D&D 5E Improving the Fighter's Stickiness

[pming]

Hiya.

I'm with KarinsDad on this (re: "play with good DM's"), but if players wanted some sort of "hard and fast" rule...

Fighters (and ONLY Fighters) can go into Protective Mode. This basically means they give up ALL their attacks for attacking; in place of that, they can attack any number of foes who try and 'get past' him to whatever/wherever he is protecting. The fighter gets Advantage on this, or he can give Disadvantage to any who move past him.

No muss, no fuss. Relies on player intention and not "rules wrangling" to try and get around the built-in damage/attack/action-economy balance. I generally dislike "more rules" for 5e; I generally like defaulting to some use of Adv/Disadv based on Player Intention and not hard-coded rules.

For a test to see what I'm talking about, next time a player tries to "sneak one past the DM", ask the player his reason and intention for doing it. If his face goes red (e.g., caught with hand in cookie jar), chances are he was just trying to "cheat legally" to game the system.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[ExploderWizard]

Seems like just making a feat to allow for unlimited opportunity attacks is the cleanest solution.

Unlimited OA's will just slow the game down.

I like defense mechanics such as that granted by the protection fighting style. The fighter being able to defend those close to him/her has a very martial feel. The sentinel feat is also pretty good and a must have for a protective fighter if the game uses feats.

On the other hand compulsion mechanics that somehow manage to penalize anyone who doesn't gang up on the heavily armored fighter in a vague way are irritating and make little sense in a tabletop game.

A tactically minded fighter should be seeking favorable terrain and places easy to defend with fewer bodies. Out in the open against a numerically superior foe is the last place an experience warrior wants to be. I think it is far better to recognize the limits of martial skill in those situations rather than create mechanics to mitigate poor decisions or occasional bad luck.

No matter how awesome a fighter may be in personal combat, there is only so much control he/she can exert over parts of the battlefield that are out of reach.

My solution then would be to create abilities & feats that built on and improved the protection style and sentinel feat.

 

[Quartz]

One could always copy the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability and allow Fighters an OA once per turn. But if you want a defender Fighter, choosing the protection style isn't actually very good as you have to use your reaction, which you might have already used, and you only protect one other PC from one attack sequence. Right now, the best defender fighter might be an invisible rogue.