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

[strangebloke]

Maybe class features that recharges when you spend a rage?

That way you're incentivized to use them before your rage too.

That's what I did though.

This.

Also, barbarians getting maneuvers doesn't work in my mind. Maneuvers are things you do that require active thought. Rage is.. well.. not thinking.

Barbarians need to have something other than just being a button labeled "rage." Currently they have very little in the way of features that matter when they're not raging and it feels really bad when you're in the position of not raging.

[Psyren]

This.

Also, barbarians getting maneuvers doesn't work in my mind. Maneuvers are things you do that require active thought. Rage is.. well.. not thinking.

That's what I did though.

Barbarians need to have something other than just being a button labeled "rage." Currently they have very little in the way of features that matter when they're not raging and it feels really bad when you're in the position of not raging.

*gestures once more towards stamina/feats*

[Morty]

This thread can make one wonder how on earth fighters survived back in the 0e days. No maneuvers, one attack. And yet fighters were arguably the foundation of everything, especially coming from Chainmail.

I do wonder the same thing, only entirely honestly and not sarcastically - I haven't the faintest clue what people see in fighters from old editions.

Anyhow, as I see it, there are two broad directions for making warrior-types exciting. One is to give them special abilities, the other is to make their basic tools more varied and impressive. Whenever D&D bothered to try making martial classes real characters and not the casters' sidekicks, it went with the former - ToB, PoW, 4E. Of course, in the former two cases it was because the whole thing was bolted onto the existing game. But the second direction shouldn't be discounted. Special abilities are all well and good, but a lot could be improved if mundane skills, combat or otherwise, had more breadth of what they can accomplish. Instead of either "hit things some more" and "roll something and figure it out". These directions are not, of course, mutually exclusive.

Also, I'm generally sceptical about giving every martial class its own kind of abilities. Some class-unique abilities are obviously necessary, but a shared pool is also necessary for the result to have any kind of depth. As I've said in another thread, there's a reason why Fireball isn't printed separately for every class and subclass that can use it. Likewise, if we devise a martial maneuver to, say, hit an enemy so hard they're sent flying and knock over other enemies in their path, there's no reason why fighters, barbarians, monks and maybe paladins can't all use it. Though it does lead us to having to strike a balance between what is and what isn't worth making class-specific. Would be nice if there was any kind of consistent idea about it in the system as it is, but there really is not.

[Pex]

Also, "Fighters fight" is I guess a fair statement, but why should "Fighting" mean just "I attack this person with my sword..." and "I attack this person with a sword two more times"? Surely there may be more to fighting than "make attack roll" and "make damage roll".

Argument about maneuvers and such slowing down combat is incomplete. Yes, they do that, because they introduce more decisions to make, but when the discussion is about wanting more meaningful decisions/options, then you'd have to accept that it may slow combat down a bit. However all the same argument can be used against spellcasters, so we'll need arguments why it is acceptable for spellcasters to slow down combat, but not for martials.

Also what complexity is "needless" is very poorly defined and usually is entirely up to individual preferences.

Why does combat have to be fast? I made a comment for an unrelated matter in another thread about a combat taking a real world hour to play and people got on the case as if that was such a horrible thing the game was being played wrong. I won't say how long a combat takes to play is irrelevant, but how long it takes is a lower priority than it being fun to play. Doing cool things and having interesting decisions to make is what makes a combat fun. Players should be excited about another player's turn as their own. Have your own cool things to do while enjoying their cool things in action. Having fun who cares about the clock? The clock only matters if and when the game session has to end at a particular time.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Why does combat have to be fast? I made a comment for an unrelated matter in another thread about a combat taking a real world hour to play and people got on the case as if that was such a horrible thing the game was being played wrong. I won't say how long a combat takes to play is irrelevant, but how long it takes is a lower priority than it being fun to play. Doing cool things and having interesting decisions to make is what makes a combat fun. Players should be excited about another player's turn as their own. Have your own cool things to do while enjoying their cool things in action. Having fun who cares about the clock? The clock only matters if and when the game session has to end at a particular time.

Which it almost always does.

For me, the big thing is that individual turns have to be fast. Because you're only playing (as a player) 1/N turns, so if each turn takes 10 minutes and there are 4 players, you're playing 1/5 of the time (at best), basically for 10 minutes out of 50. And that's at best--if one person's turn takes 10 minutes and yours takes 2, then you're playing for 2 minutes and sitting on your butt for 38. That's a recipe for disengagement.
--------
On topic, I decided to proof-of-concept an idea for fighters (at the base class level, starting from level 2): Stances. Basically, you'd have a list of stances which you could enter, each with passive benefits and an active ability. Using the active ability shuts off the stance, and each stance is once per combat (technically, they require 1 minute of meditation/re-centering to recharge). https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...r-all-Fighters.

