Still, at low levels, having to remember all their maneuvers and keep track of their superiority dice is going to be pretty complicated, especially for newer players, even if those maneuevers that they spent the time and work choosing are some of the simpler ones. Just because you feel that maneuvers are cool, doesn't mean people should take away the "Simple class" in D&D away from new players who need it. There are other ways to implement Superiority, which I honestly think is a cool mechanic, into the game, without taking the option of playing a simple class away from all players. Having a class like fighter there can be a great help for people learning how to play the game, and making an unnecessary change to the base fighter class to "Make it cooler!" Isn't a very good justification for removing that.
Give them 2 maneuvers at level 1, anyone capable of rolling dice can remember 2 things.
Still, at low levels, having to remember all their maneuvers and keep track of their superiority dice is going to be pretty complicated, especially for newer players, even if those maneuevers that they spent the time and work choosing are some of the simpler ones. Just because you feel that maneuvers are cool, doesn't mean people should take away the "Simple class" in D&D away from new players who need it. There are other ways to implement Superiority, which I honestly think is a cool mechanic, into the game, without taking the option of playing a simple class away from all players. Having a class like fighter there can be a great help for people learning how to play the game, and making an unnecessary change to the base fighter class to "Make it cooler!" Isn't a very good justification for removing that.
Give them 2 maneuvers at level 1, anyone capable of rolling dice can remember 2 things.
People were talking about giving fighters much more maneuvers than that, and secondly, they'd have to read the whole list of maneuvers and pick two. They'd also have to remember when to use both of them, how they work, what type of die they have for their maneuvers, and how many die uses they have left. In short, having two maneuvers means remembering much more than two things.
A reminder to those arguing that the fighter is perfect in every possible way because it's popular: R5e is the most popular/successful edition of D&D by orders of magnitude. It is, by all accounts, the most financially successful and popular/well-received TTRPG in history. Wizards is doing 1DD anyways and changing stuff about The Most Successful/Popular Game In History.
Just because something is good doesn't mean it can't be better. If everybody always subscribed to "if it ain't broke don't fix it", we'd all still be living in mud huts hunting berries and wrestling bears for our dinner. The fighter would be a better class with base access to Superiority, for all of the reasons I laid out in this thread. Frankly, the ranger deserves a Superiority-focused subclass as well, if Wizards doesn't do the smart thing and broaden Superiority out to all martial-oriented classes. No, that doesn't mean "anything that hits with weapons". A martial class is a class with Extra Attack and a choice of Fighting Style. Rogues are martial-adjacent, as are barbarians. The latter tends to get lumped in, but I would not consider it in need of Superiority - though a Superiority-focused subclass for barbarians somewhere down the line could potentially be very interesting.
A reminder to those arguing that the fighter is perfect in every possible way because it's popular: R5e is the most popular/successful edition of D&D by orders of magnitude.
Then is it safe to assume that you are also fine with the disparity between fighters and fullcasters such as wizards? Buffing fighter so that it is on par with casters will require adding complexity to them.
The martial-caster divide is predicated upon several issues, including:
marital classes being limited to things they could do in reality while magic can do anything,
that only casters get the tools to counter another caster, while anyone can counter a martial
casters get tools to interact with all three pillars while martial characters tend to be combat focused; and even when they do get tools, they're often related to rolling skills while spells get to bypass the need for skills entirely (fly, teleport, knock, divinations).
Adding complexity to Fighter combat options is not going to magically fix this - or has the more complex monk class solved the issue? No?
Let me give you an example - I like the Beyond the Witchlight story. I like being able to get through it without combat, I think that's a fun change from the usual D&D story (And I do think the Fighter should be given skills to interact with this kind of story). That said - there's a few locks and doors that just... say you cannot lock pick them, and you cannot break them. There's a cage that, by all rights, you should be able to open? The book flat out says you cannot. They allow you to use the Knock spell, but actually use mundane skills? Out right forbidden with no skill check permitted. Even the Arcane Lock spell only increases the DC.
