A critique and review of the Fighter class

[Minigiant]

It's really not magic but the fighter being forced into doing too much.

The Comicbook Fighter, Action Movie Fighter, Buddy Comedy Fighter, Folk Legend Fighter, Anime/Manga Fighter, Romantic Tale Fighter, War Novel Fighter, and Saturday Morning Cartoon Fighter are all the same class.

The issue is D&D ties to make King Arthur, King Menelaus, Achilles, John McClane, John Wick, Captain America, Green Arrow, Kirito, Kenshin Himura, and all 3 Baratheon Boys into fighters without the mechanics that seperate them.

 

[Minigiant]

But it might not be possible to design a game to completely satisfy both.

It certainly is.

You just can't do it in 6 pages.

The number one issue the fighter has is doesn't get page space equal to the number of archetypical images and elements placed on it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, keep your "hoo-ha superhero nonsense away from my Fighter!". Usually accompanied by 'Guy at the Gym' fallacies.

Look, if someone likes the narrative of "the ordinary guy who fights monsters", the John McClane of D&D, more power to them. But it's worth noting that, as the Die Hard franchise continues, John becomes more and more capable of unbelievable feats such as taking out helicopters with cars and resisting high levels of radioactivity, to the point that he's no longer an "ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation".

I think continuing to treat any class as such for more than a handful of levels runs counter to living in a world of strange magic and terrifying monsters. But hey, you still find medieval castles in D&D worlds, despite the existence of so many threats that make their defenses moot, so maybe this is just an example of the weird schizo tech most settings run on. The Gods want castles, articulated plate, and regular soldiers with 200 hp, whether or not it makes any sense in a world of giants, dragons, and 40-level megadungeons.

I think it's also worth noting that the less a normal guy John McClane is, the worse the Die Hard movie is. The one is Russia is just so absurd, and he is full of his own coolness, that it's a burning pile of damp garbage.

As the genius and very handsome Daniel O'Brien argued convincingly in this episode of Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder, White House Down is the second-best Die Hard movie. It just dies harder than any actual direct sequel in the franchise, because it's a normal guy in a buck-wild situation. And because the primary speaking cast isn't all white dudes, and the protagonist is kind of a loser in terms of his social life, and the fact it raised the stakes without making the physical setting bigger or less claustrophobic.

All of which is tangential, but fun to discuss.

 

[Mort]

It's really not magic but the fighter being forced into doing too much.

Both are true.

1. The fighter has (too) many archetypes to fill;
2. People complain of any solution that's not "give more magic."
3. This hugely constrains what archetypes the fighter CAN fill.

Plus, as you say, since the fighter needs to fill more archetypes, it needs more space to do it - and despite devoting countless space to magic (spells etc.) the fighter gets 6 pages.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It certainly is.

You just can't do it in 6 pages.

The number one issue the fighter has is doesn't get page space equal to the number of archetypical images and elements placed on it.

Okay but what do you propose could be done differently, without rewriting the class from the ground up or splitting it into 3 classes?

Because we aren't going to get a wholly new fighter from wotc anytime soon. We will at most get some tweaks and additional options to expand what the class can do and fix some "pain points".

We will get less than what we got for the Ranger, because there less general dissatisfaction with the fighter than with the ranger.

So, what can be done to add a fairly small amount of "power" while addressing the deficiencies? What can be changed about the features that define the base class to make them more versatile and/or support the fiction presented in the books better? What can be done simply by adding subclasses or fighting styles?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Plus, as you say, since the fighter needs to fill more archetypes, it needs more space to do it - and despite devoting countless space to magic (spells etc.) the fighter gets 6 pages.

I’d love to see there be even half the same amount of pages there is detailing all the magic spells and abilities filled with purely martial skills and techniques, not just for the fighter to have but they’d definitely be one of the major beneficiaries of it.

Edit:Magic is so extensively detailed and martial combat just...isn’t, or not to the same degree at least.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Both are true.

1. The fighter has (too) many archetypes to fill;
2. People complain of any solution that's not "give more magic."
3. This hugely constrains what archetypes the fighter CAN fill.

Plus, as you say, since the fighter needs to fill more archetypes, it needs more space to do it - and despite devoting countless space to magic (spells etc.) the fighter gets 6 pages.

I've seen plenty of ideas floated with little pushback for the fighter. They just aren't major overhauls of the class.

What I think some folks just have to square for themselves is that the fighter will not become a class that has no easy path to be wholly non-supernatural. Anything that makes the fighter supernatural has to be optional, and it cannot outshine other options to the degree that is becomes an assumed feature because it'd be crazy not to take it.

You'll always need to look elsewhere, or take a subclass or something in order to play an anime swordsman that can leap 60 feet and slice through a mountain or whatever.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’d love to see there be even half the same amount of pages there is detailing all the magic spells and abilities filled with purely martial skills and techniques, not just for the fighter to have but they’d definitely be one of the major beneficiaries of it.

I do think that the special moves or whatever section of the dmg needs an overhaul and major expansion. The fact that the fighter gets more attacks per attack action, and has action surge, will make them better at taking advantage of those options, without actually doing anything to the class itself.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It certainly is.

Huh. How is one class…or really one game…going to satisfy somebody who thinks the fighter should be within normal human limits, and somebody who thinks they should be capable of superhuman feats?

 

[Garthanos]

Huh. How is one class…or really one game…going to satisfy somebody who thinks the fighter should be within normal human limits, and somebody who thinks they should be capable of superhuman feats?

Accept that tiers are different. And have them actually scale.