D&D General The Linear Fighter/Quadratic Wizard Problem

[Olgar Shiverstone]

First, we need to agree that these are discrete rather than continuous class issues.

But in keeping with the continuous verbiage, why is it no one talks about the beta rogue, the Cauchy bard, or the chi-squared ranger?

 

[MichaelSomething]

Bring back material components#

 

[Celebrim]

Was the 4e Fighter a spellcaster to you?

Yes. I don't feel that there is a strong in game universe explanation for why you can't repeat a mundane effect all the time. Any power that is limited to like 'once per short rest' or 'once per long rest' or 'three times per day' or whatever unit of time you choose very quickly to me feels like a spell. The 4e classes were limited to powers they could use for game and narrative reasons, not for good in game reasons. The in-universe explanations for why you could do your Cool Trick four times in a row to different opponents all broke down under scrutiny. I might be tolerant of mechanics like, "Enemies get a bonus to defend against Cool Trick if you've already tried it to them once in the same combat.", but that has a tight in game reason - it's easier to defend against something if you are expecting it.

Could a Fighter ability break the action economy like spells sometimes do? (e.g., the effect of an ability could be to reliably get from point A to point B if at all action hero possible. The Fighter wouldn't have to deal with the usual movement/ skill check/ action economy.).

I'm a little bit OK with having some minor currency that lets you break the action economy in limited ways, but first, I don't think it's necessary because there are more obvious and more grounded in the in universe solutions. There are characters in fiction that are masters of narrative currency (let's call them 'the Lucky'), but they aren't necessarily what we think of as fighters. What I don't want though is to adopt Pathfinder like 'mana point' systems for classes such as Grit as is used by the Gunfighter and many of their other classes. These systems I think break people's suspension of disbelief and aesthetic preferences by turning martial classes into minor spellcasters with 'gun magic' or 'sword magic' or whatever. Still, a "burst" of speed per combat is easier to justify in universe why it doesn't happen all the time because we know intuitively you can't go all out all the time, and because you can always account for it as 'fractional speed'. The action points represent being somewhere on the spectrum of discrete units - "2.4 attacks per round" as it were.

None of which is say that I'm opposed to fighters acquiring supernatural powers, just that I don't particularly like them paralleling spell-casters or that we have color of supernatural power as a universal rather than optional attribute of the class.

some people want a strictly "mundane" Fighter, some are ok with "action hero moves" (and where this line is drawn varies significantly), and some are ok with higher level "mythic martial" powers that are not spells but certainly "magical" from our Earth perspective. They are just "innate power" or the limits on skill are much higher in this magical infused world.

I think none of that matters so much as understanding what warrior archetype characters do inherently. What does it mean to have prowess and martial ability?

3) some people are willing to bring in other modern rpg game mechanics and some are not. Some RPGs solve the issue with Story Points or some other meta currency that let's Black Widow contribute to a scene with Thor.

Again, I'm OK with the concept of a 'Lucky/Destined/Favored' class that gains narrative currency to spend, but I don't want to say that is a solution to the fighter problem if there are no other solutions available. It's a great archetype and we see it show up in fairy tales with characters that just have things tend to go their way because the universe is smiling on them, or with say Sakka in Avatar the Last Airbender who seems to have the ability to roll 20's when the chips are down, or even with the Providential Grace that blesses Tolkien's hobbit protagonists. I just think that Thorin or Boromir is very clearly not of that class, but instead filled with martial prowess and defined by that in a way Bilbo and Frodo are not.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The problem with turning martial classes into spellcasters is that you’ve solved the problem by erasing martial classes. A lot of the other proposed solutions have similar problems.

I'm going to say that The Hulk is a perfectly fine high level fighter and is no spellcaster. Allowing martial characters to do what the heroes of e.g. The Song of Roland, Outlaws at the Water Margin, Celtic Myth, or modern anime, action movies, and superhero comics can do in no way makes them spellcasters. The Hulk, Beowulf, Hercules, and CuChulain should be all examples of high level fighters (whether Batman's a fighter or rogue is an interesting question).

And if anyone complains that Hercules is a demigod then we can take the demigod and angelic inspiration (e.g. Gandalf) out of wizards

Or we can level cap everyone.

To begin with, let’s look at one thing that D&D has IMO done right when modelling martial heroes – hit points.

On the contrary hit points are what absolutely cripples martial heroes. A solid mid level martial hero should be able to one-shot an ogre, reliably killing an unarmoured ogre in a single attack. The mere fact that a 5e fighter or barbarian might as well be trying to beat it to death with a nerf bat.