Adding complexity to the martial classes isn't going to fix this issue until we stop having crap that outright spits in the face of non-magical characters.
Then is it safe to assume that you are also fine with the disparity between fighters and fullcasters such as wizards? Buffing fighter so that it is on par with casters will require adding complexity to them.
The martial-caster divide is predicated upon several issues, including:
marital classes being limited to things they could do in reality while magic can do anything,
that only casters get the tools to counter another caster, while anyone can counter a martial
casters get tools to interact with all three pillars while martial characters tend to be combat focused; and even when they do get tools, they're often related to rolling skills while spells get to bypass the need for skills entirely (fly, teleport, knock, divinations).
Adding complexity to Fighter combat options is not going to magically fix this - or has the more complex monk class solved the issue? No?
Let me give you an example - I like the Beyond the Witchlight story. I like being able to get through it without combat, I think that's a fun change from the usual D&D story (And I do think the Fighter should be given skills to interact with this kind of story). That said - there's a few locks and doors that just... say you cannot lock pick them, and you cannot break them. There's a cage that, by all rights, you should be able to open? The book flat out says you cannot. They allow you to use the Knock spell, but actually use mundane skills? Out right forbidden with no skill check permitted. Even the Arcane Lock spell only increases the DC.
Adding complexity to the martial classes isn't going to fix this issue until we stop having crap that outright spits in the face of non-magical characters.
I liken the divide between spellcasters and martials in the game to the divide between two groups of people in the real world wherein one group has way more advanced tech than the other. With relatively advanced tech, you just have an unfair advantage since you have many more options and avenues available to you.
I don't know how you could really close that gap without causing problems for either spellcasters or martials, and maybe martials being able to contribute despite this is part of the charm.
A reminder to those arguing that the fighter is perfect in every possible way because it's popular: R5e is the most popular/successful edition of D&D by orders of magnitude. It is, by all accounts, the most financially successful and popular/well-received TTRPG in history. Wizards is doing 1DD anyways and changing stuff about The Most Successful/Popular Game In History.
Just because something is good doesn't mean it can't be better. If everybody always subscribed to "if it ain't broke don't fix it", we'd all still be living in mud huts hunting berries and wrestling bears for our dinner. The fighter would be a better class with base access to Superiority, for all of the reasons I laid out in this thread. Frankly, the ranger deserves a Superiority-focused subclass as well, if Wizards doesn't do the smart thing and broaden Superiority out to all martial-oriented classes. No, that doesn't mean "anything that hits with weapons". A martial class is a class with Extra Attack and a choice of Fighting Style. Rogues are martial-adjacent, as are barbarians. The latter tends to get lumped in, but I would not consider it in need of Superiority - though a Superiority-focused subclass for barbarians somewhere down the line could potentially be very interesting.
You're misrepresenting people. No one is saying that the Fighter can't be improved upon. Its can, especially in exploratory and social matters as well as proping up things like Second Wind and Indomitable. No one is saying that you can't have more options to pick from while leveling up - having more things like Fighting Style while leveling from isn't a problem; no one is batting an eye at the new feats you need to pick at char gen, after all. Simple Fighter just refers to how it plays.
The problem I have here is that you are equating Complex = automatically better. That's a lie. You are portraying your way as an objective improvement when, in truth, its just a change that you would enjoy playing, and not the greater D&D community. And that's something I really object to. Especially when you were handed the option to play your way with a Fighting Style and Feat options. And its very likely those options will be stronger in 1dnd now that they realize the problem with short rest recharge classes.
You literally can have your way AND leave the others their way.
A reminder to those arguing that the fighter is perfect in every possible way because it's popular
Luckily I don't think anyone has actually made that argument, but thanks for the reminder I guess. The popularity and success of the class however does call into question the repeatedly taken-for-fact assertions that the class is an abject failure that needs to be burnt down to the ground though.
I don't know how you could really close that gap without causing problems for either spellcasters or martials, and maybe martials being able to contribute despite this is part of the charm.
