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

Micah Sweet · 2026-03-04T03:17:15+0000

Thomas Shey said:
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.

When I played it seemed very mechanics-first in philosophy, which also reminded me of 4e.

Thomas Shey · 2026-03-04T05:19:37+0000

Micah Sweet said:
When I played it seemed very mechanics-first in philosophy, which also reminded me of 4e.

Depends on what you mean by "mechanics first". It very much avoids a lot of loosey-gooseyness in how you're supposed to handle things mechanically, which means you can go there directly instead of hunting around for the mechanics to fit. I'd just call that not having a lot of vagueness, but some people very much want a lot of wiggle there.

Micah Sweet · 2026-03-04T07:10:16+0000

Thomas Shey said:
Depends on what you mean by "mechanics first". It very much avoids a lot of loosey-gooseyness in how you're supposed to handle things mechanically, which means you can go there directly instead of hunting around for the mechanics to fit. I'd just call that not having a lot of vagueness, but some people very much want a lot of wiggle there.

What I mean is it felt like the mechanics took priority over the fiction. The old, "tripping the cube" issue with 4e.

Thomas Shey · 2026-03-04T18:07:25+0000

Micah Sweet said:
What I mean is it felt like the mechanics took priority over the fiction. The old, "tripping the cube" issue with 4e.

Can't say I've seen many examples of that. It may just be that how PF2e handles some things mechanically doesn't fit with your sense of how it should, and that's as it is.