D&D 5E Martials should just get free feats

[ECMO3]

Which does nothing for all the Fighters who DON'T cast spells.]

The whole point of the fighter that doesn't cast spells is that they do not want to cast spells.

This is a cuircyular argumentv- I want to cast spells and be as powerful as a Wizard but I don't want to cast spells.

That's the thing you seem to be not getting here. The Fighter, at is baseline, is too weak. The Fighter, at its baseline, needs to not be that weak. Period.

the Fighter baseline does not need to be any stronget in combat. I could see some ribbons on skills or skills or something like that.

Weapon proficiency is irrelevant.

No it isn't.

I have payed a bladesinger who found in the same campaign found a scimitar of speed and a legendary shortsword but had no proficiency because she took her proficiency in Rapier. That kind of sucked for her.

Fighting style is almost irrelevant because Bladesinger gets a special Extra Attack that replaces one attack with a scaling cantrip.

No it isn't. A fighting style can give you battlemaster maneuvers, it can give you blindsight, oit can give you dueling which will outrun the extra damage from the bladesingers cantrip at most levels.

I would call armor proficiency also irrelevant.

Then why do you even want to play a fighter.

Fighter Extra Attack is taken care of by the aforementioned cantrip.

No it isn't

Second Wind has nothing to do with damage.

But it has everything to do with survivng melee. If the claim was the bladesinger could do 75% of the damage of a fighter that is different than the Bladesinger is 75% of a fighter.

Indomitable has nothing to do with damage.

No but it has a lot to do with survivng melee because bladesong comes down if you are incapacitated, along with Song of Defense and anything you are concentrating on.

And extra ASIs are exactly what I'm saying the Fighter should get EVEN MORE of.

They already have 4 more than a Bladesinger who optimizes for melee.

Nope. Not even close.

Yes way more tempting, Far more people play fighters than Wizards.

Then prove it. Show where you have documented evidence that people explicitly prefer the way the Fighter is designed over the way the Wizard is designed.

Show me where you have documented evidence they don't.

I will say I like it better, that is one person!

But you won't be able to, because such proof does not exist. All you have is that Fighters are commonly played.

And that is all you have too!

That has literally, actually, NOTHING to do with the way the class is designed, because every single edition has had the Fighter as the most popular class. Period. Even 3e, where essentially everyone--even Paizo!--agreed that the Fighter was too weak and needed a boost. (They just....also boosted the Wizard, and the boost they gave to the Fighter was really weak. Meaning the gap remained.)

Yes, but your argument is people are not tempted to take fighter. Right here you are admiting they are taking fighter despite the class design.

Which is 100% completely irrelevant to whether they are actually comparable choices.

But what is relevant is whether or not people play them.

Then we must take power away from the Wizard, OR give things like feats to the Fighter. Those are the only options which can resolve this problem without outright rewriting the classes.

First off we don't have to give anything to the fighter and ivf we are going to give him something I still don't know why spells are a better choice than feats.

finallyI would rather take things away from the Wizard than give feats to the ffighter.

Why? Why should a subclass somehow make you a specialist? It's literally an add-on! It should NEVER be as good as taking a whole second class, not even close!

Becuase it is the whole idea of a subcvlass - to make you good at that theme.

Genuine question:
Other than aping the Fighter, meaning excluding things like Hexblade and Bladesinger, do any subclasses actually work this way in 5e? Is there even one subclass that makes you nearly as good a spellcaster as a Wizard? Is there even one subclass that makes you as good at healing and support as a Cleric? Even one that makes you comparable to a Bard's illusions and buffs and such?

Absolutely there are.

1. Abberant Mind Sorcerers are a match for a base Wizards as spellcasters due to metamagic which makes their spells more powerful than a Wizards spells and their ability to select off-list spells while having full caster slot progressions.

2. Eloquence Bard is also as good a spell caster. Magic Secrets gives him access to the best Wizard spells and Unsettling Words makes those spells more effective by worsening an enemies saves.

Now these examples are against a base-subclass fee Wizard. A Wizard will have subcclass abilities and rituals to mae up a lot of ground, but as a caster and only looking at class these can hold their own.

3. A high-level Fey Wanderer Ranger is about as good of a control caster as a Wizard. He lacks the high level spell slots, but Fey Reenforcements with Beguiling Twist generally along with a ton of magical bonus actions generally makes up for the lack of higher level spells.

4., A Divine Soul Sorcerer, Celestial Warlock and at both BETTER healers than a Base Cleric at healing, not almost as good but better. Druids, Rangers, Paladins are all about as good or better than a base cleric too. If you count Magical Inspiration Bards are about as good as clerics too.

You would actually have to take a healing-oriented subclass in Cleric to be aprreciably better than these.

Because it sounds, to me, like you are wanting to rewrite 5e in order to make subclass essentially as strong as class, simply because one class--Fighter--can get eclipsed by the subclasses of other classes.

I don't think the fighter can be eclipsed in melee like a Cleric can be eclipsed in healing or a Wizard can be eclipsed in spell casting.

The fighter is truely the best at what he does already.

Weapon proficiencies are irrelevant. The only weapons that matter are rapier (1d8, finesse), greatsword (2d6, 2H), greataxe (1d12, 2H), and glaive/halberd (1d10, polearm.) Ranged weapons are irrelevant because of ranged spell attack cantrips (fire bolt being the best choice.) Bladesinging gives you rapier prof, which is all you need.

It actually almost always matters and Rapier is a ppor choice for a Bladesinger you are going to play to level 20. While it is the best in the Whiteroom magic Scimitars and Shortswords are far more common.

Name we one published WOTC adventure that has a great magic rapier as loot in it!

You need to have proficiency in what you find to be effective. This is one reason I started playing Drow when I played Bladesingers, because they actuallyhave most of the proficiencies you want already/

You should not ever assume magic items for only one side. That's clearly biased.

You should never assume you will find a magic Rapier.

