A better word choice would have been that fighters (and all martials) get stuck in a combat loop. They do the same stuff over and over. Which can be fun if what they are doing is anything other than ‘I use my attack action on \
I don't think this has anything to do with the Fighter class. This is mostly about the player, perhaps about the DM and table, and to a minimal extent about the actual build and options you took.
If you think all you have to do is attack over and over again, that is not because you are a fighter, it is because all you want to do as a player is attack over and over again. There are a ton of different actions you can take in combat and one of them "improvise an action" is wide open and only really limited by the DM and your imagination.
My character (not just fighters) are doing stuff all the time, my Goblin jumping on the back of a dragon in flight and then attacking him with a dagger while she hangs on with the other hand, my halfling grabbing a rope from the Kobold Rogue and moving through a bunch of large Ogres to make a tripwire under them. Shoving an enemy off a cliff .... or grappling them, and dragging them off a cliff while the wizard casts feather fall on you (and not the enemy), Getting attacked by flying cambion 40 feet in the air and running across the wagon up the back of one of the horses, jumping off their neck as high in the air as she can get and then using misty step to close the remaining distance and grappling said Cambion so you both plummet to the ground and can be beat on by the party with magic weapons. Using Disarm from DMG (not battlemaster maneuver) to take the wand from an enemy wizard, then picking it up off the ground as my free action so he can't cast any spells with material components, did the same to take a legendary magic item off of an enemy. Using Tumble to move through an enemy so you can get to the caster in the back. Calling for an enemy to surrender or alternatively try to convince them that you have a dragon ally just around the corner on his way.
Those are all actual real examples from play on my PCs and they include 5 different DMs, they were not all effective but many of them were. Although they were not all fighters in these examples, but they were all martials (incl Rogues) and there is nothing preventing a fighter from doing any of these (although he will need a feat, race or subclass for misty step). If your fighter is not doing these kinds of things in combat that is because he does not want to do these kinds of things in combat.
The issue with "just improvise it" is that spellcasters tend to benefit from it far more. Yes, the martial can do something somewhat cool, a daring act. But in 99% of cases those tables will also allow casters to go off the rails with their spells. Rule of cool doesn't fix bad game design. Some good ways to encourage "cool stuff" with this rule is to allow "improvised actions" like that to replace attacks and be a cunning action option and not an action, so there can be an insane amount of stuff martials can do on their turns. Now it's rule of cool, but with more mechanics to support it.
No, Ecmo. A fighter not pulling crazy offbeat weirdness in combat is not avoiding those things because "he does not want to do these kind of things."
He is avoiding them because THEY DO NOT WORK.
The game has always had the "Can I do a Cool Move?", "Sure, roll a Cool Move check to see if you pull of your Cool Move and either accomplish nothing or utterly break the verisimilitude of the game, or if you humiliate yourself and waste your turn instead" rule. That doesn't make it a good rule. That doesn't make a DM terrible for not letting you make a BS check to convince a band of thinking, rational creatures that you have an ancient dragon hidden around a corner to turn off a fight. That doesn't make players terrible for not wanting to gamble their valuable turn in combat on a Cool Move Check that accomplishes absolutely nothing in almost all cases.
The Cool Move Check is not sufficient and it never has been.
Yes Yurie, it is doing something other than hitting them. If you want to hit them, then hit them but don't pretend that is the only option fighters have. If you watch any of the D&D Live events from WOTC or most of the popular streaming games you will see characters do this kind of stuff pretty regularly, so it is not only RAW, it is also RAI.
Sure you fail often, but when you decide to take a -5 penalty for sharpshooter or GWM and miss you "humiliate yourself and waste a turn" yet no one complains about that and I would argue the effects you can get from smart skill checks on the battlefield, if they succeed, are worth more than the 10 points of damage you would get out of SS or GWM.
In the case of the Dragon example we did actually have a Dragon who was fighting on the outside of the keep, had torched several Hobgoblins and Giants outside before survivors ran inside and raised the alarm. A party member cast minor illusion to make a sound of a Dragon coming down the hallway and my character used intimidate a turn later to convince the Hobgoblins (some of whom saw a Dragon outside) that he was coming. There is no thematic reason that should not work and frankly I would argue the other way, I probably should not have even needed to make a check! Please tell me why a "thinking rational creature" would not believe that?
In terms of calling for surrender - when I have slaughtered 7 out of 10 guards in a room there is no reason a "thinking, rational creature" would not surrender if offered the opportunity and in terms of failure using it to try and end a fight 2 rounds early on a DC15 is a high-risk, high-reward type payoff. Even if you have an 8 charisma the 16 you would need to roll is still worth trying to stop 4 or 5 enemy actions and the damage to the party that comes with that.
Take the example of the Cambion - The party had no magic ranged weapons, a chance to put him on the ground was worth it even though I took damage from doing it and had to pass two checks to do it (an acrobatics to avoid falling off of the horse and a grapple check). I guess you think it would have been better to throw a weapon at long range and do probably 3 damage if I managed to hit with disadvantage? Heck, since I had extra attack I could still have thrown a weapon even if I failed the grapple check. If I failed I would have ended up prone on my back but I could have still used my other attack to throw a javelin with disadvantage so it wouldn't have even been a waste!
I will also add that if I am doing point buy, most of my fighters run a 10 or 12 Constitution, Rune Knights are the exception because their subclass abilities run on con so I usually maximize it. The reason I do that is so my other ability scores are higher and my skill checks are better.
What's stopping spellcasters with better mental stats/abilities from doing any of this?
What's stopping sidekicks from doing it?
What's stopping NPCs?
"Make a Cool Move Check to do something cool", the way you're framing it, is not exclusive to martial characters. It's not even exclusive to players. Why is it, then, The Single Sole Solution to martial characters all being boring and samey to play?
A better word choice would have been that fighters (and all martials) get stuck in a combat loop. They do the same stuff over and over. Which can be fun if what they are doing is anything other than ‘I use my attack action on \
I don't think this has anything to do with the Fighter class. This is mostly about the player, perhaps about the DM and table, and to a minimal extent about the actual build and options you took.
If you think all you have to do is attack over and over again, that is not because you are a fighter, it is because all you want to do as a player is attack over and over again. There are a ton of different actions you can take in combat and one of them "improvise an action" is wide open and only really limited by the DM and your imagination.
My character (not just fighters) are doing stuff all the time, my Goblin jumping on the back of a dragon in flight and then attacking him with a dagger while she hangs on with the other hand, my halfling grabbing a rope from the Kobold Rogue and moving through a bunch of large Ogres to make a tripwire under them. Shoving an enemy off a cliff .... or grappling them, and dragging them off a cliff while the wizard casts feather fall on you (and not the enemy), Getting attacked by flying cambion 40 feet in the air and running across the wagon up the back of one of the horses, jumping off their neck as high in the air as she can get and then using misty step to close the remaining distance and grappling said Cambion so you both plummet to the ground and can be beat on by the party with magic weapons. Using Disarm from DMG (not battlemaster maneuver) to take the wand from an enemy wizard, then picking it up off the ground as my free action so he can't cast any spells with material components, did the same to take a legendary magic item off of an enemy. Using Tumble to move through an enemy so you can get to the caster in the back. Calling for an enemy to surrender or alternatively try to convince them that you have a dragon ally just around the corner on his way.
Those are all actual real examples from play on my PCs and they include 5 different DMs, they were not all effective but many of them were. Although they were not all fighters in these examples, but they were all martials (incl Rogues) and there is nothing preventing a fighter from doing any of these (although he will need a feat, race or subclass for misty step). If your fighter is not doing these kinds of things in combat that is because he does not want to do these kinds of things in combat.
