D&D 5E Yahtzee Fighter?

[MichaelSomething]

Everyone has their own idea on how to remake the Fighter so I might as well throw mine in.

What if the fighter turn was basically a mini game of Yahtzee? You would roll a bunch (around six or so) of D6s and you could exchange various combinations of numbers for certain effects.

Like trading in 4/4/4 to gain extra attacks, or a 3/4/5 to boost damage, or 6/6/6/6/6/6 for some crazy super power?

At low levels you would just have a few options and would gain new ones as you gain more levels.


This could best represent how a fighter would actually fight. Instead of managing daily resources or selecting powers, every turn would be about using what you have at that particular moment in order to maximize effectiveness. It would also satisfy people who want more then roll attack/damage every turn. If you like stunt dice, think of it as SUPER STUNT DICE!!!!! (or a dice pool maybe??)

The flaws of this is that it would make the fighter SUPER RNG dependent. You could vary from ultra powerful to useless on any given turn depending on the roll of the dice. It would also be fairly complex to manage. You could have up to six completely different ways to execute a turn. Players who have trouble selecting among many decisions could easily become parlayed.

Is this a good idea, or will it end up like the time I suggested miming in D&D?

 

[Wulffolk]

Sorry, not a fan .

I am more in the camp of the Fighter having a large selection of at-will powers that they choose from depending on the situation. I don't like the idea of resource management for Fighters.. If a Fighter can do something once, they should be able to do it repeatedly. I also dislike the idea of randomness determining the tactics of somebody that practices their skills and talents daily.

I don't have enough time right now to go into detail or to offer constructive feedback, so I only have my criticism to offer right now. Sorry.

 

[Satyrn]

the time I suggested miming in D&D?

 

[Mad_Jack]

They did that with the Crusader in the 3.5 Tome of Battle... The justification was that his powers were divinely inspired, so he got a random maneuver enabled each turn, and had to deal with whatever he got until he'd gained all his powers, at which point they reset.
As I recall, it wasn't one of the more popular classes. You'll probably find that a lot of people aren't going to want to take the chance that in any given fight they could roll badly and end up only able to do things that are of less use in that situation than they would have liked.

 

[stoneagewar3]

Sorry, not a fan .

I am more in the camp of the Fighter having a large selection of at-will powers that they choose from depending on the situation. I don't like the idea of resource management for Fighters.. If a Fighter can do something once, they should be able to do it repeatedly. I also dislike the idea of randomness determining the tactics of somebody that practices their skills and talents daily.

I don't have enough time right now to go into detail or to offer constructive feedback, so I only have my criticism to offer right now. Sorry.

I kind of like the idea
While yes, a trained fighter should be able to execute their techniques every time while practicing, his enemies most likely wouldn't help him finish executing his techniques, whether they know how the technique goes or not isn't very important

if its a humanoid, its going to know roughly which angles you can throw your cuts from, and it probably wouldn't leave those angles wide open. not to mention that if it has survived a few battles, it has probably seen some techniques even if it doesn't know how to use it.

even with animals, just shifting and moving around will make it harder to throw a proper cut or thrust

and anything that is actively trying to hit you can force you to stop a technique midway if you don't wish to be injured, doublekills are extremely common in sparring situations, even though it is fairly rare historically, in other words those trained fighters fought while trying to keep themselves out of danger, again, this would mean that sometimes they had to abort their techniques midway to parry or sidestep.

so while the trained fighter has all sorts of techniques, he simply won't be able to use any of them at any given time, even though he would probably have a technique or two that he could attempt to use for any particular situation

i think while yahtzee might not be the best way to implement this, the concept would sort of capture the feel of it, because in a real fight, you can't really decide which technique to use to take down your opponent, not until he makes a mistake anyways, and even then you can only choose from the techniques that could exploit the mistake.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I don't like the idea of resource management for Fighters.. If a Fighter can do something once, they should be able to do it repeatedly.

Once every six seconds? Repeatedly? Even if they've already done exactly the same trick to the same opponent five times in the last thirty seconds?

I'm with you in being skeptical of standard-D&D-style resource management for fighters, where they can do something a fixed number of times and then they're "out" for the encounter or the day. Doesn't make a lot of sense. But I'm also not a huge fan of repetitive combat where the character spams the same move over and over. That's not what real fights look like either -- and it's boring. Using dice to vary a fighter's possible maneuvers from round to round, like the 13th Age take on the class or this yahtzee idea, is an elegant solution to the problem, and I like it a lot. It gates maneuvers to prevent spam without arbitrarily saying that you're done, you can't do that anymore, for some reason. Furthermore, gated maneuvers allow for more diverse, interesting, and straight-up powerful maneuvers to be designed. "Everything is at-will" might be "freeing" in some way for the character on the micro level, but in the bigger picture it's a tremendous restriction: it means every ability they ever get is balanced at the same, lowest possible, level of power.

Yes, the idea is using random dice to abstract all the various in-universe nonrandom variables that make various maneuvers possible but that are unfeasible to simulate in a tabletop game. But this is D&D. It's sort of what we do here. My archer practices his skills and talents daily, but I still roll a d20 to see if I hit someone with an arrow, and then roll a d8 to see how badly I would them. If you dislike randomness in this capacity, you might be playing the wrong game, is what I'm saying.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yes, the idea is using random dice to abstract all the various in-universe nonrandom variables that make various maneuvers possible but that are unfeasible to simulate in a tabletop game.

It would be quite possible to create subsystems to simulate all the various combat factors. However, people would quickly grow sick of all the complex/unique mechanics required for it. Look at 3.5 and how every combat maneuver from tripping to disarming has it's own subsystem. When PathFinder reduced it all to the CMB system, many were relieved...

 

[Wulffolk]

Once every six seconds? Repeatedly? Even if they've already done exactly the same trick to the same opponent five times in the last thirty seconds?

Actually, yes. If a Fighter wants to use heavy strikes or quick thrusts or parry/riposte tactics every single round no matter how many times that opponents has seen that tactic then they should be allowed to. Certainly an opponent might be more likely to counter a repeat tactic, but that is not always the case.

Some boxers effectively jab through a whole fight without ever throwing a real punch, others throw nothing but hay-makers, and both types find success even when totally predictable. For most of her career Ronda Rousey did nothing but win by arm-bar submissions and nobody could stop it until Holly Holmes.

Yes, repeat tactics get boring, but there is no reason that a Fighter should only be able to attempt a tactic once per combat or once per day. Your archer example is completely missing the point. There is no die roll telling your archer whether or not he can shoot this round, and no resource only allowing him to shoot once per combat. The archer rolls to hit just like a guy with a sword.

Now, I could get behind resource management for Fighters if the resource was Stamina or Power or something like that, but then we might be getting into too much complexity for D&D combat.

 

[Delazar78]

my fav d20 iteration of the Fighter? 13th Age

13th age Fighter

 

[Nytmare]

What if the fighter turn was basically a mini game of Yahtzee?

I like this idea, but I don't know if I'd want it shuffled in to D&D. At least with out similarly themed mechanics mirroring this elsewhere in the design space.