D&D 5E The Fighter Extra Feat Fallacy

[James Gasik]

Even Gary Gygax, who gave us the super generic "fighting man", had this to say on the topic of realism:

“I have personally come to suspect that this banner is the refuge of scoundrels; whether the last or first refuge is immaterial. When fantasy games are criticized for being ‘unrealistic’ … the sheer magnitude of the misconception absolutely astounds me! … the absurdity of a cry for ‘realism’ in a pure fantasy game seems so evident that I am overwhelmed when such confronts me.”

Expecting realism in a fantasy game, is, well, unrealistic. Perhaps high-level D&D characters should be able to wrestle with giants, bring down fortress gates with one hand, and make their enemies freeze in their tracks with a battle shout.

 

[Mistwell]

The guy can't even get Whirlwind Attack anymore!

At 11th level you get three attacks. Action surge gets you another three attacks. You then get a bonus action, and a reaction. And, unlike whirlwind attack, you can MOVE between attacks! Fighter still gets it, it's just better now. And at 20th level you get four attacks, which means another four for action surge. And then of course you could have haste, but that's getting silly.

 

[James Gasik]

Or, you know, you could just play a Ranger and have it by level 11. Of course, you won't do that, because it's a sub-optimal choice for the Ranger...but far too good for the Fighter.

 

[Imaro]

Even Gary Gygax, who gave us the super generic "fighting man", had this to say on the topic of realism:

“I have personally come to suspect that this banner is the refuge of scoundrels; whether the last or first refuge is immaterial. When fantasy games are criticized for being ‘unrealistic’ … the sheer magnitude of the misconception absolutely astounds me! … the absurdity of a cry for ‘realism’ in a pure fantasy game seems so evident that I am overwhelmed when such confronts me.”

Expecting realism in a fantasy game, is, well, unrealistic. Perhaps high-level D&D characters should be able to wrestle with giants, bring down fortress gates with one hand, and make their enemies freeze in their tracks with a battle shout.

Whose advocating for realism in their fighter? Or is the claim now Conan and the Punisher are realistically modeled off of the common man? What I'm seeing is people who want varying levels of heroic... again it's Batman vs. Superman... neither of which is realistic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

At 11th level you get three attacks. Action surge gets you another three attacks. You then get a bonus action, and a reaction.

Which, depending on your weapon may or may not be usable for two more attacks. Still, granting that it's 8 attacks, at 11th level, just enough to attack each adjacent enemy on a typical grid when surrounded.

Now, in 3e, you could WWA with a reach weapon, like the infamous spiked chain, and attack every enemy w/in 10. Human-sized enemies completely surrounding you, that's 24. Can you make 24 attacks in 5e in one action? No. You can blow up that many or more human-sized enemies in a 20' radius with a 3rd level spell, but no way you're /attacking/ that many.

But, it doesn't stop there, the 3e fighter could then make trip attacks on all of 'em, to, and the ones who try to get up after, they provoke AoOs, and the fighter, with combat reflexes, can take an extra AoO per point of DEX bonus. The fighter like this I played in 3.0 only had a 16 DEX (no items, we never came close to the wealth/level standards in that campaign), but that's 4 very probable AoOs. That's up to a potential 28 attacks in one round.

Oh, and this 3e fighter is 6th level.

And still Tier 5.

And, unlike whirlwind attack, you can MOVE between attacks!

Yep, you can.

OTOH, the 6th-level 3e fighter can do the whole thing again, in the same combat, until he runs out of hps or enemies. Because WWA was just a feat, not a 1/rest feature.

Fighter still gets it, it's just better now.

Once between short rests vs up to 8 enemies at 11th is very clearly inferior to every round vs up to 24 enemies, at 6th level. And the 3e fighter isn't even fully optimized yet, he's just filled in the preqs to /get/ WWA. Give him an Enlarge potion and see what happens. I think there may even have been a PRC that /did/ let you move during your WWA...
... Or, y'know, add Great Cleave under 3.0 rules for the original Bag o' Rats.

And at 20th level you get four attacks, which means another four for action surge. And then of course you could have haste, but that's getting silly.

Not that silly. You are comparing to 3e here, remember. 5e can't hold a candle to that kinda crazy...

4e, OTOH, 5e should beat the 4e fighter all hollow at faux-WWA because 4e was so tightly-tactical and balance-obsessed (a feature like Extra Attack would never have flown in 4e!), the weak step-child of the editions, that way...

 

[Lehrbuch]

Was Conan boring? He had a sword. He hacked people to death with it. That was it....

He's also a Barbarian.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Flat out: I want the option to play a class/subclass that has no magical, supernatural, or superhuman features.

Then what are you doing in the 5e forums?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Then what are you doing in the 5e forums?

In the proud tradition of the D&D Community: Complaining.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In the proud tradition of the D&D Community: Complaining.

Seriously, though: 5e does have that pesky 'everyone who ever loved D&D,' so if he loved D&D for letting him play some utterly mundane fighter at some point, 5e should accomodate him, somehow - and it certainly seems to be doing so, or he wouldn't be so flustered at the prospect of someone else getting to play the much less mundane, but still non-magical fighter he loved playing in some other edition...

...FWIW.

 

[Hussar]

If you're one of those people who heavily argue for optimization, I bet I could come pretty close.



It's not magical healing. It can be a simple as adrenaline. HP haven't ever been meat. They've included things like luck, experience, etc since day 1. It's pretty clearly defined as such in the 1e PHB.

Put your money where your mouth is. Let's see you predict my 8th level human ranger using standard array's stats. You're saying that you can come close, so, let's see it.