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

[ECMO3]

In solasta I would expect that due to
1. Good early game magic weapons
2. Fighters can go dex and range can plays a Huge factor on many maps
3. Many good caster damage spells arent included or heavily modified. (Conjure animal comes to mind, no find familiar to help in combat, etc.)
4. Casters often do control instead of damage
5. Flanking and hiding really boosts martials damage due to how solasta handles those.
6. Tier 1 and early tier 2 is really good for fighters. I’d expect campaigns centered mostly at those levels to favor martials.

I’d expect these to really factor into the solasta damage numbers and make it somewhat less comparable to a normal 5e game.

But many of these things also exist in games outside of Solasta. These things are not inconsistent with the average table.

Magic items vary table by table and also vary even in official adventures. OOTA you can get a Sunblade at level 2. ROTFM I think from memory you can only get two +1 weapons the entire adventure. My point is some tables have lots of magic weapons.

Fighters can go dex and have a larger impact on almost all tables. This is one of the problems with balance discussions on fighter. Fighter is optimized on Dex. If you play a strength build you are purposely choosing to play a less powerful fighter. If you want to be a strength character, TBH you should not play a fighter but instead play another class. Paladin, Cleric or even Rogue is mechanically better as a strength melee build than fighter is. Barbarian is better too at most levels. People who choose to go strength fighter intentionally take a weak option and then complain fighter is weak. Well if your Wizard purposely chooses weak spells she will be weak too.

Conjure Animals is Ranger and Druid only. How many tables have one of those with this spell ..... maybe one table in ten? I have played a ton of Rangers personally. It is probably my favorite class. I think I have had this spell on one character. I think I have played on one other table where a Druid PC had this spell. And note Ranger is not even a full caster and is not what most are focused on with this "balance problem".

Find Familiar is available to Wizard and a select few Warlocks, Fighters and Rogues or else get it on a feat. Again, this exists at maybe one table in five ... and some of those it is actually the Fighter or another non-caster class that has this spell. Find Familiar is a powerful spell, one of the most powerful 1st level spells. But using it to get advantage is not a very big deal. Usually your familiar will die quickly if you do this - in the first round of combat if it is not an owl, or maybe a little later than the 1st round if it is an owl. Usually if you are doing this you are boosting the damage of another PC. A Rogue or other martial so I would argue what minimal effect this has on DPR would actually favor the martials.

Flanking is an optional rule available on all tables (and not a good one IMO), hide is a core action and is available on every table that plays RAW.

Tier 1 and Tier 2 are where most 5E games are played.

The control point is a legitimate point, although one that is difficult to quantify with numbers.

 

[Minigiant]

5e Fans jury-rigged the Fighter problem away with optional rules, non-PHB content, and third party product. Which works until you get to high level. 5e is just (un)fortunate that most campaign break down before the game does. No one plays core rules with no official options

But that goes with the issue that early 5e wasn't designed for the people who would be 5e players. It was designed unsuccessfully to court in fans of other editions and game systems.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

5e Fans jury-rigged the Fighter problem away with optional rules, non-PHB content, and third party product. Which works until you get to high level. 5e is just (un)fortunate that most campaign break down before the game does. No one plays core rules with no official options

But that goes with the issue that early 5e wasn't designed for the people who would be 5e players. It was designed unsuccessfully to court in fans of other editions and game systems.

Are you sure they didn’t want as many players from any fandom as possible? Given the size of the player base it seems like they were successful in that.

How many folks use 3pp? I did not think all tables even used feats much less multiclassing.

Why is it unfortunate that campaigns end before the game breaks down? If the game works in the way most people use it, I would assume that is probably ok? Does any version of D&D shine at high levels?

Isn’t the most parsimonious explanation of things that there is a subset of players—of indeterminant size—that prefer a different game?

Which if so is ok but is not really a crisis or indictment of poor quality. And which is better than the alternative—-that many people are dissatisfied and only a subset are into it?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Double

 

[FrogReaver]

But many of these things also exist in games outside of Solasta. These things are not inconsistent with the average table.

I don't think your points below really show this at all. (Even if they were all correct and undisputed they still wouldn't show this - there's a logic issue here).

Magic items vary table by table and also vary even in official adventures. OOTA you can get a Sunblade at level 2. ROTFM I think from memory you can only get two +1 weapons the entire adventure. My point is some tables have lots of magic weapons.

