One of the things I've noticed in a lot of discussions about the Fighter in 5e in this and other forums is that the capability to tank/defend is not there in comparison to where it was in 4e, to the extent that it can't really perform the role.
I'm not so sure, so I went through the PHB and tried to figure out how tanky a Fighter one could make. Now, I would be the first to admit that Protection Fighting Style isn't really that functional atm, given that its use of reactions interferes with opportunity attacks, and thus more than a few defensive feats.
However, I think there's a good bit of functionality in the Maneuver system:
- Goading Attack is actually a bit better than the 4e Fighter's mark, since Disadvantage is a bigger penalty than -2, and there's no interference between marks. It doesn't have the shift/interrupt functionality, but that functionality exists elsewhere.
- Menacing Attack is also quite useful, as it imposes Disadvantage against everyone and on ability checks as well as attacks and it won't willingly move towards you, which allows you a certain amount of battlefield control.
- Pushing/Trip Attack gives you some battlefield control vs. 1-2 targets.
- Also, you can use more Warlordy abilities like Maneuvering Attack and Rally to keep your allies safe.
In terms of Feats, a combination of Sentinel (hit on 0A drops speed to zero, w/in 5 feet Disengage still provokes OA, w/in 5 if attacks non-you can attack as reaction) and Polearm Master (bonus attack for butt end, creatures provoke OA when they enter your reach) allows you to goose opportunity attacks and boost the number of squares you can menace. Yes, it's a bit of a Feat Tax, but Fighters also get more chances at a feat for a reason.
To me, the main difference from 4e is the loss of strictly at-will tanking abilities like Tide of Iron, and some of the Encounter powers (although Maneuvers can make up quite a bit of the difference). But, and this is to me the important point, if Short Rests weren't an hour in duration and/or your Superiority Dice recharged every combat, such that we could assume a Fighter could use 4-6 Maneuvers per combat, I think we wouldn't be worried about the Fighter as a tank. (which suggests the issue isn't tanking per se, but the hourlong Short Rest)
However, I'll admit I didn't play a lot of 4e, so I may well be wrong.
Goading attack is a little obnoxious and very magical. Best used with a bow from well away from the party, or on a fast fighter who can hit and run. All in all fairly effective against 1 target.
The rest of the maneuvers are mostly useless.
All the maneuvers share a fairly shallow die pool which means you'll need to rest after pretty much every fight or not get to use this much.
At the end of the day, 5E's best tank is going to be a caster. There are no enlarged spiked chain wielding fighters withmassive reach, 10 OAs/turn with auto trip, effective mage slayer and a bag of special abilities.
Tank as in the MMORPG use of the term? No, thankfully WotC realized their pen and paper game wasn't a video game, and so now that stuff is up to the DM and how he imagines the monsters he is controlling think. Which is as it should be in my opinion.
"Tank" is part of the MMO holy trinity which grew out of the near total inability of MMOs to give rogues anything useful to do, and the need to artifically separate all the legs of that triangle (damage absorption/damage dealing/damage mitigation) which caught on in EverQuest and hasn't wholly left us since.
Don't get me wrong, I love MMOs, but Pen and Paper doesn't require that artifical construct. It's one of the things what worked well in 4e because 4e was the grid, period. The number of people playing 4e without a grid has to be such a laughably small number as to be nearly completely insignificant.
Remove that extreme miniatures game element and "tanking" returns to being an artificial construct.
MMO style? No.
Atheosis wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
The fighter is exceptionally tough - they get plate, shield, and fighting style; speccing one for defense yields a 21 AC before feats or magic, and the Champion subclass can get a second fighting style to improve offense or get a little area control going. The Battlemaster has Goading Strike, and the Eldritch Knight has abjuration spells plus all that toughness. So... no, the fighter's not going to tank like it's 2009, but I expect they'll outdo every other class in that specific role.
I'm a little disappointed by that - I liked the fact that 4e's defenders could actually single-handedly hold back groups of foes from reaching their squishy buddies - but the game as a whole is enough better that I can mostly ignore it.
GhostStepper wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Good placement and use of terrain can aid in tanking. I used to tank with my cleric in 4e without a mark simply by getting in the way of monsters who were going after weaker characters. No the fighter is not a MMO Taunt bot but they are enough of a threat to make ignoring them a bad decision.
Theory question: how did a fighter tank in AD&D? With no marks and no maneuvers, just some armor, hp, and a weapon (perhaps a shield)?
Dooflegna wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
The 4e fighter did not tank in the same way a MMO tank does. To even think that you must have a laughably incomplete knowledge of how 4e works.
In an MMO a tank gains "threat" which forces the monsters to attack the tank. In a pen and paper RPG, only spellcasters can force enemies to do anything.
In 4e a defender tanked in a completely different way. Their methods relied evilly upon battlefield control and punishment.
Punishment was the most obvious way 4e defenders "tanked". Marks or defender auras made attacking targets other than the tank suffer a penalty. This incentivized monsters to attack the tank, but they were still free to attack other targets. However, if they did attack other targets, they were susceptible to the defenders punishment mechanic (usually damage of some sort). This made the DM have to think whether or not the trade off of attacking the squishy target was worthwhile. Overall, that lead to more tactically interesting combats.
Now the other way defenders operated was through battlefield control. This took the form of Forced movement, knocking enemies prone, and reducing enemies speed. This was often more essential to successfully defending than the mark or punishment. Good use of these abilities allowed the defender to lock down multiple enemies.
The reason the 5e fighter can never match a 4e defender is due primarily to the fact that in 5e, you are limited to one opportunity attack per round. In 5e, even a sentinel fighter cannot lock down more than a single foe. On top of that, because the enemy suffers no penalty to attacks and OAs are much weaker than a full action attack, there is very little incentive to attack a 5e "tank".
Even the battlemaster maneuvers cannot help here. Menacing strike is nice and all, but it is too unreliable. First you need to hit your target, then they need to fail a saving throw. Oh, did I mention that it uses one of your superiority dice that you only have a few of per rest.
The 5e fighter is better than the 1e or 2e fighter at tanking, but is way far behind a 3e fighter built for tanking, and miles behind an actual 4e defender.
On a side note, a barbarian or bard make the best tanks in 5e. The totem barbarian at level 14 gets an always on "menacing strike" that doesn't require a saving throw. The valor bard can cast demand, warding bond, and other spells that are great for tanking.
In early editions you tanked by using terrain to your advantage. You sought out choke points to make your stand or you drew your enemy into ambushes using seemingly squishy targets standing in what appeared to be vunerable positions.
In short you use actual tactics rather than relying on your character having abilities that forced enemy movement.
The rule was always "You control your character and his actions, the DM controls everything else." There was no expectation that you could make any creature do what you wanted it to just because you felt like it.
Lawolf wrote:
Valdark wrote:
Centauri wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
Valdark has the right of it: Use terrain.
In dungeons stand in front of your weaker party members in a hall or doorway.
In the open get the high ground and attack from surprise.
Think things through and get clever rather than utilize wrote abilities that make it unnecessary.
Dooflegna wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
autolycus wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
4e had cooldowns, positioning, abilities which forced creatures to pay attention to specific characters, between combat regeneration...
You can call it a Japanese strategy game. Sure.
Or an MMO. :P
When I ran 4e all of my players, each of which had a history with botg JRPGs and MMOs, referred to 4e as being like an MMO.
And I'm not bashing 4e. I'm not saying AHMEHGERDIZSOBAD. I am merely saying that 4e is Cinderalla in this story. :P
I expect that in my campaign 5e "tanks" (fighter/barbarian/paladin types) are likely going to fulfill the same role those types did in 1e/2e when I ran games decades ago: a big, scary, hairy, angry handful whose mission in life is to get up in the face of anyone threatening the group and hammer them until they stop being a threat.
You don't need something as artificial as "threat" or "punishment" (Battlemaster has a maneuver to piss things off, I think, but whatever) to be effective as a burly melee. You just have to put yourself out there and roar a little while flailing about with your sword/axe/hammer. You're dangerous, you're in range, and if you stick to the critters like a bad rash, they'll have to deal with you.
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Tanking as in MMOs, no. But no fighter in any edition of D&D has been able to do that.
Tanking as in controlling the battlefield and redirecing focus of attackers on himself, somehow. Not at a great extent, but at least the Battle Master has some tools for that through maneuvers, altought they are weak, not relaiable (requiring both and hit and saving throw fail) and burn a scarce resource (Superiority dice).
