D&D 5E D&D Next Blog - The Fighter

[Minigiant]

So, in your example, they balance at 7 rounds of combat. What if the combat ends on round two (coincidentally, after the wizard has unleashed his two spells)? Not so balanced anymore.

Yes, you can theoretically balance mediocre over a long period with awesome over a shorter period, using a bit of math, hps or some quasi-arbitrary quantification of 'usefulness' or 'fun' of awe-inspiring magic vs bland sword-swining. But it's very theoretical, because (1) you can't gaurantee they'll always get measured over that longer period and (2) because, really, no amount of mediocre ever really adds up to awesome, anyway.

1) is the DM's problem. It the DMG tells the DM that the average battle is balanced at X rounds, then the DM knows softer enemies favor the caster and tougher favor the martials.

2) is the player's problem. The PHB tells the fighter's player that if they take the Exploit warrior feat to get the "Earthquake Strike" and "Hurricane of Blades" exploits it'll increase their spike damage and awesomeness at the expense of their basic attack.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In my opinion, a fighter is Conan. Read the Conan stories and comics. That's what I want to see a fighter do.

Conan's also the archetypal barbarian.

Another REH character who makes an excellent fighter archetype was Cormac mac Art.

But neither he nor Conan lived in a world near so steeped in magic as D&D.

If characters are balanced in between combat, skill and social spheres, fighter should look a little bit like this:

Fighter
Combat - 80%
Exploration - 10%
Social - 10%

So if a game is balanced among the three pillars, the Player of the Fighter might as well only show up about a third the time. Fun.

As opposed to say...

Wizard
Combat - 60
Exploration - 30
Social - 10

A vancian caster with decent spell selection can be 100% whichever of the three he needs with a day's notice, if that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

1) is the DM's problem. It the DMG tells the DM that the average battle is balanced at X rounds, then the DM knows softer enemies favor the caster and tougher favor the martials.

Yes, it is. It's a problem for a DM to run a bad system. It's a problem because it constrains the kinds of challenges the DM can put before the party, and because it calls on the DM to fix a poorly-balanced set of classes.

2) is the player's problem. The PHB tells the fighter's player that if they take the Exploit warrior feat to get the "Earthquake Strike" and "Hurricane of Blades" exploits it'll increase their spike damage and awesomeness at the expense of their basic attack.

You assume exploits not in evidence, there. We were talking about peak-power casters vs no-peak-power non-casters balancing over time.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, it is. It's a problem for a DM to run a bad system. It's a problem because it constrains the kinds of challenges the DM can put before the party, and because it calls on the DM to fix a poorly-balanced set of classes.

I'm saying the DM should be provided with the tools to keep thing balanced while adjusting battles.

The game could assume the wizard cast either 2 strong spells or 4 slightly weaker spells per normal battle, 3 strong and 6 weak per hard battle, and 1 strong and 2 weak per easy battle.

The game just has to keep the wizard's spells per day regulated for the DM to use. If the wizard prepares 3 strong spell and 6 weak spells, then the DM know the wizard can handle 2 normal fights, 1 hard fight, 3 easy fights etc.

After that, it is up the DM adjust their encounters. And it is up to the player to manage their spells.

If the wizard player novas and easy fight, they will suck every following battle and the fighter will be the master of all those other battles.... Tough.

If the wizard player decides to save spells for the BBEG, they will suck every earlier battle and the DM will have to bump up an earlier encounter if they want to stop this.

You assume exploits not in evidence, there. We were talking about peak-power casters vs no-peak-power non-casters balancing over time.

The no-peak fight is not awesome, he is consistent. If the player wants an awesome fighter, they will have to build an awesome peak-power fighter.

If the game give the player options, it's up to the player to pick them. If the player wants an high damage fast killing fighter, they will:

Have to take peak-power encounter exploits
OR
Jack up their STR and power attack for +4 every turn.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm saying the DM should be provided with the tools to keep thing balanced while adjusting battles.

