SUMMARY: This is really long, so I'll summarize real quick. People complain that fighters in 5e are boring, but that's because they're not being creative. The rules make it easy to do anything you can think of, more or less; you just need to think like a warrior. I give some examples of things the current rules support.
EDIT - I also posted this on reddit, phrased differently on some places. Just FYI.
Now then. One of the main complaints I see with the 5e playtest is that fighters are dull to play. Just hack and slash and move on, with nothing cool happening. I've read that fighters have no cool abilities. That's incorrect--fighters have almost any cool ability you can think of. Since rolls are now based on stats, not skills, a fighter will excel at anything that uses strength. This is an amazing system--you don't have to train or take feats to do anything other than swing a sword like in other versions. You don't look at your list of abilities to decide what you're allowed to do. You use your imagination, and then you DO IT.
This is a result of two things: Advantage and Contests.
Advantage means that any interesting maneuvering on your part has an immediate benefit, if you're successful. ANY INTERESTING MANEUVERING. Think about that for a second.
Contests cover basically ANYTHING that isn't a direct weapon attack. There are a lot of things that happen in combat that aren't direct weapon attacks.
Also, take note of the Improvise section of the How to Play guide. It more or less backs me up here.
One last note before the interesting stuff: 5e has absolutely nothing in it that should lead to a Mother-may-I experience. Never ask the DM if you are allowed to do something. You simply say you're going to try it, he assigns a DC (if applicable) and you roll. The end. Don't ask for permission, and if you're DM, don't expect to be giving it. Empower the players.
I'm giving you a list of things that could reasonably be done under the current rules that will make a fighter an interesting and dynamic thing to be. Keep in mind that you can only do one thing per round, so I usually make the advantage roll take effect on the turn afterward. This is all stuff for a player to come up with on the fly. My player will say 'I'm going to trip him,' and I as DM improvise how that might work. None of these ideas are intended to become new rules, or even act as such. It's more about helping players think like a warrior, and helping DMs accommodate them. If you don't like how I ruled it, rule it differently in your game. NEVER TELL A PLAYER NO. They can try whatever they want, and the rules let that happen.
1 - Choke. Attacker has disadvantage and must use a free hand, but on successful hit, str contest to choke. Success causes restrained. Contest each round to maintain, and after three successful rounds, next round causes stunned. Next round causes unconscious. Death ten rounds later (which is actually too short in real life). Come here, goblin! (A fighter within arm's reach of a mage will probably never lose, which I and my players have generally been happy about.)
2 - Lock Joints. Again, attacker has disadvantage, needs two free hands. Str or dex contest, depending on circumstances and DM whim. Success causes restrained. I usually only give the defender one attempt to break the hold.
3 - Disarm. Attacker has disadvantage, successful hit triggers dex contest to disarm.
4 - Trip. Dex or Str contest, depending. This could be anything from a sweep attack to a bullrush and lifting up the enemy. Attacker gets advantage if the halfling is ducked down behind the target, giving him something to trip over :D Once tripped, target is prone.
5 - Throw net. I know it's not on the EQ list. Make one. Then throw it. Successful hit causes restrained. Then toss an Alchemist's Fire for extra fun. After dumping oil on them.
6 - This is really one for the rogue, but I had a player manacle an enemy's legs with two hidden attacks.
7 - Oil up the floor and make the enemies fight while standing on it.
8 - As a ready action, duck under a strike and end up behind the enemy, ready to hit him from behind next round. Gave that a dex DC of 17.
All of those were improvised on the spot, and the rules made it very easy to accommodate. Here are some other things that were tried or talked about (I'm sparing the rules I used since by now I think you have the idea):
Launch the halfling over an enemy. Throw a goblin to knock another goblin over. Make and throw mud. Gouge out eyes. Knock away the enemy's shield, giving the next person to hit them advantage. Throw **** (yes, that happened.) Hold the end of a rope for the thief to walk across like a tightrope. Dwarf, grab that ogre's nuts.
One last thing. This isn't really about the rules or covered by them in any DnD system of which I'm aware, but I do it to make things more fun. Sometimes when an enemy is brought to 0 hitpoints, instead of killing them, I make them combat incapable but still conscious. For example, "Your greataxe cuts right through both of the orc's knees, severing them and dropping him to the ground screaming." The legless orc might then, for example, flop around and get in the way, still try to swing his sword, lay about screaming in pain, beg for mercy, or who knows what. The party then may do roleplay-ey sorts of things involving the orc if they wish. Basically, it still meets the spirit of the rules, but it gives the party a better sense that they're interacting with the world than simply 'You killed it to death. It dies.' Other things are cut off an enemy's sword arm, causing him to yield; disembowel something large, causing its guts to spill all over and make the ground slick, etc.
