A place to despise all fighter archetypes

[Specter]

I've been hearing about all kinds of uproar for Champions (and a recent wave of EK roasting [?]), but why don't we thrash all fighters at once? Why spare any of them from the waves of judgement? Who are them to consider themselves playable?

Battlemasters? Pff. How dare they keep doing the same thing they did at level 3 all the way to level 20? Why don't they get together in a conference and develop, like, a Trippy Tripping Attack, or a Super Scary Menacing Attack? Think it through, pals.

But that's nothing compared to those Champion creeps. Just critting at stuff without any judgement if it's an oomph moment or not seems very sociopathic. Two fighting styles screams borderline approval-dependent too.

And those Eldritch Knight holier than thou jerks? Somebody should just say to their faces, 'dude, either go to Hogwarts already or smash things properly. Your 3/day Shield and shoulder bird are just making the boys at the fighting academy think you're snobbish'.

Purple Dragon Knights! PURPLE DRAGON KNIGHTS! One day a Fighter was looking at a Bard and thought 'hey, I could do that!'. And then he tried his best. Or maybe he didn't, no one's ever seen one anyway.

It's late. I should go. It's good to let that out of my chest.

[mgshamster]

Oh thank God.

I needed a place to talk about the fighter. The fighter discussions on this forum are just so barren.

[mephnick]

I really wanted to play a Battlemaster, but everyone kept telling everyone to be a Battlemaster, or to dip Battlemaster for every build and now I don't want to be a Battlemaster anymore.

*Also their subclass progression is the worst design flaw in the game.

[Scots Dragon]

I really wanted to play a Battlemaster, but everyone kept telling everyone to be a Battlemaster, or to dip Battlemaster for every build and now I don't want to be a Battlemaster anymore.

*Also their subclass progression is the worst design flaw in the game.

Battlemaster fighter is practically the factotum of 5th edition.

[Falcon X]

Fighter: The only reason to play one is when you want a literate character who doesn't have to be Lawful Good. If you are okay with either of those, why would you play a fighter?

[edit] Oh wait! Paladins in 5e aren't restricted to a LG alignment...
Huh...
Yeah, I'll get back to you with other good reasons to play he fighter.

[strangebloke]

Fighter: for people who want to play a gritty mercenary who isn't skill at things other than fighting (like the rogue)

Fighter: for people who want to play the ranger in the super-boring 'I shoot another arrow' way, but realize that the ranger isn't actually that good at this.

Fighter: Because class features and fluff are for *******.

Fighter: as opposed to all the other classes who... don't fight? I guess?

Fighter: because multiclassing wasn't good enough this edition.

Fighter: Because levelups give you ulcers.

Fighter: Because feats are an optional rule and you really need 20s in three stats.

[Easy_Lee]

Yeah, screw those guys with their comparatively underwhelming archetype features and like one good ability (action surge). How come fighters get to break the action economy? Because they can't do anything else.

[Grimmnist]

Maybe not the right thread but I think fighters are great. Sometimes I need an NPC who's motivation is to hit things.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Melee hunter ranger is the lamest fighter archetype in the game. Just a bunch of boring always-on buffs alongside spells that rarely synergize well with their combat role. If you want hunter's mark that bad, take Magic Initiate. Totally not worth your time.

[Coranhann]

No but seriously, who would want to play a no brainer, one trick poney, master of none while only being a jack at all sh*t.

You want to break heads in melee, go barbarian already !

You want to be the tanky melee character, go paladin already !

You REALLY want to play a fighter ? Go AWAY already !

(Specter, you lovely troll you, thanks for the laughs!)

[Unoriginal]

The worst Fighters archetypes are Wizard and Paladin, no contest.

[Coranhann]

The worst Fighters archetypes are Wizard and Paladin, no contest.

Well, I disagree, cause a Fighters Wizard will put out a DPR of 44.4 by level 5, while the Fighter Paladin will only bring 39.5

I don't have the math with me, but trust me, that roughly it.