I mean, ultimately you close the gap by enabling more useful, interesting, things for martial characters to do outside hit things with sticks and tamp down on some of the most egregious abuses of spellcasting. Both things that WOTC has successfully done in the past and may very well continue to do in the future. It's not rocket science.
I don't think it's really a matter of 'charm' either. The average table doesn't have significant issues with martial/caster disparities largely because they don't encounter those disparities in practice. The wizard who prepares a whole bunch of fireballs because they're cool isn't going to fundamentally fray the system by trivializing skill challenges (indeed, at many casual tables the opposite problem occurs, where the fighter's longevity frustrates magic users, which is why 5e has things like scaling cantrips). The only time I've ever seen the idea that Fighters are fun because they get horribly outclassed by wizards, especially at higher levels, is as hypotheticals on charop forums.
A reminder to those arguing that the fighter is perfect in every possible way because it's popular
Luckily I don't think anyone has actually made that argument, but thanks for the reminder I guess. The popularity and success of the class however does call into question the repeatedly taken-for-fact assertions that the class is an abject failure that needs to be burnt down to the ground though.
I don't know how you could really close that gap without causing problems for either spellcasters or martials, and maybe martials being able to contribute despite this is part of the charm.
I mean, ultimately you close the gap by enabling more useful, interesting, things for martial characters to do outside hit things with sticks and tamp down on some of the most egregious abuses of spellcasting. Both things that WOTC has successfully done in the past and may very well continue to do in the future. It's not rocket science.
I don't think it's really a matter of 'charm' either. The average table doesn't have significant issues with martial/caster disparities largely because they don't encounter those disparities in practice. The wizard who prepares a whole bunch of fireballs because they're cool isn't going to fundamentally fray the system by trivializing skill challenges (indeed, at many casual tables the opposite problem occurs, where the fighter's longevity frustrates magic users, which is why 5e has things like scaling cantrips). The only time I've ever seen the idea that Fighters are fun because they get horribly outclassed by wizards, especially at higher levels, is as hypotheticals on charop forums.
It's probably worth noting that you could have a party with only spellcasters (including full, half, and third-casters) and be able to play the game just fine. Hell, you could theoretically have an entire party of just clerics, given how varied cleric domains are.
I imagine that's not the case if no casters are in the party, especially at higher levels.
Don't disagree there, but I think that in part has to do with how relatively one-dimensional a lot of design choices for martials are.
Druids or Clerics through subclasses and spell choices can be blasters, healers, frontliners, or lean into support roles.
Contrast with Barbarians who honestly are going to kind of end up being the same character (at least in broad strokes) regardless of what subclass you pick (and instead your choice is more like an addendum 'but with claws', 'but with bonus radiant damage', 'but extra tanky').
IMO that's an area WOTC should maybe look into in the future. Providing more varied options that allow people to diversify their characters, without necessarily mandating that the things people like about existing classes get taken away in the process.
Especially at higher levels of play, where both disparities widen and player counts rapidly drop. Clearly the part of the game that needs the most work.
I liken the divide between spellcasters and martials in the game to the divide between two groups of people in the real world wherein one group has way more advanced tech than the other. With relatively advanced tech, you just have an unfair advantage since you have many more options and avenues available to you.
I don't know how you could really close that gap without causing problems for either spellcasters or martials, and maybe martials being able to contribute despite this is part of the charm.
That's a fair take. I don't really know how to close the gap either. On the caster side, you need to limit magic more, while the other side... All I can think of are... well, banes. Like, the fey (and demons) are traditionally weak to iron. Lycanthropes and devils to silver. Undead hate holy water. You use adamantine against constructs. Something like that.
Banes wouldn't even need to be for combat, but for protection against things like scrying, or preventing teleports. Let enemies break down a Leo's hut if you camp in the middle of their dungeon.
I liken the divide between spellcasters and martials in the game to the divide between two groups of people in the real world wherein one group has way more advanced tech than the other. With relatively advanced tech, you just have an unfair advantage since you have many more options and avenues available to you.
