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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6655154" data-attributes="member: 996">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.   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.    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.</blockquote>

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