NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="koga305" data-source="post: 6489887" data-attributes="member: 6747640">Aw yes, a FIGHT! Just what I was hoping for - a chance to demonstrate the fighter's superiority in combat <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />.*Well, Fighters aren't a skill-based class. I don't expect them to have the best skills, but some of them are generally quite good.  And personally, I don't think Athletics is outclassed by levitate or fly because at most levels, the mage in your party will really want those slots for other things. Sure, maybe the Wizard is able to cast levitate, but in practice they'll appreciate saving the slot for a mirror image next combat or to cast invisibility on the Rogue. Plus, many of those spells require Concentration which Athletics doesn't, relevant in situations where you might be taking damage. I've found that being able to climb, swim, or jump - in short, covering difficult terrain - comes up a lot in my games in terms of exploration, although yours may be different.On the contrary, those few points of AC can make all the difference in a bounded accuracy system. It means a decrease in damage taken over the course of an entire day, which makes a big difference in your resilience. When fighting creatures with +4 to hit (happens surprisingly often), a 20 AC (plate and shield) nearly halves your chance to be hit compared to 16 (Studded Leather + 4 from Dex). That's a big deal if you're getting swarmed by low-level monsters!Is Will the most important save? I'm not sure - at the very least it's up for debate. Certainly plenty of nasty effects are based on both. And if your Fighter goes EK or multiclasses caster, it'll be the best by a mile as Concentration is super important.This is true. You've got me there - I merely meant to say the Fighter has lots of build options.Agreed with you there. Still, in practice much of the game is played at low levels.Level two!This is true. Basic economic theory says the value of additional picks from a limited set of options diminishes as you select the best ones first. However, there are still quite a few good picks that the Fighter can afford that other classes can't. Resilient (Wisdom) shores up your weak save, Sentinel makes you a stellar defender and boosts damage, Shield Master boosts your defenses and gives you a great bonus action ability, Mage Slayer makes you awesome at fighting casters, and even the humble Constitution increase has great value. And unlike other classes, you can actually afford to take several of these option because you've already picked up the ones your build needs early on.Well, yes. If each Extra Attack actually doubled your number of attacks, the Fighter would make every non-Fighter martial class start feeling useless in combat around level 11, barring similar buffs for them. Class balance is a thing. It's still a really awesome bonus, even taking into account that other classes get cool abilities at level 11 (well, mostly; the Open Hand Monk's 1/day sanctuary doesn't really compete <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />).It does stack with Inspiration for those really, really important saves. And while it won't help all of your saving throws, it'll help the ones that really count. Admittedly, Relentless isn't the Fighter's strongest ability but it is far from useless.Not sure if I agree with you here. First of all, from what I've read the Champion's somewhat lower damage isn't noticeable in play.Second, in terms of theory, the class for skilled ought to have a lower floor but a higher ceiling. If it wasn't more powerful when played at its best, those that enjoy playing and optimizing complex Fighters would be annoyed because they felt like their skill wasn't rewarded. In my opinion, the design here is just about right.It's fun for new players because they get the occasional cool bonus without having to learn an entirely new subsystem. And given the strength of the Fighter class in general, the small difference in DPR in play is somewhat inconsequential. Chances are this subclass was not designed for you (and to be honest, me), but I feel sure that some people out there are very happy playing it.Your point is taken but that doesn't invalidate the ability - versatility is important, especially at higher levels. Also, all your maneuvers get stronger as you level up so there is a reward for continuing to advance in the subclass. Finally, gaining Extra Attacks means that you can pull off "combos" that you couldn't before (trip, then menace, then push) - so the ability does subtly scale with level even when it's not obvious.Also, you mean you don't want to find out the combat stats of people you interact with socially? "Hey, DM. That sinister-looking merchant and all of his guards. Could we take them?"Can Bards summon their weapon from anywhere on the plane? Can they make six attacks in a single round? Can they stand in the way of a Beholder's death ray and say "please, sir, may I have another?"Things in 4E aren't going to resemble things in 5E perfectly, but with the Sentinel feat a Fighter can do a perfectly good job of protecting his or her team. It's true that the 5E Fighter can't stop all of a large crowd of monsters at once but often another party member can pick up the slack, particularly if you can find a chokepoint to hold together.I'll buy your logic on True Polymorph, but not Animate Dead. When you've dumped all your spell slots on a skeleton archer army (with huge logistics issues, I might add) and the enemy mage with Fireball wipes them out with just one spell, you've lost out. It's a high risk high reward maneuver, but I wouldn't call it gamebreaking.The 5E game system also works on the basis of three short rests per day (well, two and a long rest which also recharges short rest-dependent abilities). And while it's not easy to logistically pull off in some adventure settings, in others (static dungeon, city) the party can often count on a short rest after every fight.Them's (if you'll excuse me) fighting words! I heartily disagree, given that 3.X DCs scaled with level while 5E DCs do not. The 5E Fighter also has a broader variety of viable class skills and as many skills as any other non-skill based class, while the 3.X Fighter was often shorted skill points due to low Intelligence.I've already stated my opinion on Athletics, but as above I think it's pretty good.A Fighter trained in social skills is about as good as a Wizard trained in Athletics (which is more rare because more backgrounds grant social skills) - that is, not too bad. Given that lots and lots of DCs in the system are 10, a +2 or +3 bonus isn't actually terrible, and background features can often make you pretty good in the right situation (pulling your rank in the city guard or as a lower-level noble works wonders). In short, the math of 5E allows a Fighter to contribute in social encounters effectively where this was often not true in previous editions.Of course the Rogue is the best at skills, but lots of 5E Fighters could effectively accompany the Rogue on scouting missions (not a bad backup in case of discovery). This wasn't necessarily true in 4E or any other edition. Also, how did you get six trained skills at first level in 4E?The Warlock is pretty cool, yes. But I was referring to the Fighter.Okay, so several counterpoints to your points. First, just about every class gains fewer new abilities after level 11 - witness the Warlock's four new spells as an extreme example, but even other full spellcasters will find themselves falling back on level fours and fives as they don't get tons of new abilities, and other martials like the Rogue and Ranger mostly get smaller bennies like blindsense and improvements on their existing abilities. Second, those feats you wrote off as "diminishing returns" actually are new abilities - and pretty good ones, too! Things like Alert, Lucky, Mage Slayer, and Sentinel represent new abilities that most classes can't afford to take because they're still maxing out their key ability scores.Although I can't claim to have played it at high level, I suspect that the Fighter's abilities remain interesting, relevant, powerful, and fresh even late in the game. Can Fighters compete with high-level casters for versatility? No, but the casters can't compete with them for damage output (barring AoEs) and resilience. I maintain that the Fighter class is well-designed, fun to play, and a solid addition to an adventuring party at any level. Thanks, however, for the in-depth critique. It's an interesting discussion!*Please note the use of excessive hyperbole in my writing style in this thread. I do actually think that other classes in 5E have significant strengths and the Fighter has significant weaknesses; talking this way is just more fun.</blockquote>

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