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

[Zardnaar]

That's a particularly weak edition war talking point. You could play whatever martial concept you wanted in 4e and have a viable character. You cannot say the same of 5e. Nor any other edition.

It's not true that 5e classes can help cover for eachother in 5e? So, a Cleric wouldn't heal a Monk that got hurt in melee? A Wizard wouldn't cast Magic Weapon so a Fighter could harm a monster resistant to normal weapons? A Druid wouldn't cast Pass Without Trace on a Rogue trying to sneak up on a particularly observant enemy? A Warlock wouldn't cast Silvery Barbs to help the Barbarian pass a saving throw and keep his rage going...?

Is it that these things don't happen, or the game is so easy you don't need to work together...? Beacause, as iffy as CR is, I don't think counting on every fight being that easy is practical, unless the DM is just going to adjust everything on the fly to assure the party's success (or at least survival -which, honestly, not a bad idea).

As far as an all-one-class party being generally effective in 5e, well, all one full caster class or all paladins is likely to be pretty robust, and that's more than half the classes, right, there, so close enough to 'generally,' sure, granted.

OK, I guess you might be right, 5e may have arguably abandoned the age old D&D-ism of the Big 4 and the balanced party.

Mono class parties were talked about at least as far back as 1989. 2E material covered them.

PHB 4E archer fighter not the plug ins they added later? You would suck hard.

You could play a decent archer fighter eer edition from 1E on its one of the most basic concepts as well.

 

[Scribe]

Is it that these things don't happen, or the game is so easy you don't need to work together...?

When the game is designed and 'balanced' around a concept that you

1. Dont need a dedicated healer.
2. You dont assume Feats.
3. You dont assume Magic items.

Yeah, especially at this late stage of the game, with all the various subclasses and everything? The game is not balanced around enough assumptions to challenge folks and force the party to optimize.

They will still 'work together' but not in a way some of us would hope.

 

[ECMO3]

That's a particularly weak edition war talking point. You could play whatever martial concept you wanted in 4e and have a viable character. You cannot say the same of 5e. Nor any other edition.

It's not true that 5e classes can help cover for eachother in 5e?

It is not "needed" in 5E. You suggested it is needed. Certainly it can be done, but it is not generally necessary in 5E if played at the default difficulty level.

If the Cleric uses Spiritual Weapon instead of Aid, the Wizard used a cantrip instead of Magic Weapon, the Fighter attacked for half damage, the Druid wildshaped and the Rogue snuck up without PWT and the Warlock went for EB instead of SB and you still win the fight. You might even win it better or quicker than with the examples you gave.

Is it that these things don't happen, or the game is so easy you don't need to work together...? Beacause, as iffy as CR is, I don't think counting on every fight being that easy is practical, unless the DM is just going to adjust everything on the fly to assure the party's success (or at least survival -which, honestly, not a bad idea).

The game is generally relatively easy beyond 2nd level if playing according to RAW. That does not mean characters don't die or there are not TPKs and when those happen it is usually due to poor tactics in addition to bad dice.

As far as an all-one-class party being generally effective in 5e, well, all one full caster class or all paladins is likely to be pretty robust, and that's more than half the classes, right, there, so close enough to 'generally,' sure, granted.

I think you can take any single class and build 4 RAW characters from that class and be generally effective. Now in saying this you have to exercise options within the classes and races to bring some level of diversity to the table - so yes IMO 4 fighters can be effective, but 4 V human Battlemasters, all optimized for ranged combat, who all take Sharpshooter, Archery and the Athlete background probably won't be effective, even though that is a pretty powerful Fighter build in general.

The same can be said about spellcasters though. A party of 4 Wizards or 4 Clerics can dominate the game pretty easily. But a party of 4 Tiefling Wizard Sage evokers who specialize in Fire and take the Tiefling Fire feat and Elemental Adept would probably not be effective, even though this is one of the most powerful blaster Wizard builds available.

 

[Pauln6]

I think all fighters need are the ability to core combat things better.

So defensive retreat - apply disadvantage to opportunity attacks against them as a reaction, then against them and any allies within 5 feet at higher levels, then without costing a reaction later on.

The for all those manoeuvres such and push, disarm etc, let fighters inflict 1 point of damage+strength bonus. Then 1d4 at higher levels.

I'd be more than happy to let fighters have brutal critical at mid level as well.

 

[Lucas Yew]

(...)

Essentials split the Fighter into two-daililess sub-standards-classes the Knight, a defender with an Aura enemies could just step out of to murder his allies, and the Slayer, the KS sub-class ... towards the end, it added an MS sub-class, the Eldritch Knight.

(...)

A tangent, but was the Essentials Knight that unpopular?

