I would like WotC to look at the Combat Maneuver system that Level Up is using. I have always believed that Battle Master should be the baseline for the Fighter Class and while I don't know the details of Level Up's system, it does seem to be basically expanding the Battle Master's abilities into a full fledge system for all Martial characters to use. I am sure WotC's team could give us some thing similar, maybe tied directly to Weapon Type so that the weapon you use matters more. I would like weapon selection to be more than just choosing the highest dice size available to you.
That has always been the primary criteria for weapon selection by fledgling optimizers and min/maxers since day one of the hobby.
In 1e there was also weapon speed, meaning smaller, lighter weapons could strike quicker or get more attacks in. However outside of such additional rules when they exist, you are right
They would be making a big mistake not to do something to improve the the excitement factor for martial characters. Everyone talks about how human fighters are the most commonly played combo but IMO it’s because that’s the logical entry point for new players (of which there are so many). Folks quickly move on and i think there are loads of creative ways (as demonstrated by EN Publishing and Level-Up) to make these character types just as fun to play as a wizard or warlock.
There are times that tradeoff can be worth it, if enemies have particularly high-impact attacks the paladin is working hard to avoid. Mirror Image is a very powerful defensive layer. It's also not available to paladins at all outside of multiclassing, so I'm not sure why it even came up.
Yeah most defending the spell casting are picking spells that requires multiple classes for some reason.... Not sure why.
Overall it's better the vast majority of the time to just attack is the point.
Is there time it's not? Likely but it's not going to come up nearly as often as it's just a better idea to smite
I brought up those spells because multiclassing is a very common tactic with Paladins, in fact I have never played a single class paladin, always a sorcerer or warlock which opens a lot of additional and very powerful options. I have a paladin playing in the giants quest, I went Oath of the Open Sea and Fathomless (The Lady of the Lake from Arthurian myth is my patron) and it has been amazingly effective. When you are going up against multiple giants solo at times you simply can't take them out in a single round. - A fire giant has 18 AC, 162 hp average, +11 to hit and 6d6+7 damage. Fighting one solo is hard enough but when there are two or more you simply can't out damage them. Going toe to toe and trading blows is just pointless. However, my current paladin has the devils sight invocation so the party wizard casts darkness, I use mirror image while moving in to melee then round 2 cast hex and attack. I get advantage due to the darkness, they have disadvantage to hit me. Then even if they do get lucky they still have to contend with the mirror image. Generally that gives me enough time to spend 4 or 5 rounds taking them down.
The thing about character builds and the options of boosting damage, boosting defence etc is they they are all heavily dependent on the party you play with as well as the enemies (and their numbers) that you are fighting. There is no 1 choice that beats all others.
I would like WotC to look at the Combat Maneuver system that Level Up is using. I have always believed that Battle Master should be the baseline for the Fighter Class and while I don't know the details of Level Up's system, it does seem to be basically expanding the Battle Master's abilities into a full fledge system for all Martial characters to use. I am sure WotC's team could give us some thing similar, maybe tied directly to Weapon Type so that the weapon you use matters more. I would like weapon selection to be more than just choosing the highest dice size available to you.
That has always been the primary criteria for weapon selection by fledgling optimizers and min/maxers since day one of the hobby.
I know, but that doesn't mean it should continue to be that way nor is it a good reason to not change things.
Combat maneuvers are organized into 10 traditions, roughly analogous to spell schools. These are Adamant Mountain, Biting Zephyr, Mirror’s Glint, Mist and Shade, Rapid Current, Razor’s Edge, Sanguine Knot, Spirited Steed, Tempered Iron, Tooth and Claw, and Unending Wheel.
Not all classes have access to combat maneuvers, and of those that do, not all have access to all of the traditions. The fighter, as the master of trained combat, has access to all traditions, whereas the berserker has access to about half of them. The wizard, you won’t be surprised to hear, has access to none.
Each tradition represents a different style of combat maneuver.
This is what Level Up has going. It provides all Martial with a little bit of something while giving the lion's share to the Fighter. This obviously creates some power creep, but it is power creep across the board and frankly I expect we will see a bit of power creep in the upcoming revised PHB. I think WotC should be capable of game design that allows the Fighter to be a bit more dynamic while keeping generally in line with the other classes. Game design is what they are paid to do.
I keep hearing this about the lack of excitement for martial characters. Fighters have always had that kind of 'boring' reputation. The game has survived.
Rogues, rangers and paladins are most definitely not boring. They do not need to be 'martial wizards' and if they were, then either casters would have to be bumped up in power to compensate, or the martials would have to work that much harder to achieve what they already do now. Some people prefer simpler to play characters.
I keep seeing this argument, and others like it.
"Some people like simple characters!" "If you gave martial characters more stuff, everything else would have to be buffed too!" "Fighters being boring has never actually been true/mattered!"
