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Presentation vs design... vs philosophy
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7931234" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>Affect the encounter in meaningful ways besides reducing monsters’ HP to 0. Fighters should be able to punish opponents who target their allies and force movement. Rogues should be able to debilitate opponents with status conditions. The optimal move shouldn’t be attacking as many times as your extra attacks allow or sneak attack the biggest threat turn after after turn.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Great, so for the first two levels I’m just like every other fighter. At third level I get to actually play like a proper tank... three times a day... That’s only once every other encounter on a SHORT adventuring day.</p><p></p><p>At 7th level, I can give someone an AC boost and damage resistance against an attack instead of making an opportunity attack... twice per day. If I spent my 4th level ASI on Strength, at this point I <em>might</em> be able to do <em>one</em> cool thing per fight.</p><p></p><p>At 10th level - the endgame of the average campaign - I get the Sentinel Feat. Literally, that’s my capstone, a feat I could have had at 1st level as a variant human or 4th as anyone else (if I didn’t spend that to keep up in accuracy abs damage and get an extra use of my subclass’s core ability), and if I did already get it, this is a dead level.</p><p></p><p>At 15th level, if the campaign actually goes that long, I can try to knock someone prone as part of an attack whenever I charge. This is a really cool, interesting ability that meaningfully sets me apart from other fighters. Too bad I had to wait <em>fifteen levels</em> to get it.</p><p></p><p>At 18th level, again, if I even get there, I can finally use more than one reaction per round. The key feature you pitched the subclass for, and it is a very cool feature, doesn’t come until the unicorn 1st to 20th campaign is nearly over.</p><p></p><p>Subclasses are false class diversity. They show you a list of abilities to make it look like they totally transform the character, but most characters won’t last long enough to see more than two of them, they come several levels apart, and they don’t tend to come up often enough to significantly transform the way the base class plays. Again, subs that grant casting are an exception, but the fact that you need to be able to cast spells to do cool stuff in 5e is part of the problem.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Anyone can have a good Charisma, Inspiring Leader, and Healer. There’s your “if everyone is special...” There is very little to make Fighters uniquely interesting. Action Surge is nice, but ultimately it boils down to more of the same. Make attacks.</p><p></p><p></p><p>A fighter that grapples or trips is generally wasting his attacks, because those are less effective strategies than just doing damage. Situationally this can be useful, but again, not unique to Fighters.</p><p></p><p></p><p>And again we have the problem of needing magic to do cool stuff in 5e.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I disagree. Characters of different roles played very differently than one another. Characters within the same role generally played pretty similarly at first, but as the game went on, power sources started to develop their own mechanical identities as well. Would be nice to see the role/power-source concept continue to evolve. D&D fans would never accept role and power source replacing class, but that would be a great move from a design perspective.</p><p></p><p></p><p>These look <em>significantly</em> more distinct to me than:</p><p>Player 1: Attack with my axe.</p><p>Player 2: Attack with my sword.</p><p>Player 3: Cast Sacred Flame.</p><p>Player 4: Attack with my bow.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, 4e got pretty refluff-happy, and that’s something I’m glad D&D has moved past a bit. It’s a powerful tool, but needs to be used judiciously.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Not really, for the reasons I gave above. For most characters, subclasses will give them two, maybe three abilities, none of which will come up all that often.</p><p></p><p></p><p>On this I agree. Classes feel and play reasonably differently from each other. The bigger issue for me is that characters of the same class tend to play and feel almost identically.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7931234, member: 6779196"] Affect the encounter in meaningful ways besides reducing monsters’ HP to 0. Fighters should be able to punish opponents who target their allies and force movement. Rogues should be able to debilitate opponents with status conditions. The optimal move shouldn’t be attacking as many times as your extra attacks allow or sneak attack the biggest threat turn after after turn. Great, so for the first two levels I’m just like every other fighter. At third level I get to actually play like a proper tank... three times a day... That’s only once every other encounter on a SHORT adventuring day. At 7th level, I can give someone an AC boost and damage resistance against an attack instead of making an opportunity attack... twice per day. If I spent my 4th level ASI on Strength, at this point I [I]might[/I] be able to do [I]one[/I] cool thing per fight. At 10th level - the endgame of the average campaign - I get the Sentinel Feat. Literally, that’s my capstone, a feat I could have had at 1st level as a variant human or 4th as anyone else (if I didn’t spend that to keep up in accuracy abs damage and get an extra use of my subclass’s core ability), and if I did already get it, this is a dead level. At 15th level, if the campaign actually goes that long, I can try to knock someone prone as part of an attack whenever I charge. This is a really cool, interesting ability that meaningfully sets me apart from other fighters. Too bad I had to wait [I]fifteen levels[/I] to get it. At 18th level, again, if I even get there, I can finally use more than one reaction per round. The key feature you pitched the subclass for, and it is a very cool feature, doesn’t come until the unicorn 1st to 20th campaign is nearly over. Subclasses are false class diversity. They show you a list of abilities to make it look like they totally transform the character, but most characters won’t last long enough to see more than two of them, they come several levels apart, and they don’t tend to come up often enough to significantly transform the way the base class plays. Again, subs that grant casting are an exception, but the fact that you need to be able to cast spells to do cool stuff in 5e is part of the problem. Anyone can have a good Charisma, Inspiring Leader, and Healer. There’s your “if everyone is special...” There is very little to make Fighters uniquely interesting. Action Surge is nice, but ultimately it boils down to more of the same. Make attacks. A fighter that grapples or trips is generally wasting his attacks, because those are less effective strategies than just doing damage. Situationally this can be useful, but again, not unique to Fighters. And again we have the problem of needing magic to do cool stuff in 5e. I disagree. Characters of different roles played very differently than one another. Characters within the same role generally played pretty similarly at first, but as the game went on, power sources started to develop their own mechanical identities as well. Would be nice to see the role/power-source concept continue to evolve. D&D fans would never accept role and power source replacing class, but that would be a great move from a design perspective. These look [I]significantly[/I] more distinct to me than: Player 1: Attack with my axe. Player 2: Attack with my sword. Player 3: Cast Sacred Flame. Player 4: Attack with my bow. Yeah, 4e got pretty refluff-happy, and that’s something I’m glad D&D has moved past a bit. It’s a powerful tool, but needs to be used judiciously. Not really, for the reasons I gave above. For most characters, subclasses will give them two, maybe three abilities, none of which will come up all that often. On this I agree. Classes feel and play reasonably differently from each other. The bigger issue for me is that characters of the same class tend to play and feel almost identically. [/QUOTE]
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