Daily Powers don't belong on the Fighter

[variant]

Another option is give the fighter set abstract abilities like rolling damage dice twice (choose the highest), gain advantage, extra action, and put them on a small resource pool that refreshes on a specific rest, either short or long depending on the balance. Nothing complicated, few in number and simplistic.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Another option is give the fighter set abstract abilities like rolling damage die twice and choose the highest, gain advantage, bonus to attack roll, extra action, and put them on a small resource pool that refreshes on a specific rest, either short or long depending on the balance. Nothing complicated, few in number and simplistic.

I think this is the kind of stuff people who oppose martial dailies wouldn't like. For me it just adds more meta-resources into the game.

 

[variant]

I think this is the kind of stuff people who oppose martial dailies wouldn't like. For me it just adds more meta-resources into the game.

Let's say you could perform one of these special things per day per Con modifier point, would that be too much?

 

[eamon]

Fighting's tiring. I could well imagine that it's a bit taxing to sprint that extra bit, and if you try to do high-intensity sports, there's definitely a limit to how often a day you can do so.

Of course the model's rather simplified; it's not a given you'd recover after just one extended rest (in fact, I'd say that's probably only possible for well-trained individuals), nor is it likely that overexertion has no influence on normal fighting capability.

Still, recovery after intense exercise certainly takes place on the timespan of a day, so in principle a daily recovery mechanic might be a suitably simple rule for such actions.

But a little better embedding in the fluff wouldn't harm and could help to make the ability feel more natural. Some fatigue mechanic perhaps, and initially a slower recovery than 1/day, for instance. This might be balanced by making the surge more powerful. But even a well-though-out explanation (which we can't see on the character sheet, of course) could help.

This could even be expanded into a more general mechanic for fancy fighter exploits: like a psion has psionic power points, a fighter might have fatigue (or energy or vitality) points he uses to power particularly strenuous moves.

 

[whearp]

I'm a big fan of Essentials for handling the issue of fighter perks. I don't see why the D&DN fighter doesn't have handy abilities that recharge after a short rest instead of a long rest. I think one of the key advantages of a martial character is their consistency over whiz-bang. The wizard and cleric can run out of mojo that allows them to cause amazing effects each day, but the fighter needs only to catch his breath for a few minutes before he's at full capacity again.

 

[eamon]

Let's say you could perform one of these special things per day per Con modifier point, would that be too much?

I think that'd work fine. However, I'd tie it a little less closely to Con. An ability score modifier is pretty course, and it's also likely something that doesn't change much over levels; so this might make the class front-loaded. An alternative would be to use the Con score, and then have the abilities cost several such points, with the cost decreasing over levels.

In any case, I think the idea of a shared pool of some endurance-like concept is a good one and more sensible that silo-d dailies.

 

[variant]

Another option is to let the fighter spend hit points to push himself which would let him to gain advantage, roll damage dice twice (keep highest), get an extra action, etc.

Of course, I like the idea of a general pool of endurance that any character could gain some benefit from, but the fighter and other physical combat classes would by far get the most benefit. It would let you push yourself to extremes, like running twice as fast in your turn, or taking another action, gaining advantage, etc.

I'm a big fan of Essentials for handling the issue of fighter perks. I don't see why the D&DN fighter doesn't have handy abilities that recharge after a short rest instead of a long rest. I think one of the key advantages of a martial character is their consistency over whiz-bang. The wizard and cleric can run out of mojo that allows them to cause amazing effects each day, but the fighter needs only to catch his breath for a few minutes before he's at full capacity again.

Because, you get into the problem of, "You are too winded to use this ability, but not this more exhausting ability?"

 

[Bedrockgames]

Let's say you could perform one of these special things per day per Con modifier point, would that be too much?

I am really not much of a fan of this stuff.

 

[whearp]

Because, you get into the problem of, "You are too winded to use this ability, but not this more exhausting ability?"

I'm not sure I get what you're saying there. The essentials fighter typically only gets encounter powers. He can exhaust his full complement of abilities in one fight, but still have them again for the next fight. He doesn't set things on fight, or banish them to the nine hells, but he's consistently useful. The X times daily model just feels too gamey to me... why can't I do my special thing anymore... because I'm out of uses. It doesn't matter how much time there is between the uses of surge or how early in the day I did it... I'm out. My guy can relax in a tavern half an hour having a bowl of stew and an ale, but still be too spent to use his perk when the place gets raided by orcs.

I don't care how it gets handled in the end, but the x per day mechanic is boring and mechanical.

 

[Minigiant]

Let's say you could perform one of these special things per day per Con modifier point, would that be too much?

I already think it is.
Most of the mechanics for class features are hidden.