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

[ECMO3]

Exactly like I said, remove it for a good long while and thne maybe come around to asking people about it. Or not and just leave them out forever.

They rebalanced classes in 4E, left it around for a couple years, asked people about it and players hated it.

Does that "prove anything" or not?

 

[ECMO3]

View attachment 313601
54%
27%
64%

This does not show what you claim it shows.

As I noted earlier this does not say Fighter. I asked you about the data for Fighter class specifically. That does not say anything about the Fighter as a class.

What this actually shows is that by emission, Fighter as a class is not one of the classes people were disatisfied with. If the left column is the 5 biggest deficiencies then more than 64% of people were satisfied with the fighter and more were satisfied with the Fighter as a class than were satisfied with the Sorcerer.

Notice the Ranger - only 27% were satisfied with Ranger, but 64% (a clear majority) were satisfied with the Hunter. O

I will readily admit people did not like the Champion subclass. It is very weak. I will also add I think people are
disatisfied with many Wizard spells, including Truestrike, Witchbolt, Crown of Madness and Wall of Sand, but that does not mean people are disatisfied with Wizards.

 

[Emberashh]

Having recently read LOTR and having taken note of every single mention or reference to Rangers specifically, I'll mention that Rangers as Tolkien conceptualized them fall into two camps:

The Dunedain: These folk's main traits were your classic explorer type Ranger stuff, and notable among the things they do beyond just being capable warriors were the use of runes to leave messages and a skill with Herbs for healing purposes (that is separate from Aragorns destined skill with healing, mind). They're also implied as some of the greatest hunters and trackers, with Aragorn being directly named as the greatest.

Faramir's Company: these folk are more the stealthy types, and act mainly as a military unit in this capacity. They're essentially guerilla fighters operating in the Gondorian border regions.

Both taken together obviously share this trait of operating in border lands (Ranger as profession), but they aren't strictly limited to this (Ranger as Adventurers).

Likewise, they both share a clear flexibility to operate across a spectrum of Warrior types from the heavily armored cavalry to a standard Knight-on-foot to a stealthy, lightly armored fighter.

So taken altogether, one could synthesize the idea of a Ranger in terms of an RPG class as being martials defined by flexibility moreso than other martials, with a clear focus on either individual or small unit tactics and a strong familarity with and skill in the Wilds, to the point of being able to wield the Wild, so to speak, in some fashion.

Which all more or less confirmed my personal take on what the Ranger should be, to be frank. I'm designing mine as an AOE martial with a focus on Healing and Stealth, with a core mechanic based in a much more indepth version of Natural Explorer, which will provide not just basic travel and exploration benefits, but will also confer abilities like sending messages into the wind, provoking stampedes (even of dragons), and enhanced effectiveness against hordes or gigantic creatures.

They will be capable even by themselves, and will hit all the thematic marks LOTR style rangers bring to the table, with subclasses exploring some later variants like the Ranger's Apprentice or the more direct "monster slayer" takes like your Geralts and what not.

 

[Vaalingrade]

They rebalanced classes in 4E, left it around for a couple years, asked people about it and players hated it.

Does that "prove anything" or not?

Not long enough and too many other variables including a decades long misinformation campaign.

So let's give it a good thirty years without wizards, let the sort of people who would alter the data to shake out of the data pool, then ask.

 

[Minigiant]

This does not show what you claim it shows.

As I noted earlier this does not say Fighter. I asked you about the data for Fighter class specifically. That does not say anything about the Fighter as a class.

True.

What this actually shows is that by emission, Fighter as a class is not one of the classes people were disatisfied with. If the left column is the 5 biggest deficiencies then more than 64% of people were satisfied with the fighter and more were satisfied with the Fighter as a class than were satisfied with the Sorcerer.

Well they didn't include every unsatisfactory class and subclass. The 4E monk isn't there.

But as the ranger and hunter shows, classes and subclasses can have different satisfaction levels.

However the fighter class itself is mostly bare. Besides Action Surge there is nothing unique that is impactful during the levels people play.

So the fighter satisfaction for the class itself is most not useful. Instead the important of would be the subclasses. Which the Champion is low but the Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight are high according to Crawford.

And the Champion satisfaction grew. And all it got was access to Battlemaster features.

Crawford even said they were willing to add Battlemaster to core fighter but didn't because

1. People liked the Battlemaster too much to break it up.
2. They wanted an easy mode class-subclass option

Floating that idea meant the fighter class satisfaction levels was high but not that high.

Which tracts with the additions in playtest.

 

[ECMO3]

nm

 

[ECMO3]

Well they didn't include every unsatisfactory class and subclass. The 4E monk isn't there.

They did not include anything from 4E at all, and you are right they did not include every unsatisfactory class and subclass, they presumably included the most unsatisfactory, which did include the Sorcerer and did not include the Fighter class.

But as the ranger and hunter shows, classes and subclasses can have different satisfaction levels.

Exactly.

So the fighter satisfaction for the class itself is most not useful. Instead the important of would be the subclasses.

Not really, not if you are discussing the class. The power in the fighter is in the subclasses and Champion is not a well designed one. However the subclasses are part of the fighter chassis and you can't consider a fighter withoutsubclasses any more than you can consider a Wizard without spells.

Crawford even said they were willing to add Battlemaster to core fighter but didn't because

Crawford is apparently not paying attention. As of TCE the core fighter already gets Battlemaster maneuvers through a fighting style.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Sure. But the fighter and wizard don’t cause an obvious imbalance at the conceptual level. The 2 classes you proposed do.

Only if you assume "good at stuff other than fighting" isn't a factor in balance.

They're only fungible on a curve, but (for example) rogues are one of the weakest combat classes but can be one of the most powerful classes if your games are only 50% combat.

 

[FrogReaver]

Only if you assume "good at stuff other than fighting" isn't a factor in balance.

Not quite. Your description provided the expert swordsman would be much >>> than the generalist fighter at combat while the generalists fighter would only be slightly > than the expert swordsman at noncombat.

On a theoretical level I agree that there's some level of better at combat that can be counterbalanced by better at non-combat, but that's not the situation you described.

They're only fungible on a curve, but (for example) rogues are one of the weakest combat classes but can be one of the most powerful classes if your games are only 50% combat.

I'd challenge this assessment on rogues. There's 1 specific fighter build that i'd readily agree outperforms rogues at combat (SS+CBE Battlemaster Fighter). But even then an optimized rogue isn't that far behind at most levels.

Compared with most fighters, most rogues have amazing mobility, great damage reduction features (evasion, uncanny dodge), great OA's and can easily switch between ranged and melee combat. and also typically have an easier time ambushing due to their higher stealth (expertise) and light armor. *Steady Aim was a real game changer for rogue damage.

 

[Minigiant]

They did not include anything from 4E at all, and you are right they did not include every unsatisfactory class and subclass, they presumably included the most unsatisfactory, which did include the Sorcerer and did not include the Fighter class

4E Monk meaning 4 Elements Monk aka a Top 5 terrible PHB subclass.

Not really, not if you are discussing the class. The power in the fighter is in the subclasses and Champion is not a well designed one. However the subclasses are part of the fighter chassis and you can't consider a fighter withoutsubclasses any more than you can consider a Wizard without spells.

That's my point. The core fighter is barely a class and the subclasses are more the class.

And the Champion was designed to be so simple for the demos who would not realize it sucked.

But almost everyone not in that demo so realize it's weakness and the DM reliance.