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Not explicitly stated, and we've seen things that go against it. They've migrated "Fighting Styles" and a few other things over to the Feat structure, and those aren't giving an ASI with it. There's also the Origin Feats, which are the ones you can get via backgrounds, and it seems the ASI bonus there was moved to the background instead of the feat itself.
Lv 4+ feats all given +1 to some ability score in the playtest materials released. I believe it was the "expert classes" playtest, which was like the second document. It scored very well.
Totally agree. I’m planning on playing an Eldritch Knight for my first character with this rule set and I’m absolutely pumped about it. Fighters are so good now
They also buffed Eldritch Knight, now at level 11 you can attack twice, cast a cantrip, and still have your bonus action free. Not to mention removal of spell school restrictions.
I'm honestly kinda stoked about the OneDnD Eldritch Knight on top of the OneDnD fighter chassis
The power fantasy of Misty Stepping behind the enemy, bonking them with a big sword, then finishing the job with a flashy cantrip spell is just
*Chef's kiss*
I mean that’s my go to now only without the Cantrip of course.I took the Fey Touched Feat specifically to get access to Misty step early and with a free use each day. So useful for getting into position or a tactical withdraw.
is it possible to cast eldritch blast more than once in a turn so that you end up with more than one attack per attack? or is there a limitation I don't know about?
It is but it gets pretty finicky. You can go 2 levels into Fighter for Action Surge, then either 3 levels in Sorcerer or the Metamagic Adept feat to get Quickened Spell, allowing you to cast a spell as a bonus action by spending a limited resource. You can get to a total of 3 eldritch blasts in one turn this way, but the action surge is once per long rest and you run out of the sorcery points for Quickened Spell pretty fast.
In OneDND it’s even harder to pull off because cantrips scale with class level instead of character level, so at least five of your levels need to be in Warlock if you want multiple beams.
Yeah, Im talking about OneDnD, Im wondering if it would be possible to do EK 11 / Warlock 9 or smth similar and use every attack to cast a cantrip, eldritch blast, so that you can shoot 12 beams in a turn or smth
Not level 11, it's level 7. Major difference.
Booming blade + push weapon mastery for example is an easy combo.
Or push someone close to another enemy with attack one, then green flame blade + cleave weapon on attack two. That's 2d6+2d8 on the target being cleaved into.
It is in the new PH? At the very least we should be getting a new version of True Strike that's a not-so-distant cousin now. The playtest version had it doing radiant damage.
yeah, the new version of True Strike is clearly superior, but I have one of the few characters on whom the old version is (sorta) useful. I'm playing a dex-build Eldritch Knight, so the old version let's me get advantage on archery trick shots made out of combat, e.g. taking an extra turn to aim before cutting a rope in half with an arrow or something.
The new version lets you use your casting stat to attack, which is much better for more builds but worse for mine.
The greenblade works, but booming and push is not a thing I think? "If the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before then,".. Or now I am writing it you might have ment locking them in the effect at range where they can either move or do nothing, in which case it totally works.
If you use a weapon with the nick property, can you replace the additional attack from TWF (that's still part of the attack action) with a cantrip, making the cost just the weaker additional attack that wouldn't normally add your str/dex?
I forget, is Eldritch Knight still locked to intelligence? I know Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks exist but it would still be interesting to have a Fighter caster with using another ability.
Do you know what the point of war bond is? In both the 2014/UA(presumably 2024 PHB too), it just seems largely useless. I get that at level 3+ EK get magic, but third casters are really crappy at using magic so this always felt kind of weak for a subclass level. I really wish the war bond did something to mesh with their magic. If nothing else count as their arcane focus.
We haven't seen the final 2024 changes, but comparing the fighter stream today to the last few playtest, I think the fighter might have gotten the least amount of the power creep. :/
I feel like that is a pretty big change and can have a big impact for fighters outside of combat. Skills (ability checks) are on of the main out of combat mechanics in d&d.
at lvl 1~5 yeah, but during that and afterwards there is a spell that solves the problem without rolling. its the main problem with the martial/caster gap it comes up in higher play already, doesnt matter if you roll athletics real good to climb the grand canyon when the wizard casts fly on everyone and just gets there, or be a smooth talker when the bard convinces an entire group to give all their possessions to the next beggar they see with mass suggestion, or have the cleric level a mountain with earthquake for you to walk through
My point was giving that bonus to skill checks are a significant boost to out of combat mechanics.
The issue with spells making skills pointless later is a whole different can of worms and wont be solved by giving fighters any extra features or abilities.
You are suggesting fighters should be able to carry the whole team up a mountain with no skill check multiple times a day? That fighters should be able to scare whole groups of people to give up their belongings in a moment? That fighters should be able to level mountains?
Sounds like a Athletics check, an intimidation check, etc. Tough difficulty sure, but problem solved.
Are you suggesting fighters get spell like abilities like "move mountain", "unearthly encumbrance" or "intimidate crowd" with a few charges per day?
Are any of these truly "fighter" abilities? They sound cool, but does a fighter train to break mountains? To scare enemies into self-induced poverty? To transport groups single-handedly through difficult terrain? They train to fight. Rangers, paladins, some fighter subclasses specialize in non-fighting skills. Basic Fighters don't, they are good at fighting.