The issue with "just improvise it" is that spellcasters tend to benefit from it far more. Yes, the martial can do something somewhat cool, a daring act. But in 99% of cases those tables will also allow casters to go off the rails with their spells. Rule of cool doesn't fix bad game design. Some good ways to encourage "cool stuff" with this rule is to allow "improvised actions" like that to replace attacks and be a cunning action option and not an action, so there can be an insane amount of stuff martials can do on their turns. Now it's rule of cool, but with more mechanics to support it.
I don't see this. Casters are a lot better at things their spells let them do, but their known/prepared spells are limited and I think martials (and especially Rogues) are generally better at improvising actions without spells. My theory is they generally have a higher strength or dex and more hit points (and failure hurts) although adimitedly this could be because they are making skill checks in combat more because casters have spell options.
What's stopping spellcasters with better mental stats/abilities from doing any of this?
What's stopping sidekicks from doing it?
What's stopping NPCs?
"Make a Cool Move Check to do something cool", the way you're framing it, is not exclusive to martial characters. It's not even exclusive to players. Why is it, then, The Single Sole Solution to martial characters all being boring and samey to play?
Nothing is stopping casters. I never claimed it was exclusive to martials. What I said is martials have a lot more options than just attacking something. So do casters. I will add some of these things though replace an attack (Grapple, Shove, climbing on an enemy, disarm) so if you have extra attack you can combo those more effectively than someone who needs to use a whole action to do them. But youn are right any caster can do them.
There is also nothing stopping NPCs from doing most of these things. The exception is intimidate. Contested intimidate checks are generally not something that NPCs do as actions. You can't force a PC to surrender for example on an NPC intimidation check, however you can threaten to use multiattack on the downed Rouge and kill him outright if they don't surrender.
You can also make the sound of a Dragon coming down the hall, then have one of the enemies say the Dragon is coming and see if they flee. You can make it simple with no checks and let the PCs decide what to do. Alternatively you can roll deception for the NPCs and compare it to either passive insight or against a flat DC depending on believability adjusted by insight. In action economy it can be tricky to do the latter and avoid the PCs metagaming especially since some PCs might pass and others will fail, but it is doable. You go turn by turn and ask PCs for actions without table talk. If they want to look into it further "Do I really believe a Dragon is coming" that is an action and have them roll either active investigation or insight and trust they will not metagame it if they roll low.
I have NPCs grapple flying or mobile PCs a lot. I also have them ready actions quite a bit (especially against Owl familiars).
Probably the coolest example is not something I did but something a player did to me as a DM. This did not happen in combat but it is pretty epic so I will share.
The players had infiltrated a flying castle with A White Dragon and Vampires on it. Either of these were probably a match for the PCs. One of the PCs talked to the Dragon, posing as a friendly cultist and convinced the Dragon that the Vampires were traitors and planning to steal his hoard. They convinced the Dragon he should attack the vampires in the tower they lived in during the day. It was several checks but they managed it and the Dragon flew off to attack said Vampires. I let the players even play the Dragon in combat. It BARELY beat the Vampires and then flew back to the cave with about 20hps left and the PCs killed it.
I could have shut that down, but it was a White Dragon, it is not particularly smart.
Disagree. Telling experienced players they have to invest in a bunch of unsupported third-party content or invent their own game if they want to keep playing D&D is reverse gatekeeping, and just like in the other thread I'm gonna call you on it. The rules should, to the best of Wizards admittedly limited ability, allow everyone to enjoy the game - rookie and oldhead alike. "The Base Rules" are the System Reference Document, which are even entitled "Basic Rules". PHB content is the expanded/full game, and it's for more than just bright-eyed newbies who've never played a game of D&D before.
I am probably the strongest believer in the simple Fighter class (though Fighter isn't necessarily as simple as some people make it out to be) and even I agree with Yurei on this: forcing advanced players to leave your game or homebrew things is flat-out not okay. Everybody should have a place and things to play in your game. That includes both players who enjoy complexity and players who enjoy simplicity.
I've said it before, I'll say it as many times as I have to. The job of an Advanced Player sitting at a table with a rookie is to teach the rookie. Conversely, it is the rookie's job to learn the game. The Advanced Player makes allowances for the rookie's newness and unfamiliarity with the game and offers their assistance with teaching, and the rookie makes a good-faith effort to cease being a rookie at their best reasonable pace. That is the only way this worksoutside of niche edge cases the core rulebooks cannot account for.
I've literally repeatedly explained to you that this point blatantly ignores what the "Simple Fighter Crowd" has actually been arguing for: we are not saying that new players should never learn the rules of the game, all we are saying is that Fighter is a great class that helps new players learn the game at their own pace while giving them an opportunity to not immediately be faced with half a dozen super complicated mechanics. In short, Fighter is great because it helps make it easier for new players to learn the rules of the game. It allows them to take a bit more time to learn all the intricacies of the game. And there is nothing wrong with struggling to understand how D&D works and needing a bit more time to adjust to the game. Speaking out of personal experience, Fighter did a much better job of helping me learn the game than my friends did when I had trouble grasping the rules.
Also, it's not only new players who can play and enjoy Fighters. I've seen many more experienced players who enjoy playing Fighter too.
Anyways, you guys do realize that making ideas to "fix" the game by adding in more complex options literally helps no one because those ideas will likely never be used? This whole debate doesn't help anyone either. What does help people though is homebrewing these options.
No, Ecmo. A fighter not pulling crazy offbeat weirdness in combat is not avoiding those things because "he does not want to do these kind of things."
He is avoiding them because THEY DO NOT WORK.
The game has always had the "Can I do a Cool Move?", "Sure, roll a Cool Move check to see if you pull of your Cool Move and either accomplish nothing or utterly break the verisimilitude of the game, or if you humiliate yourself and waste your turn instead" rule. That doesn't make it a good rule. That doesn't make a DM terrible for not letting you make a BS check to convince a band of thinking, rational creatures that you have an ancient dragon hidden around a corner to turn off a fight. That doesn't make players terrible for not wanting to gamble their valuable turn in combat on a Cool Move Check that accomplishes absolutely nothing in almost all cases.
The Cool Move Check is not sufficient and it never has been.
That's not a valid criticism, and you know it.
The binary result of "Can I do a Cool Move?" is no different from making an attack roll. You can do a cool thing or deal damage. You might, under the right circumstances, even do both.
If you think fighters and other martial classes are boring or, worse, foolish for attempting to Do The Thing™ then we may just be at an impasse. Others don't have that problem. Maybe your dice just don't want to cooperate. That doesn't mean it's an invalid way to play.
Anyways, you guys do realize that making ideas to "fix" the game by adding in more complex options literally helps no one because those ideas will likely never be used? This whole debate doesn't help anyone either. What does help people though is homebrewing these options.
I've said something to this effect several times, now. Complexity is just giving them more options. An expanded toolkit for the class; if you will. They can be used or not, but you can't force players to use them. Any of us can play a Battle Master, but we can always choose not to use our maneuvers and superiority dice. Or they can be disallowed by the DM. Because, let's be honest, Disarming Strike is only really useful against a hand-held weapon. Nobody's using it to break or slice off the claws off an owlbear.
The sad reality is some of us, and this is not directed at any one person, have blinders on and don't honestly care what other people think or want. They don't want to listen, and only continue to dig in their heels with every new page. When all you can do is talk past the other person, you need to step away.
