D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter: The Zouave

[Arnwolf666]

Healing's a legit contribution, but in the past it'd end up your only contribution - the band-aid cleric or healbot - so it can also be a burden that draws off your resources.

I just wish people le would embrace the idea that a healer is what a cleric is. It’s like playing a fighter that doesn’t want to fight or a rogue that doesn’t want to stealth and sneak attack.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I just wish people le would embrace the idea that a healer is what a cleric is. It’s like playing a fighter that doesn’t want to fight or a rogue that doesn’t want to stealth and sneak attack.

Almost like playing a character rather than a stereotype, yeah. Then again, Cleric was also an undead-vaporizing sun-lamp, backup melee, and more general caster (when all his spells weren't devoted to bearing the healing burden). Similarly, the Rogue (Thief) started off creating incompetence by claiming a niche in trapfinding & general dungeon crawling (now 'the exploration pillar'), with backstab as a side-line.

The Cleric and Thief have both moved on from the healbot and trapfinder niches to become fully contributing, interesting, classes, in and out of combat. The Fighter has gone from badly-needed front-line defense, damage-dealing, & aspiring feudal lord, to DPS.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Almost like playing a character rather than a stereotype, yeah. Then again, Cleric was also an undead-vaporizing sun-lamp, backup melee, and more general caster (when all his spells weren't devoted to bearing the healing burden). Similarly, the Rogue (Thief) started off creating incompetence by claiming a niche in trapfinding & general dungeon crawling (now 'the exploration pillar'), with backstab as a side-line.

The Cleric and Thief have both moved on from the healbot and trapfinder niches to become fully contributing, interesting, classes, in and out of combat. The Fighter has gone from badly-needed front-line defense, damage-dealing, & aspiring feudal lord, to DPS.

I always maxed out F/R traps as fast as possible in 2E. It was a very life saving skill in those early editions. We went though dungeons with the precision of a special forces unit looking for any danger possible.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I always maxed out F/R traps as fast as possible in 2E.

That's right, in 2e you could choose which special abilities to advance. And, you could claim a pretty significant chunk of table-time combing through the dungeon for traps.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Those idiots would be the French where the name comes from? Same root as 'cavalry' too.

No, I'm talking about the idiots and buffoons who developed various D&D classes and kits and subclasses around riding a several-hundred to a couple of thousand pound extremely large animal around in a game with DUNGEONS in it's name, and in which easily 95% of published adventures (and a large percentage of home adventures) involve 50%+ of the adventure (often 90%+ of the actually dangerous bits, too) being in places where aforementioned horse either straight-up can't fit, or can just about sort of fit, but is a massive logistical challenge and certainly can't be used properly.

A cavalier isn't just his horse, despite the linguistic roots in our language, but you could barely tell that from many of the iterations he has had in D&D, most of which only actually get used when a halfling arrives on a large dog to abuse the charge rules.

These people were the kind of designer who stuck with a concept, despite it being a fundamentally bad idea. There's a ton of that in 1E, 2E, and 3.XE (not that much in OD&D and RC D&D, I note, which is interesting). Terrible classes, PRCs and kits which are sorta-kinda true to a "concept", but just are basically unplayable. "Complete" books from 2E were totally amazing for this. Some nailed it, like Bard's handbook, where probably most kits were basically viable, but others, like Ranger's and Paladin's were chock full of hyper-specialized, utterly ill-conceived, mechanically ineffective kits which were all "stick with the concept and damn the torpedoes!", but in a bad way.

The Cleric and Thief have both moved on from the healbot and trapfinder niches to become fully contributing, interesting, classes, in and out of combat. The Fighter has gone from badly-needed front-line defense, damage-dealing, & aspiring feudal lord, to DPS.

I want to disagree with this Tony.

Problem is, I can't.

You're not wrong about the Fighter in 5E. In 4E, oddly, he was a beautiful, terrifying beast of a class. Definitely front-line defence and damage-dealing, and maybe some other surprises. In 3.XE? Well, he was kind of just totally and utterly rubbish and reliant on a generous DM handing out magic items. But back in 2E he was also front-line defence in his plate with his HPs and often some serious damage. Weapon specialization, even before Combat and Tactics, was pretty hardcore.

 

[Garthanos]

That's right, in 2e you could choose which special abilities to advance. And, you could claim a pretty significant chunk of table-time combing through the dungeon for traps.

