Thinking some more about what a Fighter with more options would look like, we've noted that one issue with the Battlemaster is that you don't get access to more interesting choices as you level up. Assuming your game even hits level 7, you'll just be picking more maneuvers from the same list, whereas spellcasters have gotten two entire new levels of spell choices since you first picked your subclass. It would be nice if additional options unlocked at higher levels to add variety to your options. By level 7, spellcasters have had access to conditions like blinded, restrained, paralyzed, and incapacitated for quite a while, and have the spell slots to whip them out with regularity, so why not let the Fighter get in on that action? Make a maneuver equivalent to Ray of Enfeeblement for Fighters who want better options for protecting their allies from damage, while you're at it.
Edit: Heck, the new Exhaustion mechanic from the playtest could be a great thing to tie a Fighter ability to. Let them wear down tough enemies with cumulative penalties that don't evaporate after a single round.
I had a bunch of other replies typed out and ready to go, but I honestly feel that this discussion cannot continue. I see people saying "We are not debating X, we are debating Y." But in reality, we are not debating anything. In a debate, you respect each other's opinions and acknowledge that they may have different experiences, while civilly disagreeing with what the other person says. But I do not see any civility here, nor do I see any willingness to respect each others views.
All I see here is a shouting match with people mis-characterizing each others arguments and insulting them for believing what they believe in. This conversation is going nowhere, what is the point in continuing it?
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Thinking some more about what a Fighter with more options would look like, we've noted that one issue with the Battlemaster is that you don't get access to more interesting choices as you level up. Assuming your game even hits level 7, you'll just be picking more maneuvers from the same list, whereas spellcasters have gotten two entire new levels of spell choices since you first picked your subclass. It would be nice if additional options unlocked at higher levels to add variety to your options. By level 7, spellcasters have had access to conditions like blinded, restrained, paralyzed, and incapacitated for quite a while, and have the spell slots to whip them out with regularity, so why not let the Fighter get in on that action? Make a maneuver equivalent to Ray of Enfeeblement for Fighters who want better options for protecting their allies from damage, while you're at it.
Edit: Heck, the new Exhaustion mechanic from the playtest could be a great thing to tie a Fighter ability to. Let them wear down tough enemies with cumulative penalties that don't evaporate after a single round.
I think that could work. Perhaps not exhaustion, (as an instant kill in a potentially protracted combat with multiple fighters would be very imbalanced) but the ability to apply unique conditions/injuries based on the weapon wielded could be interesting.
I think that could work. Perhaps not exhaustion, (as an instant kill in a potentially protracted combat with multiple fighters would be very imbalanced) but the ability to apply unique conditions/injuries based on the weapon wielded could be interesting.
That's a valid point, though I would argue that if an enemy is still standing after ten hits from fighters, it might be about time for it to keel over anyway. And of course it goes without saying that there'd be a saving throw to negate the exhaustion from the attack.
There might be objections on the basis of power balance if we're adding a form of scaling without a counterbalance. Right now combat maneuvers scale in frequency and die size as the Fighter levels up. I wouldn't want to take away frequency scaling, because spellcasters rapidly catch up in the number of cool things they can expect to do in a day even if you assume the party is getting the suggested two short rests a day. You could freeze the die size at d8, though, or make it so that those higher level maneuvers with stronger status effects don't add the die to damage like the base maneuvers do.
It's a shouting match, Bard, because despite Stegodorkus' most manful efforts to wrest the thing on course - which, occasionally, showed signs of working - some people take "respect others' views" as "respect the view that simplicity is better than complexity and please just shut up and stop". You were directly responsible for as many crashes back into the mud pit as I was, if not more; I can recall at least three times you crashed in with a "JUST PUT THE COMPLEXITY SOMEWHERE ELSE AND LEAVE SIMPLE FIGHTER ALONE" tirade after Steg had started to get a little bit of traction on a discussion of something else.
I've proposed and commented on numerous compromise ideas within this thread. All I can remember from your end is a steadfast, adamant, and unflinching resolve to Keep Fighter Exactly The Way It Is and tell everyone who wants something different to go somewhere else to get it. A new class, a new game, a new hobby entirely, doesn't matter - go somewhere else was the only message I ever received from any of your posts.
So kindly don't take that high-and-haughty tone with me, good sir. If you don't want to participate any more, you don't have to. You can, however, please stop sabotaging any attempts other folks make to do so.
Lolno. Dex fighters are sad memes that get laughed off tables.
Huh? Dex fighters are amazing. The only real reason to go strength is for polearm mastery and/or heavy weapon mastery, if you're not planning on one of those dex primary is the way to go -- you get stealth, good initiative, and good ranged attacks, with the only significant penalty being 1 point of AC
On trading of the extra attack feature for other goodies -- while I wouldn't do that, a thing I've certainly considered is trading off attacks for special features -- e.g. spend two attacks to do a single special move, three to do a single ultra-special move, etc.
Huh? Dex fighters are amazing. The only real reason to go strength is for polearm mastery and/or heavy weapon mastery, if you're not planning on one of those dex primary is the way to go -- you get stealth, good initiative, and good ranged attacks, with the only significant penalty being 1 point of AC
On trading of the extra attack feature for other goodies -- while I wouldn't do that, a thing I've certainly considered is trading off attacks for special features -- e.g. spend two attacks to do a single special move, three to do a single ultra-special move, etc.
