D&D (2024) 4/26 Playtest: The Fighter

[Quickleaf]

@Mistwell Yeah, the mechanical changes for the Champion are good overall. In my opinion, the subclass is still suffering from a fundamental conceptual problem – the sort of problem that comes way earlier in the design process from designing specific features.

When I read the flavor text for the Champion, I feel like I'm reading a description of the fighter class, NOT another layer of narrative or flavor on top of the fighter class... In other words, the flavor text is saying nothing.

A Champion focuses on the development of martial prowess honed to deadly perfection. Champions combine rigorous training with physical excellence to deal devastating blows, withstand peril, and garner glory.

Despite having worse mechanics the PHB Champion subclass at least has "raw physical power" and "Remarkable Athlete" hinting at a sort of flavor (yes, it's terrible mechanically, just speaking of its flavor). It's barely there, but I can kinda see a hint of something.

This gets back to my complaint about the fighter changes compared to other changes (e.g. the wizard), where the changes to the fighter are more conservative in comparison. They're not (yet) following through on the ideas they're presenting.

For example, the Champion might be imagined as "the adaptive fighter", which Adaptable Victor seems to be hinting at. If that's the case and they're aiming for a "learning by doing" sort of character, why not go full on that concept?

Make this subclass the one that tweaks Weapon Mastery properties (rather than any fighter being able to), change its Additional Fighting Style into an Adaptable Fighting Style that can be changed during a long rest, scrap anything that doesn't express that core concept, heck maybe give them an escalation die to represent their adapting throughout a fight.

Currently, with the PHB Champion and even moreso with this Playtest Champion, if I had a player ask me "what's a Champion fighter?" I would have no way of describing that narratively to them. I would only be able to resort to describing mechanics.

Personally, that's not the direction I want the game to go. I want narrative and story to come first.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Its damage jumped apparently by 50% to 70%. Might be more powerful than you think. I know I was surprised once I heard build comparisons.

Do you have a link to the comparison? And what sort of comparison is this? Because from what I can tell this is all boosts onto the fighter chassis with champion still being pretty mediocre.

That said I'd say that the level 8 D&Done fighter was about two feats ahead of the 2014 fighter, not counting the combat feat. But that's where you hit the point of diminishing returns because your attack stat is maxed out and you have a nice set of synergies.

 

[Minigiant]

According to what I've read, the gap between a basic suggest fighter and an optimized one both using masteries is huge.

Too huge to be okay with.

 

[jasper]

On most weapon mastery I think a limit of +/- 1 size for the effect. Except for Graze, it is less than stellar. (See I can post with out using harsh language.)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I just listened to the newest Treantmonk optimization release on Patreon (which will hit YouTube for free not too long from now).

He is reviewing the new fighter.

Spoilers!

He starts with the premise, having just read the class, that it's kind of meh. Now keep in mind, Treantmonk does optimization stuff for D&D now for a living. He crunches these numbers every day, plays a TON of games with other optimizers (and non-optimizers sometimes too), makes podcasts all the time, and you'd think if anyone would be good at glancing at new material and being able to figure out just from reading it if it's a big boost it would be him.

But, you can't really truly know until you do the number crunching and make the builds and compare them.

I really thought, going into this, he would come out pretty close to his initial impression. Which I must admit was my initial impression too, and I think the initial impression of a lot of people in this thread. Kinda meh. Yeah, some improvements, but not nearly enough. Crawford in his video promised a big jump in damage, and I was not seeing it.

I was wrong. Treantmonk's initial impression was wrong. All the comments here giving an initial impression the damage isn't really booted enough? Wrong.

Wow. There is SO MUCH interaction between all the new rules and the Fighter playtest that I was missing.

So Treantmonk did a build comparison and made his best Champion fighter under the new rules. Gave them Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master (the Great Weapon master is something you can no longer do with the new rules). You'd think the old Champion should outpace or at least be pretty close to the new one given that advantage of Great Weapon Master. NOPE!

The new Fighter was doing 50% more damage than the old one!

My guesstimation was about 10 to 15% better. I would never have guessed this much of an improvement.
I wonder what the improvement would be for the average?

So then he figured he must be not giving the old fighter the right situation. We all know Great Weapon Master shines the most when they get advantage. So he tested it giving advantage to both the old and new versions and tried the numbers again.

The old fighter saw the expected jump in damage. However the new version? It was now 70% more damage than the old one!

