D&D 5E What Makes the Fighter Best at Fighing?

[FormerlyHemlock]

The key feature for me is Extra Attack, because so many fighter-type maneuvers rely on it. Disarm, Push, Grapple, GWM power attack all consume Extra Attack and scale in effectiveness with it. With only two attacks per round like a Paladin, (Push Prone + Attack at Advantage) is kind of meh. With three attacks, (Push Prone + Attack twice at Advantage) is pretty good, especially once you factor in the defensive advantages. Toss in an Action Surge and a cosmetic alteration in the way you Push and suddenly (Kick you in the chest to knock you prone + GWM power attack five times at advantage) starts to look pretty awesome, without requiring any magic at all.

 

[Celtavian]

Action Surge and the third attack make them best at fighting, if you mean martial weapon offense. You do mean martial weapon offense I hope? As far as total package, the fighter is not the best at fighting in totality. Fighting, as in engaging in a fight, could mean a lot of things. It's a wide open word. I hope you mean martial weapon offense, otherwise my answer will be very different.

In general, nearly every heavy and medium armor class is better general battle than the fighter, especially if you don't allow feats. Even with the feats given their inherent limitations, the fighter is very limited. The archer fighter is probably the most dangerous of the fighters.

Overall, the fighter is as it has always been: a very limited class that focuses on martial weapons with all their inherent limitations. I almost feel like a customizable magic weapon should be part of the fighter's schtick because he is the one class that needs it the most.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This may be a useful resource, even if it from last year
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...zzaS8vpKMFXG7o6gk70CCdoe-k/edit#gid=952243112

Credit goes to waxeagle of the RPG Stack Exchange

A spreadsheet of numbers without a described methodology for arriving at those numbers is, unfortunately, pretty much useless. You can't even know if you buy into the same assumptions as the number-cruncher.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Voted armor proficiency, weapon proficiency, and extra attacks. Those are the three basics in my mind, and are what are primarily responsible for the Fighter being able to do what she does. And even extra attacks aren't worth beans if you don't know your way around armor and weaponry.


The rest of the list is just gravy. Good gravy, but gravy nonetheless.

 

[Rhogar_Rarr]

I agree with the majority of people. A fighter's Action Surge, Extra Attacks, and Extra ASI are the core of a fighter's power. But the rest of the features add up to make a complete class. Although, I would like to note that Maneuvers are also very "fightery". They don't use magic or supernatural powers, just plain battle technique.

 

[Psikerlord#]

In my experience, most campaigns dont go above about 12th level. In which case paladins are the best at fighting, not fghters...

 

[Zardnaar]

In my experience, most campaigns dont go above about 12th level. In which case paladins are the best at fighting, not fghters...

Paladins als one of the best at support, that whole charisma to saves thing. I prefer Paladin over fighter anyway even with the extra damage the fighter brings to the table. Paladin (and ranger) damage is high enough, nothing replaces charisma to saves though.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

In my experience, most campaigns dont go above about 12th level. In which case paladins are the best at fighting, not fghters...

...but is that your experience of 5th edition itself, or your expectation because previous versions of the game made that your expectation and you haven't allowed yourself to give 5th edition the chance to change it?

I ask because my experience of 5th edition is that, among running other games that I enjoy, I've barely had the time for a campaign to even reach 12th level as of yet - but have seen none of the indicators present in prior versions of the game in which I too found campaigns to end at or before 12th level.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

...but is that your experience of 5th edition itself, or your expectation because previous versions of the game made that your expectation and you haven't allowed yourself to give 5th edition the chance to change it?

I ask because my experience of 5th edition is that, among running other games that I enjoy, I've barely had the time for a campaign to even reach 12th level as of yet - but have seen none of the indicators present in prior versions of the game in which I too found campaigns to end at or before 12th level.

FWIW, the one campaign I've had so far that has ended, ended with PCs spread out between 8th and 14th level, still in that "12th level" range. The PCs were losing, and then everyone had schedule conflicts for a while which are just now easing up, but the players are ready to start a fresh campaign so I narrated the story of how they lost and their planet was conquered by scro (space orcs) (which they kind of suspected was coming) and they became moderately successful merchants and space sheriffs working for the scro.

In the new campaign, the players have asked for a much slower experience gain so I've declared that it takes 10x as much XP to advance as the PHB table says. That should duplicate AD&D-era advancement rates and allow the players to focus on low-level play as requested, while also explaining why NPC treasure-hunters aren't more common (risk:reward ratio is too low).

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

FWIW, the one campaign I've had so far that has ended, ended with PCs spread out between 8th and 14th level, still in that "12th level" range. The PCs were losing, and then everyone had schedule conflicts for a while which are just now easing up, but the players are ready to start a fresh campaign so I narrated the story of how they lost and their planet was conquered by scro (space orcs) (which they kind of suspected was coming) and they became moderately successful merchants and space sheriffs working for the scro.

In the new campaign, the players have asked for a much slower experience gain so I've declared that it takes 10x as much XP to advance as the PHB table says. That should duplicate AD&D-era advancement rates and allow the players to focus on low-level play as requested, while also explaining why NPC treasure-hunters aren't more common (risk:reward ratio is too low).

I appreciate and enjoy the anecdote. However, potentially coincidental issues causing a campaign to end aren't really the same thing as what was being talked about since they aren't tied to a particular level (my last schedule conflict-related campaign ending being a campaign that began at 3rd level, and got put on hold for 6 months by the time the party reached 4th level for example).

Similarly, I don't find a desire for slower level advancement to be inherently related to not wanting to play past 12th level. And if the comment that was being made regarding most campaigns ending at 12th level was meant to be saying that 12th level is as far as can be gotten before the real life time limit for the campaign runs out, then that level should naturally rise higher than 12th given that it takes much less play-time (in my experience at least) to advance in levels with 5th edition than any edition prior (excepting 3.5 with highly optimized characters facing nothing but "inappropriately difficult" encounters that barely break their stride, and kill 10 orcs find 10,000 gp in treasure styled 1e campaigns).