D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[Zardnaar]

Sure, but if you made them squishy or needing that protection (which I see a lot of people saying they want in balance discussions), then suddenly "defendering" becomes vital...and it's just not there, at least, at a baseline.

You have to basically spec into it, and I don't think a lot of Fighter players want to.

That why I sat it's fine as sn option eg on the defender subclass.

Thoughts

Magical fighter
Cool stuff fighter
Pure martial basic fighter
Expert fighter.

 

[James Gasik]

So back in 3e, it was noted that if your class has access to spells, it was light years better than one that didn't. Why?

It comes down to a few factors, but generally it comes down to this: spells are more powerful than most class abilities. Now you might think this is a no brainer, a limited use ability is naturally going to be better than some passive, right?

But the problem is, limited use abilities tend to be weaker than spells!

As a secondary issue, when it comes to customizing a character with more options, you'll notice spell slots tend to come more often than anything else, even on a 1/3 caster chassis. And worse, some classes can trade out which spells they prepare and use each day.

Now, I'm not saying "give all Fighters spells". I get that there's people who don't want that, and I can totally see why. But we can take a cue from spell design here and give Fighters not only more customization options, but modular ones that can be swapped out say on a long rest.

I know, I know. "How is that realistic?" Well it's not. People in the real world can rarely go "yanno what? I'm tired of being a carpenter, I'm going to forget all of that and be an electrician today."

But if you want to improve the Fighter class (and his relatives), making the class more versatile by introducing modularity is a great way to remedy that. It's like the old school weapon specialization- you're told to make this one time decision for the rest of your career. So you become the master of the Hook Fauchard and then a few dungeon crawls later, you find this +2 Greatsword, +4 vs. Chaotic Evil creatures called The Flame of the North that not only has this cool backstory and looks baddass as hell, it even talks when CE creatures are around, telling you to Strike! Strike! Strike!...and the best part is, it's not actually intelligent, so no chance of it taking you over and making you stab yourself because maybe you're not 100% alignment-compatible with it!

So you pick it up and...oh wait. You're not even proficient with it, and won't be until...let's see, you're level 4 so...ugh, level 6!? And not only that, by using this thing, your Hook Fauchard training lies fallow!

"Well, them's the breaks" the DM says. "The world doesn't change because you're in it. Who would make an enchanted hook fauchard anyways?"

"It's a legitimate military weapon used on real world battlefields in antiquity!" You cry, to no avail.

You might say there's no analogy to this situation in 5e, but there totally is. Imagine your Fighter with the Duelist Fighting Style comes across a weapon like The Flame of the North today! Same scenario.

But what if Fighting Styles were modular, and Fighters were designed to be able to swap them out as needed? And got more of them? Maybe even a "Wild Card" Feat that they can swap out whenever desired?

Seems like that would improve the class fantasy and make the class play better without making it blatantly overpowered.

Isn't that worth casually ignoring the hit to "verisimilitude"?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not a big advocate for high lethality in D&D, but when people fall down in my games, they stay down. If the healer wants to keep their comrades in the fight, they damned well need to keep them on their feet.

I make it harder to knock PCs down, and I make sure that down doesn't always mean dead, but down 100% means out.

I support that. I don't want PCs getting back up during combat.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So back in 3e, it was noted that if your class has access to spells, it was light years better than one that didn't. Why?

It comes down to a few factors, but generally it comes down to this: spells are more powerful than most class abilities. Now you might think this is a no brainer, a limited use ability is naturally going to be better than some passive, right?

But the problem is, limited use abilities tend to be weaker than spells!

As a secondary issue, when it comes to customizing a character with more options, you'll notice spell slots tend to come more often than anything else, even on a 1/3 caster chassis. And worse, some classes can trade out which spells they prepare and use each day.

Now, I'm not saying "give all Fighters spells". I get that there's people who don't want that, and I can totally see why. But we can take a cue from spell design here and give Fighters not only more customization options, but modular ones that can be swapped out say on a long rest.

