D&D General Requesting permission to have something cool

[Remathilis]

the fighter, rogue, barb (and tentatively monk) should be mundane, what they should not be is ordinary OR explicitly magical/supernatural (barring subclasses who's point is to be such), trained strength, mastered skill, forged steel, all of these are mundane, and all of these should be enough to take down a dragon with in worlds where dragons are allowed to exist.

being mundane does not mean you cannot be extraordinary but being extraordinary does not mean you have to be supernatural.

The fighter, rogue and barbarian have that, but thread after thread pops up with people wanting more than that. So if they want to be more than extraordinary, become supernatural. If the fighter is complaining that he can't fight a dragon because he cannot fly, he needs to learn to fly or accept his limitations.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So a motorcycle is exactly the same as a moped because they both have two wheels, a motor and you can use them to get around?

Do you really think the difference between a Fighter and everyone else is that big? Because it isn't. That's one of the biggest problems with its design. We were told it would be beastly in combat. It isn't.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure bro.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dndshorts/ryokos-guide-to-the-yokai-realms-a-5e-tome

One counterexample does not mean the pattern is false. People don't go into TTRPG design for the money.

 

[Xamnam]

If the fighter is complaining that he can't fight a dragon because he cannot fly, he needs to learn to fly or accept his limitations.

Or figure out how to leverage their skill with weapons in a way that can ground the creature. Or exploit their physical prowess to hang on to it while still being an effective combatant. Or many other mundane approaches.

 

[Corinnguard]

Or figure out how to leverage their skill with weapons in a way that can ground the creature. Or exploit their physical prowess to hang on to it while still being an effective combatant. Or many other mundane approaches.

Plus that Fighter isn't taking the dragon on by themselves. They're with their fellow adventurers, each of whom can aid the fighter in a number of ways.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ah, hyperbole directing attention away from an argument by way of minimizing an actual real world problem. A well worn tactic.

I mean, you're literally telling the people who are dissatisfied with the Champion that it's their fault for choosing to play Champion. What else am I supposed to think?

This is you just making up stuff that other people are saying,a nd it is tiresome in the extreme. if you don't actual want to engage an argument, just don't.

Plus, your suggestion that the "extremely popular" archetype is a fighter that plays like a wizard is, at best, suspect and probably a complete straw man. Instead, what is likely happening is that YOU personally want a fighter with lots of cool battlefield control and high damage capabilities. Cool. There are some awesome barbarian subclasses that do just that. I did not say people should not want that.

I didn't say that though. You said someone who kills a lot of people and controls a battlefield. That sounds like something a warrior should be doing to me!

What I said, the actual argument I was making that you chose to ignore in favor of yelling about victim blaming, is this: the game has a bunch of tools with which to build a character. it is incumbent on the player (with help, especially if they are new) to RTFM and pick the right tools to build they character they actually want to play.

The manual tells them that Champions are just as good as any other subclass and that Fighters should be Wizards' peers, equally valuable to whatever group they join. This is false.

What is not reasonable is to actively choose something that lacks those abilities you want and then blame the GM for you not having a good time. It may be that the "fighter" you are looking for is actually a Barbarian subclass. But to know that you would have to RTFM.

I have. Repeatedly. It presents the Berserker and Champion (which WotC's own data shows are DEEPLY disliked despite being played--because play-rate does not directly correspond to satisfaction rating!) as being just as good as, say, Battle Master and Totem Warrior.

Show me where it tells the player that Champions are weaker than other subclasses! I would love it if 5e were actually honest about that sort of thing. It wouldn't be an improvement of game design, but it would at least be speaking honestly with the player.

 

[Oofta]

Do you really think the difference between a Fighter and everyone else is that big? Because it isn't. That's one of the biggest problems with its design. We were told it would be beastly in combat. It isn't.

Meh. Try throwing that wizard into the front line as a melee character unless that's what they specialized in and see how long they last. A fighter will frequently have double the HP of a wizard in games I've seen as well as typically having better AC. As far as DPR, fighter does better than the other classes over the long haul.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, despite any evidence to the contrary, everyone finds playing wizards annoying? It's not just you?

No. But of course, I'm the only one who gets accused of making ridiculous interpretations of straightforward statements.

I said what I meant. Tedium is not simply in the eye of the beholder. It is also something that can be 100% intended for design purposes. And guess what? D&D used to use it all the time. It has been continually shedding that tedium over time, because tedium is simply not an enjoyable way to design games. Doesn't mean the existing Wizard isn't still tedious! It's just less tedious than it was in ye olden dayse.

Call it whatever you will. "Busywork," hoops to jump through, whatever. Some people have a very high tolerance for it. Others have a very low tolerance. I'd say overall I'm just below median on that front. But to have a tolerance for something, there must be a something for you to tolerate.

Edit: Oh and, yeah. Perhaps players who want to get the most out of a particular game should lean into doing what that game rewards, or change it/play a different game that rewards something else?

As I've already told you, I tried.

Meh. Try throwing that wizard into the front line as a melee character unless that's what they specialized in and see how long they last. A fighter will frequently have double the HP of a wizard in games I've seen as well as typically having better AC. As far as DPR, fighter does better than the other classes over the long haul.

Ah, but of course you carve out the "unless that's what they specialized in," though "specialization" requires no more than picking a reasonable subclass (Bladesinger is best, but Abjurer and Diviner are fine too) and, as I've already told you, 2-3 effective spells (mainly shield, but other stuff is also good.) It really takes the Wizard almost nothing to be highly effective in combat, and ritual spells enormously extend their capacity.

Also, Fighter DPR is actually worse than other classes unless you stick religiously to the encounters per day stuff. Which was literally an entire other thread topic, very recently. Doubly a problem if you do what 5e actually tells you to do and was designed to do, namely, throwing large numbers of "weaker" enemies at the party, which was (allegedly) one of the key reasons for implementing "bounded accuracy."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

On behalf of GMs who run 5e, I apologize. I'm almost always more inclined to say "yes" to someone coming to me with homebrew. But I may be (almost certainly am) an outlier to how 5e seems to be played out there in the wild.

Unless it's from dndwiki, in which case I'd probably tear up your sheet and laugh smugly at you over my coffee as dark as my dark GM heart.

This was my own design. You can check it out if you like; I can send you a link. Fully agreed that DNDwiki is...well. It showcases what can happen to a wiki that has essentially zero moderation.

 

[Remathilis]

Plus that Fighter isn't taking the dragon on by themselves. They're with their fellow adventurers, each of whom can aid the fighter in a number of ways.

Or figure out how to leverage their skill with weapons in a way that can ground the creature. Or exploit their physical prowess to hang on to it while still being an effective combatant. Or many other mundane approaches.

Great. The fighter gets the wizard to cast fly and grapples the dragon to the ground.

Fighters are fine. Thread over!