So in April of 2012 Mike Mearls post this:
Fighter Design Goals
The fighter is one of my favorite classes, so I’m a little biased. I also think it is a class that has always suffered a bit compared to the spellcasters in the game. Fighters represent the most iconic fantasy heroes, and it is perhaps the most popular class in the game. Therefore, it’s important that we get the fighter right.
You can take a look at last week’s article to get a sense of our general approach to the classes. Here are the main points we’re looking at for the fighter.
1. The Fighter Is the Best at . . . Fighting!
This might sound like an obvious point, but the fighter should be the best character in a fight. Other classes might have nifty tricks, powerful spells, and other abilities, but when it’s time to put down a monster without dying in the process, the fighter should be our best class. A magic sword might make you better in a fight, but a fighter of the same level is still strictly better. Perhaps a spell such as haste lets you attack more often, but the fighter is still either making more attacks or his or her attacks are more accurate or powerful.
2. The Fighter Draws on Training and Experience, not Magic
Fighters master mundane tactics and weapon skills. They don’t need spells or some sort of external source of magical power to succeed. Fighters do stuff that is within the limits of mundane mortals. They don’t reverse gravity or shoot beams of energy.
3. The Fighter Exists in a World of Myth, Fantasy, and Legend
Keeping in mind the point above, we also have to remember that while the fighter draws on mundane talent, we’re talking about mundane within the context of a mythical, fantasy setting. Beowulf slew Grendel by tearing his arm off. He later killed a dragon almost singlehandedly. Roland slew or gravely injured four hundred Saracens in a single battle. In the world of D&D, a skilled fighter is a one-person army. You can expect fighters to do fairly mundane things with weapons, but with such overwhelming skill that none can hope to stand against them.
4. The Fighter Is Versatile
The fighter is skilled with all weapons. The best archer, jouster, and swordmaster in the realm are all fighters. A monk can match a fighter’s skill when it comes to unarmed combat, and rangers and paladins are near a fighter’s skill level, but the fighter is typically in a class by itself regardless of weapon.
5. The Fighter Is the Toughest Character
The fighter gets the most hit points and is the most resilient character. A fighter’s skill extends to defense, allowing the class to wear the heaviest armor and use the best shields. The fighter’s many hit points and high AC renders many monsters’ attacks powerless.
6. A High-Level Fighter and a High-Level Wizard Are Equal
Too often in D&D, the high-level fighter is the flunky to a high-level wizard. It’s all too easy for combinations of spells to make the wizard a far more potent enemy or character, especially if a wizard can unleash his or her spells in rapid succession. A wizard might annihilate a small army of orcs with a volley of fireballs and cones of cold. The fighter does the same sword blow by sword blow, taking down waves of orcs each round. Balancing the classes at high levels is perhaps the highest priority for the fighter, and attaining balance is something that we must do to make D&D fit in with fantasy, myth, and legend. Even if a wizard unleashes every spell at his or her disposal at a fighter, the fighter absorbs the punishment, throws off the effects, and keeps on fighting.
Now that the PHB is out and we have seen the Champion, Eldritch Knight, and Battlemaster, do you think he came anywhere near to achieving these goals with the 5e fighter?
I think 3-6 were how I felt in 4E lol. I'm playing Wed with my first fighter, I'll let you know....although its lvl 1 so I'm not sure how epic I'll feel.
I think for 1, 3, and 4 they did fine.
I think that they did fine on 2 except for the Eldritch Knight, but one could consider that to be a light hybrid instead. They are after all wizard spells and they do rely on Intelligence.
I think 5 may be a toss-up with the barbarian, but fighters are at least competitive there on defense.
I doubt that 6 is true. If that was really their goal, they seem to have failed. A fighter can survive a Meteor Swarm, but I think he is unlikely to defeat a wizard in single combat at high levels.
I think they came closer to achieving the stated goal than any previous edition did, save 4th. I don't think that they actually achieved the goal, though. At least not at all levels. Up until around level 11, the fighter isn't strictly better at fighting than any other combat class, though he does have more options for combat style than others do. I think that had they implemented a weapon specialization class ability to give a bonus to accuracy and/or damage then they'd have met the design goal at lower levels as well.