That's true of encounter balance, you can dial up an encounter vs a vancian caster if you have reason to beleive he'll be novaing, or dial back the nth encounter of the day if you're expecting them to be tapped out, and thus provide challenging encounters. In the one-encounter-nova, though, the vancian caster's power utterly overshadow any basic-attack-spammers who might have pointlessly accompanied them. Class balance in such a setup is only achievable at an encounters/day point. Which either constrains the DM, or detracts from the experience of the players, or both.

If the player wants an awesome fighter, they will have to build an awesome peak-power fighter.

If the game provides that option.

 

[Minigiant]

]That's true of encounter balance, you can dial up an encounter vs a vancian caster if you have reason to beleive he'll be novaing, or dial back the nth encounter of the day if you're expecting them to be tapped out, and thus provide challenging encounters. In the one-encounter-nova, though, the vancian caster's power utterly overshadow any basic-attack-spammers who might have pointlessly accompanied them. Class balance in such a setup is only achievable at an encounters/day point. Which either constrains the DM, or detracts from the experience of the players, or both.

Wizard nova Situation:

1 Encounter for the day: The enemies are so strong or numerous that the wizard needs help despite him novaing. The game has to reflect that.

Multiple encounter days: The wizards sucks every other encounter. The player has to live with his actions.

If the game provides that option.

It has provide the option or it wont be fun.

The game doesn't need 4E level balance but there has to be some sort of planning.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Here's a thought.

How about instead of complaining about the ranger (for example) being too focused and giving the fighter the ability to do all sorts of things that are tangentially related, why not complain about the fighter for being too broad a concept?

Remove the fighter. Replace it with a small number of more focused classes - archer, tank, dual-wielder, berserker. Whatever: the point isn't in what you replace it with, just that you go from a broad concept class to a small handful of more focused ones.

Seems to me that would fit in better with class-based design, anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

'Fighter,' like 'Magic-user' is a very bland, generic, unevocative name.

Magic-users were often called 'mages' and officialy became wizards (the level 11 magic-user level title, btw) in 2e. They have since spawned the virtually entire arcane source - wizards, mages, warlocks, sorcerers, artificers, bladesingers, witches, sha'ir, etc...

The Fighter's still the Fighter, though we have the Warlord now. And the Essentials Fighter bifurcated into the Knight and Slayer.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Here's a thought.

How about instead of complaining about the ranger (for example) being too focused and giving the fighter the ability to do all sorts of things that are tangentially related, why not complain about the fighter for being too broad a concept?

Remove the fighter. Replace it with a small number of more focused classes - archer, tank, dual-wielder, berserker. Whatever: the point isn't in what you replace it with, just that you go from a broad concept class to a small handful of more focused ones.

Seems to me that would fit in better with class-based design, anyway.

I prefer keeping the classes basic and doing more specialized stuff with themes. Once you start breaking down classes to be that specific you end up with dozens of classes for each major archetype. The four basic classes with multiple themes is easier to manage IMHO.

 

[Transformer]

I am attracted to the idea of the Fighter as a generalist (as opposed to a specialist), especially in terms of weapons. I would dearly love a fighter who carries a number of different kinds of weapons based on what's most useful in the situation at hand, and who's effective, equally effective, even more effective than everyone else, with every one of them. In a fight against a tough enemy, shield. In a fight against fleshy people, a two-handed sword. In a fight against lots of little devils, a polearm for control. In a fight against skeletons or oozes, a mace. In a fight against a quick rogue, a sword in each hand. And so forth, with meaningful and interesting effects for every one. Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are awful, doubly: one, they provide a +1 bonus to a core number (*yawn*), and two, they force the worst kind of specialization, the kind where you carry a greatsword because you like greatswords, but then you get used to its extra attack and damage, especially since you got a +1 greatsword, so trying anything else feels sadly gimped...

With magic items removed from the game's core numbers, we could actually manage a fighter who's a weapons master if we also keep weapons diversified and keep feats from forcing boring specialization.