I don't know how you could really close that gap without causing problems for either spellcasters or martials, and maybe martials being able to contribute despite this is part of the charm.
That's a fair take. I don't really know how to close the gap either. On the caster side, you need to limit magic more, while the other side... All I can think of are... well, banes. Like, the fey (and demons) are traditionally weak to iron. Lycanthropes and devils to silver. Undead hate holy water. You use adamantine against constructs. Something like that.
Banes wouldn't even need to be for combat, but for protection against things like scrying, or preventing teleports. Let enemies break down a Leo's hut if you camp in the middle of their dungeon.
I think what helps to close the gap in practice more often than not are feats and the equipment PCs get.
Magic items can provide martials with options they wouldn't otherwise have, and feats can give spells or just generally more utility out of combat. Racial features also help here too, especially given how many races these days give you spells to start with.
It's not exactly a solution, but fighters do get more ASIs than any other class.
'Banes' are, more or less, applying "magic" to martial classes. It's equivalent in many ways to the Grease system in Elden Ring, wherein a 'purely physical' character can briefly imbue their weapon with elemental properties by slathering it with magic grease. Requiring martial characters to find weapons made of different anti-critter material and lug around seventeen different swords to use against different targets isn't gonna work, and when you get to the point where the fighter is carrying different pots of magic grease, or a beltful of arcane grenades throwing pots, or all the other stuff Elden Ring does to allow martials to redress the difference by basically using itemized version of the same junk? What's the real difference between 'caster' and 'martial'?
Now don't get me wrong, I think there's a ton of potential in adopting a system similar to Elden Ring/Soulsborn junk wherein you can obtain consumables at a non-ludicrous cost and use them to slap-patch weaknesses in your party's kit. But that's not going to fix fighters. You can only fix fighters by fixing fighters. If you want to do that by just embiggening their numbers so they remain incredibly boring but with better numbers, I suppose that's one way. I wouldn't really consider that fixing them, but clearly I'm one of exactly one people in D&D who believes that people can bounce off of "Too Simple" as much as they can bounce off of "Too Complicated". After all, how many people do you know who happily sink thousands of hours into playing long-standing leagues of Tic-Tac-Toe? None? yeah, I figured - because that game is too simple to hold someone's attention for any real length of time once they get beyond a certain age.
Same thing here, if with more nuance - some people simply don't stick with something that doesn't engage them properly. Hell, most people don't stick with things that don't engage them, and the game part of "RPG" is as important as the "RP" part. Always has been. A class with so little mechanical engagement that most of the basic monster stat blocks are more interesting and versatile to run is an Issue.
A possible thing they could lean into more is the ability to "size up" enemies. Learning their strengths and weaknesses, and how best to fight them.
Battle Master Fighter and Monster Slayer Ranger both can do this (albeit in different ways), and it can play up the more cerebral aspects of being a warrior. Since knowing your enemy is kinda half the battle.
I think what helps to close the gap in practice more often than not are feats and the equipment PCs get.
Magic items can provide martials with options they wouldn't otherwise have, and feats can give spells or just generally more utility out of combat. Racial features also help here too, especially given how many races these days give you spells to start with.
It's not exactly a solution, but fighters do get more ASIs than any other class.
Magic Items are the traditional answer, sure. But 5e has the whole anti-christmas-tree thing going on and severely limited the amount of magic items available to a person through the Attunement mechanic. So, I feel the need to discount it as a solution unless 1dnd reverses direction on the magic item restriction.
It also bugs me a bit that artificer, forge clerics, creation bards (and thus crafting in general) is a caster thing. We have one sorta fighter crafter Rune knight subclass, and rogue poisons and caltrops. It feels like pretty much everything else is some variation of magic. Which fundamentally could lead to being dependent on casters for magic items, or a generous DM.
'Banes' are, more or less, applying "magic" to martial classes.