[Citan]

I unfortunately cannot provide any additional hating (I usually have no inspiration for this kind of things, plus I really don't hate the Fighters XD) but thanks all for this very refreshing thread, especially Specter. ;)

[Findulidas]

But the champion is clearly the worst. "Dangles bait"

[Lombra]

I guess haters just can't understand that here when discussing "better" or "worse" the argument is always about damage (since every discussion has damage as a base, because weighing other things is complex and enough abstract to be pretty pointless), so if someone on a thread says that the champion is worse than the battlemaster for the first 14 levels providing damage evidence, he's not saying that the champion subclass is strictly worse for 14 levels; he's saying that it's worse at dealing damage, and we all know that damage is not the only aspect of the game, just the most optimizeable and debatable. If there are a lot of threads about something it means that that something is intreasting enough to spawn that many threads (this one included).

I'll grab the bait now and retire.

[mgshamster]

I guess haters just can't understand that here when discussing "better" or "worse" the argument is always about damage (since every discussion has damage as a base, because weighing other things is complex and enough abstract to be pretty pointless), so if someone on a thread says that the champion is worse than the battlemaster for the first 14 levels providing damage evidence, he's not saying that the champion subclass is strictly worse for 14 levels; he's saying that it's worse at dealing damage, and we all know that damage is not the only aspect of the game, just the most optimizeable and debatable. If there are a lot of threads about something it means that that something is intreasting enough to spawn that many threads (this one included).

I'll grab the bait now and retire.

I wrote a little something about this not too long ago, as I was thinking about this while sitting at my desk watching a webcast of my CEO. He was talking about "how do we know we're doing well as a company?"

There's two important things to look at. The first are KPI (Key Performance Indexes) and Metrics; these are line items that can be measured and quantified. Things such as failure rates, customer shipping commitment dates, profits, etc. The second are unquantifiable - "soft" items that improve quality without being able to track. These are things like ensuring employees are happy, have a good work-life balance, are able to control their anger when they get frustrated, and genuinely care about making the company better. Or customer satisfaction. They may be able to be measured somewhat, but it's very challenging.

Likewise, we have Hard and Soft sciences. The Hard Sciences - physics, chemistry, biology, etc - are all things that can be mathematically quantified, or have mathematical proofs, with hard evidence and data. The Soft Sciences - psychology, political science, sociology, etc - are fields where it's very difficult to get good measurements and very challenging to quantitate.

And again we see it in education. Hard and Soft Skills. We can teach students Hard Skills and test it in English, math, science, etc. In fact, in the US school performance is based on how well students do in the Hard Skills. But Soft Skills are extremely important and we no longer teach those, mostly because we cannot easily measure them. These are things like emotional management, how to deal with anger, creative thinking, ability to work well with a team, effective communication, conflict resolution, etc.

Again and again we see these two types: hard categories which can be quantified, and soft categories which is very challenging or impossible to quantify.

And here in D&D we see it. DPR, KPR, Builds are all Hard, as they can easily be quantified and compared. But there are many features where they would be considered Soft, because of how difficult it is to quantify them. Abilities that contribute to social and exploration pillars, abilities which are used infrequently, abilities which don't directly contribution it to how fast they can kill a monster, etc. These soft abilities are extremely important to the game and play a critical role in class balance, but it's very difficult to quantify them. As such, many people trying to do a comparison ignore them, because it's too challenging to quantitate.

They're not alone. Many people try to ignore or brush aside items in the Soft Categories for the same exact reason. But it's also true that when you ignore them because it's too challenging, whatever analysis you're doing will be wrong.

Failure to account for the soft categories leads to business failure, social failure, school failure, failure of governmental programs, and many other problems. So, too, does it lead to a failure in analysis here in D&D.

[Ralanr]

If I had to complain about the fighter (and I could say a lot, but most it has been said) I'd say that Purple Dragon Knight is the most undippable of the fighter subclass I've seen.

And honestly? I don't think it scales well at what it's meant to do.

Poor mans warlord.

[Specter]

No but seriously, who would want to play a no brainer, one trick poney, master of none while only being a jack at all sh*t.

You want to break heads in melee, go barbarian already !

You want to be the tanky melee character, go paladin already !

You REALLY want to play a fighter ? Go AWAY already !

(Specter, you lovely troll you, thanks for the laughs!)


I unfortunately cannot provide any additional hating (I usually have no inspiration for this kind of things, plus I really don't hate the Fighters XD) but thanks all for this very refreshing thread, especially Specter. ;)

Hah! Don't mention it.