The job of an Advanced Player sitting at a table with a rookie is to teach the rookie. Conversely, it is the rookie's job to learn the game. The Advanced Player makes allowances for the rookie's newness and unfamiliarity with the game and offers their assistance with teaching, and the rookie makes a good-faith effort to cease being a rookie at their best reasonable pace. That is the only way this worksoutside of niche edge cases the core rulebooks cannot account for.
Amen. This is called teamwork. This is how bonds are made. This is what holds people together and helps them grow. This is half of what this game is all about (the other half being escapism).
Here's the crux: martials need something they can do - THEY can do, not "everybody can do" - in combat that is not "I use The Attack Action to damage my enemy." Damaging the enemy is not required; The Attack Action has damage covered. This something needs to be valuable enough to sometimes be the correct answer over Damaging The Enemy, which the current push/trip/disarm options in the DMG basically never are*. It needs to offer tactical options that are valuable and desireable to advanced players without impinging on the "all noobs MUST play Champion Fighter!" thing everybody's got going in this thread.
And then? Both Wizards and homebrew DMs need to design better fights.Encounters that aren't just a race to the bottom of an HP bar, encounters where some of these Not-The-Attack-Action Actions are valuable. Half of the reason fighters are boring is boring combats, and boring combats come when everything is just a slog through whatever amount of HP satisfies the XP budget for the day. If DMs were more willing to run fights that would be super ******* difficult - maybe even, gasp!!! 'impossible' - without doing something other than emptying an HP bar? if Wizards was willing to design those fights? Then maybe the Cool Move Check would be less of a crappy YouTube meme, fighters would remember how the DMG push/trip/disarm rules worked, and there would be moderately less need to redesign the fighter to be more interesting to run in a Standard Boring Adventuring Day.
For those curious: Push accomplishes dick-monkey squat. The number of times a Large or smaller enemy is five feet away from somewhere worth giving up damage to move it in a campaign can be counted on the fingers of one finger. Yes, technically Push can be a pseudo-Disengage, but you know what else you can do to gain the benefit of The Disengage Action? Disengage. Trip inflicts the Prone condition, which is actually pretty baller for melee combatants. Problem: it ****s ranged combatants over, and also enemies can fix Prone with absolutely trivial ease on their turn by standing back up. The fighter cannot prevent this short of Grapple weirdness, and not every fighter wants to be a Naked Mud Lucha Champion. There's a reason nobody Trips - you can Trip to prone and then make your second attack at advantage, or much like True Strike you could simply attack twice. Which is why Tripping Attack the maneuver is amazing and Trip the DMG option is junk.
Disarm is useless, pointless, and utterly idiotic. You can cause one humanoid enemy to drop one item in their hands at their feet, which they can then spend their free item interaction on their turn to pick right the **** back up. Disarming an enemy imposes heavy penalties on YOUR action economy because you have to give up an attack to Disarm the enemy and then give up another attack to Push the dropped item five feet away, only to watch the enemy move five feet and recover their weapon without expending any actions or attacks whatsoever. Yes, some DMs let you kick the doohickus a ways off with a bonus action, but that's not RAW or even RAI and cannot be counted on.
These options blow, and are so rarely useful it's a wonder anyone remembers how they work.
And then? Both Wizards and homebrew DMs need to design better fights.Encounters that aren't just a race to the bottom of an HP bar, encounters where some of these Not-The-Attack-Action Actions are valuable.
I find it somewhat disingenuous that you ask for encounters that are not a race to the bottom of hit points and then in the same thread suggest that a fighter doing anything other than driving foes to 0hps is "wasting his turn"
Action surge is the big "something no one else can do" for the fighter class and then there are a number of subclass abilities as well. Further having high hit points and high AC lets them get close to do things other classes can't, or at least cant do without a lot of risk.
For those curious: Push accomplishes dick-monkey squat. The number of times a Large or smaller enemy is five feet away from somewhere worth giving up damage to move it in a campaign can be counted on the fingers of one finger. Yes, technically Push can be a pseudo-Disengage, but you know what else you can do to gain the benefit of The Disengage Action? Disengage. Trip inflicts the Prone condition, which is actually pretty baller for melee combatants. Problem: it ****s ranged combatants over, and also enemies can fix Prone with absolutely trivial ease on their turn by standing back up. The fighter cannot prevent this short of Grapple weirdness, and not every fighter wants to be a Naked Mud Lucha Champion. There's a reason nobody Trips - you can Trip to prone and then make your second attack at advantage, or much like True Strike you could simply attack twice. Which is why Tripping Attack the maneuver is amazing and Trip the DMG option is junk.
Disarm is useless, pointless, and utterly idiotic. You can cause one humanoid enemy to drop one item in their hands at their feet, which they can then spend their free item interaction on their turn to pick right the **** back up. Disarming an enemy imposes heavy penalties on YOUR action economy because you have to give up an attack to Disarm the enemy and then give up another attack to Push the dropped item five feet away, only to watch the enemy move five feet and recover their weapon without expending any actions or attacks whatsoever. Yes, some DMs let you kick the doohickus a ways off with a bonus action, but that's not RAW or even RAI and cannot be counted on.
These options blow, and are so rarely useful it's a wonder anyone remembers how they work.
Shove (It is shove, not push) - There are MANY times shoving someone 5 feet is going to be better than the 10 points of damage or so you can do IF you hit with an attack. Pushing them into sipike growth, pushing them so your mage can move away without disengaging and cast a crowd pleaser, shoving off of a ledge, shoving into a web, shoving into Sickening Radiance. Shoving because he is frightened and if you shove him he can't move back closer to you and attack the next turn. This last one can be huge - your wizard just cast cause fear and you have a better athletics than the guy you are fighting and he has no ranged attack. Push him and he can do NOTHING to you. He can dodge and that is about it until he makes a save. You can go ahead and attack and killm all his friends while he stands there. Shove is also not a whole action it replaces an attack so if you have extra attack (like a fighter) you can attack one or more times and then still use shove and not need to disengage ..... or you can you know shove first, and then make your ranged attack without disadvantage, and then move where you want.
Trip - I assume you mean shoving prone? I agree this is not that powerful, and as an aside trip attack is a horrible battlemaster maneuver as well giving moist/all your allies disadvantage, even though it is the most common maneuver taken (menacing attack is far, far better as a debufff). The main situation this is useful for is flying enemies as it will make them fall to the ground, taking falling damage. It is also very effective as a readied action against creatures with flyby as they will usually not have enough movement left to get back up from prone. It can also be situationally useful when you have multiple allies in melee and combine it with grapple or through the initiative order get someone else tom get advantage on a big attack. For example your fighter prones the guy right before the Paladin comes in and smites him or the Rogue sneak attacks him in melee. You are giving up some damage on your turn for a hard hitter to come in and pulverize him.
Disarm is situationally useful, but when it is useful it is awesome. if they drop their weapon you can spend YOUR free action to pick it up, or alternatively you can grapple them and drag them away from it. I gave you two examples above from actual play, both in published WOTC adventures, where it was huge. Not useful all the time but VERY, VERY useful at times and far better than an attack when it is useful. If you are fighting a strong enemy that is using a weapon, you can take that away with a successful disarm (as long as you are not a sword and board). That SEVERELY nerfs just about any enemy form the MM that relies weapons. It is huge. If you are fighting numerous small enemies that are easy to kill then yeah, you are better off doing the damage and just killing them. But if you can't kill them this round disarm can be a very good option. Example an Assasin - He has 78 hps. Doing an extra 10 damage is not going to matter a whole lot except at the end of a fight. On the other hand, taking away his shortsword in the first or second round reduces his melee damage from 30 DPR to 1 DPR and takes his melee attack bonus from +6 to +3. Sure he has a shortbow he can go to (until you take that away too), but then he is in melee with a Ranged weapon. A champion has 143 hps. Taking his greatsword reduces his DPR from 57 to 15 .... and that assumes the DM gives him multiattack with his fists, if he doesn't it is 5 DPR. Disarm a mage and take his wand and he can't cast suggestion, fireball, fly, cone of cold, ice storm or greater invisibility. that eliminates all his 5th level, all his 4th level and all his 3rd level spells except counterspell as well as his most powerful 2nd level spell.
