D&D 5E (2014) Fixing the Fighter

[B.T.]

Not adding Con modifier to hit points would be a good starting point.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

In this case you're talking about an edge case situation I have literally never seen come up in play. To fireball from across the room the fighter needs to spend a couple of feats and be working off the wrong stat. Yes you can make a character that will do this at a significant effectiveness cost to being a fighter - but this is a significantly more arcane question than "With the fabricate spell why is the world's economy going?" And I don't see anything terribly wrong with a fighter marking with a javelin if he's coming in to follow it up (which is the main ranged weapon 4e fighters use with the throwing axe in second place) as he wants to follow it in. This is a case of "Don't sweat the small stuff".

Should it be restricted to melee and close attacks? Perhaps. Is this an actual problem in any play I've seen? No. Is it something anyone can find a way to exploit? Not that I'm aware of.

You've really never come across this? This was my first character build - I wanted a gish character, so I went with an Eladrin Fighter who multiclassed as much as possible into Wizard. By epic levels, I could mark everything on the battlefield for a few rounds in a row through careful use of spells and item powers. Not particularly exploitative, since it's just +3 to all defences all round and maybe an attack, but then there's the power that forces those marked to attack you explicitly, and the ring of gravity, and stuff like that. The weirdness first came up though before I had a solid Wizard power - I was immobilised by some creature, so resorted to throwing javelins to be useful. I couldn't enter melee with the creature, I was a terrible ranged combatant, but they were still marked.

The trouble with 'don't sweat the small stuff' is that there's a lot of small stuff that builds up to irritable levels.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You've really never come across this? This was my first character build - I wanted a gish character, so I went with an Eladrin Fighter who multiclassed as much as possible into Wizard. By epic levels, I could mark everything on the battlefield for a few rounds in a row through careful use of spells and item powers. Not particularly exploitative, since it's just +3 to all defences all round and maybe an attack, but then there's the power that forces those marked to attack you explicitly, and the ring of gravity, and stuff like that. The weirdness first came up though before I had a solid Wizard power - I was immobilised by some creature, so resorted to throwing javelins to be useful. I couldn't enter melee with the creature, I was a terrible ranged combatant, but they were still marked.

The trouble with 'don't sweat the small stuff' is that there's a lot of small stuff that builds up to irritable levels.

I think part of it is that there are now so many ways of producing a gish (Bladesinger, Swordmage, and Hexblade are classes dedicated to that end - and there are plenty of things you can do e.g. with Bards or Hybrids, or even silly buggers with the monk) that people aren't looking in that corner any more (I only started playing in 2009 when we already had the Swordmage). Also marking everything isn't that impressive; as of Divine Power a level 2 Paladin can have two burst 3 mark everything abilities - and an epic Malediction Invoker can have a Close Burst 6 Encounter Stun from memory.

I also don't see javelins marking as a problem for a fighter - and fighters aren't terrible with javelins; javelins are heavy thrown weapons and so use strength not dex.

 

[Obryn]

The idea that the fighter can have as much narrative control as a spellcaster is foolish. Magic automatically offers more narrative control because it doesn't exist in the real world and is thus not limited by real-world constraints. Even in low magic settings, characters who have access to limited magic have more access to narrative control because the ability to do something that others cannot.

Arguing about this seems rather pointless. Asking why the fighter doesn't summon celestial badgers is like asking a fish why it doesn't ride a bicycle.

Wow! This thread exploded overnight so I am just going to focus on this.

I will make it short and sweet though... Nobody is suggesting a Fighter should summon badgers, and I think you know this. We're talking about cool tricks combat masters do in combat by being masterful which don't require DM permission and give them some level of Fiat at the table.

There should - must, IMO - be more narrative control for non-casters if Next is going to avoid the caster/non-caster disparity of the past. And if it doesn't, then I just have no interest.

-O

 

[Manbearcat]

The difficulty with the portion of the discussion that attempts to evaluate the Pathfinder Defender line of feats versus the Fighter's standard issue Defender toolkit (and then acquisition of Exploits and Feats to further customize) is this;

The action economy of melee combatants to deliver their payload is completely different and completely dictates gameplay.

3.x and Pathfinder have 2 "typical" ways for a melee combatant to deliver their maximum damage potential:

1) Full Attack (which means free 5 ft step and thats it).

or

2) Standard Action + Full Power Attack (coupled with something like a True Strike effect).