If I had to complain about the fighter (and I could say a lot, but most it has been said) I'd say that Purple Dragon Knight is the most undippable of the fighter subclass I've seen.

And honestly? I don't think it scales well at what it's meant to do.

Poor mans warlord.

PDK is like scotch: if you drink it right out of the barrel (level 3), you'll probably spit it. But let it mature for 12 years (level 20), and you'll be healing an average of 85.5 with a bonus action. That's pretty neat.

[Easy_Lee]

And here in D&D we see it. DPR, KPR, Builds are all Hard, as they can easily be quantified and compared. But there are many features where they would be considered Soft, because of how difficult it is to quantify them. Abilities that contribute to social and exploration pillars, abilities which are used infrequently, abilities which don't directly contribution it to how fast they can kill a monster, etc. These soft abilities are extremely important to the game and play a critical role in class balance, but it's very difficult to quantify them. As such, many people trying to do a comparison ignore them, because it's too challenging to quantitate.

I think you hit the nail on the head. What's the advantage of Jack of all Trades? It's a great ability, and people seem to accept that. But there's little theory crafting about it. Same with Fabricate. People know it's broken, but we never see builds where people talk about dipping just to get it.

Thus, the fighter debates. The benefits of maneuvers are easy to measure, same with spells, same with crits. But sizing up opponents, being better at physical activities, or having an extra tool? Those things defy measurement. They depend wholly on the campaign and the player. If a champion breaks free of manacles purely because of the +2 from remarkable athlete, that's a big deal. But who's to say that'll ever happen?

This makes me want to build a character with nothing but Soft Features, just to see the forum debate that would ensue.

[toapat]

the core problem of Fighter is that it is literally incapable of retaining any meaningful design space over the course of development.

Action Surge? This cant ever get any better because its Greater Celerity, without the downside of losing your next turn. In a system where everyone else is lock stepped to the Economy.

and lets talk about its 1 total other class feature: Indominable: you get essentially a unique Lucky pool for saving throws only. Sure this is conceptually fine, but everyone know how balanced and fair lucky is.

As for Subclasses:

Battlemaster: Here is a class that WotC doubled down on a bad core decision and never relented. Reading this subclass doesnt make me feel like a master of Sword like the Tome of Battle did. I would compare my experience to Krillin's crippling disappointment at having his potential unlocked by Guru in DBZA. And not only that, you start with the 3 best maneuvers for your group out of a rather short list that is disappointment after disappointment. even Riposte in its rippling glory feels underwhelming.

Champion Fighter: And here is a class which defines "Critical Design Failure". this class exists to hurt Berserker Barbarian and nothing else. you get a generally irrelevant ribbon ability and the rarely stackable-for-value second Combat style, and while survivor can keep you alive no matter what, the Half HP threshold is extremely dangerous for any enemy worth mentioning. Otherwise all you do is steal Expanded Critical Hit Range from the total mechanics pool so that barbarian cannot be the pure Linear beat it to death into a pile of goo strategy. Oh, and it DARES come before the Battlemaster in the PHB. How dare it not be in Alphabetical Order.

Eldrich Knight: Compared to Battlemaster having no depth, and champion actively hurting other classes by merely existing, Eldrich Knight is frankly a good class. it still commits the sins of being a 1/3rd caster that expects you to be utilizing DC casting, which is still a Cardinal sin of class design: that the farther you end from lvl 9 spells, the more utility focused your spellcasting could be. While cantrips like GFB and BB give you a decent interaction with war magic. But this class shouldnt progress past War Magic at all. Your best Cantrip option is the SCAG twins, who dont get along with the Extra Attack feature too well, a feature fighter has Oh So Many of

[mgshamster]

This makes me want to build a character with nothing but Soft Features, just to see the forum debate that would ensue.

So... A Beastmaster Ranger? :smallbiggrin:

[toapat]

So... A Beastmaster Ranger? :smallbiggrin:

naw man, Lore bard with no offensive spells

[DivisibleByZero]

What are you talking about? I haven't seen any threads about the Fighter for, like, six months.

[Slipperychicken]

Did the entire 5e forum suddenly forget that those features are called "ribbons" and are intentionally designed to have minimal gameplay impact?

