Some things came up in response to my opening post that I honestly would never have expected. The below quoted post is as good a starting point as any to talk them.
You know, I'm honestly appalled that the opening post started by describing a "complex" fighter as a fighter who has access to trip and disarm of all things, and then went on to say that these things are bad for the fighter to have. This is absurd!
They aren't "bad". They are, however, weak and cause plausibility conflicts. They, alongside "improvisation", are really, really bad things to try to achieve class-balance off of.
There are three genuine complex fighters in D&D history, and all of them were much more interesting than some glorified mook who could maybe grab hold of a foe for a round or two if he was really lucky. The BECMi fighter could throw a bola around an enemy's neck and force it to make a saving throw or die from suffocation. The 3E Warblade was a very complex, fun, and potent class that had all kinds of tricks for direct combat and leadership. The 4E Fighter and its many relatives were all equals with the magical classes in every way. These are the complex fighters, and any attempt to make a new one needs to look at them and build on their successes.
I liked Bo9S. A lot. The Warblade's recovering mechanic fits a master tactician who needs to periodically step back and reevaluate the situation quite well. The Crusader's more random recovery mechanic fits a fighter who takes advantage of the vagaries of combat to engage in the tactics that fit the situation (as determined by a random draw of available maneuvers).
I dislike 4e's fighter however, in part because of the Encounter/Daily powers, and in part because the jettisoning of fluff means that players can't act outside the box. I dislike improvisation as an imposed class mechanic, and I find most "awesome cases of improvisation" to be rather sad in truth. I greatly fear swords turning into stat-sticks while fighters improvise away. That doesn't mean that I dislike using abilities cleverly.
However, I don't think these comparisons are relevant. The Simple Fighter we have seen in the playtest and the Warblade are simply too far apart to be part of the same class. Add onto that Mearls's comments on Maneuvers coming as part of Themes (which otherwise provides Feats or the equivalent) and it really, really doesn't look like the 5e Fighter is heading down the Warblade path. I admit that I was discounting the possibility entirely, and would bet, heavily, against it.
I mean, if you want a great thing for fighters to be able to do, look at the Warblade's Iron Heart Surge. A swift action to end any ongoing effect immediately, regardless of what that effect was. Even a Forcecage could be smashed to pieces in a second by a fighter who has that technique. This is exactly the kind of simple, flexible, and very powerful effect that fighters should have access to! It protects them from many effects that otherwise cripple fighters, is strongly linked to the core of the fighter archetype, and makes fighters stand apart from any other class. In fact, you could just give that ability to a simple fighter class and it would work.
Duh. Well, Iron Heart Surge won't have any effect on Forcecage, but still. This, however, has absolutely nothing to do with Simple vs. Complex Fighter, as you note in the final sentence. Simple or Complex, Fighters need some ability to shirk off hostile magical effects (10hp/use?), and eventually, some ability to break through Walls of Force or Prismatic Spheres.
Also, I utterly despise the idea that the fighter needs to be some kind of completely historically accurate nobody (or even weaker than historically accurate!) who is expected to fight alongside godlike super-mages who stepped straight out of a comic book. Because that is exactly what 3E Wizards were: gods and overpowered comic book superheroes with the serial numbers filed off. That kind of power doesn't even make for an interesting wizard class, and I'd rather see that kind of nonsensical power difference completely abolished (well, abolished again since 4E already did so, and I can't believe that 5E is being so regressive in this manner already). Fighters need to be incredible heroes of legend in their own right, and wizards need to be a bit more reasonable and a lot less like Dr. Strange.
Again, I fail to see how this is relevant in the context of Simple vs. Complex. It seems that many people read "Simple Fighter=Gimp", "Complex Fighter=Hercules". Can someone explain *why* they read things that way? Making a class complex usually weakens it, rather than the reverse, because designers are optimistic about how often the stars align and a class operates at maximum capacity.
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