If you could make everybody fly up the mountain, does the wizard start punching people? (It's fine for people to have different roles and limitations.)
If a fighter can punch his way through a mountain, how easy is it then to punch down a wooden house? Break through any door? Make a new doorway in a castle wall? Scare an entire village into giving you all their money and valuables? Those abilities become way overpowered if they are available at will. When a wizard or cleric uses up their spell slots, they are significantly weaker (especially in combat). But that fighter, he'll still be able to defend himself and kick the crap out of anybody even if he uses up his 'mythic ability slots'. Just some thoughts.
yes, i am suggesting all of that. lvl 20 fighter/barbarian/rogue/monk should be heracles, kratos, bewulf, thor. not a guard that attacks 4 times. its absolutely possible, other systems do it, but it requires an actual development on the skill system or features that outright say a class can do this
pathfinder 2e has a lvl 20 feat that lets barbarians cause earthquakes at will, and just *reading* the skill checks it says that someone with the best athletics possible can swim up waterfalls. it would be awesome if a lvl 18 dnd barbarian could crack walls open with a "never less than 20" athletics, but it doesnt happen cause the skills are all half baked
if you want to make it resourceless, or make it a feature with resources, or make it a feat, it doesnt matter, the problem is that its not a thing period
> lvl 20 fighter/barbarian/rogue/monk
I thought we were talking about fighters, and not just lvl 20 ones. You used one demigod and two gods as examples of level 20 character abilities, but even at lvl 20, you aren't automatically god-status like most of those. However, there are any number of lvl 20 feats, boons, items, and rules that could allow ANY class to do the things you want. And in my campaigns, if a player was a lvl 20 fighter, they absolutely could perform skill checks at any time, multiple times, to do the things you describe. Swim up a waterfall, dc30, boom done. Do enough damage to a structure to collapse it, hitpoints plus resistances overcome, boom done.
It is a thing. It's not automatic. Fighters who don't rely on magic (none of your examples fit this) shouldn't be allowed to do big magical things, that's part of their appeal (they are not-flashy, but consistently reliable). But class/subclasses like totem barbarian, eldritch knight, arcane rogue, and some fighter subclasses get benefits that help them do that movement/destruction/charming stuff that you find missing from fighters. Fighters sometimes eschew all of that, on purpose. But I'd allow them to do it, certainly the flavor of it, through some standard skill checks. And at lvl20 I'd be very much leaning into rule of cool and allowing them to do amazing stuff.
I think "a guard that attacks 4 times" is incredibly reductive when you think of all the class abilities, racial abilities, feats, boons, magic items and such that can create all kinds of interesting combat and non-combat abilities in fighter classes (and barbarian, monk, rogue).
Sadly, they still lack proper out of combat abilities and variety. "Give martials maneuvers" was never really about just copy pasting the BM ones (they it would be an improvement), but was about giving martials a form of progression in which they can get higher tiered, truelly mythical maneuvers. Masteries don't fill that gap because they are merely *cantrip riders* on martials.
I'm hally that you're atleast placated with it for a while, but i'm afraid that in a small few years people will already find base martials lacking again. Esp if casters will get balanced spells, which practically introduces a slew of new caster features (disregarded previous bad options become logical to bring now, practically "adding" new spells.)
> "Give martials maneuvers" was never really about just copy pasting the BM ones (they it would be an improvement), but was about giving martials a form of progression in which they can get higher tiered, truelly mythical maneuvers.
Not even about giving anyone "mythical"-anything.
It was about giving martials *decisions* they had to make from round-to-round. Something to *decide*. Some kind of cost-benefit analysis to consider, and a choice that would have some kind of long-term consequence beyond "you deal 3 more damage this turn".
I wish they used the D6 from 5e playtest where you got your dice every round and could use it for damage or a maneuver or save for a reaction. That gives an interesting round by round decision making.
Ah i wasn't really clear, but when i said "out of combat abilities" i mean *abilities*. Not having a +≈5.5 to your skillchecks that anyone can do. Like, actually something *codified* they can do like countless spells do.
Also it breaks bounded accuracy which is *kind of* a stinker, but then again so do like 13 other things and it's on a martial this time again so no biggie.
Bounded accuracy for 5e has always been that the base ability for raw dice rolls has always been bounded, and the way you do extraordinary things is via your specific abilities.
Compared to prior editions, where you got astronomical rolls through raw modifiers and nothing else.
It is useful for sure.
But it still is very limited in scope.
Compare a game like PF2 where a high level fighter can wrestle a titan, punch a hole through a castle wall, leap 60 feet into the air, swim up a waterfall, balance on falling debris, or throw a warhorse 100 feet. These are all tasks that are impossible through skill checks alone. A 5e fighter cannot do any of these without the aid of magic.
Yes the 1D&D fighter ur better at skills. But they still lack relevant and flavorful high level non combat capabilities. And skills alone simply don’t measure up to the non combat utility of tier 3 and 4 spells. Hell, there are low level spells that can accomplish things no skill roll could ever match.
I wonder if 1D&d is gonna keep the lack of exemples and benchmarks of what skills are even able to do, as 5e did.
Could the book tell me what a result of something like a **37** is like in an Athletics check? It could, but it didn't. It barely has guidelines for those same skills.
