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May 28, 2012 -- 7:49PM, Areleth wrote:

May 28, 2012 -- 7:36PM, Zeldafan42 wrote:

Theoretically, anyone can attempt any given purely physical move.

Theoretically, anyone can attempt to use a magic spell. You just need a high intelligence or wisdom. If we're going to say that anyone can attempt any martial attack, then we need to say they should be able to attempt any spell. With a high failure chance for both martial and magic. I'd be fine with that, but I don't see it happening.

So instead, lets acknowledge one thing: without the proper physical conditioning, you cannot attempt to emulate a Shaolin Monk. You will hurt yourself, quite possibly tear your own body apart. Much like trying to cast a magic spell wrong might have it explode in your face. Its important to keep that factor, because Fighter manuvers must be exclusive. Arcane spells are exclusive to arcane classes, divine spells to divine classes, martial manuvers to martial classes.

Theoretically, a Wizard could try to use the Fighter character's legendary 'Diamond Nightmare Blade' technique. But there's no chance that its going to work because the Wizard hasn't studied proper form and hasn't conditioned his body to handle that amount of strain on his muscles.

The basic manuvers: bull rush, trip, disarm, etc. Those should all be available to everyone. But the Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike requires a mastery of the body that can only come from exhaustive training, the same as the Wizard's Time Stop came from constant study and experimentation.

Ok, I'll concede that point. While the basics can be attempted by anyone, there are some things you need to train and condition your body to do.

So what exactly are those things? Improved versions of the basic maneuvers? "Anyone can bull rush. Only the fighter can bull rush one enemy and knock him into another." "Anyone can use a shield to push, only the fighter can shield bash" That sounds like it'd be fine for the lower levels, but what should this complex fighter be able to do at higher levels?

Simple fighter? Sure. Find the spell that does the most damage at each level, and let the simple fighter do that much damage as many times per day as that spell can be cast. Now watch the tantrums fly.

May 28, 2012 -- 8:14PM, Zeldafan42 wrote:

Ok, I'll concede that point. While the basics can be attempted by anyone, there are some things you need to train and condition your body to do.

So what exactly are those things? Improved versions of the basic maneuvers? "Anyone can bull rush. Only the fighter can bull rush one enemy and knock him into another." "Anyone can use a shield to push, only the fighter can shield bash" That sounds like it'd be fine for the lower levels, but what should this complex fighter be able to do at higher levels?

I'm not really sure at the moment. People have different ideas for flavor. I tend to lean closer to Samurai Jack levels of combat, which is very improbable.

I guess the Fighter could attempt any martial maneuver as an improvisation, but it relies on circumstance and the DM allowing it. The Fighter is a natural combatant and can often mimic specific styles of other martial classes on the fly, but unreliably. The Warblade gets a smaller range of maneuvers, but he can use them with a much smaller chance of failure. Or something like that maybe.

So, using Bull Rush as an example. A Wizard or Cleric who gets a lucky roll could knock someone over. A Fighter takes it a step forward by actually tossing that enemy into someone else and taking out two enemies at once. The Monk, being more specialized than the Fighter, can actually dodge an enemy's attack, grab their arm and use the leverage to toss them into another enemy.

The Fighter is better than any non-martial class at using maneuvers, and can improvise maneuvers that mimic those of other classes, but he can never really match those maneuvers when they're used by the class that specializes in them.

May 28, 2012 -- 7:36PM, Zeldafan42 wrote:

Thank you everybody. I was hoping I could provoke an intelligent, civilised discussion, and you guys all more or less came through for me.

You're welcome.  I try not to make a habit of this "reasonable" stuff, but it's not too bad sometimes.

So let me ask you some more questions:

Sure, I've still got some popcorn left.

Are we all agreed that 5E is a big enough game to allow both a simple fighter and a complex fighter to coexist?

No, we're not.  We're all agreed(okay, mostly we're agreed) that we would like 5e to be a big enough game to allow for both.  However, WotC's PR team has put a lot of time and energy into assuring us that the edition that is known for its complex fighter is Unclean.  Even this playest feels like a marketing move designed to assure people that don't like 4e how not-4e 5e will be.  So, I would like 5e to be a big enough game for both, but I am concerned as to whether it will be. 

What about the simple fighter getting two themes to give him more variety, in exchange for the complex fighter getting built in class features?

