Kill the fighter

[Matthias]

Here is a good question for Next: Why should we keep the Fighter class?

It sounds radical on the face of it, but really, it is the logical thing to do.

Let's look at all the Fighter-like classes we already have. Barbarians: they fight by raging and taking inhuman amounts of damage. Paladins: they fight by marshaling their innate virtue and holy power to smite bad guys. Rangers: they fight using their unique combat styles, drawing on their wilderness skills. Monk: they fight using their fists, their ki, and their supernatural self-perfection.

But they aren't the only Fighter-like classes. Rogues: they fight by sneaking around behind the enemy and stabbing them where it hurts most. Wizards: they fight with a wide variety of spells drawn from their knowledge of arcana. Clerics: they fight with a mix of martial skill and divinely-granted magics. Druids: they fight using the power of nature and summoned creatures. Bards: they fight by singing and annoying hostile audiences to death. (Well, not really.)

When it comes down to it, every single class is a Fighter of some flavor or another.

So here is my suggestion: Remove the generic version of the Fighter, and in its place adopt a few more Fighter-like martial classes to fill the niches that the generic Fighter could fill better than the other Fighter-like classes could. A class that relies on heavy armor and heavy shields, or one that fights on horseback like a Cavalier, etc.

 

[RangerWickett]

Can create a class called the Lover?

 

[Sunseeker]

By your stretch to include bards and druids we might as well call everything that can hit stuff a fighter.

Thing is, the fighter can be those dozen classes you want to replace it with. Those dozen classes however, cannot do anything other than what they're doing. That and the fighter is as much a staple of the fantasy genre as the wizard is.

 

[groklynn]

OR kill all the classic "classes" at all - fighter, wizard, rogue and cleric I think 4e essentials' classes very close to your concept. And, by the way, if everybody can fight with martial/ranged weapons, why don't th non-casters use some basic cantrips or prayers in their adventures? It could be more interesting approach than just adding and removing "spell-like" powers from martial classes. And for the balance let's say these powers could be at-will only basic things. Also, basic attack need some weapon so why don't we add some really cheap focus comparable with the mundane weapon. E.g. the holy symbol for 50 gp that could activate "bless" as a standart action for the next round...

 

[n00bdragon]

Or maybe instead of disposing with the fighter he could just be allowed to be useful, cool, and powerful without a horde of grognards screaming "MAGIC ANIME BULL****".

Crazy I know.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Keeping in mind that one of the core ideals of DnDNext is to be inclusive of all previous editions, this ain't going to happen! As much as I can see the appeal, when Ftr was one of four or so classes it made sense, Now that it is one of dozens it has less niche.

 

[I'm A Banana]

OR kill all the classic classes at all - fighter, wizard, rogue and cleric. I think 4e essentials' classes very close to your concept. And, by the way, if everybody could fight with martial/ranged weapons, why non-casters can't use some basic cantrips or prayers in their adventures? It could be more interesting than just adding and removing powers from classes. And for honest balance - let it be at-will only basic things requiring some really cheap focus. E.g. some holy symbol for 50 gp that could bless you as a standart action for next round..

Part of the problem with this is that it approaches a classless game. Which isn't necessarily a problem, though it isn't very D&D.

That and the fighter is as much a staple of the fantasy genre as the wizard is.

Well, the wizard has been cut up into smaller pieces.

Originally, you've got the magic-user, which is supposed to represent anyone who uses magic.

Then, you have the cleric, which represents those who use god-magic, instead of those who use other-magic. We also get druids, who use nature-magic.

Later on, we get specialists, which represent certain types of magic (illusion, necromancy, evocation).

Then, we get sorcerers, who are blood-mages. And warlocks who are pact-mages. And Favored Souls who are saint-mages. And swordmages who are sword-mages.

And the original "wizard" is left being the scholar-mage.

Fighters haven't been cut up like that. There was a bit of an attempt made in 4e to make fighters into one specific thing, but there's been plenty of resistance to that.

I don't think it's a bad idea. I think you can cut up fighters and get Soldiers (who use sword-and-board and heavy armor), Brutes (who use big two-handers and slightly lighter armor), Artillery (bows and other ranged weapons), Skirmishers (light weapons and mobility), and even Controllers (disarming, tripping, stunning, shifting, etc.).

But this relates to the question a few weeks ago about what a cleric should look like. The question is, ultimately, how deep do you want your class divides to be? Deeper = more and more iconic classes but less flexibility. Shallower = fewer and more flexible classes, but less iconic.

There's also the question of how much every class in 5e will be a "fighter." Given the three pillars of adventure, there might be room for others to not be as fighty as a fighter.

 

[avin]

This is worst than edition wars! It's class wars! It's an outrage!

 

[Derren]

Previous edition encouraged specialization (or in the case of 4E made it the only way to play). So of course classes who can do one thing really well like barbarian or ranger overshadowed the fighter whos flavor was more along the lines of "master of all weapons". But what use is it when you only ever use a single type of weapon?
So in 4E WotC decided to add anime magic to the fighter.

To make the fighter in 5E viable you either have to continue with anime nonsense or make profiency with multiple weapon types more rewarding.
Or they could rename the fighter to soldier and make it sword&shield only, leaving 2 handed weapons to paladins and barbarians and archery to the ranger. Imo a really boring solution.

 

[El Mahdi]

Making a niche class for each fighter archetype would not only contribute to even more class bloat, but would be practically impossible to accomplish due to the sheer number of archetypes.

That's why there's a generic fighter class, so that all Fighter archetypes can be modeled...not just niche versions.

I think this would be a highly impractical idea.