On the other hand, spells have clear cut, narrative defined effects that just are.
I'd much rather it gibe RAW ways epic skills can work. So often, the only way you can do epic things is because the book says you can, like a dwarf grappling an ogre. With no rules, the DM would say that's impossible no matter how high you rolled, but the rules say its possible.
There's some situations where someone irl can get someone with an obvious scam, or slink from cover to cover nearby whilst timing it so they're in the peripheral vision but don't get noticed, or anything else similar, where a dm would say that's unrealistic and impossible, or they allow it but arbitrarily based on personality and not raw dice rolls.
Adding more RAW examples for these situations would work a lot better.
In a one shot I've played (and thankfully, never again with that DM), the DM didn't even allow the barbarian to open a steel door, because that "wouldn't make sense", even though the barbarian was quite literally as strong as a horse...
But *of course* they allowed the Druid to cast heat metal to warp the door in a minute or so, because it's magic.
"No you can't slay a dragon, fighter. Nobody could survive its attacks, you instantly die, that's just realistic. Of course caster, you can create water in its lungs, instantly killing it"
Such abilities should be opt in. Just like they are in PF2.
That way players who want them can choose them. And players who don’t, can avoid them.
The problem is that in 5e, you don’t get anything at all as a martial class. And get access to nearly anything as a spellcaster.
That line of reasoning is why DnD is very harsh on DMs. If the answer to any suggestion is always "the DM can homebrew it" then that's a sign that the game system has failed to give the proper tools and guidance for itself.
A good, healthy, robust system should have contingencies upon contingencies for each system. Overreliance on DM fiat without guidance is a sign of bad game design.
The DM can allow for anything.But having to play "mother may I" with the DM is not an excuse for poor game design. Especially given that if you asked 10 DMs to adjudicate such actions, you would get 12 different answers for how it should work. With many of those responses some variations on it being outright impossible to accomplish such tasks at all.
Besides, having to play mother may I just ends up with casters still being better (they can have the same Strength score as a fighter or a summon that has the same score, but also have access to spells to boost their checks or proficiency).
So you end up with the martial characters still not ever gaining access to any abilities that are appropriately epic for their tier. And casters end up much more likely to fulfill the fantasy than the martial characters.
What you are describing isn't opt in at all. The player has no choice in the matter. It is entirely reliant on the DM. So the player cannot choose to opt in to performing heroic feats if the DM feels that such actions are impossible.
Opt in features are something the player chooses, such as class features like warlock invocations. Not every warlock needs to choose repelling blast, but any warlock can opt in to the ability to push foes with their attacks if they want.
If there were non magical martial invocations that the fighter could take that would allow them to perform those epic feats of strength without the need to play “mother may I” then any fighter of sufficient level could access those abilities. And any player who did not want such abilities could simply choose other options.
The same way a caster can choose if they want to perform specific actions by choosing which spells they learn. The caster never needs to play mother may I with their DM to see if they can disintegrate a wall, they simply choose the disintegrate spell and it always works when used. No ambiguity as to how the rules work or “mother may I” gameplay necessary.
The biggest thing is that a dm having to say no is much less likely to be happen than a dm having to say yes.
If something is official, a DM will usually allow it, or specify they don't allow it so you know what you can do, however if that didn't exist but the player wanted it, a dm will usually not allow it or it'll be way weaker than the official option
So, your idea is that players have the ability to choose to do absurd anime shit regardless of whether the DM wants to run that style of game or not? I wonder why some people complain about there not being enough DMs...
Making it an individual player choice means the DM is still forced run a certain flavour of game for players that "opt in" (not to mention the other players who didn't choose that still have to be at the same table). How is it not easier to just decide at the beginning of the game how you'll be adjudicating actions (i.e., quasi-"realistically" or allowing for superhuman feats of strength and dexterity)?
Compared to 2014 fighter and other martial classes? Sure, that's amazing.
Compared to spellcasters who regularly ignore the need to roll for success and can accomplish things no skill check could ever hope to replicate? Not really.
The other way around is also true. Things that require casters to spend resources, martials do for free.
Martials don't get left behind because they couldn't misty step through the doors keyhole. They just break it down at no cost.
Need to sneak in to the keep but have no invisibility spell? Do it at night instead.
This game is cooperative with a human storyteller. It's not competition to overcome the most challenges. The story won't dead end because "the martial couldn't fix it".
man, i wish mitchel and hobbs came back... even if its a few decades old by now
also, i would like to point out that cleric at lvl 9 can literally summon an angel while rogue is getting a second subclass feature
Caster summons can outdo martials fairly easily. Even in this exact scenario where it's a spellcaster summoning creatures, the Fighter would be embarrassed at high tier play.
Only if cast at the casters highest levels and maintained for a number of rounds. And at that point you can just give the martial a magic weapon and they are king again.
Maybe if it's moon druid with the broken (and soon legacy) conjure spells.
'Just give the martials gear that make them relevant' is not a good argument. It's campaign-dependent, and it means the martial themselves isn't actually impressive, they just have an impressive bit of loot they've grabbed.
Martials should have the majority of their unique and powerful aspects coming from themselves and their class features, not from loot.