[toapat]

Did the entire 5e forum suddenly forget that those features are called "ribbons" and are intentionally designed to have minimal gameplay impact?

I wouldnt call Minor Illusion, Bardicc Inspiration, or Programmed Reality ribbon abilities

[Rhedyn]

Well if you roll stats (aka really high stats) then fighter is pointless. Otherwise getting feats worked into a paladin or barbarian build comes at decent cost for all those non vhuman builds.

Action surge is rather important in an optimised party. Can't have serious fights lasting more than 3 rounds.

My favorite fighter is the champion skillmonkey, I just wished skills actually meant something in this game...

[DivisibleByZero]

Did the entire 5e forum suddenly forget that those features are called "ribbons" and are intentionally designed to have minimal gameplay impact?

I tie a ribbon in my daughter's hair when we play basketball. And then I pull on it when she's too quick for me. Ribbons can have a huge impact on game play.

[2D8HP]

Battlemaster:
Keeping track of "superiority dice", and :maneuvers", seems like too much mental juggling, when I'm just trying to shoot an arrow!

Eldrich Knight:
I don't want to play any damn "Gish"!
Besides the presence of more iron than a dagger is supposed to interfere with casting arcane spells, it said so in an issue of The Dragon, that I read in 1980-something!

Champion:
Mostly I just hate all the badmouthing!
I'm not hating your crit!

Purple Dragon Knight:
Sounds like the title of a velvet "black light" painting on the wall of a stoner kids bedroom (like most Greenwood creations)!
Also, after I wrote up the features of the "Swashbuckler", I hid my SCAG, and now I can't find it!

[Unoriginal]

Making your way as fighter today takes everything you've got.
Taking a short rest from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody hates the game,
and there's always the same complains.
You wanna be where you can see,
our tables aren't the same
You wanna be where everybody hates
the game.

You wanna go where people know,
complains are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody hates the game.

[mgshamster]

Slow clap.

[Citan]

Failure to account for the soft categories leads to business failure, social failure, school failure, failure of governmental programs, and many other problems. So, too, does it lead to a failure in analysis here in D&D.
I'm just gonna quote this so everyone get a chance at reading it another time. A few could really get a benefit from having this sink in.^^

Did the entire 5e forum suddenly forget that those features are called "ribbons" and are intentionally designed to have minimal gameplay impact?
Hey, this is a thread about trolling a hard-category class, not a soft-category one. Maybe open your dedicated thread if you'd like. :smallbiggrin:

[GlenSmash!]

We should have a thread like this for every class. And sticky them.

[No brains]

A diatribe on a hatred of fighters!? I smell Black Mage nearby...

[Specter]

Another slogan following strangebloke's trends:

FIGHTER. Because out-of-combat is for maggots.

[Unoriginal]

Fighter: here to stay, but not much else

Fighter: because Commoner was already taken

Fighter: their powers take so much space on the forum they should be called Senator instead

Fighter: fitting name until Heat Metal is cast

Fighter: why fear difficulty?

Fighter: when the going get tough, the tough goes away

Fighter: dip-provider since 2015

Fighter: when Moon Druid is already taken

Fighter: because it's called *Wizards* of the Coast

Fighter: replace a mule adequately, I guess

[QuintonBeck]

Fighter: When you want to keep your options limited

Fighter: Barbarians are stupid but you picked Fighter so...

Fighter: Might as well call it the Decoy

Fighter: No love after second level, the one night stand of classes

Fighter: When you plan to multiclass

[Grod_The_Giant]

Battlemaster: The only noncaster class in the game with meaningful attack options! Awesome! Too bad their usage is so limited. And that there aren't new tiers. I guess. Wish there were more noncombat things, but eh.