Yes, there's an occasional module or game that hands out really strong magic weapons really early. Neither those nor Solasta are average in this regard.

Fighters can go dex and have a larger impact on almost all tables. This is one of the problems with balance discussions on fighter. Fighter is optimized on Dex. If you play a strength build you are purposely choosing to play a less powerful fighter. If you want to be a strength character, TBH you should not play a fighter but instead play another class. Paladin, Cleric or even Rogue is mechanically better as a strength melee build than fighter is. Barbarian is better too at most levels. People who choose to go strength fighter intentionally take a weak option and then complain fighter is weak. Well if your Wizard purposely chooses weak spells she will be weak too.

The point was that the maps in solasta typically favor extremely long ranged characters. The typical non-solasta D&D adventure doesn't start combat with enemies so far away. Solasta is not typical in this regard.

Conjure Animals is Ranger and Druid only. How many tables have one of those with this spell ..... maybe one table in ten? I have played a ton of Rangers personally. It is probably my favorite class. I think I have had this spell on one character. I think I have played on one other table where a Druid PC had this spell. And note Ranger is not even a full caster and is not what most are focused on with this "balance problem".

So I think it would be fair to say that if a specific Solasta party doesn't include a ranger or druid then me bringing this specific spell up doesn't matter as he results aren't being effected. Although my point wasn't simply about 'this spell', instead conjure animals was used as an example of a broader point - solasta nerfs and removes caster options which are typically left alone for the table top.

Find Familiar is available to Wizard and a select few Warlocks, Fighters and Rogues or else get it on a feat. Again, this exists at maybe one table in five ... and some of those it is actually the Fighter or another non-caster class that has this spell. Find Familiar is a powerful spell, one of the most powerful 1st level spells. But using it to get advantage is not a very big deal. Usually your familiar will die quickly if you do this - in the first round of combat if it is not an owl, or maybe a little later than the 1st round if it is an owl. Usually if you are doing this you are boosting the damage of another PC. A Rogue or other martial so I would argue what minimal effect this has on DPR would actually favor the martials.

1. It might play out that way, or might not - either way it's still a nerf that's not typically encountered at a table.
2. It really depends on how you categorize whose damage it is and there are multiple ways to do that. I would not categorize a wizard granting a fighter advantage as the additional damage being all the fighters - some portion sure, but not all.

Flanking is an optional rule available on all tables (and not a good one IMO),

Nearly no tables uses 5e flanking rules.

hide is a core action and is available on every table that plays RAW.

No. Hiding in solasta plays nothing like hiding in RAW. In Solasta you make a stealth check after every attack and don't stop hiding until you fail a stealth check or they move close enough for line of sight. In table top you stop hiding as soon as you attack. Big difference.

Tier 1 and Tier 2 are where most 5E games are played.

Yes, I always caveat that tier 3+ is really where the imbalance lies. So anything focused on tier 1 and 2 probably isn't going to show imbalance.

The control point is a legitimate point, although one that is difficult to quantify with numbers.

Somewhat surprisingly it's also the only consideration that equally applies to the table.

 

[Oofta]

I was wondering how you would turn all of this around. First, I'm talking modules, not the main game since the main game doesn't report stats.

In solasta I would expect that due to
1. Good early game magic weapons

Most of the time I had +1 weapon, sometimes with a +1d10. Meanwhile the items have been roughly equal utility. Wizards were rarely lacking backup scrolls so it's not like they were lacking in useful resources.

Although you are correct, magic items did shore up one of the weaker DPR classes in one game. That would be the wizard that got a boost with those wands of fireball.

2. Fighters can go dex and range can plays a Huge factor on many maps

I almost always go strength based fighters for better AC and being a better front line. That and someone has to carry all the crap you get until you can sell it.

3. Many good caster damage spells arent included or heavily modified. (Conjure animal comes to mind, no find familiar to help in combat, etc.)

Maybe you play with different groups, I used pretty much the same spells I see in real world play.

4. Casters often do control instead of damage

To a certain degree. It never made a difference in the game though, even focusing on damage the wizard couldn't keep up. For that matter I rarely see controller type wizards in my games, that's been more of a bard thing.

But even then, control by itself will rarely win the encounter. It's a team game and if the other characters can kill the monsters more quickly that just shows that different abilities and roles synergize well.

