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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8062338" data-attributes="member: 20323">[USER=87792]@Neonchameleon[/USER] I've written extensively on the fighter (in my old <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-warrior.535057/" target="_blank">The Warrior</a> thread), and one of the interesting discoveries I made is that – as I designed them – the old school "The fighter auto-kills enemies of a certain HD or less", the 4e-style "super reactive defender", and 5e's Action Surge fighter all are roughly comparable in terms of how many extra attacks you're getting over the course of an adventuring day.One of the criticisms of the 5e fighter – which I think is what you're circling – is that its higher level features (from 11th-20th) are building on existing features, rather than presenting new things to do. You get more attacks, more uses of Indomitable and Action Surge, and more feats. Plus two subclass features (like most classes). Which is all cool stuff. But a player can feel like they're locked into doing the same thing, just better.I strongly believe the mechanics and story should work together, but to focus on the mechanics for a moment, I see a couple design opportunities with any fighter redesign that aims to give them more options...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Off-turn actions can really say a lot about a character's identity because they are the epitome of answering the question "How do you respond to the conflict around you, right now?" It's not in another round once the situation has dramatically changed. It's right now. There are good gameplay reasons to limit the presence of reactive abilities so that play doesn't grind to a crawl (like many experienced with 4e's combat), but of all classes the fighter would make a good place to explore things like PC-facing Legendary Actions, the hydra's Reactive trait, abilities borrowing language from the Mark action in the DMG (which allows off-turn opportunity attacks without expending their reaction), and so forth.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rather than using the old school "the fighter auto-kills enemies of a certain HD or less" to improve the fighter's combat ability, you can take the same trigger but apply different effects. So we get more than just combat functionality. For example: At 17th level, when the fighter makes an ability check opposed by a creature of CR 2 or less, the fighter has advantage. If the fighter succeeds, they may use one of the creature's non-spellcasting abilities of their choice against one of that creature's allies. This allows the fighter to weaponize monsters, to a limited degree. It also has multiple applications out of combat. For instance, the fighter could make an Intimidation vs. Insight check against a nothic, forcing it to use Weird Insight on the evil mage leading the cult which the PCs are fighting.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Many have posited that Indomitable could become something like Legendary Resistances at higher levels. So it's familiar but much better than that feature was before. Others have suggested that Indomitable could be shared with other PCs, sort of bringing allies under the fighter's aegis or offering a supportive word, though some thought that would be too close to Bardic Inspiration.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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