D&D 5E Class Analysis: Fighter and Bard

[ZombieRoboNinja]

This argument breaks down pretty easily. Fighters and casters are about equivalent in combat effectiveness but casters have more utility.

There are three ways to "fix" this:
1. Give fighters more utility.
2. Nerf caster utility.
3. Nerf caster combat effectiveness.

Now, IMHO #3 is right out. In a game focused as much on combat as d&d, you can't make a class that sucks at combat but can talk to trees. #2 is mostly what 4e did and in a lot of people's opinion it negatively impacted the game.

Here's the tricky part: #1 already happened. We have a ton of supernatural martial classes and subclasses now, and feats that can give them even more utility. If you're playing a champion with no feats and don't feel like you have utility, there's nobody to blame bit yourself.

 

[Fishbone]

The thing this doesn't take into account is that Bards are awesome with Enchantments and Illusions and you can spec them out to be even better with them to the point where you're almost as good as a Wizard, Sorcerer or Warlock going for that stuff. Possibly even better, I haven't made enough characters nor have we seen enough of these guys in action to know for sure.

So while the Fighter might have to deal 80+ HP damage to something, even to CR 2 and 3 monsters, you can drop a Wisdom targeting spell as a Bard and maybe mash the I Win button. That sure beats all the Cure Whatever Wounds stuff you've got the Bard preparing. If you can just shut down a meathead monster (lots are even -1 to Wisdom saves, ouch) that is worth a ton of damaging and healing.

As more feats and healing magical items show up, the Bard will have a lot more liberty to mash the Enchantment and Illusion "I Win" button.

 

[Uskglass]

If you want the growth of PC abilities to be incremental rather than transformative you really do want another game. I say that with not the slightest intention in the world to denigrate you or your playstyle. You might be better served by something like EarthDawn or RuneQuest or GURPs.

This is a good insight. I play a variety of games, and I am personally ok with both approaches to progression. But whichever is chosen, I care for it to be consistent across characters (which is not to say it has to be done in the same ways for all). The OP is specifically about this issue: one class having an incremental progression and another one having a transformative one.

 

[Uskglass]

If you have two ways that mechanically achieve the same thing (bypass hp completely), then the fluff doesn't really matter. The end result is the same. And I don't think that just because one class might have a way of doing something it means every other class should. That's like saying, "if one class can cast healing magic, every class should." Again, niche protection isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Just making this up on the fly:

Killer Blow
You can perform this on a target with 1/2 of its total HP or less. As a standard action perform a single melee weapon attack against the target taking disadvantage on it. On a hit the target is slain.

This is an example of the kind of stuff you could achieve with martial abilities at high level, while remaining mechanically different from spells. It is only an example and not even a good one (I'm sure professional designers can come up with much better ideas), but it is just to show that there is space for providing martial classes with extraordinary capabilities while not overstepping into others' territories.

 

[Jack the Lad]

Okay. I've just got back from my 5e game. Let's do this.

Yep. 2 spells. Not every spell. I've already pointed this out no fewer than three times now. At any given scenario, one of the factors a wizard is reliant on is to have learned the right spell for the job. Your white room scenario is based on the assumption that the perfect spell will always be available. It simply is not always the case. Maybe the two spells you chose aren't useful in the scenario you're in.

You're moving the goalposts again. The statement of yours that I was responding to reads "casters [might not] have had access to the spell to begin with".

My answer was to quote the rules which state that they automatically gain access to their pick of every Wizard spell at the appropriate level(s). They do not have to rely on the DM to give it to them, so they will always have had access to a given spell.

Whether they chose a particular spell is another thing entirely, and one that you harp on a lot. Unfortunately, you can't have your cake and eat it on this. In your white room, the Wizard seems to have no spells at all. The fact is - and I know this because I've done it - a Wizard will pick the spells that seem best to them, and as I have demonstrated over and over again there are many, many spells that are overpowered in an enormous variety of situations and against an enormous variety of enemies. You simply don't need the perfect spell for a given situation to outperform and obsolete non-casters.

Not to mention that if you don't have spells, it is because you cast them earlier. At some point you used them and they had the overpowered effects that I'm talking about.

Again, though, the idea that casters will run out of spells and/or enter into an encounter without spells is just not borne out in play for me. You don't need multiple spells to trivialise an encounter, especially at higher levels, and it's a rare encounter indeed that lasts more than 3 rounds in any case.

