D&D 5E Battlemaster and Superiority Dice are causing martials to suffer.

[Garthanos]

Further, the DNDNext playtest was 8 years ago in a very different world, and with very different goals to what D&D would have now, in 2022. It was completely grog-centric on every level, whereas it's inevitable that any playtest done now, when there are many times as many people playing D&D, and the overwhelming majority of them are new to D&D with this edition (most new to TT RPGs, too) would have very different results.

I suspect more anime... less kung fu for the monk and a fighter which is also flavored similarly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I suspect more anime... less kung fu for the monk and a fighter which is also flavored similarly.

That'd be good, but it'll be interesting to see if it happens. People predicted similar things with 3E and 5E (4E arguably worked well with anime-style stuff).

 

[Garthanos]

That'd be good, but it'll be interesting to see if it happens. People predicted similar things with 3E and 5E (4E arguably worked well with anime-style stuff).

Of note anime style fits very well for ancient Celt style... what goes around comes around.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of note anime style fits very well for ancient Celt style... what goes around comes around.

Or ancient Greek, or ancient Indian, and so on. As was noticed by the RPG Exalted all the way back in 2001!

 

[Shadowedeyes]

There is some serious reaching when the argument is that fighters are more complex than wizards because of the amount of weapons they are proficient in.

I think an important point is that complexity does not necessarily equal power. It doesn't even directly connect to versatility/more options. Complexity will increase as more options are available, but one can make a complex single option.

 

[Weiley31]

Celtic Mythology is the Anime of World Mythology.

 

[Garthanos]

But I'm not necessarily arguing it needs to change, but rather if you object to a more complex default, all classes need chassis as simple as Fighters, and to have as much put into subclasses.

The subclasses then need to do more I think or flexibility is needed, or at least for the fighter feels pretty much nailed down by heavy main class features.

 

[Garthanos]

Celtic Mythology is the Anime of World Mythology.

And the one where you can see sorcerers/druids with something closer to D&D potency casting.

 

[Garthanos]

Or ancient Greek

From which the word Hero comes and means..... Defender.

 

[Haplo781]

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that martials need to just embrace 3.5 fighter design and give you a ton of bonus feats. That edition, you'd end up with 18 (19 if human) feats by level 20, of which 11 were specifically from the fighter bonus feat list. We could tone that down a bit and make it, say, 12 total (5 bonus) and let the individual classes keep some proper features to differentiate them - like Sneak Attack and evasion for rogues, Indomitable and Action Surge for fighters, Rage and Reckless Attack for barbarians, etc.

Go back to Next playtest design for maneuvers, specifically around packet 5, where they were a lot stronger and divided into general, fighter, monk, and rogue. Add barbarian.

Now, make Martial Adept better and repeatable. Let's say it grants 2 dice (at d8) and 3 maneuvers. Expand the list of maneuvers. Add level requirements so there's a sense of progression just as there is with spellcasting.

The end result is that those of us who want a more tactical, complex martial character can take Martial Adept several times along with feats like Sentinel and Mage Slayer or whatever, while those who are happy just swinging a sword every round can take simple feats like Savage Attacker and Toughness.

Also, there should probably be at least one simple caster option. Warlock is probably the best fit as it's halfway there already. Just make it more similar to, again, the 3.5 iteration, where they had only a fraction as many spells as a sorcerer or wizard, but they were all usable at will, albeit from a much smaller list and generally available several levels later. Given that short rest recharges seem to be going away, this seems like a reasonable mechanic.