D&D 5E The Fighter Problem

[DaviMMS]

For those saying that the barbarians, paladins and rangers have more utility.

Rangers surely have, they have a lot of abilities and spells for this.

But paladins and barbarians don't have much utility.

Paladins are still ahead of the fighters (as long we are not talking about EKs). The base class only has Divine Sense and Lay on Hands(only talking about disease and poison neutralizing part), both with extremelly narrow uses to the point I wouldn't consider strange for then never to be used in the course of a campaign. The spells have some good stuff, but the lack of ritual casting hurts a little.

And barbarians get absolutely nothing from the base class. Maybe you could consider rage advantage to Str checks (that would only last 1 round out of combat till 15th level) and the advantage on dex saves agaist traps. Totem Warriors get something more on that side, but not really that much.

If we consider base fighter vs base barbarians(no subclass), i would even consider the fighter to be a little ahead, because, unlike the barbarian, he is completely SAD and can aford more points on side stats for better skills.

If we consider subclasses, just Find Familiar on an EK leave the fighter ahead of the barbarians by miles, and the Wizard list is much better for utility than the Paladins one, but the limitation to evocation and abjuration hurts a lot in that regard. Battlemasters don't have much.

So, in a scale of utility, I would rate

Rangers > EK > Paladins > Totem Barbarians > Base Fighter > Base Barbarian

 

[Gradine]

If we consider base fighter vs base barbarians(no subclass), i would even consider the fighter to be a little ahead, because, unlike the barbarian, he is completely SAD and can aford more points on side stats for better skills.

This is a point that cannot be stressed enough, especially in a game without feats. Backgrounds give Fighters more utility in 5e than they've ever had, and their abundance of ASI's and SAD gives them more opportunities to shore up secondary (utility) ability scores than any other class, except for maybe Rogues.

Amusingly, the non-Champion Fighter subclasses (EK and BM) tend to favor Int and Cha, respectively, which makes such fighters ideally situated to be the party lore-master or face. Champions just get to specialize in whatever they want.

Most of the utility (social and exploration pillars) come in the form of ability checks, and Fighters are no longer the skill-less battle monkeys they were in previous editions. While that is true of every class, what's unique to Fighters is their SAD and prevalence of ASI's.

And in games with feats? They have far more opportunities to expand their utility (especially with those new skill and tool feats).

Fighters are doing just well on their own, thanks.

 

[Satyrn]

Ironically my next PC concept is a dual wielding halfling fighter with weapon specialization.

Make him Strength based and wear plate.

The one lack I'm starting to find with my weakling dual-wielding swashbuckling gnome battlemaster is I'm limited to a very small selection of weapons. I wish I could pick up a battleaxe once in a while and still be effective.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I’d disagree, and I’m curious why you don’t because of the bolded.

If the Barbarian is near constantly being attacked at advantage and has a lower AC, I find it reasonable to assume they are getting hit more than twice as often. This is compounded with my experience that Barbarians in my groups tend to be in the single digits after most fights, because their resistance makes them feel tougher than they actually are and they wade into the middle of groups of enemies and take 3 or 4 attacks where the other characters strip enemies from the edges and only get attacked 1 or 2 times.

I guess it depends on what you're fighting. If an enemy has a better-than-even chance of hitting the fighter in plate, then a fifty-percent reduction in damage taken is worth more than the forty-percent miss chance associated with a better AC; the barbarian just assumes that every attack against them will be successful, and has enough HP that it doesn't matter. If you're mostly fighting chumps, such that a reckless barbarian is still only getting hit half of the time while a plate fighter can only be hit on a 20, then that's going to skew the over-all survivability comparison toward the fighter.

 

[dco]

I guess it depends on what you're fighting. If an enemy has a better-than-even chance of hitting the fighter in plate, then a fifty-percent reduction in damage taken is worth more than the forty-percent miss chance associated with a better AC; the barbarian just assumes that every attack against them will be successful, and has enough HP that it doesn't matter. If you're mostly fighting chumps, such that a reckless barbarian is still only getting hit half of the time while a plate fighter can only be hit on a 20, then that's going to skew the over-all survivability comparison toward the fighter.

Yes, mathematically resistance is better when the enemy hits the barbarian less than 100% more times.
The fighter could also have features that let him tank better, for example action surge to dodge, the Champion with survivor or defense if he also picked an offensive fighting style, the Battlemaster with parry and the Eldritch knight with spells like mirror image or shield for example. Thanks to feats, or higher abilities and indomitable the fighter could also have a better variety of saving throws. The extra 1 HP from the barbarian goes away with the action surge of fighters 1d10+lvl.