I'll probably adjust the mechanics to "you know all of them, but each LR you choose <N> (half of proficiency bonus?) to ready for the day. That gives you N big things per combat, plus passive bonuses the rest of the time. And there will be stances for non-combat as well, doing things like (passive: proficiency in Charisma (Persuasion)/active: when you make a check, treat that not-friendly person as friendly for that check; stance ends after the check) or (something about faster movement or breaking things better or ...).

Still in proof of concept form, but the idea, I thought, was interesting.

[Unoriginal]

That's what I did though.

Oops, my bad.

[RandomPeasant]

Also, I'm generally sceptical about giving every martial class its own kind of abilities. Some class-unique abilities are obviously necessary, but a shared pool is also necessary for the result to have any kind of depth. As I've said in another thread, there's a reason why Fireball isn't printed separately for every class and subclass that can use it.

I think that's a very narrow approach to the issue. It's true that you don't need to write fireball separately for each class that can use it. But that's because the classes that can use fireball are not very different from each-other, and fireball itself is not an ability that interacts in a particularly dramatic way with any resource management system. But it's quite obvious to me that if you want to have classes that feel really, meaningfully different, you can't give them the same pool of abilities because A) then they will feel the same because they are doing the same thing B) certain ways for classes to work will be over- or under-powered because how and how often you use an ability influences how powerful that ability is. If the Barbarian has rage powers they build up to over a fight, they need to be more powerful than the abilities of a Fighter who can use his maneuvers as often as he wants. Maybe you could tune that by modifiers on basic abilities, but I'm extremely skeptical you're going to make that work.

[SharkForce]

This thread can make one wonder how on earth fighters survived back in the 0e days. No maneuvers, one attack. And yet fighters were arguably the foundation of everything, especially coming from Chainmail.

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.

Though I think it says a lot that many of the big name NPCs that were created by Gary and his family/friends are all magic casters of some variety.

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.

[strangebloke]

*gestures once more towards stamina/feats*

It seems like a fine idea, but as you've presented it there's not much to discuss. Personally I like special abilities on the barbarian.

I do wonder the same thing, only entirely honestly and not sarcastically - I haven't the faintest clue what people see in fighters from old editions.

I think the 'badass normal' is an appealing enough archetype for some people. That and the (supposed) simplicity get people playing even when the mechanical implementation is hilariously weak.

Same reason people play the champion, basically.

Anyhow, as I see it, there are two broad directions for making warrior-types exciting. One is to give them special abilities, the other is to make their basic tools more varied and impressive. Whenever D&D bothered to try making martial classes real characters and not the casters' sidekicks, it went with the former - ToB, PoW, 4E. Of course, in the former two cases it was because the whole thing was bolted onto the existing game. But the second direction shouldn't be discounted. Special abilities are all well and good, but a lot could be improved if mundane skills, combat or otherwise, had more breadth of what they can accomplish. Instead of either "hit things some more" and "roll something and figure it out". These directions are not, of course, mutually exclusive.

Personally I'm in favor of both, and presenting them as being in opposition is a mistake. Although I've made something that fixates purely on maneuvers, i do think that something non-maneuver based may make more sense for the rogue or barbarian specifically. Simplicity is its own virtue and I can see the argument that at least one base class needs to be simple

Also, I'm generally sceptical about giving every martial class its own kind of abilities. Some class-unique abilities are obviously necessary, but a shared pool is also necessary for the result to have any kind of depth. As I've said in another thread, there's a reason why Fireball isn't printed separately for every class and subclass that can use it. Likewise, if we devise a martial maneuver to, say, hit an enemy so hard they're sent flying and knock over other enemies in their path, there's no reason why fighters, barbarians, monks and maybe paladins can't all use it. Though it does lead us to having to strike a balance between what is and what isn't worth making class-specific. Would be nice if there was any kind of consistent idea about it in the system as it is, but there really is not.

yes I agree.

Oops, my bad.

NBD.

I think that's a very narrow approach to the issue. It's true that you don't need to write fireball separately for each class that can use it. But that's because the classes that can use fireball are not very different from each-other, and fireball itself is not an ability that interacts in a particularly dramatic way with any resource management system. But it's quite obvious to me that if you want to have classes that feel really, meaningfully different, you can't give them the same pool of abilities because A) then they will feel the same because they are doing the same thing B) certain ways for classes to work will be over- or under-powered because how and how often you use an ability influences how powerful that ability is. If the Barbarian has rage powers they build up to over a fight, they need to be more powerful than the abilities of a Fighter who can use his maneuvers as often as he wants. Maybe you could tune that by modifiers on basic abilities, but I'm extremely skeptical you're going to make that work.

Its funny because in the previous discussion when I referenced "loads of terrible splats" it was pretty clear we had opposite splats in mind. I think things like the beguiler were well-designed in that they were limited spellcasters who had a specific archetype they were trying to fill rather than "Just another super wizard with even more incomprehensible rules."