And you know in advance of your particular adventuring day which spells will be perfect for all the scenarios? Must be nice. Everyone I've played with guesses which ones might come in handy. Yet again, you're assuming a white room scenario where the best spells are always available and in actual play that is not the case.

Again, you don't need the perfect spell(s). You can prep many more than you need, and 5e's spell preparation is probably the most flexible and permissive yet; you're completely free to prepare niche/utility spells without the risk of wasting slots.

No goal post shifting. Originally I was talking in general, then the conversation shifted to 5e specific, so I applied 5e's specific rule for the situation. Either way, doesn't change the fact that a wizard can have some of his or her spells interrupted. Which is a factor your white room ignores. Again.

That seems strange to me, especially as you didn't make this defence when pemerton queried the point originally.

Either way, I took the interruption by damage of Concentration spells into account in my earlier posts. I also talked about the War Caster + Resilient combo (or alternatively War Caster + Transmuter's Stone in order to take Resilient for Wis saves). This trivialises DC10 Concentration checks - which, as I've explained, are the overwhelming majority of the checks you will be making, even at the highest levels - very, very quickly:

See my answer above. Your resort to an obvious and week argument of fallacy shows how fragile your argument actually is. Not only have I been playing the playtests since the beginning, I DM every week at my FLGS for their Encounters.

If this is the case, I would love to hear some of your experiences from actual play. What spells are your casters using in combat? How often do they run out? Have you been allowing your players short rests after each encounter? Have they been using healer's kits? How much damage are players taking in combat? Have you run any encounters with the latest exp budget table? How have you found the Fighter's ability to push on after an encounter in which they take damage? I've found that they tend to run out of healing before casters run out of spells.

Most importantly, what's the highest level you've played 5e at, and at what point during the development process did you do so?

This is not a trick question, or a challenge. I'm genuinely very interested to hear other groups' experiences and the differences in playstyle that might have caused them to be as different from mine as they seem to have been.

Additionally, I would rule that any spell that requires an S component can't be cast while restrained. A wizard can get restrained before their initiative turn. Thus, interrupting the spell. And I don't think that's really a house rule, but more of a common sense one. You can't cast a spell after you've been incapacitated or dead, right? Same premise.

Restrained does not prevent the casting of spells with somatic components. If that's your houserule, great, but I think if we start talking about houserules the conversation quickly becomes far too broad to be meaningful.

Bolded by me. Yet again, an important factor for the wizard being able to cast spells that you seem to be handwaving as not a factor. Spell components are a factor, and the wizard might not have them all of the time. End, stop.

The Fighter having access to a weapon and armour is an important factor in their being able to fight, and he might not have them all of the time.

That aside, Wizards do fine without using spells that require components not covered by their pouch or arcane focus. True Polymorph, for instance, has no additional components. That's the one that lets you permanently turn into an Adult Red Dragon.

That aside, level 7+ Wizards can Fabricate several suits of plate armour per day, and those sell for 750 gold. Given any kind of downtime whatsoever, he can afford whatever he wants.

You're missing the point. That statement was referring to how in your white room comparisons, the wizard always has his or her slots there to cast their spells, every round. See my fireball example above. This is not the case. That powerful spell isn't powerful if the wizard doesn't have that slot available in any particular scenario.

This is actually quite revealing, and serves as a useful insight into your perspective. If you think Fireball is a powerful spell, or if Wizards in your games are primarily casting damage spells like Fireball, I can easily see why you would have experienced them running out of spells and not seeming all that overpowered.

Once again, you're making some serious flawed assumptions about my position and experience actually playing the game. Your personal attacks on my credibility without basis are noted. And seeing as how there are dozens of monsters that have immunity to spells (sleep, charm, etc), I'm beginning to think it's you who doesn't know what you're talking about. This is only reinforced by the many times you seem to be handwaving away all of these factors that mitigate caster power in actual play as if they aren't relevant or don't happen. I.e., it seems to me you're entire argument is based on white room only logic, and not actual play experience.

