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