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

Tony Vargas said:

OSR never grabbed me - I dust off the old stuff when the urge to paleogame hits me - but that makes me curious, what's a good example of an OSR game improving on 1e style balance, with it's proscriptions and weighted treasure tables &c?

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High level spells are curtailed, made dangerous, or turned into tricky and hard to source rituals in some games. Other magic is adjusted to not overly step on the toes of non-magical classes. Combat rules that place restrictions on spellcasting without protection in the form of steel-clad warriors and enough henchman to keep the enemy away from the hit point-impaired until the kaboom moment. Customization options are expanded but limited in how much they give you and/or how many options you can take over the course of the PCs career. A strong focus on the acquisition of wealth and its necessity for healing, supply and equipment for your hired hands, leading into the domain game, keeps PCs focused.

Tony Vargas said:

What 1e cleave ability? The 1 att/level vs less than 1 HD monsters?

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Cleave can and has been expanded in some games to let you keep chopping until you run out of cleaves or fail to drop an enemy (based on your level), independent of the enemy's hit dice. Of course, it helps that just about everything on both sides has fewer hit points to chew through.

Tony Vargas said:

1e had basically the same classes that had accumulated in 0e (including one from The Strategic Review) at the point EGG was writing the PH.
And, he did go on about balance in the 1e DMG.
I think it focused on balance, or at least, made a real attempt at balance, however quixotic or ineffectual it might seem today.
(we assume 4e focused on balance because it delivered it, but, IDK, maybe you have a point there)
(FWIW, it looked to me like 2e just kinda forgot that balance was a thing to consider, and 3e was more focused on putting together an SRD and, maybe ...consolidating variants to improve the game in some way?... IDK, 3e sure seemed like an improvement at first glance. And of course, Essentials backpedaled on balance, while 5e ran full tilt.)

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The focus was less on balance but defining the archetype. Once the archetype is defined, you can then figure out how the archetype fits and finally balnce it.

It's kinda like Batman when he's in the Justice League. You drill down on what makes defines Batman and makes him different.

Suddenly Batman,Nightwing, Robin, and Batgirl become smarter, richer, more perceptive, sneakier, and better at martial arts.

D&D strength is that it lets you be anything.
The weakness of some types of D&D is it gives some access to all of it is everything then tries to mitigate that.

Then you end up with "The rare mineral Kryptonite is everywhere"

Tony Vargas said:

But, it brings up a question: how do your balance versatility vs specialization? (Because 'simple' seems to mean 'specialized')

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This depends mostly on the individual table and to a lesser extent on the size and make up of the party. A larger party can afford to have more specialized characters.

You can also afford to specialize a lot more if one of the three pillars is emphasized more than others and if your DM selects hand-picked magic items or affords methods of making magic items. It is much more difficult (and less optimal) to specialize if magic item drops are random with no time craft your own.

As an example play a combat-focused game with 8 PCs where the players just "magically" stumble on their preferred magic item and a GWM-PAM-Sentinel build is pretty awesome. Play a game with 3 PCs and random magic that is more focused on the social pillar and that build just flat sucks. By about level 10 or so it even sucks in combat since the chances of randomly finding a magic Glaive or Halberd are very low. Same with the famed XBE-Sharpshooter builds that perform so well in the whiteroom.

Same thing goes with the Skill Expert or actor feats. These are awesome feats for just about any class if the social part of the game is emphasized more than the others, but can be weak if it isn't.

Tony Vargas said:

I guess the bottom line is that one player sitting out 80% of the game vs 4 players sitting out 20% may strike some sort of superficial mathematical balance, but it's not good game balance. It's just not very desirable compared to all players participating.

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This depends entirely on the individual players and their personalities and desires. One player sitting out of 80% of the game can be very good or even ideal on certain tables with certain players and usually when this happens it has nothing to do with mechanics. It is almost always either story or personality driven.

Sometimes it is not good and it is really bad, but when that happens it is still usually either personality or story driven.

For example Willie the Warlock's parton comes to him at the begining of a session and tells him he needs to come to the shadowfell for some sort of mission. Frank the Fighter and Rick the Rogue are always up for adventure and are going with him like good buddies do. Pete the Paladin says he doesn't traffic with undead so he wishes them the best but he is staying at the inn.

Pete's player is going to miss 80% of the game in this session. Depending on the social contract between the DM and the players this can be good or it can be bad. With another player Pete might just handwave his dislike of undead and go to the Shadowfell with the party anyway even though the player would say Pete wouldn't do that. In all of these circumstances though the guy playing Willie is almost certainly going to get a larger share of the gameplay than the other characters at the table.

ECMO3 said:

This depends entirely on the individual players and their personalities and desires. One player sitting out of 80% of the game can be very good or even ideal on certain tables with certain players and usually when this happens it has nothing to do with mechanics. It is almost always either story or personality driven.

Sometimes it is not good and it is really bad, but when that happens it is again usually either personality or story driven.

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I think the 100% core issue is that Fighters are too iconic and too popular to be 100% Combat in the year 2023 when groups can have no combat for 2 sessions but run roll heavy D&D games.

For example, in my draft of Mansions and Minigiants, the alchemist class has no real social focused class features. But being an alchemist is niche and called out as such. You are some weirdo with a bottle of bottles and rock going "Hehehehehe" or "MWAHAHAHA!" in the back with a crazy grin. Its not a common class and not the biggest class fantasy, so it will rarely be a problem.