The major problem in this area, compared to previous incarnations of the class, is the diminished effectiveness of Opportunity Attacks, which greatly impairs the 'stickyness' of the class. Once the single available OA (per round) has been used on a target, all other enemies are free to circle around the fighter in the round and go where they want. Also OA do not scale with levels, as they are not subject to multiattacks, so their damage becomes negligeable as a deterrant at high level.
Uskglass wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
I agree with TiaNadiezja that MMO tanking is different from 4E tanking, because the former builds up an aggro pool that forces the monster to always select the fighter (unless another player decides to do more damage or take over aggro), where 4E just offers a disincentive, but still allows a creature (DM) to make a choice. I do not consider it artificial, because a highly trained martial combatant in close range is going to make the opponent's choices count if they ignore the immediate threat.
I do agree the tools the fighter has at their disposal, including maneuvers, are a poor substitute for implementing any type of battle field control.
Dooflegna wrote:
I wouldn't like MMO-style tanking. But tanking mechanics that aren't artificial gamey constructs with a half-decent fluff would be really nice to have.
But I don't see that happening in a game that only allows one opportunity attack per round, especially when your opportunity attacks deal crap damage. If an opportunity attack deals about as much damage as a fighter's full round of attacks, it's scary. If it's at most 20%.... No comment.
Gnarl wrote:
A round of combat is an artificial gamey construct.
Uchawi wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Valdark wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
In pre3e, a fighter tanked by standing in a doorway or bridge, not dying, and killing stuff while the rest of the party ranged attacked it to death.
There was nothing elegant about it. It was like Diablo 2. A 5e style fighter could do that.
Dooflegna wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Aren't all of the arguments about D&D vs. MMO tanking beside the point? Regardless of one's opinion about what constitutes "tanking," the OP's question is "Can the 5E fighter have the same/equivalent effects on enemies as the 4E fighter?"
Based on the responses here, sounds like the answer is No, which is a shame.
Atheosis wrote:
tiballagher wrote:
Valdark wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
kev777 wrote:
Centauri wrote:
The default for many monsters, in every edition, is just to fight until killed. Those monsters have no incentive ever to stop attacking the wizard and attack the target they're most likely to hit.
Even monsters that will surrender or run when the tide turns have no incentive ever to face the fighter. They monster is less likely to hit and more likely to be hit if they engage the fighter, and more likely to hit and possibly even avoid being hit if they move to fight someone less armored. All the fighter can really do is either be a physical obstacle or ramp up their damage.
Whee.
Maybe this is why I almost never saw people play actual fighters before 4th Edition.
Anyway, there's always the defensive fighter option, where disadvantage is imposed on the enemy if certain conditions are met. That's all the marking mechanic is, really. I don't know how balanced or strong it actually is in play, but if I want to defend my allies I'll take that. As long as I have an option that doesn't come and go with the whims or ability level of the GM, I'm relatively happy.
Dooflegna wrote:
Also keep in mind, when crossing editions, "Tank" used to be a noun, as in "that fighter is a tank", now it is a verb, as in "I need to get up and tank this battle".
Centauri wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
kev777 wrote:
As many people said fighters right now don't tank in the 4E sense. I would argue that fighters have switched role to a survivable striker. However the system is new and WOTC made an effort to keep to base rules simple. I suspect the fighter will have more options for this as the game matures. Maybe in the DMG? or in a future "complete warrior" equivalent
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
SilentSin wrote:
kev777 wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
The original post misses one obvious 'tank' feature that is built in to both the paladin and the fighter base class. )ther people may have caugth this, and if so I apologize, I only skimmed the thread.
Fighting Style: Protection - When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.
After the big bad scary misses a few times because you stick your shield in front of your ally, they are likely to wisen up and start beating on you. This is similar in effect (but more powerful) than 4e mark's -2 to hit.
Valdark wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
kev777 wrote:
kev777 wrote:
we could look at the Wikipedia definition of tanking.
A tank is a style of character in gaming, often associated with a character class. A common convention in real-time strategy games, role-playing games, Fighting Games and MUDs, tanks redirect enemy attacks or attention toward themselves in order to protect other characters or units.
Since this role often requires them to suffer large amounts of damage, they rely on large amounts of vitality or armor, healing by other party members, evasiveness and misdirection, or self regeneration
The fighter seems to have the 2nd pard covered.
The "redirect enemy attacks or attention toward themselves" is te tanking part that might be less wel developed.
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
kev777 wrote:
Consideirng 4e was inspired by systems like WoW's I find it pretty funny to claim it would have been hard to make a game system from, Dooflegna.
kev777 wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Centauri wrote:
kev777 wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Whether or not 4e or any edition is MMO like doesn't answer the asked question.
Can fighters tank.
To me the better question might be is tanking something we want in our D&D game. Honestly seeing in 4e that such an activity was expected really turned me off on the edition. Managing who the foes attack is a group effort not one I want to dump at the feet of any class or group of classes. Yes damage will if things go well be directed at your toughest members, fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, but it's up to everyone to make sure that happens. The thief and wizard will make sure they are not available as targets or make sure they are more challenging to get at targets, clerics will simply not be worth going after or be tough enought to take on what comes their way. Anyway I am not a fan of tanking in my D&D. Are you?
kev777 wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Rottle wrote:
h347h50 wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Here is a way to get a small amount of tanking viability for the fighter.
Guardian Fighting Style
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you may choose to reduce the number of attacks you make by 1 in order to adopt a guardian stance until the start of your next turn. While in this stances, the ground within 5 feet of you counts as difficult terrain for your enemies and all enemies within 5 feet of you have disadvantage on attacks against your allies.
This would make the fighter more sticky and incentivize enemies to attack the fighter, but the trade off is one fewer attack per round. Yes, from levels 1-4 a fighter that uses this style would make 0 attacks when they take the attack action.
h347h50 wrote:
SilentSin wrote:
Anyway, I'm done with the thread. 4e worked the way it did in an attempt to mimic popular games and draw in players from those games. How well that worked is questionable, but we have 5e now, and that doesn't include, at this time, the kind of "tanking" 4e players refer to.
4e is still a viable option for people to play. (People still play all editions. Folks not wanting to "upgrade" shouldn't.) Houseruling 5e is a viable option for anyone who doesn't care about AL. If people want 4e mechanics they should consider playing 4e or adding what they like to 5e.
ITT:
"My opinion on this subject is fact."
"No, the way I feel about this is actually the case."
"You foolishly do not accept my viewpoints as facts."
"Watch me not-so-subtly engage in edition warfare, you heathen."
"You're a four-syllable word because I'm so wordy."
Oh wait.. that's every thread on the forum...
h347h50 wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
h347h50 wrote:
Bluenose wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
SilentSin wrote:
CorwynnMaelstrom wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Cent I told you how. The tough guys make themselves the most available targets. Thieves and Wizard have to hold until the tough guys have the attention of the baddies either by use of stealth, flight, summoned beast thrown in the way, blink spell, whatever will make the nearby tough guy simply an easier choice to go after. The tough guys job is to be there in the face of the enemy making him a reachable target.
All classes rely on the DM not to be out to get them. Do you not trust your DM to want you to have fun playing your character? Do you run across ones that seek to wreck your fun often?
I do understand those who love 4e in part seem to love it because every action and it's results are more clearly spelled out and that is great for those who want it and enjoy it that way. Me I play with friends and I trust the DM to want me to have a good time and work with me in pulling off what I try to. He might make it really hard but he will work with me, I know I once threw horse droppings at a dragon to get him to attack me over the wizard, and the DM thought it was a hoot let me know the dragon was now threatening to eat me twice....
Atheosis wrote:
I consider positioning and roleplaying to be enough to make someone the "tank" as long as they do it smartly enough. 4E is definitely more apt for those wanting a mechanical representation of something like that, though. Chalk this up to a playstyle choice. Could easily see a Feat or custom subclass for those wanting a more 4e-style "defender" archetype.
The_Jester wrote:
spelley wrote:
The whole debate is moot when they could easily include a single balanced multi-target tanking ability that does not interfere with the action economy, does not have any "mind control" elements, and fits in perfectly with the fighter archetype.
As a matter of fact, look at that! They gave it to bear-totem barbarians at level 14. Make that a feat: "Menacing Stance: When you use an attack action, you may give up one of your attacks to grant hostile creatures within 5 feet disadvantage on all attacks that do not include you until the beginning of your next turn." Voila. No reason they couldn't have done this, unless they specifically wanted to nerf fighter multi-target tanking for some reason I'm unclear on.
Atheosis wrote:
You guys are all talking past each other.
4E is similar to MMORPG's with regarding to "tanking" in Concept. But it does not go any further than that.
