D&D General When Was it Decided Fighters Should Suck at Everything but Combat?

[Thomas Shey]

Almost all of them outside of D&D. We're talking about existing characters out of fictional history. D&D (I'm sure there might be a couple others) is one of the only ones that actually has tried to turn a fictional character from other media into a D&D statblock, and that's mostly from the fans.

While, again, fan-based, I have to note this process is extremely common in superhero RPG fandom. To the point I've never seen a non-setting-specific superhero game with any fandom at all that didn't do it. I realize you were probably thinking specifically of fantasy RPGs, but it was still an overly broad statement.

 

[Sacrosanct]

While, again, fan-based, I have to note this process is extremely common in superhero RPG fandom. To the point I've never seen a non-setting-specific superhero game with any fandom at all that didn't do it. I realize you were probably thinking specifically of fantasy RPGs, but it was still an overly broad statement.

True, and point conceded. I was talking about fantasy because that seemed to be the context of what people were bringing up in their examples of fantasy/mythological characters.

 

[Thomas Shey]

True, and point conceded. I was talking about fantasy because that seemed to be the context of what people were bringing up in their examples of fantasy/mythological characters.

It isn't entirely true even in fantasy though; I've seen people do it before in a number of build systems as proof-of-concept things. It doesn't tend to happen in system made for specific settings, but I've seen it in GURPS, Fantasy Hero and Savage Worlds as examples.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It isn't entirely true even in fantasy though; I've seen people do it before in a number of build systems as proof-of-concept things. It doesn't tend to happen in system made for specific settings, but I've seen it in GURPS, Fantasy Hero and Savage Worlds as examples.

Mostly by fans, though, right? Not that the rpg itself was meant to replicate these mythological or fictional characters. Every instance of mention in RPGs that I'm familiar with is bringing up the heroes as inspirational sources, not to create actual stat blocks for them.

 

[Leatherhead]

In early days when the Thief wasn't very good at combat they didn't really tread on the Fighters' toes at all. Sure a Thief might get an occasional spectacular backstrike, but most of the time the fighting was left to the front-liners when-where possible.

When 3e turned Rogues into the party's primary damage dealer (by making sneak attack so easy that it might as well be always-on), however, Fighters got the shaft.

The exact problem was that they were trying to avoid stepping on each others toes. The artificial niches they ended up carving out so that the thief and the fighter could be separate classes made both of them worse. They should have always been just one "Hero" class who was good at combat AND skills. at the same time, from the beginning.