The Campaign Builder's Guild

I recall reading not so long ago a statement by someone at the RPG.net forums essentially saying that the conceptual-level problem with D&D Fighter class is that it's niche is to be "the combat guy" in a game where every class is expected to be able to shine in combat, in one way or another.

The only way this concept could work is if Fighters were substantially superior in combat compared to every other class throughout all levels. Which is simply not the case now even at lower levels. Not to mention that with D&D being as heavily focused on combat as it is, it's practically a requirement that all classes are at least somewhat balanced for it.

the issue is balancing the game on the combat plane. as long as threy do that, there will be these issues

Quote from: Ghostman
I recall reading not so long ago a statement by someone at the RPG.net forums essentially saying that the conceptual-level problem with D&D Fighter class is that it's niche is to be "the combat guy" in a game where every class is expected to be able to shine in combat, in one way or another.

The only way this concept could work is if Fighters were substantially superior in combat compared to every other class throughout all levels. Which is simply not the case now even at lower levels. Not to mention that with D&D being as heavily focused on combat as it is, it's practically a requirement that all classes are at least somewhat balanced for it.

Having a fighter be substantially better at fighting would make sense, logically, but it would be unsatisfying for play groups that want everyone to be participating on the same the level both in and out of combat (another big problem with the 3.X fighter to me was how little he or she could do out of combat).

Maybe one solution is to make things like paladin a subclass of fighter, so the players chooses varying specialties, and no vanilla fighter remains at high level.

Or eliminate the Fighter...

Quote from: Elemental_Elf
Or eliminate the Fighter...

While I can't say I ever liked the name, per se, fantasy stories are replete with warriors, many of which do not fit the D&D conception of paladins or rangers. So were the fighter eliminated, there would still need to be something else in its place.

The Warblade (from 3.x).

Fighter, with its reliance on mundane combat, just doesn't have a "high level" mode. If Fighter was a 5 level class and after that you had to multiclass or PrC into something else, it might actually work; it would work even better if it had more synergy with the Bo9S classes that you might want to take to continue your "martial badassery" build.

Quote from: Elemental ElfI don't mean in the same vein (i.e. magical) but give him his own brand of awesome that fits the class' motif.

For the record, I'm totally cool with the fighter-as-Beowulf thing.  If that's what you meant by making the fighter "magical" I'm totally for it  :grin:

Quote from: Elemental ElfAh but many of those are just side-venture locations that spice up the monotony of overland travel, endemic war and politicking. D&D, especially in the early days, was all about the Dungeon as the main area for adventure with everything else serving as a backdrop to those adventures. It's backwards when compared to the literature that inspired D&D (and in many ways, backwards to the way stories are written even today). I wasn't saying there were no dungeons in literature but the idea of the "Dungeon Crawl" as the means by which the protagonists experience the majority of the world while "on camera" is definitely not inspired by the fantasy literature of the day.

Fair enough - I was just pointing out that dungeons and dungeon-like environments were very prominent in early fantasy.  Yes, of course, D&D ramps it up, partly because it's a game rather than fiction.

I will contend that a surprising number of esarly fantasy works really are dungeon crawls, though.  The Hobbit really is a dungeon crawl, and almost every important scene takes place in a dungeon - the only major encounters that don't are at Bag End, Rivendell, and Beorn's House (I guess maybe the Mirkwood spiders too... I'm counting the Battle of Five Armies since it takes place on/in the Lonely Mountain, which is really the center of the whole thing).  The most important scenes (Bilbo finding the Ring; everything around Smaug) take place in or around dungeons.  In Lord of the Rings the climax of the first book takes place in Moria and the climax of the second in Cirith Ungol.  Lots of the Silmarillion's tales are dungeon crawls too, especially the balls-out awesome tale of Beren and Lúthien as they literally descend into a dark lord's dungeon (Angband) to steal his treasure (a Silmaril) fighting werewolves as they go.

At the Mountains of Madness is just a big, creepy dungeon crawl, as is a big part of The Silver Chair, and many Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Conan stories are all about expeditions to forbidden cities or ruins.  There are plenty of fantasy works that don't have dungeons, but the subterannean environment is very prominent.  Arguably this is some kind of archetypal myth, trackable back to Inanna's descent into the underworld (cast in a certain light, Sumerians invented the dungeon crawl).  Beowulf has Grendel's mother's cave, Orpheus descends into the Greek Underworld, Alice falls down the rabbit hole.

