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

[Lanefan]

For the record, I've always wanted a healing class that gave up the Cleric's melee abilities (armor and weapons) to more purely focus on support. Divine Soul Sorcerer is actually a pretty a good option for it, but I'd rather it be a class.

My Nature Clerics (reworked Druids) aren't far from this. Their fighting is fairly bad, their weapon and armour selections are quite restricted, but their healing is the best and their other spells are pretty good. And they get shapeshift at higher levels, too.

I'll note right now, however, that our Nature Clerics have in the long run shown themselves to be somewhat overpowered, to the point where next campaign I'll be dialling them back some.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The bolded is fine until there's too many classes competing for the same somewhat-limited number of clearly-defined niches.

Solution: fewer classes. Preferably just one per niche, with maybe an alternate sharing the same niche in a different fashion (example: Thief and Assassin, or MU and Illusionist, in 1e).

i don't think there needs to be less classes, and i don't think there's (much) conflict over niche identity for the classes that exist, but my point is that the designers of the classes tend to be overly hesitant to share certain mechanical abilities which are deemed to 'belong' or 'define' a certain class, and it's not even especially special abilities sometimes, like the rogue is the only class allowed to sneak attack, when it's entirely thematically appropriate for that to be something a ranger, a fighter or maybe even a monk to also be capable of, speaking of the monk they get to have claim to being the only class with a notable basic movespeed increase, something more special for example, druid's wildshape, could be apropriate as a subclass feature on rangers, clerics, sorcerers, barbarians and perhaps warlocks.

put more simply, classes ought to be defined by the sum of their parts taken together in conjunction with each other rather than having exclusive claim to a certain type of part.

 

[Staffan]

I'll try.

The whole point, i think, of a class-based system with adventuring groups or parties is that it somewhat encourages or even gently forces some inter-party dependence: each character has serious weaknesses that can only really be offset by other characters having strengths in those areas, while you help cover off for their weaknesses.

Fighter's can't heal or cast spells or sneak. But they can fight.
Mages can't fight or heal or sneak. But they can cast spells.
Clerics can't sneak. But they can heal, and do a bit of the other things.
Thieves can't fight or heal or cast spells. But they can sneak.

The bolded are, of course, the clear niches those classes (or class groups) occupy. Each has weaknesses the others can fill in for, an each has something it's really good at that the others can't do. Sometimes it's even a good thing to have some built-in redundancy by doubling or even tripling up on one or more of those class groups, such that if-when you lose someone you've still got a backup to fill that gap.

Once you start eroding those niches to the point anywhere near "any class can fight and heal and cast spells and sneak" then you have no further need of the rest of the adventuring group: you can do it all on your own as a one-man band. And at that point, what's the point of designing the game around the 'adventuring party' paradigm?

So far, so good. But the problem is that you see niches as a single thing each class does. This leads to rather stale classes and characters. You want a good healer in your party? Well, then you need a cleric and that means a bunch of religious baggage as well.

If you instead approach class design from a different angle, you can get different results that are still satisfactory, and perhaps even more so. As an example, what if you designed classes around these three aspects:

1. What do you do in combat? This would be things like "I deal lots of targeted damage" or "I deal area damage" or "I hinder our opponents to keep them from dealing damage" or things like that.
2. How do you do the thing you do in combat? This would be things like "I fight with a weapon in melee" or "I fight with a weapon at range" or "I use magic powers" or "I use psychic abilities".
3. What do you do out of combat? This would be things like "I know my way around the wilderness" or "I do sneaky stuff" or "I care for my fellow man" or "I study ancient lore" or "I talk to people".

I think that for individual characters, you want to reduce overlap for questions 1 and 3 in a particular party. But based on these questions, you could create a lot of different classes that feel different and let you create parties with a lot of different makeups without having people intrude on each others niches. You could even separate out question 3 partially or entirely from class design – for example, I could see any class that answers #2 with "I channel the power of nature and primal spirits" have "I know my way around in the wilderness" as one of their answers to #3, but they can have different additional answers (e.g. "I lead my people", "I sneak around", or "I care for my fellow man")

The problems arise when you get to having so many classes that there's just not enough niches or even sub-niches to go around. A few other classic niches past and present have been woodscraft (Rangers), dealing with the dead (Necromancers), mind-messing (Illusionists and-or Psionicists), and music/sound (Bards).

These are answers to #2 or #3. "Mind-messing" or "music/sound" aren't niches, they are methods. Do you use them to confuse your opponents? Do you use them to deal damage? Do you use them to bolster your allies?

 

[Bill Zebub]

You're coming at this from a completely different direction than I am.

