D&D 5E yes, this again: Fighters need more non-combat options

[Mistwell]

My fighter is planning to take the ritual caster feat soon. This will allow him to cast comprehend languages and find familiar, and if we can find the scrolls or buy them, Tiny hut, Alarm, Detect Magic, Floating Disk, Identify, Illusory Script, Magic Mouth, Phantom Steed, Ubseen Servant, Water Breathing, etc..

This will add sooooo much to out of combat aspects of the PC, for the cost of a feat which they get more of than any else.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, I think this is where that distinction lies.

I personally think that Fighters work best for two types of players:

A. The Lazy.
B. The Really Engaged.

By the way- I'm not being pejorative when I talk about lazy players; on those few occasions when I get to play, I'm a lazy player. I relax and help the party, but I don't take the lead. I'm just there for a good time.

Anyway, the point is that many players don't fall in those categories. They are somewhat engaged. They need "buttons to push" so to speak. And they like having those buttons! To put it in more concrete terms, they are the type of player that wouldn't normally think of swinging from a chandelier to drop down on an enemy, but if they had a 4th level, "DROP FROM HEIGHT ON AN ENEMY ABILITY" then they would be looking for every chandelier possible.

Anyway, my anecdotal experience is that in those case, players would be much better off playing a Rogue (skills) or Valor Bard (figty-spells-skills) or even a, um, well, some type of charisma-based Fighting class that would let them load up on social stuff. You know, one that wasn't terrible and a scourge to all of D&D.

Agreed, on most of that. It’s the conclusion at the end that I find somewhat...off.

This. People who just want to hit things deserve a class option as well, don't kill their only option to fix something that's not broken.

Sure, agreed. I don’t think that is incompatible with the OP goal, though. For instance, giving all fighters Jack of All Trades wouldn’t interfere at all with just hitting things, nor would giving fighters a third skill proficiency.

Okay, Bards get Jack of all trades and more skills, I'll give you that. Warlock base class gets nothing to make them better then fighter at social and exploration activities. But both warlock and fighter get class features to spend which can grant them additional abilities, like the Beguiling Influence invocation or the Skilled feat.

If the warlock or fighter decide that they want to spend those to excel in a single pillar of play and ignore the other aspects, that's their call and not a sign those other aspects are weak and need propping up.

Everyone rushes with ASI/feat choices to an attack/spell ability score of 20, and combat feats. That's fine, but that's an intentional choice. And in a class like fighter which gives you several additional ones you can spread out and still be on the combat power curve, just like a Warlock might spend some invocations on things like Agonizing Blast, but then others spread out to other pillars.

There is one issue I see where CHR-focused characters have a natural advantage in the social pillar even without spending resources to improve. For that, using the Variant rule (PHB 175) allowing different ability scores with skills where it makes sense can help, where a STR fighter could perform a menacing feat of strength to intimidate, or a DEX fighter could take advantage of a situation where how well they dance could affect a persuasion check.

Feats are something everyone gets, and fighters just get more of. It’d be nice if the core class, without using optional rules that most players don’t use, had some kind of benefit in the other two pillars. The optional rule you reference is just as available to everyone else.

 

[77IM]

Controversial opinion: the fighter should be a 3-skill class, like the ranger and bard. The fighter's skill list is practical and useful and mostly exploration-focused. A third skill won't erode anyone's niche -- the bard gets expertise and broader skill choice, while the ranger gets Natural Explorer and spellcasting and some other goodies. Plus, it makes sense that the fighter, whose utility comes from training of mundane abilities, would be able to pick up an additional skill.

I feel the same way about the barbarian (who has similar issues to the fighter in terms of "not that useful outside of combat") and to a lesser extent the monk and warlock (who have plenty of stuff to do outside of combat, but story-wise, it makes sense to me that they'd have more skills than clerics, wizards, paladins, etc.).

 

[ccs]

I'm not sure the fighter needs class features to be successful in non combat aspects of the game.

I'm positive the fighter doesn't need any (additional) class features to be successful in the non-combat aspects.

*Merely not tanking ones Cha/Wis/Int in favor of just the physical stats goes along way to this.
*Not investing every ASI/Feat into Str/Dex/combat feats helps.
You don't HAVE to maximize the To Hit/Damage +s to make an effective character.
*Realize that not being proficient in a skill, or having a smaller + than another character, does NOT mean that you're "useless" or unable to participate in a non-combat activity.
*DO THINGS. Even if you don't have the highest +. Heck, even if you have a -. If you just sit there? Then yes, you are useless and you deserve the crappy play experience your getting. Plus you're not playing a portion of the game! Why would you not play?

