D&D 5E Martials should just get free feats

[Krachek]

I have never seen this... can you give an example of something that is an obstacle enough to be considered an encounter but no game machanics were used?


except that isn't true... cause the casters have the OPTION to do other but not the non casters

You should have been with your party in the house of a farmer eating pie, learning about local gossips. when such an event take 30 minutes of game play it is an encounters and nobody try to use deception skill or cast a spell on the farmer wife.

Those encounters are the most challenging in DnD. They require good character personality, ideal, flaw, to have a good sense of the role of your character in the story and the world. And the most difficult part, your multiple class options are mostly useless!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You should have been with your party in the house of a farmer eating pie, learning about local gossips. when such an event take 30 minutes of game play it is an encounters and nobody try to use deception skill or cast a spell on the farmer wife.

that (to me) sounds like just rp not an encounter... there was nothing going on. maybe it's just us useing the word encounter differently.

Those encounters are the most challenging in DnD. They require good character personality, ideal, flaw, to have a good sense of the role of your character in the story and the world. And the most difficult part, your multiple class options are mostly useless!

that seems to me to be the easiest part... maybe again that's just groups being diffrent. We don't use the ideal/flaws from teh book we write our own and just talk sometimes for hours, but I wouldn't clasify that as an encounter

 

[Clint_L]

Hasn't been specified. Generally people will pick BM if they want to show that Fighters are good in combat because it is very optimisable. I don't know much about Echo Knight.

I don't think it really needs to be argued that fighters are good in combat. They are great at two of the pillars of combat, delivering and absorbing damage, and depending on sub-class choice (e.g. BM) can be good at control, too. I assume the main argument is about whether they should have more out of combat options.

But yeah, echo knights are great. I was just pointing out that the debate seemed to be about a specific wizard sub-class versus a generic fighter without their own sub-class advantages. Fighters vary by sub-class quite a lot. And that force cage isn't doing much to an echo knight - maybe it'll buy a round or two, but considering the echo knight can swap places with their echo as a bonus action as often as they like, I wouldn't pin my hopes on a force cage saving the day.

But I think any subclass of fighter has a good shot against a bladesinger at level 13. Obviously you could tweak the bladsinger to be optimized against the fighter if you knew that specific battle was coming, but the fighter could be optimized as well, though not as effectively, depending on sub-class. If the bladesinger just wants to escape or has a terrain advantage they are going to be tough to corral, but the moment it becomes melee that wizard is going to have a bad day.

Edit: It's interesting to me that this thread has once again become mostly about fighters. I think rogues need a boost far more, and they are also the class that makes the most sense to have extra feats.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm curious, Clint, what's wrong with Rogues, in your opinion? They have a reliable way to deal a lot of damage, have no need to be in melee if they don't want to be, are the masters of skills, and even the humble Thief gets a lot of versatility in and out of combat.

Obviously, I had a great experience playing a Rogue, so I am legitimately curious as to what problems you see them face.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I don't think it really needs to be argued that fighters are good in combat. They are great at two of the pillars of combat, delivering and absorbing damage, and depending on sub-class choice (e.g. BM) can be good at control, too. I assume the main argument is about whether they should have more out of combat options.

True. We went on a slight digression when someone claimed that the suggested extra feats would all be spend on combat feats, but in general I think the idea for the extra feats is to improve the out of combat capabilities.

But yeah, echo knights are great. I was just pointing out that the debate seemed to be about a specific wizard sub-class versus a generic fighter without their own sub-class advantages. Fighters vary by sub-class quite a lot. And that force cage isn't doing much to an echo knight - maybe it'll buy a round or two, but considering the echo knight can swap places with their echo as a bonus action as often as they like, I wouldn't pin my hopes on a force cage saving the day.

But I think any subclass of fighter has a good shot against a bladesinger at level 13. Obviously you could tweak the bladsinger to be optimized against the fighter if you knew that specific battle was coming, but the fighter could be optimized as well, though not as effectively, depending on sub-class. If the bladesinger just wants to escape or has a terrain advantage they are going to be tough to corral, but the moment it becomes melee that wizard is going to have a bad day.

