Guys, just one very long thing here: Does everyone realize that Wizards of the Coast tries to limit the amount of complexity in one class? If you add lots of complexity to fighters via Superiority, then there will not be nearly as many ways to make fighters more powerful outside of combat, since those ways require adding even more complexity to the class. So, you guys are probably going to have to pick, do you want your cool and complicated Superiority system, or would you want the areas that actually require a lot more complexity to solve to remain unsolved? "But you don't have to pick, you can have both!" You really can't though. The more complicated a class, the less people will want to play it. If fighter has Superiority which is already a boatload of complexity, then everything else will make the class even more complicated. Not only will many of the devoted D&D fighter fan base that made it one of, if not the, most popular classes in the game, want to play an incredibly complicated and redesigned fighter, but even more experienced players may have trouble doing so. Having unnecessary complexity, such as Superiority, means you may have to prioritize it over the necessary complexity that is needed to change actual problems. So I ask you guys, what do you want?-Fighters being better in and outside of combat, or fighters being cool and good in combat with Superiority while not being able to do much outside of it? Wizards of the Coast and there fan base will make you choose, and I am genuinely curious, which path do you hope 1DD and the game designers take?
Ambush: When you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check or an initiative roll, you can expend one superiority die and add the die to the roll, provided you aren’t incapacitated.
Commanding Presence: When you make a Charisma (Intimidation), a Charisma (Performance), or a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.
Tactical Assessment: When you make an Intelligence (Investigation), an Intelligence (History), or a Wisdom (Insight) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.
I don't know how to say this enough: Just because you enjoy having “cool” effects with your attacks, that doesn’t mean others can’t enjoy keeping their attacks simple. If you want to play a complex fighter, go ahead and pick Battle Master or another cool subclass. But just because you can’t see how others can enjoy something you don’t, doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy it. Move Superiority to another class, or play Battle Master, and you can play the way you want to play. But just because you think a person shouldn't enjoy the type of simple attacks they enjoy, doesn't mean you should take the possibility of those simple attacks away from them. You can play something cool, and complex, and great. But taking away the option of someone else playing something simple just because you want to have another one of those cool options for yourselves is not OK to everyone else who wants or needs that simple option.
Barbarian class exists. "Basic bonk" maneuver can be easily made. This has been said time and again and yet we're still going in circles.
Superiority is, at worst, equivalent in complexity to first-level spellcasting. And I would argue it's significantly simpler than first-level spellcasting.
You gain a set number of maneuvers, which your class/feat options detail to you. You gain a set number of Superiority dice, which your class/feat options detail to you. You can expend a Superiority die to use a maneuver, generally as part of an attack. Done.
You do not have to track different pools of better/worse dice, the way a spellcaster has to track different pools of better/worse spell slots. You do not have to track concentration or remember concentration checks, as no maneuver requires concentration You do not have to track spell components or anything remotely resembling spell components, as maneuvers simply happen. You do not have to track ongoing spell effects, as only one maneuver - Bait and Switch - adds a bonus to you/your ally that needs to be remembered.
Maneuvers are, for the most part, equivalent or superior in overall 'simplicity' to first-level spells. Simply organizing first-level spells alphabetically requires you to go down eleven spots to get to a spell almost as simple as one of the more complex maneuvers - namely, cause fear. Most maneuvers are done the moment you resolve their parent attack, and all remaining maneuvers end by your next turn. Any maneuver that affects an enemy for longer than the moment of a strike - Goading Attack, Menacing Attack, Tripping Attack, and the like - is the DM's to keep track of once it takes effect.
Furthermore, BB, you are effectively stating that anyone who is not a deep and infinite fan of Simple Fighter(TM) and Basic Bonk(C) gets to play fighter once. One time, EVER. You play fighter, you pick Battle Master, you play your Battle Master, and that's it. You're done. You've played Battle Master, now the entire fighter class is effectively denied to you unless you constantly play duplicate characters. How many fighters are you going to see at tables if someone can only ever play fighter once before being soft-locked from the class?
Superiority is not nearly the Bogeyman of nerd calculus you're making it out to be, and continually demanding it be excised from fighter and shoved off into a different base class so you can ignore it is no better than your accusations towards me of wanting to complexify fighter at the expense of fans of Basic Bonk. You are telling me it is not okay to be dissatisfied with Basic Bonk and desire more from my characters than "I hit it wit' mah Hittin' Stick." How is that any better than me telling people they can do better than Basic Bonk, that I believe in their brain and I know they can learn the rules of a relatively straightforward game with the help of a willing DM and their new table friends?
And as Pantagruel said - simplicity does not need to be confined to a single class, nor to martial classes, and simplicity that makes a character actively worse than its fellows is the opposite of desirable. Nobody wants to feel like a sidekick being dragged along despite their inadequacies, ne?
You are reversing the cause and effect in MY statements. You are thinking that I am saying that adding complexity will fix the divine. I AM NOT SAYING THAT.
I see. I appologize, then, for misreading you. I'm still going to have to diagree - giving Fighters a basic superman-like flying brick power set isn't what I consider complex - but I do appologize for everything else.
I'm also a big fan of the Echo Knight, which does have a bit of complexity to it, but not nearly as much as you'd think for someone with the ability to make magical clones at will.
Of course, mundane abilities will never compete with magic that alters reality, but still, maneuvers do have their save or die equivalents. When a dark knight assaults you with their vorpal two-handed sword, or an evil wizard casts spells through an arcane sphere in his hands... lol, disarming attack, what do you do now that you're empty-handed, mr. villain? You can push a large creature 15 feet away - now every cliff, pit and trap becomes your best friend during combat. Things like bait and switch and maneuvring attack easily save lives on your allies. It's not tearing reality apart. But at least it's more than hitting things with sword, while still being realistic.
Let's put aside the fact that disarming or tripping someone doesn't require a maneuver. Dark knights can use their smites with a punch - their powers aren't predicated on a magic item. Likewise, evil wizards have a wide selection of spells that don't require material focuses, and its a free action to grab a back up focus or a spell component pouch; heaven forbid its an evil cleric with a necklace for a focus instead. Or bend down and pick up the weapon. That's far from a save-or-die effect.
Grappling builds are fun, no mistake, but far too situational if they might work, and have far too many counters that any spellcaster will have at least one of. Imagine trying to grapple a lich - free paralyzing touch anyone?
Also, why should simple be tied to martial characters? There's no reason spellcasters must be complex.