Champion: Boring-but-reliable is okay, boring-but-statistically-relevant is less so. The Champion commits two cardinal sins: its trademark feature doesn't mesh well with the rest of the class (you really want it on something like a Rogue, that gets bonus damage dice), and most of its low-level features are only helpful in a "well, over time..." sense. You probably won't see an effect from Improved Critical or Remarkable Athlete in any given turn,

EK: What's the fighter good at? Damage, both taking it and dishing it out. So, if we're going to give it magic, what should we offer? How about damage-and-defense? Yeeesss... No, no, no! Abjuration, maybe; it's admittedly hard to argue with spells like Shield, Protection from Energy, and Stoneskin. But Evocation? Even if we put aside the fact that the Fighter is already good at damage, someone clearly forgot that damage spells no longer scale with caster level. Spending precious actions and scarce spell slots on under-leveled versions of an already underpowered speciality is just sad. Someone really should have taken the time to write up a dedicated list. Where's my Mirror Image? Haste? Flame Arrows?

Purple Dragon Knight: "Hey, how do you feel about spending an entire archetype to power up features that can only be used once/rest?" "Brilliant!" Seriously; I like a lot of this archetype, it just needs to make Second Wind in particular usable more often.

[mgshamster]

Fighter: their powers take so much space on the forum they should be called Senator instead

That caused me to laugh way more than it should have.

[KorvinStarmast]

You wanna go where people know,
complains are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody hates the game.
Cheers, I'll have another.

[Unoriginal]

That caused me to laugh way more than it should have.

Thanks, mgshamster

[Coranhann]

I can'tell understand the interest for any of the subclasses.

All fighters do is hit, hit, hit no matter what.
Got DPR on their mind, they can never get enough.
But as soon as other classes comes, every fighters give up.

(Ps: Unoriginal, I love your style !)

[CantigThimble]

That caused me to laugh way more than it should have.


Same. My stomach hurts now.

[Ralanr]

I can'tell understand the interest for any of the subclasses.

All fighters do is hit, hit, hit no matter what.
Got DPR on their mind, they can never get enough.
But as soon as other classes comes, every fighters give up.

(Ps: Unoriginal, I love your style !)

Goddamn it I wish I could +1 this.

[Specter]

I can'tell understand the interest for any of the subclasses.

All fighters do is hit, hit, hit no matter what.
Got DPR on their mind, they can never get enough.
But as soon as other classes comes, every fighters give up.

(Ps: Unoriginal, I love your style !)

Church, bro. Why worry about damage when you could just use that Wall of Stone to BUILD instead of DESTROYING? We'll never reach peace and love while Fighters are around, bro.

[Basement Cat]

This makes me want to build a character with nothing but Soft Features, just to see the forum debate that would ensue.

Wouldn't that just be a Warlock without Eldritch Blast?

[Zalabim]

tEldrich Knight: Compared to Battlemaster having no depth, and champion actively hurting other classes by merely existing, Eldrich Knight is frankly a good class. it still commits the sins of being a 1/3rd caster that expects you to be utilizing DC casting, which is still a Cardinal sin of class design: that the farther you end from lvl 9 spells, the more utility focused your spellcasting could be. While cantrips like GFB and BB give you a decent interaction with war magic. But this class shouldnt progress past War Magic at all. Your best Cantrip option is the SCAG twins, who dont get along with the Extra Attack feature too well, a feature fighter has Oh So Many of
I know this isn't the thread to defend the fighter in any way, but this really bugs me. Your DC scales with your proficiency, so it doesn't matter if you're casting 9th level spells or 2nd, they'll still work just as well. There's nothing wrong with casting Web or Entangle at level 20, if you can still get enemies in the area. On top of this, the EK gets eldritch strike to make their DCs effectively better.

EK: What's the fighter good at? Damage, both taking it and dishing it out. So, if we're going to give it magic, what should we offer? How about damage-and-defense? Yeeesss... No, no, no! Abjuration, maybe; it's admittedly hard to argue with spells like Shield, Protection from Energy, and Stoneskin. But Evocation? Even if we put aside the fact that the Fighter is already good at damage, someone clearly forgot that damage spells no longer scale with caster level. Spending precious actions and scarce spell slots on under-leveled versions of an already underpowered speciality is just sad. Someone really should have taken the time to write up a dedicated list. Where's my Mirror Image? Haste? Flame Arrows?
There's a sliding balance between limited-use features and constant-use features. You can't give a class both the fighting ability of a level 20 fighter and the blasting ability of a level 20 evoker at the same time, and even at the EK's end of the spectrum, there's still occasional use for fireballs, and a little room allowed for learning non-fightery-magic. I swear, you give people a balanced-well-enough option and they just want more power. You should all have to play champions.