In my experience at least, Dexy fighters are considered the domain of two sorts of folks - hipster douchnozzle Bohemian Failure Monkeys trying to disguise their work as "an artistic study of the frailty and failure of mythical Strength associated with heroes", or munchkins looking to break Cheddarbow Export over their knee. Neither are welcome in games. A fighter is expected to be a Stronk guy in heavy armor and a shield holding the bulwark with grit and metal, and anybody who deviates from that is rejected.
And yeah. It's honestly a big beef I have with the system. You can already trade an attack for a trip, a shove, or a disarm, but all three of those options as written in the PHB are garbage. They don't actually accomplish a single damned thing, but the Battle Master Superiority versions of each are among the most powerful options available to the class (with the exception of Disarm). I understand the difficulty in nailing balance so precisely that each option is precisely equal to an attack and makes sense to use frequentrly but not universally, but man did they miss hard this time. They know there's a need for fighters to be able to do more than HITTIN' STICK, but they're so terrified of making an option Too Good that they instead default to making all non-Stick options terrible.
‘Rei, you’ve played at some bad tables because I love me a good Dex build fighter too. Even if one doesn’t cheddar the snot outta it it’s fun to play. 🤷♂️
In my experience at least, Dexy fighters are considered the domain of two sorts of folks - hipster douchnozzle Bohemian Failure Monkeys trying to disguise their work as "an artistic study of the frailty and failure of mythical Strength associated with heroes", or munchkins looking to break Cheddarbow Export over their knee. Neither are welcome in games. A fighter is expected to be a Stronk guy in heavy armor and a shield holding the bulwark with grit and metal, and anybody who deviates from that is rejected.
And yeah. It's honestly a big beef I have with the system. You can already trade an attack for a trip, a shove, or a disarm, but all three of those options as written in the PHB are garbage.
Trip is actually okay, it just has problematic scaling, because the more attacks you have, the better it is (this is a problem with the 1D&D unarmed attack rules as well). The others are at best extremely situational.
It's a shouting match, Bard, because despite Stegodorkus' most manful efforts to wrest the thing on course - which, occasionally, showed signs of working - some people take "respect others' views" as "respect the view that simplicity is better than complexity and please just shut up and stop". You were directly responsible for as many crashes back into the mud pit as I was, if not more; I can recall at least three times you crashed in with a "JUST PUT THE COMPLEXITY SOMEWHERE ELSE AND LEAVE SIMPLE FIGHTER ALONE" tirade after Steg had started to get a little bit of traction on a discussion of something else.
I've proposed and commented on numerous compromise ideas within this thread. All I can remember from your end is a steadfast, adamant, and unflinching resolve to Keep Fighter Exactly The Way It Is and tell everyone who wants something different to go somewhere else to get it. A new class, a new game, a new hobby entirely, doesn't matter - go somewhere else was the only message I ever received from any of your posts.
So kindly don't take that high-and-haughty tone with me, good sir. If you don't want to participate any more, you don't have to. You can, however, please stop sabotaging any attempts other folks make to do so.
If you're going to acknowledge you bear some responsibility, how about not immediately pivoting to laying blame at someone else's feet. You can't do anything about their behavior. You can control yours.
The classes, rather intentionally, aren't designed to be balanced with respect to one another. Subclasses can be, for the same class, but not the classes themselves. There's nothing wrong with "simple" or "complex" classes. There is no one size fits all solution, and you might just have to live with being unhappy. That's your compromise. Each class is about delivering on a specific idea of empowerment. That's the point of 5th edition. While other games focus on a theme, D&D is about making dope characters who can do dope stuff. If a race or class doesn't appeal to you, then move on to something which does appeal to you. Or you can homebrew a solution for yourself. With a little polish, you can even put it up on DM's Guild.
I get yours, and _Nano's, desire for a "complex" fighter who can truly stand up to spellcasters. But that's a fool's errand. That's not who the fighter is or should be. No martial class should. The operate on fundamentally different paradigms.
Here is an idea if you want more complexity than a fighter can offer - play a Cleric or Wizard! There is no reason we need a more complex fighter when very complex options already there for everyone to pick.
There's a very simple answer to that: I don't want to play a cleric or a wizard. I do in fact want to hit things with swords, I just want to do it with style.
Let me introduce you to the paladin, or swords bard, or swashbuckler, or hexblade, or spore Druid. There are any number of ways to hit things with swords with a variety of different styles. Or, you know, an eldritch knight, or an echo knight, or a rune knight if you are attached to hanging the fighter label on your stylish sword-hitting character.
As has been stated, most PCs are lucky if they even get to smell their second subclass feature by the time a campaign ends, so subclasses cannot possible provide enough to really differentiate two fighters from each other 90% of the time. It’s just not possible. There needs to be something baked into the base class.
I say let Barbarians be the boring class.
Are you saying a level 3 champion plays the same as a level 3 rune knight as a level 3 samurai as a level 3 echo knight? That there’s really no appreciable difference between them? Because if that’s the case, I’m going to have to disagree.
When they’re not actively using their subclass feature, or can’t, then yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Sorry, on my phone and I can’t really snip this down.