To their credit, magic users do have to make a choice between nuking and utility spells at all levels now, which, in combination with the general lack of save or die spells, makes it less likely that the wizard will destroy combat encounters like they used to do.
1. The Fighter Is the Best at . . . Fighting!
sugar_high wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
I think they failed on the most fundemental design goal. The one so obvious that it wasn't even on the list of design goals: fighters need to be fun to play.
Playing a fighter looks about as boring as watching gone with the wind... So even if I think they did met all the other design goals, it doesn't matter because I still don't want to play that fighter.
So I'll get into this more with my standalone article, but I'd say:
1. I haven't crunched the numbers, but it seems that the Fighter holds up very well.
2. They dealt with this fine, but in such a way that I think opens up problems later.
3. Here's where I think they've fallen down; while I would say the 5e fighter does better than some editions, we're still not getting the kind of capacity for the Fighter to go epic in end-game. The 20th level Fighter is an expert and can do more in combat than other classes can do, but he's not doing different things than a level 3 Fighter does, just more of them (and better).
4. I don't think this is represented rather well; outside of weapon proficiencies, there really isn't much that makes the Fighter versatile (especially out of combat). I certainly wouldn't call the Fighter as good a hand-to-hand combatant as the Monk.
5. Haven't crunched the numbers, but the Fighter is certainly up there.
6. Despite some improvement in terms of nova'ing damage, I don't think they're there yet. "Waves of orcs" is really hard, unless the Fighter takes Great Weapon Master and goes Battlemaster/Sweeping Attack. Even with Indomitable, it's pretty hard for a Fighter to go toe-to-toe with an evil Wizard, unless they also take Mage Slayer and are really good at sticking to said Wizard. And it's a bad sign when you need Feats to try to accomplish what's in the class goals. More importantly, as I mentioned in point 3, the Fighter's capacity never increases in scope - a Wizard goes from casting Burning Hands to True Polymorph and Time Stop and Gate, a Fighter just gets better at the same thing.
Gnarl wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
seti wrote:
Gnarl wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Probably the biggest disappointment is abilities keyed on a hour short rest for the fighter or even the monk with ki. It would have been best if they stayed true to the 5 minute rest from 4E, or even stances or styles. Or just more constant abiliity the increased in usefulness or scope at higher levels. The fighter feels one dimnesional, followed by the barbarian and monk.
Overall, with bounded accuracy and everyone being proficient in combat there is not much left for the fighter. Armor does not mean much, and even hybrids get to borrow some of their styles. There is not much to distinguish what a fighter can do.
I would re-design the fighter, barbarian and monk with more meaningful and constant abilities and also lose the double standard on feats that have no ability tax on martial mechanics like learning maneuvers, but you need a higher than average wisdom or intelligence to learn rituals. Feats that grant class ability should honor the equivalent multiclass attribute requirements.
So I guess I am more concerned about the design framework that places limits on certain classes or feats.
Emerikol. wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Fun isn't something anyone can argue. I found the 4e fighter the least engaging version, others want a 4e style fighter. It sucks not everyone is happy but I don't think that is possible. I have so far loved the 5e battle master.
I do think they hit or mostly hit all of their goals listed in the OP.
Uskglass wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
I like the final version, enough I'm playing one now. Protection Fighter at level 1 feels kinda badass and Battle Master looks fun.
But they're some way from succeding at all six.
Problem is though... they achieved all their goals early on with the playtest, and then wussed out:
Back with the October 2012 playtest with both Fighters and Rogues with Manoeuvres and Expertise dice.
Fighters were frikkin' badass.
You didn't get extra attacks or any other class features beyond expertise dice and manoeuvers....
Expertise dice were kinda like superiority dice
But your entire pool refreshed at the end of your turn!
You only had 1D4 at level 1 but it increased rapidly:
2-3: 1D6
4-7: 2D6
8-9: 2D8
10+: 3D10
All Fighter started with "Deadly Strike" and one more manoeuver, you got another at levels 2,4,6,8 and 10.
Examples:
Deadly Strike when you hit with an attack you can choose roll as many expertise dice as you like and add the result to the damage!
Parry: When you are hit by a melee attack whilst using a melee weapon or shield:
Use your Reaction: Roll as many Expertise dice as you want, add up the roll, subtract that much damage, if reduced to 0, hit becomes a miss!
