D&D 5E The Fighter Extra Feat Fallacy

[Lehrbuch]

All that stuff - personality, background, all the actual role playing stuff - comes from the other class.

Personality traits and backgrounds are not part of any Class?

 

[Sunseeker]

What? You're saying repeating the design of the 3.5 Fighter with only minor adjustments didn't make much of a difference!?

It's almost like we learned something from 3.5 class design!

Unless you're willing to have a Wuxia Fighter, you're never going to get the Fighter on par with other damage-dealing classes.

 

[Pauln6]

Missing the point. The point is, that while taking fighter levels is certainly common, I've yet to see a single classed fighter. Fighter is the dip class. It's what you take to give your character a bit of oomph. But, it's not what I've seen taken as part of the personality of the character. All that stuff - personality, background, all the actual role playing stuff - comes from the other class. So, we see RANGER/fighters, PALADIN/fighters or whatever.

I've yet to see a FIGHTER.

I agree that it's more often a dip class but that may be down to the experience of my players. They rarely play single classes as they've been around the block. However, we've got three single class fighters and one with a Bard dip.

The problem is that the Fighter doesn't get anything that wows so it appears to be weaker but that's largely an illusion. Many of those sneak dice are wasted for example.

That said, making a fighter a good class to dip into is a feature. The problem might be that it suffers from dead levels. Maybe allowing a skill or tool proficiency if you already have a second attack might at least give something there beyond hp.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I played a Fighter/Champion to 20. He was awesome. In one encounter, he was able to solo a titan in two rounds while the entire rest of the party was handling the other titan. Fighters are amazing at combat.

 

[Li Shenron]

Many Posts since the release of 5e have brought up some shortcomings of the Fighter design. Raising these concerns is usually met with the sage advice "The Fighter gets two extra feats use them to fix the issue".

Other classes are out damaging the Fighter - Use your extra feats
My Fighter can't do much in the Exploration pillar - Use your extra feats
My Fighter can't do much in the Social pillar - Use your extra feats
My Non AC defences are bad - Use your extra feats
etc.

Now the first issue is obvious, you only get 2 extra feats.......well sort of. WoTC numbers showed that most games go up to 12th level meaning you get 1 extra feat half way and the second right at the end where it does not impact as much as it should. The second issue is that the Fighter sacrifices ability in the Exploration and Social Pillars to be "The Best" in Combat, so it should be ahead in combat by default not by spending it's limited resource. This is of course if feats are allowed in your game, feats being optional and all.

I am interested to hear the thoughts of others on this. Now I need to be off so I can hide from the Spellcasters Supremacy League and the "Fighters Can't Have Nice Things" arm of the Grognard Alliance.

My own spare opinions:

- the Fighter really gets more feats only because it doesn't get more class abilities: all levels need to grant something, so they other grant a class ability, a subclass ability or a feat/ASI; the designers could have come up with two more class common abilities, and extra feats would have not been needed (I don't think either design solution is significantly better than the other)

- the Fighter class represents someone focused on learning how to fight, or at least generally improving her capabilities in a physical confrontation; nothing else is really needed, and anything non-combat related that is added to the class inherently decreases the maximum amount of combat-related stuff a Fighter can have, so even if it might help some player's design, it ends up taking away something from another player

- it doesn't matter how a combat ability is delivered by the rules, via feats or (sub)class abilities or racial features etc, in the end it matters only that it is a combat ability (or something else)

- feats are the ultimately "open-ended" abilities, as they can be anything and for any pillar: as such, anything that is not a feat of choice is always more specific, and therefore it means less freedom; too much freedom can work against the "role" nature of the game (that's why we have classes to help nailing a role for your character), but among all classes perhaps the Fighter is pretty much the one which - giving the kind of generic character concept - benefits most from a little additional freedom of choice... exactly because some people want a Fighter with abilities in non-combat pillars, while others want it only with combat abilities

 

[CapnZapp]

Missing the point. The point is, that while taking fighter levels is certainly common, I've yet to see a single classed fighter. Fighter is the dip class. It's what you take to give your character a bit of oomph. But, it's not what I've seen taken as part of the personality of the character. All that stuff - personality, background, all the actual role playing stuff - comes from the other class. So, we see RANGER/fighters, PALADIN/fighters or whatever.

I've yet to see a FIGHTER.

My last campaign, featuring at least somewhat minmax-aware players, featured three players with Fighter levels.