So they play the same, except when they don’t. By that rationale all level 3 barbs are the same also, since they’ve also only got one subclass feature and can only use it a few times. Ditto rogues, monks and generally most classes that get their subclass at level 3. That’s not a fighter problem then, it’s a systemic issue.
@yurei I just played a dex paladin up through level 13, and had fun. I wish I’d known I was doing D&D wrong back then.
WHY do they operate on "fundamentally different paradigms"?
Why do swordswingers have to be drastically worse than spellcasters at Doing The D&D at any level beyond Tier 1 play?
I don't feel like I'm asking for the moon here. I'm not asking for swordswingers to gain Greater Arcana level crazyballs nonsense. I understand the Badass Normal trope and how people like to play characters that snub superpowers and yet win games anyways. D&d does not currently serve those people. Nobody plays high level games in part because martials stop holding up as well in a game where the spellcasters can rewrite their local space. When a caster can simply turn enemies off, or partition the battlefield as they see fit, or turn inanimate objects into combatants? One guy swinging one sword one or two extra times doesn't cut it.
If you want "fundamentally different paradigms", you're asking for two entirely different games. There's the game the martials are playing, and then there's D&D. I would prefer for martials to play D&D with everybody else. Why shouldn't they be able to? And why should we all have to give up levels 8 through 20 just so spellcasters don't clown on martials at will?
Here is an idea if you want more complexity than a fighter can offer - play a Cleric or Wizard! There is no reason we need a more complex fighter when very complex options already there for everyone to pick.
There's a very simple answer to that: I don't want to play a cleric or a wizard. I do in fact want to hit things with swords, I just want to do it with style.
Let me introduce you to the paladin, or swords bard, or swashbuckler, or hexblade, or spore Druid. There are any number of ways to hit things with swords with a variety of different styles. Or, you know, an eldritch knight, or an echo knight, or a rune knight if you are attached to hanging the fighter label on your stylish sword-hitting character.
As has been stated, most PCs are lucky if they even get to smell their second subclass feature by the time a campaign ends, so subclasses cannot possible provide enough to really differentiate two fighters from each other 90% of the time. It’s just not possible. There needs to be something baked into the base class.
I say let Barbarians be the boring class.
Are you saying a level 3 champion plays the same as a level 3 rune knight as a level 3 samurai as a level 3 echo knight? That there’s really no appreciable difference between them? Because if that’s the case, I’m going to have to disagree.
When they’re not actively using their subclass feature, or can’t, then yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Sorry, on my phone and I can’t really snip this down.
So they play the same, except when they don’t. By that rationale all level 3 barbs are the same also, since they’ve also only got one subclass feature and can only use it a few times. Ditto rogues, monks and generally most classes that get their subclass at level 3. That’s not a fighter problem then, it’s a systemic issue.
@yurei I just played a dex paladin up through level 13, and had fun. I wish I’d known I was doing D&D wrong back then.
I do everything on DDB on my phone. 🤷♂️
Not quite so with spellcasters. Their sheer variety of spells prevents them from all feeling the same. Martials on the other hand…. And Rogues got the whole skill monkey thing goin’ on to keep them from getting boring. Like I wrote earlier, let Barbarians (and I suppose Monks) be the boring martial classes, let’s give Fighters some pizzazz.
WHY do they operate on "fundamentally different paradigms"?
Why do swordswingers have to be drastically worse than spellcasters at Doing The D&D at any level beyond Tier 1 play?
I don't feel like I'm asking for the moon here. I'm not asking for swordswingers to gain Greater Arcana level crazyballs nonsense. I understand the Badass Normal trope and how people like to play characters that snub superpowers and yet win games anyways. D&d does not currently serve those people. Nobody plays high level games in part because martials stop holding up as well in a game where the spellcasters can rewrite their local space. When a caster can simply turn enemies off, or partition the battlefield as they see fit, or turn inanimate objects into combatants? One guy swinging one sword one or two extra times doesn't cut it.
If you want "fundamentally different paradigms", you're asking for two entirely different games. There's the game the martials are playing, and then there's D&D. I would prefer for martials to play D&D with everybody else. Why shouldn't they be able to? And why should we all have to give up levels 8 through 20 just so spellcasters don't clown on martials at will?
Because D&D isn't the game you think it is. It isn't even one game.
D&D started off as what I think can best be described as survival horror. You were exploring dark dungeons, far removed from civilization. Venturing there and back could take days, if not weeks. And once you were there, monsters were potentially around every corner and behind every door. Light and food were a precious resource. That's why torches and lanterns were important. It's why rations were important. It's why a steel mirror was important. Ammunition for your ranged weapons meant being able to kill enemies before they could reach you. Or engaging them if they already had ranged attacks, so you weren't wasting turns not attacking. And encumbrance mattered because you needed to take treasure with you so you could resupply and delve deeper on the next visit. That's why we have [spell]Tenser's floating disc[/item], and you can always hire porters if you don't have that.
That's the DNA of the game. Two of the game's three pillars, Combat and Exploration, are just different takes on this same idea. It doesn't really work with Social Interaction, and Combat still has some of the heroic fantasy of 4E, but that's what you're playing. So no, not everyone needs to be equally capable. Since everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, we're forced to rely on each other to get the job done. If everyone is evenly matched, then we're interchangeable and disposable.
