The issue I have with the Fighter comes around since about late 2e and definitely 3e to 4e. In fact 4e encapsulates the problem.
The hyper focusing of the Fighter into 'builds'. There's a lack of variety forced onto only ONE class.
In 4e, for example, you have the Great Weapon fighter, the One Weapon and Shield fighter, the Two Weapon fighter, the WWE/Grapple fighter, the... What IS the Battlerager's purpose anyway?
And yet, outside of Essentials (and the Mage's bonuses for picking a specific school, and even then they get a secondary bonus to a second one at later levels) no other class is restricted in this. Except maybe Cleric, but at least they get a wide variety of effects, as well as dedicated healing. Like summoning storms or lazers from their eyes.
The Rogue can be both a ranged or melee 'expert' on a fight to fight basis.
The Wizard, in any edition since AD&D 1e could 'specialize' but more often than not (and it was considered smarter to do so) can pick spells will nilly (OK, I'll take a Melf's Acid Arrow, Tenser's Floating Disk, a Raise Dead, a Mass Teleport, Disintegrate and what Divination school spell should I use to utterly destroy the GM's plot today... Hmmm...)
Of the 'side' classes, the only other one that might have a bit of a problem starting from 3.5 is the Ranger, either two weapon, weapon and beast or archery.
The Paladin can still smite his/her foes with a one handed or two handed weapon, doesn't really matter how, their powers are generally divine.
The Druid's schtck has always been to throw animals at the problem (PETA, where are you?) and they have many ways to do that, including using themselves as beast of a weapon.
The Bard has always been misnamed the 'Jack of All Trades' when in reality his 'job' makes him the Face of the Party (Go see A Knight's Tale (2001), and forget how unrealistic or whatever it is about the flick, go look at the Geoffrey Chaucer character played by Paul Bettany, THAT is what a Bard IS.) But that's a player made problem, really.
The Monk has always been a one trick pony with no real justification to exist in D&D outside of the whiny "But I want KUNG FU!!!!!" A Fighter could do that better.
And the Barbarian/Berserker is nothing more than a Fighter with anger management issues, and lot's practice with swinging big hunks of copper/iron/bronze/steel around.
That covers all the important and iconic D&D classes.
What I'd like to see is for the Fighter the same thing that most of the other classes get, the ability to switch 'combat' styles on the fly, or as required.
I'd also like if each of the major combat styles, like Sword and Board, Two Weapon (Yes, technically these two are effectively the same), and Two handed got their own unique flavours to boot.
This ISN'T a Video Game where the main Fighter hero (typically in a JRPG) is given an 'iconic' weapon and that every weapon shop carries that specific weapon type for you. And the rest of your party. Some times you'll find that Bullpucky Bob's Bargain Basement of Magical Katanas doesn't have an outlet in this particular town, so you'll need to scrounge up a hand axe or short blade instead of the great whopper hammer you've been carrying around.
If there's going to be a bounded accuracy and the ability to be disarmed in a fight (which in real life is usually instant death, but this is a fantasy game) I want to be able to grab the Orc in front of me, smash his skull in with my helmet, grab his axe, draw my dagger at my waist and suddenly I am properly armed and BACK in the fight.
That's pretty badass to me.
I have nothing against specializing, but it shouldn't overshadow the fact that there are other weapons in the world, and a Fighter is a master of them all (especially when he gets over level 10.) Maybe you like swords better than axes, that's fine, but if all you have access to is an ax at a banquet, or even just a carving knife when you and your friends get ambused, wouldn't you want to be as effective with it, too?
Just a request, that I'm pretty sure will get flamed or ignored. Thank you for your time.
(And for the record, all those examples, I've seen when I ran a 2e game about 20 years ago. We didn't know any better back then.)
If there's going to be a bounded accuracy and the ability to be disarmed in a fight (which in real life is usually instant death, but this is a fantasy game) I want to be able to grab the Orc in front of me, smash his skull in with my helmet, grab his axe, draw my dagger at my waist and suddenly I am properly armed and BACK in the fight.