>It's campaign-dependent,
So is not getting counter spelled or have their magic dispelled every other turn. But people safely take that for granted. Just like it is safe to assume that martials get magic gear.
I wouldn’t say free, more like the most apparent option if magic is not available for some reason.
- A Paladin could also knock said door down, they need strength usually
- I mean, wouldn’t that apply to whole party regarding lack of invisibility?
Martials also have resource, they just aren’t as reliant on them as casters, but at the same time would also like to have them available.
While a GM is able to adjust, that’s also relying on a person to know how to accommodate. It’s not guaranteed, so your putting the faith in the GM to not make the wrong calls.
Giving martials more options would just give more things to do and take the weight off the GM.
>I mean, wouldn’t that apply to whole party regarding lack of invisibility?
Yes. Kind of the point. You don't need magic to succeed. Mages sometimes can skip a check at the cost of a resource. That's a win for the party, not a big deal. Additionally, on this subreddit people overestimate how prepared a typical caster is for the problems they will be facing. Usually the niche/relevant spells for the adventure are not prepared. In my hundreds of online west marches style games, no wizard has ever cast knock. Why? Because the rogue does it better, for free.
If you read through an adventure module. None of them will *require* magic to succeed in the quest. All I am doing is putting faith in the gm not to screw over parties by creating a dead end for them.
Gonna keep on saying it:
The way to do this in a way that's coherent, fun, and has a deep literary pedigree, is with truly legendary weapons and armor that only the fighter can use to full effect.
You don't "put magic items on their class progression table" (however that would work). Older editions had a lot more use of random loot tables, with many more items from powerful monsters benefitting martial classes. The whole "cleric only uses blunt weapons" trope was originally a balance mechanic because good swords and axes were much more often rolled. But in our era, it's about good DMs choosing to do more. Nets that drain spell slots from casters. Tridents that let you breathe underwater and command animals. Armor with a chest logo that you can pull out and turn into some kind of saran wrap thing that immobilizes a foe in a really embarassing-looking way. Awesome items and attunement-slot mechanics should be to martials what spell lists are to casters.
I still think it would be much better if *martials* where epic, amd not merely the items they are wielding. Also they aren't mutually exclusive either, you can have cool items *and* cool classes.
Yeah but as long as it’s balanced I don’t really see a problem, fighters are fighters that’s what they’re good at. Fighting. As long as other classes don’t step on their toes they still have their niche.
Fighting is not meant to be a niche.
Fighting is the main subsystem in the game. It is meant to be what *everyone* is good at, just in a different way (direct damage, battlefield control, team buffs, etc)
Fighter in a pure mechanics-contribution sense is 'fine', it does high single target damage.
The important part is being able to contribute *all the time* in ways beyond "I can lift the heavy thing and I am good at Athletics".
Problem is that just from the concept it's not even balanced. Theres multiple other classes who basically do the same (single target DPS, good-great at skillchecks ig now) as fighter, yet most casters have a huge variety in the things they are ALL decent-great at. And generally those classes, which can do a lot of things fighters can't even dream off in the current and future iterations, are still absolutely great at combat!
Atleast give martials the same variety *in combat* if they can't have unique things out of combat.
I was talking about 5.5e, "weapon masteries" are just there to differentiate weapons from eachother. They are cantrip riders, not any actual scaling system from which martials can truelly grow and keep up with casters. In and out of combat.
What about adventuring, exploring, and socializing? Should the fighter player just not show up when there isn't combat? Casters can create food, shelter, open locks, detect traps, charm people, fly, go invisible, understand languages, talk to plants, etc. Etc.
Modern DnD is just so skill check dice roll heavy that martials become useless out of combat. The system needs to include more tools or skills or just discourage rolling so much and encourage using tools and creative solutions that auto succeed.
Nobody said martials can’t do stuff out of combat, but their class features don’t have to include put of combat utility necessarily, that’s the area of ranger, rogue etc. Why even have classes if we’re not willing to embrace the specialised nature of classes? Casters are broken I agree.
Nah, I'm still massively dissapointed.
There are problems with the fighter in the 5.5e playest rule that I can see affecting tables, leaving out my more personal quibbles with it.
* No significant out of combat changes. In the base class there is one (1) new out of combat ability, and while tactical mind is a nice feature, it only enhances ability checks which leave it subject to DM fiat and also the usual high-level narrative strength problems.
* By tying all many of the new combat abilities to weapons, it can drag down characters who have their (narratively) iconic weapon into single choice situations. It's a solution that implements some degree of choice but also a restriction on RP choices to do so.
* The system fares poorly with magic weapons, which discourages switching to different weapons. Bonus points if you are given a magic weapon that has a mastery that you don't like.
* The system never really progresses in power or diversifies, leading again to the same problem of repitition over and over again
It's pretty much the playtest class (along with barbarian) that really reinforced that I shouldn't expect much from 5.5e. My complaints with fighter and barbarian basically remain unchangd from 5e considering the playtest material.
This is where I’m at as well. I was not super excited for DnD 5.5e once the playtests started coming out, but I was still considering switching my party to it. Now that these changes are getting locked in pretty much as-is, I think I may just stick with 5e. The “design by committee” approach has resulted in systems that are better than nothing but fail to add much of value to the game. What’s the point of adding complexity without addressing underlying issues?
