No, it hasn’t. Again, OD&D, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, and AD&D were all simpler and less complex than 5E. AD&D 2E with the Player’s Options is about on par with 5E.
Can you or should you count on DM to lean the odds in your favor? At say a league table should it be allowed? Should a class depend upon DM favor to be equally viable or is that a sign that something needs to be fixed.
If you aren't arguing for what you want but what the majority of the 5e community wants, why does this majority need your help arguing their case? Why isn't this clear majority making their case here in this thread? Why do you have to point to what is supposedly said on other social media to justify your claim that the view you are arguing for is the majority view? Why can't you point to what is said on Enworld, which is one of the largest D&D forums, to justify your claim about what the majority wants?
And some folks def see 5e as shackled to the 2 editions before it! Way too complex!
Someone posited that skills should be erased from the game entirely the other day.
I’d love to see 5e get a fully realized Lite version (like sidekick classes lite or @Sacrosanct i think has a Basic 5e variant) and a suite of options that layer on top of existing options to give more customization and complexity. Themes and Destinies and whatever.
I’d love to see 5e get a fully realized Lite version (like sidekick classes lite or @Sacrosanct i think has a Basic 5e variant) and a suite of options that layer on top of existing options to give more customization and complexity. Themes and Destinies and whatever.
3 core classes. Abilities are modifiers only, not 3-18 (or up to 20 I guess). No skills (if you're proficient in Wisdom, you add that modifier to all skill checks that are wisdom based), and no bonus actions.
Yes, Everyone has A Background/Species, and I highly doubt Feats will be optional in 2024, AND Wizards is making small changes to throw Barbarian and Fighter a bone in other pillars.
I still see no problem. Fighter is there to smash. Take a Background if you want to diversify your character in a way other than smashing.
You take a background no matter what. You are presenting this as something you exchange for something. You don't. Everyone takes a background. The Wizard gets just as much from "take a Background" as the Fighter does! That's why I keep calling this the "zero point." It is where things START. Everyone gets a background! It does not push anyone forward or back one iota!
Yes, I'm aware. Despite the vaunted rhetoric about 5e being so easy to homebrew and so much more welcoming to 3PP, the community's receptivity to such things is, in my experience, extremely low.
Uh...the Fighter cannot ever even CHOOSE to fly. The Wizard can. That's the exact difference I just articulated.
Further, charm person is far better than you give credit for--unless you have a DM actively trying to make spells worse. I don't assume such things (mostly because, in my experience, they're much less common than DMs who treat spells as auto-win buttons.) And it's not like charm person is even the best social spell! That would be either, as I said, enhance ability, choosing Eagle's Splendor, a mere one slot difference (trivial past 5th level) to get 95% of the effect of charm person with none of the negatives, or suggestion. Because suggestion is insanely powerful for shaping the behavior of others. Detect thoughts and Acquisitions Inc.'s gift of gab deserve honorable mention as well. If your DM actually rolls checks for NPCs (e.g. Insight checks) instead of just declaring how NPCs respond, silvery barbs is likewise amazing. Even friends has its uses--disguise yourself first, either as someone you know whom you'd like the target to hate, or as just some random Joe Schmoe, so you take no flak yourself.
And--get this--Wizards can also be decent at Persuasion. In fact, they're better at doing so until very high level, because they only really care about Intelligence; Dex and Con are nice to have, but not critical.
Silverquill Student, Noble (or any of the derivative backgrounds based on it), Faction Agent (e.g. Harper or Zhentarim), or even Urban Bounty Hunter if you want to go for something a little more exotic especially since it includes Thieves' Tools. Play a half-elf, take 16 Int/16 Cha/14 Dex. You'll be a little squishy, but you'll have skills for days and be great at Charisma-related stuff specifically. Hell, if you do take Silverquill Student, now you've got an Int-based vicious mockery, a free once-a-day command, and free choice on your starting spells.
