Fighter 12 gets 3 attacks per turn for 2d6+6 (I can assume a +1 weapon, but I've never had a +2 or better in 5e. Likely wouldn't have anything near my 2e Fighter's loadout of items). Or can dual-wield (not usually a great choice) for 1d8+6 (8 if a Champion).

Sure, there's Action Surge, but an Ancient Red is a CR 24 with something like 546 hit points!

A lot has changed, and quite a bit is worse for the 5e Fighter than his AD&D counterpart.

 

[Zardnaar]

They did, though I think we have to look at the possible reasons why.

-Exceptional Strength.
-"Exceptional" Constitution.
-AC that doesn't suck.
-Ability to stack Dex and Armor.
-Weapon Specialization.
-"Cleaving" low level foes.
-Better potential for hit points.
-Magic item tables.
-Better combat tables/Thac0.
-Better saving throw advancement.
-Sweet, sweet Kits (2e).
-Extra Attacks.

Now all this isn't true for all Fighters. You might not have stats above 16. You might be playing without UA if you're a 1e Fighter. You might have a terrible Dex. Your DM might not roll random items or use published modules. You might just suck at rolling d10's for hit points.

But it isn't impossible to imagine how all these options worked together to make the Fighter a powerhouse, especially in light of:

-lower monster hit points.
-lower monster AC (this one surprised me, my memories are of constantly having to deal with low AC enemies and not really caring with my Fighters, but looking through the monster books, it's surprising how many powerful foes in 1e had relatively normal AC's. 2e seems to have adjusted this, however).

Digging up one of my old sheets, I have a Fighter 13 with 19 Strength, dual-wielding +3 weapons with specialization, and he gets 7/2 attacks per melee with a Thac0 of 1, dealing 1d8+12 damage per hit, which means his average damage against AC -10 is still like 28.8 and a Great Wyrm Red Dragon has like 108 hit points on average, meaning it could die inside of two rounds of combat! And as for saving throws, between my Ring of Protection, Cloak of Displacement, +3 armor (2e rules), luckstone, and Scarab of Protection, there's a lot of saves I can only fail on a 1. And as if all that wasn't bad enough, I still had about 120 hit points enemies needed to chew through before I had to run away and let my regeneration heal me back up, lol.

Now though? A Fighter 12 gets 3 attacks per turn for 2d6+6 (I can assume a +1 weapon, but I've never had a +2 or better in 5e. Likely wouldn't have anything near my 2e Fighter's loadout of items). Or can dual-wield (not usually a great choice) for 1d8+6 (8 if a Champion).

Sure, there's Action Surge, but an Ancient Red is a CR 24 with something like 546 hit points!

A lot has changed, and quite a bit is worse for the 5e Fighter than his AD&D counterpart.

Yeah this. I saw a multiclass 2E fighter/Thief similar to yours.

Soloed a red dragon. Lich and Maarilth one after the other in 3 rounds.

 

[ECMO3]

Are they wanting it because it's magical or because the non magic options kinda suck?

IMO they want magical, because they want magic and not necessarily just in the class, but in the feats and races.

I have seen lots of players (including myself) play non-magic Fighter/Rogue classes and subclasses (i.e. the options that kinda suck), but those players still get magic or magical abilities on their characters through something else; usually feats, multiclass dips or races.

I don't think they took those options because they are mechanically superior, because a lot of them are not very good or are even mechanically inferior to non-magic options. So I think most players want magic in their PC and not just because of mechanics and in that respect "more magic" caters to the 5E fans to the same degree that "better fighters" does.

This hypothesis is easy to support of you look beyond Fighters to other classes. They made a lot of magical subclasses across all the half caster and non caster classes. And if you look at Ranger, they turned it into a very high-magic class with optional features that put it above all the other half-casters with more magic in their subclasses in addition.

 

[ECMO3]

Note I reard ranged fighters as just better hence Rune Knight being number 1.

But that's the 3 best fighters along with Battlemaster assuming the BM and EK players know what they're doing (which a few don't tbf).

Ranged is generally more powerful.

I personally am not a big fan of Battlemaster and I think it is an overated subclass IMO. I think they are middle of the pack. They are inferior to the 3 above and to Arcane Archer IME (although they are more flexible than AA or Echo K).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Battlemaster is popular, because it is the way to play a somewhat mechnically complex mundane fighter, and also is pretty decent power-wise. A lot of the other subclasses give the fighter magic or magic-like stuff that to many people goes against the reason they wanted to play the fighter in the first place.

 

[Oofta]

Ranged is generally more powerful.

...

It's funny. A lot of times I play front-line types whether fighters, paladins or clerics because I don't focus entirely on DPR in combat. Yes, doing damage is nice and the quicker the monsters die the better it is for team PC but I also want to contribute to the team by doing more than just damage. Being in the front lines keeping the bad guys off the casters so they can do their cool stuff is rewarding to me.

For that matter in my career I've always been okay with doing the less glorious but critically important jobs. Because I recognize that having a cool front-end to an application is meaningless if the back end falls apart. Different strokes I guess.

NOTE: I've pretty much given up on this conversation because it never, ever goes anywhere. Just pointing out that when people play, being flashy isn't all that important for some of us. I still feel like I contribute just as much or more to overcoming combat and non-combat encounters overall when I play a fighter.

 

[ECMO3]

Sure, there's Action Surge, but an Ancient Red is a CR 24 with something like 546 hit points!

A lot has changed, and quite a bit is worse for the 5e Fighter than his AD&D counterpart.

This is undeniably true. Fighters, Cavaliers and all their subclasses were OP in 1E at both low and high levels.

Magic Users were a distant second. There is a theory that Magic-Users evened this out the power disparity high levels but I don't think that is true as they could not survive a single round against a fighter of their level and their spell levels were usually capped by Intelligence to somewhere below 9.

The 1E design really made playing Clerics and Rogues unpalatable and you more or less needed them to succeed. I remember how often we went back and forth on "who had to play the Cleric". Often we had to end up playing a multi-class for these characters (multiclassing with fighter of course) other times we brought in a henchman NPC to be our walking hospital.

The 5E design is so much better IMO, mostly because no one has to play a class they don't want to play, you can usually pick an entirely different class and do that job well.

For example if my party is a Ranged Rogue a Bard and a controller back-line Wizard and they really need a melee character to go toe-to-toe with the enemies and keep them off the fagile players; I don't have to pick a Fighter, Barbarian or Paladin. I can pick a heavy Armor Cleric or a Wizard and do that job really, really well. That is what makes 5E awesome.

 

[ECMO3]

It's funny. A lot of times I play front-line types whether fighters, paladins or clerics because I don't focus entirely on DPR in combat. Yes, doing damage is nice and the quicker the monsters die the better it is for team PC but I also want to contribute to the team by doing more than just damage. Being in the front lines keeping the bad guys off the casters so they can do their cool stuff is rewarding to me.

Usually, I personally play a Tempest Cleric or a Bladesinger if I am playing a front line type player. Occasionally I will do that with a Conquest Paladin or a Grappler-Runke Knight fighter build and those two are probably the best at this because how they can stop movement. For me though usually it will be a Cleric or Wizard if I intend to be a tank. That is just what I like to play personally in that role.

None of those options are what I would call high DPR though (the Paladin can be but that is not how I am usually playing it). The Cleric and Bladesinger are blockers which can be done by any "tough to kill" character. The Paladin and Fighter are better at it and do it through immobilizing enemies with fear or simply grabbing them and stopping them respectively.