I'm not thinking (and don't really care) about players feeling special or wanting to be the only one of their class/niche in the group. That's not why I care about niche protection, and to me it's an irrelevant issue. Players can play what they want, and if someone's nose gets bent because someone else is playing the same class that's a them problem: they just gotta deal with it.

I'm looking at it from the perspective of "party interdependence is highly desirable in a party-based game", and that hard-ish-coded niches greatly promote that interdependence.

You are describing "niche fulfillment" (or something like that), i.e. making sure necessary roles are covered by somebody.

I still can't think of a rationale for "niche protection" that isn't about catering to entitlement.

 

[Bill Zebub]

My Nature Clerics (reworked Druids) aren't far from this. Their fighting is fairly bad, their weapon and armour selections are quite restricted, but their healing is the best and their other spells are pretty good. And they get shapeshift at higher levels, too.

I'll note right now, however, that our Nature Clerics have in the long run shown themselves to be somewhat overpowered, to the point where next campaign I'll be dialling them back some.

I briefly played an Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer who didn't learn damaging spells or carry a weapon. (I loved that character...can't remember what happened to that campaign...). Her favorite "attack" was twinned Suggestion.

I guess you don't really need a class as long as you can somehow build the concept. Like my Kensai Monk who considered herself a "Swordswoman" not a monk.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So....it has something to do with players wanting to feel special?

Well, at least "functional". If other people in the group are covering the same ground as you are, in a lot of cases, one of you might as well not be there (there are a few cases where multiple people in the same niche can be useful, but outside of combat that's not reliably true)

EDIT: Which still doesn't make sense to me, because even if there's only one class that can perform a function....say, Rogues and opening locks and disarming traps...what's to prevent another player from also choosing Rogue?

Its not prevented, but its at least obvious in that case, rather than one of the two of them finding out in play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A briefly played an Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer who didn't learn damaging spells or carry a weapon. (I loved that character...can't remember what happened to that campaign...). Her favorite "attack" was twinned Suggestion.

I guess you don't really need a class as long as you can somehow build the concept. Like my Kensai Monk who considered herself a "Swordswoman" not a monk.

Not like there aren't game systems that don't get by without dedicated classes; they just let you buy discrete chunks of ability to get the concept you're working on. At most they'll present archetypes to show someone new to the system how to get to some amount of common concepts within the system.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, at least "functional". If other people in the group are covering the same ground as you are, in a lot of cases, one of you might as well not be there (there are a few cases where multiple people in the same niche can be useful, but outside of combat that's not reliably true)

The party I'm DMing right now has, of nine characters, three Nature Clerics. And a regular Cleric, multiclassed with Fighter*. The three Nature Clerics are quite different in play: one thinks she's a rough tough warrior, one hangs back and does the curing, and one is hench to the party's main fighter and does his thinking for him along with keeping him upright as best she can. There's no complaints around duplication.

In fact, oftentimes having two or more of the same class can be a benefit: they can support and help each other. Two Fighters using tactics to cover each other's backs. Two Mages swapping spells. Etc.

* - needless to say, healing in that party is not an issue.

 

[Lanefan]

So far, so good. But the problem is that you see niches as a single thing each class does. This leads to rather stale classes and characters. You want a good healer in your party? Well, then you need a cleric and that means a bunch of religious baggage as well.

Yep - you gotta take the bad with the good.

If you instead approach class design from a different angle, you can get different results that are still satisfactory, and perhaps even more so. As an example, what if you designed classes around these three aspects:

1. What do you do in combat? This would be things like "I deal lots of targeted damage" or "I deal area damage" or "I hinder our opponents to keep them from dealing damage" or things like that.
2. How do you do the thing you do in combat? This would be things like "I fight with a weapon in melee" or "I fight with a weapon at range" or "I use magic powers" or "I use psychic abilities".
3. What do you do out of combat? This would be things like "I know my way around the wilderness" or "I do sneaky stuff" or "I care for my fellow man" or "I study ancient lore" or "I talk to people".

It leaps out that two of those core three questions are completely concerned with combat.

Better, I think, to ask first "Is your main focus combat or something else?", with 'something else' being an allowed and acceptable answer.

I think that for individual characters, you want to reduce overlap for questions 1 and 3 in a particular party. But based on these questions, you could create a lot of different classes that feel different and let you create parties with a lot of different makeups without having people intrude on each others niches.

Two players playing the same class is fine, and not the issue. This isn't about making players feel special, it's about character classes each having clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. Just because I'm playing a Thief doesn't mean you can't play one as well.

These are answers to #2 or #3. "Mind-messing" or "music/sound" aren't niches, they are methods. Do you use them to confuse your opponents? Do you use them to deal damage? Do you use them to bolster your allies?

They're niches, in that the important question isn't "what do you use them for?" but instead "do you - or can you - use them at all?"