You can currently do all these things in D&D Next.
Grab: Strength vs Strength (or Dexterity) contest. Smash with Helmet: melee attack with improvised weapon Grab his axe: Strength vs Strength (or Dexterity) contest. If you are unarmed you have disadvantage...I wouldn't count that because you are grabbing the orc and are using your helm as an improvised weapon.
Also, note about 4E and fighter builds. I think you are selling the variability far short. While it is true that the fighter must pick a single style (1 handed weapon, 2 handed weapon, battlerager, etc) you are free to take any power for which you qualify (which, by the end, was a lot). Anyone trained in endurance could benefit from Invigorating powers, for example.
What precisely is keeping a fighter from switching styles?
In fact wasn't there a build that actually encouraged weapon swapping via powers with multiple listed weapon effects?
Yup. In the PHB, every other level of encounter attack powers had riders based on your weapon. For example, level 3 had: Armor-Piercing Thrust (light blade or spear), Crushing Blow (axe, hammer, or mace), Dance of Steel (polearm or heavy blade), Rain of Blows (light blade, spear, or flail), and Sweeping Blow (axe, flail, heavy blade, or pick).
I want every fighter to retain the ability to be cool with whatever they happen to pick up. Even if its not their preferred shtick. Yes, they should still be allowed focus if they want, but not to such an extent that they suck if they aren't being optimal every moment of the day.
When a (normally) greataxe-wielding fighter has to pick up a trident, for whatever reason, he should still be a fighter. Doing things with it the other martial characters wish they could. He shouldn't be relegated to second-tier just because something happened for story, or some other situational, reasons.
Again, I go back to one of my favorite movie scenes:
"I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it." - Matthew Quigley
If there's going to be a bounded accuracy and the ability to be disarmed in a fight (which in real life is usually instant death, but this is a fantasy game) I want to be able to grab the Orc in front of me, smash his skull in with my helmet, grab his axe, draw my dagger at my waist and suddenly I am properly armed and BACK in the fight.
You can currently do all these things in D&D Next.
Grab: Strength vs Strength (or Dexterity) contest. Smash with Helmet: melee attack with improvised weapon Grab his axe: Strength vs Strength (or Dexterity) contest. If you are unarmed you have disadvantage...I wouldn't count that because you are grabbing the orc and are using your helm as an improvised weapon.
Also, note about 4E and fighter builds. I think you are selling the variability far short. While it is true that the fighter must pick a single style (1 handed weapon, 2 handed weapon, battlerager, etc) you are free to take any power for which you qualify (which, by the end, was a lot). Anyone trained in endurance could benefit from Invigorating powers, for example.
Arthe, you're right in that the Fighter in 4e can pick any power (and the most versatile was actually the Grappler Fighter. Arm yourself with a pair of Cestus [with the feat that makes 1D8 weapons], and now you are considered ARM and HAVING A HAND FREE. Dual Strike? Done! That basic Grab and Strike? Done! Any power that required either a weapon OR a free hand, you had FULL access to.)
But if you're a Battlerager with a Shield or a Two handed weapon Fighter, you CANNOT take Dual Strike or Grab and Strike (or whatever it's called) without having to drop a weapon, and if you do, especially for a two handed sword, hammer, axe, you've just removed most of your 'bonuses', which we've been trained to desperately want.
Also, I want D&DN (no offence, 4e IS fun. I am PLAYING it, as well as running the Encounters for a local gaming club) to back away from the proliferation of powers.
Here's a scenario for you:
Barbrawl. Unarmed, facing an opponent. There's a cask, a stool and a carving knife within reach, and I'm a One Weapons and Shield Specialist Fighter. Still with me?
OK, first thing I would do is look at my sheet and consider mmy options. I have a couple of at-wills but nothing all that useable without a weapon in hand. Well, I'm not going to move, this is 4e after all. So I have a couple of Minor actions. I also have Tide of Iron and Cleave as my powers as a Dragonborn.
