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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8550908" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Except that it's not. It really, really isn't. Even if you had consistently 8 encounters a day and 3 short rests, the Fighter is not worlds better than the Wizard at combat, especially not the Champion. A Wizard that focuses even half of their spell slots on combat, so long as they aren't being really really inefficient (e.g., casting area of effect spells on singular targets) can keep up pretty well with a Fighter. Cantrips, likewise, keep up quite well--they may not be exactly equivalent, but if they were, that would be blatantly a problem, wouldn't it? The Fighter is supposed to completely outclass the Wizard in combat, and it just, straight, does not do that. It's better, but it's not WAY better.Ah, yes, you're right! So the Battlemaster should be even further ahead.One: only for Champion Fighters, not all fighters. Two: Each of those crits only adds 1 weapon die, not the full suite. So sure, the Wizard may only get one crit per 20 rounds, but that's turning 4 dice into 8 dice. So the only thing that Champion Fighter is bringing is 8 extra damage dice per 20 rounds. I'm pretty sure a Wizard can manage, through using regular spell slots rather than cantrips, to get a total of 8d10 at least once in twenty rounds.Exactly the same argument applies to Champion's extra crit dice. Even at maximum level, getting 8 encounters a day, four rounds per encounter, four attacks per round, plus two Action Surges every rest (and assuming 3 short rests a day), you're looking at a totla of 8*4+2*4 = 10*4 = 40 Attack actions, or 160 attacks. At a 15% crit rate, that's 24 bonus damage dice (not static damage, JUST dice), for an entire day. For an optimized crit-fishing Champion, that would probably be 3*(2d6) = 6d6 bonus damage per fight. A Wizard dropping a single fireball-or-better spell every combat that hits at least two targets gets that damage automatically. Between Arcane Recovery and Signature Spells (picking fireball and, presumably, something more utility-helpful like fly, invisibility, tongues, or major image), a 20th-level Wizard can throw out 3 (base) + 3 (Arcane Recovery) + 4 (Signature Spells) = 10 fireball spells every day, meaning they could even drop them on single targets four times a day and still keep up with the entire damage bonus Champion offers. While still having all of their spells that aren't 3rd level available for doing whatever the hell they want.This is what I mean when I say that the Fighter is not blowing the Wizard out of the water. It just isn't. The Wizard can, with slight investment and just a little bit of forethought (e.g., as stated, not using fireball this round if there's only one enemy left), meet or beat the Fighter at his own game, while still having all the other resources at their disposal available for other things.The Fighter does not excel at combat. It does okay; if you follow the "6-8 combat encounters, 2-3 short rests per day" paradigm, it keeps up with other front-line warriors like Paladin. It does not stand head and shoulders above other classes in combat. It simply, truly, does not.No. But it would help a lot if you stopped assuming that adding utility to the Fighter would mean taking away what you like about the class. That is needlessly combative. It would be a hell of a lot more helpful if you instead presented it as, "Okay, well, I really, REALLY like the Fighter being extremely simple. Not having to worry about things. Just relaxing. Hearing about the stuff you want, I'm concerned that that would mean the playstyle I value--being able to just relax and hang out, more or less--would get pushed out, and not really have other options to take." That's something that can actually be worked with, as opposed to, "Okay, how about you surrender all the stuff you actually like, so that this thing I care about doesn't change," which is where we're at right now.From what I can tell, the competing visions present in this thread are...1. Keep It Simple, Streamlined. Any change, no matter how small, to the Fighter is A Problem because it would disrupt the distilled simplicity, the "I can just turn my brain off and not care" aspect of the class, thus everyone else must compromise.2. Let Them Play Too! The Fighter, as it is, is simply not sufficient and must change. Anything that doesn't actually change the Fighter, or provide said change across all of its subclasses (in their own ways), is inadequate and unacceptable.You can probably tell which of the two I align with just from that summary.100% agreed. There should be casters as simple as Champion Fighter is simple (or very very close, if that much simplicity is too difficult.) 4e proved it was possible with its Elementalist Sorcerer. And there should be martial classes that are of at least somewhat comparable complexity to complex casters like Wizard.Because it is the big tent. By design, by explicit designer intent. D&D declared it was seeking to carry that burden.Do you have citations for that? I haven't seen it. I have seen, for example, Mearls explicitly saying on Twitter that it was originally intended that legit martial healing be part of 5e, before they hamstrung themselves with the whole "Specialties" thing.PF1e is the same rotten garbage design as 3e though. I only go to PF1e when I want an absolute gonzo experience, because that's the only thing it does "well"...for a given definition of "well." It's hellish to run such things as a DM though, so few people are willing to try.I don't see it as "changing" anything. The game has been more than dungeon crawls since at least 2e. Remember how 3e's marketing included "<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/3e-and-the-feel-of-d-d.667269/" target="_blank">back to the dungeon</a>"? You can't have a "we have to return to our roots!" campaign if the game never left its roots to begin with. And I dunno about you, but it seems pretty clear to me that the rest of the game has been moving away from a hardcore dungeon-crawler focus for...basically its entire run. 3e, 4e, and even 5e have all shown that fans have a huge interest in high-narrative gaming. ENWorld's campaign settings and Pathfinder's adventure paths have shown people really, truly enjoy "telling a story" through play, rather than just doing insane underground tomb heists.When viewed through that lens, it seems a lot more to me like "we should keep focused on dungeon-crawling" is trying to deny or revert the changes that have already occurred...for everything except Fighters (and non-casters more generally).Agreed, though I think it goes further, and it's that the developers intentionally presented the game as doing so--embracing a huge panoply of different approaches and styles as all equally valid, all equally "D&D."Better, perhaps. I certainly speak fondly of 13A and Dungeon World. But that's a question of ideal result--"what would produce the best possible world if it succeeded?"--vs. what actually works in practice, aka, "what strategy is most likely to succeed?"And I hate to break it to you, but D&D is the only game in town for a LOT of people. The majority of the hobby, even. Making outreach to those fans who would like to like the game more, if it had things that appealed to them better, is sound business sense.Absolutely. I didn't want to specifically accuse Asisreo of this because, as stated, they come across relatively genially. But yeah. It's a frustrating and dismissive argument that we've all heard a thousand times.Like, to give an example. I actually quite enjoy playing Shadowrun 5e. Do you know how hard it is to find a SR5 group online, doubly so if you can't stand the "street level" rules? (Read: starting off super duper ultra weak, being focused on petty neighborhood crime, that sort of thing.) I once spent three months looking for a game that wasn't Street Level. In the end, I gave up, because no one was offering one. Nowhere I looked. Not on Reddit, not on GITP, not on Myth-Weavers, nothing. This is a game that does still show up, albeit in low amounts, on Roll20's statistics for game groups--and I still could not find a single "regular" game of Shadowrun 5e anywhere.At this point, for a lot of folks, the only game they'll get to play is 5e, because that's the only game most people are willing to run. When you only have one choice, it sucks for that one choice to have such limitations, particularly when the books themselves don't support that with their descriptive and fluff text. They treat the classes as peers--not precise perfect equals, but as equals-in-concept, teammates, people who all pitch in and all accept an equal slice of the reward. Just as a jury of your peers need not be made of people who share your education level or income, but who are your peers before the law.</blockquote>

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