In 1e it was more like Get out the yellow notebook we are at a door... page 4... page 6 if the hallway diverges... and follow the itemized list (snzzzzzz oh 10 steps down maybe the thief gets to try one of his nearly impossible skills)

 

[Tony Vargas]

A cavalier isn't just his horse, despite the linguistic roots in our language, but you could barely tell that from many of the iterations he has had in D&D, most of which only actually get used when a halfling arrives on a large dog to abuse the charge rules.

LoL.
A Cavalier isn't just his horse - he's big hair and poetry, too!

I want to disagree with this Tony.
Problem is, I can't.

You're not wrong about the Fighter in 5E. In 4E, oddly, he was a beautiful, terrifying beast of a class. Definitely front-line defence and damage-dealing, and maybe some other surprises.

But still so little going on out of combat - slightly better skill list, not so far behind on skills in total, and it's not like it was hard to pick up a few skills and off you go, contributing in Skill Challenges... but, the one social skill they gave the fighter was Intimidate. And then, the one example of a social skill challenge, intimidate was the one-and-only example of automatic failure.
Yeah, thanks.

In 3.XE? Well, he was kind of just totally and utterly rubbish and reliant on a generous DM handing out magic items.

Tier 5, yes - but such an elegant design! The 3e fighter was just a class design that belonged in a much better game... OK, with 8 skill points, and a much better skill list, as well.

But back in 2E he was also front-line defence in his plate with his HPs and often some serious damage. Weapon specialization, even before Combat and Tactics, was pretty hardcore.

Oh, yeah, they had the DPR, TWF & specialization - really, the 5e fighter harkens back pretty clearly to that take, just not with broken TWF or RoF progressions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But still so little going on out of combat - slightly better skill list, not so far behind on skills in total, and it's not like it was hard to pick up a few skills and off you go, contributing in Skill Challenges... but, the one social skill they gave the fighter was Intimidate. And then, the one example of a social skill challenge, intimidate was the one-and-only example of automatic failure.
Yeah, thanks.

Pretty sure I have some posts on this very forum arguing precisely this, so yeah, I can hardly disagree. I did feel like skill challenges in general dragged in all the PCs better than 5E's skill system, too, so that helped a bit.

You're going to be mad but what really made 4E Fighter work for one of my group was the 4E Ritual Caster feat, which actually made him incredibly useful out of combat, and he saved the other PCs several times with that. But er, yeah okay, I see how that looks with the casting spells and so on... (it fit his PC's background really well, which is why he originally took it).

Tier 5, yes - but such an elegant design! The 3e fighter was just a class design that belonged in a much better game... OK, with 8 skill points, and a much better skill list, as well.

I dunno that that would have got him out of T5, but it would certainly have made him a lot more interesting and fun to play, especially 1-10, which was what worked best in 3.XE (as with most editions).

Oh, yeah, they had the DPR, TWF & specialization - really, the 5e fighter harkens back pretty clearly to that take, just not with broken TWF or RoF progressions.

Yeah, but it's just like, somehow not enough in 5E. Having a super-high AC is something a lot of classes in 5E manage, but it was basically only Fighters and the odd Cleric* who managed in 2E, and DPR was Fighterland back then. He remains, technically, the king of DPR (I think? He's certainly up there), but now instead of being essentially unchallenged, he is surrounded by angry Warlocks and Barbarians, and even others.

* = Let's be real, it wasn't really Clerics in most 2E games - it was Speciality Priests. Seemed like after about 1992-1994 either you were playing the FR or Planescape, in which case, Speciality Priest, or Dark Sun, in which case bizarre Elemental Cleric.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In 1e it was more like Get out the yellow notebook we are at a door... page 4... page 6 if the hallway diverges... and follow the itemized list (snzzzzzz oh 10 steps down maybe the thief gets to try one of his nearly impossible skills)

Well, somebody was going to eat a lot of table time crawling through the dungeon, checking perfectly safe sections of floors, doors, walls, ceilings, chest, statues, and whatnot for traps.
And also occasionally checking a mimic for traps
"Gotchya! I'm not a trap! I'm a monster! RaWr!"


….heh...good times.

 

[Garthanos]

You're going to be mad but what really made 4E Fighter work for one of my group was the 4E Ritual Caster feat, which actually made him incredibly useful out of combat, and he saved the other PCs several times with that. But er, yeah okay, I see how that looks with the casting spells and so on... (it fit his PC's background really well, which is why he originally took it).

I have been pumping up Martial Practices because of that thinking. But others have pointed out that based on the DMG 2 rules you could virtually improvise extreme exertion costing a healing surge to create an awesome effect which might be performed over an extended period.