Then show the math.

An ancient Red Dragon with a +17 attack will take down a 20th level Wizard with a 28 AC in 2 rounds doing 125 damage on average without breathing. That assumes the Wizard wins initiative and has shield and bladesong.

If the Dragon wins initiative (no bladsong) or breathes (absorb ellements) he has aboit a 50-50 chance of killing him in one single round.

I consider this neither necessary nor relevant. Especially because there's no guarantee the Fighter is getting to attack on the first turn either.

The fighter is usually going to get to attack, and if he doesn't he can use another action

Toll the dead. The hit points are irrelevant.

Ok. That is not your highest damage option, but ok

It's not four. It's two.

No it is 4 because to get the maximum damage the Wizard needs to spend 2 ASIs boosting Intelligence IN Addition to 2 boosting dexterity.

The fighter effectively has 4 more ASIs to boost his melee capabilities.

I specifically calculated it this way because it shows the "fallback" options. Meaning, this is the absolute floor. With the possible exception of only a handful of rounds per day, the Bladesinger is doing nothing less than 75% of the raw, before-accuracy damage a baseline Fighter is doing--and I assumed a Fighter with Great Weapon Fighting and a greatsword.

that is not the floor, because he has to cast defensive spells and there is turns he is doing 0.

Battle Master, probably the best damage option for a Fighter (because Eldritch Knight scales so poorly), is only getting +6d10 per rest.

6d10 per short rest is about 1d10 per round AND those are coming with a debuff often enabling more.

Few groups take more than two short rests per day, so that's 18d10.

Right and fewer groups take more than 6 fights a day so that is almost 1d10 every single round.

A max-level Wizard has six 5th level spell slots per day (depending on their usage of Arcane Recovery; they can't recover four because they don't have four 5th level slots.) Not even considering any of their other spells, just those six. Synaptic static is 8d6 psychic (Int save for half), cone of cold is an AoE 8d8 cold (Con save for half), dawn is a repeatable 4d10 radiant (Con save for half.) Assume half of saving throws succeed (a pretty poor showing on the Wizard's part, but easy math), and dawn only attempts to hit two targets each time and never lasts more than one round (so in total two targets save, two targets fail.) That's 1.5×(28+36+2×22) = 162 expected damage. 24d10 is 132 expected damage--again, allowing that a full third of the time, the Battle Master applies Superiority Dice to crits so they pull double duty. Just using your 5th level spells and Arcane Recovery, without any other expenditure, exceeds the bonus damage of the Battle Master. One class feature lets you exceed an entire subclass!

A Wizard who wants to melee as effectively as a fighter can't cast Synaptic Static or dawn. To start with he is losing melee damage. That 75% of a fighter is 0 this round.

iTo start with f the fighter attacks with his greatsword and the wizard casts SS the wizard did 0 melee damage that round, not 75% of the fighter.

Second most of your 5th level slots are going to be spent onn False Life or Song of Defense if you want to do your 75% of the fighter.

The point is to compare characters who are going into melee.

Dedicate all your 4th level slots to false life, and all your 1st-level slots to something defensive and useful (e.g. shield.) Make silvery barbs your 1st-level Spell Mastery pick, and your choice of defensive spell for 2nd level: blur, invisibility, or misty step are all great options, or you can take shadow blade to improve your cantrip+attack damage even further, becoming 4d12+2d8+10 (45 average.)

The normal second level spell is blur if you want to melee consistently.

Misty step is good to have, especially if you get swallowed by a purple worm or something, invisibility wastes an action.

This leaves you with two 6th, two 7th, one 8th, and one 9th level spell free to do whatever you want, as well as all of your 2nd and 3rd level spells. In other words, at least in terms of slot levels, the majority of slot-based magic you'll use during the day:

your 6th level slot is used for a 5th level false life. 7th, 8th and 9th level are normally used on song of defense.

Edit: Actually, I messed up on the Wizard math--cone of cold is an AoE spell, so it should also be hitting two targets (assuming one saves, one fails). So those six spell slots are actually doing 1.5×(28+2×36+2×22) = 216 damage.

It could be 1000 damage, but when it comes to keeping up in melee you just lost a round worth of damage with your rapier and toll the dead to cast it.

The comparison if a wizard that is 75% of a fighter in melee when he attacks - If you are at your base 75% of fighter and in a 3-round battle you cast cone of cold and then melee twice and the fighter melees 4 times (using AS), you are LESS than 50% of the fighter in melee that battle.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The whole point of the fighter that doesn't cast spells is that they do not want to cast spells.

This is a cuircyular argumentv- I want to cast spells and be as powerful as a Wizard but I don't want to cast spells.



the Fighter baseline does not need to be any stronget in combat. I could see some ribbons on skills or skills or something like that.



No it isn't.

I have payed a bladesinger who found in the same campaign found a scimitar of speed and a legendary shortsword but had no proficiency because she took her proficiency in Rapier. That kind of sucked for her.



No it isn't. A fighting style can give you battlemaster maneuvers, it can give you blindsight, oit can give you dueling which will outrun the extra damage from the bladesingers cantrip at most levels.




Then why do you even want to play a fighter.



No it isn't



But it has everything to do with survivng melee. If the claim was the bladesinger could do 75% of the damage of a fighter that is different than the Bladesinger is 75% of a fighter.



No but it has a lot to do with survivng melee because bladesong comes down if you are incapacitated, along with Song of Defense and anything you are concentrating on.



They already have 4 more than a Bladesinger who optimizes for melee.



Yes way more tempting, Far more people play fighters than Wizards.


Show me where you have documented evidence they don't.

I will say I like it better, that is one person!





And that is all you have too!



Yes, but your argument is people are not tempted to take fighter. Right here you are admiting they are taking fighter despite the class design.



But what is relevant is whether or not people play them.