I'm sort of against it.  I mean, on the one hand, if I'm going to be playing the complex fighter, whatever they do with the simple one isn't really important to me.  But, in a certain sense, it is.  The simple fighter needs to be balanced with both the complex one and the other classes.  If it's not, we'll see crap like we got toward the end of 3.5 with Tome of Battle.  A Warblade wasn't even in the same tier as a Wizard or Cleric, but because it was such an improvement over the original fighter, I never even got to play one.  The entire book was banned as unbalancing in every 3.5 game I played since it came out.  Two themes for the simple fighter sounds pretty weak to me.  If it leaves him in the bottom tier, it will mean that much more trouble trying to play a complex fighter later, when I'm told he's overpowered.  If two themes for the simple fighter turns out fine and balanced, then sure, whatever.    

I'll be honest. I want a complex fighter. But I hate the idea of martial powers. Theoretically, anyone can attempt any given purely physical move. My wizard can try to push enemies with a shield or attempt a disarm with his staff. Doesn't mean he's any good at it, but I hate the idea that only the fighter can do this physical move and that physical move. Fighters should be better and more consistent at pulling off these more impressive physical techniques, but such mundane moves shouldn't be exclusive to them.

So can we build a complex fighter without just taking legitimate tactics that theoretically any physical class should be able to pull off and making them fighter exclusive powers? Can we give him interesting moves that feel like they should be something that only the elite few beings so devoted to combat that they are called fighters are capable of?

Here's the thing.  Any class could theoretically pull off martial powers.  But in practice, they cannot.  We're all on the internet here, so I'm sure you're all familiar with this picture of a badass doing a backflip and throwing a hatchet at the same time.  That is a perfect example for the ideal martial power. Anyone could attempt that.  Not anyone could do it, or even have a reasonable chance of doing it.  I mean, I might be able to try either throwing a hatchet or doing a backflip, and I might even succeed at it(or, I could hurt myself).  But I wouldn't even have a chance of doing both at once.  Heck, I wouldn't even think to do it.  I'm not awesome enough for there to be any situation where I think, "The answer is to do a backflip and throw a hatchet at this guy!"  That is how martial powers should be.  Taking multiple awesome things at once(such as Tide of Iron being a basic attack and a bull rush) and putting them together, possibly in ways most non-martial characters wouldn't have thought of, and doing them both in a rapid span of time.  Taking Tide of Iron again, anyone can try a basic attack, and anyone can try a Bull Rush.  But the fighter is so awesome, whether via training or natural talent, or whatever, that he can do both of those things in far more rapid succession than others can.

as per the original post, this is interesting. Normally, I would say I am quite upset by the fact that my fighter is more "worrior" than fighter. But I discovered something. Today I tried using the play test packet to make my own characters. So I made an elven fighter with the background of knight and theme magic user. The idea was to make an elven nobel worrior that uses magic to agument martial ability. Well, I found myself refering to him as a Mage knight of the Elven Court. And actually, I quite like this. After all, the original "fighter" class was meant to be a catch all for any kind of martial worrior class. Infact, fighter, ranger, paladin, they were all groupd as part of the worrior class in old editions. It used to be that if you wanted to play a pit fighter, bounty hunter, soldier, knight, barbarian, you made a "fighter" class, and flufed him as such. But now, we get juicy mechanics to go along with that fluff, making the slayer fighter really slay, comparied to a guardian fighter that protects. 

I also made a dwarven rogue, with soldier background and lurker theme. He was basically trained as a kind of recon sniper for the dwarven army. So, his deal is to snipe and do extra damage with his cross bow, and so he knows how to sneak past defences and remain hidden. So he is my scout sniper.

Then I made a human cleric with the priest background and slayer theme, to basically be a witch hunter. And that is what I call him, withc hunter or, maybe demon hunter. He will hammer away with his warhammer against any force of evil and will do so relentlesly.

So, even with just this little bit, I was able to make elven mage knight, dwarven sniper, and human demon hunter. I first thought this kind of set up would be lame, and I expressed my opinion in response to certain articles. BUt after actually trying it, I am now sold on it. I would recomnd that people try it out. it is easy to do, just swap races, backgrounds, and themes. What would a halfling fighter with lurker look like? Or a human mage slayer who casts magic wildly and reclesly?

I also found itneresting things stacking. For example, dwarven low light vision stacking with rogues 2nd level abilit to see in the dark. after one minute the dwarf counts dark as shadow, and shadow as light from this ability, but low light vision does the same thing. So, I guess after one minut, dark shadow counts as normal day light.

The same stack would ocur with the elven rogue, and on top of that, the elfe gets advantage on rolls to notice things. Hiding in showdows would become imposible against these classes. 

So, no, I would not be upset if my fighter-assasin-lurker was then called some other compleatly different name, that encompese the background I had in mind.