Level Up (A5E) The Advanced Fighter

[TheSword]

I like the principals. This does fall into the problem of being straight up more powerful than the existing class.

That’s a good way of getting players to want to use it, but a poor way of getting it adopted into an existing game.

 

[Garthanos]

How do you take out d6 T-Rexes without magic??

By actually being awesome like figures of legend and myth.

 

[Garthanos]

That’s a good way of getting players to want to use it, but a poor way of getting it adopted into an existing game.

Isnt this kind of its own game? based on 5e? I heard that mentioned or did I imagine it.
Kind of like if Level Up assumes flanking then maybe it also assumes opportunity attacks == dex mod (or number of extra attacks) becomes the norm and assumes other encouragements for moving like charges did in every previous edition. Chainmail, 1e 2e,3e and 4e for certain anyway. I honestly didnt thing it was going to be just insert in to a 5e game parts of this but I admit I have been distract by real world stuff.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Lots of good stuff here, but this leads me to my fundamental issue with Advanced 5E... is it almost too much?

Do you think that this fighter would be stealing the spotlight and dominating the scene using their class abilities in all three pillars of a D&D game?

How does this solve the issue that a caster can do anything and a fighter must rely on the DM to do cool things at upper tiers?

Not an argument, just something that should be pondered. If you can find a solution moving forward, I'd like to see it at some point.

I don't think that that issue was what the OP set out to solve.
Likewise, I disagree with the first premise of the design goals, so I do not regard this as a good class. But it does what it set out to do well.

 

[CapnZapp]

How does this solve the issue that a caster can do anything and a fighter must rely on the DM to do cool things at upper tiers?

You keep bringing up this point.

I would say that since 5E doesn't provide you with a satisfactory answer - unlike most gamers - you won't find it here either.

This is not the revolutionary new product you're looking for. This is meant to enrich and deepen the existing 5E experience while staying reasonably compatible with that game.

(I think it is a mistake for EN Publishing to already this early promise full compatibility. I believe its dev team should be given leeway to make certain deviations from full compatibility since I believe that will make for a far superior product)

 

[glass]

Design goals:

• The fighter principal strength should be combat. Its combat class. It can benefit from having benefits in other pillars, but its primary focus is combat.
• Simple: The fighter is a simple class, with few rechargeable resources.

This is why I do not hink there should be a class called "Fighter" in the book, because it leads to this sort of thing. There is no reason that martial characters automatically need to be simpler than magic using characters, but if you attach the name fighter to something people will expect it to be simple. And if that is what you want, the PHB Fighter is right there! My understanding is that Level Up is aimed at people who want more mechanical engagement than core 5e provides, while still being compatible with it.

(I think it is a mistake for EN Publishing to already this early promise full compatibility. I believe its dev team should be given leeway to make certain deviations from full compatibility since I believe that will make for a far superior product)

Whereas I think that "full compatibility" is an excellent way of innoculating Level Up from repeating 5e's mistakes. EDIT: Like I say above, the PHB is right there.

_
glass.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Lots of good stuff here, but this leads me to my fundamental issue with Advanced 5E... is it almost too much?

I think it's definitely too much, but I think that's fine at the moment. It's a first draft, and design often involves starting with too much and then cutting away.

 

[NotAYakk]

This is why I do not hink there should be a class called "Fighter" in the book, because it leads to this sort of thing. There is no reason that martial characters automatically need to be simpler than magic using characters, but if you attach the name fighter to something people will expect it to be simple. And if that is what you want, the PHB Fighter is right there! My understanding is that Level Up is aimed at people who want more mechanical engagement than core 5e provides, while still being compatible with it.

Alternative class names:

Champion
Hero
Adventurer
Explorer
Conqueror

You could take every single one of the fighter's current or planned abilities, give the class one of the above names, then add in extra non-combat stuff to match that name.

You could flip this on its head, but only with discipline. A subclass system where the subclass isn't how the fighter fights, but why the fighter fights. Then the why would almost entirely give out-of-combat abilities.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think it's definitely too much, but I think that's fine at the moment. It's a first draft, and design often involves starting with too much and then cutting away.

Completely agree! It is easy to prune back a grown tree than add leaves to one that is stagnant.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm not a big fan of changing fighter to a long rest reset. I see mundane characters as having more to gain from taking a breather and regrouping their strength.

My take is that, after 6 years and 1000000000000 post, short rest are too DM dependent to be use as a power recovery mechanic. The minute on DM or group has a hard time finding some place in the adventure to take one hour of rest but not a full 8 hour, the game start unbalancing.

If the game was designed with a clear and realist X encounters of said difficulty per day with Y short rests in between, I would consider returning to the short rest option. In my own game, I go with 5-10 minutes short rest, with a hard limit of 2 short rest per long rest.

How does this solve the issue that a caster can do anything and a fighter must rely on the DM to do cool things at upper tiers?

Again, its not about power, its about versatility. Adding more ''styles'' option with ways to affect the narrative or do more than ''kill stuff'' is a way to do that. Same reason why I removed the extra ASI, in case the table did not use the optional Feats. The part I dont like from my draft is the fact that Fighters are still very ''item dependent'' with no way of affecting this. Like the ''short rest'' I tried to solve by putting it in the hand of the players, I'd like a way to do the same thing with magic items.

That’s a good way of getting players to want to use it, but a poor way of getting it adopted into an existing game.

Isnt this kind of its own game? based on 5e? I heard that mentioned or did I imagine it.

I think it is a mistake for EN Publishing to already this early promise full compatibility. I believe its dev team should be given leeway to make certain deviations from full compatibility since I believe that will make for a far superior product

This is why I dont think I understand the design principle behind a product like A5E. If it is is own game, why would it be bad to go over the classes and give them a power or versatility boost if they are somewhat lacking in the PHB version? In the end, the class with more options will anyway be better than the one without them.

My intend is indeed to make the A5E fighter better than the PHB one. No secret about it. The fighter is my favorite class, I love the fiction about them, but the class is inherently dull. The devs, with their intent of making the fighter simple, went with a dull design. I say: simple doesnt no mean dull. My draft tries to keep the simplicity of the fighter, while adding more thematic and descriptive abilities to it.

I dont believe it is realistic to say that a PHB fighter will be exactly at the same power/versatility level than an A5E fighter. When you put one next to the other, one will naturally be better. Like, even Morrus says he'll go over an try to modify the classes capstones to that they all feel like meaningful capstones: a PHB bard with its lousy capstone and a A5E will naturally be unequal, no?


Anyway, thanks for you comments!