Hit points, or rather hit points for everyone, are most of what prevents martial characters being as lethal as they should be. Yes the martial should have hit points. (And healing surges). But hit points should protect far more against magic than they do against cold steel.

My experience with 1e and especially 1e post Unearthed Arcana is that fighters just ruled large portions of play with such massive advantages in hit points, easier access to high AC, saving throws, and THAC0 that they were juggernauts. #

I have precisely no problem with this. Wizards ruled other large parts of play. So did clerics. When the class name is "fighter" and the class itself is about fighting with no out of combat support it should rule the only pillar it uses.

Should "fighter" be a class? Possibly not. But if that's the class then it should be the best at the only thing it does.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes. I don't feel that there is a strong in game universe explanation for why you can't repeat a mundane effect all the time.

I don't feel that there is a strong in game universe explanation for why fighters should be untiring robots who can repeat exactly the same effect all the time. I further don't feel there is a strong in game universe explanation for why their foes should be unthinking robots who are just as likely to fall for the same trick every time no matter how many times the fighter spams it or how well they are known for using it.

 

[Celebrim]

A) Feats are a fighter’s spells.

By this I don’t mean that feats should ever work like spells mechanically. In fact, I rather despise feats that work like spells. By this I mean that the versatility and power of a spellcasting case comes from their ability to choose from a great many spells that fit the conception of a character. Spells are in fact class abilities. One of the reasons things get out of hand is that every new spell becomes a potential class ability. Every spell potentially extends the number of problems that the spell-casting class can no solve efficiently. So spells have to be designed very carefully lest they solve a class of problems that previously the spell-caster needed help solving.

The real versatility and power of any martial class, but especially that of a fighter comes from the availability and power of feats. Since the gap on saves, base attack bonus, and hit points has narrowed between martial classes and all the other classes, the only way to restore that gap is through feats.

In my opinion, all attempts to get away from that conception such as Pathfinder’s Archetypes or 5e’s subclasses have largely been failures. They would be like designing wizard subclasses that specified which spell slots must be filled with what rather than allowing players to mix and match a package of abilities to taste. Attempts to simplify feat selection and creation by creating fixed packages of abilities tends to make martial classes into overly simplistic one trick ponies that can only do that one thing well. In fact, to have parity with spell-casters they need to be able to thrive in multiple situations. Just hitting things with a pointy stick better doesn’t solve the problem. So a list of ways your martial character is better at hitting things with a pointy stick that you don’t get to choose whether you want isn’t helpful.

Class features are just feats you are forced to have. Almost certainly, you’d rather have feats and rather have those class features moved into a feat to mix and match if you wanted them.

One of the upshots of this principle that feats are a fighter’s spells is that it is obvious the typical fighter is not conceived with as many feats as they need to compete with spell-casters. Think about how many spell slots a feat would unlock before you’d pretty much always take the feat “Gain Spells” over any other available feat. How many feats is the spell-casting ability of a wizard or a cleric worth if you had to pay for it in feats? The exact number would depend on how big you make your feats, but I put it to you that whether these feats are part of a fixed progression like a subclass and it’s abilities or in the form of bonus feats, the designers have tended to air on the side of being less generous with feats than they are with spell slots. And of course, if those feats are fixed class abilities that tends to be less generous yet, because you are locked into a progression that just tends to give you one thing to be good at. Whereas a spellcaster upon gaining a level can chose via a learned spell to be good at something entirely new.

Another upshot of this principle is that if there are “6th level spells” and “9th level spells” then there ought to be something like “6th level feats” and “9th level feats”. They don’t necessarily need level restrictions, but they do need to clearly represent capstone abilities that represent the sort of bigger more impactful things you might do, either as depth in terms of getting really good at something or as breadth in terms of getting better at many things.

One area that I think subclassing could be useful is forcing breath on the class. There is a tendency to optimize a character to do one thing well. Hit things with a hammer big enough that everything is a nail. And the result of that is a character that is very narrow and binary. In their wheelhouse there is no challenge and outside of it there is no hope. So one thing you could do with a subclass is say, “As you level up you get X picks from column A (that pertains to combat) and Y picks from column B (that pertains to durability) and Z from column C (that pertains to skillfulness). You could build up your archetype from lists of the sort of feats that they can do. Maybe this sort of fighter is mobile and gets picks from mobility feats. Maybe that sort of fighter is a great leader and gets picks from "inspiring others" feats, and another gets extra battlefield control picks. But the general principle that you pick your enhancements the way a spellcaster picks their spells is essential if you want to have some sort parity between the two in breath of ability. And by forcing breadth you can safely give more feat slots because you know it’s hard to break anything by doubling down. Breadth is rarely as game breaking as depth. Being a little useful in a lot of situations is not a problem.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm going to say that The Hulk is a perfectly fine high level fighter and is no spellcaster.

