Martial Power!!! (Give the martials something to do other than "attack again")

[Ralanr]

I think it's a combination of things. They legitimately think 12 classes is enough. Artificer exists only because they needed to bring Eberron into 5E. They don't want the class bloat 3E had. There's also player outrage. They tried many ways to bring psions into the game, but anything they tried the players complained. They tried to bring in a new game mechanic - the psionic die which I happened to like, but the majority of the player base hated it, not merely only disliking the implementation to improve it. There will also always be the players who hate any kind of power creep. I don't think it's a question of timidity but rather their customers are telling them don't do it, way more than players who want them to.

With how subclasses worked out, I can't really fault them for thinking that. You can express a lot of concepts by making them a subclass of an existing one. Some don't work well with the mechanics provided (purple dragon knight is not a good warlord substitute and I'd argue a 14th class just to give us that is worthwhile), but it does prevent class bloat. And class bloat is obnoxious as heck.

Yep in the totally overhauled version of 5e that only exists in my head because game design is hard there are only 12 levels.

Oh I didn't even mark down the weeks.

[Kuu Lightwing]

With how subclasses worked out, I can't really fault them for thinking that. You can express a lot of concepts by making them a subclass of an existing one. Some don't work well with the mechanics provided (purple dragon knight is not a good warlord substitute and I'd argue a 14th class just to give us that is worthwhile), but it does prevent class bloat. And class bloat is obnoxious as heck.

I would argue that subclasses fail at this task, because of how incredibly limited they are. I'd take class bloat over subclass bloat, because trying to cram all those concept into existing chassis often results in butchering the concept itself and making the result either very underwhelming, or just not being able to express said concept.

Think of it this way - most subclasses are 4 levels of features, half of which belong to tiers 3 and 4 - the tiers that are by the admission of game designers are not played much. So it basically limits it to two levels to meaningfully express the idea, and in some cases the power budget of the base class is pretty big.

Obviously it's possible to make too many classes, but 5e approach took it too far in the other direction.

[qube]

With how subclasses worked out, I can't really fault them for thinking that. You can express a lot of concepts by making them a subclass of an existing one. Some don't work well with the mechanics provided (purple dragon knight is not a good warlord substitute and I'd argue a 14th class just to give us that is worthwhile), but it does prevent class bloat. And class bloat is obnoxious as heck.

It also prevents some char-opping with multiclassing. consider 5 classes basically equal to fighter. A fighter 2/warrior 2/soldier 2/conbatant 2/trooper 2 is a character with 5 action surges (and 5 fighting styles)

(while more difficult, a simelar thing would be done in 3.5 - taking a few levels of many different classes and prestige classes)

[Kuu Lightwing]

It also prevents some char-opping with multiclassing. consider 5 classes basically equal to fighter. A fighter 2/warrior 2/soldier 2/conbatant 2/trooper 2 is a character with 5 action surges (and 5 fighting styles)

(while more difficult, a simelar thing would be done in 3.5 - taking a few levels of many different classes and prestige classes)

And zero extra attacks...

And besides, I would think that new classes wouldn't have Action Surge to begin with, because what's the point of making a new martial job and giving it the same abilities as Fighters.

[qube]

Think of it this way - most subclasses are 4 levels of features, half of which belong to tiers 3 and 4 - the tiers that are by the admission of game designers are not played much. So it basically limits it to two levels to meaningfully express the idea, and in some cases the power budget of the base class is pretty big.

but the alternative - a full class, also suffers from the fact 50% of the class is in tier 3 and 4.

(and don't forget that designing 20 levels is much harder then designing 4 abilities)

I don't see that as much as an argument against subclassing, but an argument to have more abilities of the subclass affect the lower tiers. (ex. lvl 3, 6 and 9, and 15)

[Kuu Lightwing]

but the alternative - a full class, also suffers from the fact 50% of the class is in tier 3 and 4.

(and don't forget that designing 20 levels is much harder then designing 4 abilities)

I don't see that as much as an argument against subclassing, but an argument to have more abilities of the subclass affect the lower tiers. (ex. lvl 3, 6 and 9, and 15)

Oh it's definitely easier, and as time goes by I can see that 5e designers always take the easiest option, and opt to offload more and more design job onto DM.

And while yes, a full class does suffer from 50% of it being in tier 3 and tier 4, there's much more design space to express the desired concept in 10 levels of abilities compared to two levels of abilities, and it is also free from the baggage of the base class that may or may not fit the concept to begin with. I would rather have an Arcane Archer to be a class designed around shooting magic arrows most of the time, than it being a Fighter that can shoot two magic arrows per short rest and then just shoot normal arrows the rest of the combat.

[qube]

And zero extra attacks...

considering 1/5th of a fighting style is worth more then an extra attack, that's not the strongest argument then you think. But if you like extra attack that much, you can make a lvl 11 build with extra attack and 4 action surges

And besides, I would think that new classes wouldn't have Action Surge to begin with, because what's the point of making a new martial job and giving it the same abilities as Fighters.

it's a simplified example for a class that is frontloaded with general abilities, as the fighter.