First off we don't have to give anything to the fighter and ivf we are going to give him something I still don't know why spells are a better choice than feats.

finallyI would rather take things away from the Wizard than give feats to the ffighter.



Becuase it is the whole idea of a subcvlass - to make you good at that theme.




Absolutely there are.

1. Abberant Mind Sorcerers are a match for a base Wizards as spellcasters due to metamagic which makes their spells more powerful than a Wizards spells and their ability to select off-list spells while having full caster slot progressions.

2. Eloquence Bard is also as good a spell caster. Magic Secrets gives him access to the best Wizard spells and Unsettling Words makes those spells more effective by worsening an enemies saves.

Now these examples are against a base-subclass fee Wizard. A Wizard will have subcclass abilities and rituals to mae up a lot of ground, but as a caster and only looking at class these can hold their own.

3. A high-level Fey Wanderer Ranger is about as good of a control caster as a Wizard. He lacks the high level spell slots, but Fey Reenforcements with Beguiling Twist generally along with a ton of magical bonus actions generally makes up for the lack of higher level spells.

4., A Divine Soul Sorcerer, Celestial Warlock and at both BETTER healers than a Base Cleric at healing, not almost as good but better. Druids, Rangers, Paladins are all about as good or better than a base cleric too. If you count Magical Inspiration Bards are about as good as clerics too.

You would actually have to take a healing-oriented subclass in Cleric to be aprreciably better than these.




I don't think the fighter can be eclipsed in melee like a Cleric can be eclipsed in healing or a Wizard can be eclipsed in spell casting.

The fighter is truely the best at what he does already.



It actually almost always matters and Rapier is a ppor choice for a Bladesinger you are going to play to level 20. While it is the best in the Whiteroom magic Scimitars and Shortswords are far more common.

Name we one published WOTC adventure that has a great magic rapier as loot in it!

You need to have proficiency in what you find to be effective. This is one reason I started playing Drow when I played Bladesingers, because they actuallyhave most of the proficiencies you want already/



You should never assume you will find a magic Rapier.




An ancient Red Dragon with a +17 attack will take down a 20th level Wizard with a 28 AC in 2 rounds doing 125 damage on average without breathing. That assumes the Wizard wins initiative and has shield and bladesong.

If the Dragon wins initiative (no bladsong) or breathes (absorb ellements) he has aboit a 50-50 chance of killing him in one single round.



The fighter is usually going to get to attack, and if he doesn't he can use another action


Ok. That is not your highest damage option, but ok




No it is 4 because to get the maximum damage the Wizard needs to spend 2 ASIs boosting Intelligence IN Addition to 2 boosting dexterity.

The fighter effectively has 4 more ASIs to boost his melee capabilities.



that is not the floor, because he has to cast defensive spells and there is turns he is doing 0.




6d10 per short rest is about 1d10 per round AND those are coming with a debuff often enabling more.




Right and fewer groups take more than 6 fights a day so that is almost 1d10 every single round.




A Wizard who wants to melee as effectively as a fighter can't cast Synaptic Static or dawn. To start with he is losing melee damage. That 75% of a fighter is 0 this round.

iTo start with f the fighter attacks with his greatsword and the wizard casts SS the wizard did 0 melee damage that round, not 75% of the fighter.

Second most of your 5th level slots are going to be spent onn False Life or Song of Defense if you want to do your 75% of the fighter.

The point is to compare characters who are going into melee.





The normal second level spell is blur if you want to melee consistently.

Misty step is good to have, especially if you get swallowed by a purple worm or something, invisibility wastes an action.




your 6th level slot is used for a 5th level false life. 7th, 8th and 9th level are normally used on song of defense.


It could be 1000 damage, but when it comes to keeping up in melee you just lost a round worth of damage with your rapier and toll the dead to cast it.

The comparison if a wizard that is 75% of a fighter in melee when he attacks - If you are at your base 75% of fighter and in a 3-round battle you cast cone of cold and then melee twice and the fighter melees 4 times (using AS), you are LESS than 50% of the fighter in melee that battle.

Yeah, I'm genuinely done here. You are openly arguing in bad faith, making claims withour evidence and then telling me it's my job to refute those baseless claims. Goodbye.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

RAW it is absolutely zero time, not only it could be 0, but it is factually 0.

I say that because if I multiclass into Wizard, Cleric or Druid and get spells immediately. No downtime required to learn to cast them. Also no downtime required to get proficiency in martial weapons, light armor or medium armor proficiency for the same reason - I can multiclass into Cleric, Fighter, Paladin or Ranger and get those proficiencies without doing anything at all prior.

It doesn't even take time to build your first spellbook. If I level up and take a dip in Wizard I get a spellbook with 6 spells immediately.

That would be why I specified "pre-adventuring career" rather than the multiclass rules for in-play.

I would be fine with that and actually think it is a good idea.

An EK or AT should get full spellcaster progression. At level 3 when you take the subclass you get 3 spells known and slots as a 3rd level caster. Get one more spell known and one caster level every time you level up. I also think you would have to change action surge so that you can't use it on a turn you cast a spell.

A fighter has martial exclusives like proficiencies and fighting styles that the martial-focused caster subclasses don't get. Similarly, casters should keep some exclusives, those would be cantrips, Arcane Recovery, Sorcery points, Ritual cating etc but the Fighter and Rogue caster themed subclasses should get access to the basic caster functions in a manner to make them comparable and not far behind, including the most powerful spells at the same level and in the same numbers that a full caster would get.

I think that would make for an ideal Eldritch Knight, a lot better than the current version IMO and a lot more "balanced" for the people who think that sort of thing is important.

Now we're getting somewhere! How would you adjust the Champion and Battlemaster to keep them at the same capability of your new Eldritch Knight?

That is what I meant, I appologize for not articulating it more clearly.

They can't contribute in combat with weapons in a meaningful manner.

So what?
Even melee-focused casters are specifically about mixing magic and weapons, not relying on weapons only.
That's not just moving the goalpost across the back edge, that is setting the goal up most of the way down the field.