4E operates on a whole different set of mechanics from MMORPG's. When I tank in an MMO it feels different to me than I tanked as either a Fighter, Paladin, or Warden (the 3 tank classes I played). If you or your players are so stuck on concept that you ignore the differences in how it works mechanically you will lose something in that translation and you will enjoy it less. This is ALL a matter of perspective. I Very much enjoyed tanking in 4E, in fact much more than I have ever enjoyed tanking in an MMO.
I have also played in groups where there was no tank. The so called tank was a Great Weapon Fighter. We basically had people going down in every fight. It was much much more difficult. Now, I haven't done more than a bit of playtesting in 5E but this seems to be the same thing that is happening when people play 5E from levels 1 - 3.
As for the OP's question. You can sort of tank in 5E but you have to use manevers and be creative in order to have any level of success. 5E mechanics for tanking fall FAR short of mechanics for tanking in 4E and even falls short of good feat builds for fighters from 3.5. And for someone that enjoyed tanking in 4E, well 5E is less good for that, or I should say, less fun for me. Sadly.
edwin_su wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
tiballagher wrote:
Grand_Theft_Otto wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
It should be noted that ALL classes in 4e had more control powers. Not just fighters.
Rogues could also imobilize, blind, do AoE attacks, ect...
5e has less tactical optonis across the board.
Vikingkingq wrote:
Rottle wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
kev777 wrote:
kev777 wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
CVB wrote:
Gunthar wrote:
Centauri wrote:
I don't need my fighters to defend. Truth be told, I was one who was surprised that 4e fighters were only defenders, and I was a bit disheartened that some of the fighter ideas I came up with in 3.5, like the one who used two weapons and a bow and took all the ranger feats from BOTH trees before the ranger got them from one, and the lightly armored fighter, didn't really work in 4e. I made due, and the 4e fighter is still my favorite incarnation of the class.
Why?
Because I didn't need the GM to make my fighter capable compared to the other classes, and I didn't have to worry that the GM would make my fighter incapable, compared to the other classes.
I don't care what the 5e fighter is capable of, as long as it makes the class worth playing and can't be taken away by the GM.
Gunthar wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Gunthar wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Valdark wrote:
I didn't read this whole thread, but I feel the need to say this stuff. Mainly because the first few responses are reactionary and, IMO, somewhat disrespectful to the OP.
You know, it's really unfortunate that so many of you just hate.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to build a 'tank' fighter, and there's nothing wrong with using 'MMO terminology' to discuss a TTRPG. D&D has influenced and informed video games for decades. It's logical and appropriate for D&D to make that relationship symbiotic. It's good for both genres, and the general hobby of gaming. Which we all have in common, despite our myriad of differences.
Seriously, though. Talk about being myopic, judgemental, selfish, and stubborn... (facepalm) It's exactly these attitudes, and how some express them that taints the hobby with bilious exclusionism. This is the main reason why TTRPGs aren't more popular. Newcomers are driven off before they can even roll up PC and play.
- A) like it or hate it, it's a valid and interesting build, and many enjoy it in their games.
- B) it's sad WotC didn't acknowledge that fact for the PHB. Although, we will probably see it in a splatbook.
- C) nothing is badwrongfun
- D) having it in the game does not mean you have to use it or allow it when you DM.
Some of you need to realize that everyone is entitled to the game they want to play. Leave it at that. One last thing: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Constructive criticism is one thing; thinly vailed edition warring and juvenile 'my game is better than your game because: reasons' is a completely different beast.
For all of those this doesn't apply to: I love you. Keep being you.
Centauri wrote:
Centauri wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Centauri wrote:
flamepheonix182 wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Centauri wrote:
kev777 wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Gnarl wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Unless already mentioned, a well armored and protected Defensive Fighter using Dodge and occupying a good position to keep enemies from passing would do well (though dangerous as it should be) to assist allies in need. More Blocker than Tank, a term I never did like much.
Sofax wrote:
spelley wrote:
Pluvious wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Pluvious wrote:
I had a tank get blown up by the A10 spell.
When I get around to playing a 4E and a 5E fighter for comparison I will get back to you. My rogue/wizard seems to attrack a lot of nasties though.
I'm quite happy with what they've done in terms of allowing for a "tanking" type of character, coming in somewhere between 3e where I don't think there were many options aside from some very specific narrow builds and a 4e where I think it was a bit too automatic, system focused, and quasi-magical feeling.
My only notion would possibly to have an option with a feat or a class ability for the Fighters that would possibly allow them to have a method of getting an extra reaction.
I do like the notion of making the space around the character count as "difficult terrian" (terming it like that as opposed to making the ground itself "difficiult") as some kind of class feature or feat.
Pluvious wrote:
Zyph wrote:
Gnarl wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
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Centauri wrote:
Pluvious wrote:
flamepheonix182 wrote:
Pluvious wrote:
Pluvious wrote:
kev777 wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Vikingkingq wrote:
seti wrote:
Centauri wrote:
In the concept of tanking that I understand - blocking the enemy from getting at your squishies - the game fully supports fighters tanking. Fighters have been tanking since 1e in my games, very effectively in fact.
If you mean the specific mechanic of marking and such which for some people introduced the idea of tanking in 4e, then no I don't think 5e is as effective. I never felt marking was needed to tank.
I think bad DM's metagaming is probably one of the reasons some people never felt they could tank.
arderkrag wrote:
VeroMaestro wrote:
kev777 wrote:
Wow, this thread blew up when I was away.
A few thoughts:
The MMO Question: I honestly find a bit silly.
- The entire MMORPG genre was highly, highly influenced by D&D. To the extent that "aggro" exists as a mechanic, it's largely an attempt to automate a DM. So given that, I don't see why MMO is an argument against a functionality or ability; artistic mediums borrow from one another all the time, so why not borrow something if it's a good idea?
- There's quite a lot of tanking mechanics in MMOs that have nothing to do with threat/aggro, especially in PVP-oriented MMOs. For example, in the late Warhammer Online, Dwarf tanks gained power to fuel their abilities if you hit their friends, Black Orcs focused on debuffs/stuns/knockdowns, Knights and Chosen used auras to protect their allies and ward off enemies, Swordmasters and Black Guard had debuffs that made you less effective if you didn't attack them, and the latter got more powerful by taking and dishing out damage. So aggro isn't required.
- To me, tanking simply means "protecting your allies." Fighters have been doing that in 4th, they certainly could do it in 3rd although it was difficult, had a feat tax, and generally involved spamming a particular exploit. Certainly, in AD&D 2nd and AD&D 1st I tried to tank as a Fighter because I had more HP and a better AC - it was just much harder to pull off. Hence the idea of Fighters having abilities to help them do that. So to the extent that both MMOs and TTRPGs have groups of players, some of which might want to protect the other, you'd expect to find it in both places.
Goading Attack: hardly magical. You try to trick someone into attacking you; they get a Will save to figure out that it's a trick. Magical would be if they didn't get a save.
Limits of 5e Tanking: what jumps out to me is how much we're talking about the limits on the Battlemaster as a whole, due to the dice pool only refreshing on an hour-long rest. If the dice refreshed at the end of your turn as they did in the past (even if that meant dropping the die size to keep the damage-added down) or if the short rest was closer to the 5-minute rest, I think the Fighter would be quite capable as a tank - being able to mark or fear or trip 4-6 enemies would generally get the job done in most fights. Right now, we have the odd situation where Fighters have to manage their Maneuvers like spells without generally having the same impact of spells.
The Opportunity Attack limit: while I get the desire for devs to avoid the action economy blowing up, I do think that there might have been a space for a high-level Fighter ability that allowed to get closer to 4e's one-per-turn rather than one-per-round.
Re Grids: I find it odd that people are saying grids weren't important/used in older editions, given that a lot of the measurements used in AD&D1e for example were in inches as on a battlemap.
@Rattle - yeah, I'd like the option of being able to tank; it's a good option to give the Fighter an important role on the battlefield without just upping DPS, which might unbalance other parts of the system like monster HP.
Vikingkingq wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Vikingkingq wrote:
People who rebut with "show me the evidence" sound like Wendy Wright. It's a go-to for people who can't substantially contribute to a debate. Just adding that to the mix so someone can ask for a citation on it and I can laugh.
kev777 wrote:
CVB wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
Ignoring the flaming over 4th ed, fighters can tank.