I think of it more as Lex Luther knocking Superman out with kryptonite. Lex isn't getting super powers, he's taking them away from someone else. But this and that are separate things. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with magic items or potions or the like as part of the solution.
But that's not going to fix fighters.
.....
How do we fix that issue?
Well, this isn't just a Fighter issue. They're just the poster girl for the four martial classes - Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Monk. All, and any future martial class, suffer from the caster-warrior divide. As such, any solution to the divide will, by necessity, have to exist outside of individual classes or be something they all share.
Given the expectation that martial people can't do things like teleport huge distances, fly, create safe spaces to rest or mind control others without spells... hells. There was blowback on the Fighter Battlemaster having their Second Wind and healing maneuver restore normal HP instead of THP. Makes it hard.
Same thing here, if with more nuance - some people simply don't stick with something that doesn't engage them properly. Hell, most people don't stick with things that don't engage them, and the game part of "RPG" is as important as the "RP" part. Always has been. A class with so little mechanical engagement that most of the basic monster stat blocks are more interesting and versatile to run is an Issue.
Please stop with the strawmen and forcing your way of engagement on everyone. People engage with D&D in various different ways, and they're all valid. There is no one true way of playing.
A possible thing they could lean into more is the ability to "size up" enemies. Learning their strengths and weaknesses, and how best to fight them.
Battle Master Fighter and Monster Slayer Ranger both can do this (albeit in different ways), and it can play up the more cerebral aspects of being a warrior. Since knowing your enemy is kinda half the battle.
Could be interesting, but isn't that kinda already covered by Int (knoweldge) checks?
A possible thing they could lean into more is the ability to "size up" enemies. Learning their strengths and weaknesses, and how best to fight them.
Battle Master Fighter and Monster Slayer Ranger both can do this (albeit in different ways), and it can play up the more cerebral aspects of being a warrior. Since knowing your enemy is kinda half the battle.
Could be interesting, but isn't that kinda already covered by Int (knoweldge) checks?
It could be covered by those. I don't know how often that actually works out in practice though.
There is fundamentally nothing wrong with magic items or potions or the like as part of the solution.
Depends on how much those magic items are worth. One reason 5e is the way it is re: magical equipment is because of a specific pushback against how important magic items were to solving problems in earlier editions. Pathfinder 2, as another example, took the game in the other way and made magic gear super important (to the point where a high level fighter can lose like 50-70% of their damage output without their magic sword) and it's definitely been a point of contention with the system among various groups I've spoken to.
Magic items can be a cool solution, but there's also an easy tipping point someone can hit where they stop feeling heroic and start feeling like they're just someone being carried by a bunch of magic items.
... Ultimately, imo, the disconnect here is that on one side we have a very strongly held belief among many players that outside damage and hp, martials should be as unextraordinary as possible. Any efforts or suggestions to give martials superhuman or herculean abilities at any level is met with very strong pushback (with the sometimes exception of the monk, because ki is basically magic. Barbarians also get to be magic, but their magic is very heavily curated to be as inoffensive as possible too). On the other hand, the generally held belief is also that magic users should be extremely extraordinary. Hardly anyone is a strong or versatile (or athematic and conceptually bland) as a D&D wizard. Their abilities to solve problems is iconic, especially at higher levels and when those abilities are pared down, people get annoyed.
You can't really reconcile these ideas at all. Instead, the player base has had the problem solved in a different way for decades: by choosing to basically wholesale give up on high level D&D entirely. Not a perfect solution, but it does get rid of many of the most significant problems (it also makes the whole debate feel a bit silly, since we argue over the sanctity of something nobody actually wants to bother with).
Still, at low levels, having to remember all their maneuvers and keep track of their superiority dice is going to be pretty complicated, especially for newer players, even if those maneuevers that they spent the time and work choosing are some of the simpler ones. Just because you feel that maneuvers are cool, doesn't mean people should take away the "Simple class" in D&D away from new players who need it. There are other ways to implement Superiority, which I honestly think is a cool mechanic, into the game, without taking the option of playing a simple class away from all players. Having a class like fighter there can be a great help for people learning how to play the game, and making an unnecessary change to the base fighter class to "Make it cooler!" Isn't a very good justification for removing that.