I'm not thinking fighting against each other. Just how well each would do in a big ultimate encounter where both would be willing to use their class abilities to the fullest. Even if performance is limited to melee attacks only (the fighter's forte), you're still competing against the bladesinger, their simulacrum, and both of their level 6 summons even before they stat casting spells like sword wind strike or similar.
In a long, 8-combat adventuring day, the fighter is probably going to win out. However it seems most groups don't do that and have a shorter adventuring day. In such a day, including non-combat challenges, I think that the bladesinger is going to win out.

Edit: It's interesting to me that this thread has once again become mostly about fighters. I think rogues need a boost far more, and they are also the class that makes the most sense to have extra feats.

Rogues keep up fairly well in damage against a baseline fighter, and certainly do better out of combat, but unless this is a long adventuring day involving a lot of repeated skill rolls, they still have the limitation of poor scaling. They are the best class for skill rolls, but there are so many things that skill rolls just can't do that other classes can.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm curious, Clint, what's wrong with Rogues, in your opinion? They have a reliable way to deal a lot of damage, have no need to be in melee if they don't want to be, are the masters of skills, and even the humble Thief gets a lot of versatility in and out of combat.

Obviously, I had a great experience playing a Rogue, so I am legitimately curious as to what problems you see them face.

I don't think rogues are terrible - I put them at C/B tier. Again depending on sub-class; arcane tricksters are pretty strong, for example. In combat rogues are competent - good but not great damage dealers who offer maneuverability. Basically skirmishers. Nice to have, but not essential, and as noted they don't scale super well. They are better out of combat by being skills specialists, but I don't think this is really all that great a niche, because most skills in D&D don't see much use.

I like rogues and also find them fun to play, so they aren't in need of a drastic overhaul. But I do think they could use a small boost, and a few extra feats would do that and be thematically appropriate for a class that specializes in, well, having specialities.

 

[Mort]

I don't think rogues are terrible - I put them at C/B tier. Again depending on sub-class; arcane tricksters are pretty strong, for example. In combat rogues are competent - good but not great damage dealers who offer maneuverability. Basically skirmishers. Nice to have, but not essential, and as noted they don't scale super well. They are better out of combat by being skills specialists, but I don't think this is really all that great a niche, because most skills in D&D don't see much use.

I like rogues and also find them fun to play, so they aren't in need of a drastic overhaul. But I do think they could use a small boost, and a few extra feats would do that and be thematically appropriate for a class that specializes in, well, having specialities.

I think one thing that hampers rogues (as the skill master class) is the fact that many (too many) DMs knee jerk to "no way" when presented with creative or out of the box skill use (especially at high levels) while at the same time defaulting to "yes, sure..." when presented with creative or out of the box spell usage - when it should be exactly the other way around.

 

[ECMO3]

So, something kinda struck me here, and it's that you said that the fighter getting 3 more feats than the wizard was upsetting. My question is why? Most of your argument then seems to discuss that the fighter can use these feats to outshine other classes in combat, however the last part seems to argue that if the wizard is unbalanced it's fine for the game. So what confuses me is that, even if the feats push our hypothetical fighter into an unbalanced state of the game, why should it matter? After all, the other players should feel good to have someone who can mulch the enemy monsters quicker, and the bladesinger should be fine with it because unbalance is fun, correct?

This sort of unbalance is fine for the game, in fact good for the game.

I think making the fighter some super-human melee god is bad for the game because it detracts from Wizards, Clerics, Paladins and Barbarians who want to melee and be just as good.

Also people claim they want balance, but what they really want is more powerful fighters because if actual balance is what they wanted they would simply give the figther spells. That is the easiest AND most effective way to balance those classes. Giving 3 more feats to the fighter won't actually balance the class powerwise and in fact unbalances the game by making the fighter WAY better than any other class at one aspect of it. This is particularly true in 5E with the focus on bounded accuracy.

If you gave the fighter full spell progression starting at say level 4 he would actually be pretty balanced with a Wizard without running away from everyone in a fashion not intended.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This sort of unbalance is fine for the game, in fact good for the game.

I think making the fighter some super-human melee god is bad for the game because it detracts from Wizards,

Welp, there it is.

Detracting from fighters? Good for the game. Detracting from the mighty wizards? Bad.

I say thee nay.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

This sort of unbalance is fine for the game, in fact good for the game.

