Celebrim
Legend
I'm guessing, because she's a HardcoreDandDGirl.
It's cool. Worry about being offended when they've got more than 1000 posts.
D&D 5E Hopes for the 5E Fighter
- Thread starter TwinBahamut
- Start date
I'm guessing, because she's a HardcoreDandDGirl.
It's cool. Worry about being offended when they've got more than 1000 posts.
Tallifer
Hero
There are already several distinct martial classes in D&D which reflect all the diversity necessary for the various "fighter" archetypes mentioned by the original poster:
1. The Fighter wears heavy armour and defends. (Some of its builds were quite needless, because...)
2. The "Ranger" shoots a bow..
3. ... or wears light armour and duels with two large weapons. (I personally hate this nonsensical archetype. But Drizzt and all that.)
4. The Barbarian rages and frenzies and swings a big axe.
5. The Avenger wears very light armour and enters battle like a whirling dervish.
6. The Rogue can be the light armed, unarmoured and streetwise Duelist.
My suggestion is that Wizards of the Coast educates people about what each class means and how they can be easily refluffed to fit whatever fantasy book people like.
1. The Fighter wears heavy armour and defends. (Some of its builds were quite needless, because...)
2. The "Ranger" shoots a bow..
3. ... or wears light armour and duels with two large weapons. (I personally hate this nonsensical archetype. But Drizzt and all that.)
4. The Barbarian rages and frenzies and swings a big axe.
5. The Avenger wears very light armour and enters battle like a whirling dervish.
6. The Rogue can be the light armed, unarmoured and streetwise Duelist.
My suggestion is that Wizards of the Coast educates people about what each class means and how they can be easily refluffed to fit whatever fantasy book people like.
Tallifer
Hero
Ah. Then you missed many of the Fighter Exploits which allows multiple attacks: Cleave, Sweeping Blow, Come and Get It are just three off the top of my head, but I when I played a Fighter I used several, chiefly because of the advantages of marking as many foes as possible in one round. True they were against multiple targets...
However if you are insistent on striking one single target twice, just refluff your encounter and daily Exploits. You can easily say that every extra die of damage on the Power is an extra blow against your foe.
Furthermore Opportunity Attacks, Action Points and Immediate Reactions provide other additional attacks in a single round.
Summer-Knight925
First Post
I want my fighter to fight.
I also want my wizards to wizard (yes, I made that a verb)
I don't want there to be to many crossings between the two.
I also want to see less classes, perhaps 4.
I feel the core 4 (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard) cover the bases well enough, and if you have the options to build the classes as you please, Player A can play a fighter like a barbarian and Player B can play one like a paladin and everyone is happy.
And would it be too much to ask for WoTC coming out of the closet and admitting that they've been being run by Mind Flayers all along? And that all of our money is to fund their ship to open up a gate to unleash more Illithid horrors to our dimension?
I also want my wizards to wizard (yes, I made that a verb)
I don't want there to be to many crossings between the two.
I also want to see less classes, perhaps 4.
I feel the core 4 (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard) cover the bases well enough, and if you have the options to build the classes as you please, Player A can play a fighter like a barbarian and Player B can play one like a paladin and everyone is happy.
And would it be too much to ask for WoTC coming out of the closet and admitting that they've been being run by Mind Flayers all along? And that all of our money is to fund their ship to open up a gate to unleash more Illithid horrors to our dimension?
HardcoreDandDGirl
First Post
Good point, I guess I was looking for “make 2 basic attack” powers, and missed them. I also associate cleave with the feat from 3e, and had forgotten it in 4e. Well I feel my point stands there can be more, I will admit you opened my eyes to some that I would not have seen otherwise.
Thank you (kiss)
I want 6
Adept: Animist, Bard, Healer, Priest, Shaman, Sorcerer, Warlock, Witch, Wizard
Expert: Sage, Rogue, Wilderness Rogue
Warrior: Barbarian (heavy armor), Fighter, Knight, Samurai, Warlord
Warrior Adept: Arcane Warriors, Holy Warriors, Nature Warriors, Psychic Warriors, Martial Priests, Paladins, Rangers (spellcasting), Wardens
Physical Adept: Monks, ninjas
? (lightly armored Warrior blending the Warrior and Expert): "Barbarian" (lightly armored wilderness warrior from harsh environment), Martial Rogues Rangers (non-spellcasting), Scouts, Swashbucklers,
Celebrim
Legend
I think you could probably do it with six, but I think that to emulate all your major options you'd end up with some sort of exchangable 'kit' concept that you could apply to a class to radically alter it. And each kit would be rather complex in itself. I can't help but think that you might just be better off with 12 or 15 classes with slightly reduced flexibility in each compared to a six class model.