So on and so forth.
In answerance:
1.) And some people like more complex characters, with depth and nuance and options beyond "I BUST OUT MY HITTIN' STICK." There is not one single martial in the entire clucking game with the barely half-exception of the Battle Master fighter - and even the Battle Master, as cool as it is, isn't that complex or nuanced - that has any degree of depth or versatility to it whatsoever. Every single time someone says "but the martials are so braindead and boooring!" , they get told "then play a caster instead." Ahem: no? All parties need a mix of both casters and noncasters, and if the noncasters are all third-grade Tic-Tac-Toe game levels of total autopilot oversimplistic, there will be many, many tables where playing The Weapons Guy is basically punishment duty. The "Guys, we NEED a barbarian or a fighter or something that can take a hit, you can't all play wizards, warlocks, and bards" conversation nobody wants to have. And at some tables the opposite is true - forcing someone to deal with playing The Magic Dude is punishment duty, because the sorcerer is as simple as Magic Guys get and it's still apparently beyond the grasp of people who think the Champion fighter is too complicated to run well. A party with absolutely no magic does very poorly indeed.
2.) Untrue. And also, why? Nobody's asking for martials to be made better than casters. Nobody's asking for a giant, sweeping revision or to triple the damage output of martials. In fact, most people aren't really asking for much damage increase from martials at all. They're asking for options, ways to be tactical and influence the fight instead of rolling initiative and then saying "Okay, I walk to where the enemy is and I hit it with my hittin' stick." That's why so many people focus on maneuvers as the way to start the process. Maneuvers let you do neat things, and careful and considered deployment of them can change the course of a fight. Yes, their current iteration also does more damage, but frankly I'd be willing to lose the damage on most of them to proliferate the system out and give martials some way, ANY way, to actually impact a fight beyond 'take hits for the Magic Dudes while the Magic Dudes go about actually winning the fight for you.' That would even give the Church of (Over)Simplicity folks a re course - they can take the "Forceful Blow" maneuver that just adds the die to their damage roll and not worry about anything else. They get a pool of "I hit it harder" dice, and people who want to actually use their brains can take regular maneuvers instead.
3.) You're literally arguing "this part of the game being boring doesn't hurt things." Examine that statement. Turn it over a few times. Look at it real carefully. And ask yourself if it's really, truly okay to say "it's fine if [X] game chunk is boring." Is that really a valid statement?
When someone says "make it simpler! Make it simpler! it's too complicated, make it simpler! Make it simpler!" a hundred times, and then keeps saying it? There eventually comes a point where even the most forbearing DM has to say "No. I can't make it simpler. I'm sorry, but at some point you have to learn how to play the game. I'll help you learn. Your friends will help you learn. But if you want to keep playing, you have to learn how to play. I'm sorry, that's just the way games in general work. If you just can't stand the thought of learning the rules, then there's not much we can do to help you play."
I just wanted to say that I look forward to reading your comments on just about any topic. They are always well-reasoned, encourage thought, and as far as I have seen, are well-intentioned. Thank you for being a presence on the forums.
If people actually played the suggested encounter amount then maybe but that seems to be the rub.... And if the stuff casters got to do by T4 wasn't just so crazy.
Wish/Sim combo literally gives you a second PC for free that has almost all of your spell slots.... So you effectively double them.
That comes down to how the GM runs their sessions and has absolutely nothing to do with Game design or character balance. The designers can only do so much. People have to step up and take responsibility for running a session badly or being a poor DM if the complaint is 'Wizards are more powerful because they always have all their spells when they get to the BBEG' but as a GM the only encounter you gave them that day was a single end boss fight. In my games generally players will have had maybe 3 encounters if it is a short session or as many as 5-6 in a full day session prior to arriving at the end fight and will have used up at least half of their spell slots.
For fighter, I find them kind of interesting. The base class is perhaps the most flexible of the base classes, not really having much flavor beyond being good at attacking a lot. But the subclasses really save fighter for me. Battlemaster to be strategic with manuevers. Arcane archer for cool magic arrow tricks. Rune Knight runes etc. On top of that, if you get into tier 3 play, they're also the only class getting extra attack going to 3, meaning once a short rest you can throw out six attacks which is pretty cool.
I kind of like the idea of leaving the complexity of fighter up to subclasses. You can play a champion if you want to just go hit guys. You can take BM/AA etc if you want to have limited resources of cool moves to throw in on top of that.
Some of the subclasses are less interesting IMO, but hey that's true for all classes in the game. I find it kind of interesting how the fighter class kind of lacks an identiy beyond 'good at hitting stuff' but can go in a lot of cool different directions flavor wise with its subclasses.
The solution to such situations is the same that is actually used in comic books, namely, write stories in which the power of Thor or Iron Man saves the day in some situations, but would cause too much collateral damage in others.
