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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5965088" data-attributes="member: 996">Perhaps because he is neither in nor of the real world.So, again, we face the pervasive double-standard that has calcified around martial archetypes in D&D.  While classic D&D took inspiration for magical abilities from every conceivable source, from myth and legend, to literature, to fantasy and science-fiction film and TV, and made them into spells that could be cast and items that could (eventually) be made, martial archetypes were made super-humanly durable, deadly, and lucky, but not given much along the lines of detailed extraordinary abilities drawn from the same sources as magic was.  The community from fairly early on, ran in that direction, limiting characters without magic to fairly strict RL-realism, and leaving the door open for magic to do just anything.  The inherent mechanical imbalances in the game itself much surely have encouraged this, and the two fed on eachother.Each edition has /tried/ to do something for mundane PC, the Fighter, particularly:  AD&D gave the fighter percentile strength and a track to becoming a fuedal lord.  2e made fighters into insanely high-damage TWF or Bow double-specialists with sheer number of attacks and damage bonuses going completely over the top.  3e gave the fighter more than double the feats of any other class, giving it great customizeability.   But, all the big numbers of AD&D 1&2e did was make the fighter effective in his boring routine of hitting whatever was in front of him until it died, and all the 'specialization' of 2e and feats of 3.x accomplished was to take what the fighter could do, cut it up into player-chosen pieces, and make him /bad/ at whatever he didn't choose.  4e also tried to 'fix' the fighter, but it started by 'fixing' eveyone else, too.  It put classes on a common advancement scheme, which gave a firm foundation for balance.  With exploits to match spells, fighters had some of the agency, versatility and peak power that casters had.  But, it still suffered from pigeon-holing the fighter and giving casters much greater flexibility.  The 4e fighter was balanced, and it was an excellent defender, but it was stuck in a melee-only box, and it's powers revolved around endless variations of hitting/pushing enemies and shuffling around.  While it mixed things up and made the class a lot more interesting, it never approached the in-combat versatility of caster classes, which broader range of attack-types/range, damage types, utilities and the like.  And, the fighter was still left sadly lacking in the skills department, with little to do out of combat. 5e could continue to try to improve upon the fighter, making him more contributing and balanced out of combat, more customizeable (in the sense of being able to do choose to do a bit /more/ than just the base-line combat stuff, not in the sense of being able to become a one-trick pony by 'specializing'), and more engaging with greater agency.  Obviously, the 5e playtest fighter was just a placeholder, but, as it's the only solid thing we have to go on, at this point, 5e has failed the fighter utterly.  I keep thinking this is what the designers are planning to do with 5e, but they haven't come right out and said it, and I'm not sure the crowd who rejected 4e will accept it.  That still a lotta spells - best what the absolute greatest magicians of Jack Vance's Dying Earth could memorize.  In the Dying Earth, there were also only about 100 spells in existence for magicians to uncover.4e gives capture scenarios as a possible Skill Challenge.  Details would be up to the DM.  Capture scenarios have /never/ worked well in D&D, though, and 4e is no different in that regard.</blockquote>

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