I've got a fighter with 19 AC (defensive fighting style, shield, chain mail). My monsters are having trouble hitting him, however he forces them into doing so by using the terrain and providing cover for allies (bumping their AC). I've played 3 games of 5th edition using the battlemat for most fights. First group died when they stepped out into an ambush and didn't hold a choke point upon realizing they were surrounded. 2nd group were doing amazingly well as they had the monsters in a choke point (trapped in a room). Second the monsters retreated and goaded the PCs into entering we had a near TPK. 3 out of 4 players dying, the last player held the choke point and barely survived. Third group gave 14 dwarves ( CR1/2 dwarves), warning that they were attacking their stronghold, so they prepared defenses. Using choke points built into the map of the stronghold they goaded the players into an open area where they had cover and could make ranged attacks before retreating to additional choke points. It limited the number they could face at once. When the PCs fought on the dwarves terms I burned through 3 Life Domain clerics worth of healing and downed 3 of them. When the survivors retreated into a choke point they gained an upper hand when the dwarves gave chase and defeated the encounter.
Terrain often hampered the PCs in Pathfinder. Terrain hampered the PCs in 4th ed where you were better off with open fields to utilize all your powers. Terrain, cover, choke points all matter in 5th edition where it can mean the difference between TPK and overcoming ridiculously CRd fights.
i'm starting to get what the older edition people mean about budgets being worthless. Terrain matters more than budgets.
Valdark wrote:
Darth_Caffeineus wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
Unfortunately fighters really can not tank in 5E like they did in 4E and as an old school gamer (2E is when I started) I think this is bad change that is retrograde in nature. It is a shame that many people do not realize a lot of the changes that 4E implemented were done because of numerous complaints, house rules, etcetera that existed over the years regarding certain disliked componnets of DnD such as Vancian style magic and other things. One of the things that was a constant complaint was that although certain classes took on the tacit role of tank (yes roles always existed in DnD all 4E did was take the implicit and make it explicit) they have virtually no mechanic to enforce that role.
Thus any monster that was of average intelligence or even low intelligence but militarily savvy like hobgoblins, kobolds, goblins, and other foes should by all rights simply maneuver around and ignore the tanks while focusing fire on the more squishy members of the party. Then once those party members are done focus fire on the tank. However, most DMs realize that if they did this the game would be filled with routine TPKs which are no fun, so MOST DMS simply ignored the fact that the tank was easily avoidable and via Deus Ex Machina had monsters engage with the brick/tank or focs on this big threat rather than ignoring it and actually usng tactics the way they should. 4E saw this issue and corrected it.
5E now brings the same problem back. Yes, there is "protection" mechanic for fighters but 1) it doesn't impose any real stickiness like stopping an opponent from moving away and so forth and 2) it only works against an opponent who literalliy standing righ beside the fighter. The main problem with that is protection as a feature is usually done to guard the less resilient party members like wizards as an example. So, why would a wizard be standing up in melee right beside the fighter? This feature maybe great in an ambush or something like that (but even then I don' see how within the groups marching order why the wizard would be up near the fighter), but in all practicality this feature is junk.
I hope the DMG does offer better tactical variants that what is in the core book.
Fallstorm wrote:
Wow, so much of this discussion has made me realize something. It dawns on me that a lot of people treat roleplaying and combat at two separate "games" for lack of a better term.
That's really the difference between 2nd edition and earlier, versus 3rd and beyond. Combat from 3rd edition on became about rules tactics, character builds and whatnot, leaving roleplaying by the wayside. 4th edition basically spoon fed you "roleplaying" attacks by putting flowery descriptions on them (and in a lot of cases made the power make no sense at all in the situation it was being used in).
Back in 2nd edition and earlier, if my fighter wanted to protect a party member I would simply say to the DM, "I'm protecting the mage, I'm going to intercept any monsters that get close if I can and stick to him like glue." Or the mage would say "I'm using the fighters as cover, I'll be trying to keep the fighters between me and the monsters." The DM would take that information and use it to play out the scenario appropriately.
Someone saying "the 5th edition fighter can't tank" is locked in a mentality that if you don't have a power within the rules to stop an enemy, that there's nothing that character can do to stop them.
You don't need a power to tell you that you can stop an enemy from moving past you, all you have to do is say "I'm fighting this monster and my goal is to prevent him from getting past me." A good DM will play the monsters logically with that information in mind.
Same thing with people saying "all a fighter can do is swing his sword" - equally ridiculous. A character is only as boring as you decide to play him, and only as limited as your roleplaying allows him.
Atheosis wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
thehobb wrote:
There are rules to do things. They're ability checks. You could always write out a card, give the heading a green title and print it off and you've now got an atwill power. Yes, they're less powerful then 4th ed powers. Everyone also has less HP.
Ability checks fall under DM fiat, because each DM will use them differently in respect to when to use them, how they may be used, and what effect they have. While it is perfectly acceptable for power like abilities to be granted via spells. There is not reason why martial characters can not have a robust maneuver system, that still pays homage to spells being more powerful, and still allow ad-hoc ability. But the developers chose tradition as the main driver when it came to a fighter, and it is hard to allow for a complex fighter with alot of flexibility when the baseline is a simple fighter that can not be overshadowed by other fighter subclasses.
Ability checks fall under DM fiat, because each DM will use them differently in respect to when to use them, how they may be used, and what effect they have. While it is perfectly acceptable for power like abilities to be granted via spells. There is no reason why martial characters can not have a robust maneuver system, that still pays homage to spells being more powerful, and still allow ad-hoc ability. But the developers chose tradition as the main driver when it came to a fighter. It is hard to allow for a complex fighter, with alot of flexibility, when the baseline is a simple fighter; that can not be overshadowed by other fighter subclasses.
JohnLynch wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
Of course they can tank.
Their higher ac, and hit points let them stand longer, yet bounded accuracy makes every PC a bit more vulnerable. Therefore, the game feels different. As people play, they will get used to that.
Fighters can can position themselves to intercept or block choke points, they can second wind as a bonus action to keep standing at least 1 more round. As they gain multiple attacks they can trip and attack, or grapple multiple foes. They can use battlemaster maneuvers. They can shove, use protection style..and more. There are also feats. Play a 1st level human variant with sentinel feat.
Overall, yes, fighter can tank, but due to the nature of the game the tank isn't invulnerable.
PCs find it very hard to stay standing in a world without good defenders. Monsters know quickest way to die is for them not to focus their attacks on a single creature. At every reasonable opportunity, all monsters attack one creature (PC) until they are down, preferring to gang up on the one that looks the easiest to hit. If they know spells exist, the incentive is even higher to attack spell casters (not just because they looks easier to hit) so they can stop area of affect powers asap. Even monsters with little intelligence have adapted to know this is the best strategy to survive and thus it is inherent instinct (because the ones that didn't are dead). Note, PCs tend to use this strategy as well in every fight.
DM12345 wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
DM1234 wrote:
DM12345 wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Darth_Caffeineus wrote:
In 5e spell casters and range attackers can move out of cover attack and move back behind cover. Melee pcs can guard them.
There are also spells and abilities that help casters survive attacks (flare, shield, etc. ) or even deal damage as reactions (tempest cleric wrath, etc.). Sometimes it isn't a great idea for a monster to directly attack the caster.
That said, I'd love to see a feat that would grant a PC more than 1 attack of opportunity.
DM12345 wrote:
thehobb wrote:
Ahglock wrote:
autolycus wrote:
DM12345 wrote:
Lots of people are worried that 5e will not allow a fighter to tank. Well, bounded accuracy certainly makes all PCs a bit more vulnerable (as it does for monsters too), and it will change the way the game feels, but it is certainly possible to play a battlefield control or protection fighter in 5e.
The fighter is actually the most versatile class; here’s just a few reasons why:
Attack with weapon of choice, 1 handed or 2 handed (for versatile weapons or use 1 hand or 2 handed weapon – switch for free as you move).
Duel wield to get 2 attacks instead of 1.
Block passages and choke points.
Dodge while engaged to become very difficult to hit.
Grapple an enemy to prevent it from moving (and make it easier for others to hit as well).
Shove to push or knock an enemy prone.
Use second wind to regain hit points as a bonus action to keep fighting when low on HP (1/short rest)
At 2nd level, action surge for a completely new set of actions (1/short rest)
At 3rd level, become a Battlemaster and gain 3 maneuvers. Use 4 of them before you need to rest to replenish your superiority dice. At 7th you have 5 maneuvers to choose from and 5 uses/rest, at 10th level you have 7 maneuvers to choose from and 5 uses/rest, at 15th level you have 9 manuvers to choose from and 6 uses/rest.