Having run superhero games: there are many plot devices that work in fiction that do not work in RPGs.
I can see some parallels. Super hero teamup movies, and I'd assume comics too, often have some tasks pop up suited for all of the heroes.
The rogue may not be able to throw out lightning, but they are good at sneaking, hit and run, and disabling traps/locks etc. Just as Black Widow isn't going toe to toe with Thor or Hulk but has skillsets they lack.
Having some additional options for martials won't break anything and is honestly needed. T3 and T4 casters are just straight insane at times.
Fighters: I can attack one more time.
Wizards: I can create a copy of myself, for free, that has most of my spell slots, can hold concentration on a second spell for me...oh and this can be re-upped every single day for absolutely no cost if I want it to. Also I can just straight turn myself into an Ancient Brass Dragon permanently
And there are options for such people. Even for fighters, there are battle masters. There arcane archers and rune knights. And of course multiclassing, which people do to grab that action surge. Seen a lot of new players go for fighters because the complexity of other classes scares them. They move on to more complex characters later. Simple does have a role. And insisting that it isn't for you does not mean it shouldn't exist any more than those who prefer simple characters should insist that complex ones should not. But it is ok to have a single, easy to play class. Fair game if it isn't for you. If it isn't for you, don't play it.
Multiclassing sort of defeats the purpose of simplicity. For one because you then have to deal with the intricacies of multiclassing in the first place, for another because it likely means picking up a more complex class than the simple fighter.
That said though, I think the notion of simplicity is a bit deceptive, certainly in 5E. There certainly are classes that I wouldn't recommend new players start out with (well, just one actually - sorcerer), but there are several that are simple enough, several others that are simple enough if the player just keeps it simple and a couple that could be a lot simpler without giving up on interesting features if WotC had kept their design a bit tighter (the ranger class would be pretty straightforward for a player who wanted that if the developers had paid a bit more attention and eliminated some or all of the needless competition for Concentration, for instance). From my experiences with newer players, anecdotal as those are, a lot of the time "complex" seems to translate to "I'm not sure my choices are the right (read: mechanically optimal) choices" and for me that's a poor argument. The proliferation of expert advice ("this is how you build the best X") has been les than helpful in that regard too. I think more suggestions for "standard" character choices beyond the Quick Builds might help though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
2) and (3) I was asking 'What are you giving up, if you get these extra abilities?' [cut]
I feel like D&D Beyond forums tend to go off-topic very often. This is mostly a reply to the above post, the "defeating the purpose of simplicity" argument I feel is the same but even more loosely connected to the topic.
The martials aren't boring compared to wizards argument doesn't holds up. EN World is making all the classes more complex, including the caster classes.
In addition "boring" is a very vague and opinion-based word. Just for a recent example, Yurei's latest post stated they find the battlemaster to be the "barely half-exception of the Battle Master fighter - and even the Battle Master, as cool as it is, isn't that complex or nuanced - that has any degree of depth or versatility to it whatsoever" to which the response from Kotath was "there are battle masters" and somehow both responses don't have anything to back themselves up with because it's a opinion, not a fact.
Essentially,
The audience for EN World is people who think the battlemaster/casters aren't complex enough, as such the argument that the audience in fact, does think battlemaster is complex is by definition wrong for that audience. The issue with the argument being the audience isn't everyone playing 5E, but rather a niche subset of people. The audience does exist too, proven the existence of EN World's 5.5E.
In other words, could the audience just play a battlemaster and be happy? Probably. Could they play a even more complex class and be happier? Apparently so, and isn't that the whole point of Homebrew? (to be happier part, not the play complex classes part, the two can coexist though).
The argument that people want added complexity without sacrificing anything has very little standing here. Kotath made a example of someone who wanted to add rage to a fighter, EN World has not been proven be anything like that. EN World I believe has stated that they're completely revamping all the classes from mostly ground-up, so it's highly unlikely that it'll just be a normal 5E PHB Fighter with maneuvers slapped on (if so then yes I agree that would likely be unbalanced).
In other words, Of course they'll change other stuff around and nerf/buff other classes as needed
(although tbf I can't say that with certainty cause I don't work at EN World, but it's assumed they will and I've seen other homebrews who have been able to manage giving all fighters maneuvers while nerfing other things to keep it balanced).
edit: shortened post also replaced "you" with "Kotath", sometimes you forget that other people read these posts.