Balance was never a serious concern, so it's okay for the game to be unbalanced. Heck, the game is asymmetrical by design. Monsters can do things the PCs can't. And it's okay to run away instead of standing your ground to fight and maybe die.
What matters, above all else, is having fun. And so long as the class delivers on the kind of experience it's promising─getting to do cool things─everything is fine.
D&D started off as what I think can best be described as survival horror. You were exploring dark dungeons, far removed from civilization. Venturing there and back could take days, if not weeks. And once you were there, monsters were potentially around every corner and behind every door. Light and food were a precious resource. That's why torches and lanterns were important. It's why rations were important. It's why a steel mirror was important. Ammunition for your ranged weapons meant being able to kill enemies before they could reach you. Or engaging them if they already had ranged attacks, so you weren't wasting turns not attacking. And encumbrance mattered because you needed to take treasure with you so you could resupply and delve deeper on the next visit. That's why we have Tenser’s floating disk, and you can always hire porters if you don't have that.
Ahh, the good ol’ days.
Edit: Sorry, I had to fix that broken snippet, it was like a ship’s steering wheel stickin’ outta a pirate’s fly. (It was drivin’ me nuts.)
Then D&D is doomed because there are a finite number of people and only a fraction of them have the interest, resources, and time to play a game like D&D. It’s because of the people who have been playing the game for years that it has survived for 50 of them.
Nonsense, the vast majority of current D&D players have not been playing for 50 years, out of all 3 groups I've belonged to hardly anyone had played it for more than 5 years and people cycled in and out of the group every couple of years as people got busy with work, kids, or life in general and left and we roped in new players from our friends and family. This is why the game needs to appeal to young people not just the old neck-beards, so that those people to leave the hobby to start a family can come back and introduce the game to a whole new generation. An absolutely huge number of people in the hobby either as DMs or players start while they are in school or university. It's appealing to those groups that will continue to make D&D a success.
Then D&D is doomed because there are a finite number of people and only a fraction of them have the interest, resources, and time to play a game like D&D. It’s because of the people who have been playing the game for years that it has survived for 50 of them.
Nonsense, the vast majority of current D&D players have not been playing for 50 years, out of all 3 groups I've belonged to hardly anyone had played it for more than 5 years and people cycled in and out of the group every couple of years as people got busy with work, kids, or life in general and left and we roped in new players from our friends and family. This is why the game needs to appeal to young people not just the old neck-beards, so that those people to leave the hobby to start a family can come back and introduce the game to a whole new generation. An absolutely huge number of people in the hobby either as DMs or players start while they are in school or university. It's appealing to those groups that will continue to make D&D a success.
A few points:
If it wasn’t for the long term players, the game would have died decades ago and wouldn’t be around today. I never wrote anything about individuals playing for 50 years, I wrote about long-term players keeping the game alive for the past 50 years.
I never wrote anything whatsoever about the age of the players, so please don’t be agist. What I wrote was that sooner or later we’re gonna run out of the vast untapped resource of “new” people when the market will reach its saturation point. That’s when the game will no longer be able to continue adding to its player base by leaps and bounds. That’s when the focus will also need to heavily consider player retention. If retention is not prioritized to some degree, the game will eventually whither and die like it almost did under TSR.
I didn’t call you any names like “neck beard,” so please return the curtesy.
You don’t have to tell me about how many people get into D&D in school, I discovered the game in high school myself, and have continued to introduce new players to the game ever since for the past 30 years.
Here is an idea if you want more complexity than a fighter can offer - play a Cleric or Wizard! There is no reason we need a more complex fighter when very complex options already there for everyone to pick.
There's a very simple answer to that: I don't want to play a cleric or a wizard. I do in fact want to hit things with swords, I just want to do it with style.
Let me introduce you to the paladin, or swords bard, or swashbuckler, or hexblade, or spore Druid. There are any number of ways to hit things with swords with a variety of different styles. Or, you know, an eldritch knight, or an echo knight, or a rune knight if you are attached to hanging the fighter label on your stylish sword-hitting character.
As has been stated, most PCs are lucky if they even get to smell their second subclass feature by the time a campaign ends, so subclasses cannot possible provide enough to really differentiate two fighters from each other 90% of the time. It’s just not possible. There needs to be something baked into the base class.
I say let Barbarians be the boring class.
Are you saying a level 3 champion plays the same as a level 3 rune knight as a level 3 samurai as a level 3 echo knight? That there’s really no appreciable difference between them? Because if that’s the case, I’m going to have to disagree.
When they’re not actively using their subclass feature, or can’t, then yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Sorry, on my phone and I can’t really snip this down.
So they play the same, except when they don’t. By that rationale all level 3 barbs are the same also, since they’ve also only got one subclass feature and can only use it a few times. Ditto rogues, monks and generally most classes that get their subclass at level 3. That’s not a fighter problem then, it’s a systemic issue.
@yurei I just played a dex paladin up through level 13, and had fun. I wish I’d known I was doing D&D wrong back then.
I do everything on DDB on my phone. 🤷♂️
Not quite so with spellcasters. Their sheer variety of spells prevents them from all feeling the same. Martials on the other hand…. And Rogues got the whole skill monkey thing goin’ on to keep them from getting boring. Like I wrote earlier, let Barbarians (and I suppose Monks) be the boring martial classes, let’s give Fighters some pizzazz.
