D&D 5E The Fighter Extra Feat Fallacy

[James Gasik]

The fighter's higher level abilities need some work as well- the super underwhelming ability to reroll a save comes to mind; more save proficiency would have been A LOT better (and been more like the AD&D fighter).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The fighter is more or less fine. Especially with feats in play. If you play without feats it is important to spread your stats in the beginning so you can make good use of your 4 early stat increases. 16 to 20 str. Then raise con. With point buy you won't come into the situation where you can't increase those two stats with your first 4 feats... except as a mountain dwarf.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

I have. Via the simple expedient of not using multi-classing. ;P

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.

Background literally comes from "Background," with which personality traits are also associated. Mechanical support for the character's abilities - most of the player's practical agency - comes from class.

So, we see RANGER/fighters, PALADIN/fighters or whatever.

Mearls has lamented making the fighter so 'generic' (But, really, to avoid that he'd've had to have had more magic-optional classes, maybe even a genuinely non-magical class.)

The problem is that the Fighter doesn't get anything that wows so it appears to be weaker ...

Action Surge + Extra Attack = 'Wow.'
The fighter also has second-best HD, good armor & weapons, and can literally be the strongest (STR primary) PC in the party - it doesn't appear 'weak,' it's just profoundly lacking in versatility and interest, and on close analysis, has no particular advantage in sheer combat power.

I would say the 5th edition fighter is probably better and more fun than either AD&D or d20!

Considering the 3.x/PF fighter was Tier 5 and the AD&D fighter was feature-impoverished, that's an incredibly low bar. ;P Even then, I think 'better or more fun' would be fairer - the 3.x fighter may have been deeply inferior, and the 5e fighter less inferior, but the cusomizeability and elegance of the 3.x fighter could be a lot of fun to work with, and even, when executed exceptionally well, to play.

And since 5e offers better options to fleshing out your Fighter concept (backgrounds, multiclassing, not to mention three subclasses built-in)

Better than 1e AD&D, or Basic, anyway. Every edition had MCing, only in 5e is it DM opt-in, only. 2e offered Kits, BECMI reputedly had all sorts of stuff I'm not familiar with, 3e had far more bonus feats, and 4e had backgrounds, two variations on MCing, three sub-classes - even more if you consider 'builds' of the retconned 'weaponmaster' sub-class, and hundreds of powers, just for the fighter, plus two more comparably-developed and option-rich non-caster classes that the 5e fighter vainly tries to cover.

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

The 5e fighter bears virtually no resemblance to the 3.x fighter, which was a uniquely elegant design - even if it did have the misfortune of being dropped in Tier 5.

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 game could always go there and let DMs who wanted a strictly inferior fighter shave off the features they don't want.

 

[Sacrosanct]

A few more observations:

1. The class survey we did just a little while ago, 70% of people said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the fighter. Therefore, it doesn't need to be redone or changed or altered. Maybe at your personal table, but hardly an objective thing wrong with the class in general.

2. Saying that there have been a lot of fighter dissatisfaction threads so it proves the fighter has problems isn't true. Those threads are all created by the same half dozen people, often some of them creating the same anti-fighter thread every couple months. I don't know why, maybe because they eventually expect a different result from every other thread after the 10th or 20th time they create a new one? So the number of anti-fighter threads is hardly representative of a larger problem of the class in general when it's the same people creating them over and over.

*Edit* And one more I forgot

3. Fighters are built around consistency over an indefinite period of time. If your style of game play is to have short rests after every encounter, and only a couple encounters per long rest, then it's no wonder why the paladin or barbarian seems better. But if you play with more encounters per rest, then after the barbarian or paladin's abilities have been spent, the fighter is still churning out strong consistent damage. Especially when they get 3 attacks. In a non combat sense, long after the bard or wizard ran out of spells, the fighter can keep getting benefits from the extra ASI bonus and other class abilities for infinity. So a person's impression of the fighter may depend largely on the style of game play in the context of how frequent rests are between encounters.