[Kuu Lightwing]

considering 1/5th of a fighting style is worth more then an extra attack, that's not the strongest argument then you think. But if you like extra attack that much, you can make a lvl 11 build with extra attack and 4 action surges

it's a simplified example for a class that is frontloaded with general abilities, as the fighter.

This devolves into some white room theory crafting with theoretical jobs with theoretical abilities that may or may not cause issues. I don't see people many people playing Fighter 2/Ranger 2/Paladin 2/Barbarian 2 for four fighting styles either, so seems like a highly theoretical issue.

[qube]

This devolves into some white room theory crafting with theoretical jobs with theoretical abilities that may or may not cause issues.

considering we don't have more then 12 (or 13) classes, it obvious this is theoretical.

I don't see people many people playing Fighter 2/Ranger 2/Paladin 2/Barbarian 2 for four fighting styles either, so seems like a highly theoretical issue.

that's because it's not a real issue ... yet.

But more classes = more problems.
(unless you want to take the stance that the game designers are flawless beings who never make mistakes).

For example, in dnd3, I recall having made a character with 3 classes and 3 prestige classes, non of which were lvl 3. A fighter 2 monk 2 samurai 1,followed by a few levels of drunken master, ninja of the crescent moon, and a third prestige class I don't recall (but to be fair, it's been nearly 20 years).

Even now - just look how fast your argument wasn't "Fighter 5 / Fighter 2 x3" is bad - but, a hopeful wish they wouldn't bring out 4 times the same class. Despite this already having happened!
(the 3.0 Samurai was litterly a 3.0 fighter with it's first feat locked in, and an extra proficiency in a saving throw a slightly slower feat progression)

[Suichimo]

3E introduced the idea that D&D lasts for 20+ levels (I think levels above 10 were mostly theoretical in older editions), but the game has never had much of an idea that to do with them. And design has pretty blatantly focused on the first 10 levels, which leads to a feedback loop - high-level content isn't popular, so the designers don't bother doing much with it, so it's not interesting... and so on.

At least in 3.x they gave us the Epic Level Handbook. Even if it is something that won't see much use, they should at least give us something. As you mentioned, they've got the self-defeating prophecy of only designing ~10 levels of campaign(backed up by Adventurer League only going to level 11(?)), no one plays above that because no material is there, because no one is playing it nothing is designed for it, repeat. Even doing something like putting an ending chapter in official campaigns, if they don't want to put out an official 1-20 campaign, that just deals with continuing the story and world beyond the main story and giving advice and hooks to use up to 20 would be amazingly helpful.

One thing I'd love to see them do is salvage yet another concept from 4e, a lot of my ideas involve doing this btw, and take their class structure. So you'd have your base class and you'd still have subclasses, this in part feels like it was taken from 4e anyway. However, say at level 10 or 11 or something you then gain access to, what 4e would've called, a Paragon Path which either lets you further specialize or expand your abilities even further. So you'd have the base layer being the main class, a second layer which would be your subclass and it's ~15-17 levels of abilities, and then your Paragon Path which would be ~9-10 levels worth of abilities.

If they wanted to go whole hog, they could even bring in Epic Destinies for level 17+. These would provide a definite ending to the character, rather than just a simple capstone ability. As an example, one of the generic Epic Destinies in 4e was Demigod which literally saw your character become a Demigod, joining your god's pantheon, when they hit level 30. An epic destiny for arcane casters was becoming an Archlich. My personal favorite epic destiny, which was exclusive to Rogues and Rangers for some reason, was the Dark Wanderer. You basically became the hero that drifts and appears in times of need. One of it's abilities allowed you to just choose a location and start walking. No matter where the location was, regardless of distance, planar separation, whatever, you arrive after 24 hours.

considering we don't have more then 12 (or 13) classes, it obvious this is theoretical.

that's because it's not a real issue ... yet.

But more classes = more problems.
(unless you want to take the stance that the game designers are flawless beings who never make mistakes).

For example, in dnd3, I recall having made a character with 3 classes and 3 prestige classes, non of which were lvl 3. A fighter 2 monk 2 samurai 1,followed by a few levels of drunken master, ninja of the crescent moon, and a third prestige class I don't recall (but to be fair, it's been nearly 20 years).

Even now - just look how fast your argument wasn't "Fighter 5 / Fighter 2 x3" is bad - but, a hopeful wish they wouldn't bring out 4 times the same class. Despite this already having happened!
(the 3.0 Samurai was litterly a 3.0 fighter with it's first feat locked in, and an extra proficiency in a saving throw a slightly slower feat progression)

We're not arguing for that. Obviously, the Samurai completely fits inside the framework of the Fighter and is just fine as a subclass. There is stuff that doesn't fit in the current existing frameworks, or you would have to butcher to get them to fit, that is worth bringing back.