I do certainly agree with you that the basic 'Fighter' class needs to be flexible enough to encompass general man-at-arms, knights, samurai's, warlords, marshalls, archers, gladiators, and so forth. I don't think that there should be a proliferation of subclasses specific to real world cultures or slight variations in specialization.
My 3e rules currently have the following PC classes:
Akashic
Bard
Champion
Cleric
Explorer
Fanatic
Feyborn
Fighter
Hunter
Paragon
Rogue
Shaman
Sorcerer
Wizard
Feyborne and Akashic are setting specific and not classes I'd expect in core. Similarly, I consider Monk or Psion a setting specific class dropped from my setting, but which would be suitable in a setting expansion or players option book (Bard might also count as one of these for some). Druid was dropped both because I consider it setting specific and because its OP. But that's the whole list. I have no PrC's and don't feel a need for them. I manage multiclassing with a spellcaster by way of a few feats rather than a bunch of PrC's specific to the combination. I feel though that in a very real way my character creation system is as flexible as 3.5's as whole. I mean, there are a few mechanics you don't get access to, but as far as concepts go, with the latest rules I can well cover pretty much any concept you might have and make the class feel very distinctive. The few concepts I don't cover - like Monk - are ones I choose not to cover.
Could it be done better? Sure. But better wouldn't mean the literally 400+ classes available in late 3.5.
outsider
First Post
Because plenty of "mundane" actions require a great deal of knowledge/training to accomplish. How many of the following would you even know how to get started on:
Executing a gogoplata choke.
Overclocking a 2.8ghz computer to 4.2ghz.
Estimating the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
Playing the bass line to Sweet Child of Mine.
How many of those would you be able to execute in a life or death situation? Given no external help, probably at least half of those things you would have no chance of success on whatsoever(and one of them is even a combat manuever!).
There should be plenty of mundane actions that untrained characters can't even try to execute. Don't underestimate how complicated supposedly mundane things really can be. Martial characters should know how to do manuevers that non-martial characters haven't even heard of.
A mage should stand just as much chance at physically disarming a trained combatant as a fighter does at grabbing a handful of bat guano and sulphur and filling the room with flame. IMHO, the chance for both should be 0%.
Celebrim
Legend
[MENTION=54690]outsider[/MENTION]: I'm not sure you are following my argument. I'm not at all claiming that mundane tasks are easy. They may well be impossible for a person of merely average skill. But it is one thing to say you have no chance of succeeding at an action and another to say you have no chance of attempting an action.
So I may not be able to execute a gogoplata, but anyone - even a child - can attempt to choke or submit a foe in a grapple. It doesn't require a sophisticated notion of grappling technique to try to choke someone, nor does it require a sophisticated notion of combat techniques to grab a weapon or weapon hand. Maybe the chances of you succeeding without training are very small and maybe they are zero, especially if the foe is trained in defending themselves, but you can at least try.
Suppose a particular combat maneuver required a DC 30 combat manuever check and 20 was not an automatic success. Obviously, this manuever is ordinarily impossible for an untrained individual. But impossible in a very different way than if the manuever is only available to someone who has a specific feat. The former is almost always preferred to the later, because the former produces better versimiltude. Maybe of DC of disarming a skilled opponent with a bladed weapon is 30, but what if you are trying to disarm a child who is holding a pillow? Sure, the DM can always ignore the rules when they clearly don't work or when a task is trivial, but ideally you want rules that produce logical or at least believable results regardless of the details of the situation.
This is not a trivial point. Holes of this sort in a rules system ultimately lead to general disatisfaction with the system - often by people who can't quite put their finger on what it is that annoys them so much. They lead to table arguments between people arguing over the letter of the law, what is 'realistic', and what they want to have happen. And plus, what you end up doing is taking good things away from mundane character classes like fighters and forcing your game system toward repetitious and unimaginative combat. You end up in a situation where a 'fighter' must spend very precious resources to do ordinary things and where 'fighters' of great skill can't do ordinary combat manuevers simply because they haven't unlocked them by spending a resource. In other words, it's a variation on 'fighters can't have anything nice'.
So I may not be able to execute a gogoplata, but anyone - even a child - can attempt to choke or submit a foe in a grapple. It doesn't require a sophisticated notion of grappling technique to try to choke someone, nor does it require a sophisticated notion of combat techniques to grab a weapon or weapon hand. Maybe the chances of you succeeding without training are very small and maybe they are zero, especially if the foe is trained in defending themselves, but you can at least try.
