D&D 5E What classes do you want added to 5e?

[Andor]

How about instead of one per round, use a recharge mechanic like a Mind Flayer does? Once you use a maneuver, it recharges on a 5-6 on a d6. At higher levels it recharges on 4-6 or even 2-6.

You can "spend" an attack studying your opponent(s) instead of attacking to make a recharge roll. Usually a bad trade but perhaps worth it in some cases, depending on terrain and circumstance.

The goal here to to achieve something like the battlemaster, but without having to deal with the throttling effect of having to expend a limited resource, yes?

What if you invert the recharge mechanic? Every time you use the ability roll a d6. If you roll higher than the number of times you've used that trick in this combat, the opponent sees through the maneuver and you only get a basic attack out of your action.

You can add other actions to it too, such as observing an opponents style to allow you to either learn to cope with their attacks better (adding to their die rolls) or overcome their defenses (subtracting from yours.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's an example of the kind of thing I was concerned a DM might do, and it turns out it's already in the optional rule. So, no, not assuaged, confirmed.

But it's not disallowed by fiat--it's just part of the rule.

With the full rule in mind, my analysis as the GWM fighter would go something like this: "Can't power attack--AC is too high. Can't grapple or push--he's too big. Could regular attack, but that would take a long time and I'd take a lot of damage in the process. Could Dodge while everyone else kills him, but he'd just move around. He can overrun me without trying because he is so big, so I can't block his movement. Man, giants stink--all of my options are bad. I guess I'll try for a Disarm and hope I get lucky. Sure wish I had Help or inspiration or something."

Just for fun, I'll roll this out:

Fighter rolls at disadvantage, gets 10+9=19.
Giant rolls at advantage, gets 15+11=26. Failure #1.
Fighter rolls 4+9=13.
Giant rolls 14+11=25. Failure #2.
Fighter rolls 6+9=15.
Giant rolls 17+11=28. Failure #3.

Fighter sighs and braces for impact. "Giants stink. Should have Dodged."

For the record, attacking the giant would have resulted in 10 points of damage, according to my rolls. Dodging would have been useless, because the giant miraculously missed on both of his attacks anyway. So this whole round was a tie as far as giant and fighter are concerned.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But it's not disallowed by fiat--it's just part of the rule.

Which is worse, because you can't even hope for DM beneficence: the DM has already been kind enough to use the module, afterall.

With the full rule in mind, my analysis as the GWM fighter would go something like this: "Can't power attack--AC is too high. Can't grapple or push--he's too big. Could regular attack, but that would take a long time and I'd take a lot of damage in the process. Could Dodge while everyone else kills him, but he'd just move around. He can overrun me without trying because he is so big, so I can't block his movement. Man, giants stink--all of my options are bad. I guess I'll try for a Disarm and hope I get lucky. Sure wish I had Help or inspiration or something."

Prettymuch illustrated MwaO's issues, I think.

(That roll-through was amusing, BTW. Embarrassing for both.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Which is worse, because you can't even hope for DM beneficence: the DM has already been kind enough to use the module, afterall.

Prettymuch illustrated MwaO's issues, I think.

(That roll-through was amusing, BTW. Embarrassing for both.)

There's a big difference though between "(Fire) Giants stink" and "Fighters stink." Remember that the Fire Giant vs. solo fighter is a double-Deadly challenge all by itself--so it's actually pretty reasonable IMO that the fighter winds up thinking, "Hey, I'm going to need some help with this one guys!" Against a Frost Giant or a Hill Giant he'd be more than okay.

It's hard for me to re-read that paragraph of fighter's thoughts and not want to play the fighter in that situation though. That kind of predicament ("all of my options are bad") is exactly what makes D&D fun for me--I have to create new options, somehow, in character, or die fighting. When all of my options are not bad, the game is merely reduced to a previously-solved problem, an exercise in abnegation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's hard for me to re-read that paragraph of fighter's thoughts and not want to play the fighter in that situation though. That kind of predicament ("all of my options are bad") is exactly what makes D&D fun for me--I have to create new options, somehow, in character, or die fighting. When all of my options are not bad, the game is merely reduced to a previously-solved problem, an exercise in abnegation.

That can make for an exciting story. It can also make for short-lived characters. (Or, certainly, both, a dead character, and a great story.) And, really, I don't begrudge anyone the challenge of playing a character who's in over his head some - or most - of the time. I just also don't begrudge someone wanting something else from the game, either.

A more interesting martial class, with more and more unique options would be a great addition to the game, opening up modes of play that aren't currently available, including some that were available in 3.5 and 4e, which is in keeping with 5e's goal of being for fans of all prior editions.

 

[MwaO]

For the record, attacking the giant would have resulted in 10 points of damage, according to my rolls. Dodging would have been useless, because the giant miraculously missed on both of his attacks anyway. So this whole round was a tie as far as giant and fighter are concerned.

One of the things to often look at is what you think you were capable of doing vs. what you actually were capable of doing.

You have GWM, so with 3 attacks, you likely generate +.14 attacks per round and an extra +.75 damage total from critical hits on top of whatever that .14 attack does. You hit on a 9 or 60% of the time. You'd expect to do 3.14*10*.6+.75 or 19.6 damage on average.

Hmm, let's try out -5 to hit/+10 damage. You hit on a 14 or 35% of the time. You'd expect to do 3.14*20*.35+.75 or 22.7 damage on average.

That's interesting - even though your gut said GWM was a bad option, it actually was the better option on average.

Okay, let's check out the Disarm. With Advantage and +11 vs. Disadvantage and +9, that's kind of gruesome. Basically, because Fire Giant has a +11, you need to win by 3. So basically, each swing you have an 8% chance of success or about a 22% chance of getting at least one successful disarm in a round. You're basically hoping for a critical hit.

http://anydice.com/program/6c3b - then to the power of 3 the result of -1.