Balance isn't as important as people make it out to be. Mostly because people make it out to be overwhelmingly, earth-shatteringly, all-consumingly SuperMegaUltraHyperImportant, more important than all other factors and facets of game design by a thousandfold or more. People hear "give all fighters battle maneuvers" and they lose their freaking brains over the BALANCE of it, without ever pausing in their absolute hysterical schitte-flipping to consider whether or not it would be fun, and would serve the game experience and class fantasy of being a fighter i.e. a master of martial combat who uses skill, discipline, and training to accomplish what other grognaks all need magical superpowers to do. The current Fighter class does not really serve that class fantasy save with the half-exception of the Battle Master, which is why Battle Masters are easily the second most popular fighter subclass after the DM telling someone "you're too stupid to understand this game; here, play this Champion hittin' guy with a hittin' stick and roll what I tell you to roll when I tell you to roll it" and being extremely terrible at introducing new players to D&D.
Pro tip: never, ******* ever, introduce a new player to D&D with a Champion fighter pregen. You're cutting them out of almost all of what the game can do and be and telling them to sit in a corner and spin while all the cool kids with the cool kid classes get to do Adventurer Things because the Champion is sweaty-ballsack useless at absolutely everything except melee combat, and frankly it's not great even at that. You're not showing this brand new person how cool it is to play a hero in this fantasy game where anything's possible, you're telling them you don't trust them to exercise any judgment and to stick to being a low-level video game character instead. And you're surprised when they don't catch on and end up leaving your game?
Instead, if you're not up to the unbelievably daunting task of helping them play what they want to play, give them a ranger or paladin instead. Something with actual class abilities, as well as enough spells to introduce them to the game's spellcasting system i.e. its greatest feature, but which is also perfectly fine without spells and can default to "can I just, like...hit the thing?" without losing too much steam. They'll be just as effective in Turn-Brain-Off Idiot Mode as a Champion fighter, but if the player ends up not being a lump of cabbage and able to grasp basic gaming concepts after all and decides they like this stuff and want to get more engaged? They have options for doing so.
You're welcome.
Balance can be tuned much more easily than the play experience can be, especially because there's a DM at every table who can emergency slap-patch balance if it's needed. They're not nearly as good, however, at emergency slap-patching the overall game experience if needed, which is why it's important for the paid, trained, professional game design people to get that bit right, even over and above balance.
Also? Much as folks like Kotath like to tell folks like me that wanting to be engaged and have versatile options during my D&D makes me Literally The Spawn of Evil...well, there's a lot of Spawn of Evil out there. We like playing, too. The game should be able to give us options, and saying "you HAVE options, just play a Battle Master" is not okay. One option for people with their heads on straight and three hundred options for people who hate thinking and/or learning how to play D&D is not equitable at all. Y'all can go halvsies with us at the very least, eh?
Tell me what option there is for someone who wants to play a martial character that gets to make relevant tactical decisions in eight out of ten combat rounds. I won't say "every combat round" despite badly wanting to, but point me at an option in the game, as it currently stands, for a player who wants to be able to make interesting/engaging decisions in a majority of combat rounds. You're going to say "Battle Master", and while I actually disagree, I'll swallow that for now. Point me at another one.
One more.
One single option for someone who wants to do more with the majority of their combat turns in this game than "I hit it with my hittin' stick again." that isn't Battle Master.
I'll wait.
And in the interim, the list of possibilities for someone who hates their brain, hates D&D, hates their table, hates thinking, and wants to do absolutely nothing but say "I hit it with my hittin' stick!" in every round of combat:
-The ENTIRE fighter base class and the Champion, Samurai, and Cavalier subclasses. -The ENTIRE barbarian base class and all subclasses save Beast, Storm Herald, and Wild Magic -The Hunter and Monster Slayer subclasses of the Ranger, and arguably the entire Ranger base class. -The Devotion and Ancients Paladin subclasses (which are almost all passive buffs) and arguably the entire Paladin base class save for its spellcasting. -The Thief, Scout, Swashbuckler, and Inquisitive(!!!) subclasses for the rogue, and most of the rogue base class.
Are we, perhaps, sensing a bit of an imbalance in the Force, here?
Tell me what option there is for someone who wants to play a martial character that gets to make relevant tactical decisions in eight out of ten combat rounds. I won't say "every combat round" despite badly wanting to, but point me at an option in the game, as it currently stands, for a player who wants to be able to make interesting/engaging decisions in a majority of combat rounds. You're going to say "Battle Master", and while I actually disagree, I'll swallow that for now. Point me at another one.
One more.
One single option for someone who wants to do more with the majority of their combat turns in this game than "I hit it with my hittin' stick again." that isn't Battle Master.
I'll wait.
And in the interim, the list of possibilities for someone who hates their brain, hates D&D, hates their table, hates thinking, and wants to do absolutely nothing but say "I hit it with my hittin' stick!" in every round of combat:
-The ENTIRE fighter base class and the Champion, Samurai, and Cavalier subclasses. -The ENTIRE barbarian base class and all subclasses save Beast, Storm Herald, and Wild Magic -The Hunter and Monster Slayer subclasses of the Ranger, and arguably the entire Ranger base class. -The Devotion and Ancients Paladin subclasses (which are almost all passive buffs) and arguably the entire Paladin base class save for its spellcasting. -The Thief, Scout, Swashbuckler, and Inquisitive(!!!) subclasses for the rogue, and most of the rogue base class.