My personal favorite class, across all RPGs, is the Swordmage from 4e. I was really hoping we'd see it in some form, especially since all of the SCAG cantrips were literally the Swordmage's at will abilities. However, that is as close as it gets. Magic guy swings sword and gets one of those cantrips. Nothing allows them to replicate any of the three Aegises(Assault, Shielding, or Ensnarement) or the more magical class features. This would need an entirely new class to fit into the game.

[Kuu Lightwing]

considering we don't have more then 12 (or 13) classes, it obvious this is theoretical.

that's because it's not a real issue ... yet.

What stops people from making the multiclass I mentioned if getting additional fighting styles is as powerful as you say? And what makes you think that new classes would add a problem like that? I mean surely Barbarian actually doesn't give Fighting Style, but it gives two very strong abilities that will probably help every martial?

But more classes = more problems.
(unless you want to take the stance that the game designers are flawless beings who never make mistakes).

For example, in dnd3, I recall having made a character with 3 classes and 3 prestige classes, non of which were lvl 3. A fighter 2 monk 2 samurai 1,followed by a few levels of drunken master, ninja of the crescent moon, and a third prestige class I don't recall (but to be fair, it's been nearly 20 years).

Even now - just look how fast your argument wasn't "Fighter 5 / Fighter 2 x3" is bad - but, a hopeful wish they wouldn't bring out 4 times the same class. Despite this already having happened!
(the 3.0 Samurai was litterly a 3.0 fighter with it's first feat locked in, and an extra proficiency in a saving throw a slightly slower feat progression)

Then your argument should be that they shouldn't make the classes the same rather than that they shouldn't make new classes at all. That's just throwing baby out with the bathwater and insisting in cramming everything into subclasses that do not have room to support most of the concepts they try to introduce to the game. 3.5e (and especially 3.0e which you are referencing) had its flaws and yes probably too many very similar classes, but it doesn't mean that 5e should never introduce new classes at all.

[Psyren]

There should not be 6-casters at all. If you want someone to be a specialized spellcaster, just give them a specialized spell list. If you want someone to be a partial caster, give them a more limited number of spell slots. But having multiple casting progressions makes the game more confusing, and turns "learn a spell from another list" from a relatively minor ability into something you have to carefully lock down to avoid 3e Artificer-style shenanigans.

In what way is "some classes have less magic than others" confusing? 5e did that with Eldritch Knights, Paladins, and Rangers etc. and people picked up on that just fine. It's even more relevant in 5e since spells scale with slot instead of CL.

Of course it is. Because that's describing the causality backwards. All those classes can get the same fireball because they play similarly. Consider a different ability: teleport. Does that do the same thing on a class that gets it at-will as a class that gets it a limited number of times per day? Of course not. You certainly can have classes all pull from a shared list. But that limits the number of ways you can have abilities work, because the way an ability works influences its power in dramatic and obvious ways. Which is why the example being used is fireball, rather than something that is meaningfully influenced by how the class using it works.

I didn't say anything about at-will and resource-limited classes playing the same. Spells like teleport and fireball should absolutely not be at-will, and I don't think any 5e classes have that, so it's a clear strawman.

You could probably also get a fair amount of mileage of having some kind of universal resource called "stamina" that's equal to your character's hp and can be spent on various class features. A few default ones with martial classes getting better/more efficient options. It'd be fiddly because you'd be tracking a second triple digit resource thats not hp but it would meet most of the design criteria

Tying ability resources to HP is almost never a good idea imo. You'd have to future-proof every single HP buffing or restoring effect as they would also translate to ammunition and therefore power.

The one ability I've seen where "cast from hit points" could work is something like Burn from the PF Kineticist, where they include a bunch of legalese essentially saying "the only way you can ever heal this is by resting for the night, and it can't kill you." And even then they screwed up the implementation.

[Morty]

One thing I'd love to see them do is salvage yet another concept from 4e, a lot of my ideas involve doing this btw, and take their class structure. So you'd have your base class and you'd still have subclasses, this in part feels like it was taken from 4e anyway. However, say at level 10 or 11 or something you then gain access to, what 4e would've called, a Paragon Path which either lets you further specialize or expand your abilities even further. So you'd have the base layer being the main class, a second layer which would be your subclass and it's ~15-17 levels of abilities, and then your Paragon Path which would be ~9-10 levels worth of abilities.

I'm not sure if the 4E paragon paths realized their promise. But then I've never played in a game that had one. The issue of the real game happening below level 10 was in effect in 4E. The idea that as you go up in level, your character changes considerably and so does the game itself is a valid one, but I don't know if the paragon paths really do that.

[strangebloke]

Tying ability resources to HP is almost never a good idea imo. You'd have to future-proof every single HP buffing or restoring effect as they would also translate to ammunition and therefore power.

The one ability I've seen where "cast from hit points" could work is something like Burn from the PF Kineticist, where they include a bunch of legalese essentially saying "the only way you can ever heal this is by resting for the night, and it can't kill you." And even then they screwed up the implementation.