Well, Cleave is useless, and I'm not blowing a daily on a Bar brawl. And most of my Encounters aren't going to be that impressive. So that leaves either, Melee Basic (WHY???) or Tide of Iron.
Notice the first thing I did? I looked at my character sheet and checked out my powers. This is a common trap. Instead of looking around and seeing the 'battlefield' for options, the first thing I did (and I'm not the only one who does this. Most 4e players I know, and see on this very forum does the same thing) was my Character Sheet.
Instead of grabbing the cask and smashing it over the goons head, which would be useless because I would be (assuming level one here, OK?) rolling at +5 vs. AC. Which might give me anything from a 50% to a 65% to hit. But it's a Melee basic and it's only 1D4 damage. [Math was off, you only get your Strength Bonus on an Improvised weapon.]
I'm more likely to grab that knife, and a stool, wheedling my GM into accepting that I can use Tide of Iron because the Stool is now my Shield, and because a Dagger is a +3 weapon, the bonus now jumps up to (Str: 20= +5, Guardian Weapon Bonus: +1 for a one handed weapon, +3 Dagger Proficiency = +8) a 65% to 90% chance of hitting.
Because of the powers, I immediately switch to them. And the LFR (of which I was a part of) adventure system for RPGA groups reinforced, which bleeds into my home games...
In a relatively recent Red Box (and I mean the old Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal set of 83) game, I was also playing a Fighter, and we had a bar brawl situation.
Which I didn't start. Honest! I didn't have any skills pertinent to the discussion upstairs so the DM decided that someone started a fight.
So during this fight, I have no weapons, no armour (But neither does anyone else) and I have a table in front of me with, yep, a cask, a dagger, but instead of a stool, a five foot bench behind me.
And I have two guys to deal with a Dwarven Merc and someone I can 'sense' behind me. The exchange went something like this:
Me: "So there's a guy behind me?"
DM: "Yeah, he's not being subtle. (as in running in, screaming)"
Me: *Thinks* "Bench is 5 feet long, right?"
DM: "Yep."
Me: "I'm pretty strong, so could I, like, slam my foot on the end of the bench and have the other side swing up and clock him in the jaw?"
A pause, I swear he thought I was going to pick up or something, cuz he just sat there looking at me for a couple of seconds. Then he grins and nods (the guy really is awesome, much better than me and my 28 years of DMining experience.)
So I roll my D20, I get the 15 I needed (I had like an 18 strength, I think. Or was it 15? I forget.)
And BOOM! The back end of the bench swings up, knocks goon B out. While the next round (After taking a solid punch to the jaw by Mr. Dorf) I grab the cask, smash it over Mr. Dorf's head, taking him out of the fight.
Then the DM switch over the rest of the team, got their updates, and then went back to me. At the end of that fight, I was down 5 HP from 30. I described as having half my face swollen, knuckles bruised, both wrists were sprained, splinters of chairs in my buttocks and back...
It seriously was eye opening for me. This is what I want in D&D. As much fun as Kroduhk the Battlerager for LFR was, I want something that HELPS (keyword, it's up to the GM and Players to AGREE on this point) more 'free form' stuff.
See where I am coming from?
4e is EXCELLENT for what it does. And what it does is bring a tactical feel to combat in between some rather rousing (personal experience) Role Playing scenes. It makes you think about where you are, where your enemies, how much you can move, if you can move, and what are you willing to sacrifice to make that (Standard, Minor, Move, Free) move.
I want every fighter to retain the ability to be cool with whatever they happen to pick up. Even if its not their preferred shtick. Yes, they should still be allowed focus if they want, but not to such an extent that they suck if they aren't being optimal every moment of the day.
When a (normally) greataxe-wielding fighter has to pick up a trident, for whatever reason, he should still be a fighter. Doing things with it the other martial characters wish they could. He shouldn't be relegated to second-tier just because something happened for story, or some other situational, reasons.
