The Paradox of the Boring Fighter

[Stormonu]

Personally, I've never seen the swing-hit-damage fighter as a problem of the game, so mich as a playstyle. I won't deny I like options like disarm, trip and the like, but I don't like the level that 4E brings where every blow has to be named like some bad kung-fu movie.

There's simply times I want to trade a few blows/die rolls with an enemy and move on to the bit of story or adventure and I just don't want to spend a lot of time with a back-and-forth epic struggle.

 

[B.T.]

I agree with everything in the OP, but I also feel that fighters need some mechanical differentiation. Playing a shield fighter should "feel" different from playing a two-handed fighter in the same way that playing an enchanter should "feel" different from playing an evoker.

Why? Personal taste aside, the customization of characters is something that a lot of people want. Even if that customization is entirely out of combat (no special combat maneuvers for fighters, just skills), people are interested in it. In my opinion, it's just not as interesting or fun or viable to play a character who is mechanically identical (or near identical) to another. (It's why the archetypical D&D adventuring party has a thief, wizard, cleric, and fighter, not two clerics and two wizards.)

Generally, I think that even simple classes should have a handful distinct mechanics that separate them from the rest. Rogues can have sneak attack, pickpocketing, trap disarming, and stealth, and right there you have a unique class that is going to play completely differently from a fighter.

 

[billd91]

I also notice that neither Homer nor Scylla was an archer, or a swashbuckler, or any of the other numerous types of "fighter" characters one might want to play. That's the system's fault for making the class inflexible and limited.

Except that they could have been swashbucklers or archers. In fact, they could have had a mid-life crisis and switched to playing to those archetypes the next day. That's not the system being inflexible and limited. It's being the opposite by not differentiating much build to lead into those specialties. If you want to ding the system, complain that it's too generic and that none of those options have very distinctive game play to them.

Finally, you'd have even COOLER stories to recall if those two characters had the ability to swing from chandeliers, strike down three goblins in a single blow, stand fast next to a fallen comrade and shield him from incoming damage, hold back on their attacks to prepare for a devastating riposte when the enemy guard overreaches, and so on.

It depends on what you really like about playing D&D and other role playing games. Results driving by mechanical solutions or choices you make off the character sheet. It's hard to declare whether someone would have had cooler stories or not without knowing how they come down on the interplay of those elements.

I like 3e and PF, for example, because they offer me lots of tools for customization and combat. On the other hand, we used to do just fine with 1e's lack of customization tools too. In fact, there are times I feel that the distinctiveness our characters had back then were better, in part, because it was all home-grown without the glitz of mechanical options to distract us.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Sometimes, all rules for such things do, is preventing those stories to happen.

Especially, if you need feats or powers to be able to successfully pull those stunts. I mean, when you don´t know in which situations your character will get, your won´t choose cool situational things.

I understand this concern, but I'd point out that no (recent) edition has ever included (mundane) "stunts" that PREVENT other characters from trying them. In 3e, I can Bull Rush without a feat; Improved Bull Rush just makes it better tactically. In 4e, I can Bull Rush without a feat; Tide of Iron just makes it more effective and includes some damage.

In the first 5e playtest, I can roll a Str vs. Str roll to push someone back a square; a fighter CS stunt would only allow me to do so more effectively.
Adding that stunt would NOT make it any harder for a non-fighter (or one without the stunt) to roll a Str vs Str check and push someone back a square.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Except that they could have been swashbucklers or archers. In fact, they could have had a mid-life crisis and switched to playing to those archetypes the next day. That's not the system being inflexible and limited. It's being the opposite by not differentiating much build to lead into those specialties. If you want to ding the system, complain that it's too generic and that none of those options have very distinctive game play to them.

I don't know enough about 1e to state this definitively, but I would think that if it's like 3e minus the feats, a fighter who took off his armor and started attacking enemies with a rapier would just die quickly.

It depends on what you really like about playing D&D and other role playing games. Results driving by mechanical solutions or choices you make off the character sheet.

Reminds me of my favorite Simpsons quote:
GUY IN JAZZ CLUB: This music sucks.
LISA: You have to listen to the notes he's NOT playing!
GUY: I can do that at home.

In other words, I don't need to pay WOTC for a new system to make choices not on the character sheet. I can roleplay creatively with any or no system. But a robust system (including an interesting class) helps that roleplaying work out in a robust and reliable fashion.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The real problem with the fighter isn't the fighter themselves, it's the system.

Mechanically, Homer and Scylla are almost clones. On the other hand in the same party there's mister pointy hat and mister godbotherer. Both of whom have several pages of spells as options in addition to the ability to hit people hard which is all Homer and Scylla have supported. And they get to customise the way they are built and behave.

If this were a game of 3:16 where everyone had two stats (For Attacking and Not For Attacking) then our two fighters wouldn't seem boring. But Homer and Scylla are locked out of a third of the customisation, detail, and play by not being casters.

Fighters should mechanically be no more simple than casters (in fact one of the simplest characters of all should be an evocation-spam sorceror with only a couple of spells).

If anything I'd argue that fighters should be the complex ones - casters cast big, flashy effects in blocks of six seconds or even a minute. For a fighter an inch or a second is a matter of life and death.

And this is the problem. Not that fighters are simple. But that they are simple in a very non-simple game.