AND EVEN THEN...

The alchemist can craft Love Potions which charm people. Granted you'd have to force feed the target. Something the alchemist wont be good at unless they guzzle a Hyde Elixir and a Jekyll Elixir before. Then that's 3 potions and committing crimes.

Minigiant said:

I think the 100% core issue is that Fighters are too iconic and too popular to be 100% Combat in the year 2023 when groups can have no combat for 2 sessions but run roll heavy D&D games.

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I get that, but 5E is flexible enough that no character's role is defined or locked in by their class. This includes the fighter class.

Subclass, backgrounds, skills, feats, races and ability score distribution all heavily influence what your character can and can't do mechanically and a fighter does not need to be 100% combat if the player playing it does not want the character to be 100% combat. For example, a fighter (or any character) with proficiency in Alchemists supplies can craft potions as well (albeit taking a lot longer) and can craft other things, most notably alchemists fire or acid with a long rest.

Again though I would still say this depends on the table. Some tables are very heavily combat focused and a character specializing in combat is fine at those tables.

Tony Vargas said:

What 1e cleave ability? The 1 att/level vs less than 1 HD monsters?

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Yes that's it

ECMO3 said:

I get that, but 5E is flexible enough that no character's role is defined or locked in by their class. This includes the fighter class.

Subclass, backgrounds, skills, feats, races and ability score distribution all heavily influence what your character can and can't do mechanically and a fighter does not need to be 100% combat if the player playing it does not want the character to be 100% combat. For example, a fighter (or any character) with proficiency in Alchemists supplies can craft potions as well (albeit taking a lot longer) and can craft other things, most notably alchemists fire or acid with a long rest.

Again though I would still say this depends on the table. Some tables are very heavily combat focused and a character specializing in combat is fine at those tables.

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Subclass, backgrounds, skills, feats, races and ability score distribution all have various levels of influence of the time of a campaign and the acceptance of the DM.

Why is the fighter fully designed around appeasing the few DM who demand the fighter be 10% Combat with no brainpower, skills, exploration power, and social power which could be overshadowed or outniched

Would it be okay for the wizard only to have evocation spells and tell them to "take a subclass, skill prof, feat, race and ability score mod to do anything else"?

The answer is no. That's what 4e did and the community whined. A lot.

So why is it okay for the more popular fighter?
It doubt it's okay. That's why WOTC is changing it.

What essentially happened is that WOTC surveyed the community in 2013 and there were just enough Toms, Dicks, and Harrys who wanted the fighter to be 100% Combat, 0% anything else to nudge noncombat fightery things out of satisfaction threshold and ensure that dabbling in noncombat was weak as well. +2 to alchemist supplies does nothing vs the d20 afterall.

However when 5e released, Tom, Dick, and Harry went back to older editions or OSR. 5e had made concessions to people who don't even play 5e. And then 5e developped a Sunk Cost Fallacy once it became popular.

As a whole the 5e community doesn't feel skilled as anything in play due to the unreliablity of the d20 unless

1. You have Expertise at the check
2. Your have Proficiency in the check and a primary or secondary score which matches the check
3. You have magic that boost or overrides the check
4. You have a class feature that boost or overrides the check

WOTC picked the Old School lane for 5e Fighters due to their faulty survey. But the majority of 5e fans are not Old School. They pulled a 4e for it.

ECMO3 said:

This depends entirely on the individual players and their personalities and desires. One player sitting out of 80% of the game can be very good or even ideal on certain tables with certain players and usually when this happens it has nothing to do with mechanics.

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Sure, you might have a player who can't make whole sessions, or who wants to sit out certain sorts of play. And, it probably has nothing to do with mechanics.

But, in D&D, if you don't want to play a spellcaster, the mechanics force you into specializing not just in combat, but in single-target DPR, as you only viable contribution to the party's success.

The mythical 'wake me when the combat starts' player can thus choose Champion Fighter. He can also choose any caster, and just load up on combat spells.

But, if you're any other sort of player, and your concept doesn't call for spellcasting, you're forced into that.

ECMO3 said:

I get that, but 5E is flexible enough that no character's role is defined or locked in by their class. This includes the fighter class.

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That is extremely true of full casters, with only a couple of them nominally locked out of healing, and true enough, I guess, of half-/third-casters and others with supernatural powers that have significant non-combat applications.

When it comes to the handful of benighted sub-classes that don't use spells at all, tho, they just happen to be locked into single-target DPR.

ECMO3 said:

Subclass, backgrounds, skills, feats, races and ability score distribution all heavily influence what your character can and can't do mechanically

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Meh. That's down to checks, which, between bounded accuracy and reliance on arbitrary DM calls, doesn't amount to much, and which, when comparing classes, let alone sub-classes, is downright meaningless, as they aren't class features, but things literally any class can take.

Minigiant said:

Would it be okay for the wizard only to have evocation spells and tell them to "take a subclass, skill prof, feat, race and ability score mod to do anything else"?
The answer is no.
So why is it okay for the more popular fighter?

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Micah Sweet said:

This to me reads that the problem is unsolvable. Is that what you're saying?

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No. It’s solvable by an individual dm for an individual table, it just highly restricts what they can run to achieve this state and its also very hard to get right.

If one cares more about scenarios that follow from the fiction than balance or ease of adventure design then it’s likely unsolvable for that particular dm/group - aka those things can come into conflict otherwise.