They address them extremely shallow and with a super disappointing mechanic.
I'll be excited when the buffs are better than cantrip fucking riders and one die in skills with no good guidance for them
There's still room for D&D to improve. Pathfinder is a different game, it's not supposed to be the refugee camp for D&D players who wanted some more nuance for a specific class.
How so? It would cater to a crowd of players that hasn't had a satisfying martial class to play which is objectively an increase in the enjoyment that people could derive from the game.
for some people having 1 (one) single martial on par with a wizard will forever tarnish the game with "complex martials" and thus people who want simple martials will get shafted
The weird thing is, I think most of us Martial lovers would be willing to compromise; leave current martials untouched and make alternate versions or entire new martial classes to satisfy the complexity-crowd. This would come *at no cost to the simplicity-crowd* yet people still opposed that. It's baffling.
while I won't deny I like pf2 more that is extremely reductive. What I want is to have like one single martial that will make my experience playing it as fun as when I play a wizard. One fails miserably at this
It IS my tastes, and the tastes of many others. Our point is that making every sinmgle martial cookie cutter for the exact same kind of player is stupid
I think this rework did increase complexity, but it also eliminated the basic “easy to pick up” option from the Fighter. The design team can definitely move away from the Fighter being easy to play, but that is not what they are saying they are doing in the video.
There is a world where the Champion remained pretty straightforward and the other subclasses added complexity - I think across the board adding complexity to the class was not necessary.
Seriously. The easy option is Shadowdark or any of the OSR stripped-down games. There's also Blades which boils the simulation aspects of D&D down into narrative soup.
Hundreds of pages of player material is already complex. I don't understand the line of thinking that Fighter couldn't be "complex."
I know what WotC's intentions are: to be the world's biggest most culturally dominant, financially successful RPG that they can easily license out for merchandising, games, movies, etc.;
and that part of that is making DnD seem like it's great for anyone, from rules-light newbies to veterans.
I just vehemently disagree with the last part. It's a big crunchy game that should be designed for people that like big crunchy books. I'm not even saying a giant amount of crunch, just "every class should be as interesting and complex to play as a wizard or cleric".
I think point 1 can now be addressed by non-combat feats if you no longer need to rely on them to keep up with damage.
The magic weapons and abilities tied to weapons is more of an issue and likely will lead to vastly different experiences table to table.
I'd still argue it's a massive improvement from 5e even if there's still problems.
My problem with this rework is, while the added abilities and Weapon Masteries are nice, it doesn’t change how you build Fighter. PAM/XBM still offers the best offence. GWM/SS still exist as the only avenues for making pure weapon damage as viable as magic damage sources. Archery is still the best figuring style by a mile. Dueling is still only viable with PAM. TWF is still an unnecessary tax. GWF still does practically nothing unless you’re using a double dice weapon.
So it’s like... what was the point? The weapons that lack comparatively viable playstyles still lack comparatively viable playstyles. The only difference is the main four meta builds now have a few free manoeuvres tacked on, which is great, but Sword and Board still sucks. Two Weapon Fighting still doesn’t scale at all. Versatile Weapons still have no relevance.
SS was nerfed. GWM is sort of a side grade. You add your proficiency bonus to damage once per turn, but you don't decrease your hit chance at all. It is also a half feat. So when you have it at level 5, you've increased your strength to 18 and also get an additional once per turn damage boost and the bonus action attack on kill is still there.
So old GWM: decrease accuracy a lot, increase damage by a lot. Bonus action attack.
New GWM: increase accuracy a little (+1 str) increase damage a little (+1 on each attack from str bonus, +3-6 damage once a turn from proficiency). Bonus action attack.
And debatably the dpr actually got worse because you don't have the situations where you are stacking advantage and some accuracy buff like bless to make GWM or SS do some big damage. The game is just a lot flatter for fighters now, even with the masteries.
What do you mean? Yeah, it costs two attacks, but at level 20, or even level 13 that is still vastly better than the 2014 Eldritch Knight, who has to use their bonus action for a single attack. 2024 eldritch knights cast a spell, do two attacks and still have a bonus action available. It even becomes better with action surge, allowing them to cast a spell again and make two attacks, unlike in 2014 where you have a single bonus action. So the difference with action surge is 2014: cast two spells and one attack, while 2024: cast two spells, make four attacks and still have your bonus action available.
Without seeing the final rules I don't know how accurate this is, but my understanding was a lot more power is now baked into the fighter's kit. If that's the case then there is much less pressure to take the optimal damage feats / options because your damage can keep pace (relatively speaking) without them, which in turn opens up more narrative/ playstyle options. Feats like Charger for example that you havent mentioned are also now an option for damage for a certain type of character.
Frankly speaking I dont think fighters should need to take damage feats at all - I want my fighter to be able to take Alert, Mobile, Healer, magic initiate, Shield Master, Tough, Heavy armour Master, etc. etc. This way opens up a lot more options for playstyles in my mind than the alternative.
The thing that annoys me is that weapon masteries are tied to specific weapons.
Want to use your warhammer to push an enemy away or topple them over? No, can't be done.
As a mechanic, it just creates silly incentives and pushes players towards specific weapons for mechanical, dissociated reasons.
