D&D General When Was it Decided Fighters Should Suck at Everything but Combat?

[GobHag]

Everything since 2e through to pathfinder there has been an attempt to make mages, rogues and other classes better and less squishy without making the warriors, or rangers overall more powerful and maintaining their niches. Those classes should be squishy. When walking down a city street you should want a big bad ass who can kill with ease with you.

Clearly you don't know about Pathfinder 2e enough, we even have a class that's about being burly and tough that isn't a fighter while still having Fighter be durable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Clearly you don't know about Pathfinder 2e enough, we even have a class that's about being burly and tough that isn't a fighter while still having Fighter be durable.

PF2e is a very different game than most versions of D&D IMO. It feels closest to 4e.

 

[Lanefan]

They'd be considered quite rude unless one of them chooses to have different specialities.

Why? If I'm playing a Thief and someone else brings in a mechanically-near-identical Thief to mine, why would (or should) I consider that the least bit rude?

Hell, if anything I'd consider it a boon, in that now there's two of us to share the risks I'd otherwise have been taking on alone.

Never mind that on numerous occasions in the past players have intentionally chosen to bring in two very similar characters as a team, just for fun. I and another player once brought in two Hobbit Thieves together as brother and sister, for example. Two players in my game once brought in a pair of Assassins as a team (neither lasted very long, but cest la vie). So whatever problem you're seeing, I ain't seeing it.

 

[James Gasik]

Strangely, my experience has been that if one person is playing a given class, no matter how differently you could play that class, anyone else who was thinking about it immediately says something to the effect of: "Oh, I can't play that class, then, I'll pick something different."

Like, somehow, having more than one Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, or what have you would be a problem. Some classes I could almost see, like, two Paladins might slightly redundant with the Aura, maybe, but in most it just seems to open up new avenues of play. Like if you had a party with three Rogues and a Druid, suddenly stealth missions and gaining surprise over enemies could now occur more frequently. Two Wizards opens up scary spell combos. A group of archer Rangers might start all combats at range and make mincemeat of melee enemies., Etc, etc..

 

[cbwjm]

I have in past offered to fill in gaps in the roles, but I've also had a great time with playing the same class as another player. In one game I was running for a couple of friends they both played Invokers, it was a great game. With 5e especially, I think the game is even more forgiving of players running the same class. If two players want to play a wizard and the group has no fighter or other focused frontline character, they'll still likely be fine, might have to work out a system for dividing up scrolls though.

 

[Corinnguard]

Strangely, my experience has been that if one person is playing a given class, no matter how differently you could play that class, anyone else who was thinking about it immediately says something to the effect of: "Oh, I can't play that class, then, I'll pick something different."

Even when that class comes with a number of subclasses in tow? You can have two players playing the same class and the same subclass, or you could have them playing completely different subclasses to really open up those new avenues of gameplay.

Besides even if they did the former together, each of them would be playing that class in a very distinct way via feats, proficiencies, backgrounds and how they play their character.

 

[Thomas Shey]

PF2e is a very different game than most versions of D&D IMO. It feels closest to 4e.

Yes and no. There are a lot more specific non-combat mechanics (including feats that influence them) than D&D 4e had in that. Skill challenges were supposed to do most of the lifting there, which made 4e arguably more flexible in that regard than PF2e, but also less reliable (in the sense that as a player you can make more predictions in what fashion some things will play out). It has some skill-challenge-like mechanics, primarily for really zoomed out resolution (where some degree of abstraction is pretty inevitable).

its also less focused on position control and more on imposing conditions in combat.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Strangely, my experience has been that if one person is playing a given class, no matter how differently you could play that class, anyone else who was thinking about it immediately says something to the effect of: "Oh, I can't play that class, then, I'll pick something different."

Like, somehow, having more than one Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, or what have you would be a problem. Some classes I could almost see, like, two Paladins might slightly redundant with the Aura, maybe, but in most it just seems to open up new avenues of play. Like if you had a party with three Rogues and a Druid, suddenly stealth missions and gaining surprise over enemies could now occur more frequently. Two Wizards opens up scary spell combos. A group of archer Rangers might start all combats at range and make mincemeat of melee enemies., Etc, etc..

I suspect in most cases its just a desire not to be redundent, and its perceived that's liable to happen with the same class, even with different specific build decisions. Its not only class games where you see some of that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even when that class comes with a number of subclasses in tow? You can have two players playing the same class and the same subclass, or you could have them playing completely different subclasses to really open up those new avenues of gameplay.

Besides even if they did the former together, each of them would be playing that class in a very distinct way via feats, proficiencies, backgrounds and how they play their character.

But again, that only matters if they see it that way.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Strangely, my experience has been that if one person is playing a given class, no matter how differently you could play that class, anyone else who was thinking about it immediately says something to the effect of: "Oh, I can't play that class, then, I'll pick something different."

I agree that happens, but I don't think it's "I can't play that class" out of some sort of etiquette, but rather because a lot of people just like to play something unique with the group. They are generally the ones who want to pick last.

Like, somehow, having more than one Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, or what have you would be a problem. Some classes I could almost see, like, two Paladins might slightly redundant with the Aura, maybe, but in most it just seems to open up new avenues of play. Like if you had a party with three Rogues and a Druid, suddenly stealth missions and gaining surprise over enemies could now occur more frequently. Two Wizards opens up scary spell combos. A group of archer Rangers might start all combats at range and make mincemeat of melee enemies., Etc, etc..

Agreed.