Spellcasters are complex because of the wide selection of spells they know or have access to, along with access to things like metamagics/channel divinity/inspiration/shapeshifting, and lets not forget Concentration. In order to be simple, you would have to basically rework how spellcasting works from the ground up.
Barbarian class exists. "Basic bonk" maneuver can be easily made. This has been said time and again and yet we're still going in circles.
Barbarian isn't the class people want for simple combat; they want Fighter. Basic bonk maneuvers still require tracking of superiority dice, which isn't what basic bonk players want. This has been said time and again, yet we still go in circles.
Should there be other complex fighter subclasses. Yas. There should also be a warlord subclass that works like a princess build, and any number of other things. But let the basic bonk people have their simple fighter.
So I was offline and couldn't use the quote function, so I'm just gonna reply to posts using the @ function.
@MyDudeicas (post 98)
And just a reminder that not only does Superiority not help fighters in this regard. But Superiority makes it harder for WotC to help them with it.
@MyDudeicas (post 100)
Yes, but using those maneuvers requires learning the whole Superiority system, and picking them from the massive list of all Maneuvers. And you still have to remember to use those maneuvers and keep track of the dice uses for them, even if they are simple. In short, if a new player has to actively go out of their way when using the system to make it simple enough for them to understand, then it’s not a very simple system.
@Pantagruel666
Yes, simplicity is bad when it leaves other classes lagging behind. But there are ways to have fighters not be underpowered and be simple. And if you don’t use Superiority to help solve the “combat imbalance” between fighters and casters, then you can solve it in other ways, work to make fighters better outside of combat, and keep them fairly simple. I don’t know about you, but the latter path sounds a lot better to me.
Not all simplicity needs to be in fighter, I get that. But that being said, it’s good to have a class that is more simple than others, because a lot of people will want or need to play a class like that.
@Yurei1453
You’ve literally just admitted that Superiority is rather complicated. Even when you left out several things you have to do to use the Superiority system from your post, you still spent a good paragraph summarizing the system in the least detailed way you could.
At first level, Superiority is about as complicated as spells and spellslots stuff. At higher levels, at the points where more complexity might have worked better, since by then players would hopefully be accustomed to D&D, it scales less than spellcasting so by then it’s not as complicated as them.
In short, you’re telling every new player who wants to play a fighter “Here’s as much complexity as I can possibly give you at level 1. It’s only as complicated as spellcasting is at this level, you’ll get used to it. Oh, and here are your other features.”
As for some of your other points. No, you can play Battle Master, EK, or any other fighter subclass that has some baked in complexity. Also, weren’t you the one bragging about how versatile Superiority is and how you can use it in so mnay different ways? If you’re bored with using that system after one run through then I really don’t know what to say. Also, you’re the one who’s trying to make fighter as comlicated as can be and make it harder for new players to use it. Now you’re complaining about other people making it harder to play a class for you.
Superiority may not be calculas, but that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated. If you don’t like “Basic Bonk,” you can pick a class or subclass that has more complicated and confusing bonks. Experienced players will always have a lot more options, so there should be options for new players that are easier to use too.
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Let's put aside the fact that disarming or tripping someone doesn't require a maneuver. Dark knights can use their smites with a punch - their powers aren't predicated on a magic item. Likewise, evil wizards have a wide selection of spells that don't require material focuses, and its a free action to grab a back up focus or a spell component pouch; heaven forbid its an evil cleric with a necklace for a focus instead. Or bend down and pick up the weapon. That's far from a save-or-die effect.
Grappling builds are fun, no mistake, but far too situational if they might work, and have far too many counters that any spellcaster will have at least one of. Imagine trying to grapple a lich - free paralyzing touch anyone?
Disarming does require a maneuver. There's an optional rule for disarming in DMG, but I've never seen it in use. Divine smite requires a melee weapon attack. An unarmed strike is not a weapon. So no smites. Not to mention that high ranking martial enemies tend to do greater damage with their melee weapons. Rezmir from Hoard of the Dragon Queen was sporting a +2 greatsword that dealt +2d6 necrotic damage and blocked healing for a round. If she lost that, the fight would've been a lot easier. Sure, spellcasters have spells that don't require a focus, but a loss of focus does cut their spell list, which is a definite win. An enemy can't pick up his weapon if it flies to the opposite side of the room (which usually happens in reality) or you or your friend pick it up first. As for grappling, we had a very fun time when instead of fighting ghouls in the Death House scenario, we simply dragged and dropped them into the spike pit.
Barbarian isn't the class people want for simple combat; they want Fighter. Basic bonk maneuvers still require tracking of superiority dice, which isn't what basic bonk players want. This has been said time and again, yet we still go in circles.
Should there be other complex fighter subclasses. Yas. There should also be a warlord subclass that works like a princess build, and any number of other things. But let the basic bonk people have their simple fighter.
Then what would players want barbarian for? If you are so basic that you can't track two dice, then how does such player track his hit points? A level 1 fighter can have over thirteen of them, it's far too difficult for a basic bonk player to keep them all in mind. And it gets much worse, as each level adds no less than six of hit points. Then the "basic" fighter starts getting extra feats, and that's when basic bonk player should either finish Harvard to comprehend it, or simply quit the game.
Improvised weapons are a thing. Telling the DM that you're grabbing someone and wrenching the weapon out of their hand is a thing. Doing less damage is, under no definition, a save or die effect. Messing around with mindless mobs is not nearly on par with a Banishment spell that lets you reshape the battlefield at whim.
Do you know why most people don't bother with disarming? Because the disarming just drops the weapon in the same square, and then the antagonist simply uses their free interact-with-object action to bend down, pick up the weapon, and continue the fight with no difference in damage output. 5e disarm rules are crap, even as a maneuver.
People that play a barbarian often do so because they generally want to play a big weapon rage boi with nature-survival connotations. That's a different class fantasy from the Fighter, who's more of a generalist. Concepts like this matter.
Its not that people can't track dice, its that they don't want to. Basic bonk players aren't dumb. They just don't want to deal with extra stuff, because that's not fun for them. And that's valid. Trying to make the base Fighter complex is taking away fun from a large demographic within the playerbase. That's what we call a d*** move.
There's lots of ways to improve the Fighter without taking the fun away from basic bonk. I don't think including more exploratory or social stuff in the base class would hurt. More complex and overtly supernatural subclasses are good.
So what's the solution for someone who wants to be a powerful melee warrior but is bored spitless of Basic Bonk?
What's the class for people who want all that complexity, all that depth and engagement, that everybody is calling out as Super Hyper Awful and Toxic for fighter?