Convincing a lot of fighter/martial players of these things though? It's like an epic lv quest....

 

[WaterRabbit]

Or the player could just roleplay instead of treating it like a video game. This version of D&D gives a fighter many more options for non-combat opportunities than previous versions (1e/2e/3e) that I have played. I have literally never seen or myself had a problem with fighters in non-combat areas of the game.

At no point do your bring up who the character really is. You are looking for a mechanical solution to a role play problem. If all non-combat opportunities are just a matter of dice rolls, then yes the fighter isn't going to shine compared to other characters -- but then that is a really dull way to run the game.

During social interactions does the player just sit around and not add to the conversation? When searching does the player just rely on making Perception/Investigation checks instead of actively describing what they are doing? When scouting does the player insist on stomping around in heavy armor instead of switching to something lighter?

These are all role-playing decisions. In addition, they are group role playing decisions. D&D is a group endeavor and not every player is going to shine at every activity. However that doesn't mean that they still cannot contribute to the activity.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So while I was looking at the PHB this morning, I had a thought: what if the Champion's Remarkable Athlete and the Battle Master's Know Your Enemy were part of the base Fighter progression?

It sounds good to me, as long as nobody is actually playing a Champion or a Battle Master. Otherwise, you'd need to work up substitute features, and that could get more complicated.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Every time these discussions come up, people seem to always make the assumption that every class must be desirable by them. And since we all have different preferences...

Look at it like this. If the fighter had extra things like many people are suggesting in these threads, then there isn't a class for those players who like a more basic class. Note: do not confuse this type of player with a new player, lazy player, or dumb player (like I've seen inferred often). Some of the smartest, most experienced players prefer more basic mechanical classes because they focus on other things in their games. It's why basic D&D was so popular decades after AD&D was introduced.

We as a collective group need to understand that not every class is going to be designed for our preferences. I don't like bards or warlocks. At all. They just don't do it for me when I think of those concepts. So I realize that those classes aren't designed for me, and instead I have a whole bunch of other ones I can focus on that I like better, rather than demand that they make changes to the bard and warlock.

 

[KenNYC]

This sounds like a role playing/DM issue to me. If you are role playing you can contribute literally anything to the story but that requires a DM coming up with a story that gives the characters room to breathe. If the DM has nothing for a character to do, the problem I think lies with the DM. Conversely, if you have a player who doesn't role play or show initiative in bringing his character to life, there is very little a DM can do to get you involved.

Years ago when I was DMing a regular campaign in 1e, it dawned on me the fighter was by the book the dullest class with the least to do outside of combat, so I compensated for that by making whoever was the plain old vanilla fighter my "leading man" in that I tried to make sure that if an evil temptress was going to seduce a member of the party she would target him, or if the local king summoned someone for a mission, it would be him. The other classes had stories just flowing from the class background, but the fighter needed a little dramatic help.


The answer here is not dice related. There is no stat or rule that can force a player to get involved, they will either jump into the action or they won't.

 

[Mistwell]

Feats are something everyone gets, and fighters just get more of. It’d be nice if the core class, without using optional rules that most players don’t use, had some kind of benefit in the other two pillars. The optional rule you reference is just as available to everyone else.

One subclass of fighter gets spells, and all classes can take feats which grant spells, therefore we can say all classes get spells it's just that some get more. Getting more feats is SUPER MEANINGFUL. It's not something available to everyone else - nobody else gets as many. Much like Fighters can't get many spells, but they can get a few. If we filled some of those feat slots with fixed abilities which duplicated some feats, suddenly you wouldn't be able to make this argument, even though it would DECREASE the flexibility of the fighter. You have to actually address that feat argument with something more than a hand waive dismissal of "but yeah everyone gets feats" because it's not really addressing the point made. And to call out that it's optional is fine, but any official "fix" would almost certainly be optional as well so not sure why that's a good point? We're going to deal with the realm of optional anyway, so let's talk about the current options in a real way. Which means looking at the reality of what "gets more feats" means for this topic.

 

[Quartz]

As a DM, are you giving the fighter an opportunity to contribute? Class proficiencies include History, Insight, and Intimidation, all of which can be used in the non-combat pillars. Roughing up an informant? Intimidation. Research? History and Insight. There's Survival and Animal Handling in the exploration pillar and History can help too ("Hey, the Guise of Greyhawk relates how Sir Grey found a hidden spring hereabouts. It was by a statue of a troll that had been turned to stone." Of course the evil wizard is there with a Stone to Flesh spell. )

The argument about the fighter's extra feat / ASI has been done to death many times. Personally, I don't think the extra feat / ASI at level 6 is enough. Others disagree.