Before we change something we should have some reasonable evidence it will improve the game.

Which is why this houserule may not be for everyone.
Some people may may not be seeing any issue. There may ne others like yourself who are aware of the imbalance but are happy to perpetuate the divide between the haves and have-nots based on your supremacist views.
Such people are not required to use this houserule.

Making the fighter class better at martial combat will not remove the imbalance caused by spells, it will just create another large imbalance.

I am struggling to believe that some extra feats, even if they are invested into combat are going to close the gap in combat performance in the way the game seems to generally be played.

Even if so, the suggestion to limit the extra feats to non-combat use was made quite early in this thread.

I will also note that more casters doing melee will actually improve balance in play. A Wizard or Warlock who focuses on melee exclusively is not way ahead of the fighter in play and is pretty balanced in play with the current fighter. They are way ahead of the fighter when they do other things, which is what you essentially want to encourage them to do.

Having a choice between two things is always more powerful than only being able to do one of them even if they are only of equal power.

To start with a battlemaster is a fighter, so he is getting that extra damage in addition to his damage from a 3rd and 4th extra attack.

Even assuming the battlemaster gets a short rest at some point, Paladin smites overtake battlemaster supremacy die damage at only 5th level.

A fighter is perfectly functional and is as fun to play as any other class (more fun than several).

You yourself have been saying that they are less capable than many classes including the wizard. Hence the metaphor.

Here are your words:

"If everyone who wants to melee can do anything that the fighter can, as well as their own, powerful class abilities, then why have a fighter at all? ..... If you think this, and also think that every other class should be able to do what the fighter can if they build into it, then why do you believe that the fighter still has a place in the game?"

Yes. This question is specifically addressed to you. There is nothing in there that indicates that I believe there is no place for a fighter class.
Would you care to actually answer it now?

My interpetation of that is that you don't think the fighter has a place in the game unless it is way better at martial combat, using only class abilities, than a Caster can possibly be using all of her abilities.

If I misunderstood you I appologize.

I think I would prefer it if you took a little extra care to read what I actually say, rather than just apologising after you claim I said something I didn't.
Likewise with answering a question that I wasn't asking rather than the one I was.

To start with, assuming equal rolls on ability scores you do need to use defensive spells to maintain equivalence in melee with a bladesinger. Their extra attack, song of defense and song of victory bring a lot to the table, but not enough to really keep up without using defensive spells. Unless you just rolled bonkers a 10+ level bladesinger is going to be behind a 10+ level fighter without using any spells.

If a fighter and a melee wizard or melee bard pull out a weapon and attack they should be close to one another. There is no reason the fighter should be a lot better.

So? Spells are just as much class features as armour proficiencies, extra attack etc. You cannot honestly compare performance between two classes without taking both classes' features into account.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

The whole point of the fighter that doesn't cast spells is that they do not want to cast spells.

No, the whole point of the fighter concept is that they aren't a primary spellcaster. The fighter that doesn't cast spells is generally doing so because they can't, not because they don't want to.
If their character concept including "casting spells" than it is likely that they are not playing a fighter.

This is a cuircyular argumentv- I want to cast spells and be as powerful as a Wizard but I don't want to cast spells.

Would you kindly go back and read what they actually said, before making that kind of false claim. Given you are the only person suggesting fighters get to cast spells to be as powerful as a wizard, you no doubt owe them an apology, but as mentioned before, it is preferable that you not make a mistake of that magnitude to start with, rather than just offer an apology for it afterwards.

the Fighter baseline does not need to be any stronget in combat. I could see some ribbons on skills or skills or something like that.

Are you aware of what a "ribbon" is in the context of class features?

No it isn't.

I have payed a bladesinger who found in the same campaign found a scimitar of speed and a legendary shortsword but had no proficiency because she took her proficiency in Rapier. That kind of sucked for her.

I'm sure it did. Having to fall back on your full wizard casting progression and scaling cantrips when dealing with creatures immune to non-magical damage must have hurt her so much more than if it was the great-weapon-focused fighter who got those weapons.

No it isn't. A fighting style can give you battlemaster maneuvers, it can give you blindsight, oit can give you dueling which will outrun the extra damage from the bladesingers cantrip at most levels.

Can't anyone pick up any of those abilities?

Then why do you even want to play a fighter.

Character concept is a thing you know?

They already have 4 more than a Bladesinger who optimizes for melee.

I'm missing something. Where are the other two extra ASIs coming from? Are we assuming the fighter hasn't invested in any combat feats after maxing their primary ability?

1. Abberant Mind Sorcerers are a match for a base Wizards as spellcasters due to metamagic which makes their spells more powerful than a Wizards spells and their ability to select off-list spells while having full caster slot progressions.

2. Eloquence Bard is also as good a spell caster. Magic Secrets gives him access to the best Wizard spells and Unsettling Words makes those spells more effective by worsening an enemies saves.

Now these examples are against a base-subclass fee Wizard. A Wizard will have subcclass abilities and rituals to mae up a lot of ground, but as a caster and only looking at class these can hold their own.

3. A high-level Fey Wanderer Ranger is about as good of a control caster as a Wizard. He lacks the high level spell slots, but Fey Reenforcements with Beguiling Twist generally along with a ton of magical bonus actions generally makes up for the lack of higher level spells.

4., A Divine Soul Sorcerer, Celestial Warlock and at both BETTER healers than a Base Cleric at healing, not almost as good but better. Druids, Rangers, Paladins are all about as good or better than a base cleric too. If you count Magical Inspiration Bards are about as good as clerics too.

You would actually have to take a healing-oriented subclass in Cleric to be aprreciably better than these.

Again. You are avoiding answering the actual question that was asked.

