Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6668736" data-attributes="member: 996">OK, that makes more sense, as far as that goes...The offensive power thing is almost a given:  5e emphasizes offensive power across the board to facilitate faster combats.Considering 'flexibility' in terms of a Nova strikes me as rather odd, but, pursuing that, you'd also have to consider what the 5th level 4e fighter could do with /both/ his dailies (or a combo of encounters & dailies), since he could action point and blow them both, plus any move or minor-action exploit he might use.   It's simple numbers.  The 1st level 5e fighter has no maneuvers.  The 1st level 4e fighter had four:  two at-will, an encounter and a daily.  At 3rd, the Battlemaster has 3 maneuvers, chosen from a list 18 that are all third-level-appropriate.  By 10th, the Battlemaster has 6 maneuvers and a few CS dice to power them.  By 10th, the 4e fighter had two at-wills, 3 encounters, 3 dailies and 2 utilities, each different, chosen from among hundreds (well, a hundred or so, since exploits aren't all essentially '3rd level,' there are many higher-level exploits he couldn't have chosen, yet).  To make matters worse, CS dice are between dailies and encounters in availability, because it's much harder to squeeze in a full-hour 'short' rest than a 5-min one.Now, IIRC, at 10th level, a 4e fighter could bust out an alpha-strike combo, like Action Point, C&GI + Thicket of Blades + Reaper's Stance, and really do the whole Inigo Montoya thing of 'pulling' enemies to him, and mowing through them with ease.  Mechanically, that'd be a 1w attack and 3w attack, plus 1w auto-damage (each turn for the rest of the encounter), each against up to 8 enemies up to 3 squares away from the fighter.  Any who survive to actually take their turns are, of course, marked, as well, and each would have to take an AO if they wanted to try to get away from the fighter, having their movement spoiled if it hit.The 5e fighter's multi-attacking + Action Surge works very well on single targets, but it quickly loses out when spread among multiple foes, it just can't compare to AEs in that kind of scenario.  The 5e fighter only had a few 'close' AEs, but they could be spectacular.Now, you might be able to come up with some use of Action Surge and all your CS dice to rival that kind of performance (maybe), but that leaves you with nothing but second wind until your next hour-long rest, while the 4e fighter still would have had two encounters, a daily, and his utilities (and two at wills, of course, and the Reaper's Stance while he remained conscious) left to keep the rest of the fight interesting. No argument, here.  Much less versatile when it comes to builds (relative to 3.x/PF), less varied and interesting in play (relative to 4e), but not lacking in raw power (even when compared to 2e).  You could even concede all 5e characters some within-the-turn flexibility in combat in terms of being able to move-attack-move by default, instead of needing a feat (3.5) or powers to do so.  That's a nice feature of 5e's generally looser rules and simplified action economy. "Theorycrafting" is just a word forumite's pull out when they know the numbers are against them. ;P  I mean, there are over 350 spells in the PH1, would it be irrelevant to casters if we removed all but a dozen of them?  And all those that remained were 1st level? Seriously, though, the breadth of choice and build /does/ very much affect how fighters play at the table.A 5e battlemaster or 3e feat-based fighter faces an issue with most of their choices being designed for when they are first presented with them. The 3e fighter has some feat chains that culminate in feats that area essentially 4th or 6th level abilities, since that's the earliest they can get them.  The 5e Battlemaster's maneuvers, OTOH, are all essentially 3rd-level abilities, even if he doesn't get to pick some of them until high levels.  Not only that, but the obvious thing to do is pick the best abilities, first, so those latter picks are much more marginal, making advancement less meaningful.  That does affect how you play at the table, in that you're very likely to play them about the same at 10th or 13th or higher level as you did back at 3rd (Battlemaster) or 6th or 8th (3.5 fighter).  It also means characters are going to look pretty similar in play.  Most battlemasters are going to have the top 3 best maneuvers, and tend to use them the same way, including 'spamming' the same one.A 4e character (fighter or most others but the Wizard, really), OTOH, chose powers one at  time as they leveled that were appropriate to the level at which they're gained, so each was something they could not have simply taken before.  They also couldn't trade powers overnight or on the fly, so any difference in power choices differentiated characters of the same class, and they can't fall into a rut of 'spamming' the same power until they're out of resources.</blockquote>

Verification