D&D 5E The fighter's Indomitable ability

[Quartz]

I was re-reading the PHB last night and realised that while the Fighter's abilities usually refresh after a short rest, the Indomitable feature keys off a long rest. The only other ability that refreshes after a long rest is the Eldritch Knight's spells per day. Has that been corrected in the errata? How would it change the class to have it work off a short rest?

 

[Plaguescarred]

No errata for Indomitable yet, the only Fighter errata in the PHB is for Feinting Attack ==> http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/ph_errata

Having it recover after short rests would not be such a big deal considering you can use this feature more often between long rests as you gain levels. It would have a bigger impact depending on the number of short rests taken, with perhaps a little more for level 9-12.

 

[Redthistle]

Imo Indomitable is good as it exists because it describes an extraordinary ability that is not easily come by. It is there for truly heroic moments, where the fighter may be able to overcome an assault that other classes only get one chance at saving against. I like the gritty, dramatic aspect of the feature, and would not change it for my gaming table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It still wouldn't much live up to it's name.

Advantage or a re-roll is highest-impact when you're close to 50/50 with the check. A typical 9th+ level fighter is looking at having pretty darn good STR & CON saves, between proficiency and the priority the class tends to have with those stats (unless a DEX fighter, of course), so those saves will tend to be excellent - better than 50/50, while INT/WIS/CHA saves are likely to be crap (less than 50/50). Re-rolling the odd failed STR/CON save is probably the best use of 'Indomitable,' giving the lie to the name.

Making it per short rest would reduce STR/CON saves to mere formalities, while leaving the WIS/CHA saves that 'Indomitable' implies resistance to comparatively hopeless.

If I were to run a campaign that might actually go to double-digits, and someone actually stuck it out with a fighter through 9th level, I'd seriously consider house-ruling indomitable to be more meaningful and to convey something closer to actual indomitability. Perhaps restricting the re-roll to STR, WIS, & CHA saves, but also granting proficiency on WIS/CHA saves.

 

[Prism]

I have only used it twice with my fighter. Once to prevent a save or die and another to prevent a TPK from a demilich. I'm pretty happy with its use as an emergency button that I rarely have to press

 

[pemerton]

Advantage or a re-roll is highest-impact when you're close to 50/50 with the check.

<snip>

Re-rolling the odd failed STR/CON save is probably the best use of 'Indomitable,' giving the lie to the name.

Making it per short rest would reduce STR/CON saves to mere formalities, while leaving the WIS/CHA saves that 'Indomitable' implies resistance to comparatively hopeless.

I tend to agree the Indomitable is a bit underpowered, but I think it's not quite as bad as you imply here.

Suppose the player of a fighter needs to roll 17 to save: that's an 80% chance of failure. With advantage, the chance of failure is 0.8^2, pr 0.64. Boosting your chance of success from one in five to one in three, while not actually equating to indomitability, is still comparable to +3 on a d20 roll, which is not too bad.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I tend to agree the Indomitable is a bit underpowered, but I think it's not quite as bad as you imply here.

Suppose the player of a fighter needs to roll 17 to save: that's an 80% chance of failure. With advantage, the chance of failure is 0.8^2, pr 0.64. Boosting your chance of success from one in five to one in three, while not actually equating to indomitability, is still comparable to +3 on a d20 roll, which is not too bad.

Getting the equivalent of half proficiency on a save or two a day seems almost perfectly in line with Mr. Vargas' statements. It's best used for the stuff the Fighter is already good at, and has the smallest impact on those things that actually could "dominate" her.

 

[pemerton]

Getting the equivalent of half proficiency on a save or two a day seems almost perfectly in line with Mr. Vargas' statements. It's best used for the stuff the Fighter is already good at, and has the smallest impact on those things that actually could "dominate" her.

But you don't use it til you fail - and you're more likely to fail a WIS save than a CON one, and often with more at stake (fighters of double-digit level should have some hp to spare).

(Also, +3 is better than half-proficiency until relatively high levels.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But you don't use it til you fail - and you're more likely to fail a WIS save than a CON one, and often with more at stake (fighters of double-digit level should have some hp to spare).

(Also, +3 is better than half-proficiency until relatively high levels.)

Okay, fair, it is better than half proficiency (though certainly less than full proficiency when it comes online at level 9), but only for a few levels, since JoAT and "Remarkable" Athlete both provide +3 at level 13, same time as when you'd get a second daily use.

That you can only use it on a failed save really doesn't matter; you wouldn't bother on a successful save anyway!

 

[Li Shenron]

It still wouldn't much live up to it's name.

Advantage or a re-roll is highest-impact when you're close to 50/50 with the check. A typical 9th+ level fighter is looking at having pretty darn good STR & CON saves, between proficiency and the priority the class tends to have with those stats (unless a DEX fighter, of course), so those saves will tend to be excellent - better than 50/50, while INT/WIS/CHA saves are likely to be crap (less than 50/50). Re-rolling the odd failed STR/CON save is probably the best use of 'Indomitable,' giving the lie to the name.

Making it per short rest would reduce STR/CON saves to mere formalities, while leaving the WIS/CHA saves that 'Indomitable' implies resistance to comparatively hopeless.

If I were to run a campaign that might actually go to double-digits, and someone actually stuck it out with a fighter through 9th level, I'd seriously consider house-ruling indomitable to be more meaningful and to convey something closer to actual indomitability. Perhaps restricting the re-roll to STR, WIS, & CHA saves, but also granting proficiency on WIS/CHA saves.

I haven't played the game up to 9th level yet, so I haven't personally see Indomitable in use, but I must say that so far I haven't really understood it.

First of all, from the reading of RAW, Indomitable is not equivalent to advantage. It doesn't grant you advantage on a ST, it lets you reroll a failed ST.

Maybe I am reading it wrong, but to me it's not the same, and not just because you only use it afterwards, but also because IMHO this RAW means you reroll the whole ST including the second dice if you had (dis)advantage.

But this still doesn't tell me how good it is. If you had advantage and failed the ST anyway, with Indomitable your chances of success are greatly increased. If you didn't have advantage, Indomitable is practically the same as advantage (except if truly having advantage would kick off some other ability of yours). If you had disadvantage, Indomitable is probably worse than advantage. Maybe we can assume that most of the times the Fighter doesn't have (dis)advantage and so Indomitable is practically identical to advantage anyway.

Also, during the playtest before the release of the game, Indomitable instead really granted advantage, but all the time, not once or thrice per day!

Not sure, maybe the designers considered how many ST on average a PC is subject to, during a typical adventuring day. Maybe they considered 6 encounters/day, not all of which feature monsters with ST-based abilities (some of them might force many ST in an encounter, but not all of them will target the Fighter), and finally the Fighter will use Indomitable only after failing the ST. So in a sense if e.g. we have to roll 6 ST in a day (an average of 1/encounter) and maybe we already save half of the times, then Indomitable could negate 30-40% of the failures. It would still be a decent benefit, but all this is based on too many assumptions.