Again, I go back to one of my favorite movie scenes:
"I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it." - Matthew Quigley
I agree with you, but I have to raise you one. For a fighter to truly qualify as a fighter for me, she must be able to weaponize things. A fighter should be able skip over the improvised weapon entries and be able to treat anything they wield like the weapon that it most closely represents.
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin." NPC: "Really?" Fighter: "Yes." NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?" Fighter: "I do." NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?" Fighter: "What?" NPC: "I don't know what it means either." Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do." NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics." Fighter: "These what?" NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
I want every fighter to retain the ability to be cool with whatever they happen to pick up. Even if its not their preferred shtick. Yes, they should still be allowed focus if they want, but not to such an extent that they suck if they aren't being optimal every moment of the day.
When a (normally) greataxe-wielding fighter has to pick up a trident, for whatever reason, he should still be a fighter. Doing things with it the other martial characters wish they could. He shouldn't be relegated to second-tier just because something happened for story, or some other situational, reasons.
Again, I go back to one of my favorite movie scenes:
"I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it." - Matthew Quigley
I agree with you, but I have to raise you one. For a fighter to truly qualify as a fighter for me, she must be able to weaponize things. A fighter should be able skip over the improvised weapon entries and be able to treat anything they wield like the weapon that it most closely represents.
Chris, I was thinking that EXACT scene when I wrote this up.
I am also a HUGE Robert E. Howard and Frank Frazetta fan, and in a lot of the Conan stories he's never using the same weapon twice. (I grew up reading them in the Public Library behind my parents back.)
And MechaPilot that would be a cool feature, actually. If you ever want to pitch it as a suggestion: I will throw my vote into your hat.
Barbrawl. Unarmed, facing an opponent. There's a cask, a stool and a carving knife within reach, and I'm a One Weapons and Shield Specialist Fighter. Still with me?
OK, first thing I would do is look at my sheet and consider mmy options.
I'm going to stop you right here, because you've got the wrong guy. While I love 4E, I also realized a while ago that I'm not a huge fan of powers for the exact reason you say. In my few playtest sessions, my players have improvised far more than they ever do during 4E combats.
That said, there is a very good argument for giving characters at least SOME powers: players shouldn't have to improvise all the time in order to be effective. So it is cool that the D&D Next fighter has maneuvers and expertise dice. It gives you a few default things to fall back on, but at the same time it keeps those options to a minimum so as not to limit you.
Also, spellcasters get a plethora of powers in all editions of D&D that results in, "Let me see what I have on my sheet".
So it is a tricky issue and requires careful balance. I think a big part of it is making sure that, as the DM, you allow improvised actions to be cool and effective at the same time. I'll use 4E as an example. If improvised actions are weaker than at-will powers (they hit less, or they do less damage, or they don't carry cool effects, etc), there is no reason for players to attempt them. In my current campaign, I make most improvised actions stronger than at-will attacks, and sometimes stronger than encounter attacks (it depends on the repeatability of the action and the risks involved). As a result, I have seen a slight increase in improvised actions, but it is a slow process (the powers are strong in my players). My latest idea is to have the monsters take advantage of the potential improvised actions, and this has seemed to spur my players on. Just the other day, they entered a dark warehouse, and heard something moving on the other side of some shelves packed with boxes. I expected them to run around the shelves to confront whatever it was. One player (who has a halfling barbarian) asks, "Can I try to push the shelf over?" He did, and it was awesome.
Grab: Strength vs Strength (or Dexterity) contest. Smash with Helmet: melee attack with improvised weapon Grab his axe: Strength vs Strength (or Dexterity) contest. If you are unarmed you have disadvantage...I wouldn't count that because you are grabbing the orc and are using your helm as an improvised weapon.
None of these are truly virtues of a fighter, though. Anybody can do these things, and they're not particularly optimal choices as it is. In fact, they're so terrible, that I wouldn't personally consider any of them.