I know, I know. "How is that realistic?" Well it's not. People in the real world can rarely go "yanno what? I'm tired of being a carpenter, I'm going to forget all of that and be an electrician today."

But if you want to improve the Fighter class (and his relatives), making the class more versatile by introducing modularity is a great way to remedy that. It's like the old school weapon specialization- you're told to make this one time decision for the rest of your career. So you become the master of the Hook Fauchard and then a few dungeon crawls later, you find this +2 Greatsword, +4 vs. Chaotic Evil creatures called The Flame of the North that not only has this cool backstory and looks baddass as hell, it even talks when CE creatures are around, telling you to Strike! Strike! Strike!...and the best part is, it's not actually intelligent, so no chance of it taking you over and making you stab yourself because maybe you're not 100% alignment-compatible with it!

So you pick it up and...oh wait. You're not even proficient with it, and won't be until...let's see, you're level 4 so...ugh, level 6!? And not only that, by using this thing, your Hook Fauchard training lies fallow!

"Well, them's the breaks" the DM says. "The world doesn't change because you're in it. Who would make an enchanted hook fauchard anyways?"

"It's a legitimate military weapon used on real world battlefields in antiquity!" You cry, to no avail.

You might say there's no analogy to this situation in 5e, but there totally is. Imagine your Fighter with the Duelist Fighting Style comes across a weapon like The Flame of the North today! Same scenario.

But what if Fighting Styles were modular, and Fighters were designed to be able to swap them out as needed? And got more of them? Maybe even a "Wild Card" Feat that they can swap out whenever desired?

Seems like that would improve the class fantasy and make the class play better without making it blatantly overpowered.

Isn't that worth casually ignoring the hit to "verisimilitude"?

Absolutely not worth it to me. The guy chose to be an expert in an obscure polearm, and not even be proficient in a sword? That's on him.

 

[Zardnaar]

Absolutely not worth it to me. The guy chose to be an expert in an obscure polearm, and not even be proficient in a sword? That's on him.

Yup Longwood l9ngbiw then thr goofy stuff or mace/staff.

I do a players guide on what to expect in terms of magic drops.

Greek Themed bows, spears, short swords, daggers, axes most common items.

 

[James Gasik]

Absolutely not worth it to me. The guy chose to be an expert in an obscure polearm, and not even be proficient in a sword? That's on him.

A greatsword. He could easily be proficient in a short sword, long sword, broad sword, or even a darned khopesh- he's still in the same position.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A greatsword. He could easily be proficient in a short sword, long sword, broad sword, or even a darned khopesh- he's still in the same position.

Then I will back to the hypothetical DM in your example: Them's the breaks.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So back in 3e, it was noted that if your class has access to spells, it was light years better than one that didn't. Why?

It comes down to a few factors, but generally it comes down to this: spells are more powerful than most class abilities. Now you might think this is a no brainer, a limited use ability is naturally going to be better than some passive, right?

Spells are also more versatile & flexible. They have a much greater range of effects, and they can be swapped out. TSR, they could be swapped out on a daily basis. 3e, either that or cast spontaneously. 5e, both.

And, the "limited use" of spells has always become less and less limited as you level. Again, TSR, each spell had to be memorized in advance, so unless you specifically memorized it more than one, each spell was 1/day, but you got more and more of them as you leveled, and the fallback when it wasn't worth it to use the spells was inferior weapons and attack matrixes. 3e, spontaneous casters could spam the same spell as long as they had high-enough level slots, but needed to have a metamagic feat and take a full-round action to benefit from casting in a higher level slot; wizards got scribe scroll from 1st level to expand their spell availability and wands could cheaply add many uses of a low level spell and, casters got slightly better weapons including the convenient to use at range crossbow. 5e, casters get an even better fallback in the form of at-will cantrips, some get back spells or a spell with a short rest, and all cast spontaneously, and up-casting no longer requires a feat or extra casting time - 5e.2024 even floated the idea of down-casting.
On top of that, the culture of D&D has somehow floated even closer to the 5MWD, with surveys revealing most campaign having 1-3 encounter days, with single-encounter days the most prevalent. (??? I could understand, back in the day, when you were very low level and the cleric was out of healing and you were all hurt, packing it in and resting, even if you hadn't gotten very far... but it's all so easy, now, a short rest and you heal up without wasting the Cleric's spells, you have cantrips to use instead of slots in less important encounters, ironically, the crappy healing & concentration mechanics of 5e act as features that reduce the impulse to waste of slots. ???)