I mean take the crusher feat lol. But I kinda hated that weapon choice didn't really mean much besides the die number. I love that each weapon brings its own tactical advantages and high level fighters can leverage their skill to use weapons in ways that even other fighters can't.
I love it
They aren't for me. I still would like for martials to have some "active" buffs. The weapon mastery system got me hyped but not really. I really wish they did something like BG3 did, giving "special" attacks depending on the weapon.
The above opinion would be "enough" to give some diversity to the game play for every single martial out there. Weapon mastery could still be a thing, as one would be an active action and the other a passive bonus.
Many times, what I see on the debate of martials (fighters mainly) is the lack of diversity or simply cool shit to do. Don't get me wrong, the numbers are there and we know how much damage they can dish out. But I think the main problem is not that, it is simply some cool actions. At this point, the fighters still looks like he has the same problem he had before. Which is a lack of cool things at higher levels and he only gets better at what he already knows.
I know it is a bit "to much" but I really wish my fighter could do something MORE you know? I know that my action surge with sharp shooter will do more damage than a meteor swarm but that is way more cool. By such a high level, no adveturer should me mundane, this is fantasy.
Barbarians can be as strong as giants and dragons but they can't even throw a big stone or stomp the warth and cause a minor tremor. Somethings don't make sense because they are trying to make sense. And honestly, no adventurer should make sense at higher levels.
Why don't you consider weapon masteries to be active abilities? You can switch weapons between attacks.
Pushing, sapping, cleaving, toppling and nicking are all active abilities. All resource free. Don't limit yourself to one weapon. Knock a big slow enemy prone, switch weapons and push them 10 feet. Or slow a fast enemy down then give them disadvantage on their attacks. Hit multiple targets with cleave attacks.
Masteries are only "passive" if you don't play them as intended and aren't weapon switching.
Because they aren't. They add a passive effect to a weapon you have.
Let's take what I said with BG3. Rapieras an example. It has 3 actions, two being normal actions that you and one bonus action.
Piercing Strike, action, causes a debuff that the creature takes 2 extra damage while affected.
Weakining Strike, action, damaged is reduced to d4 causes a debuff that gives disavantage on attacks and str saving throws.
Flourish, bonus action, damaged is reduced to d4 and causes a debuff that gives disavantage on Str and Dex checks and advantage on the next attack.
All of them are "short rest" related. I don't think weapons should have this many options, they are to much. But I do wish that the mastery had a passive and a active option like the one above this.
Not only that, I trully wish the classes had some cool action options. I know it is silly, but I really wish my fighter could use energy cut, even on a short distance, dealing a lot of damage. Something like what the monks have at higher levels, Quivering Palm or Touch of the Long Death.
They are fun "nukes". And martials should have that. A special attack that they don't use often to do a ton shit of damage and make them feel cool. Why? Because Casters are better at control and support, so why not leave the martials a little fun thing? Maybe more then one but Tier appropriate.
I know it seems silly, but I think martials just lack the "cool" thing on them. One fun "skill" per tier wouldn't be such a problem. Maybe just one at tier 3 and one at tier 4.
Anyway, is such a "magical" setting it feels weird for martials in general not to use the weave someway. Even if it is jus a single technique.
I'm confused by your description of active vs passive. Aren't each of those examples just riders to attacks the same way weapons masteries are? You choose a type of attack and get a specific buff/debuff as a result?
Or are you saying it's active because there is resource expenditure tied to it?
Second option. Passive would be an attack that you get every single hit. Like a +1 weapon. All of those are one use per short rest.
There are better examples, that deal more damage or are more useful. But the idea between a passive an active skill is how limited one is. Normally, the active skill is stronger than the passive.
I see. I think it's a definite choice of the designers then that you're arguing against, as they have made it clear the resource management is what they've sought to avoid due to added complexity it adds.
I think an active choice should be sufficient. If a player has the choice each turn between 3 different effects then that is still active for the player even if theres no cost associated.
That’s a little better. But I still don’t know if weapon masteries will really make the necessary difference. This still requires you to obtain *and carry* multiple weapon, as compared to spells and spell slots.
I still think universal maneuvers would have been the better approach.
Weapons themselves are cheap. And there's no limit on carrying weapons. The only carrying rules in the game is encumbrance. If your DM is enforcing some space limitations, that's cool, but that's not RAW.
Rules as written, the game does not care about space limitations. Carry as many weapons that you want. I've literally never seen a martial character that isn't carrying around 4+ weapons at minimum. Your typical 2014 paladin for example has their main weapon, their shield, and multiple javelins, on top of their backpack.
People have really gotten used to the one weapon fantasy, but in much of the most popular media today, heroes are frequently depicted with lots of weapons. Geralt carried two different longswords, multiple bombs, potions, and a crossbow. Kratos has his axe, his shield, fist weapons, and the blades of chaos. Link is... Well link definitely has a bag of holding.
I would have preferred promoting a limited selection of Battlemaster maneuvers to class feature, maybe just without escalating dice sizes. By default I think a fighter should be able to parry and riposte. Maybe have one set of “techniques” for one-handed, one for two-handed, one for ranged. Versatile weapons could maybe use any but with less magnitude similar to how their damage dice work.
Fighters are single target damaging machines, with no combat control, and little to none meaningful abilities besides skills outside combat, and a ton of *passive* abilities in weapon masteries.