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Let's look at what this really means:
You likely on average disarm the Giant somewhere between rounds 2-5. It isn't until round 3 that you would expect to succeed just a hair more than half the time. So assume we're lucky and on round 3 at the end of your attacks, you disarm the Giant. You gave up doing about 40% of its hit points to get there. Which if your buddy was doing the same damage, means it only survives about 1 more round of attacks from one of you - you might very easily get away with only 3 rounds of attacks off against you when you might expect to spend 3 rounds trying to disarm it!

i.e. choosing Disarm isn't a tie against this Giant. It is almost certainly a huge mistake, simply because your damage actually will matter on average faster than you will Disarm it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That can make for an exciting story. It can also make for short-lived characters. (Or, certainly, both, a dead character, and a great story.) And, really, I don't begrudge anyone the challenge of playing a character who's in over his head some - or most - of the time. I just also don't begrudge someone wanting something else from the game, either.

A more interesting martial class, with more and more unique options would be a great addition to the game, opening up modes of play that aren't currently available, including some that were available in 3.5 and 4e, which is in keeping with 5e's goal of being for fans of all prior editions.

I still don't see anything wrong with the current ruleset, nor anything wrong with the fighter as is. One bad day when you're fighting mano-a-mano with the second-most-Athletic monster in the whole MM does not "a character who's in over his head most of the time" make, and it especially does not make a character who has no options other than "I roll to hit. I roll to hit. I roll to hit. I roll to hit."

I'm deliberately eschewing discussion of character resources like superiority dice and Action Surges because I find them pretty boring compared to real tactical thinking, but remember that they do exist--the fighter could have been a Battlemaster with Menacing Strike and the Lucky feat, which would have been enough to make Disarm almost a sure thing given how Lucky interacts with disadvantage, at least officially.

So there you go. I find fighters plenty interesting already. I can respect the fact that you want a warrior with more bells and whistles, and that's fine, I hope you think up a good one--but I don't want anyone slandering the 5E fighter by claiming that he is devoid of interesting tactical decisions in his current incarnation. Far from it.

 

[Aldarc]

So there you go. I find fighters plenty interesting already. I can respect the fact that you want a warrior with more bells and whistles, and that's fine, I hope you think up a good one--but I don't want anyone slandering the 5E fighter by claiming that he is devoid of interesting tactical decisions in his current incarnation. Far from it.

I would buy that if it wasn't for the fact that casters have tremendously more tactical options that make the fighter's pale by comparison. We can even ignore the full casters and just jump to the ranger and paladin. They essentially have all the same "theater of the mind" style tactical options that you have described for the fighter, but they also have a lot of spells that they can apply tactically in the same sort of "theater of the mind" creativity. The tactical options are inherently much greater for them than the fighter by the nature of spell options being multipliers for tactical options.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

One of the things to often look at is what you think you were capable of doing vs. what you actually were capable of doing.

You have GWM, so with 3 attacks, you likely generate +.14 attacks per round and an extra +.75 damage total from critical hits on top of whatever that .14 attack does. You hit on a 9 or 60% of the time. You'd expect to do 3.14*10*.6+.75 or 19.6 damage on average.

Hmm, let's try out -5 to hit/+10 damage. You hit on a 14 or 35% of the time. You'd expect to do 3.14*20*.35+.75 or 22.7 damage on average.

That's interesting - even though your gut said GWM was a bad option, it actually was the better option on average.

Okay, let's check out the Disarm. With Advantage and +11 vs. Disadvantage and +9, that's kind of gruesome. Basically, because Fire Giant has a +11, you need to win by 3. So basically, each swing you have an 8% chance of success or about a 22% chance of getting at least one successful disarm in a round. You're basically hoping for a critical hit.

http://anydice.com/program/6c3b - then to the power of 3 the result of -1.

-----

Let's look at what this really means:
You likely on average disarm the Giant somewhere between rounds 2-5. It isn't until round 3 that you would expect to succeed just a hair more than half the time. So assume we're lucky and on round 3 at the end of your attacks, you disarm the Giant. You gave up doing about 40% of its hit points to get there. Which if your buddy was doing the same damage, means it only survives about 1 more round of attacks from one of you - you might very easily get away with only 3 rounds of attacks off against you when you might expect to spend 3 rounds trying to disarm it!

i.e. choosing Disarm isn't a tie against this Giant. It is almost certainly a huge mistake, simply because your damage actually will matter on average faster than you will Disarm it.

I haven't checked the details of this analysis, but it sounds valid. The fact that the analysis is nontrivial proves my point--the 5E fighter has interesting decisions to make.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I would buy that if it wasn't for the fact that casters have tremendously more tactical options that make the fighter's pale by comparison. We can even ignore the full casters and just jump to the ranger and paladin. They essentially have all the same "theater of the mind" style tactical options that you have described for the fighter, but they also have a lot of spells that they can apply tactically in the same sort of "theater of the mind" creativity. The tactical options are inherently much greater for them than the fighter by the nature of spell options being multipliers for tactical options.

Remember that the argument I'm responding to is "The fighter has no options except, 'I roll to hit. I roll to hit. I roll to hit. I roll to hit.'" That's been thoroughly debunked.

If the argument had been made instead that spellcasters have even more options than fighters do, I wouldn't try to debunk that argument, I'd agree with it! It's why Eldritch Knight is clearly the best kind of fighter IMO, and why Paladin/Sorcerers are superior to Paladins. In my subjective opinion.

But that isn't the argument I was responding to.