Nah I'm talking about a secondary pool that's generated in the same way as HP. So your stamina goes up when your HP does at level up but not when you have Aid cast on you or whatever. Its a completely separate pool.

Not a great idea still but I wanted to be clear.

[qube]

We're not arguing for that. Obviously, the Samurai completely fits inside the framework of the Fighter and is just fine as a subclass. There is stuff that doesn't fit in the current existing frameworks, or you would have to butcher to get them to fit, that is worth bringing back.

I think you missed the point. I bring up the samurai, because it's basically the same class as the fighter. it's evidence that this

And besides, I would think that new classes wouldn't have Action Surge to begin with, because what's the point of making a new martial job and giving it the same abilities as Fighters.

happened in the past, when the idea was to have more classes.

The more classes like fighter exist (namely front heavy classes that area easily MC'ed with other builds), the bigger this issue is.
.

[Willie the Duck]

Not to derail, but I think they sort of didn't? My knowledge of 0, first, and second edition are very limited mind you, but I kind of figured that the fighting man class didn't really do much but got followers as they leveled to keep up.

well, this has to do with a lot of the changes that have happened over the various editions.
first of all, spellcasters have consistently had their weaknesses reduced or removed entirely over the past 3 editions of D&D. I can't speak to before that time, but in 2nd AD&D when I started, wizards couldn't wear armour and cast spells (with the exception of elven fighter/mages who got their hands on a rare and expensive piece of equipment). not "can't wear armour without a feat", not "can't wear armour without multiclassing", not "might fail to cast a spell while wearing armour", just straight up "can't wear armour and cast spells", and it was a big deal because armour was by far the best way to improve your armour class. as I recall, they also lost their dexterity bonus to armour class while casting spells, and on top of that if you got hit before your spell went off in the initiative order your spell was gone. not *maybe* gone. gone. you lost it. period.
furthermore, vancian casting was a pretty significant limit. you might get about as many spell slots in 5th edition, but when I started playing you had to figure out what you wanted each spell slot to be at the start of the day, not at the start of your turn.
furthermore, they had d4 as their hit die instead of their current d6, and also of note hit dice stopped at 9th or 10th level, depending on class, and from then on you got a set number of hit points per level based on class. for wizards, that number was 1. and no constitution bonus at that point, since you were no longer gaining hit dice. also, warriors had a higher maximum bonus to hit points from constitution than everyone else, although that didn't come up as often since you needed a 17+ for it to matter.
specialization had a real cost to it as well, since you were losing 2-3 schools of magic, and just about every school had some really good stuff you would be losing.
finally, enemy saving throws improved with hit dice, and reached a point where if you were using a spell that didn't inflict a fairly large penalty the enemies were very likely to make their save. more particularly, enemy saving throws improved generally at the same rate as a fighter's saving throws... which also means that in addition to being a lot tougher relatively speaking than wizards in terms of hit points and armour class, fighters were generally quite likely to resist effects at high levels, especially if they had stuff like rings of protection to improve their saving throws.
I would also add that spells to buff your warrior allies could be far more powerful. people talk about haste in 5th edition and say it's good... well in my day it doubled attack rates and movement on one target per level. strength lasted one hour per level and actually improved the strength attribute. these were powerful options available to 2nd edition wizards that worked mainly because there were warriors to use them on.
of course, that's only part of the equation. fighters have gotten gradually weaker in relative terms. a 5th edition fighter does more total damage than a 2nd edition fighter (unless that second edition fighter is getting some powerful buff spells, generally speaking), but enemies in 2nd edition had a lot fewer hit points. a 14 hit die beholder would average around 60 hit points, for example, and when your main thing is "do hit point damage" that's a big deal. it was also incredibly consistent; I've had fighters who could hit typical enemies on a 2 or higher as early as level 6 or 7 (with a buff or two) on rare occasions. the 2nd edition fighter was simply far more effective against a 2nd edition monster than a 5th edition fighter is against a 5th edition monster. as a point of contrast, for a 2nd edition wizard if an enemy had magic resistance you had a flat chance of failing to effect them, period. no matter what the spell was. an enemy with 40% magic resistance had a 40% chance to ignore your fireball, and also a 40% chance to be able to walk through a wall of force after you cast it. some monsters were just outright immune to almost all magic (golems, for example).
so, how did the early edition fighter contribute? they were far better at fighting than the 2nd edition wizard. if you were going to get into fights (and you probably were), you were glad to have as many fighters as you could get your hands on, and high level fighters were extremely effective in their role, far more so than the modern D&D fighter.