(Most lower level combats last between 2-4 rounds. Therefore, you can use 1 in each of 4 combats, or use 2 in 2 combats, or use them all in one long and dangerous combat – Most adventures give PCs a chance to rest after 4-6 encounters so there won’t be many combats where a Battlemaster can’t do something special to turn the course of the encounter).
Battlefield control and protection maneuvers: commander’s strike (especially works well with rogue companion), goading attack, maneuvering attack, pushing attack, rallying attack, sweeping attack, trip attack…also Lunging attack can be used to help you reach a foe that threatens a nearby companion, and evasive footwork can give you a chance to move out of threat to reposition yourself closer to an ally that needs help.
Use protection style as free action to grant ally advantage vs. attacks.
Stand in front of an ally to grant some cover (effectively +2 to ally’s ac).
Be a human using feat variant. Gain sentinel feat, heavy armor mastery, martial adept (gain an extra superiority die and more maneuvers), use the charge feat to dash to foes that threaten your allies and do more damage if you hit (that will get the foe’s attention), use shield master to push foes away from your allies.
Acquire any of the above feats at 4th level to enhance your ability to control the battlefield or protect your allies.
Well…there is a lot you can do, I’ve spent 15 minutes thinking about it, and that’s all I’ll devote to this topic.
If you want to be a battlefield control/protection melee PC, you can do it with 5e.
Most of all, please play the game and try some of this before you condemn the 5e fighter. It plays well. That’s what’s important.
I've said it before, but I think it bears repeating: we won't really know how well the 5e fighter can tank until we see the "tactical combat module" the devs promised us. That module may increase your number of reactions per round, or it may change reactions to once per turn; it may cause an opponent to provoke an OA for moving within your reach, or it may force enemies to treat moving in an enemy's reach as difficult terrain to avoid an OA.
Frankly I don't think Fighters are primary tanks in 5e.
Looking at the PHB they're more like 4e strikers, with the option to add defender traits.
My impression is that Bearbarians are the defenders.
Battlemaster is a joke for anything other then dealing damage.
Far too few manuver points
needing an hour to recover them makes them even more scarce
manuvers are underwhelming, don't scale, and several require muttiple rolls to be effective
The class does not have robust mechanical ways to reliably stop muttiple enemies from moving or imposing signficant disensentive to not direct attacks against other party members
utterly fails to exert battlefield control that is even close to what 4E fighter can do with its class features or what could be done with 3E fighter built out of PHB using spiked chain.
Also fails as a "complex" fighter class.
Just look at Battlemaster veruses level one warblade (3E complex fighter class).
Warblade at level on has one at will stance, and 3 maunuvers they can replenish in combat by making a basic meele attack
And at first level warblade has option to use feat to gain new manuvers or stances
the class then gains more manuvers and stances as they level and manvers and stance grow in power by level.
A 20th level battlemaster is still using the same manuvers as 3rd level battlemaster
absoulutly pathetic
You can't compare 5e PC to a PC in prior editions. 5e PCs have to be balanced within the 5e framework against the other 5e Pcs.
The designers said that they were striving provide subclasses in PHB that would allow charecters to be built in the style of prior editions, for example a TSR simple fighter and 3E/4E complex fighter.
So I think it is a fair comparision and criticsim to point out that the "complex" fighter really fails to provide a mean to play a charecter that at least vaugely emulates other edions.
It's great that fighters can do a lot of damage in this edition, it just sucks that they can't do other things that fighters have been doing in D&D for the last 10 years or so.
Darth_Caffeineus wrote:
Darth_Caffeineus wrote:
Darth_Caffeineus wrote:
Ghaliyah wrote:
Atheosis wrote:
AtomicPope wrote:
With proper use of terrain and positioning I feel that the Totem Barbarian is a great protector of his allies.
Half Orc-1 extra crit die, can refuse to go down to 0 one time before a long rest.
Barbarian-Battelfield mobility, advantage vs dex saves, advantage on initiative, brutal critical (stacks with orc), relentless rage (can refuse to go down to 0 even more), Max str and con 24.
Totem Warrior- Bear (Half damage vs all except psychic), Eagle (Superior vision, No disadvantages on perception checks), Bear (If an enemy attacks someone next to you, it has disadvantage).
Polearm for reach and two handed (battlefield control).
Feats: Polearm master (gain an extra attack for 1d4, creatures who enter your reach provoke an attack). Sentinel (When you hit a creature that provokes your opp attack, it must stop moving for the rest of it's turn. Creatures moving from within 5 feet of you provoke even if they disengage. If a creature within 5 feet of you attacks an ally you can attack them).
Add that all up and it's a pretty impressive build to get the job done and protect your allies while dishing out some nice damage as well. Team up with a mage that will cast mage armor on you and yea, your even tankier.
Not to mention the role play goodies you also get with consulting your spirit totems.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
thehobb wrote:
thehobb wrote:
While fighters definetly have less stickyness and control built in then they used to could that simply be a matter of the fighter class being a primary striker class in 5e rather than a defender?
rampant wrote:
The battle master especially does seem like it's trying to be too many things at once, and not doing a good job at any of them.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
That's why the 4e defenders worked, they didn't force the monster to fight them, they simply offered it a choice. 'You can ignore me if you want, but there's a consequence to doing so, so is getting at the squishies worth my punishments?'
The 4e defender punishes monsters for ignoring it but doesn't take their actions out of the hands of the DM. Or they have interceptor abilities that allow them to disrupt the monsters and keep them away from the squishies by putitng themselves in harm's way.
I mean if you can't disrupt the advance, and can't punish people for ignoring you, then you can't defend anyone, unless you deal damage to the point where it's more important to take you out, at which point you aren't the defender, you're the striker.
All the bulk in the world is useless without the ability to either disrupt or punish anyone who tries to eat your friends.
Roleplay has nothing to do with it, I'm a big smart, nasty dragon, and I'm confronted by a typical DnD party, I'm gonna fly over and eat the casters while the weapon users flail inefectively at my HP and Defense, sure they can deal damage but without the ability to disrupt me, they just don't have any tactical importance until their casters have been dealt with, or my hp drops to the redzone.
Why would the dragon do anything different if he's presumably at least as smart as I am and has possibly centuries of experience to draw lessons from? Unless the defender has some aility to disrupt or punish?
thehobb wrote:
To say nothing of the monster manual.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
What if Battlemaster could use superiority dice on AO? That would make them more formidable at protecting and controlling.
Additionally, if this type of reaction happened often enough, intelligent monsters would think twice about moving away from the fighter or any PC that looked like a fighter.
Rhenny wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
Gatt wrote:
thehobb wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
thehobb wrote:
The argument that a monster can move around the Fighter as long as it doesn't leave his reach to attack the Wizard is as stupid as that same Wizard who thought it was a good idea to stand within 15 feet of the Fighter. Why is the idiot Wizard hanging out that close to the front lines, pray tell?
Also, let's not pretend that 4e Fighters tied down entire mobs. Even after a Come and Get It, they could only punish one enemy around them for shifting or making an attack because an immediate interrupt was only once per round. Once they made that attack, all the other enemies they had marked were free to shift away and charge whomever they pleased. (Yeah, remember shift + charge being a big deal in 4e? I sure do! Charges were full speed + attack in 4e, too.)
GladiusLegis wrote:
@ Gladius, .... Um no see the fighter's ability was tied to opportunity attacks and while they only got one bonus opportunity attack per round from the ability, all characters got 1 opportunity action per other creature's turn, all of which benefitted from the fighter's defender tricks, so yeah fighters, especially the ones with multi-targeting abilities were able to lock down small groups of foes, one of the reasons I liked dragon born fighters was the ability to use their racial area affect on a mob and effectively form a 1 man wall for a turn.
Now other defenders like the sword mage or the paladin certainly suffered such limitations as you describe but generally made up for it in other ways.
Also it's not that you can lock down a ton of guys, it's thet you can lock down reliably enough that you actually earn the title defender.
rampant wrote:
Combat challenge was the marking vehicle, and granted a once per round interrupt attack that functioned as an opportunity attack.
Combat superiority allowed fighters to add wis mod to all of their opportunity attacks and nixed the movement of anyone who was hit by an opp attack.
The abilities combined to make the fighter a defender.
Gatt wrote:
rampant wrote:
rampant wrote:
Tia wrote:
Actually combat challenge specifically does trigger on a shift so if you hit ythe enemy is either forced to give up moving or spend it's action on additional movement in order to get away from you which will generally prevent them from attacking or at least prevent them from going all out since they lost an extra action getting away from you. That said shifting and charging was possible, but it didn't get rid of your mark if any, and you still had to deal with the normal risks such as drawing opportunity atacks, which in the case of the fighter came with the nasty combat superiority riders.