Where's the play experience for people who want, dare I say it, Advanced Bonk?
DO NOT say "just play Battle Master?" Basic Bonk people are trying to excise Battle Master (and Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Archer, and anything else that dares to step outside Basic Bonk) from the fighter class altogether. One does not get to say "just play this thing I'm actively pushing for the removal of!"
So. With that caveat in mind, what are fans of Advanced Bonk supposed to do? They're not supposed/allowed to play fighter, apparently. Where do they go?
The solution is the creation of magic items, feats and subclasses that support the complexity, even in the Fighter. Which, admittedly, the D&D has dropped the ball on - we know its POSSIBLE to do it. We just need more subclasses of complexity.
One thing I've done, for instance, is create a stamina potion that are made like health potion. Stamina potion works by restoring things like Ki, Rage, Superiority dice, arcane archery shots, etc, at a cost of Hit Dice (the stuff that normally restores HP). Had a rogue soul knife that felt a lot freer to spam their abilities for crazy things with that; took the Telekinetic feat, followed by a crystal that unlocked the psi knight features for them too. If they'd gone Fighter first, I'd have done the same thing in reverse. That's a lot of psychic power for complex options in a single non-caster chasis, imho.
I've talked about doing the Warlord thing for more complex tactical play. Either as a Fighter subclass, or as a separate class; I've personally made the former for my game and got one off the DMGuild for the latter.
One thing that annoyed me from the moment that 5e dropped is the lack of whip support. I like flexible weapons - chain darts, whips, weighted ribbons, etc. Feat that lets whips trip and bind on hits should be a gimme, but nothing. Just... urgh. Thorn whip cantrip does more whip-like action than actual whips. Same with Tentacle Rod.
That's another thing. Some people have this perception that maneuvers should be the only way to push, pull, trip, lunge, etc. Feats like Shield Master show us that's just not true. We just need a better, wider selection than that anemic offering in the core book, and more than just two supplements over nearly 10 years.
New, strange Fighting Styles are a go, afaik.
My only argument is that you can't add that complexity to the base Fighter class. Everywhere else is fair game.
Magic items are never the answer, because not only can a player never count on or control magic gear, the base R5e system itself heavily discourages the use of magical gear. Only artificers are an exception, and note that the artificer's Infusions list is extremely carefully curated to ensure only the most innocuous, inoffensive, and generally milquetoast of magic items is allowed. Saying "I'll support Advanced Bonk by creating items that help Advanced Bonk!" is A.) homebrew and thus not a valid/viable PHB 2.0 solution, and B.) categorically against everything Wizards has ever done with magic items in R5e.
Feats? How many people shrieked their fool heads off over even just basic, low-tier feats replacing 'Background Features' in the Origins document? And what single individual feat is going to take Basic Bonk and carry it up to Advanced Bonk, especially when the 'advanced' option is pretty much always "Take an ASI instead to gain more statistical power"? The combat feats actually powerful enough to merit taking over an ASI are the ones everybody complains about and want gone from 1DD.
That's my issue with this whole insane notion of "pull ALL the complexity out of ALL the base classes, then make that complexity opt-in by putting it in places like feats, items, and subclasses!"
Problem The First: when you get done pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes, the entire ******* Internet will rise up and scream 'cool, job done, everything's awesome now!" and nobody ever gets around to the extremely important second step of putting that stuff back into the game.
Problem The Second: Feats are weaker than classes. Subclasses are weaker than classes. Pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes means by necessity that the "opt-in" version of Advanced Bonk (or Advanced Burn, in the case of spellcasters) is going to be weak, anemic and unsatisfying because neither feats nor subclasses are allowed to actually change the way a given class plays. If every class is reduced to the absolute most Basic it can possibly be, then we lose a great deal of Advanced because Wizards cannot and will not put that Advanced back into the game via the smaller, less capable, and less impactful vehicles of feats/subclasses.
Problem The Third: putting Advanced options in weird, esoteric places that aren't the PHB comes with the dual issue of A.) setting up the expectation that the entire game is as Basic as the PHB options and anyone who desired a more involved, engaging experience is unwelcome at a D&D table, and B.) limiting access to those options to people who go out of their way to go fishing for them, which every DM in the history of DMing is always right there complaining about being the "worst" people to run games for. How many times have you seen forum threads where somebody's whining and snarling about their player coming up with something 'cool' and how that Cool Guy doing a Cool Thing is totally ruining the experience for all the Basic Bonk adherents at that table?
This whole bizarre notion that nobody should ever put any rule, mechanic, or system any more complicated than Hittin' Stick into any base class or any place anybody can actually get to it is baffling, frustrating, and infuriating. When does a DM get to say "please read the PHB" to people at their table? I get that making someone on the fence read the whole damn book is likely to get that fence-sitter to bounce rather than try the game, but the answer there isn't "let's punish everybody who DOES read the PHB!", it's for the DM to talk to that fence-sitter about what kind of fantasy hero they think would be super cool to play, and for the DM to work on creating a character for that fence-sitter with input from said prospective player. Is that not the way anybody introduces someone new to the game?
I got nothing. You get maneuvers in fighting styles and feats for everyone. You've already got the option to play the way you want. But all that isn't enough until you take basic bonk fighter away from the people that like it.
According to the Poll, it seems that fighters becoming more than just basic bonk is a popular idea, though I wish that there were more people participating in the poll. Personally, I am all for a bit more complexity in the game within reason and think Martials need a bit of a boost instead of nerfing casters.
I would note that pulling some features out of basic fighter (potentially adding them again in subclasses) would create more room for adding complexity (or not doing so) in subclasses.
Why does everyone assume that subclasses are allowed to add complexity?
Point to ONE SINGLE non-Battlemaster or non-Hexblade subclass in the entirety of R5e that adds meaningful levels of depth and engagement to its core class, or offers a real transofmration of its core class's playstyle. ALL OF THEM are nothing but packs of mostly pointless ribbon features, with the occasional half-exception being so polarizing the community automatically soft bans it. See: Hexblade, i.e. the only other subclass as transformative for its core class as Battlemaster is for fighters. Everybody f@#$ing hates Hexblades. Every time you turn around Hexblade is banned from games because people are pissed off at the multiclass foolery Hexblade allows.
Gloomstalker, a semi-transformative Ranger sub? Banned. Twilight cleric, which isn't even transformative but instead simply good? Banned.