You're responding here to my response to the point you raised about monsters having 'spell resistance'. I pointed out that a Stone Golem - described in the fluff as almost impervious to spells and with advantage to all saves against magic - still fails 2 of its saves every time and 2 of its saves the vast majority of the time. It's also flat out immune to charm, exhaustion, fear, paralysis, petrification and poison, but it just doesn't matter. Like, two options that sprang to mind while typing this: trap it under a hemispherical Wall of Force and ping it to death with cantrips over the next 10 minutes - no save. Fly or Levitate out of reach and ping it to death with cantrips - no save.
If your Wizard is standing there throwing 8d6 fireballs at its 178 HP, you won't see these problems. But this is the kind of thing I'm talking about with single spells beating encounters. The Wizard doesn't even need a party in this situation.

I just gave one. The fireball example. I can give you thousands of examples over the past 30+ years where casters were less useful than fighters in combat. Casters run out of spells. Often. Or they don't have a useful one memorized. Or they don't have the components. The list goes on.

I haven't mentioned Fireball myself, or indeed any kind of damage-dealing spell. See the Stone Golem example above for more on this. Wizards who are casting blasting spells every round probably will perform comparably to a Fighter, if not slightly worse. That's the least effective way to play a Wizard and it has been for a very long time indeed.

Again, how many times have casters run out of spells in your game? How many times have they not had the components they needed for a spell?

Wait, what? No they're not. Spells, and magic, are very rigidly defined because they don't occur in real life to have as a comparison. The rules are very clear how, what, when, and what effect various casting of magic does. Mundane actions are much looser. It's pretty much, "Come up with a DC value for the action the player wants to do and determine the appropriate ability modifier to use." If you're PC doesn't have casting ability, they can't cast a spell. If they aren't a battlemaster fighter, the can still attempt to stun, trip, etc. Just tell the DM what you want to do.

Now this is a huge big red flag for me. Magic is defined because there's no real life magic by which to calibrate it?

Where are the real life Fighters, capable of killing a dragon with a sword and being hit in the face with an axe 10 times without slowing down? They don't exist. There is no real life metric for that.

And that's one of the many reasons that allowing casters to do anything because 'it's magic!' and noncasters to do only 'realistic' things because they're not is awful.

How fast can you run, jump, climb carrying a large rug? Or your incapacitated buddy? Where does it spell out exactly how leap on the table and then leap onto the orc trying to bear him to the ground? There are hundreds of scenarios that can occur that aren't spelled out exactly in the books that can, and do, occur in actual game play. They don't need to be spelled out exactly. And you're wrong, there is a framework for these. It's called the DC system, and is pretty clear on how to come up with your own rulings.

You can run/jump/climb at the usual speed regardless of what you're carrying unless you're using the variant encumbrance rules. Leaping onto a table and bearing an orc to the ground is moving into difficult terrain and making a trip attempt. Meanwhile, a Wizard can mind control the orc to fight on his side, banish it to another plane of existence, blind it, send it to sleep, read its mind, paralyse it, terrify it, summon tentacles to grapple it, summon elementals/skeletons/ghouls/zombies/mummies/etc to fight it, confuse it, turn it into a frog, trap it inside a gem, make it (and everything else in a large radius) fall upwards 100 feet into the sky and take fall damage when they come back down and much, much more.

Even if the Fighter paints an amazing picture in the mind of the DM, there's no way he can justify that kind of narrative control.

What part of "here's a list of reasons why the caster might not have access to cast that spell" is not sinking in? No one is saying the caster won't cast their spells, I am saying they can't cast the perfect spell for every scenario all the time, which is a key base assumption in these types of comparison.

It's not an assumption at all. What's a situation where you need one perfect spell that you would not otherwise have prepared? If we use my Stone Golem example, Fly/Levitate/Wall of Force are extremely powerful and versatile spells. I would always prepare them.

I'm not talking about just combat. Once again, this "he fact that the wizard is also competitive with the fighter in combat..." is dependent on a white room scenario. If your wizard preps spells focused on the out of combat scenarios, you can't also say he's as good as the fighter if he doesn't have any combat spells prepped. And vice versa. You can't have it both ways.

But you can. You get to prep a lot of spells in 5e. At level 10 I might have prepped: Mage Armour, Silent Image, Detect Magic, Protection from Evil and Good, Hold Person, Misty Step, Levitate, Animate Dead, Fly, Haste, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph, Evard's Black Tentacles, Hold Monster and Wall of Force.

IF the wizard has that spell available. Seriously, this isn't that hard. Maybe the wizard never learned that spell. Maybe they did prep it because they prepp'd another spell. Maybe they already cast that level slot and don't have any available. Maybe the wizard doesn't want to put his squishy self on the front line of combat to make that spell effective. All of these are factors that completely tear down your argument.