I will grant that dungeons play a more central role in D&D than they do in fantasy literature as a whole, I just think that early dungeons are also pretty clearly inspired by fantasy literature.

Quote from: sparkletwistIf Fighter was a 5 level class and after that you had to multiclass or PrC into something else, it might actually work; it would work even better if it had more synergy with the Bo9S classes that you might want to take to continue your "martial badassery" build.

That's a really interesting idea, and in practice I've found this is often how it works anyway, even without a formal 5th level cap.  The concept of a 5-10 level "starter-class" - sort of the opposite of a prestige class - is quite cool.

Quote from: Matt Larkin (author)

Quote from: Elemental_Elf
Or eliminate the Fighter...

While I can't say I ever liked the name, per se, fantasy stories are replete with warriors, many of which do not fit the D&D conception of paladins or rangers. So were the fighter eliminated, there would still need to be something else in its place.

I think this is an interesting point, because at first gloss I nodded because it is just an obvious and common-sensical statement of fact. But then I stopped and actually tried to think of an example and found it rather difficult to do so.

Most of Robert E. Howard's characters are more Barbarian (Bran Mak Mourn, Kull of Atlantis) or Rogue (Conan) or even Paladin (Solomon Kane, sort of), Fafhrd and Gray Mouser both have aspects of Barbarian/Ranger and Rogue respectively, Elric has obvious spellcasting aspects - even in Lord of the Rings Boromir is about the only straight-up fighter in the entire book.

I dunno - maybe the answer here is to say that you can't just be 'the guy who's good at combat' but that you have to chose an archetype of 'guy who's good at combat + other things'. Fighter becomes a descriptor more like 'Spellcaster' or 'Magic-user' and Steerpike's Warlord/Commander coexists alongside the Barbarian and non-magic Ranger and Paladin.

Conan is an interesting example. In most stories he is unmatched in physical combat while also being an accomplished thief. He's stealthy, with a keen tactical mind and depths of fulminating barbarian brutality. I wouldn't say he's more Rogue than Fighter: in fact, Howard stresses his battle prowess as much as if not more than his stealthiness. If anything, Conan is a perfect example of Antiheroic self-sufficiency. He can kill, threaten and sneak his way out of trouble.

Which makes sense. The ambush is the oldest trick in the book. Only the victim wants a fair fight. If you can cow your enemy into submission, all the better. But Fighters don't even get Sneak. Even if they did, they can't afford Survive, Endurance, Heal, Intimidate and Notice as well. Those are all tactical essentials if you want to be a successful murder hobo.

Again, characters like Conan are't "muticlassed". They simply display the kinds of competencies you'd expect of people who reliably mete out and survive violence. D&D emulates this poorly.

Quote from: Theopteryx
Conan is an interesting example. In most stories he is unmatched in physical combat while also being an accomplished thief. He's stealthy, with a keen tactical mind and depths of fulminating barbarian brutality. I wouldn't say he's more Rogue than Fighter: in fact, Howard stresses his battle prowess as much as if not more than his stealthiness. If anything, Conan is a perfect example of Antiheroic self-sufficiency. He can kill, threaten and sneak his way out of trouble.

I wouldn't say he was more Rogue (or Barbarian, for that matter) than Fighter either, I just think he is a perfect example of the fact that there are very few examples of straight D&D Fighters in the literature in question and that losing the Fighter and working on doing more with Barbarians, Rogues, Rangers, Warlords, etc. might well emulate that self-sufficiency and skill-base better.

Quote from: Theopteryx
Again, characters like Conan are't "muticlassed". They simply display the kinds of competencies you'd expect of people who reliably mete out and survive violence. D&D emulates this poorly.

I think you're absolutely right and that your point is well-made - I'm not suggesting that multi-classing is the answer, rather that the Fighter as a class is not only broken but doesn't represent the literature particularly well and could perhaps be replaced with various archetypal classes representing the flavors of murder-hobos and more realistic warrior-types.