None of those subclasses are providing that ability to match the wizard just through the subclass in the way that Hexblade and Bladesinger match the fighter. All of them are just adding stuff onto their existing class chassis.
The Aberrant Soul Sorceror subclass for example doesn't grant 9th-level spellcasting to let it match the wizard. That comes from the base sorceror chassis.

I don't think the fighter can be eclipsed in melee like a Cleric can be eclipsed in healing or a Wizard can be eclipsed in spell casting.

The fighter is truely the best at what he does already.

A Bladesinger who decides to just go nuts in an encounter can absolutely eclipse a fighter in combat even if you restrict performance to damage dealt by melee attacks.

You should never assume you will find a magic Rapier.

Or a magic greatsword or polearm.
Generally best when directly comparing classes to either assume ideal magic item choice, or none.

An ancient Red Dragon with a +17 attack will take down a 20th level Wizard with a 28 AC in 2 rounds doing 125 damage on average without breathing. That assumes the Wizard wins initiative and has shield and bladesong.

If the Dragon wins initiative (no bladsong) or breathes (absorb ellements) he has aboit a 50-50 chance of killing him in one single round.

How does the Fighter fare in that situation? She will have a lower AC and only 20 more HP than the wizard, plus no absorb elements.

 

[Vaalingrade]

At some point the old anti-4e rhetoric of declaring literally every discrete power to be spells became common parlance and it sickens me.

 

[ECMO3]

That would be why I specified "pre-adventuring career" rather than the multiclass rules for in-play.

Regardless, the rules show it takes no time at all to learn spells .... or to learn to be a fitst level fighter.

Now we're getting somewhere! How would you adjust the Champion and Battlemaster to keep them at the same capability of your new Eldritch Knight?

I wouldn't. If they don't want to take spells then there is no point in making them be nearly as good a caster as a Wizard and more importantly no way to do it.

If you want to play a caster fighter play an EK and buff EK to be competitive. If you don't want to play a caster fighter then be happy playing a character that is not as effective at casting as a caster.

It really is that simple!

So what?Even melee-focused casters are specifically about mixing magic and weapons, not relying on weapons only.

No they aren't. That is a playstyle and a choice. They should also have the choice available to go into melee and do almost as well as a fighter without casting any offensive spells.

Whizards should have the choice through subclass selection to be nearly as good in martial combat as any class period. We should also expand Sorcerer, Bard and Cleric subclasses to have that choice too. Fighters are already the best in that role and do not need to be buffed any more. If we do buff fighters in this manner we

I should be able to pick a fighter and melee well or pick a wizard and melee nearly as well or pick a Cleric and melee nearly as well. There should be options for every single class to be nearly as good at melee as a basic fighter without a subclass. Then a fighter is only a little better and can take a subclass to improve further.

I am struggling to believe that some extra feats, even if they are invested into combat are going to close the gap in combat performance in the way the game seems to generally be played.

It will widen the gap.

If I have a fast car and no airplane and you have a slow car and a fast airplane, making my car faster does not make us equal. It makes us more unequal.

Fighters are better than any other class in melee already. Making them more powerful in this thing increases the imbalance.

Even assuming the battlemaster gets a short rest at some point, Paladin smites overtake battlemaster supremacy die damage at only 5th level.

A standard adventuring day is 6 fights and 2 short rests giving a battlemaster 12d8 per day, a 5th level Paladin has 14d8 in smites. However a Battlemaster gets a 3rd attack and then a 4th attack and then action surge 3 times a day.

If you use a standard adventuring day with 2 short rests and 6 fights and assume 4 rounds per fight the Battlemaster is going to keep up with a Paladin quite well and the battlemaster maneuvers all have effects beyond just their damage.

This is aside from the fact that simtes are magic and don't really belong in this comparison!

You yourself have been saying that they are less capable than many classes including the wizard. Hence the metaphor.

There is a difference between as powerful and being fun to play.

Would you care to actually answer it now?

I already answered it. Why don't you read what I post or for that matter read what you qoute. Here is my earlier post, part of which you quoted:

"Yes I do think it should exist, it is very popular, I play it often.

There is plenty of room for a fighter and casters that are near their equal in martial combat with weapons (when designed for it). That is the whole idea of Hexblades and Bladesingers. More over, there is no downside to keeping them both in the game at the same time without putting the fighter class on a different level.

Why would you suggest there is no room for it when people are playing it? The rules right now don't give the fighter these special powers yet many, many, many people have fun playing the fighter as is. Are you suggesting those players should not be allowed to play the current fighter?"

 

[ECMO3]

No, the whole point of the fighter concept is that they aren't a primary spellcaster. The fighter that doesn't cast spells is generally doing so because they can't, not because they don't want to.
If their character concept including "casting spells" than it is likely that they are not playing a fighter.


Would you kindly go back and read what they actually said, before making that kind of false claim. Given you are the only person suggesting fighters get to cast spells to be as powerful as a wizard, you no doubt owe them an apology, but as mentioned before, it is preferable that you not make a mistake of that magnitude to start with, rather than just offer an apology for it afterwards.

I did not make a mistake. Wizards are more powerful than fighters because they cast spells. That is what makes them more powerful-spells.

I have no problem with fighters who do not cast spells. But that is a choice and it is one that does and should garuntee you are playing a weaker class overall.

I'm sure it did. Having to fall back on your full wizard casting progression and scaling cantrips when dealing with creatures immune to non-magical damage must have hurt her so much more than if it was the great-weapon-focused fighter who got those weapons.

It did hurt more than it would have hurt such a fighter.

Focusing on great weapons or pole arm master will generally make you a weaker character at high levels unless yoour DM is going to put certain magic items to suit your playstye, however any magic melee weapon can be used with strength and a fighter gets proficiency in all of them.

Can't anyone pick up any of those abilities?

Assuming you play with feats yes .... but anyone can pick up spells too, and they can pick those up regardless of class even in a game without feats or multiclassing.

Character concept is a thing you know?

I know. That is part of this. People should be allowed to choose a Wizard or a Sorcerer or any other class and be effective in martial combat.

