D&D 5E Fighters should be the social class

[Guest 6801328]

Firstly, for all the fluff about the intensive study that a wizard must undergo, they still find time to gain as many proficiencies as a fighter, who should by comparison have more time available to practice other things.

Can I use my extra time to practice more fighting (instead of taking etiquette lessons or learning Celestial or whatever) and get a bonus feat instead?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Can I use my extra time to practice more fighting (instead of taking etiquette lessons or learning Celestial or whatever) and get a bonus feat instead?

Yeah, the whole idea that fighting take less training time than other occupations is silly. Look at the Spartans - they where so good because they had an entire slave race doing all those unimportant things for them like growing food, so they could spend all their time training to fight. Or look at a modern professional athlete - they spend far more time training than I ever did to become a wizard scientist.

If any class should have more free time to develop other skills it would be sorcerer, whose abilities just happen.

 

[Ashrym]

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, where the designers made Purple Dragon Knight the strongest Fighter subclass and everyone takes it all the time, 5e Fighters are widely considered social characters.

They are an obvious choice for a social fighter.

Can't eat your cake and have it too. ;-)

 

[CubicsRube]

If you compare the OD&D, AD&D, and BD&D fighters to the 3e, 4e, and 5e fighter, the most glaring difference is the absence of Lordship (Baron-hood) in more modern editions.

I think that's were my idea came from it. That in old school d&d, fighters were the ones that became lords and raised a small army.

It's been interesting to see how many different views peoppe possess of what the fighter is to them, which I think speaks well to your comment on a lack of identity.

 

[CubicsRube]

This is something I've been thinking of lately. Ideally speaking, every class should be the social class. Far too often it's the 1-2 characters with Charisma as their primary stat who become the default faces for the group. It's always disappointing to hear a player say something like, "I don't have a high Charisma. Someone else go talk to him."

Yes, I've thought a lot about it, even making a speculative shot at skills per social group.

I think ultimately I would just adjust the DC as a GM. Perhaps the bookish wizard might need an 18 to get a favour out of a local militia captain, but the fighter might only need a 12, for example.

 

[CubicsRube]

Yeah, the whole idea that fighting take less training time than other occupations is silly. Look at the Spartans - they where so good because they had an entire slave race doing all those unimportant things for them like growing food, so they could spend all their time training to fight. Or look at a modern professional athlete - they spend far more time training than I ever did to become a wizard scientist.

If any class should have more free time to develop other skills it would be sorcerer, whose abilities just happen.

I'm quoting the fluff directly on this:

"....these surface components barely hint at the expertise attained after years of apprenticeship and countless hours of study"

Most older versions of d&d are similar, suggesting that wizards should be older in general or that they have to dedicate themselves fully to their art for many years.

Fighters haven't been described in the same way.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Fighters are typically younger than wizards because physical attributes deteriate long before mental attributes.

And six hours a day reading books is simply not in the same league as six hours a day doing physical training.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Then why would being foppish impact the social skills negatively compared to the grizzled fighter at all? That's the point I was making. ;-)

It was the context of foppish somehow being a weaker quality than grizzled regardless of bonus that gave the impression of a negative connotation in that example.

You missed the point.

It's not about stronger/weaker. It's about more/less appropriate. 5E by default doesn't do the sort of granularity that works well with this kind of thing nor let people have social skills that make sense (someone good at Persuasion is good at it in all circumstances, for example). DMs can apply Advantage/Disadvantage, of course, but it can seem like overkill, or just not quite right. I believe there is some sort of optional rule re: backgrounds that might help here though, but perhaps I'm thinking of a house rule.

The d20 is only an issue if rolls are being called for too often.

Sorry, this is simply mathematically false. There are two things you could argue with a lot of rolls being called for - either than it benefited people with high scores, because over time their rolls should more evenly distribute, which will inevitably mean a higher average for them (where a small number of rolls could all be bad/good), or that it was no different to a smaller number of rolls beyond how we perceive it. But the inverse is not possible to argue.

That's not say that rolls being called for too often aren't extremely problematic. They are, but for other reasons (which are worthy of a whole other thread, really).

I am not sure where I lost you after that part, but parties can make group checks in social settings just like they can stealth checks.

Sure, but it's relatively rarely logical to do so, let alone hard-required that all party members participate. This isn't 3.XE/PF1, you know. Persuasion isn't Diplomacy. I can think of scenarios where it makes sense, and I've even done it or seen it done a couple of times, but it's rare. And even with group stealth, very often one or two PCs, esp. those with Disadvantage on Stealth due to armour, will wait behind - likewise PCs poor on this sort of thing can often exclude themselves from the check by not being present.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yeah, the whole idea that fighting take less training time than other occupations is silly. Look at the Spartans - they where so good because they had an entire slave race doing all those unimportant things for them like growing food, so they could spend all their time training to fight. Or look at a modern professional athlete - they spend far more time training than I ever did to become a wizard scientist.

If any class should have more free time to develop other skills it would be sorcerer, whose abilities just happen.

Have a cookie! For immediately understanding the point I was (obliquely) making.

 

[Quickleaf]

I think that's were my idea came from it. That in old school d&d, fighters were the ones that became lords and raised a small army.

It's been interesting to see how many different views peoppe possess of what the fighter is to them, which I think speaks well to your comment on a lack of identity.

Your idea is interesting. Whereas in old school D&D, fighters became nobles ruling over others, in your version the fighter has a "common touch" making it easier for them to make friends & influence people across all strata of society.

Regardless of what your answer is to the question "What is the fighter's identity?", I think the right place for the rules to answer that is predominantly in the subclass.

There are two reasons to place the weight of the fighter's identity in the subclass, as opposed to the heart of the class itself. First, it allows the class to be versatile and adapt to multiple ideas of what being a "fighter" means. Second, it places the additional features at 3rd level, thus avoiding further weighting the early levels when players are most likely to "dip" multiclass into fighter for Action Surge builds.

If you look at class design generally, you'll notice that the Fighter and the Rogue are alone in only having one feature at 2nd level. Every other class gets 2 or 3 things at 2nd level. Same goes for Fighter at 5th level as compared to the Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger – Fighter only gets Extra Attack, the others all get other coolness on top of Extra Attack. These are "openings" for design additions to the class.

This comes down to personal views, but I think the more the rules can discourage "dip" multiclassing in general, and especially for the fighter class, the better. Because the fighter's identity has been eroded away over the editions, and its special features parceled out to other classes. Obviously, people who enjoyed 3e's approach to the fighter & multiclassing (and by extension PF's approach), and the latest UA "multiclassing lite" feats, would disagree with me here.