Most monsters and melee combatants do not have access to a True Strike effect (even if they have Power Attack) and they usually have a multi-attack. Therefore, the BEST way to be a Defender in 3.x/PF is to be out of melee reach such that enemies must spend a move action to reach you, thus adversely affecting their damage output or rendering it impotent. This is, of course, why the Reach weapon, Trip build is so successful. It crushes action economy and therefore, potential damage output, while dictating target acquisition by proxy. For the same reasons, this is why Combat Patrol can be an effective way of play a Defender. However, the feat lines for protecting adjacent allies is "ok" but not great (likely not worth the investment) because, in most cases, they're either going to be out of melee or flanking and not adjacent. The Repositioning line (Slide in 4e) would be good but it crushes your own action economy and isn't even worth using except for in the most extreme corner cases (and therefore not a good investment). Stand Still is marginal for all of the reasons Neonchameleon mentioned but, just as much, for the action economy issues in 3.x/PF. Why is that monster spending a move action (thus losing most of its damage potential) to get one swing in at a secondary target, in the first place? This is especially true when its life expectancy is 2-3 rounds (at most). Forget about the Fighter punishing it. Its punishing itself just by doing that and potentially absorbing an AoO from all engaged melee opponents...horrible, horrible loss in the action economy game. He might as well ask the group to help him seppuku.

And to head this one off at the pass before it gets legs, if we're working off the premise of "game engine as world physics", then he should absolutely know this. That isn't metagaming. That's him understanding the "game engine as world physics", using causal logic and through cost-benefit-analysis he SHOULD marginalize that idea into non-existence...unless he is suicidal. Even the most marginally intelligent creatures function at this primal level (its called Natural Selection). They develop behaviors to maximize their likelihood of survival based on sensory input from their environment and trial and error.

That is the issue with playing a Defender in 3.x/PF. The system does it for you as the action economy of melee characters being contingent upon not moving. Any denial of a full attack routine, self-imposed or imposed by enemies, is the best way to play a Defender. It is also the primary reason for stagnant, immobile, stand there and slug it out combat. If you unify the action economy and turn full attacks into standard actions (as spells are...even as they scale they don't become action-economy-inhibited) and then you make Repositioning a Move or Swift Action (or a potential rider on melee attacks)...then things would change dramatically from multiple vectors (including the Active Defender one).

 

[CleverNickName]

This is a difficult topic for me, and it never goes well in 5E discussion threads. But I've resigned myself to always being outside of popular opinion when it comes to fighters. I've made my peace with it. But here it is: the fighter is my favorite class, and has been for the last 20 years or so. And the version that got it "right," in my opinion, was the Moldvay BECM rules.

The BECM fighter is straightforward. It is a character with a weapon, who hits creatures with it, and hits them better than anyone else in the game does. Anything else is covered with flavor text, backstory, and behavior--all of which are open to the imagination (not itemized in lists) and controlled by the player (not the rules). The difference between a Samurai and a Spartan is found in the player's imagination and style of play...not the PHB.

The BECM fighter is simple to learn. There aren't fifteen different tricks or tactics or superhero powers that need to be learned in order to play the BECM fighter, and you don't need battlegrids and minis to simulate combat with it. I understand the urge to rid the hobby of "n00b classes," but remember: there will always be newcomers to the game (or at least we hope there will be.) And not everyone who chooses to play the game will end up being a lifelong hobby gamer like some of us...some only want to hang out and play the game for an evening, while visiting from out of town or whatever. We like to make fun of newcomers, tease them about their lack of knowledge, and complain about the need for "dumbing-down" the rules for them...but remember: they aren't going to go away. More to the point: we don't want them to go away.

The BECM fighter is, compared to the other classes, the closest we have to a historic analog. Some of us are running historic, rather than fantastic, game settings. The BECM fighter is the closest thing we have for a "regular guy hero" who doesn't throw fireballs, raise the dead, or skulk around in the shadows...but triumphs over evil nonetheless through skill with their weapon alone: the Spartans, the Vikings, the Samurai, the Amazons...just to name a few. We all have different play styles and different definitions of what it means to be a hero...and for better or worse, this is mine.

The trend today is to add things to the fighter class, usually under the premise of "giving it more options" or "making it more versatile" (which, from what I can tell, can be summed up with "making it more like a wuxia comic book character"). But the more things we add to it, the farther away we push it from the three things I listed above. Again, most people seem to think this is a good thing. I disagree.

 

[B.T.]

We're talking about cool tricks combat masters do in combat by being masterful which don't require DM permission and give them some level of Fiat at the table.