 

[Mistwell]

I have a Champion Fighter in my group who's a Dex Archer, and his damage output is brutal. He is also an Outlander and acts like a mundane Ranger half the time. Great character, and a stone cold killer against an ambushed foe in the first round. At his current modest 6th level that's an action surged four arrows with +4 to hit (with advantage, so the equivalent of +9) and 1d8+14 damage per arrow incoming at his target(s), and that's if he doesn't critical with the 8 rolls he has against a 19-20...

How is he hiding so well? Is his AC 16 with Breastplate? If so, that's a pretty low AC for a fighter.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

How is he hiding so well? Is his AC 16 with Breastplate? If so, that's a pretty low AC for a fighter.

Ranged attackers get targetted less often. My assassin/fighter archer is almost never damaged in combat because it's attack/hide/attack/hide.

BTW, you only get advantage on an attack from hiding on the first attack of an action and not all attacks, since when the first attack hits or misses the attacker gives away their location (unless a miss and you have the Skulker feat).

 

[Caliburn101]

How is he hiding so well? Is his AC 16 with Breastplate? If so, that's a pretty low AC for a fighter.

He took stealth as a skill from his background and has high Dex, so he sneaks well.

He actually has 16 AC with studded leather and his Dex - he's a ranged dps - the Dwarf Battlemaster in the party is the 'tank'.

 

[LapBandit]

I still dissent.

We should have some framework of comparison with the other classes:

2nd level, 5th level, 11th level, 17th level would be fair as those are important levels to the Fighter.

Class/Level	Barbarian	Paladin	Fighter
2nd	Rage (2 / day), Reckless Attacks, Unarmored Defense, Danger Sense	Divine Sense, Lay On Hands, Fighting Style, Spellcasting, Divine Smite	Fighting Style, Second Wind, Action Surge
5th level	Rage(3/day), ASI, Extra Attack	Spellcasting, ASI, Extra Attack, Divine Health	ASI, Extra Attack
11th level	Rage(4/day), Feral Instinct, ASI, Brutal Critical, Relentless Rage	Spellcasting, Aura of Protection, ASI, Aura of Courage, Improved Divine Smite	ASI, Indomitable, Extra Attack
17th level	Rage(6/day), ASI, Brutal Critical (2), Persistent Rage, ASI, Brutal Critical (3)	Spellcasting, ASI, Cleansing Touch, ASI	ASI, Indomitable(2), ASI, ASI, Action Surge (2), Indomitable (3)

Do you see how the Barbarian and Paladin both get features (rage, spellcasting, smite, aura, etc) that scale well and often from 1st or 2nd level and the Fighter has staccato much less useful features that scale less often? I'm not sure where anyone can call that fine.

Is the fighter not supposed to be the best at what he trained to do? Two ASIs, an Extra Attack, and weak features does not a niche nor power make.

Even Mike Mearls, one of the designers bemoans the state they left the Fighter in.

 

[Zardnaar]

Why should we discuss such a ridiculous scenario though? Nobody said or implied that sort of figure. Zard mentioned it tends to be longswords first, then two handed weapons, and on down from there. It's not 90% though or even close. It's not even a majority weapons for that matter, as a lot of it is magic armor and sheilds and such, which the fighter can use anyway. The "stories" people might hear will include the whole array I assume, and depend a lot more on the hero and their deeds who used them than anything else.

For what it is worth in the most recent adventures I read, there was a notation in there from WOTC saying the DM should feel free to replace magic item packages with items more tailored to the party in question, and also magic items which will just say things like, "+1 armor of a type appropriate for your adventuring party" sometimes. I really don't think this is a real issue. I've certainly never heard of someone making, for example, a polearm themed PC and then never finding a magic polearm to the point where they quit using their theme. DMs tend to not be jerks like that and will usually find a way for the PC to find that weapon or buy it or switch it out for something else or trade it with someone else, etc..

And again, even if you agree with Zard's point (which I do not), I still gave him an answer about lots of feats which address longsword-users anyway. Why are we acting like this was a good point for this thread still?

I think I said greatswords are more common than the other great weapons. Magical polearms and hand crossbiws may as well not exist.

I also don't cater to powergamers and munchkins. If yoy take the -5/+10 feats I'm not going to put in a magical weapon for you. If an adventure has one and you get it congratulations you have a power combo going.

I do homebrew adventures as well but if you get a +1 great weapon, polearm or hand crossbow odds are the other charactet are getting staff of striking, weapons of speed etc so you won't over shadow everyone anyway.

Longswords and various simple weapons seem to be the most common items and I am way more likely to put in a +3 dagger vs a +3 greatweapon.

I often mine the 1st 3 wotc APs or use quests of doom EN5ider adventures and DMGuild adventures. Magical poleaems may as well mot exist along with hand crossbows. And I go AD&D style with magic items- you use what you find. We learnt early on in 5E about including magic polearms, greatswords and hand crossbows.

Our other DM put in a powerful greatsword when the rest of the party had +1 longswords and spears at best. Said fighter dealt more damage than the rest of the party put togather.