D&D (2024) Do you see Fighter players at your own table?

Scott Christian · Jun 17, 2023

Incenjucar said:
You know how people get sleepy when bored? It happens to me extremely easily and extremely powerfully.

I have fallen asleep in meetings, I spend most family events asleep in a chair, I quit my first job - data entry - for a worse job that pays less because I couldn't stay awake. All this made itself evident in my youth, despite the availability of energy drinks.

On the positive side, I can run a lot of complex information in my head pretty easily. I'm sure it's part of why running an entire 30 level 4E campaign was so pleasant and fluid for me, and why I was able to keep the combats fast and furious despite the HP bloat and full party of PCs.

But if you stick me with the 5E fighter I am going to bring a pillow.

Thanks for explaining. It's interesting. That must have been difficult in school. (And to run a 4th edition 30th level - that's insanity! But I am really happy to hear you enjoyed it.)

Can I ask another question: Do you not find the narrative parts of the game or the skill challenges to be enough from a, for lack of a better word, processing complexity standpoint? Or, is it just combat has to be complex?

Uni-the-Unicorn! · Jun 17, 2023

Yaarel said:
5e campaigns dont really last "years".

Designers designed its experience point rate to normally reach level 20 in less than a year

I’m playing in the same campaign since we started 5e in 2015. We are level 15.

There is also a thread in the 5e forum right now about how to be gaming so fast, where people are talking about their multi year campaigns, many of them 5e.

Scott Christian · Jun 17, 2023

Yaarel said:
A significant segment − roughly 30% − never see this kind of nonmagical Fighter.

Not to be nitpicky, but I would debate that 30% never see most types of a specific class at their tables. For example, the past three campaigns I've played in, there has nary been a cleric, let alone a specific cleric subclass.

Incenjucar · Jun 17, 2023

Scott Christian said:
Thanks for explaining. It's interesting. That must have been difficult in school. (And to run a 4th edition 30th level - that's insanity! But I am really happy to hear you enjoyed it.)

Can I ask another question: Do you not find the narrative parts of the game or the skill challenges to be enough from a, for lack of a better word, processing complexity standpoint? Or, is it just combat has to be complex?

I spent a lot of time reading ahead and then taking naps or drawing in class while everyone caught up.

Narrative and skill challenges are fun, but I'm usually drawing or working on game design while playing to keep from taking over or getting bored and sleepy waiting for the other players and so I don't try to take over their turns. I know the game well, I know writing well, and I can read the tropes a DM is working with pretty easily so I let the other players get first crack at things before I push the answer forward. Plus I'm a bit extra - so doubly so when in-character. Last time I was a player I had a diviner "of love" inspired by Ruby Rhod. Last session I played in, in between turns, I wrote a short song about love. And then I sang it when my turn came up. You ever see a DM's eyes turn into circles? :3

In my 4E game I did keep a slayer around - pretty close to the 5E fighter - for when players lost a character, forgot a character sheet, or were hungover from the night before and couldn't play at full speed.

Reef · Jun 17, 2023

Yaarel said:
It takes about 200 encounters to reach level 20.

If each week has 4 encounters, that would be 50 weeks.

It would be about 52 weeks when concluding level 20.

But again, most campaigns never reach level 20.

At 4 encounters per week,

it takes about 82 encounters to reach level 8,

thus roughly 21 weeks.

The survey refers to Fighters "over level 7".

We definitely couldn’t do 4 encounters a night. Like I said, we only got 2 hours. Add in role-playing, exploration, and general non-combat story, and we were lucky to get in two. And we certainly couldn’t count on playing every week. We did our best, but there were just weeks when life got in the way.

MockingBird · Jun 17, 2023

Reef said:
We definitely couldn’t do 4 encounters a night. Like I said, we only got 2 hours. Add in role-playing, exploration, and general non-combat story, and we were lucky to get in two. And we certainly couldn’t count on playing every week. We did our best, but there were just weeks when life got in the way.

My group is the same way. Some nights there's no encounters just rping.

Yaarel · Jun 17, 2023

Reef said:
We definitely couldn’t do 4 encounters a night. Like I said, we only got 2 hours. Add in role-playing, exploration, and general non-combat story, and we were lucky to get in two. And we certainly couldn’t count on playing every week. We did our best, but there were just weeks when life got in the way.

At 4 encounters per week, it would take 21 weeks, or say a slightly more relaxed half of a year.

Even at 1 or 2 encounters per week, most groups will see level 8 characters since the almost year-and-a-half of 2022-2023.

Today we are half-way thru June, almost at half of the second year.

MockingBird said:
My group is the same way. Some nights there's no encounters just rping.

In our group, we count "just rping" social encounters as encounters toward leveling.

The basic idea is, the encounter requires effort to overcome. If the rping part of the problem solving, it counts.

Encounters dont need to be combat encounters.

(But we like combat, so the encounters often are combat.)

Yaarel · Jun 17, 2023

So everyone can see where I am coming from, here are two different but comparable charts that calculate how many "standard encounters" it takes to reach the next level. These charts visualize the math of the game. Notably, these "standard encounters" are leisurely. Gaming groups that prefer more challenging encounters, or even deadly encounters, will reach the higher levels much sooner.

- 5e encounters per level (Old Guy Gamer).png

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 17, 2023

HammerMan said:
I can’t imagine you calling out other DMs for being bad at improv if this is what you got.

Mod Note:

There’s ways to make your point without sniping like this.

Asisreo · Jun 17, 2023

Minigiant said:
More than 50% of popular Fantasy Characters are nonmagical warriors

People tend to base their characters on Popular characters

Thus anyone who is attempting to emulate a popular character, more than 50% will use the nonmagical warriors classes.

There are only TWO nonmagical warriors classes in core 5e

My answer is zero BTW

These are incredibly broad-stroke assumptions and they even have numbers attached. Is there any official way to get that information?

Because I just asked my sister to name the first fantasy character off the top of her head and she said Gandalf. I asked her for the next one and she said Frodo (which I assume isn't classed as a "warrior"). I asked her for something that wasn't from LoTR and she said Danaerys.

I don't have the numbers but I'm not entirely sure that any of these assumptions are necessarily correct.

Edit: FYI, her next answer was Geralt. It wasn't until the fifth question did she say Link.

D&D (2024) Do you see Fighter players at your own table?

Do you see Figther players at your own D&D 5e games?

During 2022-2023, my games have 2 or more play a nonmagical nonmulticlass Fighter to over level 7.

During 2022-2023, my games have only 1 play a nonmagical nonmulticlass Fighter to over level 7.

Not in my games.

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