Level Up (A5E) What is the vision of the high level fighter?

[Tales and Chronicles]

Not a bad idea. People say fighter was a trap back in 3.5 when they were more a slingshot to pickup feats or quality for a prc, but it took a special kind of determination not to slide into a prc. Now in 5e fighter has do much devoted to either core OR archetype where the poor trapped pc doesn't even get archetype stuff till way too late to use like the cavalier at 7(?) Thsts wayy worse trap.

Exactly. With my idea, it would make the fighter the ultimate dabbler. With their built-in multiclass-as-archetypes + their extra feats, they would be able to cover a lot of roles without being master of anything (beyond combat, that is). In fact, since their combat ability are already good, the subclass would be the place the fighter gains its aptitude in other pillars. Just dont make the mistakes of only giving them combat buff from the dabbled class, like they did with with the damn eldritch knight who got spells, but only those with combat application !

 

[Haldrik]

What if.

The fighter class goes to level 12, and concludes with stronghold and followers.

Levels 13-20 offer a selection of "prestige classes" that can continue the advancement strictly by means of magic.

• Christmas Tree as concept is legitimate: The class has features to use magical tools, like Batman uses equipment, instead of casting spells. Almost like artificer in concept.
• Wuxia as a concept is legitimate: somewhat like a monk but more epic.

And so on.

 

[Kozos]

Hello. I joined the forum only to participate in the discussion of Level up 5e.

I have always been in love with the fighter and the ranger and I love that especially the fighter is being discussed here so extensively. I have read the whole thread and many excellent opinions have been aired. I would like to add my own insight as well.

First of all, I started playing dnd with 3.5, when 4th came out I switched to Adnd 2nd and then to 5e. The last year i have studied 4th a bit and I find many interesting design choices but many more that are difficult to stomach.

Anyhow let us get back to the 5e fighter. My main issue is that until level 11 where the fighter gets the 3rd attack EVERYTHING they can do can be performed by another class with the addition of other stuff. Let me explain.
Let us all assume the baseline fighter, what is the essence of a "well rounded specialist" as 5e likes to call them.
They attack hard.
They are tough.
They are hard to hit.
They attack several times.
They push the limits of mundane to superhuman.

Certainly one can name several other attributes of a fighter type but this is the basis of what any fighting machine should be capable of doing.
But this is not the case.

They don't attack that hard, almost every other class does the same of weapon dice + modifier whereas others get to add modifiers. The barbarian can add rage damage, the ranger can use hunter's mark and the rogue is expected to sneak attack every turn, the hexblade has a ton of tricks etc.

They are tough-ish, sure. But the barbarian has a bigger hit die and potentially double that if in a rage. The paladin and the ranger also have the same hit die and have either superior heal mechanics or access to temporary hp sources.

They are tough to hit. Well no, ac is relatively static and the fighter is one of the worse classes at increasing it. Compare this to the forge cleric, the bladesinger wizard (or any class in an edition where proficiency in arms and armour is trivialized), college of blades bards etc.

They attack several times: Well not before level 11 (with the exception of action surge) something that the ranger the bard and the barbarian get much earlier even by level 3.

They push the limits of mundane to superhuman. With the exception of action surge the monk, rogue and barbarian do it far more often and harder.

My point is.I have played tons of 5e and every time i played a fighter every build besides a PAM/GWM or SS/CE battlemaster/samurai feels very weak and trivialized. And I blame this mostly on the 6-8 encounters per day assumption of 5e. Sure, in such a case a fighter can be potentially strong but almost noone plans adventures with this assumption in mind. Also I blame the grognards who insisted the fighter should have no active abilities and be the newbie class of 5e.

I think the solution to the fighter's issues will come with a menu like system similar to the warlock's invocation so each one can be different, since no class has to meet such diverse source material mechanics.

Speaking of source material, I think that we can spend days disagreeing on which fictional or historical character should be the basis for the fighter and while this discussion should inform our design I think it is a trap. We have fiction that describes high level characters, namely the dnd novels. A high level fighter should be able to do the stuff that Drizzt, Zaknafein and Bruenor do.

 

[Asisreo]

This makes me think: what if instead of trying to avoid said overlap, we embraced it? We have 1/3 wizard fighter already, we could have 1/3 rogue fighter, 1/3 bard, 1/3 barbarian etc

Make the fighter the ultimate ''built-in multiclass'' (they do is in Dungeon World, its really not bad).