I would recommend friends, fire bolt, and prestidigitation, aiming to pick up message later on for the utility; for 1st-levels magic missile and chromatic orb give you all the offense you need, and mage armor and shield give you all the defense you need, so find familiar and silvery barbs round out the 1st-level roster. Pick up disguise self and charm person at 2nd; at level 3, enhance ability and your preferred offense spell, Tasha's mind whip and scorching ray are top contenders, and at level 4, grab suggestion and your preference among detect thoughts, gift of gab, or invisibility (a crazy useful spell for all seasons, not just social ones). Fill in more combat/utility effects with your 3rd level spells at 5th/6th since none of them are all that special for social stuff, and at higher levels, just keep on the lookout.
And note: I did not sacrifice one iota of combat prowess. This is still a Wizard who can deal versatile damage (chromatic orb, magic missile), protect herself quite well (mage armor, shield), buff her allies (silvery barbs, invisibility, enhance ability), and get some utility effects in as well, with find familiar providing a scout. Spend your extra cash on getting ritual spells, since they have the biggest bang for the buck.
I’m definitely not. I don’t care if fighters have a special fighter feature that makes them good at social challenges because they’re a fighter. They can be good at them, that is all that matters. If a fighter player wants to be especially good, there are subclass options and feats.
Feats that the Wizard can also take. Again, no progress is gained here. There is nothing the Fighter can do that the Wizard cannot also do. Indeed, because Fighters definitely need at least two physical stats (Str/Dex and Con) and Charisma, they're in the hole--they need those extra ASIs just to keep up with the Wizard.
Because if you never have moments like that, it means the class brings nothing special to the table in the areas the game has told you are important. It has been intentionally designed to be terrible at the very things they say "this is an ESSENTIAL part of play."
Designing something to contribute nothing whatsoever to something you've told players is an essential part of play is bad design. Period.
What’s more, why are we having this conversation as if Only the 2014 phb exists? As if a new PHB with broader options for fighters in it won’t be out next year?
Because playtest content isn't current content? Because we are not talking about 5.5e? I've looked at the playtest Fighter. It is a very, very small step in the right direction. Tactical Mind now exists--and was literally only added two weeks ago. It took more than six months to get one weak feature that makes the Fighter class do something, anything, outside of combat.
As you can see, a proposed martial class buff is rejected because it is compared to other martials (which are underpowered) and not against casters (which are overpowered). It is much like a crab bucket. No crab can escape the bucket, because the crabs already in it will pull any would-be escapees back into the pit. It's easy to relate this to the barbarian nerf in the play test. The bear totem barbarian was nerfed because it was the best of the barbarian totems so it had to be dragged down to the level of lesser totems (rather than by allowing the other totems to be buffed to an equivalent level).
No, that is not proof of your claim that "The type of fighter the majority of the 5e community wants doesn't exist in 5E. It will require an additional 1 to 4 new classes." It's not remotely proof. How do you interpret that as proof?
Because there is noticeable large and vocal part of D&D fans want additional feature in the fighter. And WOTC years later, a decade later, is attempting to add them into the fighter.
Just stop making claims about what other people want. You have no idea what other people want. Nor have I read a single person claim that "the fighter is popular so it's perfect and needs no improvements." That's a straw man argument. What various people have broadly suggested is that the popularity of the fighter suggests that the argument that the fighter is underpowered and needs vast upgrades is probably not correct.
Multiple people here in this thread have stated that they want the fighter to have out of combat support, tactical options. and tactical increases, and increased defenses (4 things).
Multiple people here in this thread have stated that fighter does not need these things.
WOTC is playtesting adding these 4 things to the fighter.
WOTC is not revising the 5e fighter for just Minigiant. I wish I had that level of influence.
You’ve come across vastly more like you’re saying that another version would be more popular, not could, and that the existing fighter is only popular due to lack of alternative.
Which is very very different from what you have just said. People are responding to the latter, not the former.
This is because people keep mistaking what popular means when WOTC is talking.
Popular is a function of how often played not satisfaction.
The 2014 Ranger was popular as well. The community hated it however.
Also could become would as the Community who playtested the 2013 version is vastly different from the one currently playing it now. WoTC says D&D is played majorly under 40 years and has a large uptich of fans from other demographics. It would be nearly impossible forso many to beinjected into the community and the favorability of 5e aspects to be constant without a vast cultural constant.