Having everything be separate makes for a ton of work both for developer and player and overall I'd want to avoid it

[Ralanr]

SNIP

Well this was an informative look into the history. Thanks!

[Man_Over_Game]

Personally I think that if you give more options, tying said options to a limited-ressource-dice thing is not the way to go.

Not all martials should be Battle Master-light. In fact, nearly all of them shouldn't be.

I agree. More resources = More bookkeeping, which adds to the ongoing weight of playing. "Weight" is what stresses new players out and slows veterans down, and a good design goal should be to work around that.


Battlemaster maneuvers add weight. Not only do you have to track the number of uses, but each maneuver has different benefits and saves. It's not like you can memorize one maneuver and know the rest, you should be memorizing any that are relevant, and expanding that kind of system for almost every attack with every Martial is going to add a lot of Weight to the game. Double or Triple that if each character has their own maneuvers that they'll pulling from, since the DM will probably need to memorize it too (for when your players just don't know better).

But I think Action-based stances are a great way to work around this. I don't mean like superpower stances, more like taking one kind of action sets up something you'll want to be doing next turn. Grappled into Prone is a good example of this, but we can make more.

For instance, you could have something that says "When you use your Action to Dodge, your next attack before the end of your next turn is made with Advantage, and is considered a critical if both rolls would hit". Combine that with something like a list of conditions you can inflict on a Critical, and now you've create a simple solution that:

• Only has a single, temporary, and easy-to-remember resource ("The next time I attack")
• Uses mechanics that everyone is familiar with (Attack, Advantage, Dodge, Critical, Conditions)
• Adds an effect that doesn't require any more lookups into the book (Just conditions, no need to check extra effects or save stats)

Tack that onto a Monk, and now they have some really interesting mixup tools that don't really make them any stronger. They just get rewarded for being defensive and patient, as the alternative is the exact situation we already have with Attack-Spam.

A good rule of thumb is, if you're going to add bookkeeping, do it once. Ancestral Guardian, for instance, adds a lot of weird mechanics that you need to be familiar with, BUT it never changes. Something like Battlemaster, on the other hand, has you learn 8 unique moves that might all be some variation of "6 Damage + Condition", and that can easily be trimmed with some better design.

I think it's the arbitrary bookkeeping (and perhaps the lack of consistency) is why folks instinctively like the Arcane Archer less than the Battlemaster, when the AA outputs similar damage (more in favorable AoE situations) and plays exactly​ like the Battlemaster.



As for Action-based Stances, it's important to have them bounce between goals. When they're implemented correctly, they are optimized for one problem and usually chain into several different kinds of solutions. For instance, after making a defensive stance effect (like the Dodge Action), you want to get a buff that encourages the opposite (a buff on your next attack). You are not rewarded for constantly attacking or constantly being defensive, but utilizing a blend of both as-needed. By making none of the "Extremes" optimal, you create a game where every micro decision matters. But they generally aren't all that interesting without adding more bookkeeping (but they can be static and easy to memorize).



I'm not trying to say what is or isn't a good solution, I just mean that there are some things we can watch out for so we're don't repeat the same mistakes with a patch job that someone will eventually complain about just like this.

[RandomPeasant]

Its funny because in the previous discussion when I referenced "loads of terrible splats" it was pretty clear we had opposite splats in mind. I think things like the beguiler were well-designed in that they were limited spellcasters who had a specific archetype they were trying to fill rather than "Just another super wizard with even more incomprehensible rules."

It's funny, because your assessment of how 3e works seems to be totally disconnected from the mechanics of 3e as they actually exist. The Beguiler is much closer to "just another super-wizard" than any of the classes that have their own unique thing. Because it is using the same mechanics as the super-wizards (read: Wizards) of the system, and things that are like each-other are similar.

[strangebloke]

I agree. More resources = More bookkeeping, which adds to the ongoing weight of playing. "Weight" is what stresses new players out and slows veterans down, and a good design goal should be to work around that.


Battlemaster maneuvers add weight. Not only do you have to track the number of uses, but each maneuver has different benefits and saves. It's not like you can memorize one maneuver and know the rest, you should be memorizing any that are relevant, and expanding that kind of system for almost every attack with every Martial is going to add a lot of Weight to the game. Double or Triple that if each character has their own maneuvers that they'll pulling from, since the DM will probably need to memorize it too (for when your players just don't know better).

But I think Action-based stances are a great way to work around this. I don't mean like superpower stances, more like taking one kind of action sets up something you'll want to be doing next turn. Grappled into Prone is a good example of this, but we can make more.

I don't exactly agree with all of this. I don't particularly think, for example that adding loads of "stances" is particularly less intensive on the book keeping front. I fundamentally feel as though trying to make something that's tactically interesting and lacking in complexity is fundamentally impossible in a pen-and-paper game like DND. Either there are rules or there aren't. If a rogue has only one die to spend and its always refreshed at the start of every combat and they only know two maneuvers, isn't that simpler than six different stances?