Are we, perhaps, sensing a bit of an imbalance in the Force, here?
I somewhat agree with your take in the first half, where it would be nice if there were more tactical things to do, BUT...
in the second half, saying that people who can enjoy a simple/repetitive character "...hates their brain, hates D&D, hates their table, and hates thinking..." is a strong opinion in the wrong direction. Even if you dont like those subclasses/classes, we should refrain from dumping on someone's fun time.
I will also add that all martial characters have the somewhat tactical option of Grappling, Shoving, or Disarming (if the optional rule is being used) and they will arguably be better at those attack variants than non-martials since they all rely on either an Athletics skill check or a weapon attack.
2) and (3) I was asking 'What are you giving up, if you get these extra abilities?' [cut]
I feel like D&D Beyond forums tend to go off-topic very often. This is mostly a reply to the above post, the "defeating the purpose of simplicity" argument I feel is the same but even more loosely connected to the topic.
The martials aren't boring compared to wizards argument doesn't holds up. EN World is making all the classes more complex, including the caster classes.
In addition "boring" is a very vague and opinion-based word. Just for a recent example, Yurei's latest post stated they find the battlemaster to be the "barely half-exception of the Battle Master fighter - and even the Battle Master, as cool as it is, isn't that complex or nuanced - that has any degree of depth or versatility to it whatsoever" to which the response from Kotath was "there are battle masters" and somehow both responses don't have anything to back themselves up with because it's a opinion, not a fact.
Essentially,
The audience for EN World is people who think the battlemaster/casters aren't complex enough, as such the argument that the audience in fact, does think battlemaster is complex is by definition wrong for that audience. The issue with the argument being the audience isn't everyone playing 5E, but rather a niche subset of people. The audience does exist too, proven the existence of EN World's 5.5E.
In other words, could the audience just play a battlemaster and be happy? Probably. Could they play a even more complex class and be happier? Apparently so, and isn't that the whole point of Homebrew? (to be happier part, not the play complex classes part, the two can coexist though).
The argument that people want added complexity without sacrificing anything has very little standing here. Kotath made a example of someone who wanted to add rage to a fighter, EN World has not been proven be anything like that. EN World I believe has stated that they're completely revamping all the classes from mostly ground-up, so it's highly unlikely that it'll just be a normal 5E PHB Fighter with maneuvers slapped on (if so then yes I agree that would likely be unbalanced).
In other words, Of course they'll change other stuff around and nerf/buff other classes as needed
(although tbf I can't say that with certainty cause I don't work at EN World, but it's assumed they will and I've seen other homebrews who have been able to manage giving all fighters maneuvers while nerfing other things to keep it balanced).
edit: shortened post also replaced "you" with "Kotath", sometimes you forget that other people read these posts.
Ok, we are comparing a decades old franchise that is more popular now than ever with a completely untested new system and posts like yours seem more like commercials for the new system than anything constructive or objective regarding what we already have or what may or may not be wrong with it.
A couple posts up (#428) we see a prime example of that lack of objectivity, completely ignoring the limitations on casters.
Looking at their website, they claim to be '5E compatible' but have their own set of Core books. If I was WotC, I would be wondering about copyright issues.
After checking the title of the thread again I can confirm that, yes, this thread is about comparing En World's project to 5e.
They would be making a big mistake not to do something to improve the the excitement factor for martial characters. Everyone talks about how human fighters are the most commonly played combo but IMO it’s because that’s the logical entry point for new players (of which there are so many). Folks quickly move on and i think there are loads of creative ways (as demonstrated by EN Publishing and Level-Up) to make these character types just as fun to play as a wizard or warlock.
---
Don't be Lawful Evil
I brought up those spells because multiclassing is a very common tactic with Paladins, in fact I have never played a single class paladin, always a sorcerer or warlock which opens a lot of additional and very powerful options. I have a paladin playing in the giants quest, I went Oath of the Open Sea and Fathomless (The Lady of the Lake from Arthurian myth is my patron) and it has been amazingly effective. When you are going up against multiple giants solo at times you simply can't take them out in a single round. - A fire giant has 18 AC, 162 hp average, +11 to hit and 6d6+7 damage. Fighting one solo is hard enough but when there are two or more you simply can't out damage them. Going toe to toe and trading blows is just pointless. However, my current paladin has the devils sight invocation so the party wizard casts darkness, I use mirror image while moving in to melee then round 2 cast hex and attack. I get advantage due to the darkness, they have disadvantage to hit me. Then even if they do get lucky they still have to contend with the mirror image. Generally that gives me enough time to spend 4 or 5 rounds taking them down.