If you aren't arguing for what you want but what the majority of the 5e community wants, why does this majority need your help arguing their case? Why isn't this clear majority making their case here in this thread? Why do you have to point to what is supposedly said on other social media to justify your claim that the view you are arguing for is the majority view? Why can't you point to what is said on Enworld, which is one of the largest D&D forums, to justify your claim about what the majority wants?
The majority is divided. This is why the 2013 playtest shifted so many times.
And where are they? They are here. We get a topic on this every week. Go on Youtube, Reddit, Twitch. I had to stop listening to D&D podcasts because there is somuch whining and complaining and mockery by 5e fans. Do you know how many times I've heard "I know we joke about 5e but I like 5e and isn't okay to like 5e" in a podcast?
It's kind of like arguing about who's most important in an (American) football game. Obviously the QB is ... until he doesn't have a defensive line and they get sacked every turn. Obviously the guy who scores the most touchdowns is the most important, or maybe it's the offensive linemen that put the pressure on the opposition's QB to stop the other team from scoring a bazillion points. It depends on what you think is important and how you measure it.
Different people value different things so different people will come to different conclusions. As the saying goes, there's lies, damn lies and statistics.
I just love that someone out there thinks the defesnive linemen defend the quarterback and the offensive linemen attack the quarterback. In reality it's the exact opposite
I've been planning on making this thread for a while ever since I binged martial/caster balance discussions over a few weeks and read about 300 pages of discussion on the subject. I made a few notes but then put it on hold while doing other things, and now that they came out with the latest play test and nerfed the bear-barian I thought this was appropriate. I post it here rather than in the OneD&D subforum because I believe this is more general and is not primarily about the nerf.
I want to introduce an argument that I saw multiple times in many of these balance discussions, and I name it the Crab Bucket Fallacy. It goes something like this.
Arnold: Fighters are fine as they are. I've never had a problem with having high level Fighters and Wizards in my party.
Bob: Cool, I want to have a real on and off the field martial leader. Here's a draft of the Warlord -- it gets all these powerful cool abilities but I think it's fine because they aren't really better than the Wizard's spells at those levels.
Arnold: Whoa, that's way overpowered. The Fighter doesn't get anything near that.
Bob: I'm not comparing it to the Fighter, I'm comparing it to the Wizard which you said was fine???
Arnold: The Fighter is fine, but no one will play a Fighter if you add this Warlord.
As you can see, a proposed martial class buff is rejected because it is compared to other martials (which are underpowered) and not against casters (which are overpowered). It is much like a crab bucket. No crab can escape the bucket, because the crabs already in it will pull any would-be escapees back into the pit. It's easy to relate this to the barbarian nerf in the play test. The bear totem barbarian was nerfed because it was the best of the barbarian totems so it had to be dragged down to the level of lesser totems (rather than by allowing the other totems to be buffed to an equivalent level).
A number of variations were seen but the form was pretty much the same. You can't buff martial class X because then it will be overpowered compared to martial class Y.
This is obviously a fallacy because you are comparing not against the global optimum (the wizard) but against some local optimum that is not guaranteed to be the global one.
I've also seen a related argument that goes something like this: You can't buff the fighter with utility features because the monk is like a weaker fighter without utility features, and if you give more utility to the fighter, the monk will have nothing.
I feel like this whole post is more of a fallacy than anything it's describing. Is there a name for the Fallacy of 'calling something a fallacy that isn't'?
As evidence consider Fighter 2.0, such that it's built to be of comparable power to the Wizard. It's a perfectly fair complaint that it will essentially eliminate the PHB Fighter - and that's exactly what it will do.
The only contention is whether one thinks essentially replacing the PHB Fighter with Fighter 2.0 and making no other changes to the other classes is a good thing or a bad thing. But no matter the opinion, it's not a fallacy. My personal opinion on this is that when nearly all the martial classes are near PHB Fighter power level then introducing a martial at Wizard power level would be detrimental to the game.
Or to say it another way, what's wrong with creating a Warlord at the PHB Fighter's power level? Or why is a Warlord at the Wizard's power level better for the game than one at the PHB Fighters power level?