With all that said, I think stances could make sense for a class like a monk?

(Also FWIW I don't have the intent of keeping balance intact.)

It's funny, because your assessment of how 3e works seems to be totally disconnected from the mechanics of 3e as they actually exist. The Beguiler is much closer to "just another super-wizard" than any of the classes that have their own unique thing. Because it is using the same mechanics as the super-wizards (read: Wizards) of the system, and things that are like each-other are similar.

In underlying mechanics? Sure. But not in terms of how they play or what they can do. In that respect, something like a psion is far closer to a wizard than say a war mage.

[Psyren]

Personally I think Beguiler should have been a 6th-level caster with some discounted spells on its list so that it's still getting stuff like Major Image when a normal illusionist would. Keep the "I know everything spontaneously" part though.

It seems like a fine idea, but as you've presented it there's not much to discuss.

I wasn't saying to discuss my idea specifically, but stopping at "Barbarians shouldn't have maneuvers!" "I agree!" felt a bit incomplete.

Personally I like special abilities on the barbarian.

As do I. The idea behind a stamina system is that ALL martials can access it, but Fighters get the most bang out of it as they are (in theory anyway) the chief martial class. One easy way to do that is to tie it to feats, which since 3e they've been king of.

Having everything be separate makes for a ton of work both for developer and player and overall I'd want to avoid it

Agreed. And I think it's pretty spurious to say that just because a bunch of classes get fireball means they play similarly.

[RandomPeasant]

In underlying mechanics? Sure. But not in terms of how they play or what they can do. In that respect, something like a psion is far closer to a wizard than say a war mage.

And the Archivist is even more like a Wizard. As is the Sorcerer. If the best example you can give of your point is "the class that is explicitly designed as a mirror to the Wizard is a lot like a Wizard", your point probably isn't very good. The Warmage is a lot more like the Wizard than either is like the Crusader, or the Binder, or the Incarnate, or even the Rogue. And, frankly, you can make reasonable arguments that even the original comparison is flawed. Psions are famously good blasters, making them more like the Warmage than the Wizard. Pulling from the same pool of arcane spellcaster options (rather than psionic options) makes the Wizard a good deal more like the Warmage than the Psion. The Warmage plays differently from the Wizard because the Wizard has better things to do than be a Warmage, not because there is some dramatic gap between what you can do with a Warmage and what you can do with a Wizard.

Personally I think Beguiler should have been a 6th-level caster with some discounted spells on its list so that it's still getting stuff like Major Image when a normal illusionist would. Keep the "I know everything spontaneously" part though.

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.

Agreed. And I think it's pretty spurious to say that just because a bunch of classes get fireball means they play similarly.

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.

[strangebloke]

Peasant, I don't even know what your point is or what you're trying to say.

What I'm trying to say is that reprinting similar abilities with different names is a waste of everyone's time, and that invariably this is what you end up doing if you're committed to each class having a completely unique feature list. Most martial character concepts will want to be able to do things like "attack"

I wasn't saying to discuss my idea specifically, but stopping at "Barbarians shouldn't have maneuvers!" "I agree!" felt a bit incomplete.

Fair enough.

And yeah functionally I think the problem we're having here is that everyone agrees there should be a dead-simple class but we all disagree on which class that should be.

Because conventionally this is the fighter, but arguably in this edition at least the rogue is more noob friendly, and the barbarian is thematically the one that should be the most simple. (whether its a good thing that the barbarian is so thematically simple is another discussion) In this edition all three are pretty simple as long as you're not playing certain subclasses (eldritch knight, rune knight, arcane trickster, arguably battlemaster) and that's the operative problem. Its arguable that this glut of extremely simple classes has been good for the game's health but many of us feel such classes are less interesting to play particularly at high level.

Maneuvers are a solution but they're very fightery, which is where something like "stances" (still pretty fightery I think) or "stamina" comes in.

As do I. The idea behind a stamina system is that ALL martials can access it, but Fighters get the most bang out of it as they are (in theory anyway) the chief martial class. One easy way to do that is to tie it to feats, which since 3e they've been king of.

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

[Saelethil]

I actually really like the idea of fighters being the complex martial. The "Wizard" of martials if you will (I know people don't like the caster comparison but I'm not advocating for martial spells, it's just a metaphor...). Give them something like stances in place of fighting styles to more actively reflect the style of combat they are trained in and give all the subclasses superiority dice and maneuvers. It's ok if their turns takes an extra minute if they're having fun, the casters are all taking 5.

I could see giving monks something like what the fighter gets. Let them be the "Sorcerer" to the Fighter's "Wizard." They can be as complex as the fighter and they can both get a fair bit more complicated with some similar features while still feeling distinct and without getting to be the slog that is spell management.

Where I start to disagree with is when people suggest that all martials should get a bunch of new buttons.