Hence why I said one solution might be folding different archetypes back into the fighter (or warrior would be a better name), with various subclasses--ranger, paladin, barbarian, marshall, warlord, whatever. Paladins, rangers, and barbarians (in D&D) all carry with them some inherent fluff and abilities those wishing to emulate certain fantasy and mythological heroes may not wish to emulate.

We have to consider a player who wants to play someone like Achilles, but may not wish to be burdened with the fluff that seems to come with the Barbarian. Boromir was another example, like Hippo mentioned. Lan in Wheel of Time--you could argue he's a ranger, right up until it comes to casting spells and having animal companions. If we look at Arthurian characters, some could be paladins, but others don't fit that bill as well. In a Song of Ice and Fire there are a number of fine warriors, most of which have no semblance of magic or supernatural fluff.

Now it could be argued D&D, being so infused with wizard-power, is simply not a setting to support some of these archetypes... But if the signature fantasy RPG is incapable of supporting classic examples of warriors from fantasy and mythology, that's a problem for me. The fighter/fighting man has always been a part of D&D, and for a reason.

Admittedly, the system I've been designing is classless anyway, but that wouldn't work in D&D.

Quote from: Theopteryx
Conan is an interesting example. In most stories he is unmatched in physical combat while also being an accomplished thief. He's stealthy, with a keen tactical mind and depths of fulminating barbarian brutality. I wouldn't say he's more Rogue than Fighter: in fact, Howard stresses his battle prowess as much as if not more than his stealthiness. If anything, Conan is a perfect example of Antiheroic self-sufficiency. He can kill, threaten and sneak his way out of trouble.

Which makes sense. The ambush is the oldest trick in the book. Only the victim wants a fair fight. If you can cow your enemy into submission, all the better. But Fighters don't even get Sneak. Even if they did, they can't afford Survive, Endurance, Heal, Intimidate and Notice as well. Those are all tactical essentials if you want to be a successful murder hobo.

Again, characters like Conan are't "muticlassed". They simply display the kinds of competencies you'd expect of people who reliably mete out and survive violence. D&D emulates this poorly.

This was one of the reasons I went skill based.  One of them.

It's always been a good game to play archetypes, but a lousy game to have cross-competency. 

A new play test packet has been released!

Lots and lots of changes. The classes are all much more developed in this packet and the style/formatting is looking more and more real, as it were.

The Fighter is very cool now. Not only does he start off with a highest (for lack of a better term) BAB (+2, where as everyone else is max +1) but he gets cool abilities like Second Wing (once per day he can gain back 1/2 his HP) and Action Surge (once per day get an extra action). He also gets iterative attacks (up to three at level 11). I was impressed with the idea of the Fighter attacking 4 times in a round (3 Attacks + Action Surge) until someone pointed out that the wording for Action Surge gives the Fighter an extra action - and his three attacks are considered "an action", so that means the Fighter could attack 6 times in a single round! Unlike 3.5, the iterative attacks are not hit with negatives, they are made at your full BAB. Amazing!

Every class is coming with Paths (though some call it by different names) that essentially are little packets of fluff-tied-with-crunch that help individualize your character and give him a place in the world. Each path comes with a few unique abilities that tie into the fluff. For example the Fighter's paths are Gladiator (think Spartacus style combat), the Knight (think Knight in 3.5 (complete with bonuses on CHA checks) and Warrior (the most generic, gaining bonuses to crits and awareness checks). The cool thing about these Paths is that, it seems to me, it would be fairly easy for WotC to release new Paths, thus eliminating the burning need to release a ton of new classes (like in 3.5 how we wound up with the Fighter, the Knight and 2 Samurai, all of whom are just Fighters with a bit of fluff and mechanical specialization).

We all know how important Knowledge checks can be. Well, in this playtest packet, every single character specializes in 2 areas of knowledge from the following list:

Cultural
Forbidden
Hobbyist
Magical
Military
Natural
Planar
Political
Religious
Subterranean
Trade

Your specialization allows you to take a minimum 10 (even if you roll below a 10) on any Intellect check made in your area of expertise. I think this is a great way of giving every character a chance to feel as if they can be apart of the spot light, even if they aren't particularly smart.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the Wizard has been renamed the Mage.

Very interesting changes. Guess I'll have to check out the full packet.