It's not that in a vacuum, pulling "complexification" out of base classes and adding it back in with interest via subclasses can't work. It's that we all know - we do not suspect, we do not posit, we do not think, we know - that Wizards WON'T F@#$ING DO IT! And should Wizards screw up and release an actually-cool subclass by total accident, you can guarantee the Community will ban it from existence because subclasses aren't allowed to be good.
Any degree of depth/engagement you successfully pull out of a base class like fighter is not "coming back in feats/subclasses", it is gone forever outside crap homebrew workarounds that never function properly on this website anyways. If you want that depth to be Gone Forever, then by all means, keep pressing. I'm going to continue pressing to keep it, if I can. Because I like being able to use my brain while playing D&D and I'd like to retain the ability to do so.
Why does everyone assume that subclasses are allowed to add complexity?
Because they do. They often don't add a lot of complexity, because there's so much stuff baked into the base class, but there are subclasses that significantly change base gameplay.
Point them out to me. I'll give you two: Battlemaster and Hexblade. What are two more? Point me at two subclasses that offer meaingful variation on the base gameplay for their class, and I will abandon this thread and allow you, Mephista, and the rest to merrily go about ruining the fighter and rendering it unplayable for anyone who wants more from their game than Basic Bonk. Meaningful variations on the base gameplay, mind - not just "I do the same thing every other single member of my class does, but I do it with orange lights instead of blue ones!"
I dunno. CharOp forums hate hexblades (but the charop forums hate everything about the warlock), but in actual play people seem to enjoy them quite a bit, even without multiclassing and they're generally not a big deal.
So what's the solution for someone who wants to be a powerful melee warrior but is bored spitless of Basic Bonk?
What's the class for people who want all that complexity, all that depth and engagement, that everybody is calling out as Super Hyper Awful and Toxic for fighter?
Where's the play experience for people who want, dare I say it, Advanced Bonk?
DO NOT say "just play Battle Master?" Basic Bonk people are trying to excise Battle Master (and Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Archer, and anything else that dares to step outside Basic Bonk) from the fighter class altogether. One does not get to say "just play this thing I'm actively pushing for the removal of!"
So. With that caveat in mind, what are fans of Advanced Bonk supposed to do? They're not supposed/allowed to play fighter, apparently. Where do they go?
Magic items are never the answer, because not only can a player never count on or control magic gear, the base R5e system itself heavily discourages the use of magical gear. Only artificers are an exception, and note that the artificer's Infusions list is extremely carefully curated to ensure only the most innocuous, inoffensive, and generally milquetoast of magic items is allowed. Saying "I'll support Advanced Bonk by creating items that help Advanced Bonk!" is A.) homebrew and thus not a valid/viable PHB 2.0 solution, and B.) categorically against everything Wizards has ever done with magic items in R5e.
Feats? How many people shrieked their fool heads off over even just basic, low-tier feats replacing 'Background Features' in the Origins document? And what single individual feat is going to take Basic Bonk and carry it up to Advanced Bonk, especially when the 'advanced' option is pretty much always "Take an ASI instead to gain more statistical power"? The combat feats actually powerful enough to merit taking over an ASI are the ones everybody complains about and want gone from 1DD.
That's my issue with this whole insane notion of "pull ALL the complexity out of ALL the base classes, then make that complexity opt-in by putting it in places like feats, items, and subclasses!"
Problem The First: when you get done pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes, the entire ****ing Internet will rise up and scream 'cool, job done, everything's awesome now!" and nobody ever gets around to the extremely important second step of putting that stuff back into the game.
Problem The Second: Feats are weaker than classes. Subclasses are weaker than classes. Pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes means by necessity that the "opt-in" version of Advanced Bonk (or Advanced Burn, in the case of spellcasters) is going to be weak, anemic and unsatisfying because neither feats nor subclasses are allowed to actually change the way a given class plays. If every class is reduced to the absolute most Basic it can possibly be, then we lose a great deal of Advanced because Wizards cannot and will not put that Advanced back into the game via the smaller, less capable, and less impactful vehicles of feats/subclasses.
Problem The Third: putting Advanced options in weird, esoteric places that aren't the PHB comes with the dual issue of A.) setting up the expectation that the entire game is as Basic as the PHB options and anyone who desired a more involved, engaging experience is unwelcome at a D&D table, and B.) limiting access to those options to people who go out of their way to go fishing for them, which every DM in the history of DMing is always right there complaining about being the "worst" people to run games for. How many times have you seen forum threads where somebody's whining and snarling about their player coming up with something 'cool' and how that Cool Guy doing a Cool Thing is totally ruining the experience for all the Basic Bonk adherents at that table?
This whole bizarre notion that nobody should ever put any rule, mechanic, or system any more complicated than Hittin' Stick into any base class or any place anybody can actually get to it is baffling, frustrating, and infuriating. When does a DM get to say "please read the PHB" to people at their table? I get that making someone on the fence read the whole damn book is likely to get that fence-sitter to bounce rather than try the game, but the answer there isn't "let's punish everybody who DOES read the PHB!", it's for the DM to talk to that fence-sitter about what kind of fantasy hero they think would be super cool to play, and for the DM to work on creating a character for that fence-sitter with input from said prospective player. Is that not the way anybody introduces someone new to the game?
Yurei, no one is saying that Batle Master or other complex classes should be axed because they don’t like Superiority. I said no to seeing Superiority in the base fighter class, and I also said you could remove it and make a whole new class for it, to expand it’s role (though on second class you don’t need to remove Battle Master to make that class, having both works better). However, no one on this #112 post thread has actually proposed removing Battle Master or any other complicated fighter subclass because they hate Superiority. Give me a link to a post where someone’s actually said that, and maybe I’ll think differently. But right now, please stop putting words in other peoples mouths,
If you want advanced bonk, here’s a couple ways you can get it:
Monk. Ki can be used for things such as stunning strike, to make your attacks more powerful and do cool things. Monk is advanced bonk exemplified.
Any complicated subclass of fighter or any other martial. There are loads of subclasses that turn basic bonk into advanced bonk. Battle Master, Arcane Archer, and Eldritch Knight are a few. But that’s only looking at fighter subclasses, when we go to other classes we get much more.
As Mephista said, 1DD has the oppurtunity to add even more of those subclasses that allow players to add complexity to their bonks and other features. And they can make more feats and magic items that do the same thing. The fact that 5e messed up in this regard doesn’t mean 1DD will too. Here are the “problems” listed against the bolded point, and here’s why they’re not really big problems.