Rogues require some degree of tactical play to get their SA but that's pretty simple and doesn't change much. I think they need something but I don't think its complexity. If you give a new player a Rogue they should have it pretty much figured out by the end of the first session and I think that's good.

Likewise, Barbarians are incredibly boring and could use some sort of out of combat boost as well as some help at higher levels but they should be simple. If someone wants a complex brute, send them to the fighter (or have them multi-class). I don't remember who suggested it but I like the idea of some kind of resource that recharges when they rage, let's call them "Rage Points" for now. Lets say that they get the same number of Rage Points as their rage damage bonus (keep it simple, Barbarians should be simple and and their abilities should be easy to remember) which can be used for things like, improving intimidation, strength, dexterity, constitution, and wisdom checks, increasing(doubling?) base jump distance. A small pool that refreshes when they get angry and helps them do things that Barbarians should be good at. A lot more options but only a tiny bit more complexity. Break through this portcullis, Terrify a hostage just by snarling at them, leap across a moat while throwing the halfling rogue up onto the wall (ok, this one might cost 2, 1 for the jump, 1 for the yeet). All things that the archetype suggests they would excel at but don't unless they waste the only feature they get that differentiates them from a bad fighter in combat.

If people want more complicated Rogues and Barbarians it would be easy from this point to make subclasses for the martial counterpart to the AT and EK.

Paladins and Rangers are another can of worms but I've gone on long enough.

[Pex]

Which it almost always does.

For me, the big thing is that individual turns have to be fast. Because you're only playing (as a player) 1/N turns, so if each turn takes 10 minutes and there are 4 players, you're playing 1/5 of the time (at best), basically for 10 minutes out of 50. And that's at best--if one person's turn takes 10 minutes and yours takes 2, then you're playing for 2 minutes and sitting on your butt for 38. That's a recipe for disengagement.

No one wants to sit around doing nothing, but that's not necessarily what is happening in an hour-long combat. Yes, your turn is not the hour, but when everyone gets to do cool things you get enjoyment when it is another player's turn doing their cool thing.

However, just the other day a player in a new group I'm in told me a reason he doesn't care for warrior classes is because it takes two minutes to do his turn while the spellcasters take eight. His complaint wasn't how long spellcasters took but that warriors were less. If by giving warriors cool things makes them more complex making combat last longer, combat lasting longer isn't necessarily a negative. Let the warrior player be active for 10 minutes too.

Nothing wrong with across the board efficiency. If a spellcaster's turn could be shortened to 5 minutes and everyone takes 5 minutes to do their turn that's fine, but my point is it's not a bad thing for combat to take longer because a warrior's turn is longer because it becomes complex to play by the process of giving the warrior cool things.

[PhoenixPhyre]

No one wants to sit around doing nothing, but that's not necessarily what is happening in an hour-long combat. Yes, your turn is not the hour, but when everyone gets to do cool things you get enjoyment when it is another player's turn doing their cool thing.

However, just the other day a player in a new group I'm in told me a reason he doesn't care for warrior classes is because it takes two minutes to do his turn while the spellcasters take eight. His complaint wasn't how long spellcasters took but that warriors were less. If by giving warriors cool things makes them more complex making combat last longer, combat lasting longer isn't necessarily a negative. Let the warrior player be active for 10 minutes too.

Nothing wrong with across the board efficiency. If a spellcaster's turn could be shortened to 5 minutes and everyone takes 5 minutes to do their turn that's fine, but my point is it's not a bad thing for combat to take longer because a warrior's turn is longer because it becomes complex to play by the process of giving the warrior cool things.

Not everyone feels the same. I'd prefer that everyone's turn took ~30 seconds. Take an action, possibly move, done. Do something, don't worry about doing the perfect thing. Because more playing means more decisions and more chances for interesting things to happen. Sitting there watching someone figure out exactly what to do is hellaciously boring. Sure, it's fine...when they do something. But when most of that is them flipping through books or thinking out loud and "optimizing" their turn, that's not cool.

[qube]

I don't exactly agree with all of this. I don't particularly think, for example that adding loads of "stances" is particularly less intensive on the book keeping front.

Meanwhile I got a player at my table for who forgets he has a rage button half the time. Even as champion he frequently forgets 19 also crits. So, I feel there's a fault in your logic.

You don't like a type of build --> all builds should be different.

I've got no problem with subclassing, or even creating new martial classes that are, choice-intensive. But please don't assume everyone needs, wants, or even, can handle, that.

And yeah functionally I think the problem we're having here is that everyone agrees there should be a dead-simple class but we all disagree on which class that should be.

This perhaps might come as a super weird idea ... but what about we let players who want to play dead-simple characters ... still have some choice?

Among the hundreds(?) of class/subclasses - why should there be only 1?

Idealy I would argue, every class has a dead-simple subclass. (even a wizard could be simplified a build that focusess on 1 pr 2 spell. Example a force wizard only having magic missle, and a telekinesis power)

I actually really like the idea of fighters being the complex martial. The "Wizard" of martials if you will (I know people don't like the caster comparison but I'm not advocating for martial spells, it's just a metaphor...)

as someone who pratices HEMA (european longsword fighting) - I quite obviously second that notion.

