D&D 5E So what's exactly wrong with the fighter?

[Warmaster Horus]

I love the fighter. He's very good at what he does. You can use background skills to flesh them out a bit, but in the end they're about dealing and taking damage. If you can live with that, you'll be fine. I like salting mine with a little Barbarian, too...

 

[Bluenose]

The 5E fighter is great at killing things, but it has nothing like the 4E fighter's ability to control the battlefield. If you liked the tactical aspect of playing a fighter in 4E, you'll not be satisfied with the 5E fighter.

They are very very good at killing things, though there are other classes as good or better than them in surviving while they do so. That's part of the problem; there are several other classes perfectly good at killing things, that bring a considerable amount of other things to the table. The Fighter class is a one-trick pony, and they're not that much better at that trick than other classes who bring several other tricks. Ask yourself, if you're in a game with no fighter, how often have you thought that what you really, really need right now is a Fighter as opposed to a Barbarian, a Paladin, or even a martially-inclined Cleric?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

They are very very good at killing things, though there are other classes as good or better than them in surviving while they do so. That's part of the problem; there are several other classes perfectly good at killing things, that bring a considerable amount of other things to the table. The Fighter class is a one-trick pony, and they're not that much better at that trick than other classes who bring several other tricks. Ask yourself, if you're in a game with no fighter, how often have you thought that what you really, really need right now is a Fighter as opposed to a Barbarian, a Paladin, or even a martially-inclined Cleric?

Getting three attacks at 11th level is a biggie. Having Action Surge is another. Getting 3 ability upgrades for stat upgrades or killer feats by 8th level is another. An expanded crit range or helpful tactical abilities = very nice. Having all their special abilities refresh on a short rest = Wow!

 

[tyrlaan]

I've seen a few posters claiming the fighter is lacking in this edition and I would like to know where exactly is the problem.

The looks completely solid to me and I don't see anything anywhere that would stop a player from engaging in all three pillars of the game.

Where's the problem?

There's a very lengthy thread on this very forum that goes into this debate. In fact, you were an active participant. So I'm really not sure why you need this new thread. Or, perhaps you have started this thread for a different purpose?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Getting three attacks at 11th level is a biggie. Having Action Surge is another. Getting 3 ability upgrades for stat upgrades or killer feats by 8th level is another. An expanded crit range or helpful tactical abilities = very nice. Having all their special abilities refresh on a short rest = Wow!

These are all true, but in my experience, the biggest is the extra feats. Because feats are much bigger than they were in 3e, getting two more of them is a big deal, and grants the fighter A LOT more abilities than what is under the class description itself.

For example, I've heard that fighters can't do anything useful like spells. Well, with those 2 extra feats, you could get magic initiate AND ritual casting on top of everything else you get as a fighter. Or that they don't really have any exploration or interaction abilities. Well, those two extra feats can be used for dungeon delver, or actor, or etc, etc.

 

[Ashkelon]

So the fighter is great at what it does, and that is fighting. It deals great damage and has a lot of resilience. But, that is all it has.

The class is the worst class in the game when it comes to the exploration or interaction pillars. That is fine for those who don't really care about those pillars. And being the worst in those pillars does not mean they can't contribute to exploration or interaction encounters. It simply means that the fighter won't bring anything meaningful or unique that could not be brought equally well if not better by some other class

I do have a few issues with the fighter in combat though. First off, is even the battlemaster is repetitive. The number of maneuvers it can use between rests is rather low and there are a few maneuvers that are clearly superior to others and are then spammed. Compare to a spellcaster who has a variety of interesting at-will options they can choose from every turn.

The fighter maneuvers also tend to take a long time to resolve. Having played as a level 15 battlemaster, I hated how long my turn took. Roll an attack, see if it hits, if it misses roll a superiority die for precise strike to turn the miss into a hit. Once a hit is achieved, the enemy must roll a save vs my menacing strike maneuver and I roll an additional d10 damage. If the enemy is frightened by menacing strike, I move to another target to repeat the whole process again. Oh, and if the enemy takes an OA against me as I move between targets, and they miss because of disadvantage from menacing strike, I can use my reaction to riposte them. Oh, and I reroll all 1s and 2s for damage, including superiority dice, due to Great Weapon Style. It was a bloody pain to resolve my turn some times.