I just posted this thought in another thread, but I'll put it here too because it responds to why I disagree with what you're saying.
I'll make it shorter than I did before:
A lvl 10 fighter has practically zero options that a lvl 1 fighter does not have.
For me, that's why the 5e fighter runs the risk of being boring.
Now the lvl 10 fighter will be better at doing things than the lvl 1 fighter, but they will still be the same things.
All of the creative things you list above can be attempted at lvl 1, or 2, or 7, or 15 . . .
Now, knowing players, if one or two of them tend to work, those will be attempted more often than others.
If an improvised action is better than just a basic attack then a player will choose it everytime it can be chosen. If it isn't better than a basic attack, then the player will not choose it.
I find that this tends to move in the direction of boring fighters.
I love "Throw goblin into another goblin!" I thought of that while playing with the fighter as well and it absolutely cracked my table up. My DM treated it a basic attack without using the weapon bonus (+4 instead of +6). We figured a goblin would do about a 1d6 damage the same way a chair or a barrel might. What made it really interesting was getting into the room with the cooking fire and the pot of boiling soup.
I just posted this thought in another thread, but I'll put it here too because it responds to why I disagree with what you're saying.
I'll make it shorter than I did before:
A lvl 10 fighter has practically zero options that a lvl 1 fighter does not have.
For me, that's why the 5e fighter runs the risk of being boring.
Now the lvl 10 fighter will be better at doing things than the lvl 1 fighter, but they will still be the same things.
All of the creative things you list above can be attempted at lvl 1, or 2, or 7, or 15 . . .
Now, knowing players, if one or two of them tend to work, those will be attempted more often than others.
If an improvised action is better than just a basic attack then a player will choose it everytime it can be chosen. If it isn't better than a basic attack, then the player will not choose it.
I find that this tends to move in the direction of boring fighters.
See, I still disagree with you. Your mindset is that your character does what his character sheet says. At level 10, you could be investing your gold in training up a local militia or searching through the orphanages to find yourself a disciple. I really think DnD (and I'm not going to start an edition war, trying really hard not to) has become all about combat, and everything else in the game is designed to get people into combat. Not preparation for combat, or research for combat, or study and training for combat, just combat itself. When's the last time your players spent time in a library trying to find the weaknesses of some monster? Fighters are supposed to be the exclamation point at the end of the sentence, "You're going to die!" They fight. They don't need powers. They don't need skills that basically give them permission to do things they should be doing anyway. They need ideas, they need DM interaction, and they need creativity. If you're the kind of player where when it's your turn, you stammer and read your character sheet wondering what to do, don't play fighters.
Fighters are for the best roleplayers, not the worst. Fighters are for the characters who can think on their feet and handle any situation. Fighers know whether to fight or flee, and whether to ambush or charge head on. They're the experienced, knowledgable ones who can take a party through battle and win the day when the chips are down. That's their role and their place in the party. What more do they need than cunning, creativity, and lots and lots of damage?
Gotta disagree with you there...the fighter pregen is boring. I like it. This specific build is supposed to be boring. It's meant for the min/maxers out there who want to do as much damage as possible. It's fun and it's simple.
As far as being creative goes, that applies to all characters and all editions. If your DM asks you what you do and your first instinct is to look at your character sheet, stop doing that. Close your eyes and picture the scene in your head (yes, even if you're playing with minis on a grid), decide what sort of action you'd like to do, then look at your character sheet and figure out the best way to translate that into game mechanics. That works for any edition of the game you pick up or any other roleplaying game out there. You'd be surprised how much more fun you can have playing that way.
But the thing is, that creativity DOESN'T apply to all characters in all versions. Look again at the list of things I mentioned, then think about what you'd need to do to be able to do that in prior versions. You'd have to have all kinds of skills and feats and powers and whatnot, and if it wasn't given a rule, you're basically not allowed to do it. Can you find me a rule that gives you a bonus to trip if there's a halfling ducked behind your target? Or in the recent celebrated example, a bonus for swinging from a chandelier? All the good stuff that has rules is nerfed to hell anyways because it would be 'too powerful', like choking an opponent to death. However, think about how many movies have that awesome scene where one dude grabs the other guy's neck and lifts him off the ground. Shouldn't your fighter be able to do that?