On the other hand, if I recall correctly (I might be dead wrong), in historical rapier fighting (something you'd assume to be fancy & complex), there was a fighting style that just was 'take a high guard, and hit the opponent with a strong strike' (it didn't focus on technique at all - just 100% timing)

[Dienekes]

Meanwhile I got a player at my table for who forgets he has a rage button half the time. Even as champion he frequently forgets 19 also crits. So, I feel there's a fault in your logic.

You don't like a type of build --> all builds should be different.

I've got no problem with subclassing, or even creating new martial classes that are, choice-intensive. But please don't assume everyone needs, wants, or even, can handle, that.

This perhaps might come as a super weird idea ... but what about we let players who want to play dead-simple characters ... still have some choice?

Among the hundreds(?) of class/subclasses - why should there be only 1?

Idealy I would argue, every class has a dead-simple subclass. (even a wizard could be simplified a build that focusess on 1 pr 2 spell. Example a force wizard only having magic missle, and a telekinesis power)

See, I agree that there should be the option to play the simplified classes, but I don't think it should be an option available for all classes. That is what led us to the Champion/Battlemaster divide. Because the Champion needed to be simple, that meant the Fighter class needed to be simple. Which meant all of the complexity of a Battlemaster needed to be squashed into 5 levels. And let's be honest here, the Battlemaster is not a complex Fighter, there wasn't enough room to make it a complex Fighter. It just required slightly more forethought than the Champion. And that left us with two subclasses that have absolutely no fluff, trying to recreate essentially every martial archetype in existence to try and cater to the two desired playstyles.

Personally, I'd prefer specific classes get designated as either the simple or the complex. Preferably these classes get spread out over the different roles. There already are classes that essentially share the same party roles: Wizard and Sorcerer, Barbarian and Fighter being the most obvious ones. Pick one to be simple, one to be complex and you're done. Now among the subclasses there can be a range of additional complexity, but subclasses work best as a tool to nudge toward certain playstyles.



Now, all that said, WotC isn't gonna listen to our comments anyway. And this thread is mostly about the concept of how to grant martials powers. And that includes the class I think should remain simple: the Barbarian. So, I kind of feel arguing whether the class should have such powers is kind of beyond the purpose of this specific thread. This one is about giving everyone powers and that's fine. Again, it's not going to do anything but maybe inspire some homebrew.

[Kuu Lightwing]

See, I agree that there should be the option to play the simplified classes, but I don't think it should be an option available for all classes. That is what led us to the Champion/Battlemaster divide. Because the Champion needed to be simple, that meant the Fighter class needed to be simple. Which meant all of the complexity of a Battlemaster needed to be squashed into 5 levels. And let's be honest here, the Battlemaster is not a complex Fighter, there wasn't enough room to make it a complex Fighter. It just required slightly more forethought than the Champion. And that left us with two subclasses that have absolutely no fluff, trying to recreate essentially every martial archetype in existence to try and cater to the two desired playstyles.

To be honest I think this better demonstrates how limited the subclasses are rather than the issues with having simple and complex classes. And this actually is what I was saying over and over again - with subclasses as limited as they are, releasing so few classes is a mistake, and hurts a lot of concepts they try to squeeze into the chassis of other classes with only 4-5 abilities half of which are not available until Tiers 3 and 4, which are by admission of the designers are not played much.

[Wildstag]

you know about melf because he named a spell after himself, and that spell got added into the rulebooks.

No, we know about Melf because he was one of Gygax's players and he shoved them into as many things as he could. Later writers felt that to make a threat relevant they needed to be involved (as the primary example, see the Vecna AP).

Fwiw, by your logic, we do know a martial, or at least the 3.5e players do. We know Robilar because of his Gambit.

And really, if you look at the people that actually played at Gygax's table, Robilar is one of less than a handful of martials that actually got high-level. The players were casters because they could hire tens of hirelings to just die on the frontlines while they got off their spells unhindered.

Some of those spells weren't even made by the players of those characters, they just had their names tacked on to the spell in the TSR days to make it look like there were "new" spells.

[Ralanr]

To be honest I think this better demonstrates how limited the subclasses are rather than the issues with having simple and complex classes. And this actually is what I was saying over and over again - with subclasses as limited as they are, releasing so few classes is a mistake, and hurts a lot of concepts they try to squeeze into the chassis of other classes with only 4-5 abilities half of which are not available until Tiers 3 and 4, which are by admission of the designers are not played much.

I can't imagine the power creep of more classes would be much better. Yes the core problem of "Well X sucked, so we'll release X.2 to be better" still exists in subclasses, but at least that doesn't completely invalidate the class like it would releasing a new class to 'fix' the old class.