I think making the fighter some super-human melee god is bad for the game because it detracts from Wizards, Clerics, Paladins and Barbarians who want to melee and be just as good.

Also people claim they want balance, but what they really want is more powerful fighters because if actual balance is what they wanted they would simply give the figther spells. That is the easiest AND most effective way to balance those classes. Giving 3 more feats to the fighter won't actually balance the class powerwise and in fact unbalances the game by making the fighter WAY better than any other class at one aspect of it. This is particularly true in 5E with the focus on bounded accuracy.

If you gave the fighter full spell progression starting at say level 4 he would actually be pretty balanced with a Wizard without running away from everyone in a fashion not intended.

Okay, but if those players want to be good in melee, they can just play a fighter, right? I mean, no one is forcing them to play those other classes. Although I would think Barbarians would fall into the martial category, and this be getting the extra feats as well.

 

[ECMO3]

. . . Fighters already get more feats. Are you upset about the entire concept, or just saying that you believe that fighters are already way more powerful than the other classes in general adventuring performance?

To be clear they get ASIs which can be used for feats or not used for feats. FWIW I would be ok with deleting the 6th level fighter ASI and I would still play fighters if they did that.

I am strongly against the concept of handing out more feats to fighters specifically.

Fighter needs to max Strength, and also invest (probably at least 14s) in Dex and Con.

This is simply not true. I have played literally dozens of fighters and no counting those with rolled abilities, the only one who had higher than a 12 Constitution is the current Rune Knight I am currently playing that has a 16 (the other Fighter I am currently playing has a 12 Con). The only reason the RK has a 16 is because his cloud runes key their save off it. I would rather they key off of Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma and if they did I would be able to run higher than the 8-13-8 I have in those scores.

Also I have played 8 strength fighters.

Bladesinger needs to max Int, and also invest (again, probably at least 14s) in Dex and Con. Then they can start investing in actual feats. (Actual order may vary, but by 13th level they should have some feats and been able to max their primary stat.)

If they want as many hit points as a fighter they do, but a Bladesinger who exclusively casts defensive spells can get away with a 10 constitution but better start with a 16 Dexterity. The reason for this is twofold-False life can give you a lot of temp hit points when upcast and Song of defense gives you a ton of spell slots to convert to hps. If they do this they can be one of the best tanks in the game. That character isn't using spells like Shadowblade or Fear or wall of force though. They are using False Life, Blur, PEG, Fizban's Shield etc.

To do that though you need to max both intelligence and dexterity and cast exclusively defensive spells and that leaves room only for one half feat at level 4 (starting with a 17) to stay on the Dex-Intelligence ladder. On point buy you can't max both Dex and Intelligence until level 16 on a Bladesinger.

Of course that depends entirely on what you want to play and that is the beauty of the Wizard class. You can also play a bladesinger as a God Wizard and the most oft-brand use I have seen is a custom lineage Bladesinger/Fighter/Warlock in heavy armor with a 13 Intelligence, 8 dexterity, 18 Charisma using crossbow expert with bladesinger extra attack and Agonizing blast. At 11th level (2 Fighter/6 Wizard/4 Warlock) that character is making a sharpshooter crossbow attack, 3 Eldritch blasts and then another hand crossbow sharpshooter attack as a bonus action.

This is what a Wizard is supposed to be able to do IMO.

Hang on. You are seriously suggesting that a Fighter should realistically spend some of their 4 ASIs on maxing out Wisdom?

He certainly can. It depends on what you want to do. You can do that while still having a maximum strength and good hps.

Just to clarify, is this the same fighter that you are saying has:

No that was talking about a fighter using the 3 feat houserule.

A 13th level Bladesinger is a 13th level full caster. To suggest that if they want to really pull out the stops in a major fight, they won't use their main class ability is like me saying that the fighter won't use Action Surge or Extra attack or maneuvers if they have them.

It depends on what spells you have, how you sue them and what your character concept is. There are not a lot of great 7th level melee spells. When I play a bladesinger most of the time I am using my 7th level slot on False Life or Song of Defense.

OK. Now show me what you think will happen in an fight that matters, (end of adventure BBEG and minions for example) where the characters will actually use their class abilities.