A good synopsis. Other things to mention:
Fighters in Chainmail, oD&D, and AD&D (not sure about the rest of the basic-classic line) got 1 attack per level against low-HD opponents, meaning a high level fighter could just cut a bloody swath through ranks of orcs or the like (when 3-300 low HD monsters were a semi-frequent wilderness encounter).
Fighters (and later thieves), as the only ones who could wield swords, had access to vorpals, flaming swords, and intelligent weapons which often granted X/day spellcasting. In many ways, much of TSR-era’s fighter’s advancement was hidden on the treasure charts in the DMG.
There was a time (especially oD&D and basic-classic, where there weren’t even bracers of armor) when 1d6+1 or 1d8 or 1d10 hp/level and the ability to wear plate and carry a shield was genuinely huge in and of itself. A fighter having an AC of 2 (lower is better) and avg 18 hp by level 4 is impressive when the MU had an AC of 9 (and if using the Weapon vs. Armor charts, most weapons get additional pluses against unarmored opponents) and 10 hp at the same point.
In addition to having to select your spells at the start of the day, what you did when not casting one of those precious spells was a lot less. No cantrips. No crossbows. In oD&D and basic-classic, not even staffs or slings – you had daggers, and lobbing flammable oil.
Also, since you specifically mentioned casting Haste on the fighter in 2nd edition AD&D, I have to ask: did your DM remember to have your characters survive being hasted? The spell ages you a year, and magical aging requires a System Shock check. So casting it on the party (or I suppose the opponents, if they happen to be built as PCs and thus have Con scores) can cause more of a deadly effect in the middle of battle than the average fireball. One of favorite little ‘designers didn’t think this through’ moments in that edition. :-P

I'll never understand the backlash against Psionics, at least the version of Psionics that is simply Mind Wizard.

Psionics 3.0 might have poisoned the well for some, but I think the overall issue (one that the 5e Mystic UA ran into as well) is that, even amongst D&D players who like the concept of psionics, there isn’t a lot of consensus (and often competing, mutually exclusive ideas) on what psionics ought to be or look like. If you have a room of superfans of the thing devolve into fights between they guy who want more and more crystals bickering with the one who wants more and more tattoos while the guy who wants to preserve the psionic combat matrix is coming to blows with the one who want to make sure a psionicist can still accidentally disintegrate themselves on a bad roll, there’s not much hope at coming up with a happy medium everyone can at least sorta-like (kind of a metaphor for D&D design in general, I know).

[Dr.Samurai]

well, this has to do with a lot of the changes that have happened over the various editions.

first of all, spellcasters have consistently had their weaknesses reduced or removed entirely over the past 3 editions of D&D. I can't speak to before that time, but in 2nd AD&D when I started, wizards couldn't wear armour and cast spells (with the exception of elven fighter/mages who got their hands on a rare and expensive piece of equipment). not "can't wear armour without a feat", not "can't wear armour without multiclassing", not "might fail to cast a spell while wearing armour", just straight up "can't wear armour and cast spells", and it was a big deal because armour was by far the best way to improve your armour class. as I recall, they also lost their dexterity bonus to armour class while casting spells, and on top of that if you got hit before your spell went off in the initiative order your spell was gone. not *maybe* gone. gone. you lost it. period.

furthermore, vancian casting was a pretty significant limit. you might get about as many spell slots in 5th edition, but when I started playing you had to figure out what you wanted each spell slot to be at the start of the day, not at the start of your turn.

furthermore, they had d4 as their hit die instead of their current d6, and also of note hit dice stopped at 9th or 10th level, depending on class, and from then on you got a set number of hit points per level based on class. for wizards, that number was 1. and no constitution bonus at that point, since you were no longer gaining hit dice. also, warriors had a higher maximum bonus to hit points from constitution than everyone else, although that didn't come up as often since you needed a 17+ for it to matter.

specialization had a real cost to it as well, since you were losing 2-3 schools of magic, and just about every school had some really good stuff you would be losing.

finally, enemy saving throws improved with hit dice, and reached a point where if you were using a spell that didn't inflict a fairly large penalty the enemies were very likely to make their save. more particularly, enemy saving throws improved generally at the same rate as a fighter's saving throws... which also means that in addition to being a lot tougher relatively speaking than wizards in terms of hit points and armour class, fighters were generally quite likely to resist effects at high levels, especially if they had stuff like rings of protection to improve their saving throws.

I would also add that spells to buff your warrior allies could be far more powerful. people talk about haste in 5th edition and say it's good... well in my day it doubled attack rates and movement on one target per level. strength lasted one hour per level and actually improved the strength attribute. these were powerful options available to 2nd edition wizards that worked mainly because there were warriors to use them on.

of course, that's only part of the equation. fighters have gotten gradually weaker in relative terms. a 5th edition fighter does more total damage than a 2nd edition fighter (unless that second edition fighter is getting some powerful buff spells, generally speaking), but enemies in 2nd edition had a lot fewer hit points. a 14 hit die beholder would average around 60 hit points, for example, and when your main thing is "do hit point damage" that's a big deal. it was also incredibly consistent; I've had fighters who could hit typical enemies on a 2 or higher as early as level 6 or 7 (with a buff or two) on rare occasions. the 2nd edition fighter was simply far more effective against a 2nd edition monster than a 5th edition fighter is against a 5th edition monster. as a point of contrast, for a 2nd edition wizard if an enemy had magic resistance you had a flat chance of failing to effect them, period. no matter what the spell was. an enemy with 40% magic resistance had a 40% chance to ignore your fireball, and also a 40% chance to be able to walk through a wall of force after you cast it. some monsters were just outright immune to almost all magic (golems, for example).