Shove and disarm are at times FAR, FAR better than doing your 10 or even 20 damage using an attack and at other times they are not. If you are thinking tactically though the amount of times they are useful is many. Martials with extra attack can combine these with a single action or alternatively make an attack and use one of them.
The martial classes have plenty to do. You read like someone whose angry at everyone. Wizards isn't designing enough to interest you, and other people who you may not even play with (so they don't affect you in the slightest) don't run encounters you think are interesting.
And for those curious…
Push accomplishes dick-monkey squat. The number of times a Large or smaller enemy is five feet away from somewhere worth giving up damage to move it in a campaign can be counted on the fingers of one finger. Yes, technically Push can be a pseudo-Disengage, but you know what else you can do to gain the benefit of The Disengage Action? Disengage.
Technically part of Shoving a Creature, this is found in the PH, and actually does have some uses. Hazards can exist on the battlefield, and a person can be shoved into them or out of them; like with [Tooltip Not Found]. Or maybe you just want to get to an enemy more easily. Swarms have a reach of 0 feet. If you step out of them, you take an Opportunity Attack. But if another character shoves you, then you don't. And it can break a grapple; freeing you up to move away.
Trip inflicts the Prone condition, which is actually pretty baller for melee combatants. Problem: it ****s ranged combatants over, and also enemies can fix Prone with absolutely trivial ease on their turn by standing back up. The fighter cannot prevent this short of Grapple weirdness, and not every fighter wants to be a Naked Mud Lucha Champion. There's a reason nobody Trips - you can Trip to prone and then make your second attack at advantage, or much like True Strike you could simply attack twice. Which is why Tripping Attack the maneuver is amazing and Trip the DMG option is junk.
This is also part of Shoving a Creature, though a trip is a nice trapping for it. Still, a rather tactical option. Allies within 5 feet do get advantage on attack rolls against a prone target, and ranged attackers will have disadvantage. All this is true and acceptable. Rather than be angry at what it does to you, with your bow, look at what it does to the enemy. It doesn't matter if they can end the condition with "trivial ease." Nothing can stop is unless their speed is zero, and if it's not, they still give up half of it. A speed of 30 becomes 15 for the next round. A speed of 40 becomes 20. It lets martial characters control the enemy's ability to move.
Disarm is useless, pointless, and utterly idiotic. You can cause one humanoid enemy to drop one item in their hands at their feet, which they can then spend their free item interaction on their turn to pick right the **** back up. Disarming an enemy imposes heavy penalties on YOUR action economy because you have to give up an attack to Disarm the enemy and then give up another attack to Push the dropped item five feet away, only to watch the enemy move five feet and recover their weapon without expending any actions or attacks whatsoever. Yes, some DMs let you kick the doohickus a ways off with a bonus action, but that's not RAW or even RAI and cannot be counted on.
Don't let the name fool you. This doesn't have to be used on weapons, and it's not limited to humanoid creatures. You can make an animal drop something, or someone, in its beak or mouth. You can make a spellcaster drop their focus or component pouch. You can even make someone drop the MacGuffin you're after. IIRC, something like this happened in "A Heart Grown Cold" (Critical Role s2e113). But perhaps most importantly, why are you kicking the dropped item away when you can grab it for yourself? Or maybe you do kick it away─into the reach of an ally.
The tools exist for martial characters to take a complex, tactical approach to combat encounters. And if anyone isn't seeing these opportunities, do not lay the blame entirely on your DM. There is only so much they can do. As players, we owe it to ourselves to work together to create favorable conditions. If there are four players and only one DM, then there are four more people who can make that combat interesting. And if that's what you want, then you owe it to yourself to look for those opportunities and to seize them as they appear.
And if they don't pan out, if fate isn't on your side that time, then so be it. The "basic bonk" attack roll is just as prone to failure. But if we can't get out of our own heads and at least try, then we'll never see what we can really do. Just as we miss every shot we don't take, we fail every D20 Test we don't roll.
Crazy suggestion that is far from fully thought-out, but what if any character can replace their attack with a stunt of some kind? Not their "attack action," their ATTACK. That potentially means that stunts offer vastly better benefits to the multi-attack classes.
I honestly feel like some version of "combat stunts" is not only thematically appropriate for the martials, but sort of their defining feature. I am not sure what the ultimate expression of that feature is or looks like, but just as Experts are the game's premiere skill users, it seems to me the Martials should be the combat/stunt guys.
I think part of the problem with fighters being interesting in combat is that the types of combat they're designed to excel at are not very interesting. Generally speaking, the most interesting fights in D&D involve multiple opponents and are at high difficulty, with an expectation of burning significant resources. Fighters, being single target damage, are best against single opponents, and have quite limited resources they can expend to make themselves better.
Broadly speaking, the valuable non-damage combat actions in D&D tend towards doing one of the following:
Setup: make a monster easier for your allies to beat up. On average, it's worth sacrificing one attack to grant advantage on five other attacks. Fighter options here are pretty limited, prone is a mixed blessing at best, grappled doesn't do anything at all in terms of setup.
Forced Movement: control where a monster is, to exploit zones and the like. Grappling is decent at this, but tends to expose you to the same threats as the enemy, and all forced movement is dependent on there being useful places to move them -- which is either environmental or from a spellcaster.
Control: limit or prevent a monster from attacking. Grappled does limit what a monster can attack, but "You can't easily attack anyone other than me" is far less valuable than "You can't attack anyone at all", and that's pretty much limited to spellcasters (either with debilitating conditions, or by creating effects that make the PCs unreachable).
Buff: make an ally better at attacking (or something else). Again, this is pretty much exclusive to spellcasters, though there are NPCs such as the knight with buffing abilities.
Folks in this thread be like: "Hey fighters can do amazing stuff, like sacrifice their attack to try to shove, or, like... improvise something, I dunno, that may work or not. If the DM allows it at all, but hey, improvise. Also, fighters should be simple and not requiring you to learn a ton of rules. Except all the rules for possible interactions with the environment in case you want to improvise."
Crazy suggestion that is far from fully thought-out, but what if any character can replace their attack with a stunt of some kind? Not their "attack action," their ATTACK. That potentially means that stunts offer vastly better benefits to the multi-attack classes.
I honestly feel like some version of "combat stunts" is not only thematically appropriate for the martials, but sort of their defining feature. I am not sure what the ultimate expression of that feature is or looks like, but just as Experts are the game's premiere skill users, it seems to me the Martials should be the combat/stunt guys.
That's already how it works. If you attempt to Disarm someone, or are Shoving a Creature, you're making an attack.
A creature can use a weapon attack to knock a weapon or another item from a target’s grasp. The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item.
If you can't follow the link, that's the first paragraph for Disarm in the DMG.
Using the [action]Attack[action] action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the [action]Attack[action] action, this attack replaces one of them.