I'm missing something. Where are the other two extra ASIs coming from? Are we assuming the fighter hasn't invested in any combat feats after maxing their primary ability?

Yes, you are missing something.

The numerical comparison is with a bladesinger doing 75% of fighter damage with the fighter investing in nothing except strength. To hit that number A Bladesinger needs a 20 dexterity and a 20 intelligence which is going to take 4 ASIs to accomplish on standard array. Less with great rolls, more than that with poor rolls. A fighter only needs 2 ASI to get a 20 strength. That leaves him two more plus the two extra he gets to invest in melee combat.

A 20th level Wizard has 5 ASIs, he needs to use 4 of those to maximize dexterity and intelligence to get the melee damage numbers noted. He has 1 feat left to play with.

A 20th level fighter has 7 ASIs, he needs 2 of them to boost strength to 20, leaving him 5 more for feats or improving his martial abilities in other ways (4 more than the Wizard).

There are a lot of assumptions that go into that - average rolls, identical rolls, both builds are optimizing for melee damage .... but if you are doing that and using the numbers for comparison the fighter has 4 more feats not accounted for (or more accurately the Wizard has 1 extra feat and the fighter has 5 extra f more)

This is in addition to also being able to invest more in Constitution and Wisdom at character creation.

Again. You are avoiding answering the actual question that was asked.

None of those subclasses are providing that ability to match the wizard just through the subclass in the way that Hexblade and Bladesinger match the fighter. All of them are just adding stuff onto their existing class chassis.

Ok but Fey Wanderer, Celestial Warlock and Divine Soul are in fact all subclasses.

A Bladesinger who decides to just go nuts in an encounter can absolutely eclipse a fighter in combat even if you restrict performance to damage dealt by melee attacks.

No they won't. Moreover they won't survive if they try. Melee is about more than just damage

Or a magic greatsword or polearm.
Generally best when directly comparing classes to either assume ideal magic item choice, or none.

Yes but the point is a fighter can find any one of 27 different magic melee weapons items and be effective. Some are better than others but all of them are going to work extremely well in the hands of any fighter who maxed strength and with martial versatility you can even change out your fighting style to match what you find.

A Bladesinger can use TWO effectively - a Dagger and whatever he chose at 2nd level (a Rapier if you use the damage numbers noted)

In a 1-20 campaign it is a safe bet you will find a magic melee weapon. It is not a safe bet you will find a magic Rapier.

Also lets keep in mind the numbers used to compare fighters and bladesingers did not use feats like GWM or PAM. Those numbers would have skewed it more heavily in favor of a fighter.

What would actually be best is to count the number of Rapiers available in pulished (I can't remember a single 1) compared to the number of other weaposn.

How does the Fighter fare in that situation? She will have a lower AC and only 20 more HP than the wizard, plus no absorb elements.

A fighter has 42 more hit points than a Wizard at 20th level, not including constitution bonuses. If they are both optimized for Melee and using Standard Array and a standard +1/+2 race the fighter would have started with a constitution 3 points higher (16 for a fighter, 13 for a Wizard), which gives her another 40 hit points for 82 more than a Wizard. She can regain 26hps using second wind, making the effective total of 108 more and finally can use action surge the first two rounds to dodge, while still doing more damage in melee than the Wizard is doing.

This makes her substantially more survivable and will generally get her into round 3easily with average performance if the Dragon concentrates entirely on her.

Note the above does not include anything from her fighting style or the 4 extra feats she has compared to the wizard after they both maxed their damage stats (strength for the fighter, Intelligence and Dexterity for the Wizard). Start handing out feats to the fighter like tough, lucky, and constitution ASIs and she is way ahead of a Wizard in Bladesong.

A Wizard can match that survivability but they need to upcast false life ahead of time and get some defensive spells out to do it and their damage will suffer.

Note the above statement does not include anything from subclass, figthing style and does not include the 4 additional feats she has to spend after maxing her attack stat compared to the Wizard.

 

[S'mon]

"I haven't seen a problem, therefore there isn't a problem" is not exactly good logic.

I'd say in this case it was excellent logic, for his game.
I'm not seeing a problem in my games either, so AFAICT that means there's no problem in my games.

 

[James Gasik]

I'd say in this case it was excellent logic, for his game.
I'm not seeing a problem in my games either, so AFAICT that means there's no problem in my games.

The difference is when you say "I don't see any problems in my game, so that must mean there is no problem in anyone's game." That's not conducive to any sort of discussion. It'd be like someone in Illinois talking to someone from California saying "I don't see what the big deal about earthquakes is, we had one once and all it did was rattle some dishes in my cabinet."

 

[S'mon]

The difference is when you say "I don't see any problems in my game, so that must mean there is no problem in anyone's game." That's not conducive to any sort of discussion. It'd be like someone in Illinois talking to someone from California saying "I don't see what the big deal about earthquakes is, we had one once and all it did was rattle some dishes in my cabinet."

Sure, but all Clint said was I think martial classes are already competitive with casters. Most of the tier rankings I see, including ones with large numbers of responses, suggest the same. They are also heavily played. So for my campaigns, this would be unbalancing. That's my impression too. If someone else has a problem with 5e casters being OP, I find that surprising but sure, your game must be different I guess.

I do think it's objectively true that caster/non-caster imbalance is not the issue it was in 3e D&D.

 

[James Gasik]

Not much about casting classes has really changed from 3.5. In fact, in many cases, classes like the Sorcerer got upgrades, as they now get real class features.

You can point to less spell slots, but the fact is, low level spell slots stopped mattering in 3.5; their effect was too weak compared to enemies you'd face, and the fact that save DC's scaled based on the spell level meant that only incredibly vulnerable enemies would fail their saves. Even with "caster level" automatically upgrading spells, when you're facing a CR 8 Gray Render with 125 hit points, what damage spell is even going to make a dent in the thing? A 10d6 Fireball that's going to do 35 damage?