I know that in this version, every character can be creative and do interesting things. I applaud that. Fighters just excel at fighting, and the high strength and grittiness goes a long way in tossing around all your opponents on the battlefield, not just rolling dice at them until they die, like the accusation states. People just need to start thinking about what a person could actually do in a situation, not what line on their fancypants attacks list gives them the numerically optimal result.
I'm sure that fluff and extra rules will be added, to the system's detriment, but for now, there's a nice, clean, streamlined way to do anything you can think of, in combat or out of it.
No, you could do them. You just probably couldn't do them as effectively or in one turn in 3.x/4e, but you could do them. I had 4e players who did all kinds of wacky crap over the stretch of my campaign. Thankfully I knew the rules well enough to be able to figure out what 5 skill rolls would be needed to do something like that.
And if you think that player creativity and performing odd stunts wasn't a part of 1st or 2nd edition, you really need to play those games again.
People complain that fighters in 5e are boring, but that's because they're not being creative. The rules make it easy to do anything you can think of, more or less; you just need to think like a warrior. I give some examples of things the current rules support.
Incorrect.
You are making the same mistake as everyone else who makes this claim: assuming that the rules and roleplaying are the same thing. This is false.
You cite the existence of the "improvise" action as precedent for why the Fighter is interesting. However, you overlook one detail: the "improvise" action is available to everyone. There is, quite literally, nothing that the Fighter can attempt by using the "improvise" action that any other character cannot also attempt. Additionally, all characters can move and make melee and ranged attacks.
However, in addition to these general actions, all characters other than the Fighter are capable of taking additional special actions. The Rogue is capable of making Sneak Attacks and using two skills that are unique to it (Open Locks and Find/Remove Traps); the Wizard has access to up to six of ten different spells, six cantrips, and gains a familiar that further expands the possible usages of these sixteen different effects; the Dwarf Cleric also has access to spells and cantrips, a Channel Divinity that grants two discreet actions, and has a unique reaction available; and the Human Cleric has spells, cantrips, Channel Divinity, and the benefits of the Herbalism feat. The Fighter cannot replicate any of these effects.
Let's distil that down some:
1. Because all classes can improvise equally, roleplaying and creativity can be applied equally to all classes. No class gains any advantage because it is "better" at improvising than any other.
2. The Fighter has no actions it can take that the other classes cannot also take.
3. However, the other classes all DO have actions they can take that the Fighter cannot.
Therefore: The Fighter is mechanically less interesting.
Just one question: what can the Dwarven Fighter do that the Dwarven Cleric of Moradin cannot?
Deal more damage? Give the Cleric the Fighter's weapons and all he's missing is 2 damage on a hit, 3 damage on a miss (the miss damage doable by taking the Slayer theme instead of Defender theme).
Choke? The Cleric can do that too.
Lock Joints? The Cleric can do that too.
Trip? The Cleric and the Rogue can do that too.
Throw net? Heck, the Wizard can do that too.
Goblin-a-pault? Doable with the Cleric.
Now, what can the Cleric do that the Fighter cannot?
Cast magic.
Healing magic that lets him attack in addition to healing
Attack magic that lets him effectively attack twice
And that's just with the playtester material *unaltered*.
I really do pray that they give subclasses/kits/options that let everyone especially the Fighter do something other than just damage, as I would seriously prefer a "Once a day you enter the Bar the Doors of Hell stance for five minutes. Enemies that can see and hear you must make a Charisma check at the start of their turn. If they fail to do so, they cannot move past you and have disadvantage for any attacks that do not include you". To even a +20 to damage.
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
1. Because all classes can improvise equally, roleplaying and creativity can be applied equally to all classes. No class gains any advantage because it is "better" at improvising than any other.
2. The Fighter has no actions it can take that the other classes cannot also take.
3. However, the other classes all DO have actions they can take that the Fighter cannot.
Therefore: The Fighter is mechanically less interesting.
The fighter is not better at improvising than any other class. The fighter cannot do anything that other classes cannot attempt. The Fighter cannot cast spells. I'm not sure on what basis you've determined non-Rogues can't find traps--they may not be able to open locks or disarm traps without proficiency in thieves tools, but I think finding the traps is general--but I guess that's besides the point.
None of this means that the Fighter is more or less interesting, though, because assuming that the number of unique actions available to your character is the entirety of the measure of "interesting" is a false premise.
The Fighter can do a lot of things better than anyone else. They hit more accurately, deal more damage, and have a significantly larger hit die. Now, I do fear for the future when full spell lists are released--I hate quadratic wizards--but at the moment, I honestly feel like the classes are pretty balanced.
And I don't think it's especially more interesting to say, cast Arc Lightning a couple times a day than it is to deal more damage on every attack I ever make.