5. Flanking and hiding really boosts martials damage due to how solasta handles those.

Even if this were true (the game doesn't use flanking, I've never played a 5E game that did), so what? Effective tactics are part of the game. Rogues that always stay in back and hide never do as much damage as the fighter while also doing nothing to keep the monsters off the casters.

6. Tier 1 and early tier 2 is really good for fighters. I’d expect campaigns centered mostly at those levels to favor martials.

Most games end in the first two tiers. Even when they get higher, you still generally spend less time there. I've never seen a game that just skipped the first 2/3 of the game. In 3E I may have agreed with you, at lower levels casters were relatively weak but at higher levels they dominated. In the 5E games I've played or run to 20th I have never felt like the fighter's ever stopped contributing significantly to the success of the team.

I’d expect these to really factor into the solasta damage numbers and make it somewhat less comparable to a normal 5e game.

Is there a single standard to how games are run? Because I've never seen that.

But like I said. Same conversation, same conclusions. I just wanted to correct some stuff that I felt were inaccurate assumptions and statements.

In my experience fighters are popular and contribute just fine at all levels. They are not in any way a suboptimal choice, they are just have a different role. The fact that they are the most popular class played in the most popular TTRPG ever seems to back up my personal observations.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I was wondering how you would turn all of this around. First, I'm talking modules, not the main game since the main game doesn't report stats.


Most of the time I had +1 weapon, sometimes with a +1d10. Meanwhile the items have been roughly equal utility. Wizards were rarely lacking backup scrolls so it's not like they were lacking in useful resources.

Although you are correct, magic items did shore up one of the weaker DPR classes in one game. That would be the wizard that got a boost with those wands of fireball.



I almost always go strength based fighters for better AC and being a better front line. That and someone has to carry all the crap you get until you can sell it.


Maybe you play with different groups, I used pretty much the same spells I see in real world play.



To a certain degree. It never made a difference in the game though, even focusing on damage the wizard couldn't keep up. For that matter I rarely see controller type wizards in my games, that's been more of a bard thing.

But even then, control by itself will rarely win the encounter. It's a team game and if the other characters can kill the monsters more quickly that just shows that different abilities and roles synergize well.



Even if this were true (the game doesn't use flanking, I've never played a 5E game that did), so what? Effective tactics are part of the game. Rogues that always stay in back and hide never do as much damage as the fighter while also doing nothing to keep the monsters off the casters.



Most games end in the first two tiers. Even when they get higher, you still generally spend less time there. I've never seen a game that just skipped the first 2/3 of the game. In 3E I may have agreed with you, at lower levels casters were relatively weak but at higher levels they dominated. In the 5E games I've played or run to 20th I have never felt like the fighter's ever stopped contributing significantly to the success of the team.



Is there a single standard to how games are run? Because I've never seen that.

But like I said. Same conversation, same conclusions. I just wanted to correct some stuff that I felt were inaccurate assumptions and statements.

In my experience fighters are popular and contribute just fine at all levels. They are not in any way a suboptimal choice, they are just have a different role. The fact that they are the most popular class played in the most popular TTRPG ever seems to back up my personal observations.

This last bit is what I keep tripping over.

In tons of posts above, I keep hearing that fighters are disliked and I am not trying to be obtuse (maybe it comes naturally!) but every source I know suggests they’re popular.

I did see a few posts saying certain subclasses don’t resonate but there are so many I am not sure they all have to land for the class to be popular.

I am still trying to find a reason to believe there is more to this than a subset—a minority—of people don’t like fighters.

When you ask how do you know nobody likes them? More arguments about why the individual poster does not like them.

And again I am legitimately asking where this comes from because I like them fine…my tables like them fine…they seem to be the most common class chosen online…

That does not mean they are “good” but one thing at a time. The assertion is they are not popular and no one likes them.

The second is that they are weak (or rather some subclasses are weak under certain conditions) which is not synonymous with the fighter being a bad class overall.

To support this, I am hearing arguments about them not having many choices. But from an overall game perspective, why shouldn’t there be some classes that are simpler than others?

As I said previously barring some pretty good evidence this seems to boils down to a “I prefer x over y” and that is great! But it is not a truth about the game. What am I missing?

Lastly, in the games I play in or DM, the party takes on challenges and the fighters are always in the thick of it. What are all of us doing that is so aberrant?