 

[smbakeresq]

Well I see the problem with the 5e fighter as this:

1. In 4E fighters had good abilities with cool names that were separate from other classes - a "hook" as it were. 4e fighter abilities had some of the best names of all the abilities.
2. In 3-3.5 Fighters had feats only fighters would take and those feats came early, so you got something going right out of the gate that defined your fighter as different from other classes.
3. If you used the Tomb and had access to Warblade and other stuff then you had the best the fighter has ever been in D&D.


in 5e the fighter plays just ok, but doesn't have that hook that makes it different. The things that make you different from other classes come to late. The extra attacks that all fighters get comes too late, by the time 11th level rolls around for that extra attack you get the Paladin has been attacking the same as you plus smiting for 11 levels and healing himself and been immune to diseases and other things, the Barbarian has been attacking with advantage while taking half damage from most things while in rage and moving faster and getting advantage on initiative, etc. Rangers get to hunters mark people and some good fighting style options.

Once per rest you get attack twice more, if you build a BM and riposte every chance you can get 5 extra attacks in between your regular attack sequence, that's 7 additional attacks by level 7. The Monk has been speeding around slapping people 3-4 times a round many times between rests while being immune to most things, at level 7 with Flurry he will get 14 additional attacks outside of his regular attack sequence.

The fighter has a collection of abilities that are about half way as good as other martial classes that are more specialized, I think the design idea as a "generalist chassis" was a decent idea but those abilities need to go further.

Things I would do? Simple things that I think might give it more of a hook:

1. Heavy Armor only goes to fighter and Paladin.
2. I did like the marking ability, if you use it fighters only get it.
3. Fighting styles probably should be exclusive to fighters only or fighters should get to choose more of them.
4. The Champion subclass should get to pick the additional fighting styles starting at level 4 and then get another one every 4 levels so you have 5 by level 20. A true expert in fighting.
5. Fighters should be proficient with all weapons, including improvised ones.
6. Athletics should be a free skill for the class.
7. Remarkable athlete should apply to things you are proficient in also. That Champion should get extra bonus on those Str checks to shove people, he is a remarkable athlete.


these are just a few ideas.

 

[Greg Benage]

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 don't have a large sample size, because I don't run short campaigns. But we have a single-classed Battlemaster in my campaign that went to 20th level. Now, with rare-to-legendary magic items, he was a superhero like everyone else at max level, but he was still a single-classed fighter. When it came time to put direct damage down in a hurry, he was still the go-to guy with his flametongue greatsword and 4-8 attacks per round. He didn't have a lot of exploration-pillar abilities, but he was great in social pillar (I assume most 20th level characters can hold their own in society).

 

[Mort]

I've had a ranger and a paladin but haven't seen a fighter in my home game yet.

I have seen it at Gen Con a few times and the fighter really seemed to lag behind the barbarian at low levels.

Specifically, at 2nd and 3rd level the barbarian was hitting seemingly all the time (reckless attack) and wasn't really seeing the downside of advantage to the monsters (the monsters tended to hit the fighter too and the barbarian was much better at soaking the damage).

Some possible changes when someone decides on a fighter in my game (no idea which if any I will implement):

1. Have Second wind scale a bit better - maybe like cantrip damage does.

2. Can pick a weapon style at every level (maybe every other level?) this will solidify the fighter as having the best range with various weapons. If someone wants to dip into fighter for 4-8 levels, that's not really a downside.

3. Have the fighter 2nd attack come at 3rd level (shift the others up accordingly). I somehow doubt this will cause 3 level dips all that often (at least in my game)

4. Change Indomitable back to the way it was in the playtest: When the fighter fails a save he can choose to make it instead (sure it's beefy, but that's the point). Move it way up maybe even one use at 3rd or 4th level. May even change it to once a short rest, saves are extremely common in every adventure.

Guess I'll cross that bridge when it comes up.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Things I would do? Simple things that I think might give it more of a hook:

1. Heavy Armor only goes to fighter and Paladin.
2. I did like the marking ability, if you use it fighters only get it.
3. Fighting styles probably should be exclusive to fighters only or fighters should get to choose more of them.
4. The Champion subclass should get to pick the additional fighting styles starting at level 4 and then get another one every 4 levels so you have 5 by level 20. A true expert in fighting.
5. Fighters should be proficient with all weapons, including improvised ones.
6. Athletics should be a free skill for the class.
7. Remarkable athlete should apply to things you are proficient in also. That Champion should get extra bonus on those Str checks to shove people, he is a remarkable athlete.