Protect allowed you to do the same as parry... but for target within your reach instead of yourself.
Mighty exertion! When making a Strength Ability Check roll as many expertise dice as you want, take the highest roll and add it to your check.
Vault: Roll as many expertise dice as you want, take the highest roll and increase the distance you long jump by that many feet or high jump by that many inches.
Great Fortitude (Str+Con), Lightning Reflexes (Dex) and Iron Will (Wis & Cha) let you roll as many expertise dice as you want, take the highest roll and add it to your Saving Throw roll for relevant saving throws.
Whirlwind Attack and Volley allowed you to attack additional creatures within range of a melee attack/ranged attack respectively. You got to assigned expertise dice to the different targets, you then rolled to attack but did damage based on the expertise dice rather than making a weapon damage roll.
Because it refreshed at the end of your turn, it meant you had your full dice pool to use for your reaction or in response to saving throws etc, then when your turn came around again remainder for Deadly Strike or perhaps Whirlwind attack... So everyturn you had a choice on how to spend your dice. And they had superhuman non-combat applications.
If the fighter wasn't forced to spend any on Protect or Parry or similar it was brutal.
You didn't have multiple attacks so in theory you could just miss. But you had a high enough attack roll to be fairly unconcerned.
Trouble is... this made fighters just too badass. A 10th level fighter could do +3D10 with a tea cup, made them into Riddick, and we can't be having that.
It also made it hard to make rogues that much different, since they had the same expertise pool. They had a unique ability to roll expertise dice and add the highest to their skill checks but it was hard to make sneak attack better than deadly strike.
ORZEL DESIGNER MODE ACTIVATED
The Battle Master was held back by the Champion.
How?
The champion was a crit fisher. It got 1 bonus crit every 20 attacks. This is a bonus of
+1*crit damage every 20 turns at level 3.
+1*crit damage every 10 turns at level 5 since you can attack twice.
+1*crit damage every ~7 turns at level 11 since you can attack thrice.
+2*crit damage every ~7 turns at level 15 since you can attack thrice.
+2*crit damage every ~7 turns at level 20 since you can attack quice (fighter make him own wurds).
What did that all mean?
I meant the Champion subclass added very low DPR and DPAD.
So the Battle Master's dice had to fresh with short rest and be few overall.
Gnarl wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Lady_Auralla wrote:
Hit points are lower as well though. Damage in an edition is relative to what you are hitting.
DLfan wrote:
DLfan wrote:
seti wrote:
This is hands down the best incarnation of the Fighter class in the history of the game, IMO. I have a Wood Elf Dex Fighter with Rapier & Shield with Dueling Fighting Style and Battle Master Archetype. With Precision Attack, Parry, & Riposte I'm mopping the yard pretty handily. I've rolled below average for hit points, but my 19 AC and Maneuvers have balaced that right back out.
While I'm really impressed with what I see from the other classes, I'm super happy with what they've done with the Fighter.
Try actually covering what I was talking about DLfan. I was not talking about the wrongness of limited use abilities on martial characters I was talking about the dishonesty of calling them magic. I agree that limited usage was not the best way to go about martial abilities but that odditity made them awkard for some to play it did not make them magic.
Lawolf wrote:
Vikingkingq wrote:
Gnarl wrote:
Orzel wrote:
For those wondering, Battle Master was in fact playtested and has been improved since the version I played many months ago. It is now streamlined with less snowflake mechanics into the current system of saving throws. It also does better damage now. The release version is going to be one of the best melee characters out there in damage and utility IMHO. Once people try it out in actual play I think they will be pleasantly surprised. All this theorycraft is nothing like actual play.
Ramzour wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
I treat classes and subclasses as separate entities. I would never consider the EK as the alternate of the fighter in order to grants abilities I want to see in a fighter. I don't even make the comparison. If I want a sword mage type class, then I may consider the EK. So as it stands the true martial classes are left with little to make them more versatile or unique.
In fact, the EK has no business or justification being part of the fighter class. It would be the equivalent of adding a martial subtype to the wizard class, with no spells. The EK should be its own class with variants.