Suppose a particular combat maneuver required a DC 30 combat manuever check and 20 was not an automatic success. Obviously, this manuever is ordinarily impossible for an untrained individual. But impossible in a very different way than if the manuever is only available to someone who has a specific feat. The former is almost always preferred to the later, because the former produces better versimiltude. Maybe of DC of disarming a skilled opponent with a bladed weapon is 30, but what if you are trying to disarm a child who is holding a pillow? Sure, the DM can always ignore the rules when they clearly don't work or when a task is trivial, but ideally you want rules that produce logical or at least believable results regardless of the details of the situation.
This is not a trivial point. Holes of this sort in a rules system ultimately lead to general disatisfaction with the system - often by people who can't quite put their finger on what it is that annoys them so much. They lead to table arguments between people arguing over the letter of the law, what is 'realistic', and what they want to have happen. And plus, what you end up doing is taking good things away from mundane character classes like fighters and forcing your game system toward repetitious and unimaginative combat. You end up in a situation where a 'fighter' must spend very precious resources to do ordinary things and where 'fighters' of great skill can't do ordinary combat manuevers simply because they haven't unlocked them by spending a resource. In other words, it's a variation on 'fighters can't have anything nice'.
I was thinking
a. Cityscape web enhancement Urban/Wilderness Skill Swap
b. d20M Occupations/ 4e Backgrounds and Themes: choose 1 for environment/culture, one for occupation
c. Talent Trees
d. Themed spell lists
Currently, I am running Savage Worlds, but when I ran 3e, this following was my class list with UA style class variants for very variation(see farther down in the reply)
Barbarian
Bard: slightly rewritten spell list and slightly adjusted skill list to make it less a jack of all trades and more my concept of a bard.
Cleric: rewritten
Fighter: a few changes including: more skill points, additional class skills, the use of Fighting Style feats (Book of Iron might)
Knight: Hong's Knight (a modified OA Samurai) which I support with material from the Cavaliers Handbook (Green Ronin)
Monk (OA Shaman)
Psychic (Green Ronin)
Ranger
Rogue
Shaman (Green Ronin)
Sorcerer: modified skill list, more skill points, bonus feats
Witch (Green Ronin)
Wizard
Wizard, specialist (using Unearthed Arcana variant abilities)
Depending upon campaign the following are NPC Class: thaumaturgist (Green Ronin Book of Fiends), Unholy Warrior (Green Ronin)
Yeah, I don't use many PrCs, There are a few, but they ar not from WOTC and I don't allow free mult-classing. Most PrCs that I like, in concept, are concepts that should, in my opinion, be playable from the start.
I do, however, like Unearthed Arcana class variants and Urban/Wilderness skill swaps rather than multi-classing when possible, but I was a fan of class customization in the PHB and tailored spell lists from the DMG. I don't see the point of having the players jumping through hoops to play fantasy archetypes or what I feel are reasonable and viable concepts for the world.
Barbarian: Hunter (Unearthed Arcana with Favored Terrain variant), my Urban Barbarian variant.
Bard: Arcane Sage, Divine Bard and Nature Bard variants. my Troubador and Skald
Cleric: cloistered cleric (UA), healer, and war priest
Fighter: a few variants that I created back when I frequented Monte's board
Monk (OA Shaman): with two variants including a Warrior Monk that does not cast spells (gains bonus feats each time a new spell would be gained).
Ranger: Urban Ranger (UA), spelless variant (similar to Complete Champion), and a variant that starts with a bard's spell progression
Rogue: martial and wilderness rogues variants UA variant
Sorcerer: battle sorcerer (UA) and heritage feats
outsider
First Post
Indeed, there should be some actions you have no chance at attempting. Should you be able to attempt a choke? Sure. Should you be able to attempt a gogoplata? No, most people wouldn't even know what it is, so how would they attempt it?
I guess I can understand it if your point is "There shouldn't be a gogoplata choke manuever, there should just be a choke manuever that anybody can use, to varying degrees of success". I disagree with that idea heavily, but I can understand it. I suspect if I went and counted, every single version of D&D has at least a dozen ways for a pc to burn somebody with magical fire right there in the PHB. Why should there only be one way to choke somebody(or, more importantly, one way to swing your sword)?
IMHO, there should be some basic, very unlikely to succeed martial abilities like trip, bullrush, etc, that anybody can try to do. Seperate from those though should be the versions that martial characters use. 3e went the "fighters get lots of feats to counter the penalties" route, and it sucked.