And this is the first paragraph for Shoving a Creature in the PH. If you have the Extra Attack feature, you're only giving up one of those attacks to make the attempt. And because they're not treated as separate actions, they still work with the Monk's Martial Arts feature. You can do this with your action and still make an attack with your bonus action.
At least for now. It's possible that'll change as more UA comes out. Presently, the DC to escape a Grapple is still set by the attacker's Strength. I suspect that'll change in a few months, with the Warrior Classes UA, but right now a monk could Shove someone easily─without a high Strength statistic or proficiency in Athletics. I've seen it happen.
Clarifying, I didn't just mean Shove/Disarm/Etc. And forgive me if my RAW recall is rusty, as I haven't had an active 5e game in a few years, and 3e (which I played longer) was rather more restrictive on the distinction between Full Attack and Attack. I now recall that being one of the things I very much liked about 5th, so thanks for that.
I still would suggest that characters should be able to do other cool stuff(TM) as part of their attack. Basically, they need more options than just "I attack." There could be a (relatively concise) list of "at-will" attack options that any character *can* use, but that the martials get to pick more of to be proficient at (proficiency bonus applies).
Something like: Melee Attack Ranged Attack Defensive attack (increases AC for this round) Disarming attack (Disarm potential) Shoving attack (Moves opponent around battlefield)
Cleave (strike another target if you dispatch your opponent) Hold the Line (damage any character who starts or moves adjacent to you)
Arrow Volley (lower damage area effect attack - ranged weapon required) Etc.
This is just a suggested starting list, not comprehensive, and not fully thought-out. And yes, I have loosely based some of the suggested ideas on the old feats, because why not? My first thought was that any character could sacrifice their proficiency bonus to attempt the ones that aren't on their "list," but you probably wouldn't see a lot of that. The Martial classes would get both more maneuvers to pick from and more maneuvers they are proficient in.
The devil would be in the balance details, but in principle, they could function roughly like cantrips.
That seems more complex than necessary. And there's no good reason to limit these options to only a few classes. Literally any class can engage in ranged or melee combat. Looking at the "spellcaster" classes─bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard─five of them have solid options for weapon attacks. Four of them can even get Extra Attack or Multiattack. Only the sorcerer doesn't get anything by itself, but it can with the right build. They currently have access to quarterstaffs and light crossbows, so Magic Initiate (Primal─Charisma) for shillelagh is tempting. Combine that with some of the blade cantrips, and they're potentially very dangerous. There could be some changes with the way spellcasting foci work, but since backgrounds let you spend 100gp as you wish it shouldn't be hard getting a component pouch; should that be necessary.
In any case, most of those options are already available. Attacks come in four flavors: melee weapon, ranged weapon, melee spell, and ranged spell. Shoving is in the PH. Cleaving and disarming are in the DMG. Hold the Line is just the Sentinel feat. Arrow Volley was a hunter ranger archetype feature, but it's also wrapped up in two spells: conjure barrage and conjure volley. So all there really is to add is Defensive Attack. The Battle Master and Way of the Kensei have some version of this already. Whatever you propose, however, can't be better than simply taking the dodge action.
So what I'm reading here, Jounichi, is that the current fighter is absolutely pitch-perfect forever, there's absolutely no possible room whatsoever to change, modify, or improve it, and everybody should just accept that the entire Warrior group is Shining Golden Perfection and anyone who doesn't like them is just bad at the game?
So what I'm reading here, Jounichi, is that the current fighter is absolutely pitch-perfect forever, there's absolutely no possible room whatsoever to change, modify, or improve it, and everybody should just accept that the entire Warrior group is Shining Golden Perfection and anyone who doesn't like them is just bad at the game?
Does that about cover it?
Nobody said that. What we did say is that Fighter is good and well-liked as is. That doesn't mean it can't be improved of course, it just means that its popularity should be taken into account when making massive changes to it. And no, the entire Warrior group is not perfect, and it could use some changes. But taking away the most beloved simple martial option from it doesn't help make the Warrior group any better for the people who loved the class as is.
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So what I'm reading here, Jounichi, is that the current fighter is absolutely pitch-perfect forever, there's absolutely no possible room whatsoever to change, modify, or improve it, and everybody should just accept that the entire Warrior group is Shining Golden Perfection and anyone who doesn't like them is just bad at the game?
Does that about cover it?
Not even close. Nothing is perfect, so there's always room to improve. But improving something should require understanding any shortcomings.
The fighter, as is, is a popular class. It is, seemingly, well-liked by the community at large. If true, this would place you in a vocal minority. And it's not difficult to see why. Time and time again, we see people either misrepresenting or misunderstanding the rules of the game. Just earlier today, an article on my phone appeared from RPGBOT. It was about the Eldritch Knight, updated just the other day, and it still said that Great Weapon Fighting applied to the extra dice of booming blade. It doesn't, and that was settled in a Sage Advice answer from 2016. (Technically, it was about Divine Smite, but the same logic applies.) I don't know why that erroneous information is still found in the EK entry, but it is.
What is clear is the options for tactical combat exist. And you are willing to lay blame for shortcomings at WotC and at the DM. And both can be fair. WotC can only do so much. They can give us the rules, which are really more like guidelines, and empower us to make our own games. Likewise, the DM should be looking to create engaging encounters. Difficult terrain, hazards, illumination, and weather are all possible features of a battlefield. Not every monster will think in terms of high-minded tactics, but reasonably intelligent ones are more likely to. Either way, it's fair to say the monsters know what they're doing. Which is a wonderful book, and I suggest any struggling DMs pick it up.
But we aren't talking about WotC's rules, or what the DM is throwing at us, not really. We're talking about players not doing interesting things with their characters. And since they're the consistent end-point, we should be working backwards from the player. Because not every player has this problem. And neither does every DM. We need a holistic approach. If we're going to offer up suggestions to WotC, then we need to know all points of failure.
And that means looking inward. I know, self-reflection is hard. We don't always like what we see. Suck it up, anyway. Improvement may require asking ourselves some tough questions. So, what are some questions we can ask?
Are the rules, as they exist, clunky and in need of refinement?
Do we need to move rules from the DMG to the PH, so they're all player-facing?
Are there options we've had in the past, like sundering and fighting defensively, that we miss and would like to see return?
If so, how can we add these things back in without stepping on the toes of other preexisting options or (sub)class features?
I think those are all fairly benign, actually. A real tough question might be, "Why am I not even trying to use these options?" And don't dismiss them with, "They don't work." That's not helpful. Show your work. Explain the points of failure. That way, we can offer suggestions to improve them.
Think like a designer.
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The issue with "just improvise it" is that spellcasters tend to benefit from it far more. Yes, the martial can do something somewhat cool, a daring act. But in 99% of cases those tables will also allow casters to go off the rails with their spells. Rule of cool doesn't fix bad game design.
Some good ways to encourage "cool stuff" with this rule is to allow "improvised actions" like that to replace attacks and be a cunning action option and not an action, so there can be an insane amount of stuff martials can do on their turns. Now it's rule of cool, but with more mechanics to support it.
Yes Yurie, it is doing something other than hitting them. If you want to hit them, then hit them but don't pretend that is the only option fighters have. If you watch any of the D&D Live events from WOTC or most of the popular streaming games you will see characters do this kind of stuff pretty regularly, so it is not only RAW, it is also RAI.
Sure you fail often, but when you decide to take a -5 penalty for sharpshooter or GWM and miss you "humiliate yourself and waste a turn" yet no one complains about that and I would argue the effects you can get from smart skill checks on the battlefield, if they succeed, are worth more than the 10 points of damage you would get out of SS or GWM.