Newer players don't usually come to DnD from nurseries or mental asylums. If you can't read "quick build" block and memorize two maneuvers, then how could you even create a character in the first place? Also, the niche of simple class is occupied by barbarian.
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Give them 2 maneuvers at level 1, anyone capable of rolling dice can remember 2 things.
People were talking about giving fighters much more maneuvers than that, and secondly, they'd have to read the whole list of maneuvers and pick two. They'd also have to remember when to use both of them, how they work, what type of die they have for their maneuvers, and how many die uses they have left. In short, having two maneuvers means remembering much more than two things.
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HERE.A reminder to those arguing that the fighter is perfect in every possible way because it's popular: R5e is the most popular/successful edition of D&D by orders of magnitude. It is, by all accounts, the most financially successful and popular/well-received TTRPG in history. Wizards is doing 1DD anyways and changing stuff about The Most Successful/Popular Game In History.
Just because something is good doesn't mean it can't be better. If everybody always subscribed to "if it ain't broke don't fix it", we'd all still be living in mud huts hunting berries and wrestling bears for our dinner. The fighter would be a better class with base access to Superiority, for all of the reasons I laid out in this thread. Frankly, the ranger deserves a Superiority-focused subclass as well, if Wizards doesn't do the smart thing and broaden Superiority out to all martial-oriented classes. No, that doesn't mean "anything that hits with weapons". A martial class is a class with Extra Attack and a choice of Fighting Style. Rogues are martial-adjacent, as are barbarians. The latter tends to get lumped in, but I would not consider it in need of Superiority - though a Superiority-focused subclass for barbarians somewhere down the line could potentially be very interesting.
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Okay, I have to ask, what the hell is R5e?
R5e: "Release 5e", i.e. 5e as it released in 2014/as it currently exists.
Please do not contact or message me.
The martial-caster divide is predicated upon several issues, including:
Adding complexity to Fighter combat options is not going to magically fix this - or has the more complex monk class solved the issue? No?
Let me give you an example - I like the Beyond the Witchlight story. I like being able to get through it without combat, I think that's a fun change from the usual D&D story (And I do think the Fighter should be given skills to interact with this kind of story). That said - there's a few locks and doors that just... say you cannot lock pick them, and you cannot break them. There's a cage that, by all rights, you should be able to open? The book flat out says you cannot. They allow you to use the Knock spell, but actually use mundane skills? Out right forbidden with no skill check permitted. Even the Arcane Lock spell only increases the DC.
Adding complexity to the martial classes isn't going to fix this issue until we stop having crap that outright spits in the face of non-magical characters.
I liken the divide between spellcasters and martials in the game to the divide between two groups of people in the real world wherein one group has way more advanced tech than the other. With relatively advanced tech, you just have an unfair advantage since you have many more options and avenues available to you.
I don't know how you could really close that gap without causing problems for either spellcasters or martials, and maybe martials being able to contribute despite this is part of the charm.
You're misrepresenting people. No one is saying that the Fighter can't be improved upon. Its can, especially in exploratory and social matters as well as proping up things like Second Wind and Indomitable. No one is saying that you can't have more options to pick from while leveling up - having more things like Fighting Style while leveling from isn't a problem; no one is batting an eye at the new feats you need to pick at char gen, after all. Simple Fighter just refers to how it plays.
The problem I have here is that you are equating Complex = automatically better. That's a lie. You are portraying your way as an objective improvement when, in truth, its just a change that you would enjoy playing, and not the greater D&D community. And that's something I really object to. Especially when you were handed the option to play your way with a Fighting Style and Feat options. And its very likely those options will be stronger in 1dnd now that they realize the problem with short rest recharge classes.
You literally can have your way AND leave the others their way.