My phone skills are weak. Thanks for the snip.
The point was that if you're saying level 3 fighters all play the same because they only have one class feature, then that's true of a lot of other classes as well, so why just crap on the fighter about it. I agree it's not the case with casters, but that's kind of been the crux of the disagreement. Some of us don't want them to be the same as casters. We like them not having lots of bells and whistles. It's a feature, not a bug, that we don't have lots of different limited use abilities to track. And if you do want lots of bells and whistles on a character who's main thing is swinging a sword, there are lots and lots of other class-subclass combos that fit that bill, they just don't have the "fighter" label hung on them. There's plenty of pizzazz out there.
I do appreciate your thoughts (and there have been a few others who also said it) about making the barb the simple class. At least you're acknowledging that there should be a simple option for people that want it. I still don't quite think barb is really the way to go there. But I'd be open to seeing it done. I guess you could just make a barb subclass that keeps adding on more and more static pluses to rage, instead of adding more abilities to rage. That could maybe work. Still doesn't get me the archer or heavy armor option.
And yes, rogues do get all those skills. I'd said a few pages back, my bigger issue with the fighter, and what I think would go a long way to making them even more interesting for people, is a better-defined role in the non-combat pillars of the game. When a fight starts, all rogues are pretty much doing the same thing - stab the guy next to the fighter (or barb/pally), then back away. They don't have all the tactical options of a caster. But no one says they're boring. That's because when the fight ends, rogues still have things to do. Maybe give a fighter an extra skill proficiency or two, and a reason (besides saving throws) to invest in an ability score besides str/dex and con.
Here is an idea if you want more complexity than a fighter can offer - play a Cleric or Wizard! There is no reason we need a more complex fighter when very complex options already there for everyone to pick.
There's a very simple answer to that: I don't want to play a cleric or a wizard. I do in fact want to hit things with swords, I just want to do it with style.
Let me introduce you to the paladin, or swords bard, or swashbuckler, or hexblade, or spore Druid. There are any number of ways to hit things with swords with a variety of different styles. Or, you know, an eldritch knight, or an echo knight, or a rune knight if you are attached to hanging the fighter label on your stylish sword-hitting character.
As has been stated, most PCs are lucky if they even get to smell their second subclass feature by the time a campaign ends, so subclasses cannot possible provide enough to really differentiate two fighters from each other 90% of the time. It’s just not possible. There needs to be something baked into the base class.
I say let Barbarians be the boring class.
Are you saying a level 3 champion plays the same as a level 3 rune knight as a level 3 samurai as a level 3 echo knight? That there’s really no appreciable difference between them? Because if that’s the case, I’m going to have to disagree.
When they’re not actively using their subclass feature, or can’t, then yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Sorry, on my phone and I can’t really snip this down.
So they play the same, except when they don’t. By that rationale all level 3 barbs are the same also, since they’ve also only got one subclass feature and can only use it a few times. Ditto rogues, monks and generally most classes that get their subclass at level 3. That’s not a fighter problem then, it’s a systemic issue.
@yurei I just played a dex paladin up through level 13, and had fun. I wish I’d known I was doing D&D wrong back then.
I do everything on DDB on my phone. 🤷♂️
Not quite so with spellcasters. Their sheer variety of spells prevents them from all feeling the same. Martials on the other hand…. And Rogues got the whole skill monkey thing goin’ on to keep them from getting boring. Like I wrote earlier, let Barbarians (and I suppose Monks) be the boring martial classes, let’s give Fighters some pizzazz.
My phone skills are weak. Thanks for the snip.
The point was that if you're saying level 3 fighters all play the same because they only have one class feature, then that's true of a lot of other classes as well, so why just crap on the fighter about it. I agree it's not the case with casters, but that's kind of been the crux of the disagreement. Some of us don't want them to be the same as casters. We like them not having lots of bells and whistles. It's a feature, not a bug, that we don't have lots of different limited use abilities to track. And if you do want lots of bells and whistles on a character who's main thing is swinging a sword, there are lots and lots of other class-subclass combos that fit that bill, they just don't have the "fighter" label hung on them. There's plenty of pizzazz out there.
I do appreciate your thoughts (and there have been a few others who also said it) about making the barb the simple class. At least you're acknowledging that there should be a simple option for people that want it. I still don't quite think barb is really the way to go there. But I'd be open to seeing it done. I guess you could just make a barb subclass that keeps adding on more and more static pluses to rage, instead of adding more abilities to rage. That could maybe work. Still doesn't get me the archer or heavy armor option.
And yes, rogues do get all those skills. I'd said a few pages back, my bigger issue with the fighter, and what I think would go a long way to making them even more interesting for people, is a better-defined role in the non-combat pillars of the game. When a fight starts, all rogues are pretty much doing the same thing - stab the guy next to the fighter (or barb/pally), then back away. They don't have all the tactical options of a caster. But no one says they're boring. That's because when the fight ends, rogues still have things to do. Maybe give a fighter an extra skill proficiency or two, and a reason (besides saving throws) to invest in an ability score besides str/dex and con.