I think a LOT of this argument is subjective and semantics. Looking at the PHB I could make a Fighter who used two-weapons, picking exploits that multi-attacked with bursts and the like. Further, a Fighter that favors Dexterity and bows just needs to take Ranger MC feats to do extraordinary stuff with archery, no problems at all. For those not hell-bent on DPR, white-room equasions, and theory-craft a point or two of attack modifiers or 4 to 6 damage less a round was insignificant and completely overlooked for the most part. The fighter also wasn't forced into S & B or two-handed, you picked a weapon and you got a bonus to hit with it, regardless if it was an axe, sword, spear, hammer, whatever. As for not having access to plate, consider it the Paladin's fault for the devs pushing the iconic "knight in shining armor" theme too much. Besides, if the Fighter DID get plate, it would make him already THAT more powerful of a class.
Orzel wrote:
Lady_Auralla wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
Bluenose wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
I think you are overestimating the HP and Resistance of a Barbarian while they are outputting high damage. In order to bump their overall output they are taking advantage on attacks and also granting it to enemies. With lower AC than fighters they get hit more often and with advantage even moreso. Taking half damage from all attack is no better than taking full damage from half attacks. With the lower defenses, the additional 1 hp per level is less of a big deal. I would put both classes similar in survival with variance due to situation. When the design goal is to make something the toughest it is valid to have others be equally tough. Both are toughest among the other options. You will likey find Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, and some clerics to be similarly tough based on situation. The fighter's claim to fame is that it's toughness features are most consistent and has the ability to use feats to enhance it where other classes may not have the stats to spare.
At end game how does the dps of the paladin compare to the fighter?
Rottle wrote:
Veleria wrote:
I think we need not to forget about 2 bonus feats.
Tough + Heavy Armor Master gives a lot of Survivability. And Resilent "half-feat" is pretty good addition to Dex or Wis saves.
There seems to be some misunderstanding in this thread. Some people seem to feel that Mearls only meant the fighter would be the most resilient. That's not true.
Look what he actually said:
5. The Fighter Is the Toughest Character
The fighter gets the most hit points and is the most resilient character. A fighter’s skill extends to defense, allowing the class to wear the heaviest armor and use the best shields. The fighter’s many hit points and high AC renders many monsters’ attacks powerless.
Hurin88 wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
Rottle wrote:
I've removed content from this thread. Edition warring is a violation of the Code of Conduct
You can review the Code of Conduct here: company.wizards.com/conduct
Please remember to keep your posts polite, on topic and refrain from personal attacks. You are free to disagree with one another as long as it is done in a respectful manner.
sugar_high wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Uskglass wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
CVB wrote:
I think there's a lot of great discussion in here
Let's look at some level 1 characters. Both are the standard array with standard human bonuses. We can assume that both the standard strength fighter and the standard strength barbarian use the same ability score spread.
STR: 16
DEX: 14
CON: 15
INT: 9
WIS: 13
CHA: 11
* Mental scores are to taste, and irrelevant for this example.
- At level 1, Barbarian has an AC of 14 with an HP of 14, and the Fighter (chainmail) has AC of 16 with HP of 12.
- The barbarian gets his bludgeoning, piercing, slashing resistance twice a day.
- The fighter gets his second wind (1d10+1). This will probably be used two times a day (assuming one short rest). It could easily be three times a day.
- It seems to me, without doing any extra math, that the fighter will be tougher in a longer day. If you have, say, a six encounter day with two short rests, the fighter is much beefier than the barbarian.
Now let's take level 20.
Our Barbarian, with his five stat ups, will probably look like this:
STR: 24 (two ability stat ups)
DEX: 16 (one ability stat up)
CON: 24 (two and a half ability stat ups)
INT: 9
WIS: 14 (half stat up)
CHA: 11
The fighter, on the other hand, with his 7 ability score improvements, will probably look like this:
STR: 20 (two ability stat ups)
DEX: 18 (two ability stat ups)
CON: 20 (two and a half ability stat ups)
INT: 9
WIS: 14 (half stat up)
CHA: 11
At this point, the barbarian has 20 AC and 285HP = 133+12+140 (assuming 7HP+con per level). He gets his bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing resistance all day all the time. He's also got that nifty Relentless Rage feature, which bloats his survivability. With a +13 bonus, you can assume the barbarian always makes that saving throw at least once before a short rest, allowing him to soak one extra attack. And unless you roll extremely poorly, he probably makes it a second time.