Also classes being able to do their job is far from a garantee, especially when some classes don't know what their job is, or cover so many jobs that they can't be really said to have one.
JohnLynch wrote:
The Shift + Charge issue in 4e was more of a designer oversight than weakness designed to limit ability.
rampant wrote:
Lady_Auralla wrote:
rampant wrote:
I dunno, unless the enemy was already to the back of the fighter then they'd have to charge through a square the fighter could get them with an opportunity attack (which did get the riders) to hit people behind them.since a charge forces a straight line, furthermore the mark still negated the charge bonus and then some.
You have a point about combat challenge attack being a normal attack, looked that up again and yeah it was a basic attack, but the opp attacks from a fighter were still brutal, and nothing says you couldn't opp attack a guy after nailing him with CC, assuming conditions are met.
Classes in 4e were not mapped to builds, they were assigned roles which was one of the strngths of the system and prevent exactly this kind of debate since a class's BASELINE job was defined they could be designed and evaluated to perform that function, this is why 4e classes were balanced they did their jobs and didn't try to be anything and everything, or overspecialize into uselessness.
Furthermore just because a class had a role doesn't mean that they were entirely lockstepped into that role, only that they would perform that function as long as you were keeping half your mind in the game, feat and build selection would allow you to add all sorts of cool tricks to your repetoire to make havy damage wizards, control oriented rogues, etc.
Now you don't have to do it that way, It ould be perfectly possible to make classes into general frameworks with role being determined inside class. For example fighters who use shields get defender powers while polearm enthusiasts get control oriented abilities, or maybe there are guardian fighters who defend and there are tempest fighters that deal damage.
You don't even have to use the 4e roles, though they seem a good set to me, but you have to go into designing a class with a pretty firm idea of what it's supposed to do, and just as importantly what it's not supposed to do.
JohnLynch wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
rampant wrote:
Tia wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Ghaliyah wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Charges had to move directly to the nearest square from which you can attack the enemy in 4e. Unless there is a physical block such as a pillar or something I don't see how that would allow you to make anything but a straight line.
Also interesting note, you apparently can't charge an ally.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
rampant wrote:
@OP
In the sense of "I hold ALL the monster's attention", no fighters cannot do that. But when you think about it, that's kind of a silly way to think about combat.
In the sense of "I can help disrupt the enemies actions and impede their ability to attack SOME of my allies", then yes they can. And quite well might I add. The Dwarf Fighter in my game uses his Shield Fighting Style reaction every turn if he can, and that alone has saved the group from 4 crits as of the 4th session last friday. He also just picked up sentinel and has put it to good use in the last couple of fights.
Attracting the attention of all the monsters IS possible, but not really sensicle if there's a mage hurling crazy spells from the backline.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
You know what, as I'm playing, I'm kind of liking that my wizard might be attacked even with a fighter and cleric trying to protect. Maybe, WoTC made fighters less sticky to keep a sense of danger in the encounters.
The wizard can move, pop out of cover and then hide behind cover, he can use Mage Armor and save Shield spell for when he needs to parry a deadly blow.
As is, all pcs share the responsibility to protect themselves and others. I like that.
Again, it's a play style thing so some will like it and others won't. I guess WoTC's research helped guide their decisions. I hope so.
JohnLynch wrote:
Please explain how the 4th ed fighter is more effective. Because you've just ignored the points made in the entire thread and gone "nah!"
JohnLynch wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
The problem comes from assuming the fighters are a threat, a lot of the time the bigger more magically powerful enemies like dragons, demons, giants, etc. simply do not care about the weapon users because they had DR and/or Regen so they could just teleport/reach/fly/or in the case of one particularly annoying stone troll one-hand grapple them and then forget about them while they deal with the rest of the party.
Sure a fighter or barbarian without some special goodies could eventually break through said defenses, but not quick enough to make them a threat compared to the wizard.
Also that example thread of 4e charge shennangins does't really give me any examples it just jumps to people raving about 4e using non-euclidean geometry and stupid charge paths without explaining what's going on.
The book says you have to move directly which maybe doesn't require a straight line in some instances but does seem unlikely to provide zig zags or curly cues around a fighter;s threatened space. Furthermore restricting most monsters to a charge in 4e is also useful because elites and solos generally relied on special multi-attack powers in order to really drive home how nasty they were.
Charges can only be used with basic melee attacks.
So yeah 4e defenders could and did mess people up, especially if you used a text book definition of directly.
THat said I don't think the 5e fighter is supposed to be a primary defender. I think they've repeated the mistake of 3e and tried to make the fighter a generalist class with customization options to determine it's combat role, and is being hindered by the customization options being underwhelming, or relying resources the fighter just doesn't have enough of (primarily reactions, though an extra bonus action or two would go a long way to making higher level fighters more interesting).
An ability like combat reflexes would go a long way to making the fighter more interesting.
Also how is it artficial to have warriors trained in pinning down enemies and controlling space, that's what pikemen were for back in the day.
JohnLynch wrote:
rampant wrote:
No, rogue is pretty clearly a striker.
While there is an excellent argument fo making role internal to class or independant from class, they are needed to some degree, and characters need to be able to perform their roles with a certain reliability. There needs to be a certain level of transparency so that players know ahead of time what kind of character they are making, whether taking this class feature option will make you more striker or more defender. Furthermore the class designers need to know this so when they create content the content does what it's supposed to do, we don't want a repeat of the 3e samurai and swashbuckler, or the bloody 3e artificer.
So no role doesn't need to be ingrained into class, but it needs to be somewhere, and people need to know where it is.
There are some misconceptions in this thread.
Fighter's were good at locking more than one enemy down because of marked targets could be punished on a shift or attacking another creature and more importantly their oppurtunity attacks stopping movement. When hit with an OA, a creature was then left with a few options for its standard action: hitting an adjacent creature (fighter or someone else), using the standard only to move, using the standard to charge another creature. The creature still has options, but the options all have downsides, where in cases with no defender in the engagement, pretty much any option looks good. It's soft control, nothing like what a wizard could do, and it did make combat interesting in a different way.
I don't know why people keep referring to Sentinel as "the marking feat."
It doesn't have any similarity to marks. All marks do is "-2 if you don't attack me." Other abilities are powered by marks, but they do nothing else on their own.
The Battle Master's Goading Attack is the closest thing to a marking effect in 5e so far, and it's really not that a mark either, just a debuff. And, it's got good flavor. Like you're yelling in his face, "bet you can't hit me, bet you can't hit me, neener neener neener." Also, this is what marks were flavorfully in 4e as well.
Sentinel takes a bit of the 4e Fighter's Combat Superiority and a little bit of the 4e Essentials Defenders punishment in an aura.
The first part is actually a little better than what 4e Combat Superiority does, which is "if they were moving, they stop moving." Sentinel making their speed 0 is superior. No +Wis mod, though, that part was awfully nice.
The second part of the feat, that says provokes happen even on disengage is more like the Knight (from Essentials). Creatures that shifted away could be punished as if they'd attacked a creature other than the knight. This is absolutely the stickiest feature in all of 5e that I can find. The difference here is that you don't use the punishment attack, you use an oppurtunity attack.
The third part works just like the Knight's aura + punishment features, except without the -2 from the defender's aura.
All that said, I agree with some here who think the Totem Barbarian has the best tanking ability. You could even run him 15Str/15Dex/15Con to get his AC through the roof. You could either run Shield + Quarterstaff (notice the Polearm Master feat does not require you to use two hands RAW) or Glaive/Halberd, Sentinel, Polearm Master, 3 or 4 classes in Fighter to also pick up the tripping manuever, the one that reduces damage done to you, and somethign else? I think in most situations you'lll use the trip manuever. It's a tiny itty bit like using Power Strike on the Essentials Knight, just proning instead of dazing.
I'm thinking of playing something similar to that. Fighter4/Barbarian16 just to see if it would be fun. Yeah, you're only sticking one enemy down, but you should be able to stick him there well. What's intersting and weird, though, is that you don't really want to use the Sentinel feat punishment attack for attacking a different creature, because then the target could move away. You want to use OAs to keep him sticky, really, unless you think you'll down him or still have a superiority die to prone with (which could give other melee allies advantage).
rampant wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
Adding multiple OA could break the game. With stuff like Savage Attacker and rogue sneak attacks, it could be a problem.
h347h50 wrote:
Hit points, AC, and backgrounds have very little to do with roles. While defenders tend to have better HP and AC, it's not a hard rule, look at the 4e barbarian, that was a striker despite great HP and solid AC.