“Problem the first:” No one is suggesting “pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes,” they are suggesting not adding loads of additional complexity to them. You are not removing any complexity from fighter, you’re just adding more to it. From this point on, we are only talking about fighter’s complexity here, I would not want to remodel the whole game to make it all simple. I just want fighter to remain relatively simple for the people who need itIf you assume that every time someone tries to fix a problem, they’ll just somehow fail to execute the change in the worst possible way, and if you don’t try for this reason, then you are not going to get anything done.
“Problem the second:” Which is why no one is proposing to remove all complexity from all classes in order to make this change. You can still have feats, magic items, and classes that are complicated, they just have even more optional complexity for those who want it in things like subclasses, or optional feats and magic items. Both feats and subclasses allow change to how a given character changes, which makes it a more versatile and changable system for the game. Again, no one is suggesting putting all the complexity in these places. They’re suggesting putting more of it there.
“Problem the third:’ A) No, it really won’t set up that expectation. Allowing people to control complexity more, specifically for fighter, which is the only thing I really strongly feel you should be able to control the complexity for, sends the message that both approaches are viable and supported. Since the game provides options for both of them. B) Which is why there are numerous ways to find those options.
But anyways, I don’t think all complexity should be in subclasses and things like that. I like a decent amount of complexity in each of the base classes, I just don’t want loads of complexity in the base fighter class. Otherwise, I’d actually agree with you: The whole game should not be simple just because some people want it to be. However, aspects of it like fighter should, because there are a lot of people who need some simple things in the game.
You are arguing to remove simple fighters from simple players who need or want to play them, just so you can have a bit more coolness in the game. You can have Superiority elsewhere, just don’t put it in fighter.
Guys, just one very long thing here: Does everyone realize that Wizards of the Coast tries to limit the amount of complexity in one class? If you add lots of complexity to fighters via Superiority, then there will not be nearly as many ways to make fighters more powerful outside of combat, since those ways require adding even more complexity to the class. So, you guys are probably going to have to pick, do you want your cool and complicated Superiority system, or would you want the areas that actually require a lot more complexity to solve to remain unsolved? "But you don't have to pick, you can have both!" You really can't though. The more complicated a class, the less people will want to play it. If fighter has Superiority which is already a boatload of complexity, then everything else will make the class even more complicated. Not only will many of the devoted D&D fighter fan base that made it one of, if not the, most popular classes in the game, want to play an incredibly complicated and redesigned fighter, but even more experienced players may have trouble doing so. Having unnecessary complexity, such as Superiority, means you may have to prioritize it over the necessary complexity that is needed to change actual problems. So I ask you guys, what do you want?-Fighters being better in and outside of combat, or fighters being cool and good in combat with Superiority while not being able to do much outside of it? Wizards of the Coast and there fan base will make you choose, and I am genuinely curious, which path do you hope 1DD and the game designers take?
Ambush: When you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check or an initiative roll, you can expend one superiority die and add the die to the roll, provided you aren’t incapacitated.
Commanding Presence: When you make a Charisma (Intimidation), a Charisma (Performance), or a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.
Tactical Assessment: When you make an Intelligence (Investigation), an Intelligence (History), or a Wisdom (Insight) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.
So you have to pick combat or non-combat, and use the same resources and die pool for both? That sounds like it's gonna work well.
According to the Poll, it seems that fighters becoming more than just basic bonk is a popular idea, though I wish that there were more people participating in the poll. Personally, I am all for a bit more complexity in the game within reason and think Martials need a bit of a boost instead of nerfing casters.
I'm fine with adding complexity to fighters. I just don't want the massive amounts of complexity that Superiority provides. There are other ways to make martials more powerful outside of combat other then Superiority. And no offense, but the DDB polls are not trustworthy. First off, they can be rigged, and secondly, this question is phrased in a super biased way: I don't completely want to "Keep fighters basic," I just don't want Superiority to be a part of their base class. The way this poll is phrased, saying no to Superiority means saying no to all complexity for fighters, when I may want complexity added for other purposes aside from Superiority.
Point them out to me. I'll give you two: Battlemaster and Hexblade. What are two more? Point me at two subclasses that offer meaingful variation on the base gameplay for their class, and I will abandon this thread and allow you, Mephista, and the rest to merrily go about ruining the fighter and rendering it unplayable for anyone who wants more from their game than Basic Bonk. Meaningful variations on the base gameplay, mind - not just "I do the same thing every other single member of my class does, but I do it with orange lights instead of blue ones!"
I'll try and get back to you on this tomorrow when I've had time to look through the PHB and some other books. Also, my goal is not to make fighter unplayable for advanced players, it's to keep it playable for new players too.
Point them out to me. I'll give you two: Battlemaster and Hexblade. What are two more?
Several druids, most notably the moon druid. The pet-based ranger builds. The swashbuckler rogue. In general my measure is "this significantly changes how you play the class" rather than "this adds a lot of complexity" -- partial spellcasters like eldritch knight by comparison add a fair amount of complexity that doesn't wind up mattering very much.
It's really weird seeing people call baseline monks 'complicated'
Especially since those same people are saying that the basic bonk class can't be barbarian because of how it's flavored when monks are even more locked in. So they can't really be the default advanced bonk class by their own logic.
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Ambush: When you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check or an initiative roll, you can expend one superiority die and add the die to the roll, provided you aren’t incapacitated.
Commanding Presence: When you make a Charisma (Intimidation), a Charisma (Performance), or a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.
Tactical Assessment: When you make an Intelligence (Investigation), an Intelligence (History), or a Wisdom (Insight) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.
Barbarian class exists. "Basic bonk" maneuver can be easily made. This has been said time and again and yet we're still going in circles.
Superiority is, at worst, equivalent in complexity to first-level spellcasting. And I would argue it's significantly simpler than first-level spellcasting.
You gain a set number of maneuvers, which your class/feat options detail to you. You gain a set number of Superiority dice, which your class/feat options detail to you. You can expend a Superiority die to use a maneuver, generally as part of an attack. Done.
You do not have to track different pools of better/worse dice, the way a spellcaster has to track different pools of better/worse spell slots.
You do not have to track concentration or remember concentration checks, as no maneuver requires concentration
You do not have to track spell components or anything remotely resembling spell components, as maneuvers simply happen.
You do not have to track ongoing spell effects, as only one maneuver - Bait and Switch - adds a bonus to you/your ally that needs to be remembered.