No problemo. I got yer back. 👍
You say it’s the same with “lots of other classes,” but agree that it doesn’t happen to any of the casters, or Rogues. That means you agree that, out of the four class groups (martial, expert, arcane, priest), that the only group affected is the martial group. Barbarian is already pretty simple, even with its various subclasses adding shenanigans. Monk is the least boring of the three, but even still, once you’re out of Ki and if you aren’t in a situation where your Way features are relevant they’re also all pretty samesame. (Heck, even with the Ki for that matter since they only have 3-4 things they can do with it, and half of the options are traps.) Monks are also fairly simple. I say let at least one of the martial classes get some bling features that swing low like a ‘caster’s. Are you really telling me that if the base fighter got 2-3 Superiority Dice and 2-3 Maneuvers that would be too craycray for anyone? Really? Really?!?
I'll say rogues are boring. I used to enjoy them a lot more, but in recent endeavours I've trended more towards rangers and bards and have rarely had a class concept that started as rogue survive as one. The Expert Classes playtest helped drive home why that was - rogues are flat, one-dimensional, and generally not very good. There's nothing a rogue can do that other classes don't do better. "A Level In Rogue" as your starting level for a multiclass job is great, rogues still have one of the most juiced first-level drops in the game, but every level after that is sharply diminishing returns.
I still say that if people truly are over the moon about this Simple > Everything Else thing, the answer is Foundation classes. Why bother with any choices at all, when the entire argument is that choices and decision-making are bad? Glow up the "sidekick" blocks, make them easily the equal of a "normal" adventurer. Export the Champion as a Foundational warrior if you want, even. Get rid of subclasses, fighting styles, optional features, feats - the Foundation class has zero selection points and is built to be as simple to run as is reasonably possible within the system. Even their stats can be fixed, with a DM-determined choice of spreads or a method for the DM to roll their stats, and then fixed ASIs to specific scores baked into their progression. Refit the Foundation classes into the SRD so everybody can use them, and then not only do you have your "my player is too stupid to understand a class with choices so I'll give them this" classes? You also have good fodder for convention pregens that everybody who knows the game will understand.
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Thinking some more about what a Fighter with more options would look like, we've noted that one issue with the Battlemaster is that you don't get access to more interesting choices as you level up. Assuming your game even hits level 7, you'll just be picking more maneuvers from the same list, whereas spellcasters have gotten two entire new levels of spell choices since you first picked your subclass. It would be nice if additional options unlocked at higher levels to add variety to your options. By level 7, spellcasters have had access to conditions like blinded, restrained, paralyzed, and incapacitated for quite a while, and have the spell slots to whip them out with regularity, so why not let the Fighter get in on that action? Make a maneuver equivalent to Ray of Enfeeblement for Fighters who want better options for protecting their allies from damage, while you're at it.
Edit: Heck, the new Exhaustion mechanic from the playtest could be a great thing to tie a Fighter ability to. Let them wear down tough enemies with cumulative penalties that don't evaporate after a single round.
I had a bunch of other replies typed out and ready to go, but I honestly feel that this discussion cannot continue. I see people saying "We are not debating X, we are debating Y." But in reality, we are not debating anything. In a debate, you respect each other's opinions and acknowledge that they may have different experiences, while civilly disagreeing with what the other person says. But I do not see any civility here, nor do I see any willingness to respect each others views.
All I see here is a shouting match with people mis-characterizing each others arguments and insulting them for believing what they believe in. This conversation is going nowhere, what is the point in continuing it?
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HERE.I think that could work. Perhaps not exhaustion, (as an instant kill in a potentially protracted combat with multiple fighters would be very imbalanced) but the ability to apply unique conditions/injuries based on the weapon wielded could be interesting.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
That's a valid point, though I would argue that if an enemy is still standing after ten hits from fighters, it might be about time for it to keel over anyway. And of course it goes without saying that there'd be a saving throw to negate the exhaustion from the attack.
There might be objections on the basis of power balance if we're adding a form of scaling without a counterbalance. Right now combat maneuvers scale in frequency and die size as the Fighter levels up. I wouldn't want to take away frequency scaling, because spellcasters rapidly catch up in the number of cool things they can expect to do in a day even if you assume the party is getting the suggested two short rests a day. You could freeze the die size at d8, though, or make it so that those higher level maneuvers with stronger status effects don't add the die to damage like the base maneuvers do.
It's a shouting match, Bard, because despite Stegodorkus' most manful efforts to wrest the thing on course - which, occasionally, showed signs of working - some people take "respect others' views" as "respect the view that simplicity is better than complexity and please just shut up and stop". You were directly responsible for as many crashes back into the mud pit as I was, if not more; I can recall at least three times you crashed in with a "JUST PUT THE COMPLEXITY SOMEWHERE ELSE AND LEAVE SIMPLE FIGHTER ALONE" tirade after Steg had started to get a little bit of traction on a discussion of something else.
I've proposed and commented on numerous compromise ideas within this thread. All I can remember from your end is a steadfast, adamant, and unflinching resolve to Keep Fighter Exactly The Way It Is and tell everyone who wants something different to go somewhere else to get it. A new class, a new game, a new hobby entirely, doesn't matter - go somewhere else was the only message I ever received from any of your posts.
