Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
The champion should exist, just not as a fighter. Stop forcing the fighter to be the noob class, and stop forcing noobs to be fighters. There should be 4 flavors of noob class for new players, drunk old slobs, and people who don't care about learning the rules: Mage, Priest, Warrior and Expert. No subclasses, no feat choices, just an on the rails experience with no decision points to break people's brains. Hell, give Mage and Priest pre-picked encounter spells while we're at it.
Right now, we have to keep the fighter main class simple for WOTC's hypothetical potatoes who don't want to think. I haven't met many in 30+ years of gaming, but WOTC seems to think this is the target fighter audience, and it is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you care about the game, you generally don't play a fighter, and if you don't care about the game you do, because that is basically your only choice to go through on autopilot.
Right now, we have to keep the fighter main class simple for WOTC's hypothetical potatoes who don't want to think. I haven't met many in 30+ years of gaming, but WOTC seems to think this is the target fighter audience, and it is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you care about the game, you generally don't play a fighter, and if you don't care about the game you do, because that is basically your only choice to go through on autopilot.