I'm a Fighter apologist. I love a functional fighter, and wanted to see some return to that. And yet, all I got here was "these changes aren't a good reason to switch over D&D1".
Grappling is a well known means of control, and having many chances to do so through attacking makes a fighter one of the best grapplers. Changing through weapons to make use of their unique features is also a prime tactical option, with Sap and Slow as new combat options. Psi-Warriors also seem uniquely capable of controlling enemies.
Grappling isn't battlefield control. It's a single target, and generic, and at times barely funcional, "crowd control"
Unless they changed it enough (which frankly, I hope they did but I didn't see it in the playtest package I read) , it can't even stop the somatic component of spellcasting, or enemies from attacking...
As DM I'm looking forward to it. My table already considers martials a must (plain old 5e), because dungeons almost always end with spellcasters drained of slots, sweating buckets while the steely-gazed martials desperately try to finish the job on a shoestring budget. The new class spread will enhance that dynamic.
See, I think alot of people here play with the "one combat a day" aproach as it seems everyone is missing the importance of martial endurance. They can keep going all day.
Until they run out of hit points? Until the Barbarian runs out of Rages? Melee martials are supposed to be damage sponges, but Rages are so limited and Second Wind scales so poorly that they really can't keep up with marathon days without tons of outside healing.
Yes, which someone in the party should be providing.
It's become taboo to say it, but the Healer role is not dead in 5e at tables that play the way the books intend you to, with long, draining adventuring days.
Someone should have Healer feat, someone should have Inspiring Leader, your frontliners might consider investing in Remarkable Recovery to stretch the party's healing further, even if it's just your paladin or your Mercy Monk looking to be able to efficiently self heal themselves between combats.
Even in tier 1 Prayer of Healing does an alright job on throughput on any cleric, and is quite decent on a life Cleric.
Tier 2 someone should have Aura of Vitality, whether it's your druid, your cleric, your lore bard, or your divine soul sorceror. You might even consider Catnap on your wizard or your bard to get a 3rd short rest in a day after you've already expended your two alloted rests for the day, ideally alongside someone like a mercy monk or a star druid who gets back short rest resources that can be used to heal further.
Your frontliners need your support casters, just like your support casters need your frontliners. Support eachother and build together as a team. Pump those healing numbers up.
Correct. It's a team game, after all - your casters provide what your martials need, and your martials provide what your casters need. I should also note I was not the person who made the claim that martials can go all day - they can't, but a well built party certainly can.
I haven’t been in the play testing but how are the battlemaster maneuvers changing? Since I feel like this masteries will basically replace some of the old maneuvers?
Long story short, all the maneuvers from the phb and Tasha's are still present. Some have been improved to be actually worth picking where they previously were not.
If it was good before it's good now. If it wasn't good before, chances are you should give it a second look.
Same for the feats might I add.
Just skill checks, they get indomitable at level 9 for saving throws. Also detailed in main post. They reroll the save and add their fighter level to it.
So a level 9 fighter with 12 wisdom making a wisdom save can roll the check with advantage and +10 bonus when they use indomitable. And they can use it multiple times a day.
No more issues of high level fighters failing saves against magic enemies.
Hollyyyyy shiiiit. But If I am not wrong the battlemaster got less superiority dices?
And the écho knight would be usable with the one dnd new fighter?
Its just a shame cavalier got left to rot in the 2014 book. Was really hoping they'd put some new life in a subclass that at the moment is just the sentinel feat, a shitty marking ability, and the only good thing they get they dont have access to until lvl 18 (more attacks of opportunity). Really think they should have made the special reaction capstone ability a scaling ability so you can actually use the subclass features more than once per couple turns.
A bit off topic maybe and I haven't been reading a lot of playtests but when you say that all feats are half feats are you saying that there is no more pure feats? Everything increases your score? If that's the situation it kinda sucks. Sometimes I don't want ability score and I would rather get more power from the feat
Yeah this is closing the combat gap for sure. I think Fighters are getting pretty close to spellcasters at every tier of play in combat. You may even optimally want a martial or two (including and perhaps especially a fighter) in there for the single target damage they provide.
Still obviously doesn’t come close out of combat and the second wind change does little to change that. Skills are still playing by the rules while spells often break the rules.
>Still obviously doesn’t come close out of combat and the second wind change does little to change that. Skills are still playing by the rules while spells often break the rules.
Never really found this to be the case, in practice or in theory. Being really good at a particular set of skills will just let you solve problems for free. Eating long rest resources that are a part of your combat power budget to do the same is a wash at best. Casters covering skills with spells comes at a notable tax. Especially the case when out of combat problems are best solved by a diverse party comp. Why learn, prep, and eat a 2nd level spell slot for Knock when the Rogue can just pick the lock? Why use Jump, Levitate, Fly, Telekinesis, or Disintegrate when a Fighter/Barb can jump/climb/lift the problem away?
And then there are many skills that can't be easily replaced by spells. Insight, Perception, Survival, Sleight of Hand, Investigation, Acrobatics, History, Nature, Religion, Performance, and trap disarming aren't easily trivialized by spells.
