D&D 5E (2024) So, what does the Artificer "replace"?

[Zardnaar]

But of those builds, seven of them all take the exact same game actions as each other every turn. The two rogue builds do something different than the rest, but the same as each other. The two builds of the fighter subclass that specifically mimics 4e mechanics do have some actual variety in the game actions they take.

Number of builds doesn’t matter. What they can actually do matters, and 5e characters can mostly only do the same thing turn after turn.

Even then theres still 4.

The "boring" ones that use a variety of weapons and subclasses. Mostly non battlemaster fighters.

Rangers adding in magic and subclass

Rogue (2 variants)

Battlemaster fighter.

Youre not locked into one class. There's builds for 4 different weapons and you get bigger effects via subclasses.

4 is more than 1 and more ways to customize those 4. Vs 1 option with 1 variant.

 

[CreamCloud0]

oh sweet christ can we stop with the edition warring already? i have little tolerance for it at the best of times and it's not even that relevant to the thread topic!

 

[Mecheon]

Youre basically dismissing what's a big deal for people.

Espicially since you had around 30 years of fighters being good at archers going back to 1E.

As someone who came into the game in 3E, the idea of fighters being good at archers is against everything I have ever learnt and is not what a new player would assume, so frankly I consider it a big deal that people complained about it at the time.

Not like, due to them being bad archers, but because all of my experience of pre-D&D video games tells me no, you do not give the class that's the best at melee fighting, the knight, the warrior, you do not also give them the best at being the ranged combatant. This is just basic game balance. Nuts to 30 years of history, say hello to 'niche protection' so other classes can stand out more, not that 3.5e would have factored much there

If I made my own edition I'd absolutely cripple fighters in terms of ranged combat as well. They have all the melee specialties, they don't need the range ones as well. Other classes can have that.

 

[Remathilis]

This was 4e’s big mistake. If you are designing a game from scratch you can separate out the melee class from the archery class. But when you are updating a 30 year old ruleset players expect a class to be able to do the same things they always have been able to do.

Part of the problem 4e had with roles was trying to use the classic MMO roles (tank, DPS, healer) and place them on the classic D&D roles (fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue). They don't align right. First, there are only three MMO roles so a fourth had to be invented (controller) that felt ill defined. Wizards in D&D either buff (a support role done by healers) or control space (the job of a tank) with a hearty side dish of damage (the DPS role).

Second, the rogue might have become a DPS role due to its reliance on sneak attack, but the fighters role was equally DPS oriented. So when the fighter had to become all defensive, it felt far more restricting and lost some of the more niche play styles like archery (a DPS role since most people don't see a tank with a bow). Ultimately, 4e's biggest problem was that roles initially felt straightjacketing. A fighter was supposed to lock down foes and control aggro. It was terrible if you did anything other than that.

Further, class powers often locked you into specific weapons and armor and made it very hard to use stuff not designated by your class (Rogues use daggers, shortswords, rapiers and crossbows because that's what their powers worked with. Want to use a short bow or a club? Tough. I also remember how much reworking avengers got because they were using the wrong kind of armor and throwing off the math). Part of the joy of ttrpgs is not being confined by role specific gear if you want to build into it. It's why I'm glad 5e weapon masteries exist for weapons that no fighter would choose save for a niche build.

I have no issues with the concept of roles. I started this thread because I was curious what role the new artificer holds. I prefer roles to be descriptive (the class's kit lends itself to building for certain roles) vs prescriptive (this class is only a healer and you cannot build around that.) abd while I can appreciate what @Charlaquin is suggesting, I'd rather have a class that that fill two roles adequately than only one role with superiority.

 

[Mephista]

Archery is literally fluff. Being able to attack a target from a distance, having disadvantage while attacking a target within 5 feet, those are real, meaningful mechanical differences between ranged and melee attacks, but whether that ranged attack is being made with a bow, a gun, a blast of magic, or whatever else is fluff.

Nonsense. Bows are distinct pieces of equipment with a distinct set of mechanics attached - there are even special arrows that exist and you can use. There's poison you can apply to arrows - you generally cannot poison magical blasts nor musket pellets. There are mechanics that exist that specifically enhance bows and arrows. Archery is simply just a casual term we're using to refer to bow-users and all the things you can use to enhance said bow-use.

Complaining that the 4e PHB fighter lacked variety because it couldn’t dual-wield or use bows first of all isn’t even true, but assuming you mean they wouldn’t have been very effective builds, it’s still silly when the class had orders of magnitude more different gameplay actions available to take with meaningful mechanical differences between them than the 5e fighter is just absurd. You wanted to play an archer and were mad you couldn’t? That’s a valid critique. Saying the 4e fighter lacked variety is just incorrect. Yes, even out of the PHB.

I don't care about your edition warring going on here. 4e, 5e, Pathfinder, Faubula Ultima, Yeld, it doesn't effing matter. People come to the table with the idea of building an archer, they will look at the mechanics and find the ones made for playing an archer.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, who's the better Archer? I honestly think that Fighter is probably better at being a raw "archer" - most of the best Ranger tricks to be great in combat involve skills and magics that aren't directly related to archery, while Fighter is better at accuracy, trick shots, and pure speed. This probably shouldn't be a surprise, since "master of weapons" is kind of Fighter's gig.