[Citan]

I know this isn't the thread to defend the fighter in any way, but this really bugs me. Your DC scales with your proficiency, so it doesn't matter if you're casting 9th level spells or 2nd, they'll still work just as well. There's nothing wrong with casting Web or Entangle at level 20, if you can still get enemies in the area. On top of this, the EK gets eldritch strike to make their DCs effectively better.

There's a sliding balance between limited-use features and constant-use features. You can't give a class both the fighting ability of a level 20 fighter and the blasting ability of a level 20 evoker at the same time, and even at the EK's end of the spectrum, there's still occasional use for fireballs, and a little room allowed for learning non-fightery-magic. I swear, you give people a balanced-well-enough option and they just want more power. You should all have to play champions.
+100 to this. It's funny how people say "booh 1/3 casters should not even try casting since they have only low level spells" when you see how often spells as low as Bless, Spirit Guardians, Darkness, Entangle, Blindness, Slow or Hold Person to quote a few are used regularly even at high levels.

[Grod_The_Giant]

There's a sliding balance between limited-use features and constant-use features. You can't give a class both the fighting ability of a level 20 fighter and the blasting ability of a level 20 evoker at the same time, and even at the EK's end of the spectrum, there's still occasional use for fireballs, and a little room allowed for learning non-fightery-magic. I swear, you give people a balanced-well-enough option and they just want more power. You should all have to play champions.
There's also a point to be made about not giving limited-use features that are inferior to your constant-use features, especially when they do similar things. If you have a character that can regularly do 50 DPR with a full attack, giving them the ability to do 55 damage once/long rest is not particularly significant. It's doubling down on the same role without really changing how good you are at the thing. I'm not really advocating that the EK should get more blasting ability; instead, I'd like to see fewer blasts and defensive spells, and more utility magic. But that's just me; this is a thread about venting.


+100 to this. It's funny how people say "booh 1/3 casters should not even try casting since they have only low level spells" when you see how often spells as low as Bless, Spirit Guardians, Darkness, Entangle, Blindness, Slow or Hold Person to quote a few are used regularly even at high levels.
Oh, I agree entirely-- there are plenty of low-level spells that remain useful throughout the game. It's just that Magic Missile and Shatter aren't really among them. Would you, as an EK, rather have Scorching Ray as a 2nd level spell, or Misty Step?

[Logosloki]

Champion? Anything you can do I can do slightly better. I can do anything slightly better than you. And by that I mean non-class features, not that champion has any class features.
Battlemaster? if you dangle a carrot in front of a fighter you can get them to do anything. Even think they have a good subclass
Eldritch Knight? let's add in a 1/3 caster in an edition where the difference between 1/3 and 1/2 is minuscule. Also, for giggles every single full and pseudo full caster gets their archetype at level 1 but Fighter has to wait until level 3. And the only reason I can tell is because they wanted to set up spell progression for 1/3 and 1/2 casters since 1/2 casters get their archetypes at level 2.
Purple Dragon Knight? You can't even be a purple dragon knight unless you drink the kool-aid that is supplied by Cormyr. You can be a banneret which is like telling someone that the budget brand milk they drink is the same as the big brand milk. Given that most campaigns will likely end around level 10/11 which is just in time to give you the ability to make your action surge turn someone's reaction in a bonus action and the ability to give people 10 hp. Once per short rest. Which you might not get because of how some DMs structure their games with low encounters per day encounters or letting the 5 minute work day arise.

And now for some UA. There has been a hint that two of these subclasses will make the not-named-PHB2-but-definitely-is book coming out later this year (or early next year because I'm a jaded cynic about any promises on release dates)

Arcane Archer? There are 8 spells on their spell list and they can only learn 6 of them.The trade off is that they only require an arrow as a material component (which is expended and must hit the target), all of your spells are spell attacks (so 8+prof+INT) and you require a 2-handed focus (a bow). Outside of spells they don't get cantrips but they do get +1 magic arrows. At level 3. The subclass did have a cool feature where for the price of an action you could summon a quiver of 20 non-magic arrows at level 10. I think they took that away because every other archer class and subclass collectively popped a vein. Round two of this subclass also gave it four shots instead of two and at level 15 it gains parity with the battlemaster in which they always have one charge of combat superiority Arcane Shot. If you DM rolls initiative every round. Otherwise you don't get parity with battlemaster.