Give me an example of this.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Sounds to me like someone just has a problem with DM's. You want your PC to be able to do what it does without ever having to ask the DM because you feel like you are being subservient.

I don't want a fighter to end up being just a pile of numbers and powers that try and cover everything under the sun.

Also, you are limited when it comes to player fiat.

 

[Obryn]

Give me an example of this.

There's an entire thread here full of examples of what I'm talking about. You can use some of the Book of Nine Swords maneuvers as some examples, if you wish, but barring flame cyclones, etc.

Sounds to me like someone just has a problem with DM's. You want your PC to be able to do what it does without ever having to ask the DM because you feel like you are being subservient.

It sounds to me like you're trying to be dismissive and snide, again, rather than actually bothering to form coherent arguments.

There are two layers here - the one I'm talking about is the "fiat" layer. These are things your character can do, with known and set effects, regardless of the DM's approval. This is something like, "I hit it with my sword," or "I cast Fireball." The methods of causing these events to happen and the results of them are basically set, and managed by the rules of the game. If you say, "I cast Fireball," there's minimal interpretation necessary - you have the spell prepared, you cast it, a ball of fire explodes where you're pointing. You the player know your character is capable of doing these things because that's what they're good at. The default assumption is that these things happen.

The second layer is a more narrative interplay between players and DM where the player suggests actions and the DM interprets how best to assign difficulties, effects, results, etc. The player has minimal fiat here beyond, "I am trying to..." There is no default assumption here as to what happens, and the chances of success might be unknown; it's based mostly on the DM's interpretations of the rules, the situation, etc.

Nobody is suggesting that this second, more traditional layer needs to go or has no place in D&D. I'm suggesting that the fiat layer needs work; my suggestion is to improve martial characters' fiat, but I'm likewise pretty okay with reducing spellcasters' fiat.

I don't want a fighter to ensure up being just a pile of numbers and powers that try and cover everything under the sun.

Good. Neither do I. I also don't want their sole job to be carving through HP tofu.

-O

 

[Manbearcat]

Give me an example of this.

I'll give you two (as the first is "controversial")

Warrior of Legend throws down the gauntlet, roars a challenge to his enemies to pursue a prideful, perhaps reckless, course in wading into melee with him.

Soldier of the Seven Wars has seen every warriors movement on the battlefield, committed it to mental and muscle memory, and reproduced it a thousand-fold on his own. Three bandits warily stand their guard a few steps away, thinking on the best way to take his coin purse. Instantly, he spins, with perfect coordination and muscle memory he executes a feint of retreat. Thinking their prize fleeing, the bandits reflexively close the few steps in pursuit. Planting his leg, he springs back aound, the soldier greets them with death.

Fighter player fiat right there with codified mechanical resolution to back it up. Player decides when this thematic, tactically beneficial cool thing happens. Sounds nifty eh?

[SBLOCK]

Originally posted by WotC
[h=2]Come and Get It
Encounter

Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Close burst 3
Target: Each enemy you can see in the burst
Attack: Strength vs. Will
Hit: You pull the target up to 2 squares, but only if it can end the pull adjacent to you. If the target is adjacent to you after the pull, it takes 1[W] damage.

[/SBLOCK][/h]


The hopelessly outnumbered Dwarven Infantry defends the pass (think Spartans and Thermopylae) to their mountain kingdom. The horde of orcs, ogres and giants presses in on them but they will not yield. The phalanx holds, each man arm-to-arm with his brother, an impenetrable wall. An enraged giant hulks through the mass, bringing his bone club down with otherworldly force...at an angle that the dwarves cannot hope to defend. But Bob McDwarferson has seen his fair share of giants on the battlefield and his well-honed, battle-worn reflexes react as the blow is about to fell his brother-in-arms next to him. He intercepts it at the last moment; the blow barely gets through, crippled in strength to the point of ineffectiveness, as the giant cries out in pain from the shockwave traveling from his club up through his arm. The phalanx holds.

Fighter player fiat right there with codified mechanical resolution to back it up. Player decides when this thematic, tactically beneficial cool thing happens. Sounds nifty eh?

[SBLOCK]

Originally posted by WotC
[h=1]Immediate Vengeance
Encounter

Martial
Immediate Interrupt Melee 1
Requirement: You must be using a shield.
Trigger: An enemy adjacent to you hits you or an ally with a melee attack
Target: The triggering enemy
Attack: Strength + 3 vs. Fortitude
Hit: 1d10 damage, and the target is weakened until the end of your next turn.

[/SBLOCK][/h]