D&D 5E (+) So, what have you done to make martials feel better?

[Minigiant]

in theory how hard would it be for paliden and ranger to fold into fighter?

Depends on how rangery and paladins you want them.

 

[Garthanos]

Depends on how rangery and paladins you want them.

OK yeh to be concise LOL

 

[SakanaSensei]

in theory how hard would it be for paliden and ranger to fold into fighter?

I think that it could be done if there were some structural changes to allow for Subclasses that could, optionally, have a greater impact on play style. But throw some primal magic at a fighter, give them some skill expertise in survival and stealth, and let them pick a quarry when you roll initiative and give a bonus die of damage against their quarry? Well hell, that’s pretty ranger-y to me.

Paladin may be trickier, but could be pulled off with multiple subclasses. I think a divine half-caster with some supportive abilities would hit most of the beats.

Now that I think about it, bump up eldritch knight to half caster arcane progression, then have ranger as half caster primal and Paladin as half caster divine… I like how that ends up looking.

 

[Minigiant]

OK yeh to be concise LOL

Well there are real levels to the rangeriness or paladinosity.

It's like the Beastmaster ranger. There was not enough space to make the Beastmaster people wanted within the ranger. You definitely couldnt fit the Beastmaster or Green Knight in the fighter.

Could you put ranger and paladin back in fighter? Sure. Would more than 25% of the fans like the outcome? Nah.

 

[SakanaSensei]

Well there are real levels to the rangeriness or paladinosity.

It's like the Beastmaster ranger. There was not enough space to make the Beastmaster people wanted within the ranger. You definitely couldnt fit the Beastmaster or Green Knight in the fighter.

Could you put ranger and paladin back in fighter? Sure. Would more than 25% of the fans like the outcome? Nah.

What if they opened up design space to let subclass features replace class features? Give up your action surge for beast companion, give up second wind for some kind of maneuver your beast could learn to protect allies or take down a weakened opponent. I think it sounds neat.

WotC is definitely not going to do anything of the sort, but WotC also isn’t my dad, and given recent product quality, they may as well be one of many publishers as far as I’m concerned. The difference between the best homebrewers I’ve seen and WotC is art budget.

 

[Minigiant]

What if they opened up design space to let subclass features replace class features? Give up your action surge for beast companion, give up second wind for some kind of maneuver your beast could learn to protect allies or take down a weakened opponent. I think it sounds neat.

WotC is definitely not going to do anything of the sort, but WotC also isn’t my dad, and given recent product quality, they may as well be one of many publishers as far as I’m concerned. The difference between the best homebrewers I’ve seen and WotC is art budget.

Ehh. Still don't see it working.

Like you couldn't even fit the PHB ranger or paladin in the fighter even with class feature substitutions. There just isn't the room. And the PHB ranger was almost universally panned.

And then you go back you weakening the fighter archetype to fit in the other classes.

If you really look at most RPGs where the "Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger are Fighters", you find that the accents are often very shallow. You end up with less Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger and more Fighter in Hide, Fighter in Shiny Armor, Fighter in Green Hood. You get more "Adjudication License" than Class Features.

 

[Garthanos]

Well there are real levels to the rangeriness or paladinosity.

No doubt on the other hand looked at from space -> there is this multiclassing system and bringing in some cleric levels or druid ones in theory could be ways of controlling those metrics if the core elements were functional kind of like how many "Paladins" I have seen multi-classing with full caster already

It's like the Beastmaster ranger. There was not enough space to make the Beastmaster people wanted within the ranger. You definitely couldnt fit the Beastmaster or Green Knight in the fighter.

Beastmaster has definitely been a design issue (is anyone satisfied with ranger yet?) for a while I just realised that in spite of loving the Green Knight flavor I have barely looked at it...

Could you put ranger and paladin back in fighter? Sure. Would more than 25% of the fans like the outcome? Nah.

Limits on satisfaction for design outcome I can dig, Warlords and Swordmages my favorite 4e classes do not reflect so well in 5e. Yeh one can build some version of a Warlord and maybe more than one but the potential is so very high (better than 4e) the results are not satisfying either. I am probably just picky about my swordmage.

 

[Garthanos]

What if they opened up design space to let subclass features replace class features? Give up your action surge for beast companion,

I am considering tandem fighting uses a bonus action.... yes I know that means if you are guiding your beast or squire to make an attack and avoiding them getting explicitly targeted, you won't be using that bonus action to make a two weapon attack. They might be able to give you advantage on one of your attacks as well of course.

 

[ECMO3]

Sure but so will most Bladesingers when they get that vorpal blade

A bladesinger only is proficient in one martial weapon, unless they multiclass, take a feat or multiclass and chances are that weapon is a Rapier. IF you make it a 2-handed blade it will be completely incompatible with a bladesinger.

 

[Stormonu]

in theory how hard would it be for paliden and ranger to fold into fighter?

Glances at Eldritch Knight And be usable? Hard. Very, very hard.

I'm still bucking for a full-on fighter/magic-user class myself.