Cavalier? The cavalier has combat superiority. Except this is a misnomer because it doesn't have the same combat superiority as battlemaster. Instead the Cavalier has four maneuvers it learns two from the battlemasters list and two that are unique to it, no more, no less. Otherwise this is combat superiority. Also, those two maneuvers aren't available to battlemasters because of the martial subclass exclusionary principle where even within a class martials get segregated gimmick lists. The cavalier, like the arcane archer continues the trend where fighter UA archetypes get bonus skills. It has been heavily hinted that they Cavalier will be one of the subclasses to make not!PHB2.


Knight? What the champion should have been. All passive abilities, except three times every short rest it breaks 5th edition so hard it turns into 4th edition. Really wish this one makes it to PHB2. It would actually be a good subclass if it wasn't for the fact that the fighter is playing in the sandpit whilst the casters are being taught how to use 3D printers and programming.

Monster Hunter? Like the Cavalier gains combat superiority. Also like the Cavalier this isn't actually combat superiority but a four point custom list that is exclusive to monster hunters. Though to help you differentiate these aren't called maneuvers. It really is just a four bullet point list.

Samurai? They could have called this the warrior-poet. Except they don't get a bonus artisan tool like Battlemaster does. The real issue is how insipid this subclass is. Good option if you want to specifically play a brownoser.

Scout? Another day, another combat superiority. This one is like Monster hunter. Except it only has three bullet points, none of them are the same as monster hunter though. So another exclusive list within a class. This class also allows you to steal the ribbon from Ranger.

Sharpshooter? What if (takes swig from bottle of jack before passing it on to the next person) we made a subclass that is a feat?

What was really depressing pulling up all the UA articles though is how bare boned the Fighter subclasses are. Every single one that has combat superiority has the same level 10 and 15 ability. Which would be cool if they all shared combat superiority but instead they all have exclusive lists. Monster Hunter, Cavalier and Scout get all their options at level 3 and never get any more. Arcane Archer gets an entire system which is just combat superiority but with INT. To compliment that barebonedess there is some inways to giving fighter subclasses social pillar tools (and in the case of scout exploration pillar).

Overall the fighter continues the trend where they get to do two things real good - beaning an enemy and then one trick from their subclass.

[toapat]

Oh, I agree entirely-- there are plenty of low-level spells that remain useful throughout the game. It's just that Magic Missile and Shatter aren't really among them. Would you, as an EK, rather have Scorching Ray as a 2nd level spell, or Misty Step?

to be fair, this is the thread for just hating all the archetypes. I dont really hate EK i recognize its decent although it basically is better to just pivot away into a new class after at worst getting the War Magic class feature.

[Vogonjeltz]

Oh thank God.

I needed a place to talk about the fighter. The fighter discussions on this forum are just so barren.

I picture the lone Thief enthusiast sitting in a room with the one person who really enjoys the War Domain Cleric wondering why they never have anyone to talk to.


Fighter: The only reason to play one is when you want a literate character who doesn't have to be Lawful Good.

Wait... are you saying you think that either Wizards can't read or that Wizards have to be Lawful Good?


Fighter: here to stay, but not much else

Fighter: because Commoner was already taken

Fighter: their powers take so much space on the forum they should be called Senator instead

Fighter: fitting name until Heat Metal is cast

Fighter: why fear difficulty?

Fighter: when the going get tough, the tough goes away

Fighter: dip-provider since 2015

Fighter: when Moon Druid is already taken

Fighter: because it's called *Wizards* of the Coast

Fighter: replace a mule adequately, I guess

How'd you manage to skip right past "Fighter: Not a Lover"?

[Specter]

I picture the lone Thief enthusiast sitting in a room with the one person who really enjoys the War Domain Cleric wondering why they never have anyone to talk to.

Hey, Warmonger right here. Crusader's Mantle at level 5 is too good. Plus, you get to actually advocate for mass murderhoboism, unlike those boring Life priests. Life? Who needs to vouch for that? Bleh.