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

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

 

[gyor]

Marking was a solid mechanic, nothing wrong with it returning.

 

[SolidPlatonic]

Personally, I don't like how they made a really strong rules base and then subvert it with classes/subclasses that don't need to exist.

Knight and Samurai should be backgrounds. By making it a subclass, does that mean no knight or samurai can get Champion abilities? Or Battle Master Abilities? Or cast spells without multiclassing?

None of the abilities in the UA couldn't have been just additional Battle Master manuevers. Would have made the Arcane Archer way better. That said, it would have been cool to get a variant Eldritch Knight that had some archery abilities....

The sniper is interesting because it is a way for a fighter to get a Feat without needing to use the Feat OPTIONAL rules. Interesting idea, this was maybe not executed well but fundamentally a good design.

 

[RotGrub]

Marking was a solid mechanic, nothing wrong with it returning.

For some people it makes no sense. It caters to a style of play that isn't shared by everyone.

 

[RotGrub]

Personally, I don't like how they made a really strong rules base and then subvert it with classes/subclasses that don't need to exist.

Knight and Samurai should be backgrounds. By making it a subclass, does that mean no knight or samurai can get Champion abilities? Or Battle Master Abilities? Or cast spells without multiclassing?

None of the abilities in the UA couldn't have been just additional Battle Master manuevers. Would have made the Arcane Archer way better. That said, it would have been cool to get a variant Eldritch Knight that had some archery abilities....

The sniper is interesting because it is a way for a fighter to get a Feat without needing to use the Feat OPTIONAL rules. Interesting idea, this was maybe not executed well but fundamentally a good design.

It means they have a bunch of cool "powerz' they want to add the game and pick the first class name that pops in their head. Knight and a samurai are defined by their game mechanics alone. Even if it conflicts with existing preconceptions and 5e concepts (like backgrounds) they go with it.

The developers have lost their minds again. Reminds me of the 4e essentials junk that everyone hated. I could be wrong, but isn't this just the 4e Slayer and Knight reincarnated?

 

[SolidPlatonic]

Knight and a samurai are defined by their game mechanics alone. Even if it conflicts with existing preconceptions and 5e concepts (like backgrounds) they go with it.

I want to see a UA where they take some classic/archetypical character concepts (knights, samurai, Aztek priests, Conan, Frodo, steampunk engineers, gunfighters, various Pathfinder classes, etc) and do a quick build with existing PHB races/classes/subclasses/backgrounds to create them. I have found it pretty trivially simple to do with just what is existing. With this exercise, if they found something they just could not do easily, they could create UA material that would extend existing classes to create the archetype they wanted.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The sniper is interesting because it is a way for a fighter to get a Feat without needing to use the Feat OPTIONAL rules. Interesting idea, this was maybe not executed well but fundamentally a good design.

Don't agree. If you're a DM that is going to allow a player to take a subclass that has basically a feat embedded in it... just be a DM that allows a player to use their "bonus" ASI slot to take said feat. That's why fighters and rogues have those extra ASI slots... in order to take combat abilities as class features that the designers didn't want to just make "fighter exclusive" or "rogue exclusive".

So by making subclasses that just give out these feats in the form of subclass abilities, all they are doing is changing the level from which these PC would get these abilities. Which is kind of funny to me... seeing as how we have people saying they don't want fighter archetypes to be just specific "Battlemaster-like" combat superiority builds, but instead we now have "feat builds" instead.

I mean I guess you could consider them the same thing... both of them grab specific maneuvers/feats and assign them to the fluffy archetype, along with getting a couple new features written specifically for that fluffy archetype. The only difference being... one of those can get maneuvers *and* pick up feats to best exemplify what a 'Gladiator' or 'Cavalier' or 'Knight' or 'Scout' or 'Myrmidon' or 'Sharpshooter' or 'Samurai' might be... while the other one only uses feats themselves. They just get to select more feats than other fighters if they like (all the regular ASI/feat slots plus the "free feat" the subclass is giving out as a subclass feature.)

Personally... I prefer the former over the latter. I think the Maneuver system is much better and more interesting than the feat system for Fighters. We already did the "Fighterz get ALL DA FEATZ ALL DA TIME!" system in 3E and I don't know how many people would say it was the best way to exemplify the mechanics of the fighter class.

 

[flametitan]

It means they have a bunch of cool "powerz' they want to add the game and pick the first class name that pops in their head. Knight and a samurai are defined by their game mechanics alone. Even if it conflicts with existing preconceptions and 5e concepts (like backgrounds) they go with it.

It's been a step that Mearls hinted at for a while, being dissatisfied with the Current fighter subclasses for being defined by their mechanics only, rather than having a flavour of their own like every other class.

I don't agree it was necessary to start having fighter subclasses based on flavour rather than mechanics (As the fighter's been the traditional go-to class for every conceivable fighting archetype; it's going to be a *pain* to make a subclass for every single possible fictional archetype the fighter has to fill) but I do kind of see what Mearls is trying to do naming these things "knight" and "Samurai".

 

[gyor]

Knight is a background in the PHB. Then their is the fighter Subclass Purple Dragon Knight in the SCAG. In the PHB Paladins are refered to as Knights in the fluff and their powers seem to back that up. So the question becomes how many Knights can dance on the head of a pin.

 

[TwoSix]

For some people it makes no sense. It caters to a style of play that isn't shared by everyone.

That would be literally every element in the game, as no style of play is shared by everyone.

 

[RotGrub]

It's been a step that Mearls hinted at for a while, being dissatisfied with the Current fighter subclasses for being defined by their mechanics only, rather than having a flavour of their own like every other class.

I don't agree it was necessary to start having fighter subclasses based on flavour rather than mechanics (As the fighter's been the traditional go-to class for every conceivable fighting archetype; it's going to be a *pain* to make a subclass for every single possible fictional archetype the fighter has to fill) but I do kind of see what Mearls is trying to do naming these things "knight" and "Samurai".

Well, perhaps my sarcasm was lost. IMO these sub classes are strictly based on a few mechanics and lack much to be desired in terms of flavour.