Like what? What's an actual example of this. You keep on saying "but what if you don't have the spell you need" and it's just meaningless noise unless you can present a scenario in which it's relevant.

If you have two ways that mechanically achieve the same thing (bypass hp completely), then the fluff doesn't really matter. The end result is the same. And I don't think that just because one class might have a way of doing something it means every other class should. That's like saying, "if one class can cast healing magic, every class should." Again, niche protection isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Bypassing HP is a very broad and extremely powerful ability to have. It is not a niche. It is not comparable to healing magic. It's part of what makes casters overpowered - one of the ways in which they can ignore the rules that non-casters operate by - and giving other classes equivalent options is a sensible step towards achieving something approaching class balance.

@Jack the Lad :
Sacrosanct pretty much summed up what I was going to reply (thanks Sacrosanct!).

That said... I've been playing RPG's since late '79, mostly as a DM. My highest level character is a 20th level 1e AD&D Magic-User named Denakhan. I've written about 3 'full' RPG's (never published; just for fun). I've written two campaign settings (1 for 1e AD&D/Hackmaster, and 1 for Powers & Perils). I've only played two sessions of 5e, as a DM both times, for a total play time of about 5.5 hours.

**snip**

Y'know, I've tried to write a reply three times now (this will be #4). I now realize that there is no way for me (or other long-term DM's like KarinsDad and Sacrosanct) to "prove" our experience is true as per rules. Why? All the 'proof' I could think of was basically anecdotal. I'm not going to write a 60 page novella detailing the experiences of a party of adventurers (with rules footnotes, of course), because it would be fruitless. I can say "A fighter can fight all day long", and I can get a reply that says "But fighters have HP limits, so they can't". I can reply "Yes, but they can drink potions of healing, or get clerical healing, or use a short rest/second wind", which would net a reply of "But so can the wizard". Etc, etc, etc. I can't 'prove' that game play experience will balance out all the sparkely-whizz-bang things a caster can do simply because there are not "game play experience" rules in the system.

All I can say is this: If casters are so overpowered, why don't we see parties consisting of wizard, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard? If the game was so bias in favor of casters, I don't think we'd see more than a handful of other classes represented in "the wild" (re: forums, game conventions, online play, personal campaign web sites, etc). But we do. We see a LOT of other classes. All over the place. Just go to Obsidian Portal and check out some personal campaigns of folks...lots of other classes represented. Lots.

This is the biggest and most staggeringly lazy dodge I've ever seen.

I haven't asked you to prove that your experiences are true. There would be no point in doing so, as you've admitted that you haven't played 5e, and that you haven't even had more than one or two 'quick glances' at the rules we are discussing.

I'll ask the question I asked at the end of my post again, because I feel it's an important one: why do you feel qualified to dismiss the concerns of people who have played 5e when you haven't even read the rules?

You said that I shouldn't just compare damage/combat ability, and that if I wanted to get a good feeling for class balance, I needed to look at it in terms of all three pillars.
I did so, demonstrating and explaining comprehensively the fact that Fighters are extremely lacking in the non-combat pillars.

You said that a caster who uses up half their spells in one fight will struggle in the next five.
I pointed out that in my experience casters only need 1 or 2 spells to beat an encounter, and that encounters are very short in 5e. Again, you have no actual play experience to draw on here.

You said that NPCs will mix up their tactics in response to PC actions.
I pointed out that casters have far, far more room to mix up their own tactics in response while Fighters are stuck doing the same things from level 3 to 20.

You said something vague about PCs having so much going on in their lives at levels 8 to 10 that there's no point looking at numbers, and that you've never seen a caster be overpowered compared to other PCs.
I gave a quick rundown of some of the extremely powerful things casters are capable of at levels 8-10, including out of combat utility options, and pointed out that Fighters, again, get nothing.

You said that the 5e system focuses on on broad strokes to paint a general picture and relies on the players and DM to give it the details.
I pointed out that there are 90+ pags of specific, concrete effects that casters have access to.

You gave an example of the sort of 'quick, easy, fun, fair' ruling that 5e enables; a player taking Disadvantage on an attack to gain Advantage next turn.
I pointed out that this is always a bad bet for the PC, and an excellent example of why the 'but Fighters can do anything if they use their imagination' argument is so laughable.

