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

[Zardnaar]

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

Kinda brainstorming breaking out my playtest stuff from 2014.

Basically overhaul the saves bring back SR.

Basic fighter eg champion will likely be tough as guts. Fighter version of uncanny dodge, second wind and action surge probably get multiple uses per short rest, more saves.

Probably bring back scaling damage spells to compensate. Fireball will drop from 8d6 back down to 5d6 buy scale up to 10d6.

But yeah spells will fail a lot more.

 

[Bluenose]

Ranged Defender could work with explicitly magical abilities. Half of the sharpshooter feat, an aure something like that.

Being shot at is quite a distraction, makes it a lot harder to do pretty much anything as effectively as you would in normal circumstances. That's not theory; that's based on evidence assembled by militaries since before Napoleon was a general. Equally, someone trying to hit you in melee isn't something you ignore in favour of trying to do something else.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Being shot at is quite a distraction, makes it a lot harder to do pretty much anything as effectively as you would in normal circumstances. That's not theory; that's based on evidence assembled by militaries since before Napoleon was a general. Equally, someone trying to hit you in melee isn't something you ignore in favour of trying to do something else.

OK, a modern ranged defender engaging in suppression fire is easy enough to visualize.

 

[Zardnaar]

Being shot at is quite a distraction, makes it a lot harder to do pretty much anything as effectively as you would in normal circumstances. That's not theory; that's based on evidence assembled by militaries since before Napoleon was a general. Equally, someone trying to hit you in melee isn't something you ignore in favour of trying to do something else.

Magic.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don't know what to say to that, other than, outside of a not-terribly popular subclass, where are all the Defender Fighters now?

I don’t think we can blame the Cavalier’s unpopularity on it being the most defensive Fighter.

It’s theme is kind of bland (even blander than the Samuai, and that’s saying something!). If you are anticipating adventuring in dungeons and urban environments, your first choice probably wouldn’t be a class known for riding things, and it’s not obvious from the name and theme that it is a defensive oriented subclass.

 

[James Gasik]

I don’t think we can blame the Cavalier’s unpopularity on it being the most defensive Fighter.

It’s theme is kind of bland (even blander than the Samuai, and that’s saying something!). If you are anticipating adventuring in dungeons and urban environments, your first choice probably wouldn’t be a class known for riding things, and it’s not obvious from the name and theme that it is a defensive oriented subclass.

So what, it's all about branding? People see "Cavalier" and they don't even read it, they just go "ah, some mounted combat thing" and move on?

I mean, I get the complaint that people read it expecting it to be a great mounted combat subclass and it's not, lol.

But even if there's something to that, how do we explain why Ancestral Guardians and Armorer Artificers aren't all over the place, if people really want to assume the defender role?

 

[FrozenNorth]

So what, it's all about branding? People see "Cavalier" and they don't even read it, they just go "ah, some mounted combat thing" and move on?

I mean, I get the complaint that people read it expecting it to be a great mounted combat subclass and it's not, lol.

But even if there's something to that, how do we explain why Ancestral Guardians and Armorer Artificers aren't all over the place, if people really want to assume the defender role?

I gave three reasons why the Cavalier might not be popular, let me add a 4th:

• the theme itself is rather bland;
• the theme may conflict with the campaign;
• the theme doesn’t dovetail with the mechanics;
• subclasses in later books don’t see as much play as core classes in the PHB.

I haven’t seen very many Barbs and Artificers in play period. The Artificer I saw in play was a Battlesmith, because pet classes will always be popular.

 

[Bluenose]

OK, a modern ranged defender engaging in suppression fire is easy enough to visualize.

There are plenty of examples of the same effect with pre-modern weaponry. Having danger around, whether it's from a flintlock musket or a bow or something else that's only shooting occasionally will do just as good a job.

 

[FrogReaver]

Which is how they are handled now, but the issue I've noted is, if you give someone a choice between being a damage dealer or a protector, a lot of people choose violence, lol.

Which creates a paradigm that if you're a caster, you need to tend to your own defense, you can't rely on someone to do (or even be able to) do it for you.

Which means if you knock casters back down to AD&D levels of survivability without changing anything else, you're going to get a lot of dead pointy hats.

Or a lot of DM's kindly using fiat in order to actually keep them alive.

I’d suggest behavior goes both ways.

As of right now casters are often just as tanky as the martials. A stereotypical wizards can have 8 hp, 16 AC with mage armor, a shield spell and use either sleep or magic missile to take out whatever is in front of him. Or if the wizard multiclasses he can match or surpass most fighters AC (most fighters don’t use shields).

In short, outside a few hp - which defensive and control spells easily make up for - the wizard can easily be just as tanky as the fighter - if not more so depending on specific builds of each. So mechanically why would a fighter want to try and defend the wizard? Maybe to help keep a concentration spell going? Other than that he wouldn’t, just kill the enemies as the wizard is just as tanky as him.

IMO, If wizards were actually squishy, fighters would be built to defend them.

 

[James Gasik]

I’d suggest behavior goes both ways.

As of right now casters are often just as tanky as the martials. A stereotypical wizards can have 8 hp, 16 AC with mage armor, a shield spell and use either sleep or magic missile to take out whatever is in front of him. Or if the wizard multiclasses he can match or surpass most fighters AC (most fighters don’t use shields).

In short, outside a few hp - which defensive and control spells easily make up for - the wizard can easily be just as tanky as the fighter - if not more so depending on specific builds of each. So mechanically why would a fighter want to try and defend the wizard? Maybe to help keep a concentration spell going? Other than that he wouldn’t, just kill the enemies as the wizard is just as tanky as him.

IMO, If wizards were actually squishy, fighters would be built to defend them.

Which is my point- if you make Wizards squishy, you have to build Fighters to defend them. But it really feels like most players don't want to defend anyone, they just want to swing big weapons and do big damage, lol.

I only have anecdotal evidence for this; maybe what's happening at most tables is that enemies just attack the Fighters no matter what they do- maybe it's because they do tons of damage, maybe it's part of a social contract or gentleman's agreement, maybe it's just because that's how things have always been done, maybe it's because the DM is tired of hearing "Shield! Silvery Barbs!"...I dunno.

I just know that good tanking options exist, but since people have a choice between those and the ability to deal more damage and we know that Champions are way more popular than Cavaliers, it sure seems like the player base has chosen.

Or maybe in their game Protection Fighting Style is enough, even though it's 1/turn, I really don't know, because I don't have the data.

But I still think it's telling that something I think would be a baseline Defender ability, like say, "any creature within 5 feet of you that's hostile to you has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you or another character with this feature. An enemy is immune to this effect if it can't see or hear you or if it can't be frightened", is not only one choice out of several, it inexplicably isn't available until 14th level, lol.