So kindly don't take that high-and-haughty tone with me, good sir. If you don't want to participate any more, you don't have to. You can, however, please stop sabotaging any attempts other folks make to do so.
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Huh? Dex fighters are amazing. The only real reason to go strength is for polearm mastery and/or heavy weapon mastery, if you're not planning on one of those dex primary is the way to go -- you get stealth, good initiative, and good ranged attacks, with the only significant penalty being 1 point of AC
On trading of the extra attack feature for other goodies -- while I wouldn't do that, a thing I've certainly considered is trading off attacks for special features -- e.g. spend two attacks to do a single special move, three to do a single ultra-special move, etc.
In my experience at least, Dexy fighters are considered the domain of two sorts of folks - hipster douchnozzle Bohemian Failure Monkeys trying to disguise their work as "an artistic study of the frailty and failure of mythical Strength associated with heroes", or munchkins looking to break Cheddarbow Export over their knee. Neither are welcome in games. A fighter is expected to be a Stronk guy in heavy armor and a shield holding the bulwark with grit and metal, and anybody who deviates from that is rejected.
And yeah. It's honestly a big beef I have with the system. You can already trade an attack for a trip, a shove, or a disarm, but all three of those options as written in the PHB are garbage. They don't actually accomplish a single damned thing, but the Battle Master Superiority versions of each are among the most powerful options available to the class (with the exception of Disarm). I understand the difficulty in nailing balance so precisely that each option is precisely equal to an attack and makes sense to use frequentrly but not universally, but man did they miss hard this time. They know there's a need for fighters to be able to do more than HITTIN' STICK, but they're so terrified of making an option Too Good that they instead default to making all non-Stick options terrible.
Ick.
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‘Rei, you’ve played at some bad tables because I love me a good Dex build fighter too. Even if one doesn’t cheddar the snot outta it it’s fun to play. 🤷♂️
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I think a lot of that is just your local players.
Trip is actually okay, it just has problematic scaling, because the more attacks you have, the better it is (this is a problem with the 1D&D unarmed attack rules as well). The others are at best extremely situational.
If you're going to acknowledge you bear some responsibility, how about not immediately pivoting to laying blame at someone else's feet. You can't do anything about their behavior. You can control yours.
The classes, rather intentionally, aren't designed to be balanced with respect to one another. Subclasses can be, for the same class, but not the classes themselves. There's nothing wrong with "simple" or "complex" classes. There is no one size fits all solution, and you might just have to live with being unhappy. That's your compromise. Each class is about delivering on a specific idea of empowerment. That's the point of 5th edition. While other games focus on a theme, D&D is about making dope characters who can do dope stuff. If a race or class doesn't appeal to you, then move on to something which does appeal to you. Or you can homebrew a solution for yourself. With a little polish, you can even put it up on DM's Guild.
I get yours, and _Nano's, desire for a "complex" fighter who can truly stand up to spellcasters. But that's a fool's errand. That's not who the fighter is or should be. No martial class should. The operate on fundamentally different paradigms.
Sorry, on my phone and I can’t really snip this down.
So they play the same, except when they don’t.
By that rationale all level 3 barbs are the same also, since they’ve also only got one subclass feature and can only use it a few times. Ditto rogues, monks and generally most classes that get their subclass at level 3. That’s not a fighter problem then, it’s a systemic issue.
@yurei I just played a dex paladin up through level 13, and had fun. I wish I’d known I was doing D&D wrong back then.
Okay.
WHY do they operate on "fundamentally different paradigms"?
Why do swordswingers have to be drastically worse than spellcasters at Doing The D&D at any level beyond Tier 1 play?
I don't feel like I'm asking for the moon here. I'm not asking for swordswingers to gain Greater Arcana level crazyballs nonsense. I understand the Badass Normal trope and how people like to play characters that snub superpowers and yet win games anyways. D&d does not currently serve those people. Nobody plays high level games in part because martials stop holding up as well in a game where the spellcasters can rewrite their local space. When a caster can simply turn enemies off, or partition the battlefield as they see fit, or turn inanimate objects into combatants? One guy swinging one sword one or two extra times doesn't cut it.
If you want "fundamentally different paradigms", you're asking for two entirely different games. There's the game the martials are playing, and then there's D&D. I would prefer for martials to play D&D with everybody else. Why shouldn't they be able to? And why should we all have to give up levels 8 through 20 just so spellcasters don't clown on martials at will?
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Not quite so with spellcasters. Their sheer variety of spells prevents them from all feeling the same. Martials on the other hand…. And Rogues got the whole skill monkey thing goin’ on to keep them from getting boring. Like I wrote earlier, let Barbarians (and I suppose Monks) be the boring martial classes, let’s give Fighters some pizzazz.
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Because D&D isn't the game you think it is. It isn't even one game.
D&D started off as what I think can best be described as survival horror. You were exploring dark dungeons, far removed from civilization. Venturing there and back could take days, if not weeks. And once you were there, monsters were potentially around every corner and behind every door. Light and food were a precious resource. That's why torches and lanterns were important. It's why rations were important. It's why a steel mirror was important. Ammunition for your ranged weapons meant being able to kill enemies before they could reach you. Or engaging them if they already had ranged attacks, so you weren't wasting turns not attacking. And encumbrance mattered because you needed to take treasure with you so you could resupply and delve deeper on the next visit. That's why we have [spell]Tenser's floating disc[/item], and you can always hire porters if you don't have that.