You said that I should compare a Fighter's Fighting Style or Maneuvers to a caster's 'Cast Spell'.
I pointed out that +1 AC or +2 to hit with bows are meaningless in the face of spellcasting.

You mentioned restrictions on casters' ability to cast, including being interrupted while casting.
I pointed out that there is no such rule in 5e.

You said that the assumed relative scarcity of magic items in 5e constitutes a nerf to casters.
I pointed out that Fighters suffer more, and that we have seen many monsters with resistance or immunity to non-magical weapons.

You drew a comparison between Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and Survivor. I pointed out that a Fighter gains Survivor at level 18 and that it regenerates - some of the time - 5 + Con HP per turn, whereas casters get level 9 spells at level 17, allowing them to permanently turn into dragons and other extremely powerful enemies that are designed to be a challenge for the entire party.

To summarise, you've said yourself that you haven't played the game and haven't read the rules beyond a quick glance. I don't know why you were trying to have this argument in the first place.

Note that a lot of the spells referenced (Speak With Dead, Shatter, etc), are all far far weaker in 5E than they were in earlier editions; please make sure you are using the right version of the spell. Also, most of the spells referenced can only be used one at a time, and heaven help you if you get stunned or dazed or hit with a incapacitate of any kind. (or charmed, etc).

Note that the Fighter is equally vulnerable to status effects - or in several cases moreso. A Dragon's fear aura, for instance (disadvantage on attack rolls, can't willingly move closer to the dragon) has no effect whatsoever on a caster's ability to defeat it.

 

[Andor]

Restrained does not prevent the casting of spells with somatic components. If that's your houserule, great, but I think if we start talking about houserules the conversation quickly becomes far too broad to be meaningful.

Actually it does. "If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures." PHB p203.

Wizards have plenty of options even tied up, but no Somatic with your hands bound, and no Verbal when gagged. The rules are not unclear.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm going to be honest with you. After your previous post and this part below? I stopped reading. Because it seems clear to me that you are being either deliberately obtuse, or you're just not able to grasp what I'm saying. I'll explain why with just this first part

You're moving the goalposts again. The statement of yours that I was responding to reads "casters [might not] have had access to the spell to begin with".

My answer was to quote the rules which state that they automatically gain access to their pick of every Wizard spell at the appropriate level(s). They do not have to rely on the DM to give it to them, so they will always have had access to a given spell.
.

I am NOT moving the goal posts. Cue a pic of Vizzini from Princess Bride. I have been consistent the entire time about casters might not have access to the spell to begin with. Because they might not. You keep saying that they can choose 2 of their spells when they gain a level. Congratulations to them. But that's only two spells per level. That's not every spell. And the only way your white room scenario works is if the casters have access to every spell, all the time. Because as soon as they don't, they no longer satisfy your claim that they are more powerful or can do more than a mundane class.

I'm not sure how I can explain this any clearer. If you gain a level, and choose spells X and Y, and find yourself in a scenario where spell Z would be really helpful and X and Y really don't apply, guess what? That's an example of the spell not being available to be cast, throwing the entire foundation of your argument out the window. If you choose web and invisibility as your two spells when you hit level 3, how does that make the caster more powerful than the rogue when it comes time to disarm the trap and pick the lock? How does it make the caster more powerful than the fighter in combat against giant spiders? Knock isn't a spell that's available to you. Flaming sphere isn't available to you. And again, this is just one of the reasons that make the white room argument a ridiculous one.

So basically, if you can't (or worse, refuse) to understand this very first part of why your argument fails, then there is literally no reason for me to continue with refuting all of your other posts point by point again.

 

[Jack the Lad]

Actually it does. "If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures." PHB p203.

Wizards have plenty of options even tied up, but no Somatic with your hands bound, and no Verbal when gagged. The rules are not unclear.

You're right that the rules are clear. Restrained is a defined condition with defined effects, none of which are 'you do not have free use of either hand'.

 

[Jackal_]

I'm going to be honest with you. After your previous post and this part below? I stopped reading. Because it seems clear to me that you are being either deliberately obtuse, or you're just not able to grasp what I'm saying. I'll explain why with just this first part



I am NOT moving the goal posts. Cue a pic of Vizzini from Princess Bride. I have been consistent the entire time about casters might not have access to the spell to begin with. Because they might not. You keep saying that they can choose 2 of their spells when they gain a level. Congratulations to them. But that's only two spells per level. That's not every spell. And the only way your white room scenario works is if the casters have access to every spell, all the time. Because as soon as they don't, they no longer satisfy your claim that they are more powerful or can do more than a mundane class.