Agreed. Although, you might say he's more of a fit for a high level Barbarian, given that his big schtick is Rage.

Allowing martial characters to do what the heroes of e.g. The Song of Roland, Outlaws at the Water Margin, Celtic Myth, or modern anime, action movies, and superhero comics can do in no way makes them spellcasters.

Maybe, you cover a lot of ground there between 'The Song of Roland' to anime to superhero comics. That's so much ground I have no idea what your specific point is.

I'm going to stop responding to you for now because I feel like you are being preemptively hostile based on what you think I think and really I'm not interested in your hate or bile or bias. It's not productive. It's really obvious that you aren't listening to me and are instead continuing an argument you've had somewhere else when you throw a bunch of assertions in my face as if I didn't agree with them when I do. I feel like you didn't read me at all, much less read me thoughtfully.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

IMHO a big part of the problem is that while full casters can literally rewrite the laws of physics and reshape reality, achieving things far beyond that which folks 'in the real world' can do, Fighters and other Martial classes can't even do normal things because the rules weirdly restrict and limit them.

The entire Battlemaster kit - Tripping folks? Disarming them? You mean while the Wizard can use a reaction to make multiple people Feather Fall, I as the Fighter need a specific class feature in order to try to trip someone, a limited number of times per day? We have TOMES of spells, literally, while incredibly basic things like 'grabbing someone's weapon so they can't swing with it' require significant DM adjudication. They're just not even trying to enable actions for fighters beyond 'I roll to attack. I deal X damage. Rinse and repeat.'

IMHO the rules need a drastic overhaul when it comes to combat mechanics, to say nothing of power levels, in order for martial characters to shine. Set aside the (imho quite valid) debate over whether high level martial characters should be able to Sauron multiple enemies, knocking them around like bowling pins, and otherwise act more like an Anime hero than a random dude. At least a random dude could kill a sleeping target without setting off alarms. In D&D? "I sneak up to the sleeping general and slit his throat" "Ok, your sneak attack is 4d6, doubled to 8d6 since you auto-crit, plus 2d4 and your Dex mod. The general has over 150 HP though so now he wakes up, and he is Pissed."

Step 1 - create baseline mechanics which allow for the following:
Trips
Grapples of various body parts
Disarming and snatching items away
Body blocking to prevent movement or escape
Sundering and destroying items or armor
Interrupting what the other person is doing, literally at all

Once the fighter is capable of doing more than standing there and slashing at people, the Battlemaster might be sad, but imho you'd already be on your way to evening out the disparity quite a bit.

 

[Minigiant]

I think the core of the QC/LF argument is the lack of definition of what the fighter's power (items, feats, class features, fiat, manevers/powers)comes from and then committing to the choice(s). The wizard's powercomes fromspellsand it almost always scaled well.

The problem 3e had was it switched from a item based fighter to a feat based fighter and didn't scale the feats, right.
The problem 4e had was that it choose powers based fighter and didn't sell a plurality of the community on it.
The problem 5e ran into is didn't choose between items, feats, or class features and 1 (feats) doesn't scale, another (items)the fighter has no control over and nor has exclusivity,and the last (class features) is pure combat pillar.

 

[Celebrim]

Fighters and other Martial classes can't even do normal things because the rules weirdly restrict and limit them.

The entire Battlemaster kit - Tripping folks? Disarming them? You mean while the Wizard can use a reaction to make multiple people Feather Fall, I as the Fighter need a specific class feature in order to try to trip someone, a limited number of times per day? We have TOMES of spells, literally, while incredibly basic things like 'grabbing someone's weapon so they can't swing with it' require significant DM adjudication.

This brings up a gaming principle I call "the kindergarten principle". The idea is that the answer to a player proposition that could conceivably be performed by a kindergartener should never be "No". The idea is not that a kindergartener is necessarily good at it, but if conceivably a kindergartner could trip another kindergartener on the playground, or take his wiffle ball bat away from him, or grapple his playmate and tackle them, then surely an adventuring hero can at least always propose to do these things with some chance of success.

What this tells us is that very simple combat maneuvers should never be silo'd away in class abilities. You may need to invest Chargen resources in order to get good at combat maneuvers, but you should never need to invest Chargen resources just to attempt them.

And again, this is part of the Feats are Fighter's Spells principle. No one should have to take a specific class to get 'trip' as an ability, nor should they ever have to take a specific class to get good at tripping someone. That should be a package of abilities available to almost anyone, with the difference that if your class is about martial prowess then you get more selection of those packages of abilities that increase your martial prowess.