One Eldritch Knight. This character stayed single-clsssed into the double-digits (it eventually took a level of Barbarian to take advantage of ability items looted)

One "Ranger" which actually was more Fighter (BM) than Ranger (H).

And one Monk with four levels of Fighter.

I really don't see how the Fighter can be considered weak or unattractive.

That you should see a single-classed Fighter that never dips is unreasonable. Most of the martial classes have tepid high-level class features that are easily outshone by the low-level features of another class.

That martial classes mix and match well is something to be considered a success! Not a design failure.

If there's a weakness in class design it's high-level class features. But that goes for all the classes! If it weren't for the high-level spells of caster classes, their high class levels would have been considered tepid just as well!

In short, I don't see the class as a failure. In fact, I would say the 5th edition fighter is probably better and more fun than either AD&D or d20!

And since 5e offers better options to fleshing out your Fighter concept (backgrounds, multiclassing, not to mention three subclasses built-in) I really don't see what the fuss is about...

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[Sadras]

I can't imagine playing with someone who would risk letting the failure of the entire group fall on their own conscious decision to play a character who was obviously less competent where it counts - in life-or-death situations.

There are levels of optimization, and the most basic level is just putting your good score in your attack stat. That's the minimum level of competence which is implied by the unspoken social contract. If a player isn't even willing to do that - if I would be put into the position of convincing them to fulfill this minor obligation to the group endeavor - then I already know they aren't a team player, and I probably don't want to play with them. Group activities require the participation of everyone involved, and if they aren't even going to play in good faith, then I don't want them ruining the game for everyone else.

To answer your previous question about hiring an archer: If he was just a recruit (an NPC), then sure I might go for the better archer, but if we are discussing a PC that is different. There might be a backstory why he is an orator or diplomant.
I might offer advice or a suggestion to the player on a PC build, afterall I play with friends and we have that level of comfort, but I will not force him to play anything he doesn't want to since that would probably be more detrimental to the group and the campaign. I certainly do not define non-optimisation as non-team player behaviour - just because you didnt up your STR as a fighter to 20 and instead opted to increase INT or CHA.

Like I said in my initial post to you - I think we have differing playstyles, and that is ok. Even at our table we don't all build characters the same way.

There is also another factor which I believe can influence character design - one's recent character history:
I'm currently involved in a Westeros (Song of Fire and Ice) game, in which I'm playing an optimised fighter type, somewhat of a confident, take-charge character. In a Pathfinder game we recently started, I'm playing a Gnome cleric specialised in all fields of Knowledge, Appraisal and Linguistics who doesn't carry a weapon and prefers to remain very much in the backround until he deems it necessary to offer advice/input/assistance.

With the former character I drive the story as natural leader and through my actions, risking harm to myself to save others. In the Pathfinder game, I wanted to play someone less optimised and quite different to my Westeros warrior. The gnome drives the story through the information and insight he provides to the party. He is useful in combat, but much less useful than a fully optimised battle cleric. I would not consider him a non-team player.

 

[CapnZapp]

Unless you're willing to have a Wuxia Fighter, you're never going to get the Fighter on par with other damage-dealing classes.

The fighter is on par with other damage-dealing classes.


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[FlyingChihuahua]

The fighter is on par with other damage-dealing classes.[/URL]

Exactly.

What the Fighter doesn't have in burst damage, they have in consistency.

And they can still burst pretty well with Action Surge and a (weapon here) of (monster you're fighting here) slaying.

 

[CapnZapp]

Exactly.

What the Fighter doesn't have in burst damage, they have in consistency.

And they can still burst pretty well with Action Surge and a (weapon here) of (monster you're fighting here) slaying.

Not to mention what they can do when minmaxed properly (advantage, precision, GWM/CE etc)

I do agree that if you ONLY watch the fighter between levels 6-10 it doesn't have much of a stand-out feature. This is because the Paladins and the Barbarians have just got their frontloaded and very cool stuff, and the Fighter has not yet gotten his third attack.

But that hardly means the entire class is badly designed.

That said, I believe there's consensus the Battlemaster got a little too much at once.

Imagine if the Battlemaster's maneuvers were properly tiered, so you had to choose among the lesser ones at level 3. Then you could gain more at level 6 or 8, and be able to pick from the better ones. Suddenly those levels wouldn't feel so empty.