The thing about character builds and the options of boosting damage, boosting defence etc is they they are all heavily dependent on the party you play with as well as the enemies (and their numbers) that you are fighting. There is no 1 choice that beats all others.
I know, but that doesn't mean it should continue to be that way nor is it a good reason to not change things.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
This is what Level Up has going. It provides all Martial with a little bit of something while giving the lion's share to the Fighter. This obviously creates some power creep, but it is power creep across the board and frankly I expect we will see a bit of power creep in the upcoming revised PHB. I think WotC should be capable of game design that allows the Fighter to be a bit more dynamic while keeping generally in line with the other classes. Game design is what they are paid to do.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I keep seeing this argument, and others like it.
"Some people like simple characters!"
"If you gave martial characters more stuff, everything else would have to be buffed too!"
"Fighters being boring has never actually been true/mattered!"
So on and so forth.
In answerance:
1.) And some people like more complex characters, with depth and nuance and options beyond "I BUST OUT MY HITTIN' STICK." There is not one single martial in the entire clucking game with the barely half-exception of the Battle Master fighter - and even the Battle Master, as cool as it is, isn't that complex or nuanced - that has any degree of depth or versatility to it whatsoever. Every single time someone says "but the martials are so braindead and boooring!" , they get told "then play a caster instead." Ahem: no? All parties need a mix of both casters and noncasters, and if the noncasters are all third-grade Tic-Tac-Toe game levels of total autopilot oversimplistic, there will be many, many tables where playing The Weapons Guy is basically punishment duty. The "Guys, we NEED a barbarian or a fighter or something that can take a hit, you can't all play wizards, warlocks, and bards" conversation nobody wants to have. And at some tables the opposite is true - forcing someone to deal with playing The Magic Dude is punishment duty, because the sorcerer is as simple as Magic Guys get and it's still apparently beyond the grasp of people who think the Champion fighter is too complicated to run well. A party with absolutely no magic does very poorly indeed.
2.) Untrue. And also, why? Nobody's asking for martials to be made better than casters. Nobody's asking for a giant, sweeping revision or to triple the damage output of martials. In fact, most people aren't really asking for much damage increase from martials at all. They're asking for options, ways to be tactical and influence the fight instead of rolling initiative and then saying "Okay, I walk to where the enemy is and I hit it with my hittin' stick." That's why so many people focus on maneuvers as the way to start the process. Maneuvers let you do neat things, and careful and considered deployment of them can change the course of a fight. Yes, their current iteration also does more damage, but frankly I'd be willing to lose the damage on most of them to proliferate the system out and give martials some way, ANY way, to actually impact a fight beyond 'take hits for the Magic Dudes while the Magic Dudes go about actually winning the fight for you.' That would even give the Church of (Over)Simplicity folks a re course - they can take the "Forceful Blow" maneuver that just adds the die to their damage roll and not worry about anything else. They get a pool of "I hit it harder" dice, and people who want to actually use their brains can take regular maneuvers instead.
3.) You're literally arguing "this part of the game being boring doesn't hurt things." Examine that statement. Turn it over a few times. Look at it real carefully. And ask yourself if it's really, truly okay to say "it's fine if [X] game chunk is boring." Is that really a valid statement?
Please do not contact or message me.
And frankly, let me say this.
When someone says "make it simpler! Make it simpler! it's too complicated, make it simpler! Make it simpler!" a hundred times, and then keeps saying it? There eventually comes a point where even the most forbearing DM has to say "No. I can't make it simpler. I'm sorry, but at some point you have to learn how to play the game. I'll help you learn. Your friends will help you learn. But if you want to keep playing, you have to learn how to play. I'm sorry, that's just the way games in general work. If you just can't stand the thought of learning the rules, then there's not much we can do to help you play."
Please do not contact or message me.
Hello Yurei1453,
I just wanted to say that I look forward to reading your comments on just about any topic. They are always well-reasoned, encourage thought, and as far as I have seen, are well-intentioned. Thank you for being a presence on the forums.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
That comes down to how the GM runs their sessions and has absolutely nothing to do with Game design or character balance. The designers can only do so much. People have to step up and take responsibility for running a session badly or being a poor DM if the complaint is 'Wizards are more powerful because they always have all their spells when they get to the BBEG' but as a GM the only encounter you gave them that day was a single end boss fight. In my games generally players will have had maybe 3 encounters if it is a short session or as many as 5-6 in a full day session prior to arriving at the end fight and will have used up at least half of their spell slots.
For fighter, I find them kind of interesting. The base class is perhaps the most flexible of the base classes, not really having much flavor beyond being good at attacking a lot. But the subclasses really save fighter for me. Battlemaster to be strategic with manuevers. Arcane archer for cool magic arrow tricks. Rune Knight runes etc. On top of that, if you get into tier 3 play, they're also the only class getting extra attack going to 3, meaning once a short rest you can throw out six attacks which is pretty cool.