so, how did the early edition fighter contribute? they were far better at fighting than the 2nd edition wizard. if you were going to get into fights (and you probably were), you were glad to have as many fighters as you could get your hands on, and high level fighters were extremely effective in their role, far more so than the modern D&D fighter.

as far as why we know the names of a bunch of wizard PCs and that's it... that's because they made new spells. some of the spells weren't even very good, and got left behind. but consider, those friends must have also played druids and clerics, which are also spellcasters... why don't we know those names? because they didn't create melf's magic missile or mordenkainen's faithful watchdog, all of their spells would have been their deities, not their own.

I mean, to put it another way... you know melf's name. what mighty deeds did melf accomplish? apart from acid arrow, and minute meteors, what was melf known for? what level did melf achieve? I would guess that you ultimately know next to nothing about melf other than a couple of spells he created. you don't know about melf because he was amazing and his fighter buddies sucked. you know about melf because he named a spell after himself, and that spell got added into the rulebooks.

Wow... I started in 3rd edition. The editions before that sound like they got the balance much more correct. Fighters were more in line with our myths and stories. I had no idea previous editions were like that. Any idea what caused the change and for things to go so much in the opposite direction? Now, casters have access to literally everything else a stock warrior has: armor, weapons, extra attacks. And we remember CoDzilla from 3rd edition.

Why the shift? (assuming there is a known reason)

[paladinn]

Has PhoenixPhyre linked their homebrew thread yet?

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...r-all-Fighters

Wow, I don't know how I missed this. Sucks getting old, but better than the alternative.

I'm finding myself actually liking the "stance" idea as presented here. Which is weird since I don't much care for 3e ToB and despise the martial "power" concept from 4e.

A few thoughts:
1. I can see clear relationships between some of these stances and the "core" 5e fighting styles. Maybe that could be developed a bit to make one's fighting style more defining. If you choose a given style, you have access to 2-3 associated stances?

2. I would limit stances to baseline fighters/champions, not battlemasters, EK's, paladins or rangers. So a ranger could grab archery fighting style, but not have access to the stances.

I'm all for beefing up "core" fighters, as long as it doesn't become a wuxia game or start requiring mats-and-minis.

[Willie the Duck]

Wow... I started in 3rd edition. The editions before that sound like they got the balance much more correct. Fighters were more in line with our myths and stories. I had no idea previous editions were like that. Any idea what caused the change and for things to go so much in the opposite direction? Now, casters have access to literally everything else a stock warrior has: armor, weapons, extra attacks. And we remember CoDzilla from 3rd edition.

Why the shift? (assuming there is a known reason)

A big one that spring to mind is that a lot of people already house-ruled a number of constraints on casters away because they were, systematically unfun (when that happened, fighters ought to have been boosted as compensation, and why that didn't happen is more of an open question). The early editions leaned heavily into the 'balance X powerful thing by making it really annoying' mentality. That worked relatively well early on where if you had a super-fragile magic user with 1-3 spells per day it was fine because you had a bunch of hirelings and retainers protecting them that you were also likely running and it wasn't unlike the wargame you'd just been playing where you had several pike units guarding artillery units (and if you only got to shoot the cannons every so often you were still doing lots of things). However, as the game moved away from that framing and you just had your MU, it was systematically unfun for huge swaths of the game. Thus people changed it, and 2e, and then later 2e:Player Options, and then later the 3e design team all noted that trend line and adjusted to fit.

[PhoenixPhyre]

A big one that spring to mind is that a lot of people already house-ruled a number of constraints on casters away because they were, systematically unfun (when that happened, fighters ought to have been boosted as compensation, and why that didn't happen is more of an open question). The early editions leaned heavily into the 'balance X powerful thing by making it really annoying' mentality. That worked relatively well early on where if you had a super-fragile magic user with 1-3 spells per day it was fine because you had a bunch of hirelings and retainers protecting them that you were also likely running and it wasn't unlike the wargame you'd just been playing where you had several pike units guarding artillery units (and if you only got to shoot the cannons every so often you were still doing lots of things). However, as the game moved away from that framing and you just had your MU, it was systematically unfun for huge swaths of the game. Thus people changed it, and 2e, and then later 2e:Player Options, and then later the 3e design team all noted that trend line and adjusted to fit.

I would say that the appropriate response to removing limits causing balance issues isn't to boost the fighters. Because that way lies power creep, as 3e discovered hard. It's to rein in the spells. If there's a balance between 'has super powerful spells' and 'has limits' and you remove the 'has limits' part, you also need to remove (or reduce) the 'has super powerful spells' part. Narrow the band between the top and the bottom at both ends, don't make the top end the new default.

Buffing everything only causes spirals. Decide what the system's supported power level is and adjust everything that doesn't fit into that band in either direction.