Or you could have a defender mage class that focuses on warding it's allies, and might not have impressive defenses itself, instead relying on buffed allies to keep the nasty things away.
Role is pretty much all in the combat powers.
Savage attacker hardly seems a problem, but you have a point that rogues would love more OA's to sneak attack with. But not impossible to work around.
GhostStepper wrote:
h347h50 wrote:
By the way, I think this is becoming a very constructive thread. Well done folks.
Rhenny wrote:
The argument that "Well the monsters won't recognize Wizards on sight/won't just walk past the heavy armored guy" is silly when you consider how D&D actually works.
1. "They won't recognize Wizards" falls flat for multiple reason. If magic is common, then magic is common knowledge, would easily be recognized, and would be recognized as the huge threat it is, which means Wizards would take priority to down. In worlds where magic is super rare, any spellcaster would become instantly known because he'll be "That guy that nukes things with his mind," would be recognizeable after a few battles unless they genocide everyone in the area to hide his identity, and would become a huge target when they kepe the "nukes things with his mind" ability in mind.
2. Monsters can just walk right past the big guys, and smart ones will because they'll quickly realize that the big armored guy can do very litttle to stop them from just walking past him and poking the squishies to death.
Also, weekly reminder that MMOs whole "Tank" thing was inspired by D&D, so calling 4e Defender mechanics "MMO-like" is just saying "4e's defender mechanics were D&D inspired."
THe action economy is already pretty imperiled by animate dead, I think the fighters should have some of the fun.
The problem is sneak attack getitng out of hand, this was why they lowered the damage in 4e, it was really easy to get extra shots.
I also, as a player and a DM, don't want the lack of options on what the monsters attack. Using tactics and cool situational abilities feels like you accomplished something when you used your brain to solve a problem. You, as a player, feel like you did something cool, whilst the DM doesn't feel like his options were limited too badly.
On the other hand, the ability to completely prevent movement to the backline creates a very binary experience. It becomes a game of the DM putting in challenges that can either bypass the frontline to even threaten the backline, which makes the frontline feel bad. Or the backline is never reached and the sense of danger in the battle is greatly impaired. Whilst the second option may feel good the first few times, this kind of FOO (First order optimal) strategy gets old quickly, and leads to the DM either going with the first option of bypassing the frontline or pitting them up against something that can just overpower the frontline. Neither are favorable outcomes for the players involved.
The one ting D&D doesn't need is less dynamic combat :P
GhostStepper wrote:
No one is saying that the defender has to absolutely stop the monster in it's tracks every time, Jenks. it just has to be annoying enough that the decision of whether to bypass or deal with it is an actual decision, not a forgone conclusion. Paladin and Swordmage were also defenders in 4e and they didn't stop the monster form moving around.
Furthermore the monster should have abilities that make life hard for the defender too, shifts, pushes, multi-targeting attacks. Monsters shouldn't be static sacks of HP anymore than th eplayers should.
h347h50 wrote:
Defender tricks don't have to be OA based, they're just the easiest way.
thehobb wrote:
h347h50 wrote:
Jenks wrote:
Wanting a fighter that's a better defender than the 4th ed one seems to be raising the bar to an unrealistic level. Spellcasters are less powerful than prior editions. Healing is less powerful than prior editions. There is no reason to expect WotC to make defenders even more powerful given I never heard the view expressed that they were too weak in 4th ed.
JohnLynch wrote:
There is definetely a balance to be struck, the defender can't be too efficient, the monster has to be dynamic enough to be interesting, the mage can't be utterly defenseless witout a meatshield, at the same time the fighter has to do something besides delaing a mediocre amount fo damage every turn or they're just not worth playing.
rampant wrote:
Yay, a derailed, edition-warrish thread turned back on a constructive track! 
I'd like to discuss what the current "defenders" actually can to do protect their allies. Besides the many uses of the single reaction, what options do you have on your turn? Even at first level couldn't you "control" enemies by grappling them? If you are willing to sacrifice oomph for defender abilities, you could fight with one hand free for grappling and use your weapon hand to punish moving creatures with your reaction. That impairs two enemies. At 5th level, you could grapple one, knock one down, and use reaction against a third enemy, given proper positioning. I like this style as it really capitalizes on the Versatile weapons. It's a shame the Protection fighting style now requires a shield, otherwise you could be a free-hand protector with quite a bit of control/mitigation.
With Action Surge (comparable to something inbetween encounters and dailies from 4E), you can at 5th level knock down a lot of enemies, and since you can move between attacks they don't have to be that grouped. Can you make OAs when prone? I suppose you can, so that's a drawback to the mass proning and moving.
I think, that even with decreased stickyness, there is value in making enemies waste a lot of their time getting back on their feet. Melee allies will also love hitting them while they're down.
What other options are available without house ruling?
I was thinking about the idea that if a creature/pc want to move out of someones reach without using disengage they need to make an opposed check (Dex Vs Dex maybe there are good arguments for Str and Wis as well) on a success yo can keep moving on a fail you have to stay for that round and try and extricate yourself next round. This way it is not based purely on one class, its not 100% effective but it gives classes that are good with combat/mobility a good chance on both sides of the equation. This also still keeps Sentinel feat useful.
Lady_Auralla wrote:
True but it fits exactly for the 2 main criteria for rolling a) When the outcome is not assured either way and b) There are consequences for both sucess and failure.
Rhenny wrote:
Opposed rolls though make the character abilities relevent which in this case they are.
Lady_Auralla wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
For controlling the battlefield beyond Sentinel: Knocking a creature prone halves it's movement (meaning allies only need to be 20 ft away most of the time). When you get multiple attacks you can do this to multiple foes making you quite sticky.
The Sentinel feat plus the Polearm feat plus Battle Master's Trip Attack is decent.
But again, you're probably only locking one creature down. You could spread the trips around on your turn, which would limit them on their next turns. If combats are always pretty quick this might not be so terrible.
There is the goading attack maneuver for Battlemaster too. (disadvantage attacking anyone but the fighter on failed Wis save).
The maneuvering attack could also allow a squishy to move 1/2 as a reaction. That might work in some situations).
Even the pushing attack could work...pushing the foe 15' away from the squishy on a failed strength save.
Personally, I like the good old standard grapple. (I know someone else mentioned this) Without a weapon, the fighter could probably even atttempt to grapple two separate foes (duel weapon attack). If the foes don't break the hold, they can't move. That's pretty strong control.
IxidorRS wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
Lokiron wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Um how is not tactically smart to circumvent the infantry and take out the artillary. Especially for monsters like dragons or giants that are a pain to kill with conventional weapons and know that, to say nothing of having tricks like flight and reach, or demons and their teleporting? Without some method of punishing or controlling that is exactly what any of the higher order monsters with brains should do, because the 'defender' classes generally don't have the pure damage output to be a real threat on their own.
Rhenny wrote:
rampant wrote:
Two big problems with your approach:
1. Then what are tanky types for? Seriously without the ability to interfere with the enemy's options what purpose do you serve unless you deal insane damage? You literally have no influence on the fight because without the ability to force people to pay attention to you or deal out heaps of damage or conditions you're just not important enough to bother with until the rest of your party who can do those things is dead.
If I have a choice between getting cut up a bit by a sword and eating a fireball to the face I'll take the cut and stop the fireball, or the acid arrow, or the finger of death, or the polar ray. Even though that puts me in a bad spot with the sword guy, becasue then it's just the sword guy, who can't force me to hang around and fight if I don't want to, or blast me with an elemental weakness or trap me in a cage or invisible force, or turn me into a trout. Of course that's assuming I can't use some wierd power like flight or speed or reach or teleport or Damage reduction to just get around/ignore the tank while I wipe the squishies.
All the bulk in the world doesn't mean jack if the other guy has no reason to attack you first.
And as long as you can't punish or control or deal tons of damage there's no reason to attack you first. Even offing the rogue is more important since he can unload mega damage, and he's easier to kill.
Eveyone else in the game, even some of the monsters gets to exert control and force the other side to alter tactics to deal with them, that's part of playing a game with a tactical component and varied characters instead of everyone being a checker. Why should the tanky guys be any different?
2. The concept of 'defenders' pre-dates video games to say nothing of MMOs, it goes all the way back to the first time an archer or a spear man hid behind someone with a close range weapon. Body gaurds train specifically to pre-empt and interdict threatsto their charges, and DnD was using the idea way back in the old days when improperly disengaging from a fighter meant drawing all three of his attacks on your arse.
Rastapopoulos wrote:
The problem being that tanky types generally aren't badass fighters, their damage runs towards mediocre. The most immediatel lethal weapon based damage dealer right now seems to be the rogue.