What's different are fundamental changes to the rules themselves to keep the ceiling lower; there's no crazy prestige classes, Feats are less plentiful and top tier Feats like Shock Trooper simply don't exist. I remember early 5e, with people freaking out about what basically amounts to a nerfed Power Attack (ermagerd, -5 for +10 damage! Pfft, try -10 for +20 and then add Leap Attack and Shock Trooper...).

Concentration actually causes more damage to the game's fundamental balance, though it's easy to see how many people fail to see it; 3.5 was intended to have casters buffing the hell out of Fighters, who were designed to be the best targets for buffs. Of course, casters instead realized they could be amazingly good by buffing themselves. Now nobody is getting buffs, because most casters have better things to do with their concentration. Even something like Bless, which grants amazing accuracy buffs in a system that otherwise has accuracy progress at a glacial pace, is rarely picked over other spells.

The stat cap of 20 hurts martials badly as well; gone are the days where a low level Barbarian can down a potion of Bull's Strength and suddenly have 26 Strength giving them a +12 damage bonus with their two handed swings.

The biggest gutting of characters was effectively removing magic items from the game's calculations, bringing us back to the AD&D era where one lucky drop could completely warp the game's balance- it should be noted that in AD&D, magic items were, by design, made to favor the Fighter, and to shore up weak points in the class. All of that is pretty much gone now, as many DM's, seeing that items are optional, and not really seeing how adding, say +2 magic armor isn't going to unbalance their game (as there's no guidelines as to how/when/why you should let a character have such a bonus) have become very conservative.

I mean look at defense. In the first Tier of play, characters can easily shoot up to AC's of 20 or beyond, but while enemies keep getting better to hit chances, AC basically levels off. Eventually you're up against CR 9's with +11 to hit, making even a 21 AC (plate, shield, fighting style) being less valuable than resistance (since there's that 5% chance to get walloped for 12d6+7).

AC less than that starts becoming a joke, and classes like the Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue, and Monk who dare to enter melee risk being knocked into next week with regularity.

Yeah someone will say "but Rage! But bonus action Dodge!", and I'll point out that neither of those things is going to be available in every turn of every battle. Not to mention the fact that many Barbarians basically cede their AC anyways by granting constant advantage to their enemies.

Meanwhile, casters can gain all kinds of ways to buff all sorts of defenses; AC, saves, resistances, and that gold standard, preventing an enemy from being able to attack at all!

But that's not the worst of it, the worst is if you don't constantly keep everyone low on resources, something the game really isn't designed to do (monsters are not designed with the idea that people are going to be at 25, 50, 75, or 100% of resources, and in fact, they are designed with the idea that everyone is at full hit points every encounter, something that is simply not in the stars for groups without casters unless you are taking way more short rests- which has it's own effect on resources for many classes).

The worst is when the caster has some extra spell slots to play with. He didn't need to use them today. Or maybe we're taking a day off because it turns out, only getting back half your Hit Dice per diem eventually catches up to the melee guys.

And the caster goes, well now, time to crank out a Simulacrum and start figuring out how to jump start an industrial revolution with Fabricate, or something equally ridiculous, while the best thing other classes can do is say "uh, can I pick somebody's pockets for spare change?" (and the Fighter can't even go looking for an arena fight, because he's trying to NOT take damage, lol).

Sure, a Fighter can outpace other classes in damage, if they're built to do so. And...that's about it. Utility in other aspects of the game is not a major concern for the class. They are made to fight, and that's mostly it. Which ignores the fact that D&D is supposed to have three tiers of play, not one.

So in a balanced game, 1/3 fighting, social interaction, exploration, the Fighter is good at one, and poor at the others. The Rogue is a little worse at fighting, but they can do consistent damage at range, and they get better social interaction and exploration. This seems balance.

Then you get the Paladin, who can be better than the Fighter in most every way. Wait, that doesn't seem right, does it?

And even if a Bladesinger was half the Fighter a Fighter is, that's on top of everything else they can do that the Fighter cannot.

People will say "lol, D&D isn't meant to be balanced" or "ha, try being a caster without a Fighter" but seriously, what are those attitudes doing in 2023? Everyone should have equal potential to share the spotlight, it's ludicrous that someone would be given a smaller piece of the pie and that's considered ok.

Plus, about that "needing Fighters"...do you, really? Clerics can have a stronger defense package than the Fighter, be better at locking down enemies, can grant themselves more hit points and have better ways to recover the same. Maybe a Wizard does less damage, but they have more ways to turn a fight into a non-encounter, something the Fighter simply cannot do.

I know that I'm not going to sway any opinions here; but if you're running a game and have never had to stop the action entirely because a caster has done something that seems completely out of bounds, yet turns out to be perfectly legal, I don't know what to say.

My experience has been that that sort of thing happens at least once a session, lol.

 

[CreamCloud0]

They should ALWAYS come close to matching a specialist.

okay, following this logic, if a subclass should contain enough 'specialisation power' for a class specialised in another area to rival the specialist at their own specialty such as allowing a caster to be as proficient in martial abilities as a martial specialised class, it should mean that, all things being equal, a martial with a martial specialised subclass should be as good as having TWO martial classes in a single character, should it not?
otherwise would that not create wild imballance in the power of subclasses of the same class between those that focus on the class's existing specialty who get relatively little more due to 'already being proficient in that area' and subclasses that 'branch out' and provide an entire other class's capabilities

 

[S'mon]

The biggest gutting of characters was effectively removing magic items from the game's calculations, bringing us back to the AD&D era where one lucky drop could completely warp the game's balance- it should be noted that in AD&D, magic items were, by design, made to favor the Fighter, and to shore up weak points in the class. All of that is pretty much gone now, as many DM's, seeing that items are optional, and not really seeing how adding, say +2 magic armor isn't going to unbalance their game (as there's no guidelines as to how/when/why you should let a character have such a bonus) have become very conservative.