Maneuvers are, for the most part, equivalent or superior in overall 'simplicity' to first-level spells. Simply organizing first-level spells alphabetically requires you to go down eleven spots to get to a spell almost as simple as one of the more complex maneuvers - namely, cause fear. Most maneuvers are done the moment you resolve their parent attack, and all remaining maneuvers end by your next turn. Any maneuver that affects an enemy for longer than the moment of a strike - Goading Attack, Menacing Attack, Tripping Attack, and the like - is the DM's to keep track of once it takes effect.
Furthermore, BB, you are effectively stating that anyone who is not a deep and infinite fan of Simple Fighter(TM) and Basic Bonk(C) gets to play fighter once. One time, EVER. You play fighter, you pick Battle Master, you play your Battle Master, and that's it. You're done. You've played Battle Master, now the entire fighter class is effectively denied to you unless you constantly play duplicate characters. How many fighters are you going to see at tables if someone can only ever play fighter once before being soft-locked from the class?
Superiority is not nearly the Bogeyman of nerd calculus you're making it out to be, and continually demanding it be excised from fighter and shoved off into a different base class so you can ignore it is no better than your accusations towards me of wanting to complexify fighter at the expense of fans of Basic Bonk. You are telling me it is not okay to be dissatisfied with Basic Bonk and desire more from my characters than "I hit it wit' mah Hittin' Stick." How is that any better than me telling people they can do better than Basic Bonk, that I believe in their brain and I know they can learn the rules of a relatively straightforward game with the help of a willing DM and their new table friends?
And as Pantagruel said - simplicity does not need to be confined to a single class, nor to martial classes, and simplicity that makes a character actively worse than its fellows is the opposite of desirable. Nobody wants to feel like a sidekick being dragged along despite their inadequacies, ne?
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I see. I appologize, then, for misreading you. I'm still going to have to diagree - giving Fighters a basic superman-like flying brick power set isn't what I consider complex - but I do appologize for everything else.
I'm also a big fan of the Echo Knight, which does have a bit of complexity to it, but not nearly as much as you'd think for someone with the ability to make magical clones at will.
Let's put aside the fact that disarming or tripping someone doesn't require a maneuver. Dark knights can use their smites with a punch - their powers aren't predicated on a magic item. Likewise, evil wizards have a wide selection of spells that don't require material focuses, and its a free action to grab a back up focus or a spell component pouch; heaven forbid its an evil cleric with a necklace for a focus instead. Or bend down and pick up the weapon. That's far from a save-or-die effect.
Grappling builds are fun, no mistake, but far too situational if they might work, and have far too many counters that any spellcaster will have at least one of. Imagine trying to grapple a lich - free paralyzing touch anyone?
Spellcasters are complex because of the wide selection of spells they know or have access to, along with access to things like metamagics/channel divinity/inspiration/shapeshifting, and lets not forget Concentration. In order to be simple, you would have to basically rework how spellcasting works from the ground up.
Barbarian isn't the class people want for simple combat; they want Fighter. Basic bonk maneuvers still require tracking of superiority dice, which isn't what basic bonk players want. This has been said time and again, yet we still go in circles.
Should there be other complex fighter subclasses. Yas. There should also be a warlord subclass that works like a princess build, and any number of other things. But let the basic bonk people have their simple fighter.
So I was offline and couldn't use the quote function, so I'm just gonna reply to posts using the @ function.
@MyDudeicas (post 98)
And just a reminder that not only does Superiority not help fighters in this regard. But Superiority makes it harder for WotC to help them with it.
@MyDudeicas (post 100)
Yes, but using those maneuvers requires learning the whole Superiority system, and picking them from the massive list of all Maneuvers. And you still have to remember to use those maneuvers and keep track of the dice uses for them, even if they are simple. In short, if a new player has to actively go out of their way when using the system to make it simple enough for them to understand, then it’s not a very simple system.
@Pantagruel666
Yes, simplicity is bad when it leaves other classes lagging behind. But there are ways to have fighters not be underpowered and be simple. And if you don’t use Superiority to help solve the “combat imbalance” between fighters and casters, then you can solve it in other ways, work to make fighters better outside of combat, and keep them fairly simple. I don’t know about you, but the latter path sounds a lot better to me.
Not all simplicity needs to be in fighter, I get that. But that being said, it’s good to have a class that is more simple than others, because a lot of people will want or need to play a class like that.
@Yurei1453
You’ve literally just admitted that Superiority is rather complicated. Even when you left out several things you have to do to use the Superiority system from your post, you still spent a good paragraph summarizing the system in the least detailed way you could.
At first level, Superiority is about as complicated as spells and spellslots stuff. At higher levels, at the points where more complexity might have worked better, since by then players would hopefully be accustomed to D&D, it scales less than spellcasting so by then it’s not as complicated as them.
In short, you’re telling every new player who wants to play a fighter “Here’s as much complexity as I can possibly give you at level 1. It’s only as complicated as spellcasting is at this level, you’ll get used to it. Oh, and here are your other features.”
As for some of your other points. No, you can play Battle Master, EK, or any other fighter subclass that has some baked in complexity. Also, weren’t you the one bragging about how versatile Superiority is and how you can use it in so mnay different ways? If you’re bored with using that system after one run through then I really don’t know what to say. Also, you’re the one who’s trying to make fighter as comlicated as can be and make it harder for new players to use it. Now you’re complaining about other people making it harder to play a class for you.
Superiority may not be calculas, but that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated. If you don’t like “Basic Bonk,” you can pick a class or subclass that has more complicated and confusing bonks. Experienced players will always have a lot more options, so there should be options for new players that are easier to use too.
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HERE.Disarming does require a maneuver. There's an optional rule for disarming in DMG, but I've never seen it in use. Divine smite requires a melee weapon attack. An unarmed strike is not a weapon. So no smites. Not to mention that high ranking martial enemies tend to do greater damage with their melee weapons. Rezmir from Hoard of the Dragon Queen was sporting a +2 greatsword that dealt +2d6 necrotic damage and blocked healing for a round. If she lost that, the fight would've been a lot easier. Sure, spellcasters have spells that don't require a focus, but a loss of focus does cut their spell list, which is a definite win. An enemy can't pick up his weapon if it flies to the opposite side of the room (which usually happens in reality) or you or your friend pick it up first. As for grappling, we had a very fun time when instead of fighting ghouls in the Death House scenario, we simply dragged and dropped them into the spike pit.
Then what would players want barbarian for? If you are so basic that you can't track two dice, then how does such player track his hit points? A level 1 fighter can have over thirteen of them, it's far too difficult for a basic bonk player to keep them all in mind. And it gets much worse, as each level adds no less than six of hit points. Then the "basic" fighter starts getting extra feats, and that's when basic bonk player should either finish Harvard to comprehend it, or simply quit the game.