I'm not sure how I can explain this any clearer. If you gain a level, and choose spells X and Y, and find yourself in a scenario where spell Z would be really helpful and X and Y really don't apply, guess what? That's an example of the spell not being available to be cast, throwing the entire foundation of your argument out the window. If you choose web and invisibility as your two spells when you hit level 3, how does that make the caster more powerful than the rogue when it comes time to disarm the trap and pick the lock? How does it make the caster more powerful than the fighter in combat against giant spiders? Knock isn't a spell that's available to you. Flaming sphere isn't available to you. And again, this is just one of the reasons that make the white room argument a ridiculous one.

So basically, if you can't (or worse, refuse) to understand this very first part of why your argument fails, then there is literally no reason for me to continue with refuting all of your other posts point by point again.

Not being able to find or buy spells has never been a real hindrance to any spell casters i've played with in 15 years of playing. If that really is the only argument you have against his facts and graphs I am going to have to take his assertion that casters are once again firmly superior to fighters to be true. Which is a real shame after all the early feedback from Mearl's that they were not going to let that happen this time.

on another note, its disconcerting that Concentration checks can be trivialized so easily.

 

[Jack the Lad]

I'm going to be honest with you. After your previous post and this part below? I stopped reading. Because it seems clear to me that you are being either deliberately obtuse, or you're just not able to grasp what I'm saying. I'll explain why with just this first part

I am NOT moving the goal posts. Cue a pic of Vizzini from Princess Bride. I have been consistent the entire time about casters might not have access to the spell to begin with. Because they might not. You keep saying that they can choose 2 of their spells when they gain a level. Congratulations to them. But that's only two spells per level. That's not every spell.

You said, specifically, that the Wizard might not have had access. As in, at no point.
I said, specifically, yes they have - they've picked from the entire list of possible spells each time they gained a level, with no DM intervention or permission required. That is my point on this subject.

And the only way your white room scenario works is if the casters have access to every spell, all the time. Because as soon as they don't, they no longer satisfy your claim that they are more powerful or can do more than a mundane class.

Yet again, nope. That's a massive strawman, and you are the only one suggesting it. I've never said that casters have access to every spell all the time or anything close to it. I gave multiple examples of this in the post you're replying to, including an example day's spells prepped.

I'm not sure how I can explain this any clearer. If you gain a level, and choose spells X and Y, and find yourself in a scenario where spell Z would be really helpful and X and Y really don't apply, guess what? That's an example of the spell not being available to be cast, throwing the entire foundation of your argument out the window. If you choose web and invisibility as your two spells when you hit level 3, how does that make the caster more powerful than the rogue when it comes time to disarm the trap and pick the lock? How does it make the caster more powerful than the fighter in combat against giant spiders? Knock isn't a spell that's available to you. Flaming sphere isn't available to you. And again, this is just one of the reasons that make the white room argument a ridiculous one.

Ah, level 3. Yes. That's the time when casters and non-casters are the closest together.

If you're level 3, and you haven't picked Knock, the Rogue is better at dealing with locked doors than you. I don't know why you feel that Flaming Sphere is somehow essential to fighting giant spiders, though. If you've taken Web and Invisibility, (I personally wouldn't take Web, but for the sake of argument) you can cast Burning Hands out of a level 2 slot instead, dealing an average of 10.15 damage per spider you catch in it (at least 2, preferably 3). Meanwhile, the Great Weapon Fighter is dealing 7.2 per hit.

Can you give me an example at level 10+?

So basically, if you can't (or worse, refuse) to understand this very first part of why your argument fails, then there is literally no reason for me to continue with refuting all of your other posts point by point again.

This is a dodge, with yet more goalpost-moving as a bonus. I have acknowledged and addressed each one of your points in good faith and with examples and explanations. I've asked you simple, direct questions to try to better understand your point of view.

It seems to me that you are now refusing to engage because you have no good answers.

Which is a real shame after all the early feedback from Mearl's that they were not going to let that happen this time.

I feel this way, too. I remember being very excited about Fighters after reading their Design Goals article and seeing Mearls talk about Beowulf and Roland, but in the game at release your physical abilities fall well short of actual real world athletes and if you want to take on Grendel unarmed you're rolling 1 + Str for damage.