Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Fighter: Samurai, Sharpshooter, Arcane Archer & Knight

I'm getting, like, unhealthy amounts of mad, clicking on that broken link.

 

[BookBarbarian]

After reading all the posts about what a Samurai is and isn't, I definitely think the subclass needs a rename. Maybe Knight does too.

 

[Saeviomagy]

From the traditional D&D fighter, to MMO aggro, to the rest. When programmers started trying to put D&D on-line, they ran into an issue in that the fighter's traditional role was to block for the rest of the party - in old-school dungeon-crawling, a pair of fighters would form a 'wall' in the ubiquitous 10x10 corridor, and outside that special case, there was an unwritten law (even unconscious assumption) that the DM would tend to have monsters just rush the front-line fighters more often than not, anyway.

My experience with traditional D&D was not at all like that. Monsters behave differently depending on numbers, intelligence and the role playing of players. They certainly didn't default to charging the fighters and ignoring the rest of the party, especially since the front line was typically the rogue searching for traps...

AIs didn't have that assumption, so MMOs coded in 'Aggro' to keep the fighter working as it was supposed to. 3e players familiar with MMOs started to notice/complain "the Fighter lacks Agrro!" and the Knight was the belated and not too stunningly effective response. (Of course, they may have lacked Aggro, but 3.x fighters with reach could certainly protect their allies using choke "points" up to 25' across! - before Enlarge shenanigans.)

On the contrary, AIs originally did have that assumption. For a long time the first person to attack a creature or walk into a room in a MUD was that monster's target for all eternity. Later on, mechanics to switch that around evolved, but typically the monster continued to attack whomever had used whatever taunt mechanic had been used. The threat minigame was added much later, and more as something for the tank to actually do, as opposed to "hit your rescue mechanic, have lots of hitpoints and lots of armor".

3.x characters typically relied on AoOs to lightly punish movement. I think this was more for the sake of keeping mapboards condensed than anything else. Certainly if a foe wanted to go punch the wizard he could do so, but the fighter could feel happy he'd punched the foe first.

I don't really recollect any push for fighters to get threat mechanics, and certainly the knight isn't representative of the goal of MMO-style threat nor the actual result. There's not a minigame there for the knight to be playing, just a button to hit when he feels like sacrificing himself for the party. If anything it's making the fighter's role less complex, not more.

I consider it a line from the 3.5 Knight to the Essentials Knight, yes. Sure, in the time-line you had the Bo9S Warblade and 4e 'Defender' Role between them, but, considering how the Knight pulled back from the 4e paradigm, and, obviously, the name, I think it's fair to discount the Warblade and Defender as a dead branch on that evolutionary tree.

The new knight is moving pretty close to the 4e defender mechanics with marking and provoking from the mark, plus upping the number of OAs.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My experience with traditional D&D was not at all like that.

Hey, it never is. But whatever your experience, ripping off D&D to make MUDs and MMOs called for it.

I don't really recollect any push for fighters to get threat mechanics

It was definitely brought up on the WotC boards (Gleemax, at the time, was it?) in the course of the interminable Fighter SUX threads.
(I guess they finally did terminate, though, didn't they, along with the boards when WotC took them down.)

I don't know if was exactly a 'push' that implies some sort of self-possessed intent or desire for improvement - more whining & bellyaching, really.

The new knight is moving pretty close to the 4e defender mechanics with marking and provoking from the mark, plus upping the number of OAs.

It's moved in that direction, sure, but it hasn't reached or passed the Essentials Knight, which had pulled back from the 4e AEDU Defender Role model (npi).

And, y'know, they're both the 'Knight' fighter sub-class, and both done on Mearls's watch. But, keep arguing against the obvious, if you like. Sometimes an unintuitive alternate rationale turns out to be correct. Reality not caring if it makes sense and all.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I can see it now: the party is up going up against Tiamat, and the 20th level Samurai carefully reduces himself to only one HP before the fight. When the fight starts, his Fighting Spirit and Rapid Strike help him immediately land (amazing luck!) five attacks on Tiamat that turn. He Action Surges another three shots, hitting once, and then spends his last attack to grab his knife and commit Seppuku, reducing himself to zero HP. Before he expires, he immediately Action Surges and Rapid Strikes a total of nine more attacks, hitting seven times, for a grand total of thirteen hits and 260 HP of damage dealt!

Does this seem awesome to you, or ridiculous? I could see it either way.

Awesome, and likely to end the character's career. A warrior, freeing themselves of the fear of death with their own knife, for one last desperate stand against a terrible goddess? Shivers

 

[hejtmane]

I really like the samurai, but I'm a little concerned that Fighting Spirit is too good. Take a bonus action at the start of your turn, get advantage on all attacks for that turn, the rest of the round, and your next turn? Three times/short rest? That's really good, even before you take the resistances into account.

I'm happy to be convinced I'm wrong, but it looks a little much to me.

I'm not crazy about the arcane archer only getting two special shots/rest, but I'm not sure how to increase that and maintain balance.

Overall, though, I'm fairly happy with the whole thing.

Barbarians basically have this with reckless attack and Barbarian rage the only thing is they renew on a short rest not just a long rest really not seeing the issue other than you can cast spells

 

[Ricochet]

Feature and power creep has to be coming soon with the newfound frequency of these articles.

Everything was ticking along so nicely too.

 

[jbOKgamer]

I sent a tweet to Jeremy Crawford and he sent back "Take a look at the final sentence of Arcane Arrow."

I still feel that write up for Arcane Archer was incomplete. I believe all other Archetypes from all the classes has something written at all Archetypes level. The closet one I would compare Arcane Archer to is Battlemaster, which is learning 2 maneuvers and gaining increase in die.

I feel that Arcane Archer should have a listed 10th level feature and I have an idea for one.

Arcane Empowered Shot
Starting at 10th level, when you attack with a shortbow or longbow your shots count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I say again (swashbuckler, gladiator,) knight and samurai should be "variant" classes, a pack of optional class features. They are too popular archetypes to be only subclasses.

 

[hejtmane]

I say again (swashbuckler, gladiator,) knight and samurai should be "variant" classes, a pack of optional class features. They are too popular archetypes to be only subclasses.

That is all a sub class is I see no reason to branch them off

 

[RotGrub]

I'm getting rather annoyed with how JC has been sneaking in all the vilified 4e rules lately. Did that marking really need to return? WTF!