Improvised weapons are a thing. Telling the DM that you're grabbing someone and wrenching the weapon out of their hand is a thing. Doing less damage is, under no definition, a save or die effect. Messing around with mindless mobs is not nearly on par with a Banishment spell that lets you reshape the battlefield at whim.
Do you know why most people don't bother with disarming? Because the disarming just drops the weapon in the same square, and then the antagonist simply uses their free interact-with-object action to bend down, pick up the weapon, and continue the fight with no difference in damage output. 5e disarm rules are crap, even as a maneuver.
People that play a barbarian often do so because they generally want to play a big weapon rage boi with nature-survival connotations. That's a different class fantasy from the Fighter, who's more of a generalist. Concepts like this matter.
Its not that people can't track dice, its that they don't want to. Basic bonk players aren't dumb. They just don't want to deal with extra stuff, because that's not fun for them. And that's valid. Trying to make the base Fighter complex is taking away fun from a large demographic within the playerbase. That's what we call a d*** move.
There's lots of ways to improve the Fighter without taking the fun away from basic bonk. I don't think including more exploratory or social stuff in the base class would hurt. More complex and overtly supernatural subclasses are good.
So what's the solution for someone who wants to be a powerful melee warrior but is bored spitless of Basic Bonk?
What's the class for people who want all that complexity, all that depth and engagement, that everybody is calling out as Super Hyper Awful and Toxic for fighter?
Where's the play experience for people who want, dare I say it, Advanced Bonk?
DO NOT say "just play Battle Master?" Basic Bonk people are trying to excise Battle Master (and Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Archer, and anything else that dares to step outside Basic Bonk) from the fighter class altogether. One does not get to say "just play this thing I'm actively pushing for the removal of!"
So. With that caveat in mind, what are fans of Advanced Bonk supposed to do? They're not supposed/allowed to play fighter, apparently. Where do they go?
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The solution is the creation of magic items, feats and subclasses that support the complexity, even in the Fighter. Which, admittedly, the D&D has dropped the ball on - we know its POSSIBLE to do it. We just need more subclasses of complexity.
One thing I've done, for instance, is create a stamina potion that are made like health potion. Stamina potion works by restoring things like Ki, Rage, Superiority dice, arcane archery shots, etc, at a cost of Hit Dice (the stuff that normally restores HP). Had a rogue soul knife that felt a lot freer to spam their abilities for crazy things with that; took the Telekinetic feat, followed by a crystal that unlocked the psi knight features for them too. If they'd gone Fighter first, I'd have done the same thing in reverse. That's a lot of psychic power for complex options in a single non-caster chasis, imho.
I've talked about doing the Warlord thing for more complex tactical play. Either as a Fighter subclass, or as a separate class; I've personally made the former for my game and got one off the DMGuild for the latter.
One thing that annoyed me from the moment that 5e dropped is the lack of whip support. I like flexible weapons - chain darts, whips, weighted ribbons, etc. Feat that lets whips trip and bind on hits should be a gimme, but nothing. Just... urgh. Thorn whip cantrip does more whip-like action than actual whips. Same with Tentacle Rod.
That's another thing. Some people have this perception that maneuvers should be the only way to push, pull, trip, lunge, etc. Feats like Shield Master show us that's just not true. We just need a better, wider selection than that anemic offering in the core book, and more than just two supplements over nearly 10 years.
New, strange Fighting Styles are a go, afaik.
My only argument is that you can't add that complexity to the base Fighter class. Everywhere else is fair game.
Magic items are never the answer, because not only can a player never count on or control magic gear, the base R5e system itself heavily discourages the use of magical gear. Only artificers are an exception, and note that the artificer's Infusions list is extremely carefully curated to ensure only the most innocuous, inoffensive, and generally milquetoast of magic items is allowed. Saying "I'll support Advanced Bonk by creating items that help Advanced Bonk!" is A.) homebrew and thus not a valid/viable PHB 2.0 solution, and B.) categorically against everything Wizards has ever done with magic items in R5e.
Feats? How many people shrieked their fool heads off over even just basic, low-tier feats replacing 'Background Features' in the Origins document? And what single individual feat is going to take Basic Bonk and carry it up to Advanced Bonk, especially when the 'advanced' option is pretty much always "Take an ASI instead to gain more statistical power"? The combat feats actually powerful enough to merit taking over an ASI are the ones everybody complains about and want gone from 1DD.
That's my issue with this whole insane notion of "pull ALL the complexity out of ALL the base classes, then make that complexity opt-in by putting it in places like feats, items, and subclasses!"
Problem The First: when you get done pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes, the entire ******* Internet will rise up and scream 'cool, job done, everything's awesome now!" and nobody ever gets around to the extremely important second step of putting that stuff back into the game.
Problem The Second: Feats are weaker than classes. Subclasses are weaker than classes. Pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes means by necessity that the "opt-in" version of Advanced Bonk (or Advanced Burn, in the case of spellcasters) is going to be weak, anemic and unsatisfying because neither feats nor subclasses are allowed to actually change the way a given class plays. If every class is reduced to the absolute most Basic it can possibly be, then we lose a great deal of Advanced because Wizards cannot and will not put that Advanced back into the game via the smaller, less capable, and less impactful vehicles of feats/subclasses.
Problem The Third: putting Advanced options in weird, esoteric places that aren't the PHB comes with the dual issue of A.) setting up the expectation that the entire game is as Basic as the PHB options and anyone who desired a more involved, engaging experience is unwelcome at a D&D table, and B.) limiting access to those options to people who go out of their way to go fishing for them, which every DM in the history of DMing is always right there complaining about being the "worst" people to run games for. How many times have you seen forum threads where somebody's whining and snarling about their player coming up with something 'cool' and how that Cool Guy doing a Cool Thing is totally ruining the experience for all the Basic Bonk adherents at that table?
This whole bizarre notion that nobody should ever put any rule, mechanic, or system any more complicated than Hittin' Stick into any base class or any place anybody can actually get to it is baffling, frustrating, and infuriating. When does a DM get to say "please read the PHB" to people at their table? I get that making someone on the fence read the whole damn book is likely to get that fence-sitter to bounce rather than try the game, but the answer there isn't "let's punish everybody who DOES read the PHB!", it's for the DM to talk to that fence-sitter about what kind of fantasy hero they think would be super cool to play, and for the DM to work on creating a character for that fence-sitter with input from said prospective player. Is that not the way anybody introduces someone new to the game?