Another problem I have with the fighter is the lack of mobility. By mid to high levels, many enemies fly, teleport, or have speeds of 50+. I found myself spending more and more time wasting turns dashing so I could close with an enemy, or being unable to meaningfully attack enemies at range. It made combat rather dull when fighting enemies who could simply outmaneuver me at every turn.

Lastly, the fighter is not really special from levels 1-10. From 11+ he does better damage than most other warriors, but from 1-10 he actually does less. He has the same number of attacks as the barbarian, paladin, warlock, and ranger, but lacks their damage increasing capabilities (reckless attack, rage, divine smite, hunter's mark, hex, etc). Sure, they get an extra feat at level 6, but even that isn't really enough to make up the difference, especially because those classes get some pretty great features in those first 10 levels.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So the fighter is great at what it does, and that is fighting. It deals great damage and has a lot of resilience. But, that is all it has.

The class is the worst class in the game when it comes to the exploration or interaction pillars. That is fine for those who don't really care about those pillars. And being the worst in those pillars does not mean they can't contribute to exploration or interaction encounters. It simply means that the fighter won't bring anything meaningful or unique that could not be brought equally well if not better by some other class .

I'll assume you were writing this post when I posted mine, because I directly address this. This statement simply isn't true. While yes, every class has access to feats, the fighter gets two extra feats. That means they have plenty of options for you to choose to address these weaknesses that no other class gets. The difference is that instead of hard baked into the class, you get the choice. And more choice is a good thing, right?

 

[Bluenose]

Getting three attacks at 11th level is a biggie. Having Action Surge is another. Getting 3 ability upgrades for stat upgrades or killer feats by 8th level is another. An expanded crit range or helpful tactical abilities = very nice. Having all their special abilities refresh on a short rest = Wow!

And how often is that important enough that you find the other "killing things" classes inadequate? How often is it that you need that much combat ability, as opposed to having some other class that most of the time kills things at a perfectly adequate rate? Being superb at killing things isn't the problem, the problem is that it's all the other classes that are good enough at that and bring plenty of other tricks that the Fighter just hasn't got.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've seen a few posters claiming the fighter is lacking in this edition and I would like to know where exactly is the problem. looks completely solid to me

The fighter isn't lacking in what it delivers, which is DPR, it lacks in what it tries to do. It's grasp is firm, but it's reach is stunted.

It is as solid as the 2e fighter, with double-specialization automatically assumed, no less. (Well, it could do with the 2e fighter's across-the-board-excellent high-level saves to be a little more solid). Because there's little to the 2e fighter beyond high DPR and modest toughness.

It selectively does a few of the cool things (like high DPR) that you could do with a 3.x fighter, and a few more (a bit anemically, perhaps) if feats are allowed. But a few out of the seemingly limitless combustibility of the 3.x fighter is pretty sad. And, it's also not nearly so elegant as the 3.x fighter design.

The Champion is essentially(pi) the Essentials Slayer (a striker, which means, yeah, high DPR), though even the Slayer had a few utility exploits.

The EK is, if anything, a little better (higher DPR - yeah, I know, I know) than the 3.5 or Essentials EK.

The Battlemaster is a calculated insult to the 4e PH1/Martial-Power fighters. It's debatable whether it's also meant to be a calculated insult to the Warlord. If it is, that only deepens the insult to the fighter.

But, even if the 5e fighter had successfully integrated all the awesome of the 2e, 3.x, and 4e fighters, the class would still be blindly groping for relevance outside of the combat pillar.

The fighter gets 2 ASIs relative to most classes: one at 6th, and one at 14th. They can if your DM opts in, be traded in for feats. That means a relative +1 to checks with your 2nd most important stat priority at 6th level and 7th level, that shifts at 8th and 12th, of course. At 14th, the fighter has 2 ASI's on the typical PC, meaning he has his 4th and 5th choice for stat bump or feat over and above what he might have chosen had he not been a fighter.

The Battlemaster gets manuevers (entirely combat-oriented), and the EK gets spells (mostly very combat-oriented).