In the case of the Dragon example we did actually have a Dragon who was fighting on the outside of the keep, had torched several Hobgoblins and Giants outside before survivors ran inside and raised the alarm. A party member cast minor illusion to make a sound of a Dragon coming down the hallway and my character used intimidate a turn later to convince the Hobgoblins (some of whom saw a Dragon outside) that he was coming. There is no thematic reason that should not work and frankly I would argue the other way, I probably should not have even needed to make a check! Please tell me why a "thinking rational creature" would not believe that?
In terms of calling for surrender - when I have slaughtered 7 out of 10 guards in a room there is no reason a "thinking, rational creature" would not surrender if offered the opportunity and in terms of failure using it to try and end a fight 2 rounds early on a DC15 is a high-risk, high-reward type payoff. Even if you have an 8 charisma the 16 you would need to roll is still worth trying to stop 4 or 5 enemy actions and the damage to the party that comes with that.
Take the example of the Cambion - The party had no magic ranged weapons, a chance to put him on the ground was worth it even though I took damage from doing it and had to pass two checks to do it (an acrobatics to avoid falling off of the horse and a grapple check). I guess you think it would have been better to throw a weapon at long range and do probably 3 damage if I managed to hit with disadvantage? Heck, since I had extra attack I could still have thrown a weapon even if I failed the grapple check. If I failed I would have ended up prone on my back but I could have still used my other attack to throw a javelin with disadvantage so it wouldn't have even been a waste!
I will also add that if I am doing point buy, most of my fighters run a 10 or 12 Constitution, Rune Knights are the exception because their subclass abilities run on con so I usually maximize it. The reason I do that is so my other ability scores are higher and my skill checks are better.
Cool.
What's stopping spellcasters with better mental stats/abilities from doing any of this?
What's stopping sidekicks from doing it?
What's stopping NPCs?
"Make a Cool Move Check to do something cool", the way you're framing it, is not exclusive to martial characters. It's not even exclusive to players. Why is it, then, The Single Sole Solution to martial characters all being boring and samey to play?
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I don't see this. Casters are a lot better at things their spells let them do, but their known/prepared spells are limited and I think martials (and especially Rogues) are generally better at improvising actions without spells. My theory is they generally have a higher strength or dex and more hit points (and failure hurts) although adimitedly this could be because they are making skill checks in combat more because casters have spell options.
Nothing is stopping casters. I never claimed it was exclusive to martials. What I said is martials have a lot more options than just attacking something. So do casters. I will add some of these things though replace an attack (Grapple, Shove, climbing on an enemy, disarm) so if you have extra attack you can combo those more effectively than someone who needs to use a whole action to do them. But youn are right any caster can do them.
There is also nothing stopping NPCs from doing most of these things. The exception is intimidate. Contested intimidate checks are generally not something that NPCs do as actions. You can't force a PC to surrender for example on an NPC intimidation check, however you can threaten to use multiattack on the downed Rouge and kill him outright if they don't surrender.
You can also make the sound of a Dragon coming down the hall, then have one of the enemies say the Dragon is coming and see if they flee. You can make it simple with no checks and let the PCs decide what to do. Alternatively you can roll deception for the NPCs and compare it to either passive insight or against a flat DC depending on believability adjusted by insight. In action economy it can be tricky to do the latter and avoid the PCs metagaming especially since some PCs might pass and others will fail, but it is doable. You go turn by turn and ask PCs for actions without table talk. If they want to look into it further "Do I really believe a Dragon is coming" that is an action and have them roll either active investigation or insight and trust they will not metagame it if they roll low.
I have NPCs grapple flying or mobile PCs a lot. I also have them ready actions quite a bit (especially against Owl familiars).
Probably the coolest example is not something I did but something a player did to me as a DM. This did not happen in combat but it is pretty epic so I will share.
The players had infiltrated a flying castle with A White Dragon and Vampires on it. Either of these were probably a match for the PCs. One of the PCs talked to the Dragon, posing as a friendly cultist and convinced the Dragon that the Vampires were traitors and planning to steal his hoard. They convinced the Dragon he should attack the vampires in the tower they lived in during the day. It was several checks but they managed it and the Dragon flew off to attack said Vampires. I let the players even play the Dragon in combat. It BARELY beat the Vampires and then flew back to the cave with about 20hps left and the PCs killed it.
I could have shut that down, but it was a White Dragon, it is not particularly smart.
I am probably the strongest believer in the simple Fighter class (though Fighter isn't necessarily as simple as some people make it out to be) and even I agree with Yurei on this: forcing advanced players to leave your game or homebrew things is flat-out not okay. Everybody should have a place and things to play in your game. That includes both players who enjoy complexity and players who enjoy simplicity.
I've literally repeatedly explained to you that this point blatantly ignores what the "Simple Fighter Crowd" has actually been arguing for: we are not saying that new players should never learn the rules of the game, all we are saying is that Fighter is a great class that helps new players learn the game at their own pace while giving them an opportunity to not immediately be faced with half a dozen super complicated mechanics. In short, Fighter is great because it helps make it easier for new players to learn the rules of the game. It allows them to take a bit more time to learn all the intricacies of the game. And there is nothing wrong with struggling to understand how D&D works and needing a bit more time to adjust to the game. Speaking out of personal experience, Fighter did a much better job of helping me learn the game than my friends did when I had trouble grasping the rules.
Also, it's not only new players who can play and enjoy Fighters. I've seen many more experienced players who enjoy playing Fighter too.
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Anyways, you guys do realize that making ideas to "fix" the game by adding in more complex options literally helps no one because those ideas will likely never be used? This whole debate doesn't help anyone either. What does help people though is homebrewing these options.
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HERE.That's not a valid criticism, and you know it.
The binary result of "Can I do a Cool Move?" is no different from making an attack roll. You can do a cool thing or deal damage. You might, under the right circumstances, even do both.
If you think fighters and other martial classes are boring or, worse, foolish for attempting to Do The Thing™ then we may just be at an impasse. Others don't have that problem. Maybe your dice just don't want to cooperate. That doesn't mean it's an invalid way to play.
I've said something to this effect several times, now. Complexity is just giving them more options. An expanded toolkit for the class; if you will. They can be used or not, but you can't force players to use them. Any of us can play a Battle Master, but we can always choose not to use our maneuvers and superiority dice. Or they can be disallowed by the DM. Because, let's be honest, Disarming Strike is only really useful against a hand-held weapon. Nobody's using it to break or slice off the claws off an owlbear.
The sad reality is some of us, and this is not directed at any one person, have blinders on and don't honestly care what other people think or want. They don't want to listen, and only continue to dig in their heels with every new page. When all you can do is talk past the other person, you need to step away.
Amen. This is called teamwork. This is how bonds are made. This is what holds people together and helps them grow. This is half of what this game is all about (the other half being escapism).
Sigh.
Okay.
Here's the crux: martials need something they can do - THEY can do, not "everybody can do" - in combat that is not "I use The Attack Action to damage my enemy." Damaging the enemy is not required; The Attack Action has damage covered. This something needs to be valuable enough to sometimes be the correct answer over Damaging The Enemy, which the current push/trip/disarm options in the DMG basically never are*. It needs to offer tactical options that are valuable and desireable to advanced players without impinging on the "all noobs MUST play Champion Fighter!" thing everybody's got going in this thread.