If there is one thing I wish paper RPGs could fix (but they can't because then there's a bunch of bookkeeping) is how they could use errata for patch notes. But that's free content, and companies like WOTC need to sell products to make money.

[strangebloke]

If people want more complicated Rogues and Barbarians it would be easy from this point to make subclasses for the martial counterpart to the AT and EK.

The problem here is that rogues and barbarians have pretty weak subclasses generally. The rogue for example doesn't get a second subclass feature until level 9, and most of the level 9 rogue subclass features are.... not that good. So implementing something like rune knight would be very hard.

Ultimately this comes down to taste, but IMO its unreasonable to have rogues AND fighters AND barbarians require simple implementations. Indeed, I'd say that 'barbarian' as an archetype being limited to 'charging argly bargly rage man' is a serious limitation to the archetype as a whole.

As I said earlier though, I'm just speaking for what I think would fly at my tables, its entirely possible that martials being relatively simple is a good thing and something that shouldn't be changed at all.

Not everyone feels the same. I'd prefer that everyone's turn took ~30 seconds. Take an action, possibly move, done. Do something, don't worry about doing the perfect thing. Because more playing means more decisions and more chances for interesting things to happen. Sitting there watching someone figure out exactly what to do is hellaciously boring. Sure, it's fine...when they do something. But when most of that is them flipping through books or thinking out loud and "optimizing" their turn, that's not cool.

IMO, barring extreme examples like conjurers and necromancers, the IRL time a combat turn takes is mostly informed by how engaged the player is. In my recent campaigns for example, the longest turn-takers were a warlock, a fighter, a paladin, a monk, and a bard.... all played by the same person! That particular player is a good friend and I enjoy playing with her, but the slow turns aren't a result of her class, I think.

Meanwhile I got a player at my table for who forgets he has a rage button half the time. Even as champion he frequently forgets 19 also crits. So, I feel there's a fault in your logic.

You don't like a type of build --> all builds should be different.

I've got no problem with subclassing, or even creating new martial classes that are, choice-intensive. But please don't assume everyone needs, wants, or even, can handle, that.

This perhaps might come as a super weird idea ... but what about we let players who want to play dead-simple characters ... still have some choice?

Among the hundreds(?) of class/subclasses - why should there be only 1?

Idealy I would argue, every class has a dead-simple subclass. (even a wizard could be simplified a build that focusess on 1 pr 2 spell. Example a force wizard only having magic missle, and a telekinesis power)

I've acknowledged that some people might want to play incredibly simple characters, and that it might be an asset to DND as a system that there are so many simple options. But I'm not reworking the system on a base level, I don't have that power even if I wanted. I'm just making homebrew for my table and for tables that have similar interests. This effort is overall guided by my preferences and the preferences of people I play with. Within that domain, picking and using two maneuvers isn't going to be too burdensome.

[Dienekes]

To be honest I think this better demonstrates how limited the subclasses are rather than the issues with having simple and complex classes. And this actually is what I was saying over and over again - with subclasses as limited as they are, releasing so few classes is a mistake, and hurts a lot of concepts they try to squeeze into the chassis of other classes with only 4-5 abilities half of which are not available until Tiers 3 and 4, which are by admission of the designers are not played much.

Well yeah, subclasses are incredibly limited, I more or less took that as a given.

Though I do question which concepts you think are missing. Personally, I have Warlord, which really can't be made into a Fighter subclass because the whole point of the Warlord is to be a support, grant actions, and boost others, while the Fighter chassis is really all about none of that.

A dedicated Pet class, because that has proved to be far too difficult to create balanced and satisfying mechanics while also being tacked on to a different source of power.

That's really it.

You could add Psionics. But, honestly, Psions only real claim to fame as far as I can tell is that it's just another casting system. The fluff is not some well known fantasy archetype that is desperately missing from the game. In theory you could get all the magical effects that would indicate a Psion from the Wizard's spell list. And there really hasn't been a consistency in the mechanical implementation. So, it's not something I personally feel is missing, other than just the desire for different subsystems to play around with. And... fair enough.

[paladinn]

Now, all that said, WotC isn't gonna listen to our comments anyway. And this thread is mostly about the concept of how to grant martials powers. And that includes the class I think should remain simple: the Barbarian. So, I kind of feel arguing whether the class should have such powers is kind of beyond the purpose of this specific thread. This one is about giving everyone powers and that's fine. Again, it's not going to do anything but maybe inspire some homebrew.

WotC tried "giving everyone powers." That was 4e, and it sucked. The goal then was "absolute game balance"; and at a given level all characters were indeed equal, only the "special effects" were different. I don't think anyone wants to go back to that. That's why Pathfinder was such a hit; it was more D&D than D&D!

"Plain" fighters are simple, and they are supposed to be. Ditto with "plain" rogues/thieves. There need to be ways to increase a character's utility and uniqueness without adding complexity. Otherwise, make the battlemaster the equivalent of the 4e fighter and call it a day.