Have a fighter subclass with minor sneak attack or dirty fighting feature and little more skill proficiency, call it the Knave subclass.
Have a fighter subclass with bardic inspiration on long rest, a few lore skill and maybe a few charm spell, call it a Skald
Have a fighter subclass with rage like ability (actually, a refluffed samurai is spot on for that), call it Berserker
Have a fighter with 1/3 cleric spell and group buff, call it Warpriest
Have a fighter exploration feature, maybe a pet, call it Scout (the UA scout with maneuvers was quite nice)

etc, etc

You know, how now bard are both jacks-of-all-trade while still mastering 9th level spells? Well the fighter can dabble in other roles while mastering weaponry.

I do like this idea but it sounds like eventually someone will bring up a problem that monks are said to have: being mediocre at everything causes redundancy and makes you a bad class.

I mean, it's especially true for trying to accommodate pillars, of all things.

If there's a bard specialized in social, a rogue specialized in exploration, and a barbarian specialized in combat, choosing a fighter would be redundant and if there wasn't someone that had filled the roles of best in a pillar, choosing a fighter would be the mediocre patch while just choosing the best class with which your party is lacking would be better.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Hello. I joined the forum only to participate in the discussion of Level up 5e.

Welcome! Thanks for joining!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

being mediocre at everything causes redundancy and makes you a bad class.

Well at least the fighter will still have this one thing: it kick some serious behinds in combat, without any resources (which cant be said of monks, sadly).

I see this like the Ranger: its class features make it very strong in Exploration (it has its problems, but this is only to illustrate my point), so its archetypes help cover the other pillars partially (mostly Combat, I dont think we've seen a Social Ranger yet).

So since the Fighter as Combat covered, let the player choose which pillars to cover as a minor specialization.

The monk as the problem of trying to cover a little of everything without mastering at least one Pillar, which is bad design. Even the bard, who's supposed to be THE jack-of-all-trades masters the Social pillars at least.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Something @Kozos said got me thinking:

The problem with the fighter is it is too generic. Think of all the roles we (sort of) want it to fill... and how other classes can do the same thing, if not better and/or sooner. We want a tactical fighter, a warlord fighter, a weapon master fighter, and so on. That is a lot of ground for one class to cover. Can it be done? Sure. But...

Fighters should be the best at ONE thing: COMBAT. You can cry out "What about exploration!? What about social!?" but that simply isn't what the class is designed for. Give them some goodies of course, but the main issue still remains: fighters really aren't the best at fighting.

Other high-level warrior types (i.e. non-casters) should have to struggle and pull out all the stops to even have a chance to defeat an equal level fighter.
A barbarian should need to rage.
A paladin should need to smite.
A ranger should need to... well, whatever they can do!
Etc.

A while ago we had a thread about the best 20th level class build, a la battle royal, and who would win... If we remove the casters and focused just on the warrior-types, the Fighter SHOULD reign supreme IMO.

The sad fact is, I simply think they won't. I mean, if you put a 20th level Fighter up against 20th level build of the other warrior classes, how often do you think the fighter would win?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Drizzt

but..but..but..but Drizzt is a ranger! HE DUAL-WIELD SCIMITARS AND HE'S DARK AND BROODING! That's the definition of ranger-ing...right?...right?




Just joking. Glad to have you onboard. You post is very spot on.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

A ranger should need to... well, whatever they can do!

They should have a Loneliness Points pool to trigger cool moves that others cant understand be they are too cool. Probably something dual-wield related, but with INVERTED GRIP!

Oh and take back the super interesting mechanic of one of 4e theme had where the farthest you were from any ally, the better you were, like, you had bonus to NOT be with the party!

Now, that's a ranger!

sorry...back to the fighter.

 

[tetrasodium]

Fighters should be the best at ONE thing: COMBAT. You can cry out "What about exploration!? What about social!?" but that simply isn't what the class is designed for. Give them some goodies of course, but the main issue still remains: fighters really aren't the best at fighting.

Other high-level warrior types (i.e. non-casters) should have to struggle and pull out all the stops to even have a chance to defeat an equal level fighter.
A barbarian should need to rage.
A paladin should need to smite.
A ranger should need to... well, whatever they can do!
Etc.

A while ago we had a thread about the best 20th level class build, a la battle royal, and who would win... If we remove the casters and focused just on the warrior-types, the Fighter SHOULD reign supreme IMO.

The sad fact is, I simply think they won't. I mean, if you put a 20th level Fighter up against 20th level build of the other warrior classes, how often do you think the fighter would win?

fighters that can really get involved in social stuff fell victim to the feat chain compression. Back in 3.5 a fighter had enough feats to spend one on actor or whatever & get some social social skills without being horrifically crippled while 5e it has to compete for a very limited (by comparison) number of feat choice options whilecompeting against very powerfu compressed feat chain feats.