Luckily I don't think anyone has actually made that argument, but thanks for the reminder I guess. The popularity and success of the class however does call into question the repeatedly taken-for-fact assertions that the class is an abject failure that needs to be burnt down to the ground though.
I mean, ultimately you close the gap by enabling more useful, interesting, things for martial characters to do outside hit things with sticks and tamp down on some of the most egregious abuses of spellcasting. Both things that WOTC has successfully done in the past and may very well continue to do in the future. It's not rocket science.
I don't think it's really a matter of 'charm' either. The average table doesn't have significant issues with martial/caster disparities largely because they don't encounter those disparities in practice. The wizard who prepares a whole bunch of fireballs because they're cool isn't going to fundamentally fray the system by trivializing skill challenges (indeed, at many casual tables the opposite problem occurs, where the fighter's longevity frustrates magic users, which is why 5e has things like scaling cantrips). The only time I've ever seen the idea that Fighters are fun because they get horribly outclassed by wizards, especially at higher levels, is as hypotheticals on charop forums.
It's probably worth noting that you could have a party with only spellcasters (including full, half, and third-casters) and be able to play the game just fine. Hell, you could theoretically have an entire party of just clerics, given how varied cleric domains are.
I imagine that's not the case if no casters are in the party, especially at higher levels.
Don't disagree there, but I think that in part has to do with how relatively one-dimensional a lot of design choices for martials are.
Druids or Clerics through subclasses and spell choices can be blasters, healers, frontliners, or lean into support roles.
Contrast with Barbarians who honestly are going to kind of end up being the same character (at least in broad strokes) regardless of what subclass you pick (and instead your choice is more like an addendum 'but with claws', 'but with bonus radiant damage', 'but extra tanky').
IMO that's an area WOTC should maybe look into in the future. Providing more varied options that allow people to diversify their characters, without necessarily mandating that the things people like about existing classes get taken away in the process.
Especially at higher levels of play, where both disparities widen and player counts rapidly drop. Clearly the part of the game that needs the most work.
That's a fair take. I don't really know how to close the gap either. On the caster side, you need to limit magic more, while the other side... All I can think of are... well, banes. Like, the fey (and demons) are traditionally weak to iron. Lycanthropes and devils to silver. Undead hate holy water. You use adamantine against constructs. Something like that.
Banes wouldn't even need to be for combat, but for protection against things like scrying, or preventing teleports. Let enemies break down a Leo's hut if you camp in the middle of their dungeon.
I think what helps to close the gap in practice more often than not are feats and the equipment PCs get.
Magic items can provide martials with options they wouldn't otherwise have, and feats can give spells or just generally more utility out of combat. Racial features also help here too, especially given how many races these days give you spells to start with.
It's not exactly a solution, but fighters do get more ASIs than any other class.
'Banes' are, more or less, applying "magic" to martial classes. It's equivalent in many ways to the Grease system in Elden Ring, wherein a 'purely physical' character can briefly imbue their weapon with elemental properties by slathering it with magic grease. Requiring martial characters to find weapons made of different anti-critter material and lug around seventeen different swords to use against different targets isn't gonna work, and when you get to the point where the fighter is carrying different pots of magic grease, or a beltful of
arcane grenadesthrowing pots, or all the other stuff Elden Ring does to allow martials to redress the difference by basically using itemized version of the same junk? What's the real difference between 'caster' and 'martial'?Now don't get me wrong, I think there's a ton of potential in adopting a system similar to Elden Ring/Soulsborn junk wherein you can obtain consumables at a non-ludicrous cost and use them to slap-patch weaknesses in your party's kit. But that's not going to fix fighters. You can only fix fighters by fixing fighters. If you want to do that by just embiggening their numbers so they remain incredibly boring but with better numbers, I suppose that's one way. I wouldn't really consider that fixing them, but clearly I'm one of exactly one people in D&D who believes that people can bounce off of "Too Simple" as much as they can bounce off of "Too Complicated". After all, how many people do you know who happily sink thousands of hours into playing long-standing leagues of Tic-Tac-Toe? None? yeah, I figured - because that game is too simple to hold someone's attention for any real length of time once they get beyond a certain age.