The Champion gets one whole feature that's decidedly non-combat oriented: "Remarkable Athlete." It adds a half-proficiency bonus to non-proficient STR, DEX & CON checks. Athetics, of course, is a proficiency, adding the full bonus. So compared to any other character with the same strength and Athletics, the Champion is, well, not as good an Athlete. Not sure how "remarkable" that is, but we can put that down to a bad choice of label.
Anyway, we can easily see how this awe-inspiring +1 stacks with the equally awe-inspiring net +1 to a stat you wouldn't have otherwise maxed out 4th level, for a whole two levels (6th & 7th), to a game-changing +2 that not only rivals actual Proficiency in magnitude, but surely must put 1st-4th level utility rituals /to shame/.


But, that's just in terms of basic effectiveness and contribution to the party. There's also the question of covering genre archetypes and party roles. D&D has always had these vague iconic roles, based mainly on the Big 4 first PC classes: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-user and Thief. 4e formalized them as Defender, Leader, Controller and Striker - and, while no 5e class tries to conform or limitself to these roles, they're still useful shorthand.... Prior to 3.0, the Thief was by no means a striker, and the fighter combined the striker (handily) and defender (poorly) roles, while the Thief was prettymuch just a disposable trap-detector. In 3.x, the fighter became very customizable, and could be a good striker or a barely-adequate defender, or a very specialized reach-based sort of controller, the Rogue a less than dependable sneak-attack-based striker, and the "Tier 1" Cleric, Druid, and Wizard could assume or obviate all the roles, traditional/iconic or formal. OK, 'nough background.

The 5e fighter is firmly in the 'Striker' box. It has high DPR, founded in always-problematic multiple attacks that can, even with just PH1 optional material, be optimized to be pretty darn impressive (or excessive, depending on how you look at it). There's a combat option and feat (not exclusive to fighters) that make it an anemic defender, but also leave it a Striker. That's it.

By itself, that's not terrible, and, at this point, you can conclude that the fighter is OK, by itself. But, when we look at the other sub-classes that offer non-magic-using options, we find an interesting coincidence: They're all high-DPR 'Strikers,' too.

The Champion & Battlemaster have been covered. The Thief and Assassin get high-DPR from Sneak Attack. The Berserker, is also, obviously, high-DPR. And that's the full range of 5e classes that don't resort to casting or other forms of magic-use. You have beatsticks, angry beatsticks, and stealthy murderers. Nothing else. That's quite a shortfall, especially compared to the 30+ magic-using sub-classes out there.

Now, you don't necessarily need to expand the fighter, you could write it off, and add new "martial" classes like a Warlord, instead. But, the Fighter is the oldest, most visible, non-magic-using class, and it's were people tend to go for any concept that's not casting, not raging, and not fragile - for instance, the vast majority of 'Heroes' in genre and legend. Thus it's seen as a shortcoming of the fighter.

Ask yourself, if you're in a game with no fighter, how often have you thought that what you really, really need right now is a Fighter as opposed to a Barbarian, a Paladin, or even a martially-inclined Cleric?

Actually, I've run 5e for a group who didn't have a fighter the first session, and really missed having one. Then they got a fighter, and still really missed having one: Because what they were missing was a 4e-style Defender.

I don't see anything anywhere that would stop a player from engaging in all three pillars of the game.

You could play a Kobold straight out of the monster manual and nothing would stop you from engaging in all three pillars of the game. You'd likely have more fun in the non-combat pillars than the guy next to you playing the fighter. If only because it's fun to crack jokes at the expense of mammals.

 

[Celtavian]

Personally, I feel the fighter should have more skills, as many as the rogue. A fighter is a fighting man. The best fighting men relied a great deal on skills. A trained Greek soldier knew not only how to fight, but how to survive in a harsh land, how to engage in diplomacy, how to do field medicine, how to orate, and other skills necessary to survival as a fighting man lacking magic to accomplish mundane needs. The fighter always gets shorted on skills because he's a "fighter." The idea that fighting men were dumb and uneducated is so far from historical truth as to be absurd. Yet D&D has not yet incorporated the idea that a fighting man must also be highly skilled in other areas for survival.

The rogue is nothing more than a different type of fighter. A light skirmisher and scout. He should not have more training than a fighter.