Some possible changes when someone decides on a fighter in my game (no idea which if any I will implement):
1. Have Second wind scale a bit better - maybe like cantrip damage does.
2. Can pick a weapon style at every level (maybe every other level?) this will solidify the fighter as having the best range with various weapons. If someone wants to dip into fighter for 4-8 levels, that's not really a downside.
3. Have the fighter 2nd attack come at 3rd level (shift the others up accordingly). I somehow doubt this will cause 3 level dips all that often (at least in my game)
4. Change Indomitable back to the way it was in the playtest: When the fighter fails a save he can choose to make it instead (sure it's beefy, but that's the point). Move it way up maybe even one use at 3rd or 4th level. May even change it to once a short rest, saves are extremely common in every adventure.

Adding to the brainstorming:
1. Opt-out of feats, but allow the Fighter's bonus ASIs to be used for feats (feats become a fighter class feature).
2. Push out extra attack for non-fighters by one or more levels, possibly all the way to 11th, so the fighter just plain always gets more Extra attacks. Reduce cantrip scaling, if necessary, to match.
3. Sort better maneuvers into higher 'level' and add additional superior maneuvers at high level.
4. Extra Attack adds to your reactions available to make OAs and other off-turn combat maneuvers, including weapon-combat feats/styles that use reactions.
5. Fighters get proficiency bonus (based on fighter level only) to non-proficient saves vs Fear, expands to include charm at higher level.
6. Fighters who do not cast spells or gain magical abilities (whether through sub-class choice, feats or MCing) get proficiency bonus (based on fighter level only) to saves vs magic.
7. The Champion gains proficiency in all non-proficient saves (based only on fighter level), and, at higher level, actual Magic Resistance so long as it gains no magical abilities (from MCing or feats).
8. Indomitable is an auto-save, and recovered per short rest.
9. Champion gains a bonus HD, only for purposes of available HD for healing & recovery thereof, not for total hps, at 3rd level, and another for each 3 levels thereafter.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - you don't need to be a freaking paladin or ranger to *roleplay* an interesting character. What on earth is this? I'm at a lost here. Play a samurai, a Mongol warrior, a pirate, a Spanish fencer, a cunning mercenary, a world weary veteran... all these can be done perfectly fine with a fighter.

Why? Why do you need to be a paladin or ranger (or barbarian I assume) to roleplay? WHY? "oh I can't roleplay a pirate, I don't have a +2 bonus to damage while on a ship" - is that it!?!? I'm baffled here.

Again, there's my point. NOTHING you just listed is a "fighter". It's a background. I can be a samurai or a pirate or a cunning mercenary with any class. In fact, other classes would probably do the job better. Certainly ranger would be a far better pirate than fighter.

The point I'm making is that the base classes other than fighter, actually come with a roleplaying hook. You're an Oath of Ancients paladin. That says a LOT about your character. You're a fighter. That says... you can use a sword and wear armor? The class contributes virtually nothing to the actual character.

 

[Hussar]

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


Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

I'm sorry, but, I'm just not seeing it.

Sure, a fighter archer may be a better archer than a paladin archer, no problem. But a ranger archer is going to put that fighter to shame. The fighter just can't possibly keep up before 11th level. Not when I've got a guaranteed d8 bonus damage every round (or nearly every round) from colossus slayer, and then hunter's mark. So, I'm pretty much always doing 3d8 bonus damage every single round as an archer ranger. You can't possibly do as much damage. And, before you bring up feats, I've got advantage on my attacks in the first round of combat as a ranger, so, giving me Sharpshooter makes me even better.

By 6th level, the only advantage you have as a fighter is an ASI. Whoopee, you're +1 to hit and damage better than me. At most, six extra attacks per day. Again, compared to my up to 3d8 bonus damage every single round, you can't come even close to competing.

And if it takes you 11 levels just to catch up, that's poor game design.