Same thing here, if with more nuance - some people simply don't stick with something that doesn't engage them properly. Hell, most people don't stick with things that don't engage them, and the game part of "RPG" is as important as the "RP" part. Always has been. A class with so little mechanical engagement that most of the basic monster stat blocks are more interesting and versatile to run is an Issue.
How do we fix that issue?
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A possible thing they could lean into more is the ability to "size up" enemies. Learning their strengths and weaknesses, and how best to fight them.
Battle Master Fighter and Monster Slayer Ranger both can do this (albeit in different ways), and it can play up the more cerebral aspects of being a warrior. Since knowing your enemy is kinda half the battle.
Magic Items are the traditional answer, sure. But 5e has the whole anti-christmas-tree thing going on and severely limited the amount of magic items available to a person through the Attunement mechanic. So, I feel the need to discount it as a solution unless 1dnd reverses direction on the magic item restriction.
It also bugs me a bit that artificer, forge clerics, creation bards (and thus crafting in general) is a caster thing. We have one sorta fighter crafter Rune knight subclass, and rogue poisons and caltrops. It feels like pretty much everything else is some variation of magic. Which fundamentally could lead to being dependent on casters for magic items, or a generous DM.
I think of it more as Lex Luther knocking Superman out with kryptonite. Lex isn't getting super powers, he's taking them away from someone else. But this and that are separate things. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with magic items or potions or the like as part of the solution.
Well, this isn't just a Fighter issue. They're just the poster girl for the four martial classes - Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Monk. All, and any future martial class, suffer from the caster-warrior divide. As such, any solution to the divide will, by necessity, have to exist outside of individual classes or be something they all share.
Given the expectation that martial people can't do things like teleport huge distances, fly, create safe spaces to rest or mind control others without spells... hells. There was blowback on the Fighter Battlemaster having their Second Wind and healing maneuver restore normal HP instead of THP. Makes it hard.
Please stop with the strawmen and forcing your way of engagement on everyone. People engage with D&D in various different ways, and they're all valid. There is no one true way of playing.
Could be interesting, but isn't that kinda already covered by Int (knoweldge) checks?
It could be covered by those. I don't know how often that actually works out in practice though.
Depends on how much those magic items are worth. One reason 5e is the way it is re: magical equipment is because of a specific pushback against how important magic items were to solving problems in earlier editions. Pathfinder 2, as another example, took the game in the other way and made magic gear super important (to the point where a high level fighter can lose like 50-70% of their damage output without their magic sword) and it's definitely been a point of contention with the system among various groups I've spoken to.
Magic items can be a cool solution, but there's also an easy tipping point someone can hit where they stop feeling heroic and start feeling like they're just someone being carried by a bunch of magic items.
... Ultimately, imo, the disconnect here is that on one side we have a very strongly held belief among many players that outside damage and hp, martials should be as unextraordinary as possible. Any efforts or suggestions to give martials superhuman or herculean abilities at any level is met with very strong pushback (with the sometimes exception of the monk, because ki is basically magic. Barbarians also get to be magic, but their magic is very heavily curated to be as inoffensive as possible too). On the other hand, the generally held belief is also that magic users should be extremely extraordinary. Hardly anyone is a strong or versatile (or athematic and conceptually bland) as a D&D wizard. Their abilities to solve problems is iconic, especially at higher levels and when those abilities are pared down, people get annoyed.
You can't really reconcile these ideas at all. Instead, the player base has had the problem solved in a different way for decades: by choosing to basically wholesale give up on high level D&D entirely. Not a perfect solution, but it does get rid of many of the most significant problems (it also makes the whole debate feel a bit silly, since we argue over the sanctity of something nobody actually wants to bother with).
Newer players don't usually come to DnD from nurseries or mental asylums. If you can't read "quick build" block and memorize two maneuvers, then how could you even create a character in the first place? Also, the niche of simple class is occupied by barbarian.