D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[James Gasik]

Protecting other characters is fun, but a lot of people are hostile to such design. I made a suggestion that it is possible to design a non-magical taunt ability that forces enemies to attack you and it spawned, I dunno, twenty pages of somewhat heated discussion.

Oh yeah, because it feels like "mind control" to some people. In real life, a suitably scary person can glare at you funny and make you swiftly cross the street. But in a TTRPG, few people want to admit that could be a possibility.

Tricking or fooling players or NPC's in general is often seen as unwanted- there's always some threshold of "no, you can't convince my PC/NPC to do this thing they don't want to". You see it with people not believing the effects of an illusion spell. You see it with people wanting to carefully curate the effect of a Charisma check, no matter what the score.

And you see it when a mighty warrior roars a challenge, daring his foes to come to him.

Many people want to be able to dictate the results of such actions on a case-by-case basis; if you give someone a mechanic that allows you to, say, force all enemies within 30' to move closer to you on their turn, 1) it better have a saving throw, and 2) it better be strictly magical.

I'm shocked the Battlemaster gets away with his ability to fear or goad a single target, to be honest!

 

[James Gasik]

TBF, in 5e, dishing damage, as a melee martial is hard to avoid (so is taking damage), while protecting anyone else requires a not very glamorous nor effective feat or standing right next to them with a shield and protection style, to impose disadvantage.

Well take the Cavalier subclass. It's probably the most effective defender 5e has. Now ask yourself, have you ever seen one played? Have you ever heard about anyone playing one?

I can't say that I have, but plenty of people want to be Champions or Battlemasters and grab a big two handed weapon and chop down foes. After all, the best way to protect people from bad guys is to make bad guys dead faster, lol.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well take the Cavalier subclass. It's probably the most effective defender 5e has. Now ask yourself, have you ever seen one played? Have you ever heard about anyone playing one?

TBH, if you asked me "what's a D&D Cavalier?" I'd've said that it was a 1e UA class that paladin was retroactively made a sub-class of, and then, much later, in Essentials, a sub-class of Paladin. And, that both had ...issues.. with their mechanical implementation.

In any case, the Fighter as Defender was the most popular class in 4e (as the fighter has been in every edition, whether bland everyman, loophole-abusing DPR machine, feat monkey, defender, or ExtraExtraExtra Attacker).
And MMOs don't have a problem filling tanks slots, do they?
If there's an unpopular role, it's Cleric/Healer.

 

[James Gasik]

TBH, if you asked me "what's a D&D Cavalier?" I'd've said that it was a 1e UA class that paladin was retroactively made a sub-class of, and then, much later, in Essentials, a sub-class of Paladin. And, that both had ...issues.. with their mechanical implementation.

In any case, the Fighter as Defender was the most popular class in 4e (as the fighter has been in every edition, whether bland everyman, loophole-abusing DPR machine, feat monkey, defender, or ExtraExtraExtra Attacker).
And MMOs don't have a problem filling tanks slots, do they?
If there's an unpopular role, it's Cleric/Healer.

And yet, because there were people who rejected the Defender Fighter and wanted to deal damage, we got the Slayer in 4e, and now the 5e Fighter. And not a lot of people asking for strong Defender mechanics to make a return. So...

 

[ECMO3]

I agree with most of what you said, I don't think there is a problem with the 5E fighter though, bringing them back down to earth so they are not way better than everyone else at KS dramatically improved the game IMO.

FWIW I played a lot of 1E AD&D and a lot of 5E. Some 2E, some 3E and almost no 4E. 5E class design is the best of all the editions IMO, followed by 1E.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And yet, because there were people who rejected the Defender Fighter and wanted to deal damage, we got the Slayer in 4e, and now the 5e Fighter. And not a lot of people asking for strong Defender mechanics to make a return. So...

The Essentials Slayer was in the same book as the Essential Knight, a Defender. No one rejected the Fighter as Defender, they rejected the fighter as a martial class balanced with casters.

Edit, OK, or because their character sheet said "Cleave" or "Tide of Iron" instead of "battle axe," I saw guys my own age really thrown by that, "where's my weapon this sheet?"

 

[DammitVictor]

If there's an unpopular role, it's Cleric/Healer.

I love playing the healer. I'd have loved it a lot sooner if it hadn't been shackled to being a god-beggar until 3.5/PF1.

 

[James Gasik]

The Essentials Slayer was in the same book as the Essential Knight, a Defender. No one rejected the Fighter as Defender, they rejected the fighter as a martial class balanced with casters.

I don't know what to say to that, other than, outside of a not-terribly popular subclass, where are all the Defender Fighters now?

 

[James Gasik]

I love playing the healer. I'd have loved it a lot sooner if it hadn't been shackled to being a god-beggar until 3.5/PF1.

What I hate is even if you like being a healer, healing spells just aren't efficient and you're better off casting most anything else outside of the occasional level 1 Healing Word to get a fallen guy back up for a round.

But that ship has sailed, and when I complain about it, I keep getting told "that's a feature", lol.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh yeah, because it feels like "mind control" to some people. In real life, a suitably scary person can glare at you funny and make you swiftly cross the street. But in a TTRPG, few people want to admit that could be a possibility.

Tricking or fooling players or NPC's in general is often seen as unwanted- there's always some threshold of "no, you can't convince my PC/NPC to do this thing they don't want to". You see it with people not believing the effects of an illusion spell. You see it with people wanting to carefully curate the effect of a Charisma check, no matter what the score.

And you see it when a mighty warrior roars a challenge, daring his foes to come to him.

Many people want to be able to dictate the results of such actions on a case-by-case basis; if you give someone a mechanic that allows you to, say, force all enemies within 30' to move closer to you on their turn, 1) it better have a saving throw, and 2) it better be strictly magical.

I'm shocked the Battlemaster gets away with his ability to fear or goad a single target, to be honest!

Thinks such as jedi mind tricks and fear generally should have that saving throw and/or supernatural origin.

Eg a Fighter infused with the underworld could have a fear effect similar to turn undead.

Marking type mechanics should probably be on specific subclasses.