When my 10th Level Bladesinger tanked Orcus and Fraz Urb-Luu (at different times) at the end of the Out of The Abyss campaign. The spells she used were:

False Life (upcast at 5th level before the fight), Protection from Evil and Good, Silvery Barbs, Shield, Counterspell, Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade. The last two were cast using the attack action, not the cast a spell action.

My Arcane Archer ended Rise of the Drow campaign only used pushing attack (which she had through fighting style) while fighting the matron mother who was the main boss. She did not use any other limited use abilities because she had used them all earlier.

Action Surge, superiority dice (if they have them) are all resources that a fighter will be spending in martial combat. (And outside of combat if they can.) You cannot make an honest comparison between two classes if you ignore large chunks of their capabilities.

Sure those things will give them even more martial power.

These things already make them the most powerful melee character, that is the point. They do not need to be any better at this.

So, which are you saying: That people should play the class with the concept they want, or the mechanics that they want?

People should play a class with the mechanics that enable the concept they want in an effective fashion.

So if I want to play a full caster who is awesome in melee I need to be able to do that and if you make it so the fighter overshadows everyone else in melee then I can't.

A fighter is already very effective at melee, there is no argument they need to be better at that. If you want to make them more "balanced" make them better at casting spells, because that is where their shortfall is.

Remember this is a match where you are playing against a team of an even match to you and LeBron.
So they will be significantly worse than LeBron, but significantly better than you.
LeBron will outperform you massively and people may be saying that he shouldn't let you get hold of the ball at all.
Will you feel that you are significantly contributing to the games?

Typically PCs are not playing against other PCs. I think it is fine to give as many feats or abilities as you want to an NPC.

If Lebron is on my team I would not say each of my baskets needs to count as 20 points just so I can keep up with him. I would be happy that he scored 45 baskets and I scored 2 as long as we win the game.

Moreover if there was some driving reason I needed to make sure I performed equal to Lebron then I would make sure we were playing a different game and not Basketball.

 

[ECMO3]

Welp, there it is.

Detracting from fighters? Good for the game. Detracting from the mighty wizards? Bad.

I say thee nay.

No one is detracting from fighters and I have said many times that I would be fine with giving Fighters spells so they could keep up with Wizards as casters if the power disparity is a problem.

I agree 100% that Wizards are more powerful than fighters. If you need to fix it though, then fix the disparity itself - which is spell casting!

The prevailing argument here is we need to make the fighter even better at what he is already the best in the game. That will mean other players who WANT TO DO THAT THING (melee) won't be able to do it well at all.

That is not good and it is not consistent with the bounded accuracy design of 5E.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No one is detracting from fighters and I have said many times that I would be fine with giving Fighters spells so they could keep up with Wizards as casters if the power disparity is a problem.

I agree 100% that Wizards are more powerful than fighters. If you need to fix it though, then fix the disparity itself - which is spell casting!

So... you think spell casting is the only way to gain parity.

Like, actual magic instead of additional abilities represented by feats?

The prevailing argument here is we need to make the fighter even better at what he is already the best in the game. That will mean other players who WANT TO DO THAT THING (melee) won't be able to do it well at all.

That's not the prevailing argument and that's not what the fighter is best at.

The fighter is best as single target damage from a non-rogue, non-Paladin, not melee combat because melee combat is more than damage. The desire is to make them better at combat by giving them things to actually do.

That is not good and it is not consistent with the bounded accuracy design of 5E.

Breaking form bounded accuracy si the best thing anything can do for making 5e better.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Breaking form bounded accuracy si the best thing anything can do for making 5e better.

even if it's not, there are already classes that drop kick bounded accuracy into space. paladin, anyone?

 

[Krachek]

that (to me) sounds like just rp not an encounter... there was nothing going on. maybe it's just us useing the word encounter differently.

that seems to me to be the easiest part... maybe again that's just groups being diffrent. We don't use the ideal/flaws from teh book we write our own and just talk sometimes for hours, but I wouldn't clasify that as an encounter

I check out some things in the DM guide and the PHB.

Social interaction is the term used to describe interacting with an NPC and usually reach a certain goal. Role playing is usually associated with social interaction and influence the resolve of the interaction. PHB say that we use dice and check to finally resolve the interaction, but the DM guide say that some DM prefer to simply let talk the players and don’t use dice.