Meanwhile, I'd say that Ranger is probably better at being a bow hunter. Having magical hunting dogs via Summoned Beast, setting traps via Spiked Growth, etc. Definitely great hunter skills, but I wouldn't call them archer skills.

So this is a good take but, I dont think those ranger features can be dismissed so easily. Having a pet or summon to help control targets while ypu snipe adds to your efficacy as an archer. Imagine if the battlemaster could put a beast next to her target and use goading strike. The ranger cannot goad, but she can keep a target where she wants it more easily. Spells like plant growth and spike growth also directly contribute to being able to focus on archery in a fight.

Then you look at skills that contribute to archery and the two that come to mind are Stealth and to a lesser extent Athletics (for getting into sniping perches). This where the Rogue enters the ring and legitimately competes, but the ranger blows fighter out of the water just by having a spot for expertise.

Then Gloomstalker has enhancex ambushing and bonus damage and hunter has either bonus attacks against hordes or bonus damage.

Any phb ranger except fey has tools to keep the ranger sniping with great lethality, which makes it a better archer than someome that spends more time not shooting arrows from a safe distance.

 

[TwoSix]

I didnt claim they all played tge same. I said theres more versatility phb vs phb.

You dismissed the differences in archers as just damage. Theres 3-6 good archer builds in 5.5 phb. 3 classes vs one I think theres 4 didn't builds with another 2-4 variants on those (mainly sub classes).

4E phb has 1 class, 2 paths but only 1 is archery.

Good Archers
Battlemaster Fighter (2 builds)
Champion Fighter (2 or 3 builds)
Assassin Rogue(two builds)
Rangers (3 or 4 builds)

PHB to PHB also isn’t a particularly fair comparison. The first PHB for 4e was intentionally limited since they planned to release more PHBs every year.

4e managed to have 22 classes and 5 books of new subclasses/paragon paths in a 2 year period, the same period in which 5e released exactly one book of limited crunch options (SCAG).

 

[Mephista]

So this is a good take but, I dont think those ranger features can be dismissed so easily. Having a pet or summon to help control targets while ypu snipe adds to your efficacy as an archer. Imagine if the battlemaster could put a beast next to her target and use goading strike. The ranger cannot goad, but she can keep a target where she wants it more easily. Spells like plant growth and spike growth also directly contribute to being able to focus on archery in a fight.

Then you look at skills that contribute to archery and the two that come to mind are Stealth and to a lesser extent Athletics (for getting into sniping perches). This where the Rogue enters the ring and legitimately competes, but the ranger blows fighter out of the water just by having a spot for expertise.

Then Gloomstalker has enhancex ambushing and bonus damage and hunter has either bonus attacks against hordes or bonus damage.

Any phb ranger except fey has tools to keep the ranger sniping with great lethality, which makes it a better archer than someome that spends more time not shooting arrows from a safe distance.

I'm not dismissing the skills. I'm just saying I don't consider them to be archer skills. If I sat the Ranger and Fighter down together in an archery contest, I expect the Fighter to win. If I put them down together in some kind of nobles-doing-hunts-for-sport competition, I expect the Ranger to come out ahead.

Archer skills involve shooting a bow. If its unrelated to the bow, then its not archery. I would no sooner call Summon Beast an archer skill than I would call a Two Weapon Fighting FS an archery skill, even if you use throwing knives with it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm not dismissing the skills. I'm just saying I don't consider them to be archer skills. If I sat the Ranger and Fighter down together in an archery contest, I expect the Fighter to win. If I put them down together in some kind of nobles-doing-hunts-for-sport competition, I expect the Ranger to come out ahead.

Archer skills involve shooting a bow. If its unrelated to the bow, then its not archery. I would no sooner call Summon Beast an archer skill than I would call a Two Weapon Fighting FS an archery skill, even if you use throwing knives with it.

The beast is part of the Ranger's archery toolkit, juat like a familiar is part of an EK's, because they can be used to get more arrows in more targets.

Othwrwise, we cannot use anything that isnt exclusively ranged in our comparison, including Manuevers.

DnD a content simulator, we are talking about skirmishing combat archery. In that, Ranger wins handily.

 

[Mephista]

The beast is part of the Ranger's archery toolkit, juat like a familiar is part of an EK's, because they can be used to get more arrows in more targets.

Othwrwise, we cannot use anything that isnt exclusively ranged in our comparison, including Manuevers.

DnD a content simulator, we are talking about skirmishing combat archery. In that, Ranger wins handily.

Sorry, I care about actual definitions of words too much to do that.

I will say that the Ranger very much does have stuff past level 5 to stay in-class for. I will argue that pure Ranger is just as competitive as the best multi-class out there. That the damage output of Ranger is close enough to Fighter to make neither one feel weak in comparison.

But i won't say they're doing that because of their archery skills, because its not. Half is bow, but the other half is summoning magic.