I kind of like the idea of leaving the complexity of fighter up to subclasses. You can play a champion if you want to just go hit guys. You can take BM/AA etc if you want to have limited resources of cool moves to throw in on top of that.
Some of the subclasses are less interesting IMO, but hey that's true for all classes in the game. I find it kind of interesting how the fighter class kind of lacks an identiy beyond 'good at hitting stuff' but can go in a lot of cool different directions flavor wise with its subclasses.
Thank you, Erriku. It's always heartening to hear kind words. This place can be an argumentative dunghill sometimes, but I try my best.
Please do not contact or message me.
Having run superhero games: there are many plot devices that work in fiction that do not work in RPGs.
I can see some parallels. Super hero teamup movies, and I'd assume comics too, often have some tasks pop up suited for all of the heroes.
The rogue may not be able to throw out lightning, but they are good at sneaking, hit and run, and disabling traps/locks etc. Just as Black Widow isn't going toe to toe with Thor or Hulk but has skillsets they lack.
Having some additional options for martials won't break anything and is honestly needed. T3 and T4 casters are just straight insane at times.
Fighters: I can attack one more time.
Wizards: I can create a copy of myself, for free, that has most of my spell slots, can hold concentration on a second spell for me...oh and this can be re-upped every single day for absolutely no cost if I want it to. Also I can just straight turn myself into an Ancient Brass Dragon permanently
Fighter: Cool...I uh....can attack one more time.
Multiclassing sort of defeats the purpose of simplicity. For one because you then have to deal with the intricacies of multiclassing in the first place, for another because it likely means picking up a more complex class than the simple fighter.
That said though, I think the notion of simplicity is a bit deceptive, certainly in 5E. There certainly are classes that I wouldn't recommend new players start out with (well, just one actually - sorcerer), but there are several that are simple enough, several others that are simple enough if the player just keeps it simple and a couple that could be a lot simpler without giving up on interesting features if WotC had kept their design a bit tighter (the ranger class would be pretty straightforward for a player who wanted that if the developers had paid a bit more attention and eliminated some or all of the needless competition for Concentration, for instance). From my experiences with newer players, anecdotal as those are, a lot of the time "complex" seems to translate to "I'm not sure my choices are the right (read: mechanically optimal) choices" and for me that's a poor argument. The proliferation of expert advice ("this is how you build the best X") has been les than helpful in that regard too. I think more suggestions for "standard" character choices beyond the Quick Builds might help though.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
So we can fix the problem by advising players "Just don't bother playing a fighter in a tier 3 or 4 campaign"?
I feel like D&D Beyond forums tend to go off-topic very often. This is mostly a reply to the above post, the "defeating the purpose of simplicity" argument I feel is the same but even more loosely connected to the topic.
The martials aren't boring compared to wizards argument doesn't holds up. EN World is making all the classes more complex, including the caster classes.
In addition "boring" is a very vague and opinion-based word. Just for a recent example, Yurei's latest post stated they find the battlemaster to be the "barely half-exception of the Battle Master fighter - and even the Battle Master, as cool as it is, isn't that complex or nuanced - that has any degree of depth or versatility to it whatsoever" to which the response from Kotath was "there are battle masters" and somehow both responses don't have anything to back themselves up with because it's a opinion, not a fact.
Essentially,
The audience for EN World is people who think the battlemaster/casters aren't complex enough, as such the argument that the audience in fact, does think battlemaster is complex is by definition wrong for that audience. The issue with the argument being the audience isn't everyone playing 5E, but rather a niche subset of people. The audience does exist too, proven the existence of EN World's 5.5E.
In other words, could the audience just play a battlemaster and be happy? Probably. Could they play a even more complex class and be happier? Apparently so, and isn't that the whole point of Homebrew? (to be happier part, not the play complex classes part, the two can coexist though).
The argument that people want added complexity without sacrificing anything has very little standing here. Kotath made a example of someone who wanted to add rage to a fighter, EN World has not been proven be anything like that. EN World I believe has stated that they're completely revamping all the classes from mostly ground-up, so it's highly unlikely that it'll just be a normal 5E PHB Fighter with maneuvers slapped on (if so then yes I agree that would likely be unbalanced).