The ones with the ability to RELIABLY do things besides damage that punish and control enemies that would otherwise ignore them are the best 'tanks'.
I'm trying to look at this from a different angle.
We are generally thinking about OA as the main tool for 'defending', so now that their frequency and scaling are dimished we find the defending function of the class lacking. But perhaps that just means we shouldn't look at OA to carry all the witght here.
For instance let's take the Protection fighting style: it allows using a reaction to impose disadvantage on attacks directed at a target (other than yourself) within 5' from you. Now, the way it is worded implies that it only affects one attack, but perhaps it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to extend it to all enemies attacks till the start of your next turn.
The interesting part for ne here is that defending is not achieved by keeping enemies away from your allies, but rahter by keeping allies close to yourself. It's different, but it may be viable and engaging as well.
Uskglass wrote:
rampant wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
Against low level weaklings yes, fighters can use the basic maneuvers to exert something like control, although prone just doesn't have the oomph it had in 3e and 4e. However against larger or more powerful foes they often lose the ability to even attempt these maneuvers outside of poking it with a sharp thing. This is a problem because these are generally the monsters you most need stopped or hindered.
What normal things do tanky guys do that stop things from getting past exactly? Positioning? Opportunity attacks?
Clerics and rogues can do that just as well or better, especially since weapon damage is once again scaling on multiple attacks and you only get one reaction per round, so without a damage boost your opportunity attack is little more threatening, and sometimes less so, than a rogue's.
Furthermore monster strength and size tends to scale faster than even that of a str focused PC. Proficiency might help but a lot depends on there not being a ton of huge monsters or athletic ones.
I've never seen insulting a creature's mother work outside of elves, anthing else smart enough to understand you generally is smart enough to ignore battle chatter, or often evil or heartless enough to agree/not care.
I don't think fighters do enough reactive damage to be considered tanks, they seem like grind style strikers to me in 5e (with rogues being nova style strikers). While their Opportunity attack is decent it's nothing special, and even assuming the rules allow you to sub in a basic maneuver rather than a normal weapon attack again it's something anyone could do, and other classes can do better.
There are things the party can do to force the monster to engage the fighter, or more specifically things everyone but the fighter can reliably do to make the monster engage him. The thing is that the fighter isn't doing it.
Why do you claim that narrative is going to force monsters to attack the tanks? especially a smart or experienced monster who is gonna be able to work out a rough idea of the various paty members' abilities? If anything playing monsters with in world knowledge is going to increase the likely hood of anyone in heavy armor and not slinging magic around getitng counted as a secondary objective at best. Also why wouldn't we take a wargame based approach? Dnd is a form of small group tactics wargame, at least it becomes one when you roll initiative which is when most if not all of a beefy weapon users abilities become relevant. Just because it's the smart tactic to employ doesn't suddenly make senseless, if anythign a smart opponent is gonna use smart tactics. Sure a bunch of dumb orcs might rush your frintline and try to hack their way through the meat shields before getitng to the squishies, but a smart enemy like elves or human bandits is gonna maneuver around or rush past them to take out the more dangerous offensive threats.
I mean if the story is that the guy in the tank role is some sort of chosen one I can see the baddies prioritizing his destruction/capture, but that's about it.
Also note I think fighters in 5e are meant to be some form of striker, I don't think they can function as tanks because they lack the ability to be either especially reactive, sticky, disruptive, or punishing.
My contention is that in order to be a good tank you need to do something that makes targeting you more important than your standard on turn damage output would indicate, or some ability to force a monster to spend rounds on you that would be better spent offing the rest of the party. Something that can't be replicated by just anyone with a pointy stick.
Fighter doesn't have these abilities, so it's not a good tank, it's a beefy grind striker because it deals more on turn damage than most, but lacks nova potential.
Never having gotten a chance to play olderstyles of DnD my understanding is admittedly a bit shakey, but my impression was that either disengaging forma fighter was much harder/riskier, or that they dealt enough damage to be considered highly dangerous in their on right. I don't know why the monsters didn't avoid them if that wasn't the case. Unless they were confined in narrow underground spaces, and/or being controlled by people who think smart is the anti-thesis of dnd combat.
And since when has external control and influence not been a function of mechanics? Mages were a thing back in the old days and they got external control and influence via mechanical support. Monsters got it. A class without some form of special mechanical ability is called commoner. Creativity is great, but a creative player with a class with powers has ever so many more opportunities and ways in which to be creative.
rampant wrote:
What power? My entire point is that without some form of mechanically supported ability to make the monsters pay attention to him that a tank can't function without doing enough damage that they need to be re-classified as DPR.
Insulting the enemy doesn't work because because it's entirely dependent on the DM allowing your character to be awesome while every other character types has awesome built in.
Also I'm not talking about a character that has been deliberately built to hae no damage I'm talking about the fact that without special abilities the weapon users don't have the damage potential to be threatening, and the fact that opportunity attacks don't work with the extra damage the beefy types get since it's all in multi-attacking unless we interpret opportunity attacks as attack actions.
8 attacks per day is not nova potential because anything worth using it on at level 20 when you have 2 per day is gonna be big enough and nasty enough that you're gonna miss a few times and i probably has reduction.
2 major things I see missing:
1. A 4E Defender could tank anything, no matter what it was no matter how big it was. Also, no matter how dangerous it was. 4E Defenders took dragons head on.
2. Experience with 4E established that an effective defender needed to control/hassle multiple enemies. At least two, preferably three or more.
5E Defenders really can't do either well.
Thing is that I don't think there are any dedicated 5e defenders.
Pallies and Ranger seem to hover between striker and controller, the fighter is kinda strikery.
Barbarian could be a defender if it wanted to.
Not sure about the monk yet.
rampant wrote:
I still don't get why grapple is strength based. Grappling has almost nothing to do with strength. Dex makes a lot more sense. It is almost entirely technique and leverage using pressure points.
If you're using strength in a grappling match, you're just going to wear yourself out quickly.
Samrin wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
Lokiron wrote:
Fine motor skills are much more important in these situations. Dex makes much more sense.
Then again, str being used for accuracy with a sword doesn't make much sense eirher. Depending on style. In Japanese sword fighting, wisdom is much more relevant. Dex in fencing. Str only really makes sense for damage.
Samrin wrote:
rampant wrote:
Defnders don't need powerful reactions, it's just the easiest way to do it without setting off the "that ability is interesting, it must be magic, and fighters can't have magic" crowd.
You could make a defender without relying on powerful reactions, the bearbarians disadvantage aura for example would work well as a defender power.
As for the grappler feat the way it's written is useless, because my reading of the phb leads me to believe you can't even attempt a grab on creatures more than one size category larger than you, but it may be intended to allow you to grab bigger creatures.
The_Jester wrote:
Realistically, there is little reason to believe that tribes of humanoids at low level would instantly know to focus on the spell casters. Even in a world where magic is merely uncommon which is where I'd put default D&D magic, that does not mean that monster groups know everything. Of course by the time the group is fighting highly intelligent enemies including spell casters then the spellcaster being a target will make sense. Can anyone with a straight face though argue that the denizens of the Caves of Chaos would be smart enough to target the spell caster on the first go round. I get if you blast them hard and some survive that the second wave will be smarter.
I weep for some of the campaigns that must be going on. For those of you who are completely clueless to other campaigns, fighters have been defending the spell casters (especially the arcanes) from BECMI at least. I can personally vouch for that. I was stunned when people thought 4e introduced the idea. Total nonsense I thought. If not for the fighters the casters in my campaigns would have been dead many times over.
I think a lot of your DMs must be playing the battles out like a chess game. They give the monsters hive mind and total knowledge of the party and then just make their moves like it is chess. If that is your playstyle then of course you need a mechanical way of locking down enemies. If though you have a DM that actually plays the monsters to their intelligence level and doesn't metagame then you won't need those things.
I guess it all comes down to metagaming. I guess the D&D world of today is rife with it. It used to be a bad thing. /rant over.
One hardly needs a hive minde or perfect knowledge to identify a squishy, the sheer fact that they're on the second row implies they are important and anything with at least 14 int or a relvant knowledge skill is gonna know that pretty quick. It's not metagaming if anyone with two points of int mod to rub together actually uses them.
Frankly my impression is that most old school DMs either sucked at tactics or babied their players and thats why fighters didn't need to be good at anything in order to be tanks.
rampant wrote:
Really because they seem dirt common in places like faerun or greyhawk which most of the games I've been in are more or less based on.
Emerikol. wrote: