D&D (2024) How to give complex martials to those who want them, without taking away the simple martials

[Haplo781]

1. Completely decouple feats from ASIs. (May already be happening)

2. Give martial classes an absurd number of bonus feats. Like one every other level.

3. Redesign maneuvers, going back to something closer to DDN Playtest Packet 5 (they were generally stronger and a lot of them were class-restricted). Add a minimum level to each.

4. Massively buff Martial Adept - superiority dice now scale with your character level as if you were a Battlemaster. Make it repeatable.

Voilá! Now if you want to push the "attack things" button every turn without any further thought, you can spend all your feats on damage increases and 3 copies of Tough or whatever. And if you prefer to play more tactically, you can take Martial Adept 5 times and gain a huge pool of superiority dice/maneuvers - which will be stronger the higher the level required.

You can pay me by check, Venmo, or PayPal, WotC.

 

[HammerMan]

Make a new class balance it not against other marginals but casters (so if they try to go damage the do slightly less) have the fluff be martial training.

 

[Bill Zebub]

D&D 5E - My Super Simple Idea for a Better Fighter

 

[Charlaquin]

1. Completely decouple feats from ASIs. (May already be happening)

2. Give martial classes an absurd number of bonus feats. Like one every other level.

3. Redesign maneuvers, going back to something closer to DDN Playtest Packet 5 (they were generally stronger and a lot of them were class-restricted). Add a minimum level to each.

4. Massively buff Martial Adept - superiority dice now scale with your character level as if you were a Battlemaster. Make it repeatable.

Voilá! Now if you want to push the "attack things" button every turn without any further thought, you can spend all your feats on damage increases and 3 copies of Tough or whatever. And if you prefer to play more tactically, you can take Martial Adept 5 times and gain a huge pool of superiority dice/maneuvers - which will be stronger the higher the level required.

You can pay me by check, Venmo, or PayPal, WotC.

They tried this in 3e. The problem with bonus feats as the Martial Shtick is that it ends up being “the same stuff anyone else can do, just more of it.” Martial characters are left with no mechanical identity of their own. Also, the proliferation of feats was a major contributor to bloat and power creep in both 3e and 4e.

 

[Njall]

They tried this in 3e. The problem with bonus feats as the Martial Shtick is that it ends up being “the same stuff anyone else can do, just more of it.” Martial characters are left with no mechanical identity of their own. Also, the proliferation of feats was a major contributor to bloat and power creep in both 3e and 4e.

True, but 3.x feats (at least "core" feats) suffered from both a lack of synergy and didn't really scale at all.
Stuff like, for example, Tactical feats worked much better in that regard (yes, anyone could grab Shock Trooper and become good at charging. Most martials could also take Combat Brute, which cost 2 more feats, and follow up that first turn with more damage. Fighters, however, could take Shock Trooper, Combat Brute, Elusive Target to avoid being power-attacked into oblivion after dropping their AC by 10-15 points, Karmic Strike and Combat Reflexes to retailate 3-4 times with a massive damage bonus, and still have enough feats to grab, say, Combat Expertise + Improved Combat Expertise and do some off-tanking here and there).

Another example were Combat Form feats, presented in the PHB II, which essentialy became better the more you had.

That's not to say I'd like to see the game go in that direction, but it can be done. Honestly, I'd just prefer if they created a list of maneuvers and let martials sacrifice attacks to fuel them.
Just to make them better at, you know, "fighting" in general, instead of "dealing damage" ( like gaining an extra reaction for each attack sacrificed in case you want to tank a bit better, or gain a fixed bonus, say a +2, to skil checks in combat and/or AC/Saving Throws, to gain a smattering of temporart HP, to get special effects on their remaining attacks, like a stun or, in the case of battlemasters, to regain a spent dice...).
Make them flexible; someone who just wants to deal as much damage as possible can keep attacking 2/3 times per round, while those who'd like to sacrifice a bit of damage for the occasional "cool" effect can do so.

 

[Haplo781]

They tried this in 3e. The problem with bonus feats as the Martial Shtick is that it ends up being “the same stuff anyone else can do, just more of it.” Martial characters are left with no mechanical identity of their own. Also, the proliferation of feats was a major contributor to bloat and power creep in both 3e and 4e.

Feats can have prerequisites.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Feats can have prerequisites.

Yeah, but people threw fits about that, too.

 

[Stalker0]

Play barbarian.....and win. I mean seriously the barbarian in 5e is already super simple. Players love it, you are basically invinicible, you go in and just smash everything!

Beyond that...probably the best way is just have a new class, call it the brute as we have already associated that name to simple. Let the fighter be your "tactical fighter" with all the bells and whistles, and just let the brute be raw power.

 

[GMMichael]

1. Completely decouple feats from ASIs. (May already be happening)

2. Give martial classes an absurd number of bonus feats. Like one every other level.

3. Redesign maneuvers, going back to something closer to DDN Playtest Packet 5 (they were generally stronger and a lot of them were class-restricted). Add a minimum level to each.

4. Massively buff Martial Adept - superiority dice now scale with your character level as if you were a Battlemaster. Make it repeatable.

Voilá! Now if you want to push the "attack things" button every turn without any further thought, you can spend all your feats on damage increases and 3 copies of Tough or whatever. And if you prefer to play more tactically, you can take Martial Adept 5 times and gain a huge pool of superiority dice/maneuvers - which will be stronger the higher the level required.

You can pay me by check, Venmo, or PayPal, WotC.

5. Play Level Up (A5E).

 

[Micah Sweet]

5. Play Level Up (A5E).

Ninja'd!