I mean look at defense. In the first Tier of play, characters can easily shoot up to AC's of 20 or beyond, but while enemies keep getting better to hit chances, AC basically levels off. Eventually you're up against CR 9's with +11 to hit, making even a 21 AC (plate, shield, fighting style) being less valuable than resistance (since there's that 5% chance to get walloped for 12d6+7).

Yeah, I mostly run old school adventures in 5e with a lot of magic items. My Barrowmaze game has two level 10 heavy armour martial characters with AC 26. And I nerf a few spells, like Simulacrum.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sure, but all Clint said was I think martial classes are already competitive with casters. Most of the tier rankings I see, including ones with large numbers of responses, suggest the same. They are also heavily played. So for my campaigns, this would be unbalancing. That's my impression too. If someone else has a problem with 5e casters being OP, I find that surprising but sure, your game must be different I guess.

I do think it's objectively true that caster/non-caster imbalance is not the issue it was in 3e D&D.

I don't think that anyone thinks that balance is as flat out terrible as it was in 3.X - but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be better. I'm going to make the following assertions that I think are all hard to argue with.

• Class balance is situational and determined by the campaign as much as it is anything.
• Classes are also balanced differently at different levels; for example the combat balance between a fighter and a ranger is very different at level 10 and level 11 when the third attack kicks in for the fighter.
• The wizard scales harder than the fighter and casters scale harder than non-casters in general
• The value of strength and athletics goes down over time as spells like breathe water, water walking, flight, and polymorph make climbing, jumping, and swimming easier to bypass - and strength and athletics are all fighter/barbarian stuff.
• At first level the wizard is strictly but only slightly superior to a fighter out of combat; they get the same sized stat array, and the same number of skills, but the wizard gets cantrips and can use levelled spells but are unlikely to have some to spare.
• Out of combat the gap only increases with level as the wizard gets more and higher levelled spells and hence more flexibility
• At first level the fighter is much stronger than the wizard in combat. Much tougher, much harder hitting, and just as mobile
• A high level wizard has more mobility, can use low level spells for defence, and has better combat spells. The fighter is doing single target hit point damage. The wizard scales better at combat.
• Therefore there will be some level at which the wizard catches the fighter in terms of combat ability
  • Personal observational experience says probably by level 7, certainly by level 9 (OK, so this one is just personal observation)
• By D&D Beyond statistics 90% of games end by level 10 - which is only slightly after the endgame kicks in.
• (On preview): The magic items in by the book 5e are if anything weighted against the fighter in 5e; an AC 26 fighter would RAW require a +3 Shield (Very Rare) and +3 Plate Armour (Legendary). Admittedly neither of these require attunement.

There are also some points about the fighter in specific:

• The fighter gains less from their feat level at levels 4 and 8 than the wizard; the wizard also advances their spellcasting. (Suggested fix: Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues (and probably Monks) get a free trained skill every time they get a feat)
• The fighter level 9 ability (Indomitable) for a 1/day reroll is just very weak. And, worse, it's weak at a point when the fighter is already falling behind and needs something good. (Suggested Fix: Advantage on all saving throws - to bring back the classic fighter being spell resistant and to compete with the paladin and later monks)
• The fighter's class abilities from levels 12-19 are a complete blasted wasteland of repeats of abilities and options that simply weren't good enough for them to pick at lower levels.
  • There are a few fighter builds where there's genuine synergy between two combat feats (Xbow expert/Sharpshooter and Polearm Master/Sentinel stop-and-flail come to mind) so the fourth feat/ASI is more valuable than it would have been earlier. Level 12 sometimes avoids this problem for fighters; level 14 doesn't.
  • Suggested fix: Fighters get an extra subclass in Tier 3 and 4 to represent how they go beyond normal limits. Or cap the game at level 11.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'd say in this case it was excellent logic, for his game.
I'm not seeing a problem in my games either, so AFAICT that means there's no problem in my games.

The problem is that there is no "for my game." It is "because it isn't a problem in my game, no fix should ever be allowed for anyone else's game."

Because that's what's actually going on here. "I got mine, so it doesn't matter you didn't get yours." There are fixes for this problem which do not make undue burdens for people who don't see a problem...like the one proposed in this thread. Arguments otherwise have been, consistently, in bad faith and bad logic.

So the bad logic is in fact exactly what's going on here. "I don't have a problem, therefore whatever problem you have shouldn't be fixed."

 

[ECMO3]

okay, following this logic, if a subclass should contain enough 'specialisation power' for a class specialised in another area to rival the specialist at their own specialty such as allowing a caster to be as proficient in martial abilities as a martial specialised class, it should mean that, all things being equal, a martial with a martial specialised subclass should be as good as having TWO martial classes in a single character, should it not?

Pretty close, yes. It should have enough specialization to match the generalist of a class focused on that. Not enough to macth a specialist who takes a subclass in that class to further dive in.

So other classes (I believ all of them) should have subclass options to near match a fighter in martial combat. They not have sublass options that would match an optimized fighter who chooses a subclass and further subclass options to strengthen his partial prowess.

I would disagree with the "two classes" metric, because the base non-martial does not start at 0 martial prowess.

If the basic Figher with no subclass is "100%" of a martial class -A Wizard with no subclass who maximizes strength and Constitution is I would say roughly at 20% of a fighter in martial combat. Less at high levels, more at low levels and this is the most extreme example. If taking a subclass like Bladesinger boosts that to 75% then logically a Fighter taking a martial subclass should boost it by the same 55% (to 155%). So not two martial classes but certainly substantially more than a baseline fighter. I think the options in Battlemaster and Echo Knight come pretty close to meeting that number. Rune Knight and Arcane Archer do too, although it is debatable if they are really martial subclasses. Other subclasses don't boost martial prowess that much, but then they are not really designed to play into the master of martial combat theme.