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I got nothing. You get maneuvers in fighting styles and feats for everyone. You've already got the option to play the way you want. But all that isn't enough until you take basic bonk fighter away from the people that like it.
According to the Poll, it seems that fighters becoming more than just basic bonk is a popular idea, though I wish that there were more people participating in the poll. Personally, I am all for a bit more complexity in the game within reason and think Martials need a bit of a boost instead of nerfing casters.
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I would note that pulling some features out of basic fighter (potentially adding them again in subclasses) would create more room for adding complexity (or not doing so) in subclasses.
Why does everyone assume that subclasses are allowed to add complexity?
Point to ONE SINGLE non-Battlemaster or non-Hexblade subclass in the entirety of R5e that adds meaningful levels of depth and engagement to its core class, or offers a real transofmration of its core class's playstyle. ALL OF THEM are nothing but packs of mostly pointless ribbon features, with the occasional half-exception being so polarizing the community automatically soft bans it. See: Hexblade, i.e. the only other subclass as transformative for its core class as Battlemaster is for fighters. Everybody f@#$ing hates Hexblades. Every time you turn around Hexblade is banned from games because people are pissed off at the multiclass foolery Hexblade allows.
Gloomstalker, a semi-transformative Ranger sub? Banned.
Twilight cleric, which isn't even transformative but instead simply good? Banned.
It's not that in a vacuum, pulling "complexification" out of base classes and adding it back in with interest via subclasses can't work. It's that we all know - we do not suspect, we do not posit, we do not think, we know - that Wizards WON'T F@#$ING DO IT! And should Wizards screw up and release an actually-cool subclass by total accident, you can guarantee the Community will ban it from existence because subclasses aren't allowed to be good.
Any degree of depth/engagement you successfully pull out of a base class like fighter is not "coming back in feats/subclasses", it is gone forever outside crap homebrew workarounds that never function properly on this website anyways. If you want that depth to be Gone Forever, then by all means, keep pressing. I'm going to continue pressing to keep it, if I can. Because I like being able to use my brain while playing D&D and I'd like to retain the ability to do so.
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Because they do. They often don't add a lot of complexity, because there's so much stuff baked into the base class, but there are subclasses that significantly change base gameplay.
Point them out to me. I'll give you two: Battlemaster and Hexblade. What are two more? Point me at two subclasses that offer meaingful variation on the base gameplay for their class, and I will abandon this thread and allow you, Mephista, and the rest to merrily go about ruining the fighter and rendering it unplayable for anyone who wants more from their game than Basic Bonk. Meaningful variations on the base gameplay, mind - not just "I do the same thing every other single member of my class does, but I do it with orange lights instead of blue ones!"
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I dunno. CharOp forums hate hexblades (but the charop forums hate everything about the warlock), but in actual play people seem to enjoy them quite a bit, even without multiclassing and they're generally not a big deal.
Yurei, no one is saying that Batle Master or other complex classes should be axed because they don’t like Superiority. I said no to seeing Superiority in the base fighter class, and I also said you could remove it and make a whole new class for it, to expand it’s role (though on second class you don’t need to remove Battle Master to make that class, having both works better). However, no one on this #112 post thread has actually proposed removing Battle Master or any other complicated fighter subclass because they hate Superiority. Give me a link to a post where someone’s actually said that, and maybe I’ll think differently. But right now, please stop putting words in other peoples mouths,
If you want advanced bonk, here’s a couple ways you can get it:
“Problem the first:” No one is suggesting “pulling ALL the complexity out of ALL the classes,” they are suggesting not adding loads of additional complexity to them. You are not removing any complexity from fighter, you’re just adding more to it. From this point on, we are only talking about fighter’s complexity here, I would not want to remodel the whole game to make it all simple. I just want fighter to remain relatively simple for the people who need itIf you assume that every time someone tries to fix a problem, they’ll just somehow fail to execute the change in the worst possible way, and if you don’t try for this reason, then you are not going to get anything done.
“Problem the second:” Which is why no one is proposing to remove all complexity from all classes in order to make this change. You can still have feats, magic items, and classes that are complicated, they just have even more optional complexity for those who want it in things like subclasses, or optional feats and magic items. Both feats and subclasses allow change to how a given character changes, which makes it a more versatile and changable system for the game. Again, no one is suggesting putting all the complexity in these places. They’re suggesting putting more of it there.
“Problem the third:’ A) No, it really won’t set up that expectation. Allowing people to control complexity more, specifically for fighter, which is the only thing I really strongly feel you should be able to control the complexity for, sends the message that both approaches are viable and supported. Since the game provides options for both of them. B) Which is why there are numerous ways to find those options.
But anyways, I don’t think all complexity should be in subclasses and things like that. I like a decent amount of complexity in each of the base classes, I just don’t want loads of complexity in the base fighter class. Otherwise, I’d actually agree with you: The whole game should not be simple just because some people want it to be. However, aspects of it like fighter should, because there are a lot of people who need some simple things in the game.
You are arguing to remove simple fighters from simple players who need or want to play them, just so you can have a bit more coolness in the game. You can have Superiority elsewhere, just don’t put it in fighter.
So you have to pick combat or non-combat, and use the same resources and die pool for both? That sounds like it's gonna work well.
I'm fine with adding complexity to fighters. I just don't want the massive amounts of complexity that Superiority provides. There are other ways to make martials more powerful outside of combat other then Superiority. And no offense, but the DDB polls are not trustworthy. First off, they can be rigged, and secondly, this question is phrased in a super biased way: I don't completely want to "Keep fighters basic," I just don't want Superiority to be a part of their base class. The way this poll is phrased, saying no to Superiority means saying no to all complexity for fighters, when I may want complexity added for other purposes aside from Superiority.
I'll try and get back to you on this tomorrow when I've had time to look through the PHB and some other books. Also, my goal is not to make fighter unplayable for advanced players, it's to keep it playable for new players too.
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HERE.Several druids, most notably the moon druid. The pet-based ranger builds. The swashbuckler rogue. In general my measure is "this significantly changes how you play the class" rather than "this adds a lot of complexity" -- partial spellcasters like eldritch knight by comparison add a fair amount of complexity that doesn't wind up mattering very much.
It's really weird seeing people call baseline monks 'complicated'
Especially since those same people are saying that the basic bonk class can't be barbarian because of how it's flavored when monks are even more locked in. So they can't really be the default advanced bonk class by their own logic.