D&D 5E Fixing the fighter (I know...)

[Todd Roybark]

The casters can grow into any fantasy archetype - your wizard can become Merlin or Dumbledore. But, the non-magical types have a hard ceiling that they cannot ever be allowed to break through. You can be Conan or Aragorn, but, you can NEVER be Beowulf or Hercules, or Odysseus. Because anything that is outside the realm of the mundane can only ever be accomplished by magic.

But, a fighter that can swim across the ocean? Drink a lake dry? Leap across the tops of trees? Don't be daft. You can't do that without magic.

Odysseus was a cunning warrior and athlete, whom used his human talents to get home despite the enmity of Poseidon. Seems 5e doable.

Conan, in the frozen land of Nordheim was the sole survivor of a battle of 80 men. Near unconscious Conan spied the scantily clad form of the daughter of the King of the Ice Giants, and pursued her across the frozen landscape until she called upon Ymir for rescue.
Rapey and distasteful....but doable by a high Con warrior against Exhaustion saves in 5e.

Beowulf- A peerless ( high stats) warrior with the Tavern Brawler feat, made a called shot after beating an Ogre into submission, and the DM allowed the player to rip the ogre’s arm off. It could happen at 1st level, with high stats and luck. Mr Bee-wolf also in the tales had a magic sword to kill the un-killable.

The heroes of myth were not made with the Standard Attribute Array....by mostly the heroes of myth are the extreme.

Best Longjumper in our world today, 29 feet. Str 20 Fighter... base of 20’....why can’t you leap from tree top to tree top.

Also, Magicians in myth are typically not the protagonist but NPCs.
Dumbledore was a NPC. Harry was a PC, he could cast Patronus , (essentially Prot from Evil), and ride a Magic Broom....but he was clever....and had Hermione and Snape. Ron just sucked.

Gandalf was a NPC- he died against a Balor. Merlin was a NPC, tricked by another NPC.

Egil of the Scandinavian Sagas was a warrior skald and skilled in runes, ( he cursed the king of Norway), so a Bard of the College of Valor could work, but again not many spellcasters appear as protagonists in the myths.


No one in 5e or life can drink an ocean, but with clever play and some plot devices, like in the myths it can easily be accomplished. I just do not find your argument holds water, no offense intended.

 

[5ekyu]

The Champion needs (Minimum0) added to its athlete jumping ability.

 

[Garthanos]

Also, Magicians in myth are typically not the protagonist but NPCs.

Sure and less powerful than D&D ones (in many ways) .... almost always.

Although arguably Gandalfs are so completely out of role as the mentor types its hard to figure what the phrase powerful means.

 

[Hussar]

And, with responses, we see exactly the issue at hand.

The non-magical PC's have a hard ceiling. They can NEVER be legendary. Whereas the caster classes can very nicely emulate all sorts of legendary and fictional characters.

 

[Garthanos]

Yes you cannot be the extreme ... you are a mundane face it.

 

[Garthanos]

And, with responses, we see exactly the issue at hand.

The non-magical PC's have a hard ceiling. They can NEVER be legendary. Whereas the caster classes can very nicely emulate all sorts of legendary and fictional characters.

See also 5e attribute caps and incredibly pedestrian interpretation of the meaning of the attributes and huge amounts of MAD (with really restrained ability to perform extraordinary heroic bursts unless its dm improvised and bound by random dice - sure action surge and do exactly the same thing you could already over again) ... combined with almost no progress ins skill oh look 25 raging percentiles improvement in athletics what a joke ... which obviously isn't the case for mages (abilities not really bound by skill or attributes aka spells).

 

[DND_Reborn]

@SacrosanctSo at 3rd level, I would say we could offer proficiency in either Acrobatics or Athletics and expertise in one of those skills of your choosing.

At 7th level, with remarkable athlete add expertise in the other skill (this kind of presumes that a fighter takes one of them to start with from Fighter skills I guess?)

I don't mind the extra fighting style at 10th. I would always be open to another one of those frankly and wish more fighters got that as an option.

The theme of the subclass is to deal devastating blows. I'm not feeling a 19-20 Crit at 3rd and a 18-20 at 15th is really embracing that concept.

Maybe double down on the Critical hit focus of the Subclass as well? Give them a brutal critical type thing where when they do crit, they do +1 weapon damage die on top of the normal crit. Maybe also expand the crit ranges? so at 3rd make it 18-20, at 15th make it 17-20?

Along these lines my suggestions would be:

@3rd: Critical on 18-20, gain one more skill proficiency chosen from the Fighter class list.

@7th: While it might seem underwhelming, it is pretty good really when you consider this bonus is also added to initiative. You could even include this bonus in Death Saves, which would really set Fighters apart from all other classes in only they receive this bonus.

@10th: Since many of the fighting styles don't combine, you could even offer two new styles at this level! Or, one would still be fine.

@15th: Keep the 18-20 critical range, but allow an extra weapon die on critical hits maybe.

All that being offered, a lot of this (other than the skill at level 3) is still "combat-oriented" and I would like to see a bit more in the realm of the other pillars for Champions. My other post has suggestions in that regard.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I can't believe I slogged all the way through that. :wow:

The thing is, this whole thread is based on a false premise. The premise is that there is this apparent need to make fighters equal to casters. .

Um...no. That's not the premise at all. In fact, in my original post, I stated as such. The premise, (and the thread that started this whole thread) was around how fighters (specifically the champion) don't have hardly any class features that give them out of combat functionality, and those that do (like remarkable athlete) are woefully lacking in that regard. This thread has never been about trying to make the fighter equal to a caster in that regard.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The Champion needs (Minimum0) added to its athlete jumping ability.

I sure seems like if not for anything else, we can all agree the jumping rules in the game need to be tweaked lol

And, with responses, we see exactly the issue at hand.

The non-magical PC's have a hard ceiling. They can NEVER be legendary. Whereas the caster classes can very nicely emulate all sorts of legendary and fictional characters.

I'm not sure why you would say that after the many examples of legendary feats that a current champion fighter can do have been given. If a person can defeat a T REX (or even dragons) all by themselves with nothing but a sword, that's pretty legendary. And it's a common folklore story about legendary heroes doing just that (Martin, St. George, etc). Then you've also got examples like Perseus, Jason, or a half dozen other heroes just from the Greek pantheon who didn't do anything that a champion fighter couldn't do.

*Edit: There is a difference between champions can never be legendary or do legendary things (a false position that is not the point of this thread) and how to we improve the out of combat functionality of champions while adhering to the design requirements of the class (which is the point of this thread). Arguing the former is out of scope and not going to achieve anything. Arguing the latter is in scope, and is something that we can have productive discussion about as long as people stick the point and don't start making hyperbolic claims like the former.

 

[Undrave]

I sure seems like if not for anything else, we can all agree the jumping rules in the game need to be tweaked lol

Seriously. They can't allow you to replicate a real world record, let alone exceed it.