The fighter, assuming plate armor and defense fighting style, has 19AC and 224HP = 114 + 10 + 100. Plus he can regain d10+20 HP with second wind. This will probably be used twice a day. He also has that 10HP regen every turn when he's below half hit points. (This is assuming you're a champion). That's a nice bit of survivability bloat as well.
- Strictly speaking, the barbarian has a higher AC if you don't factor in magic items. A +1 suit of plate will give that fighter an equivalent AC to the barbarian.
- Of course, if you add in a shield, then the AC difference becomes even greater.
-
All in all, it's even more likely that your fighter will find a suit of armor with a greater bonus (like +2 or +3), which will put the fighter ahead in terms of raw AC.
- The barbarian is better suited to hordes of dudes with weapons (the resistances, yo). The fighter is tougher against a wider variety of attacks. (Do dragons ever use their breath weapon?)
- The fighter relies on situations where he's below half his health and can regenerate to compete with the barbarian. The barbarian gets to flirt with death, but not that often. And the cleric will still have to heal him up once he's had that flirt (or they'll have to take themselves a breather... and honestly, why wouldn't they.)
- The barbarian gets a bigger boost off of hit dice, but this is a limited resource. The fighter's regen is an unlimited resource.
-
Eyeballing the two lines without doing any math would seem to indicate that the fighter wins out as the day goes longer, but it's certainly close.
You could, of course, make the pedantic argument that the fighter is the toughest character in the baseline version of the rules (D&D basic). You could also make the design argument that the barbarian is really just a specialized fighter. But regardless, the fighter relies on equipment to match the barbarian's magical inate toughness, but this shouldn't be that big of a revelation to anyone. (The same is true of the monk). And in either case, the fighter is still gosh darn close in toughness, and probably beats the barbarian as the day goes along.
Dooflegna wrote:
Grahmir wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Replacements for an...Associative Fighter:
- Second Wind -> Extra HP = Fighter Level*3, so a 16 CON Fighter would have 10+3 [CON] + (1 [Fighter Level] * 3) = 16 HP
- Action Surge -> When you have Advantage, you can take 1 extra attack as though you had a level of Extra Attack.
- OR Action Surge -> Cunning Combatant: You may use a bonus action to Push, Grab, Shove, Trip or an Athletic check to Jump.
- Indominatible -> Advantage on all saves OR +2 to all Saves.
- Survivor -> Resistance to all damage
This seems like it'd be "Associative" while also reflecting the flavour and purpose of the things they are replacing. Action Surge in either case is now more of a "increase versatility" by replacing attacks with pushes etc in the first example, or by giving them something similar to Cunning Action but Fighter-flavoured.
spelley wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
spelley wrote:
spelley wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Vikingkingq wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Rottle wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
So, what I'm reading here is that that one of the biggest Gotchas! being leveled against 5e, and its designers, is that somehow they "failed" because their original design goals eventually evolved--through popular playtest feedback--to include a gish subclass?
I can totally see some of the same wankery being leveled against them had they instead stuck to their guns and snubbed popular desires to include such a subclass just to hold to their original design goals.
And ain't that an interesting thing?...
Rottle wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Rottle wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Sneak attack is badly named. It's not so much sneaking as opposed to an anatomically accurate strike. It's a precision killing blow, you pick a vulnerable spot (Kidneys, lung, spots on the spine, an artery) and you strike it. It works best if your target is distracted or unable to escape in some way.
The issue, is that D&D took the term and made it mean something else. Like a lot of Roleplaying games used to. White Wolf was the master of that back in the 90's, warping words left right and center into new meanings. Thing is, we players of D&D haven't adapted to that, evidently.
CVB wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Rottle wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Tons of stuff could be labeled "disassociative" with very little effort. That's why it's a fools errand to go there. Second wind is no more (or less) disassociative than sneak attack, casting magic missile, dwarven combat training, or countless other things.
NineInchNall wrote:
CVB wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Dooflegna wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
Martial daily:
"If do right, no can defense!"
viper5 wrote:
Emerikol. wrote:
DLfan wrote: