What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

It’s. It not like there isn’t enough room for senseless violence. Just make them squirm when and where. And let it cause shifting alliances.

Sure plenty of things to do in a messed up world even if you are part of it and do not have some gold hunting motive. One of them priestesses was a prophesied one and sent on "suicide" missions by jealous peers of course.

 

[Garthanos]

That's terribly insensitive. Just because Bob likes naming characters after himself doesn't mean he's dull.

Ironically my son named Robert ummm his first character was named.... yup exactly.

 

[Zardnaar]

Perception vs reality.

IME, people still very much run strength characters.

Also IME, the balance “gap” is much smaller than it seems from reading forums or from over-analyzing the books.

I do recommend making Barbarian Unarmored Defense 12+Dex+Con, or simply 13+Con, though, on a side note.

But looking at Dex Fighter va strength fighter, is there actually a meaningful power gap in favor of Dex? I would argue that there isn’t.

Without feats there is. Dex is Uber assuming it's sword and board.

No feats great weapons aren't all that may as well use a shield due to the fueling style. 6.5 avg damage vs 6.5 or 7 plus reroll 1s.

+2 AC better than plus two damage.

 

[Zardnaar]

Nah. Divine Metamagic + Persistent Spell + divine power and/or holy might turns you into an all-day melee monster.

It was mostly a hypothetical build.

Was a lot better in 3.0, required very specific stuff in 3.5 to pull it off especially before nightsticks.

 

[Zardnaar]

I will add that what I like about d&d is the heroic roleplayjng where a fighter can take a dragon or giant in one on one combat. I also like how in 1E we had a 15th level fighter defeat 10 hill giants. And that was cool. The neighboring evil knights that saw it wouldn’t screw with him directly after seeing that.

But what I learned from games like coc and rq (back in the Stone Age) was how to integrate pc’s into the community and build social implications. All those things can be done in d&d just as well in those games. I would probaly like to see this encouraged more. OA 1E did this some with their family and honor charts. Becmi did this a little bit of u got into kingdom building. RQ and COC did it a lot earlier and more successfully. Not necessarily mechanically, but by the way they integrated the pc’s into the community.

Okay RQ and COC can be so brutal players may avoid unnecessary combat. That helped some too. But the other goes a long way.

I like fighters being able to kill 10 hill giants. Lol. It’s just cool.

Our impressive one is a level 14 fighter in 2E killing a level 19 lich, Dragon and a Marilith. In 3 rounds.

Then polished off a avatar.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Without feats there is. Dex is Uber assuming it's sword and board.

No feats great weapons aren't all that may as well use a shield due to the fueling style. 6.5 avg damage vs 6.5 or 7 plus reroll 1s.

+2 AC better than plus two damage.

You’re really arguing that is a meaningful gap?

 

[Zardnaar]

You’re really arguing that is a meaningful gap?

Damage wise no. Add in skills, initiative, a major save, melee and ranged yes it is.

See a great sword fighter switch to javelins and cry.

A Dex based Archer doesn't suck using a rapier. A dual wielder with the feat can carry a single blade and put it away and draw a bow or pull out the second weapon.

The strength based characters get PAM and GWM but sharpshooter is better than gwm and XBE+SS let's ranged characters essentially melee and use -5/+10.

Spellcasters can opt out of using strength via Wis and Cha.

So strength is actually only good in narrow situations like a Paladin or rolled stat cleric builds.

Oh and at low level strength might be marginally better under point buy due to AC.

 

[Fenris-77]

Without feats? Yeah, DEX is where it's at for most builds. For the reasons listed above. The benefits you get going DEX more than make up for the relatively small downgrade in damage. I think DEX does too much really, but that's a whole different thread topic (and a topic that's been beaten to death).

 

[Monayuris]

One of the things I like about BECMI is they actually have no need for feats because there are alot of cool combat maneuvers built into the combat rules without even needing feats. There is a heck of alot more to the combat for people that take the time to read the rules on it. I actually noticed that becmi in some regard was more advanced than ad&d.

100% yes.

Fighters are much more interesting to play in Basic than magic users, to me. As a magic user you have an extremely limited number of set magical spells you can cast. But you only have a few uses, you have to have the correct spell prepared, and you are vulnerable to losing the spell if you are struck or forced to make a save before you can cast it. Against an organized enemy it is extremely difficult to get a spell off in combat.

Meanwhile for fighters, you have a large variety of weapons you can utilize (each changes the tactical nature of your game play). You also can perform many combat maneuvers as detailed in the book You can also do anything you as a player can imagine. You can attempt these maneuvers an unlimited number of times and you are not limited to having the correct feat.

One can make an argument that that a magic user can also perform any imagined maneuver. They would be correct in that argument. However they fail to take account that fighters have better hit points and better access to armor and are more likely to both be successful in these maneuvers and also more likely to survive a failed attempt.

I think the whole 'fighters are boring' claim is mainly a result of the more modern versions of the game (starting with late 2E and 3E). In these editions, fighter actions were gated behind needing the correct feats. Meanwhile, many of the balancing factors that were placed on magic-users were removed from the wizard class.

This created a feel that fighters were limited and forced to spend a limited feat selection resource which made them hyper-focus. Whereas the power floodgates were opened on the wizard class by removing the difficulties inherent in spell casting.

 

[Campbell]

I think the desire for more interesting martial classes comes from a fundamental change in the way modern role playing games treat combat. In the classic game the focus was on the adventuring decisions and violent conflicts were something to be quickly resolved so you could get back to the adventuring.

Modern role playing games treat combat as an action scene, meant to be captivating in its own right. It is supposed to feel dramatic and dynamic. Round by round actions are supposed to be tense and impacting. It tells a story.

Combine these longer more dramatic, longer combats with the lifting of nearly all meaningful constraints of spell caster power. With more spell slots, spells that are easier to cast, spells that have a much higher chance to make an impact, and spell mechanics that are just plain more dynamic it had never been more fun to play a spell caster. Meanwhile martial characters got locked into place if they wanted to use all of their attacks, lost a lot of power compared to monsters, and longer combats meant you felt like you were not getting the same game play fun as players of spell casters.

For me personally something else happened. I had played other role playing games! Games like Vampire, Werewolf, Feng Shui, and Legend of the Five Rings. These games had more interesting fighter types to play. Then about half way into our run playing 3rd Edition something happened. It's name was Exalted and for all its flaws fighter types were just as interesting and dynamic to play as any other type of character. When we went back to playing Dungeons and Dragons I could not play a fighter anymore. I opted to play clerics and psychic warriors instead.