In other words, Of course they'll change other stuff around and nerf/buff other classes as needed
(although tbf I can't say that with certainty cause I don't work at EN World, but it's assumed they will and I've seen other homebrews who have been able to manage giving all fighters maneuvers while nerfing other things to keep it balanced).
edit: shortened post also replaced "you" with "Kotath", sometimes you forget that other people read these posts.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
Balance isn't as important as people make it out to be. Mostly because people make it out to be overwhelmingly, earth-shatteringly, all-consumingly SuperMegaUltraHyperImportant, more important than all other factors and facets of game design by a thousandfold or more. People hear "give all fighters battle maneuvers" and they lose their freaking brains over the BALANCE of it, without ever pausing in their absolute hysterical schitte-flipping to consider whether or not it would be fun, and would serve the game experience and class fantasy of being a fighter i.e. a master of martial combat who uses skill, discipline, and training to accomplish what other grognaks all need magical superpowers to do. The current Fighter class does not really serve that class fantasy save with the half-exception of the Battle Master, which is why Battle Masters are easily the second most popular fighter subclass after the DM telling someone "you're too stupid to understand this game; here, play this
Championhittin' guy with a hittin' stick and roll what I tell you to roll when I tell you to roll it" and being extremely terrible at introducing new players to D&D.Pro tip: never, ******* ever, introduce a new player to D&D with a Champion fighter pregen. You're cutting them out of almost all of what the game can do and be and telling them to sit in a corner and spin while all the cool kids with the cool kid classes get to do Adventurer Things because the Champion is sweaty-ballsack useless at absolutely everything except melee combat, and frankly it's not great even at that. You're not showing this brand new person how cool it is to play a hero in this fantasy game where anything's possible, you're telling them you don't trust them to exercise any judgment and to stick to being a low-level video game character instead. And you're surprised when they don't catch on and end up leaving your game?
Instead, if you're not up to the unbelievably daunting task of helping them play what they want to play, give them a ranger or paladin instead. Something with actual class abilities, as well as enough spells to introduce them to the game's spellcasting system i.e. its greatest feature, but which is also perfectly fine without spells and can default to "can I just, like...hit the thing?" without losing too much steam. They'll be just as effective in Turn-Brain-Off Idiot Mode as a Champion fighter, but if the player ends up not being a lump of cabbage and able to grasp basic gaming concepts after all and decides they like this stuff and want to get more engaged? They have options for doing so.
You're welcome.
Balance can be tuned much more easily than the play experience can be, especially because there's a DM at every table who can emergency slap-patch balance if it's needed. They're not nearly as good, however, at emergency slap-patching the overall game experience if needed, which is why it's important for the paid, trained, professional game design people to get that bit right, even over and above balance.
Also? Much as folks like Kotath like to tell folks like me that wanting to be engaged and have versatile options during my D&D makes me Literally The Spawn of Evil...well, there's a lot of Spawn of Evil out there. We like playing, too. The game should be able to give us options, and saying "you HAVE options, just play a Battle Master" is not okay. One option for people with their heads on straight and three hundred options for people who hate thinking and/or learning how to play D&D is not equitable at all. Y'all can go halvsies with us at the very least, eh?
Please do not contact or message me.
Okay.
Tell me what option there is for someone who wants to play a martial character that gets to make relevant tactical decisions in eight out of ten combat rounds. I won't say "every combat round" despite badly wanting to, but point me at an option in the game, as it currently stands, for a player who wants to be able to make interesting/engaging decisions in a majority of combat rounds. You're going to say "Battle Master", and while I actually disagree, I'll swallow that for now. Point me at another one.
One more.
One single option for someone who wants to do more with the majority of their combat turns in this game than "I hit it with my hittin' stick again." that isn't Battle Master.
I'll wait.
And in the interim, the list of possibilities for someone who hates their brain, hates D&D, hates their table, hates thinking, and wants to do absolutely nothing but say "I hit it with my hittin' stick!" in every round of combat:
-The ENTIRE fighter base class and the Champion, Samurai, and Cavalier subclasses.
-The ENTIRE barbarian base class and all subclasses save Beast, Storm Herald, and Wild Magic
-The Hunter and Monster Slayer subclasses of the Ranger, and arguably the entire Ranger base class.
-The Devotion and Ancients Paladin subclasses (which are almost all passive buffs) and arguably the entire Paladin base class save for its spellcasting.
-The Thief, Scout, Swashbuckler, and Inquisitive(!!!) subclasses for the rogue, and most of the rogue base class.
Are we, perhaps, sensing a bit of an imbalance in the Force, here?
Please do not contact or message me.
I somewhat agree with your take in the first half, where it would be nice if there were more tactical things to do, BUT...
in the second half, saying that people who can enjoy a simple/repetitive character "...hates their brain, hates D&D, hates their table, and hates thinking..." is a strong opinion in the wrong direction. Even if you dont like those subclasses/classes, we should refrain from dumping on someone's fun time.
I will also add that all martial characters have the somewhat tactical option of Grappling, Shoving, or Disarming (if the optional rule is being used) and they will arguably be better at those attack variants than non-martials since they all rely on either an Athletics skill check or a weapon attack.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
After checking the title of the thread again I can confirm that, yes, this thread is about comparing En World's project to 5e.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master