The exploration cover all the movement and interaction with environment.
There is no concept of encounter. There are rules and DC for various subjects, but no clear indication on how and with which importance use them. Some DM may ask 10 rolls to move from one room to another, while another may just say that you just walk to the next one.

The term “encounter” is solely use for what look like a combat encounters with all its variant. See DMG page 81. The objectives for PCs may vary, and sometimes the objective is to avoid combat but overall it cover mainly what most people think about when we say “roll initiative”. In fact it is there that the casters can handle more diverse objectives with better chance of succes. If the encounters is a basic combat Fighter will perform well. If the objectives require movement, protection, avoidance and so on, caster will more shine.

 

[ECMO3]

So... you think spell casting is the only way to gain parity.

The reason the Wizard is more powerful is because she can cast spells. If you want to make them equal, giving the fighter spells will accomplish that.

Giving the fighter more martial prowess does not make them equal. The fighter will be even better at melee than he currently is, increasing the gap between him and the Wizard, meanshile the Wizard will still dominate in terms of casting spells and the game benefits that come with that.

If you actually want parity then yes that is the only way to do it.

Or alternatively you could go to a 4E design where you had mechanical parity and things for different classes just had different names with largely the same mechanics.

Assuming you want to continue the 5E desing in terms of how combat and spell casting work then yes, the only actual way to achieve parity is to make both classes capable of doing the same, or nearly the same things.

Like, actual magic instead of additional abilities represented by feats?

Not just magic, spells. If you made it so fighter kept all the ebilities they currently have and started full caster progression at level 4 then they would be pretty balanced.

So a level 4 fighter is a 1st level caster, a level 5 fighter is a 2nd level caster .... at level 20 your fighter would be a 17th level caster, just getting your 9th level spells.

I think that would do a good job of actually balancing the fighter and wizard.

That's not the prevailing argument and that's not what the fighter is best at.

The fighter is the best class at melee combat without using magic, mostly because they get 3 attacks a turn. They just are not god-level ahead of other classes, other classes can still contribute meaningfully (if designeed for that). If you make it so there is fighters and everyone else that is gone.

Breaking form bounded accuracy si the best thing anything can do for making 5e better.

No it isn't. It is really what separates 5E from 3E. It is central to the game design and if you don't like it Pathfinder 2E or D&D 3E are probably a better game for you.

 

[ECMO3]

even if it's not, there are already classes that drop kick bounded accuracy into space. paladin, anyone?

How does the Paladin do that? Nothing about the Paladin breaks BA as far as I can tell and to be honest a Paladin is pretty limited in overall play ,probably as much as a fighter is. They get spells, but if they use them they are not going to be dealing as much damage. Add being MAD means they are usually behind in combat stats.

I don't think I have seen a class that really breaks bounded accuracy. The bladesinger subclass can do it in early tier 2, especially if you find AC-enhancing magic, but by tier 3 it is back in line. A Fey Wanderer Ranger can break it from level 3 on.

Other than Bladesinger and Fey Wanderer most of the builds that break BA are multiclass builds that leverage bonuses from multiple places. There may be a few I am not remembering.

Bounded Accuracy aside, Paladins are not that powerful either. If I ranked classes 1:12 in power considering all three phases of the game the Paladin would be in the middle, behind all of the full casters and the Ranger.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Assuming you want to continue the 5E desing in terms of how combat and spell casting work then yes, the only actual way to achieve parity is to make both classes capable of doing the same, or nearly the same things.

That would not be a correct assumption.

No it isn't. It is really what separates 5E from 3E.

They're both misguided in their design philosophy in their own special ways, but there's more to 5'e differences from 3e than fear of math or non-bards or rogues avoiding RNG.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

neither is "you don't see my problem so your blind" LMAO

I did not say that. But rejecting others' experiences, or acting as though they are invalid or irrelevant without good reason, is not just bad argument, it's rude.

 

[ECMO3]

I did not say that. But rejecting others' experiences, or acting as though they are invalid or irrelevant without good reason, is not just bad argument, it's rude.

I don't think many people have offered actual experiences or examples to underpin the argument that there is a problem.

I have offered experiences and specific examples that indicate it is not a problem, including in games I am playing currently, and people have largely ignored that.