Wow, I don't know how I missed this. Sucks getting old, but better than the alternative.

I'm finding myself actually liking the "stance" idea as presented here. Which is weird since I don't much care for 3e ToB and despise the martial "power" concept from 4e.

A few thoughts:
1. I can see clear relationships between some of these stances and the "core" 5e fighting styles. Maybe that could be developed a bit to make one's fighting style more defining. If you choose a given style, you have access to 2-3 associated stances?

2. I would limit stances to baseline fighters/champions, not battlemasters, EK's, paladins or rangers. So a ranger could grab archery fighting style, but not have access to the stances.

I'm all for beefing up "core" fighters, as long as it doesn't become a wuxia game or start requiring mats-and-minis.

Responses

1. I think that this sort of thing could replace the fighting styles (with tweaks), basically incorporating them entirely. Leave the weaker "pure styles" (as they are) for the other martials. I do want to keep the options broadly available, because I want to promote fighters being the "switch hitter", capable of going from a pure offense GW style to a defensive SnB or going ranged without having to rebuild a character.

2. I'm fine with battlemasters and EKs having them. Champions could get features that directly interact with them, and possibly some "unique" stances. These would be fighter-only, and scale with fighter levels. My personal views are that multiclassing is a bane and should be removed (or re-worked entirely)--if I were to implement this sort of thing, I'd mark it as "you don't get this feature if you're multiclassed" (possibly with an addendum that says that if your primary class (majority of levels) are fighter, that's ok. But not available to dips.

3. I'd like to beef up the core martials, but in different ways. I also want to take an axe to the broken parts of the non-martials. Which means slaughtering whole herds of traditional and beloved bovines.

[Pex]

Wow... I started in 3rd edition. The editions before that sound like they got the balance much more correct. Fighters were more in line with our myths and stories. I had no idea previous editions were like that. Any idea what caused the change and for things to go so much in the opposite direction? Now, casters have access to literally everything else a stock warrior has: armor, weapons, extra attacks. And we remember CoDzilla from 3rd edition.

Why the shift? (assuming there is a known reason)

Pre-3E D&D is not as utopian (my word) as people make it out to be. It's primarily all about the magic. Many limitations to magic were removed by 3E, but not all those limitations that existed were nirvana and I'm personally thrilled they were removed and never want to come back. That's not the same thing as saying none of the restrictions should come back, and I'd have no issue of it if particular ones did with perhaps a better implementation of the idea.

[Ralanr]

Pre-3E D&D is not as utopian (my word) as people make it out to be. It's primarily all about the magic. Many limitations to magic were removed by 3E, but not all those limitations that existed were nirvana and I'm personally thrilled they were removed and never want to come back. That's not the same thing as saying none of the restrictions should come back, and I'd have no issue of it if particular ones did with perhaps a better implementation of the idea.

Kind of just sounds like they would need to build combat from the ground up to put it on a better stance against how magic works. But even if you built it from the ground up, that does nothing to deal with how magic scales and combat abilities generally don't.

[Dr.Samurai]

Pre-3E D&D is not as utopian (my word) as people make it out to be. It's primarily all about the magic. Many limitations to magic were removed by 3E, but not all those limitations that existed were nirvana and I'm personally thrilled they were removed and never want to come back. That's not the same thing as saying none of the restrictions should come back, and I'd have no issue of it if particular ones did with perhaps a better implementation of the idea.

I'm sure that's probably the case. I know I wouldn't want to play a class if using their abilities were too onerous.

That said though, it sounds like those editions felt the fighter should be awesome. Whereas I don't really get that in 3rd and in 5th. The sentiment now I feel is more like "yeah, of course fighters should be cool... anyways, how many more spells and spellcasting classes and subclasses can we add?".

[Suichimo]

I'm sure that's probably the case. I know I wouldn't want to play a class if using their abilities were too onerous.

That said though, it sounds like those editions felt the fighter should be awesome. Whereas I don't really get that in 3rd and in 5th. The sentiment now I feel is more like "yeah, of course fighters should be cool... anyways, how many more spells and spellcasting classes and subclasses can we add?".

One of my favorite examples of this is 3.5's Complete Warrior, a book that is ostensibly about helping out and giving new options to the martially focused characters. It brings in three classes, one of which is a magic based class with the Hexblade, and a good portion of the book is still dedicated to new spells for Wizards, Sorcerors, Clerics, and what not. Like, come on guys... The parallel book, Complete Arcane, certainly offered up FAR less to martials than Complete Warrior gave to mages.

[Xervous]

I'm sure that's probably the case. I know I wouldn't want to play a class if using their abilities were too onerous.

That said though, it sounds like those editions felt the fighter should be awesome. Whereas I don't really get that in 3rd and in 5th. The sentiment now I feel is more like "yeah, of course fighters should be cool... anyways, how many more spells and spellcasting classes and subclasses can we add?".