That's the DNA of the game. Two of the game's three pillars, Combat and Exploration, are just different takes on this same idea. It doesn't really work with Social Interaction, and Combat still has some of the heroic fantasy of 4E, but that's what you're playing. So no, not everyone needs to be equally capable. Since everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, we're forced to rely on each other to get the job done. If everyone is evenly matched, then we're interchangeable and disposable.
Balance was never a serious concern, so it's okay for the game to be unbalanced. Heck, the game is asymmetrical by design. Monsters can do things the PCs can't. And it's okay to run away instead of standing your ground to fight and maybe die.
What matters, above all else, is having fun. And so long as the class delivers on the kind of experience it's promising─getting to do cool things─everything is fine.
Ahh, the good ol’ days.
Edit: Sorry, I had to fix that broken snippet, it was like a ship’s steering wheel stickin’ outta a pirate’s fly. (It was drivin’ me nuts.)
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Nonsense, the vast majority of current D&D players have not been playing for 50 years, out of all 3 groups I've belonged to hardly anyone had played it for more than 5 years and people cycled in and out of the group every couple of years as people got busy with work, kids, or life in general and left and we roped in new players from our friends and family. This is why the game needs to appeal to young people not just the old neck-beards, so that those people to leave the hobby to start a family can come back and introduce the game to a whole new generation. An absolutely huge number of people in the hobby either as DMs or players start while they are in school or university. It's appealing to those groups that will continue to make D&D a success.
A few points:
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My phone skills are weak. Thanks for the snip.
The point was that if you're saying level 3 fighters all play the same because they only have one class feature, then that's true of a lot of other classes as well, so why just crap on the fighter about it. I agree it's not the case with casters, but that's kind of been the crux of the disagreement. Some of us don't want them to be the same as casters. We like them not having lots of bells and whistles. It's a feature, not a bug, that we don't have lots of different limited use abilities to track. And if you do want lots of bells and whistles on a character who's main thing is swinging a sword, there are lots and lots of other class-subclass combos that fit that bill, they just don't have the "fighter" label hung on them. There's plenty of pizzazz out there.
I do appreciate your thoughts (and there have been a few others who also said it) about making the barb the simple class. At least you're acknowledging that there should be a simple option for people that want it. I still don't quite think barb is really the way to go there. But I'd be open to seeing it done. I guess you could just make a barb subclass that keeps adding on more and more static pluses to rage, instead of adding more abilities to rage. That could maybe work. Still doesn't get me the archer or heavy armor option.
And yes, rogues do get all those skills. I'd said a few pages back, my bigger issue with the fighter, and what I think would go a long way to making them even more interesting for people, is a better-defined role in the non-combat pillars of the game. When a fight starts, all rogues are pretty much doing the same thing - stab the guy next to the fighter (or barb/pally), then back away. They don't have all the tactical options of a caster. But no one says they're boring. That's because when the fight ends, rogues still have things to do. Maybe give a fighter an extra skill proficiency or two, and a reason (besides saving throws) to invest in an ability score besides str/dex and con.
No problemo. I got yer back. 👍
You say it’s the same with “lots of other classes,” but agree that it doesn’t happen to any of the casters, or Rogues. That means you agree that, out of the four class groups (martial, expert, arcane, priest), that the only group affected is the martial group. Barbarian is already pretty simple, even with its various subclasses adding shenanigans. Monk is the least boring of the three, but even still, once you’re out of Ki and if you aren’t in a situation where your Way features are relevant they’re also all pretty samesame. (Heck, even with the Ki for that matter since they only have 3-4 things they can do with it, and half of the options are traps.) Monks are also fairly simple. I say let at least one of the martial classes get some bling features that swing low like a ‘caster’s. Are you really telling me that if the base fighter got 2-3 Superiority Dice and 2-3 Maneuvers that would be too craycray for anyone? Really? Really?!?
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I'll say rogues are boring. I used to enjoy them a lot more, but in recent endeavours I've trended more towards rangers and bards and have rarely had a class concept that started as rogue survive as one. The Expert Classes playtest helped drive home why that was - rogues are flat, one-dimensional, and generally not very good. There's nothing a rogue can do that other classes don't do better. "A Level In Rogue" as your starting level for a multiclass job is great, rogues still have one of the most juiced first-level drops in the game, but every level after that is sharply diminishing returns.
I still say that if people truly are over the moon about this Simple > Everything Else thing, the answer is Foundation classes. Why bother with any choices at all, when the entire argument is that choices and decision-making are bad? Glow up the "sidekick" blocks, make them easily the equal of a "normal" adventurer. Export the Champion as a Foundational warrior if you want, even. Get rid of subclasses, fighting styles, optional features, feats - the Foundation class has zero selection points and is built to be as simple to run as is reasonably possible within the system. Even their stats can be fixed, with a DM-determined choice of spreads or a method for the DM to roll their stats, and then fixed ASIs to specific scores baked into their progression. Refit the Foundation classes into the SRD so everybody can use them, and then not only do you have your "my player is too stupid to understand a class with choices so I'll give them this" classes? You also have good fodder for convention pregens that everybody who knows the game will understand.
Please do not contact or message me.