D&D 5E Fighters should be the social class

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm not sure about the social part, but in my idea, a class should be either mystical or skilled, with archetypes blurring that line. Classes that do not gain magic as part of their main features should have more skills. Not necessarily expertise, mind you. Just 1 or 2 more skill proficiencies.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I still see military leaders as being intimidating, not necessarily persuasive or deceptive. You don't send your general to negotiate, unless he's backed again by a threat of force and authority of a Government. Remove those, and he's not known as a sound diplomat. If they were...you wouldn't need diplomats and ambassadors. There is nothing inherent to the job which is persuasive or deceptive.

Plenty of world leaders have historically come from the military, and charisma/social skills are certainly useful to them.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Plenty of leaders come from the military, and/or positions of privilege, and where notoriously incompetent. Being in a job does not mean someone is good at a job.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have been considering a house rule where a character who receives the same skill from two different sources can choose expertise in that skill instead of taking another one. It's not unreasonable for persuasion to be added to the fighter's skill list.

 

[TheSword]

What makes you think the bard is foppish instead of grizzled too? The bard can have a soldier background just as easily as the fighter can have an entertainer background. ;-)

Thom Merillian from Wheel of Time. Best bard ever!
Shouting at Rand and Matt to run as he dives towards the myrddraal a dagger appearing in each hand. Tough as old boots.

 

[TheSword]

I think what I like most about 5e’s skill and background system (and multi-classing / feats) is that it feels really easy to make someone an expert in something with a good stat and a skill.

 

[Bacon Bits]

The problem is not Fighters. It's not a problem with Fighters, Rogues, Clerics, or Wizards. The problem is not really with classes.

The problem is that there is exactly one social attribute: Charisma. Every social skill keys to one attribute -- with the exception of Insight, which is so vaguely passive that it's essentially only useful to oppose Deception. That's the first part of what's wrong. Charisma carries virtually the entire social pillar on it's back.

Then, for the second part, there are several classes whose primary combat attribute is also Charisma. That's an absurd design that exposes the skill design flaw. It means that Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and (to a lesser degree) Paladins are double good at all social interaction for free.

Why? Who thought that it was a good design idea to make a third of the classes head and shoulders better at all social interaction? They didn't design a third of all classes to be head and shoulders better at all combat encounters. Why are social encounters different? Why is the entire social pillar warped so badly?

The only reason this doesn't come up in actual play is because most tables don't use Charisma or social skills for every interaction. Instead, most tables roleplay things out, and the results are based on the social skills of the player and not on the abilities of the character at all.

 

[Asisreo]

Yeah and Sorcerers are called Sorcerers, not "talkers", and so on. We can play this game with all the classes except maybe Bard.

Alright, alright. I was just being tongue-in-cheek with that last sentence, geez. can't say anything in these forums, I swear.

Though my point still stands that the implications of being a leader shouldn't be ingrained into being a fighter. Only a player that builds it as such and a group that is okay with a spotlight having character should have to deal with the burdens of being a natural leader, as not everyone who plays fighter wants to be a leader.

Fighters should at least have an option for better social abilities. But they don't, because the default Fighter design basically attempts to revert to 3.XE, and gives Fighters extra ASIs/Feats instead of extra abilities. And Feats aren't a great substitute for abilities here, because they tend to just grant you the most basic level of proficiency in a skill, like you'd get from a Background.

Fighters have 2 extra ASI's which they can use as they see fit as early as level 6. They can pick up feats like Actor, or just add to their Charisma score. It's sacrificing combat effectiveness, but that's a choice on the player to fulfill what they want.


They can't actually build to be good at it, in default 5E though, unless they have rolled stats and CHA to spare. Assuming they need STR or DEX and CON as primary and secondary (and they pretty much do), with other stat methods, whatever is left for CHA is likely to be pretty low, and then all you have is maybe Persuasion and one of Deception or Intimidate.

And any CHA-based character is going to do nearly as well untrained, and better if trained.

That's an incredibly bizarre and specific take on what a D&D Fighter is. Particularly the idea that Fighters are "mercenaries", but other D&D classes aren't is just outrageously weird. Indeed most are also superhuman.

I never said that other characters aren't mercenaries, because they all are. The fact that a stereotypical adventurer goes on a quest to fight something for money makes them a mercenary in my eyes. The fighter is just the rugged, practical type of mercenary. A wizard is a tactical type. A bard is the type to keep the mercenaries together but not necessarily being the leader.

Of course, your character needn't actually be mercenaries, but when I picture a typical adventuring group, it's a bunch of combat-ready personnel with a license to kill being paid for their services.

 

[jayoungr]

Who lead the fellowship of the ring- Gandolf or Aragorn?

Gandalf did, until he died. Then Aragorn took over.

A lot of books and movies have the fighting type as the leader with the mage or bookish type be the not as cool guy

Yes, but not LOTR.

 

[CleverNickName]

There's no reason why they can't be a "social" class. Just resist the urge to tank Charisma, and select a background that gives the character a couple of Charisma-based skills. If you really want to go HAM with it, choose half-elf as your starting race and use a custom background that focuses on social nuance.

If your group uses feats, you have no worries at all. Choose the Human Variant instead and select the Skilled feat, and use it to choose a handful of your favorite social skill proficiencies. You could also choose Linguist to pick up a few new languages. Since Fighters get a bunch of ASIs, this isn't as expensive for them as it would be for other classes.

If none of that works for you, just talk to your DM about what you're trying to do. Maybe they will let you swap out some of the Fighter's skill proficiencies for ones that better fit your character concept. Maybe they will let you trade your tool proficiency for a new language. Maybe they have a custom race or subclass that's right up your alley.