One of the biggest disjoints on fighters is that the concept starts with an assumption that a specific capability will always be awesome. Other classes are defined in thematic terms, patterns that can shift and grow to mesh with the changing scenery. If the game can ensure that the specific capability is always relevant then fighters have a valid purpose and place at all levels. Thing is in attempting to appeal to many potential audiences 3.5e and 5e did away with the fighter’s niche insurance. 4e had it by making everyone play the same niche. TSR editions had it in the same way shadowrun’s street samurais have combat, a tool for a specific job that steps into the spotlight when its theme song plays. 5e especially is about letting everyone participate. This has pulled the fighter down from combat monster to modest/moderate statistical combat outlier. Because 5e won’t tolerate something as niche winning as a street Sam or a decker, fighter can’t just be ‘muh combat’ if it wants to track along in scope and relevance through the levels.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One of my favorite examples of this is 3.5's Complete Warrior, a book that is ostensibly about helping out and giving new options to the martially focused characters. It brings in three classes, one of which is a magic based class with the Hexblade, and a good portion of the book is still dedicated to new spells for Wizards, Sorcerors, Clerics, and what not. Like, come on guys... The parallel book, Complete Arcane, certainly offered up FAR less to martials than Complete Warrior gave to mages.

There's a fundamental problem trying to balance "pick from broad shared list and you can change your mind later or pick this up later" features (ie spells) against "learn at specific levels and only those levels" features (ie almost everything else). It's way easier to pump out spells and to include those in characters (especially for wizards and the full-list casters) than it is to pump out feats (of which you learn a lot fewer, even in 3e) or especially class features. Just look at the 5e player-side books--they always include lots of spells, while any given character may benefit from at most one or two of the feats or other options. Even worse, most of those printed options just go in the trash unless they set a new meta. Imagine if every martial character got 15[2] feats which they could change at level up.

The solution, in my mind, is to do to PC casters (in a different way) what they're doing to monsters. Move a lot of the "must pick" spells into class features and cut the spell lists down tremendously. It's the ravioli-style[1] spell-casting that causes the underlying issue, and no fix that doesn't change that will really have a significant effect.

[1] a big heap of disconnected, mushy things. In this case, there are no pre-requisites for spells other than "are right level" and "have access to list". Which means that spells can get ruthlessly optimized away--you only pick the ones that are "best" (for any given definition of "best"). And usually have significant flexibility to change those.
[2] that's as many as the known spells of the lowest spells-known caster.

[Brookshw]

Wow... I started in 3rd edition. The editions before that sound like they got the balance much more correct. Fighters were more in line with our myths and stories. I had no idea previous editions were like that. Any idea what caused the change and for things to go so much in the opposite direction? Now, casters have access to literally everything else a stock warrior has: armor, weapons, extra attacks. And we remember CoDzilla from 3rd edition.

Why the shift? (assuming there is a known reason)

There are some inaccuracies in that list I believe, for example, fighters in AD&D did not get one attack per level on low level HD enemies, best they rocked if they were specialized (not counting double wielding) was 5 attacks every 2 rounds (AD&D PHB, pg 52), I don't have any older editions or the Fighter's Handbook on hand anymore, but definitely do not recall the referenced rule. Otherwise, things were a bit better balanced in that fighters got automatic followers if they built a stronghold, and casters had to deal with the greater chance of their spells being interrupted thanks to casting time and had a much slowed down recovery of spells (1 hour per spell level to get a spell back, not, take a long rest and get everything back).

[Dr.Samurai]

I think any future edition should be balanced around martial characters, with the presumption that they should be able to mimic exploits from our stories and movies, and then we can balance casters around that system. Make sure they are awesome first, and don't assume casters should be able to do anything because they should have access to spells that can do anything.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think any future edition should be balanced around martial characters, with the presumption that they should be able to mimic exploits from our stories and movies, and then we can balance casters around that system. Make sure they are awesome first, and don't assume casters should be able to do anything because they should have access to spells that can do anything.

I agree except the bolded part. The set of "exploits from stories and movies" is way too broad and leads to incoherence. Instead, they should choose what the appropriate power level is and go with that.

Genre emulation is a bad thing to do on a genre as broad as "high fantasy adventures". D&D is not a generic genre emulator, nor should it attempt to be one.

[Dr.Samurai]

I agree except the bolded part. The set of "exploits from stories and movies" is way too broad and leads to incoherence. Instead, they should choose what the appropriate power level is and go with that.

Genre emulation is a bad thing to do on a genre as broad as "high fantasy adventures". D&D is not a generic genre emulator, nor should it attempt to be one.

I think this is very fair enough. I agree choosing an appropriate level takes precedence, for sure.

I mean more like what LudicSavant mentioned in another thread; we often see warriors, as an example, blocking attacks with shields. But in the game, the shield gives a static bonus to AC and doesn't help against AoEs and the like.

D&D currently is very static with martials; move, attack, move, attack, move, attack. It needs more dynamism. Your weapons and armor should mean something more than damage die and AC stat. IMO.