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Nov 20, 2012 -- 8:07AM, LupusRegalis wrote:

Nov 20, 2012 -- 7:38AM, Garthanos wrote:

For so many of those they would have to allow smarts to be used as part of fighting .. but since you know you cant make clever, inspired, precise, tricky, spirited, focused or potent attacks by exploiting perception or intelligence or strength of personality.. It just wont happen its gotta be brute force baby

Your cynicism is not unjustified, as reading the comments in this thread alone make clear.  I keep buying into DnDNext's hype, hoping to see them make progress with the system.  I don't have a problem with them doing what they need, to bring all Editions to the same table.  I'd love to see that.  That doesn't mean they need to backslide, though.  Or maybe they just need to go further.  As I understand it, before the Rogue appeared, the Fighter was also a skilled warrior.

I'll continue voicing my concerns and opinions, and hope that the Fighter class is not regulated to the simple man of violence.  If in the end it is though, I know I will not be buying 5th Ed. 

See, I think the fighter should be a blunt instrument but that doesn't mean I want universally stupid physical fighting classes - it must means I'd rather have more classes to cover those archetypes.

The fighter is a very specific thing insofar as it's got an image to live up to: reliable, solid, dangerous, simple (simple does NOT mean there aren't options). Does what it says on the tin is what my fighter does. He fights. People like him because he forces them to. With violence.

The main thing that separates fighters from other physical damage classes is they have a lot of choice about what weapon they end up specialising in. Monks don't so much, nor does a swashbuckler. Fighters get to pick between all major fighting styles and every weapon there is, which is a pretty cool schtick.

So I disagree with the idea that wanting the fighter to be a fairly simple character that is str driven and good with weapons more than anything else means that all physically minded classes want to solve their problems with a chainsaw. It just means that the specific class "fighter" does.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 9:23AM, Reinhart wrote:

In my view designers have to sit down and decide how thematically and mechanically specific they want their class system to be. When you make a fighter that's better than the ranger at archery and two-weapon fighting then you undermine what most players really want from the ranger just like if you make a fighter that's better than the Barbarian at furiously swinging a two-handed axe.

Likewise, if Paladins are just heavily armored fighters with free stuff, and Barbarians, Rogues, and Rangers best embody most other fighting styles, then you have no thematic niche for the Fighter. A similar situation would occur if Necromancer, Conjuror, Evoker, Enchanter, and Illusionist were each similar but seperate classes from Wizard. You'd immediately start comparing them to a Wizard that specialized in these effects and then either the specialist class or the generalist class would prove to be less worthwhile for that purpose.

I have no problem having either a very generalist set of classes such as "Warrior" and "Magic-user," or very thematically specific classes such as "Warlock," "Berserker," and "Swashbuckler." There's a fair trade-off between flexibility vs. tailored play that I'm comfortable with if the mechanics are well designed. I get frustrated though when designers try to have it both ways at the same time. Obviously previous editions have made it work, but we also wouldn't be having this discussion if their solutions had been perfect.

This, I can definitely agree with.

The other problem is if you're going to base it on combat mechanics and who does better than whom then you're going to end up with a mediocre fighter if their thing is "combat" because everybody's thing is combat.

They've got to decide what kind of combat that is. Whether that's "weapon master" or "thug" or "bodyguard" or "bastard lunatic" is an entirely different issue. Fact is, they've gotta pick something.

The thing everyone seems to agree on so far is weapons. Fighters use weapons and they use them well. That means that whatever the fighter is, it's gotta be able to use weapons and their main combat advantage needs to spring from armed combat. So functionally, the fighter has to be able to pick whether they function as well as the ranger with bows, but they also need something else to make up for the suite of abilities the ranger has. Since their thing is weapons, they need something that derives from weapon use and probably they need to bet better with bows than a ranger if they choose to specialise with bows and worse with other weapons than a ranger is with those same weapons.

But that's where all the options come from. They specialise in a weapon and a fighting style and those things make them better with those weapons in that fighting style than anyone else, but if they're not using that style or they're not using that weapon they're the same as any other schmo. Pull them out of the style and give them a different weapon and they should be worse than any ohter schmo.

It has to be simple because there are so many options. Having a highly complex format alongside a lot of different directions one can take is confusing. Wizards are the same in that their means of access to the spell list has got to be easy to understand and more or less universally applicable because the individual spells take a lot of patience to get to know. Give wizards a complicated means of access to their complex list of spells and suddenly you have a headache to manage and write for.

So whatever the fighter does, it's gotta be something specific. Can't be more than one thing and it's got to be better at the one thing it does settle on than everyone else is at that one thing. Even if the player picks what that one thing is.