I find it bizarre as personally I still think to this day that the aura type tanking feels much more natural and easier to picture in my mind than those Marking abilities, and would have really liked them to end up in the 5E SRD (but alas it never did)...

P.S. I generally like 3 martial classes in 4E; Knight (for its easy to use tanking aura), Hunter (the first Martial Controller in D&D-esque PnP RPG rules I've ever seen), and Warlord (the first non-magical support ditto).

 

[James Gasik]

A tangent, but was the Essentials Knight that unpopular?

I find it bizarre as personally I still think to this day that the aura type tanking feels much more natural and easier to picture in my mind than those Marking abilities, and would have really liked them to end up in the 5E SRD (but alas it never did)...

P.S. I generally like 3 martial classes in 4E; Knight (for its easy to use tanking aura), Hunter (the first Martial Controller in D&D-esque PnP RPG rules I've ever seen), and Warlord (the first non-magical support ditto).

I played a Knight and it was actually pretty neat to not have to worry about marking foes. However I took that character to a convention (CodCon at the College of DuPage) and no matter how many times I tried to explain it to the DM's for the 4 LFR mods I played that day, they just gave me an odd look and just had every enemy attack me relentlessly, apparently terrified of my strange Essentials Magic, lol.

I really never saw another Knight played much, though my friend really liked his Cavalier especially once he got his very own battle cat to ride around on.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A tangent, but was the Essentials Knight that unpopular?

Not at all (not unpopular, not really a tangent), the Knight was just inferior to other defenders (that's the fighter's story in other editions, too: most popular class, but often a starkly inferior class - a trap choice). Lacking dailies, and getting only one encounter power (and that being striker rather than defender support) hurt the Knight, and the aura, without combat superiority, was pretty easy to bypass, sometimes literally without trying. I found that it was a good idea to have the monsters hold back a bit, tactically, when the party has only an aura defender.

It's actually kinda typical of D&D design (and on-topic), if a class or feature is designed to be 'simple,' it's also seems to be lacking. IDK why it is that relative ease of play needs to be penalized, but it seems like a deep assumption. Similarly, popularity seems to be penalized, and unpopularity rewarded - the Cleric and Bard were deeply unpopular classes for a long time, but the Cleric got buffed to the nines in 3e and the Bard has gone from a second-rate MU in 2e & 3e to a solid leader in 4e to a Full Caster in 5e ... all while continuing to endure horny bard memes....
(is it just "people don't like this class, must be because it's underpowered?" I mean, maybe players just don't want to rp holy rollers and singing cowboys? maybe?)

Spoiler: tangent, pefferences

I find it bizarre as personally I still think to this day that the aura type tanking feels much more natural and easier to picture in my mind than those Marking abilities, and would have really liked them to end up in the 5E SRD (but alas it never did)...

I found the Knight entertaining for about 2 hrs, and after that it was, like, why am I here. So it's about twice as interesting as the Slayer.
But, I like Leaders and Controllers, Defenders if they're particularly interesting, which the 4e Fighter was. Strikers just don't appeal to me, at all.

P.S. I generally like 3 martial classes in 4E; Knight (for its easy to use tanking aura), Hunter (the first Martial Controller in D&D-esque PnP RPG rules I've ever seen), and Warlord (the first non-magical support ditto).

The Hunter primal/martial, it wasn't a very engaging controller, and its best control was from its primal utilities, so it was disappointing, as a 'martial controller,' in concept. But, tho it was no wizard, it was not badly underpowered - in my 4e campaign, someone played a Hunter into Epic, and did have some worthwhile tricks even at that level. Personally, I found Fighter and Warlord pretty awesome. I was disappointed that there was no real attempt at a martial controller - I did have fun with an intentionally retro Eladrin Wizard McFighter, leaning into "elven fighter/magic-user," though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Similarly, popularity seems to be penalized, and unpopularity rewarded

Freakishly, if we want a balanced fighter, the thing to do might be to mount a massive smear campaign against the class? to make it unpopular enough that WotC will change it for the better (but not so unpopular they'd cut it)?
... ...puts the old Fighter SUX threads in a different light...

 

[FrogReaver]

When the game is designed and 'balanced' around a concept that you

1. Dont need a dedicated healer.
2. You dont assume Feats.
3. You dont assume Magic items.

Yeah, especially at this late stage of the game, with all the various subclasses and everything? The game is not balanced around enough assumptions to challenge folks and force the party to optimize.

They will still 'work together' but not in a way some of us would hope.

Fun question. If feats, magic items and multiclassing isn’t assumed then does that increase or decrease the martial/caster gap?

From where I sit it increases it.

 

[Scribe]

Fun question. If feats, magic items and multiclassing isn’t assumed then does that increase or decrease the martial/caster gap?

I believe feats/magic items would narrow the gap with casters. Magic Items specifically.