And then? Both Wizards and homebrew DMs need to design better fights. Encounters that aren't just a race to the bottom of an HP bar, encounters where some of these Not-The-Attack-Action Actions are valuable. Half of the reason fighters are boring is boring combats, and boring combats come when everything is just a slog through whatever amount of HP satisfies the XP budget for the day. If DMs were more willing to run fights that would be super ******* difficult - maybe even, gasp!!! 'impossible' - without doing something other than emptying an HP bar? if Wizards was willing to design those fights? Then maybe the Cool Move Check would be less of a crappy YouTube meme, fighters would remember how the DMG push/trip/disarm rules worked, and there would be moderately less need to redesign the fighter to be more interesting to run in a Standard Boring Adventuring Day.
For those curious:
Push accomplishes dick-monkey squat. The number of times a Large or smaller enemy is five feet away from somewhere worth giving up damage to move it in a campaign can be counted on the fingers of one finger. Yes, technically Push can be a pseudo-Disengage, but you know what else you can do to gain the benefit of The Disengage Action? Disengage.
Trip inflicts the Prone condition, which is actually pretty baller for melee combatants. Problem: it ****s ranged combatants over, and also enemies can fix Prone with absolutely trivial ease on their turn by standing back up. The fighter cannot prevent this short of Grapple weirdness, and not every fighter wants to be a Naked Mud Lucha Champion. There's a reason nobody Trips - you can Trip to prone and then make your second attack at advantage, or much like True Strike you could simply attack twice. Which is why Tripping Attack the maneuver is amazing and Trip the DMG option is junk.
Disarm is useless, pointless, and utterly idiotic. You can cause one humanoid enemy to drop one item in their hands at their feet, which they can then spend their free item interaction on their turn to pick right the **** back up. Disarming an enemy imposes heavy penalties on YOUR action economy because you have to give up an attack to Disarm the enemy and then give up another attack to Push the dropped item five feet away, only to watch the enemy move five feet and recover their weapon without expending any actions or attacks whatsoever. Yes, some DMs let you kick the doohickus a ways off with a bonus action, but that's not RAW or even RAI and cannot be counted on.
These options blow, and are so rarely useful it's a wonder anyone remembers how they work.
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I find it somewhat disingenuous that you ask for encounters that are not a race to the bottom of hit points and then in the same thread suggest that a fighter doing anything other than driving foes to 0hps is "wasting his turn"
Action surge is the big "something no one else can do" for the fighter class and then there are a number of subclass abilities as well. Further having high hit points and high AC lets them get close to do things other classes can't, or at least cant do without a lot of risk.
Shove (It is shove, not push) - There are MANY times shoving someone 5 feet is going to be better than the 10 points of damage or so you can do IF you hit with an attack. Pushing them into sipike growth, pushing them so your mage can move away without disengaging and cast a crowd pleaser, shoving off of a ledge, shoving into a web, shoving into Sickening Radiance. Shoving because he is frightened and if you shove him he can't move back closer to you and attack the next turn. This last one can be huge - your wizard just cast cause fear and you have a better athletics than the guy you are fighting and he has no ranged attack. Push him and he can do NOTHING to you. He can dodge and that is about it until he makes a save. You can go ahead and attack and killm all his friends while he stands there. Shove is also not a whole action it replaces an attack so if you have extra attack (like a fighter) you can attack one or more times and then still use shove and not need to disengage ..... or you can you know shove first, and then make your ranged attack without disadvantage, and then move where you want.
Trip - I assume you mean shoving prone? I agree this is not that powerful, and as an aside trip attack is a horrible battlemaster maneuver as well giving moist/all your allies disadvantage, even though it is the most common maneuver taken (menacing attack is far, far better as a debufff). The main situation this is useful for is flying enemies as it will make them fall to the ground, taking falling damage. It is also very effective as a readied action against creatures with flyby as they will usually not have enough movement left to get back up from prone. It can also be situationally useful when you have multiple allies in melee and combine it with grapple or through the initiative order get someone else tom get advantage on a big attack. For example your fighter prones the guy right before the Paladin comes in and smites him or the Rogue sneak attacks him in melee. You are giving up some damage on your turn for a hard hitter to come in and pulverize him.
Disarm is situationally useful, but when it is useful it is awesome. if they drop their weapon you can spend YOUR free action to pick it up, or alternatively you can grapple them and drag them away from it. I gave you two examples above from actual play, both in published WOTC adventures, where it was huge. Not useful all the time but VERY, VERY useful at times and far better than an attack when it is useful. If you are fighting a strong enemy that is using a weapon, you can take that away with a successful disarm (as long as you are not a sword and board). That SEVERELY nerfs just about any enemy form the MM that relies weapons. It is huge. If you are fighting numerous small enemies that are easy to kill then yeah, you are better off doing the damage and just killing them. But if you can't kill them this round disarm can be a very good option. Example an Assasin - He has 78 hps. Doing an extra 10 damage is not going to matter a whole lot except at the end of a fight. On the other hand, taking away his shortsword in the first or second round reduces his melee damage from 30 DPR to 1 DPR and takes his melee attack bonus from +6 to +3. Sure he has a shortbow he can go to (until you take that away too), but then he is in melee with a Ranged weapon. A champion has 143 hps. Taking his greatsword reduces his DPR from 57 to 15 .... and that assumes the DM gives him multiattack with his fists, if he doesn't it is 5 DPR. Disarm a mage and take his wand and he can't cast suggestion, fireball, fly, cone of cold, ice storm or greater invisibility. that eliminates all his 5th level, all his 4th level and all his 3rd level spells except counterspell as well as his most powerful 2nd level spell.
Shove and disarm are at times FAR, FAR better than doing your 10 or even 20 damage using an attack and at other times they are not. If you are thinking tactically though the amount of times they are useful is many. Martials with extra attack can combine these with a single action or alternatively make an attack and use one of them.
The martial classes have plenty to do. You read like someone whose angry at everyone. Wizards isn't designing enough to interest you, and other people who you may not even play with (so they don't affect you in the slightest) don't run encounters you think are interesting.
And for those curious…
Technically part of Shoving a Creature, this is found in the PH, and actually does have some uses. Hazards can exist on the battlefield, and a person can be shoved into them or out of them; like with [Tooltip Not Found]. Or maybe you just want to get to an enemy more easily. Swarms have a reach of 0 feet. If you step out of them, you take an Opportunity Attack. But if another character shoves you, then you don't. And it can break a grapple; freeing you up to move away.
This is also part of Shoving a Creature, though a trip is a nice trapping for it. Still, a rather tactical option. Allies within 5 feet do get advantage on attack rolls against a prone target, and ranged attackers will have disadvantage. All this is true and acceptable. Rather than be angry at what it does to you, with your bow, look at what it does to the enemy. It doesn't matter if they can end the condition with "trivial ease." Nothing can stop is unless their speed is zero, and if it's not, they still give up half of it. A speed of 30 becomes 15 for the next round. A speed of 40 becomes 20. It lets martial characters control the enemy's ability to move.
Don't let the name fool you. This doesn't have to be used on weapons, and it's not limited to humanoid creatures. You can make an animal drop something, or someone, in its beak or mouth. You can make a spellcaster drop their focus or component pouch. You can even make someone drop the MacGuffin you're after. IIRC, something like this happened in "A Heart Grown Cold" (Critical Role s2e113). But perhaps most importantly, why are you kicking the dropped item away when you can grab it for yourself? Or maybe you do kick it away─into the reach of an ally.
The tools exist for martial characters to take a complex, tactical approach to combat encounters. And if anyone isn't seeing these opportunities, do not lay the blame entirely on your DM. There is only so much they can do. As players, we owe it to ourselves to work together to create favorable conditions. If there are four players and only one DM, then there are four more people who can make that combat interesting. And if that's what you want, then you owe it to yourself to look for those opportunities and to seize them as they appear.
