D&D 5E The Fighter Problem

[Tony Vargas]

He provides his conception, other people like me have provided others, if this is a discussion of what you like there is no point for it. If what you want to tell me is that only one view is correct because of some meager reasons like the construction of phrases, the lack of imagination of some people, divagations about casuals, etc then I can say your are wrong and projecting your subjective qualms with a pair of names.

The other obvious meaning of "Champion" is 'winner of a contest.' I guess, between the fighter's 'best at fighting (with weapons)' mandate and the Champion's 'Remarkable' Athlete ability and the like, that's not exactly entirely unsupported.

It's not as 'generic' as people sometimes complain, is what I'm say'n, BTW.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's your setting. You're the one that included both magic weapons and feats which tend to benefit: 1) polearms, and 2) two-handed weapons, and 3) longbows, more than any other types of weapons. Those three types of weapons should be the ones MOST likely to be found as magic weapons in a setting like that, because in your world adventurers tend to do the most amount of killing with those types of weapons thanks to the feats they have access to in that setting. So why isn't the setting you created reflecting the availability of the magic items and feats you put in that setting?.

It really depends on when those things were invented. Even if the best weapon in the setting was the hand crossbow, because there's a special technique that works really well with them, you're not going to find a lot of magical hand crossbows if hand crossbows were first invented twenty years ago and the technique only goes back seven years, but most magical items were created centuries ago.

 

[Quickleaf]

He provides his conception, other people like me have provided others, if this is a discussion of what you like there is no point for it. If what you want to tell me is that only one view is correct because of some meager reasons like the construction of phrases, the lack of imagination of some people, divagations about casuals, etc then I can say your are wrong and projecting your subjective qualms with a pair of names.

You were asking about is this just needless hemming and hawing about naming conventions? And my response was clarifying that no, it's actually about something deeper; the "empty calorie" name a symptom of a larger issue.

Also, I don't understand your defensive language. I'm not attacking you or anyone. And nowhere have I mentioned one-true-wayism that you're eluding to. On the contrary, if you look at my Warrior homebrew design I've mentioned several times in this thread it's an attempt to make a fighter class that can accommodate every and all play styles.

As for there being no point to discussing what you like... Actually, I think it's great to share different conceptions and listen to what other people want, and in this case want out of the fighter class. For me, personally, I learn from that sharing – I learned from [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] about an interesting direction to take the fighter, I learned from [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] how the Champion might be re-concepted/re-designed, and I even gained clarity around some of the fighter isn't powerful enough arguments that [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION] made even though I disagree with many of them. And I also am idealistic enough to think that a fighter class could be designed to accommodate even more than the 60% of playstyles it already does – maybe that's why I pay so much attention to what others are reporting about their play experiences with fighters.

I really wish we could discuss the topic like adults, and leave the hyperbole and emotion out of it.

 

[Mistwell]

It really depends on when those things were invented. Even if the best weapon in the setting was the hand crossbow, because there's a special technique that works really well with them, you're not going to find a lot of magical hand crossbows if hand crossbows were first invented twenty years ago and the technique only goes back seven years, but most magical items were created centuries ago.

OK so let's say the longbow is a recent invention in your setting. Are we really arguing the polearm (which comes from farming implements) and two handed weapon are new inventions in his setting? That for example dwarves, who tend to favor things like big two-handed axes and mauls, didn't have those things hundreds of years earlier despite living for hundreds of years? For that matter, Elves live hideously long (750+ years) and all know how to use a longbow too. Did they really not have longbows hundreds of years ago despite a racial ability to use them?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

OK so let's say the longbow is a recent invention in your setting. Are we really arguing the polearm (which comes from farming implements) and two handed weapon are new inventions in his setting? That for example dwarves, who tend to favor things like big two-handed axes and mauls, didn't have those things hundreds of years earlier despite living for hundreds of years? For that matter, Elves live hideously long (750+ years) and all know how to use a longbow too. Did they really not have longbows hundreds of years ago despite a racial ability to use them?

It would be difficult to justify not having some sort of spear, back during the age of magical items, but longbows - or just bows in general - are not all that obvious of an invention. In the forty-thousand years after anatomically-modern humans moved to Australia from Asia, nobody there bothered to invent a bow.

Granted, if you were going to make a setting where the longbow was a recent invention, you probably wouldn't have magical elves with automatic longbow proficiency as one of your races.

 

[Zardnaar]

Bows were a very early human invention along with spears. IRL longbows were kind of rare.

Polearms were also reasonably rare and were mostly developed do to armor on knights and you had an arms race with things like swiss pikemen, tercios and landsknecht. Pikes were a reasonably early invention around Alexander the Greats time in Europe at least. Heavy infantry was also rare until the Romans turned up and became rare after that.

Have a look in the DMG for example with all the magic swords, not much in the way of magic polearms in there. Its not 3E and 4E where PCs have a lot of control over what they get and in effect add a template to whatever weapon they want and can easily buy or craft that item.

Common sense wise magic simlple weapons, shortswords and shortbows should be the most common magic weapons as they were invented early. Greatswords were invented late due to a combination of need and being able to forge a blade that long, the Romans had trouble forging a D&D longsword for example (3E/AD&D bastard sword). They had the Spatha which was an AD&D/3E longsword.

You can't go down to the local village smith and knock out a decent longsword in the real world.

 

[dco]

You were asking about is this just needless hemming and hawing about naming conventions? And my response was clarifying that no, it's actually about something deeper; the "empty calorie" name a symptom of a larger issue.

