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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6644088" data-attributes="member: 996">Feats are little more relevant than backgrounds.&nbsp; Anyone can take a feat.&nbsp; The fighter gets one extra feat at typical levels of play, a second at high level.&nbsp; We're not talking a 3.5 fighter who ultimately gets 18 feats compared to everyone else getting 7, with the fighter claiming bonus feats up front at 1st &amp; 2nd level.And feats are an optional sub-system, anyway.&nbsp;That's just an appeal to tradition (a perfectly valid appeal in in the context of 5e).&nbsp; What it says is that, yes, the fighter is starkly inferior out of combat, and that's as it &quot;should be,&quot; not just because it's unfair, contrary to genre, and imbalanced - but because that's how it was for a long time.OTOH, it doesn't seem like somone had to have the least in-combat support, because all classes seem well-able to contribute there, one way or another. &nbsp;&nbsp;If you look at the fantasy archetypes that the fighter is called on to represent, rather than the name of the class, there's lots of non-combat stuff they should be capable of.&nbsp;&nbsp; The fighter (or 'fighting man') didn't get quite so pigeonholed at the outset.&nbsp; In Men &amp; Magic (0D&amp;D, 1st booklet), there were no skill rules at all, any character could do just about anything, solve a puzzle, find a trap, etc, etc.&nbsp; When the Thief was added, it's poor combat abilities and the 'Special' Abilities (skills) they paid for created a combat/non-combat divide among non-casters that has left them confined to the lower tiers ever since.&nbsp;Exploration is the 'Dungeons' half of Dungeons &amp; Dragons.&nbsp; In the classic game, it's arguably the primary thrust of the experience.&nbsp; You spent hours crawling through a dungeon and minutes fighting things in it.&nbsp;That's true.&nbsp; Combat is structured in rounds, so everyone gets a turn.&nbsp; It has a concrete progress bar in the form of hps, that everyone can contribute to moving.&nbsp; It has a lot of options that can be interesting and dramatic, and every class can avail themselves of some of them.&nbsp; The other two pillars have received short shrift from the system in that regard.&nbsp; Challenges in exploration or interaction tend to focus on one character, tend to be pass/fail, and present few and situational options that only certain classes can really avail themselves of.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6644088, member: 996"] Feats are little more relevant than backgrounds. Anyone can take a feat. The fighter gets one extra feat at typical levels of play, a second at high level. We're not talking a 3.5 fighter who ultimately gets 18 feats compared to everyone else getting 7, with the fighter claiming bonus feats up front at 1st & 2nd level. And feats are an optional sub-system, anyway. That's just an appeal to tradition (a perfectly valid appeal in in the context of 5e). What it says is that, yes, the fighter is starkly inferior out of combat, and that's as it "should be," not just because it's unfair, contrary to genre, and imbalanced - but because that's how it was for a long time. OTOH, it doesn't seem like somone had to have the least in-combat support, because all classes seem well-able to contribute there, one way or another. If you look at the fantasy archetypes that the fighter is called on to represent, rather than the name of the class, there's lots of non-combat stuff they should be capable of. The fighter (or 'fighting man') didn't get quite so pigeonholed at the outset. In Men & Magic (0D&D, 1st booklet), there were no skill rules at all, any character could do just about anything, solve a puzzle, find a trap, etc, etc. When the Thief was added, it's poor combat abilities and the 'Special' Abilities (skills) they paid for created a combat/non-combat divide among non-casters that has left them confined to the lower tiers ever since. Exploration is the 'Dungeons' half of Dungeons & Dragons. In the classic game, it's arguably the primary thrust of the experience. You spent hours crawling through a dungeon and minutes fighting things in it. That's true. Combat is structured in rounds, so everyone gets a turn. It has a concrete progress bar in the form of hps, that everyone can contribute to moving. It has a lot of options that can be interesting and dramatic, and every class can avail themselves of some of them. The other two pillars have received short shrift from the system in that regard. Challenges in exploration or interaction tend to focus on one character, tend to be pass/fail, and present few and situational options that only certain classes can really avail themselves of. [/QUOTE]

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