And to be clear, he didn't even choose the most powerful of the Weapon Mastery options because he thinks it's overpowered and is assuming it will get nerfed. So he chose decent Weapon Masteries (I think it was Cleave and Nick). And it's a "choice" because the fighter (and maybe only the fighter) can change them around.

Yeah. There is stuff here I missed. Interactions with the new feats. Interactions with the new Weapon Masteries. Interactions with dying rules, saving throw rules, the levels you get certain things now, some re-wording on some class abilities and conditions, all sorts of stuff.

And this is just the damage portion. All kinds of stuff got a huge boost! With the new dying rules, and the new second wind, and the new higher level class features, the new fighter is going to be incredibly hard to kill. And it's really hard on initial read to see that. There is a whole bunch of subtle stuff that allows for the new fighter to just pop right back up from being knocked unconscious that is hard to see if you just straight read the new class.

Same for their saving throws. It's hard to see they're going to just outright change a failed save to a made save most of the time at higher levels sometimes.

And the feats. Oh my, the feats. So many feats now give a +1 to a stat, and the new fighter gets so many feats and at earlier levels than the old fighter. They are maxing out their primary stat much faster.

They're even better at skill usage than the old fighter. And with the feat changes, they have more options to boost that aspect while still dealing more damage. Because it wasn't even about the quantity of feats - it was about when you get them and the feats themselves and how you get more feats due to so many +1 feats now as options that you max out your main stat that much faster too.

Listening to this podcast I am wondering if I am doing this with all the new classes. If there isn't a bunch of stuff I am missing because I am not doing actual builds with all the new rules and seeing how all the new rules interact with the new class features and then running a comparison to an old version of the same class and seeing if there is a big change.

I would not be a bit surprised. It seems to be built into human nature to perceive negative elements as greater than they are and to underestimate the positive.
So, I would not be a bit surprised if we see something as a nerf to rate it much more impactful than something we would see as a gain.
especially if we do not have the opportunity experience it or as in this case to crunch the numbers.

 

[mellored]

According to what I've read, the gap between a basic suggest fighter and an optimized one both using masteries is huge.

Too huge to be okay with.

Flex is the weakest of the features.
And they default you to that.

If they switched to graze things would be better.

Or just fix Flex to not be bad.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

According to what I've read, the gap between a basic suggest fighter and an optimized one both using masteries is huge.

Too huge to be okay with.

What do you mean? The suggested fighter in the playtest document?

 

[Parmandur]

Overall, the fighter – like all of these playtest packets – feels like I'm being asked to discuss what color code of paint we should use on the walls, when the roof hasn't been built yet.

There are these microscopic changes. Yeah, some of them are good changes. But they're this form of tunnel vision that's completely missing bigger picture issues. How does exploration work in this game? What options are there for negotiation scenes or "skill challenge" scenes more complex than a single skill check? Will we have actually fun chase rules?

With the fighter specifically, I want to see it bursting with story. For instance, the way that Modify Spell and Create Spell do a great job of reinforcing the wizard's story? Please do that for the fighter.

Instead we get this tepid milquetoast redesign of the fighter that's making minor adjustments.

It's like the entire playtest document assumes that we and the designers are on the same page about what ought to be changed and why, so the conversation is going to be this narrow narrow bandwidth.

And that sucks. I don't just want "what we've changed" up front, I want the sales pitch and design thinking "WHY we changed it and why we think it's better." I want to see their big picture. I don't want dickering about yet more combat-centric features taking center stage. Yeah, make those good changes. But get to the big picture.

EDIT: I recall Mike Mearls describing their design process during the D&D Next playtest and how they fell into a sort of tunnel vision when it came to the fighter class needing to support players who prefer simple & players who prefer complex, which led to shunting that to the subclass and leaving the whole class devoid of flavor. These Playtests have me concerned that we're seeing more signs of tunnel vision.

I mean, petty basically they are maintaining the assumptions and standards of 5E. The Fighter is a minimal set of changes because the Fighter as it stands is super effective, and already the most popular Class.

The discussion is about what paint to use, because the structure is already in place.

 

[lvl20dm]

I'd like to see Weapon Adept moved up from 13 to 7, and Weapon Expert either removed altogether or put at level 3.

Also - Indomitable is now awesome. I think it would be great if you could use it for failed ability checks.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

What do you mean? The suggested fighter in the playtest document?

It's like every RPG intentionally picks the worst possible option as their suggested build.