Also, I don't understand your defensive language. I'm not attacking you or anyone. And nowhere have I mentioned one-true-wayism that you're eluding to. On the contrary, if you look at my Warrior homebrew design I've mentioned several times in this thread it's an attempt to make a fighter class that can accommodate every and all play styles.

As for there being no point to discussing what you like... Actually, I think it's great to share different conceptions and listen to what other people want, and in this case want out of the fighter class. For me, personally, I learn from that sharing – I learned from [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] about an interesting direction to take the fighter, I learned from [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] how the Champion might be re-concepted/re-designed, and I even gained clarity around some of the fighter isn't powerful enough arguments that [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION] made even though I disagree with many of them. And I also am idealistic enough to think that a fighter class could be designed to accommodate even more than the 60% of playstyles it already does – maybe that's why I pay so much attention to what others are reporting about their play experiences with fighters.

I really wish we could discuss the topic like adults, and leave the hyperbole and emotion out of it.

And my response is that it is not deeper, it is shallow and trivial, more akin to noise.
I'm not being defensive, I'm only stating and describing what has happened.
I don't have a problem with people sharing their view, but originally this discusion was about how to some people the "identity" of the class was not there, avoiding how the PHB treats all the classes that would be the objective way to discuss this matter things moved to what some names can signify for some people because of reasons, this changed to sentences that were only valid one way because of reasons, typical players were not valid and we had to fantasize about what the casuals would think because of reasons, and what they think has also to be directed towards the same point of view because of reasons, etc.

I would have liked an adult talk but I only see arbitrary views that continue changing and evolving when someone contradicts that point of view.

The other obvious meaning of "Champion" is 'winner of a contest.' I guess, between the fighter's 'best at fighting (with weapons)' mandate and the Champion's 'Remarkable' Athlete ability and the like, that's not exactly entirely unsupported.

It's not as 'generic' as people sometimes complain, is what I'm say'n, BTW.

I don't have a problem with that, it's your point of view about this rare exercise, another one talked about panache and other things for the battlemaster. Good, but then the problem was how the phrase was constructed. When I told mine it was about casuals and not using the rules. Goals keep changing.

 

[Mistwell]

Bows were a very early human invention along with spears. IRL longbows were kind of rare.

Polearms were also reasonably rare and were mostly developed do to armor on knights and you had an arms race with things like swiss pikemen, tercios and landsknecht. Pikes were a reasonably early invention around Alexander the Greats time in Europe at least. Heavy infantry was also rare until the Romans turned up and became rare after that.

Have a look in the DMG for example with all the magic swords, not much in the way of magic polearms in there. Its not 3E and 4E where PCs have a lot of control over what they get and in effect add a template to whatever weapon they want and can easily buy or craft that item.

Common sense wise magic simlple weapons, shortswords and shortbows should be the most common magic weapons as they were invented early. Greatswords were invented late due to a combination of need and being able to forge a blade that long, the Romans had trouble forging a D&D longsword for example (3E/AD&D bastard sword). They had the Spatha which was an AD&D/3E longsword.

You can't go down to the local village smith and knock out a decent longsword in the real world.

You're not responding to the response I'm giving you, you're just repeating the "real world" response. Is there some reason you're doing that? Do you just think a setting shouldn't reflect feats and magic and long lived races with racial proficiency in some weapons and damage done by adventurers and such, and should instead reflect the real world which lacks those things? I'm just not seeing the logic in focusing on the real world as an example for a setting with those things in them.

 

[Quickleaf]

And my response is that it is not deeper, it is shallow and trivial, more akin to noise.
I'm not being defensive, I'm only stating and describing what has happened.
I don't have a problem with people sharing their view, but originally this discusion was about how to some people the "identity" of the class was not there, avoiding how the PHB treats all the classes that would be the objective way to discuss this matter things moved to what some names can signify for some people because of reasons, this changed to sentences that were only valid one way because of reasons, typical players were not valid and we had to fantasize about what the casuals would think because of reasons, and what they think has also to be directed towards the same point of view because of reasons, etc.

I would have liked an adult talk but I only see arbitrary views that continue changing and evolving when someone contradicts that point of view.

I see. To anchor this to more tangible non-imaginary people...

For my n=2, I can report two players in my home group passing over the fighter in favor of a barbarian and a paladin (with a one or two level multiclass "dip" into fighter), respectively. I actually asked about it, and the responses I received included "the fighter isn't interesting enough, and I want to do more damage" and "the fighter's first two levels are interesting, but after that, eh, and besides my concept really leans more towards paladin".

What I found notable – and this was way prior to Mike Mearls comment on the TomeShow about fighter subclasses lacking identity – was that both of my players used the word "interesting." Now, I didn't follow up on *precisely* what that means because we play together, we don't design games together... But that was intriguing to me.

Personally, it shined a light on my own frustrations with the fighter (which is what I used to play back in AD&D on the rare occasions I played), that date back to BD&D. It's my favorite archetype, but it always felt like there was something missing to me. While I'm perfectly capable of saying Xeon Thoepoles, champion fighter, LN, son of the Republic, possibly son of Achilles, and rolling with that concept to the hilt, I do wonder about others who aren't such hardcore gamers...like my two friends...could the fighter be made more "interesting" to gamers like them? So it's not just a class to "dip" into?

 

[Quickleaf]

Also [MENTION=6780269]dco[/MENTION] I'm curious about your thoughts about the cleric and wizard getting lots of subclasses in the PHB, and the fighter and rogue getting three subclasses in comparison. I see a double standard, but I'm suspecting you (and others) see it differently. How do you see it?