Now, I'm not saying "give all Fighters spells". I get that there's people who don't want that, and I can totally see why. But we can take a cue from spell design here and give Fighters not only more customization options, but modular ones that can be swapped out say on a long rest.

Why even a long rest, why not draw a different weapon, bring a different set of maneuvers to the party? If martials can't have powers to rival even low level spells, why not give them greater flexibility than spells?

If it doesn't seem realistic/verysmileytoodynus to do so, well, there's no such restriction on the conceptualization of magic, so give casters far fewer slots, like 1/day at first, and 1 more per Tier after that.

I know, I know. "How is that realistic?"

While athletes, today, may focus on one sport (say, one weapon, in fencing) or even one position in their chosen sport, that's a modern thing. In the past, a knight or warrior would be expert with several weapons, for different purposes, in addition to being exceptional in other fields, as well - they were generally the upper classes, they had free time to master multiple interests.
It's also genre appropriate, heroes are frequently gifted individuals who seem to be good at anything they turn their hand too - an echo of the ancient beliefs in the innate superiority of the upper classes (OK, not that ancient, not even that old).

It's like the old school weapon specialization- you're told to make this one time decision for the rest of your career. So you become the master of the Hook Fauchard and then a few dungeon crawls later, you find this +2 Greatsword,...So you pick it up and...oh wait. You're not even proficient with it, and won't be until...let's see, you're level 4 so...ugh, level 6!? And not only that, by using this thing, your Hook Fauchard training lies fallow!

"Well, them's the breaks" the DM says. "The world doesn't change because you're in it. Who would make an enchanted hook fauchard anyways?"

It really wasn't a great weapon back in the day, but, like Ransuer was pretty amazing.

But, like, magic is supposed to be hard, right? This lifetime of study? The fighter can start play in his teens, the wiz is likely in his 30s in 1e, IIRC.
Well, in 1e, an arch-mage can "know" a minimum of 81 spells (max 171 - but it's unlikely he'd be able to find that many), memorize 34 of them, and is proficient in 4 weapons (ironically, only 3 were usable by magic-users - UA might've added one?), the same-level fighter is proficient in 10 weapons, 9 if he took UA specialization at 1st level, 8 if that was bow spec - and that's it, no skills, no spells, no special abilities.

 

[mamba]

However it is unfortunately not possible to do this in a vacuum and not also consider all the changes to spellcasters, particularly wizards.

so you are saying the Fighter got weaker because the Wizard got stronger and doesn’t need them for protection any more?

That is an awful reason, if everything else gets buffed, the Fighter should get buffed too, not nerfed and rendered obsolete

 

[Neonchameleon]

So back in 3e, it was noted that if your class has access to spells, it was light years better than one that didn't. Why?

It comes down to a few factors, but generally it comes down to this: spells are more powerful than most class abilities. Now you might think this is a no brainer, a limited use ability is naturally going to be better than some passive, right?

But the problem is, limited use abilities tend to be weaker than spells!

The way it should work is that the effect of passive abilities is multiplicative, the effect of single use abilities is additive. A to hit buff, a damage buff, and an extra attack all each make the others more powerful. And even the impact of a limited use ability like Action Surge is multiplied by these abilities.

The problem is that the math is borked and the optional limited use abilities are used at the right time both for them and at the big moments.