And FWIW, I actually like the Warrior "sidekick" class better than the Champion, at least the UA version.

[LibraryOfAlex]

On topic, I decided to proof-of-concept an idea for fighters (at the base class level, starting from level 2): Stances. Basically, you'd have a list of stances which you could enter, each with passive benefits and an active ability. Using the active ability shuts off the stance, and each stance is once per combat (technically, they require 1 minute of meditation/re-centering to recharge).

I'll probably adjust the mechanics to "you know all of them, but each LR you choose <N> (half of proficiency bonus?) to ready for the day. That gives you N big things per combat, plus passive bonuses the rest of the time. And there will be stances for non-combat as well, doing things like (passive: proficiency in Charisma (Persuasion)/active: when you make a check, treat that not-friendly person as friendly for that check; stance ends after the check) or (something about faster movement or breaking things better or ...).

Still in proof of concept form, but the idea, I thought, was interesting.

This is a pretty cool idea for fighter specific stances. An improving bonus with an actuve effect to end it.


I also really like the idea of stances and came up with an idea, but its much more simple. Basically, you take an aggressive, defensive, or controlling action, and you get a bonus for the next non-same action you make. I.e. you attack, then dash. When you dash, you get an extra bonus for doing so after an attack. Attacking twice in a row is still better dps than attack -> defensive. Basically, stances as a state machine.


aggressive: make attacks, deal damage.
When you hit an enemy, gain this bonus:
- For Next defensive action: -1d4 to hit for any enemies you hit
- For Next controlling action: -1d4 bonus to this enemy's contest roll

defensive: dodge, disengage, dash, etc.
An enemy is 'dodged' when you disengage from them, they make an attack at disadvantage from your dodge action, or you dash past them.
- For Next aggr: +1d4 to hit enemies you dodged
- For next Ctrl: +1d4 to player contest against a dodged enemy

controlling: grapple, shove, disarm
An enemy is 'controlled' when you succeed the contested check against them for one of the above actions.
For next aggr: +1d4 damage against controlled targets
For next def: +1d4 AC against controlled targets

The stance die could scale with martial levels (i.e. 1d6 at 5 levels, 1d8 at 9 levels). Additionally, other classes could get extra effects, like +movement speed or something.

Might be fun to play a monk and bounce through the different actions and get an increasing bonus or get consistently good bonuses at higher levels for martials. But that's all extra to the base system.

[Ralanr]

You could add Psionics. But, honestly, Psions only real claim to fame as far as I can tell is that it's just another casting system. The fluff is not some well known fantasy archetype that is desperately missing from the game. In theory you could get all the magical effects that would indicate a Psion from the Wizard's spell list. And there really hasn't been a consistency in the mechanical implementation. So, it's not something I personally feel is missing, other than just the desire for different subsystems to play around with. And... fair enough.

Is it even a separate casting system? Every version of Psion I've seen (beyond the stance system with early mystic) just looked like spellcasting but better because it revolved around psi points manipulation instead of spell slots to get the same effects as a wizard casting a spell.

Except it could apparently work in anti-magic zones?

[Dienekes]

WotC tried "giving everyone powers." That was 4e, and it sucked. The goal then was "absolute game balance"; and at a given level all characters were indeed equal, only the "special effects" were different. I don't think anyone wants to go back to that. That's why Pathfinder was such a hit; it was more D&D than D&D!

"Plain" fighters are simple, and they are supposed to be. Ditto with "plain" rogues/thieves. There need to be ways to increase a character's utility and uniqueness without adding complexity. Otherwise, make the battlemaster the equivalent of the 4e fighter and call it a day.

And FWIW, I actually like the Warrior "sidekick" class better than the Champion, at least the UA version.

And they also released Tome of Battle and the Warblade which was designed around giving the "Fighter" abilities. And it is the most fun martial class I have ever played by a wide margin, in D&D or Pathfinder.

I reject the notion that Fighters are "supposed" to be anything.

So, right now we have two dirt simple martial classes, one is called Fighter, one is called Barbarian. They both fill the same role, have roughly even level of non-complexity, and the attempt to cater to the Tome of Battle loving fans was still the best Fighter subclass but frankly pales in comparison.

So, if WotC listens to me (and they won't). Pick one. Barb or Fighter, I don't care which. Make that one the Tome of Battle class. They'd have my undying gratitude.

Is it even a separate casting system? Every version of Psion I've seen (beyond the stance system with early mystic) just looked like spellcasting but better because it revolved around psi points manipulation instead of spell slots to get the same effects as a wizard casting a spell.

Except it could apparently work in anti-magic zones?

Spell points is a different system spell slots. Then in 4e Psions got a different take on the At-Will, Encounter, Daily system by being able to cast upgraded versions of their abilities which was actually kind of interesting.

But yeah, that's really it. It's a different system, not the most different system ever made most certainly. But it is different.