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

This last bit is what I keep tripping over.

In tons of posts above, I keep hearing that fighters are disliked and I am not trying to be obtuse (maybe it comes naturally!) but every source I know suggests they’re popular.

I did see a few posts saying certain subclasses don’t resonate but there are so many I am not sure they all have to land for the class to be popular.

I am still trying to find a reason to believe there is more to this than a subset—a minority—of people don’t like fighters.

It has nothing to do with not liking fighters. We already know that fighters are conceptually popular, but we cannot say that that is because the fighter is a very well designed class or because there is something else with the class that makes it popular.

We know for example that the fighter has been popular in every edition of D&D which seems to indicate that it is the general concept of the class that is popular, rather than the implementation.

To support this, I am hearing arguments about them not having many choices. But from an overall game perspective, why shouldn’t there be some classes that are simpler than others?

D&D is locked into a vision of simple martials and complex casters which screws over people who want to play simple casters (Harry Potter is a fairly popular franchise I've heard) or complex martials.

As I said previously barring some pretty good evidence this seems to boils down to a “I prefer x over y” and that is great! But it is not a truth about the game. What am I missing?

Because there are multiple design concepts that are less functional in D&D than in other systems and people want them to be functional.

D&D affords casters an absurd growth in competence, which is not afforded to martials. Martials are mostly allowed to get better only at hitting things while casters are allowed to be better at magic, which means they grow better at anything you can imagine.

Having casters being strong isn't necessarily a problem in itself. The problem is the difference in competence between casters and martials meaning that the design of the system prevents several character concepts from existing. Which character concepts, you ask? Any concept with a highly competent and flexible martial character who the wizard's equal.

Lastly, in the games I play in or DM, the party takes on challenges and the fighters are always in the thick of it. What are all of us doing that is so aberrant?

You're probably playing low-level games.

Btw the only fighters I've seen played in 5e has been played by myself.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because there are multiple design concepts that are less functional in D&D than in other systems and people want them to be functional.

Are you saying that people want WotC to have designed a different game? Wouldn't it be easier to just play a different game? Hop off the WotC train, as it were, and play a different version of 5e if that floats your boat? Plenty of 3pp out there, and of course there's always homebrew.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

It has nothing to do with not liking fighters. We already know that fighters are conceptually popular, but we cannot say that that is because the fighter is a very well designed class or because there is something else with the class that makes it popular.

We know for example that the fighter has been popular in every edition of D&D which seems to indicate that it is the general concept of the class that is popular, rather than the implementation.


D&D is locked into a vision of simple martials and complex casters which screws over people who want to play simple casters (Harry Potter is a fairly popular franchise I've heard) or complex martials.


Because there are multiple design concepts that are less functional in D&D than in other systems and people want them to be functional.

D&D affords casters an absurd growth in competence, which is not afforded to martials. Martials are mostly allowed to get better only at hitting things while casters are allowed to be better at magic, which means they grow better at anything you can imagine.

Having casters being strong isn't necessarily a problem in itself. The problem is the difference in competence between casters and martials meaning that the design of the system prevents several character concepts from existing. Which character concepts, you ask? Any concept with a highly competent and flexible martial character who the wizard's equal.


You're probably playing low-level games.

Btw the only fighters I've seen played in 5e has been played by myself.

I read your response and appreciate it.

That said it is does not really move the dial on things I mentioned.

Fwiw, I play with folks that are all fairly intelligent. All but one with graduate degrees and professions in sciences or healthcare. All of that only to say they have shown the ability to think flexibly or learn complex material.
We played wargames including things like starfleet battles back in the day. We’re not newbs that cannot handle options.

And fighters are frequently in the party and enjoyed. I think simpler choices as “choices” are a fine thing. And I sometimes want more dials and play my barbarian warlock (blade boon).

I just so not think simpler is synonymous with no fun. Actually from a roleplaying perspective I think they are as satisfying as more complex characters and in dungeons certainly tactically fun.

In sum what I am saying is opinion only and as I suggest is merely a counter to other opinions.

I will say that I believe fighters to be fun to play. I think many others agree and that there is nothing I am seeing to suggest otherwise. That is I am not seeing much evidence to suggest they are not popular though I realize opinions differ.

I would be highly unlikely to play an lore bard or a monk and I don’t think that makes lore bards “bad” per se