D&D 5E Fighter Survey Response

[Tony Vargas]

Not the Vancianism. Vancianism has never been all that popular with D&D players anyway--hence the popularity of spell point variants over the years. What is popular is the structure and the content. Predefined spells, schools of magic, 1st-9th level spells with exponentially-growing effects, Fireball and the way it interacts with HP, Polymorph, Magic Jar, Clone, Teleport, Shapechange, etc., etc.

You mean magic being flashy & powerful, sure. Also, magic items seemed like a big part of the treasure-hunting appeal of early D&D. And magic, whether spell or item, has a sense of wonder to it, in concept - but so do knights in shining armor and the like.

D&D mechanics often failed to deliver on that sense of wonder, but, I suppose, spell and item descriptions were more likely to drop abstract mechanics in favor of arbitrary effects that could capture it.

But you can resort to that sort of thing in any system, really.

During my GURPS years I tried many times to shoehorn in something approximately D&D's Fireball but it never quite felt right. Neither did MERP. Shadowrun had some cool bits, and it definitely affected the way I view 5E (esp. Planar Binding), but it doesn't really have a satisfactory Fireball either, and that's one of the reasons why I'm not playing Shadowrun 4E right now.

The big difference in those cases, I'd think, isn't the 20' ball of fire or the magic system, it's the hp system.

But Vancianism per se isn't popular, as we can see from the fact that 5E has mostly discarded it.

Hardly, you still have spells/day. 3e (maybe even 2e?) moved away from the 'memorization' concept of Vance's Dying Earth, substituting 'preparation,' and even the 3e Sorcerer still used spell slots/day.

I thought about mentioning those, but decided against it because "more interested in X" doesn't imply "entirely disinterested in Y."

Yeah, I didn't say I found it compelling. When you read about the primordial D&D playtesters, for instance, they were almost always playing magic-users.

 

[Eubani]

Mike Mearls has pretty much stated most of the issues we have brought up but he and the other designers seem to fear the idea of adding a new class.......I think the Spellcaster Supremacy League has dirt on them and are blackmailing them to not give martial characters nice things. I put the current fighter situation as too much looking backwards (The Grognard appeasement ritual I bring up every so often) and a too hard attempt to distance themselves from 4e. I suppose an official martial class with at will stances and a superiority dice system with leveled maneouvers will remain only a dream till the current crew are a memory. It's sad to say but I think we may see the fighter in it's current predicament for another decade at least.

 

[TerraDave]

Looking at the first 30 or so posts on this thread, and I don't think I agree with any of them. It reminds of the first big playtest.

Its hard to design D&D. But they seem to know what they are doing.

 

[Gladius Legis]

which is the worst subclass or maybe I should say weakest.

Eh, honestly if you switch the Lv. 3 and Lv. 10 features around in the progression, it's not all that bad. Better than the Champion, actually, in that case, and not that much worse even as is.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Most of the Knight's interesting stuff is in fact at-will.

Most of the Knight's "interesting stuff" already existed in the form of the optional DMG Marking rule that any class can technically use. So, meh.

 

[cbwjm]

I like the ideas of the new subclasses and wouldn't want every new fighter subclass to be a variation on the battlemaster, unless they gave out new abilities for the higher levels. Having every fighter subclass gain larger superiority dice and relentless is rather boring in my opinion. If, however, they didn't gain larger dice and instead gained some other interesting abilities then it wouldn't be so bad. Basically though, I don't think battlemaster is everything that I want in a fighter class and simply expanding manoeuvres for new archetypes would be rather bland.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Basically, I want two things to happen for high-level Fighters in general:

1. More advanced general maneuvers along the lines of the generic Disarm, Grapple, Shove, except obviously better and take the use of two or more attacks. Two-attack maneuvers would be stuff anyone with Extra Attack can use, though Lv. 11+ Fighters would be able to do those plus an actual attack. And have some three-attack maneuvers that only 11+ Fighters can thus use.

2. For Battlemasters specifically (and any subclass that would use Superiority Dice, which I much prefer over this latest UA), advanced maneuvers that require the use of two or more Superiority Dice.

 

[Caliban]

I reiterated my stance that the Battlemaster is what the Fighter should be. The Maneuvers system and superiority dice should be the baseline for the Fighter class (and really, many of the other melee classes) the same way that Spellcasting and spell slots ares the baseline for all the magic classes. And to throw that system by the wayside is just stupid.

If you add these four archetypes to the four Fighter archetypes we already have (Champion, Battlemaster, Eldritch Knight, Banneret) and you ask someone "What's the underlying base mechanical assumption that gives all Fighter their iconic identity regardless of subclass?" what is our answer currently?

Action Surge and Second Wind.

That's it.

Well, not quite. Extra attacks and extra ABI's/feats as well. Plus a fighting style a full level before any other martial class. Basically fighters are just a little be better than everyone else with the boring mechanical features. More attacks, better stats (or more feats), plus a little self healing and Action Surge to do whatever you want twice in one round.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Most of the Knight's "interesting stuff" already existed in the form of the optional DMG Marking rule that any class can technically use. So, meh.

That isn't the only interesting stuff to which I referred. I was referring to the ability to impose disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than the Knight, which (I think) is an automatic effect on any of the Knight's melee attacks. That's not part of Marking.

The extra damage on opportunity attacks is somewhat nice too though not really important.

Overall, a Knight 5+/Wizard 3+ w/ Blur and Shield winds up making a pretty neat-o melee tank. A pure Knight is also interesting (especially at level 10+) especially if you roll poor on stats, because it's pretty SAD. Even if you've only got Str 13 and Con 11 and everything else lower than that, by the time you hit level 10 you're a reasonably good party tank with some interesting tactics available to you including just wading into the middle of a bunch of enemies and Dodging.

I don't love the writing, and in many ways I don't love the mechanics, but I do like the niche that it occupies and I do like the mental imagery that goes with it. It's vastly more interesting than the majority of UA stuff.

Basically, I want two things to happen for high-level Fighters in general:


1. More advanced general maneuvers along the lines of the generic Disarm, Grapple, Shove, except obviously better and take the use of two or more attacks. Two-attack maneuvers would be stuff anyone with Extra Attack can use, though Lv. 11+ Fighters would be able to do those plus an actual attack. And have some three-attack maneuvers that only 11+ Fighters can thus use.


2. For Battlemasters specifically (and any subclass that would use Superiority Dice, which I much prefer over this latest UA), advanced maneuvers that require the use of two or more Superiority Dice.

Yes. This exactly. Especially #1.

 

[Greg K]

I have not taken the survey as of yet. As with the other subclasses in these latest set of previews, I found the Fighter subclasses disappointing. I think I will just use I'm A Banana's adaptation of the 2e Complete Fighter's Handbook or perhaps some other third party works for the Knight and Samurai (the arcane archer just doesn't fit the style of game that I like to run).

To be honest, given the subclasses in the Barbarian to Monk previews, I have pretty much lost what little faith I already had in Mearls and Crawford to design subclasses.