Since some forumers mention that they generally dont see Fighter players at their own tables, I am curious.
Do you see Fighters at your table?
The players need to be experienced players, rather than newbies using an "easy class" to learn how to play.
The Fighter character needs to be a serious character that reaches level 8 or higher.
The Fighter character must be strictly nonmagical. No Eldritch Knight. No Psi Warrior. No magical feats including multiclass feats. Etc.
The Fighter character must be single-class Fighter. No multiclassing.
Here I say no. By that criteria it has been a while since I have seen this. I've seen a Champion that dipped wizard and a battlemaster that have dipped rogue, and any number of other rune knights or the hexblooded eldritch knight who picked up Fey- and Shadow-touched, but no level 8+ single classed battlemaster/cavalier/champion/samurai.
That is on purpose.
The context that provoked the curiosity is comparing "nonmagical" Fighters with spellcasters at high levels.
It helps to get a feel for how many players are actually playing nonmagical Fighters at these high levels.
Heh, at the lowest levels, pretty much no classes are "magical" enough.
Here is my (potential) insight on this. I think (IMO, in-my-personal-experience, YMMV, etc.) that the
"Non-Magical" "Fighter" as a distinct thing about which people have
Really Strong Opinions is an internet-argument artefact not representative to that which people in IRL gaming are focusing. An Eldritch Knight and a Battlemaster are closer together than either of them are to a wizard, regardless of one having spells and the other not. At times, someone opines that they'd like more ways for a totally-non-magical character to have better effects at high level, but in that case rogues and barbarians are in the discussion as well. More often than not, though, the distinctions that matter IRL are classes that cast 0-9 spells vs others, or sometimes those who stand in the front and take the forefront of the enemy attacks vs. everyone else.
See, the complaints that I hear at live gaming tables are that
- at high levels full-casters never run out of spells; when they do, they ask for a LR; and the opposition the DM throws to compensate for the power this most-round-casting falls disproportionately on the frontliners.
- archery and dex in general are disproportionately favored, such that playing a frontliner is the 'somebody has to do it' duty choice amongst role (caster and martial alike).
- at mid-to-high levels there are a bunch of spells like pass without trace, fly, stone shape, and teleport that give mostly the 0-9 casters (or them much earlier) so many ways of addressing problems, and the alternate ways of addressing such problems (the skill system, or things like defeating a wall with hammer and chisel) are so vague and unnuanced as to feel unrewarding (side discussion about why fighters are screwed in the skill department).
- some side issues surrounding very specific spells like conjure animals, banishment, animate dead, polymorph, simulacrum, and the like -- most of these already taken care of by 'everyone has gotten sick of...' methods (something that works at a given table, but still means there are problems that could be addressed).
The distinction that Fighter Joe technically has magic is simply not a primary concern. Not that martial Jane is a barbarian. Or even that frontliner Jim is a cleric who does the whole Spirit Guardian/Weapon/Dodge combo every combat (or did until they declared they never would again, and we'd better just get used to it). Yes, probably someone wants to play Aragorn or Sir John of McClane or the like, but it's not the first and foremost slicing of the hairs that gets made.
