Should fighters be skill monkeys?

[The Old Crow]

I have always thought that Fighters should get Athletics as a bonus skill. The class is trained in hauling around heavy armor (even if those lightweight DEX Fighters refuse to wear it) and all about doing constant physical things.

 

[Horwath]

I always like the house rule that exchanges heavy armor proficiencies for any class for an extra class skills.

On topic, fighters spend most of the time learning weapons and armor so there is little room left for skills.

Also skilled feat is little weak. I would put it at 4 skills or +1 any ability and 2 skills. With fighters extra ASIs they could spare one for the skills.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In 3rd edition high intelligence gave extra skill points. So Wizards did tend to be skill monkeys. Especially with a 1 level dip of rogue. Indeed it was one of the things that set them apart from sorcerers, who usually had lousy skills.

 

[Sunseeker]

Personally I think the easiest solution is to just give bonus proficiencies based on your int mod. So if you've got a smart fighter, he knows how to do more things.

 

[lonelynoose]

Also, don't forget that backgrounds aren't static. You can create any background you want. Create a cool backstory and give him Athletics or anything else.

 

[Irda Ranger]

There's an argument for giving some classes one automatic skill for free (Fighters=Athletics, Rangers=Survival, Clerics=Religion, etc. etc.), but other than that, I don't see the need to give Fighters more skills. They have the same number of skills (2) as most classes. You've got backgrounds to work with and they have extra ASIs that can be used for the Skilled feat. Seems fine.

My issue with Fighters isn't their lack of skills, but their lack of anything to contribute to the social and exploration parts of the game. Rangers and rogues are good skirmish combatants and are good at exploring nature/dungeons. Bards, paladins, warlocks and sorcerers are effective combatants and have those social skills.

Arguably, clerics and wizards have the same problem as Fighters, but some domains/traditions less so than others. An enchanter with the Friends cantrip has great social options, for instance.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I personally have never found Fighters to be "lacking" in skills or the exploration/interaction pillar in 5E for the simple fact that actually having a skill proficiency is so less important than the d20 rolled when making the skill check itself.

So a Fighter who received an extra skill proficiency will see essentially one extra success in every ten checks (the +2 or 10% bonus that comes from adding in his proficiency bonus) than the one who didn't. Yippee. When any PC can naturally roll 15s, 16s, 17s etc... and thus pass at least half (if not even more) of the checks a DM will put out there, adding in the proficiency bonus can become pretty inconsequential except for the most difficult of checks. But even when making those most difficult of checks... the party's usually going to go to their best person for the job to do it anyway, which means that Fighter with a 10 CHA but who has an extra +2 due to having received any sort of "bonus skill" is still going to be sidelined for the Paladin with the +5 to his Persuasion.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Should fighters be skill monkeys?

More like skill gorillas. But, really, fighting is a skill, a discipline, really, that encompasses many skills, not all of them physical.

Trying to build a duelist out of a fighter class, for instance, has always been something of a challenge. He shouldn't just have high DEX/STR and BAB, he should have keen perceptions, be able to read and deceive opponents with consummate ease, be able to /avoid/ fights when he doesn't want them through deft social maneuvering, his remarkable grace, dexterity, and agility should see him through all sorts of other challenges. But, no. 2 skill points/level, or have a couple skills from a starkly limited list. Oh, and if you don't pick STR or DEX and max it to the hilt, you will suck, so forget about a good WIS to read enemies or a good CHA to deceive them.

That said, the 5e fighter is an incremental improvement. It does get a less restrictive list than ever before. It does at least get to seamlessly choose STR or DEX without paying a feat tax.

I've always wondered why traditionally fighters seem to end up with less skill points/proficiencies than casters.

I'm on a tear about this from other threads: It's all the fault of the original Thief in Greyhawk Supplement II, c1975.

What if a fighter started with 3 proficiencies and gained expertise in one at 3rd level? Would it break the game? Wpuld it trip over a rpgyes niche too much?

The fighter could subsume the Rogue (or vice versa) with no balance issues. The result would be a class that could cover more archetypes & genre precedents than both the classes considered separately (or with MCing, for that matter).

To a large extent, the reason Fighters are limited in skills is to avoid stepping on the Rogue's toes - they've been the skill monkey pretty much since they were introduced.

A part of me thinks that actually all the non-caster classes could usefully be combined into a single class (Hero, maybe), with the fighting abilities and the skills that that implies.

Thanks for beating me to it, and being more succinct into the bargain.

 

[CleverNickName]

It feels like the line between Fighter and Rogue has gotten more and more blurred with each newer edition of the game.

 

[Sleepy Walker]

Feats, they let you do what you want.

Two feats gives access to a combination of 3 skill and tool proficiencies, 1 guaranteed skill proficiency, 1 guaranteed tool proficiency, and expertise in 1 skill. This can be reached by level 4 is variant human (+1 skill as well) or level 6 if anything else (cause fighter).

If the fighter is built with proficiencies in mind, this allows for at most 10 skill proficiencies, 1 expert level, and 1 tool. This only leaves 8 skills without proficiency, which is about what one would want based on available ability points or character concept.


I think that is pretty good skill monkey for having such raw combat performance, no multiclassing required.