And if they don't pan out, if fate isn't on your side that time, then so be it. The "basic bonk" attack roll is just as prone to failure. But if we can't get out of our own heads and at least try, then we'll never see what we can really do. Just as we miss every shot we don't take, we fail every D20 Test we don't roll.
Crazy suggestion that is far from fully thought-out, but what if any character can replace their attack with a stunt of some kind? Not their "attack action," their ATTACK. That potentially means that stunts offer vastly better benefits to the multi-attack classes.
I honestly feel like some version of "combat stunts" is not only thematically appropriate for the martials, but sort of their defining feature. I am not sure what the ultimate expression of that feature is or looks like, but just as Experts are the game's premiere skill users, it seems to me the Martials should be the combat/stunt guys.
I think part of the problem with fighters being interesting in combat is that the types of combat they're designed to excel at are not very interesting. Generally speaking, the most interesting fights in D&D involve multiple opponents and are at high difficulty, with an expectation of burning significant resources. Fighters, being single target damage, are best against single opponents, and have quite limited resources they can expend to make themselves better.
Broadly speaking, the valuable non-damage combat actions in D&D tend towards doing one of the following:
Folks in this thread be like: "Hey fighters can do amazing stuff, like sacrifice their attack to try to shove, or, like... improvise something, I dunno, that may work or not. If the DM allows it at all, but hey, improvise. Also, fighters should be simple and not requiring you to learn a ton of rules. Except all the rules for possible interactions with the environment in case you want to improvise."
That's already how it works. If you attempt to Disarm someone, or are Shoving a Creature, you're making an attack.
If you can't follow the link, that's the first paragraph for Disarm in the DMG.
And this is the first paragraph for Shoving a Creature in the PH. If you have the Extra Attack feature, you're only giving up one of those attacks to make the attempt. And because they're not treated as separate actions, they still work with the Monk's Martial Arts feature. You can do this with your action and still make an attack with your bonus action.
At least for now. It's possible that'll change as more UA comes out. Presently, the DC to escape a Grapple is still set by the attacker's Strength. I suspect that'll change in a few months, with the Warrior Classes UA, but right now a monk could Shove someone easily─without a high Strength statistic or proficiency in Athletics. I've seen it happen.
Clarifying, I didn't just mean Shove/Disarm/Etc. And forgive me if my RAW recall is rusty, as I haven't had an active 5e game in a few years, and 3e (which I played longer) was rather more restrictive on the distinction between Full Attack and Attack. I now recall that being one of the things I very much liked about 5th, so thanks for that.
I still would suggest that characters should be able to do other cool stuff(TM) as part of their attack. Basically, they need more options than just "I attack." There could be a (relatively concise) list of "at-will" attack options that any character *can* use, but that the martials get to pick more of to be proficient at (proficiency bonus applies).
Something like:
Melee Attack
Ranged Attack
Defensive attack (increases AC for this round)
Disarming attack (Disarm potential)
Shoving attack (Moves opponent around battlefield)
Cleave (strike another target if you dispatch your opponent)
Hold the Line (damage any character who starts or moves adjacent to you)
Arrow Volley (lower damage area effect attack - ranged weapon required)
Etc.
This is just a suggested starting list, not comprehensive, and not fully thought-out. And yes, I have loosely based some of the suggested ideas on the old feats, because why not? My first thought was that any character could sacrifice their proficiency bonus to attempt the ones that aren't on their "list," but you probably wouldn't see a lot of that. The Martial classes would get both more maneuvers to pick from and more maneuvers they are proficient in.
The devil would be in the balance details, but in principle, they could function roughly like cantrips.
That seems more complex than necessary. And there's no good reason to limit these options to only a few classes. Literally any class can engage in ranged or melee combat. Looking at the "spellcaster" classes─bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard─five of them have solid options for weapon attacks. Four of them can even get Extra Attack or Multiattack. Only the sorcerer doesn't get anything by itself, but it can with the right build. They currently have access to quarterstaffs and light crossbows, so Magic Initiate (Primal─Charisma) for shillelagh is tempting. Combine that with some of the blade cantrips, and they're potentially very dangerous. There could be some changes with the way spellcasting foci work, but since backgrounds let you spend 100gp as you wish it shouldn't be hard getting a component pouch; should that be necessary.
In any case, most of those options are already available. Attacks come in four flavors: melee weapon, ranged weapon, melee spell, and ranged spell. Shoving is in the PH. Cleaving and disarming are in the DMG. Hold the Line is just the Sentinel feat. Arrow Volley was a hunter ranger archetype feature, but it's also wrapped up in two spells: conjure barrage and conjure volley. So all there really is to add is Defensive Attack. The Battle Master and Way of the Kensei have some version of this already. Whatever you propose, however, can't be better than simply taking the dodge action.
So what I'm reading here, Jounichi, is that the current fighter is absolutely pitch-perfect forever, there's absolutely no possible room whatsoever to change, modify, or improve it, and everybody should just accept that the entire Warrior group is Shining Golden Perfection and anyone who doesn't like them is just bad at the game?
Does that about cover it?
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Nobody said that. What we did say is that Fighter is good and well-liked as is. That doesn't mean it can't be improved of course, it just means that its popularity should be taken into account when making massive changes to it. And no, the entire Warrior group is not perfect, and it could use some changes. But taking away the most beloved simple martial option from it doesn't help make the Warrior group any better for the people who loved the class as is.
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HERE.Not even close. Nothing is perfect, so there's always room to improve. But improving something should require understanding any shortcomings.
The fighter, as is, is a popular class. It is, seemingly, well-liked by the community at large. If true, this would place you in a vocal minority. And it's not difficult to see why. Time and time again, we see people either misrepresenting or misunderstanding the rules of the game. Just earlier today, an article on my phone appeared from RPGBOT. It was about the Eldritch Knight, updated just the other day, and it still said that Great Weapon Fighting applied to the extra dice of booming blade. It doesn't, and that was settled in a Sage Advice answer from 2016. (Technically, it was about Divine Smite, but the same logic applies.) I don't know why that erroneous information is still found in the EK entry, but it is.
What is clear is the options for tactical combat exist. And you are willing to lay blame for shortcomings at WotC and at the DM. And both can be fair. WotC can only do so much. They can give us the rules, which are really more like guidelines, and empower us to make our own games. Likewise, the DM should be looking to create engaging encounters. Difficult terrain, hazards, illumination, and weather are all possible features of a battlefield. Not every monster will think in terms of high-minded tactics, but reasonably intelligent ones are more likely to. Either way, it's fair to say the monsters know what they're doing. Which is a wonderful book, and I suggest any struggling DMs pick it up.
But we aren't talking about WotC's rules, or what the DM is throwing at us, not really. We're talking about players not doing interesting things with their characters. And since they're the consistent end-point, we should be working backwards from the player. Because not every player has this problem. And neither does every DM. We need a holistic approach. If we're going to offer up suggestions to WotC, then we need to know all points of failure.
And that means looking inward. I know, self-reflection is hard. We don't always like what we see. Suck it up, anyway. Improvement may require asking ourselves some tough questions. So, what are some questions we can ask?
I think those are all fairly benign, actually. A real tough question might be, "Why am I not even trying to use these options?" And don't dismiss them with, "They don't work." That's not helpful. Show your work. Explain the points of failure. That way, we can offer suggestions to improve them.
Think like a designer.