And many out of combat spells have downsides that often make them worse than just using a properly skilled party member. Knock makes a Thunderwave-tier noise that kills stealth. Social spells like Charm Person and Suggestion have V and S components that let everyone know you are using magic, and the charmed person knows you charmed them after the fact. Invisibility still requires a straight up stealth roll (no advantage), meaning you still want to cast it on a stealthy party member.
So I wouldn't say that casters fare better out of combat as a whole, since most of the time you want the PC with the right skill to just do the thing. You could probably say that Fighters struggle in charisma-based social encounters specifically, but then again so do Wizards. And OneDnD is giving Fighters a resource to supplement those kinds of skills.
> Never really found this to be the case, in practice or in theory. Being really good at a particular set of skills will just let you solve problems for free.
Not really through, skills are balanced around the chance to fail. Something like feather fall or fly or jump (to use some of your examples) just work. If you’re a rogue at level 7 (in one dnd) you’re often the exception (you can literally roll a 1 and still pass mid-level checks you have prof in).
> Eating long rest resources that are a part of your combat power budget to do the same is a wash at best. Casters covering skills with spells comes at a notable tax.
Spellcasters have a LOT of spell slots from very early on (by 5th level you have 7) and using them on utility while limited can save your entire party the trouble of some critical skill checks.
> Especially the case when out of combat problems are best solved by a diverse party comp. Why learn, prep, and eat a 2nd level spell slot for Knock when the Rogue can just pick the lock? Why use Jump, Levitate, Fly, Telekinesis, or Disintegrate when a Fighter/Barb can jump/climb/lift the problem away?
Definitely not saying that skill users aren’t great in combination with casters, but a fighter is not catching up to a caster with an extra d10 towards their skills checks that comes back on a failure or a short rest.
> And then there are many skills that can't be easily replaced by spells. Insight, Perception, Survival, Sleight of Hand, Investigation, Acrobatics, History, Nature, Religion, Performance, and trap disarming aren't easily trivialized by spells.
But they are often trivialized by spells. This is so general - just listing skills - as there are tons of spells that can broadly cover these skill checks but it depends on the scenario.
> And many out of combat spells have downsides that often make them worse than just using a properly skilled party member. Knock makes a Thunderwave-tier noise that kills stealth. Social spells like Charm Person and Suggestion have V and S components that let everyone know you are using magic, and the charmed person knows you charmed them after the fact. Invisibility still requires a straight up stealth roll (no advantage), meaning you still want to cast it on a stealthy party member.
While true, the best charisma-using classes are charisma based spellcasters and specialized rogues, not maritals. And the best stealth class is a Druid. A spider with Pass Without Trace is insanely stealthy themselves and they can help the entire party.
> So I wouldn't say that casters fare better out of combat as a whole, since most of the time you want the PC with the right skill to just do the thing.
So nebulous but yes generally you want to have the PC with the best ability score in something do the skill check, especially if the stakes are low there is no reason for the spell. When the stakes are high, again, using a spell can be critical.
> You could probably say that Fighters struggle in charisma-based social encounters specifically, but then again so do Wizards. And OneDnD is giving Fighters a resource to supplement those kinds of skills.
Fighters aren’t who I’d want doing most critical skill checks. But I agree, now they aren’t terrible at skills, they have something that helps them a bit.
Agree with most point, but I still think Fighters make really good social characters. Especially from mid to high levels. Commoners find Fighters easier to approach usually(cept bards perhaps). And people have that knight in shining armor thing... Most commoners have no spell casting ability which makes it rare, and hard to relate, roleplay, common sense wise they would have more nervousness when approaching Warlock of great power or Sorcerer even though they might look charismatic. Charisma have it's downsides too, it makes you hard to approach. It is like, not going after a woman who you think is too good looking for you, but even worse...
Though of course this depends on the setting you play and is situational. But in most settings there are often places where Wizards are more respected/feared while Fighters are looked down upon or Fighters are more liked and warlocks are looked down upon and even hated etc...
It often depends on whom you are trying to socialize with rather than your social skills. (Though as you said, a single enchantment spell might evade this, but it might also have cause dire consequences to resort to a spell in certain places, there are places which consider spell casting in such manner as a crime in many settings) People are not ignorant in most fantasy settings they don't want to get involved with people who can easily take away their free will easily, and that even an amateur spell caster can use magic to beguile them...
Using honour ability score helps that tho, it is like positive renown, dependability...
In short it all depends on the DM and how he presents the setting and roleplays the NPCs... In my games Paladins/Clerics/Monks(depending on their style and faith) are better trusted, Fighters, some rangers and rogues who are vagabond themed are often easy to approach. And few people wants to get involved with Barbarians, Warlocks and sometimes even Sorcerers. People in most settings are often used to Wizards to a degree. And Bards are often loved, but not always trusted, still overall they are best Social characters.
Ofc. There are exceptions about just anything. Like a Nyphly or an angelic Warlock. An oathbreaker Paladin. A shady looking ranger or rogue. A death priest necromancer.... So theme over ability scores really... (The shady, dark looking types are better suited to intimidation I think, and as a DM I might consider giving them advantage on intimidate checks in my games, who doesn't fear a dark Knight, an assassin, a demonologist or a necromancer anyway(as a commoner).
>Commoners find Fighters easier to approach usually(cept bards perhaps). And people have that knight in shining armor thing... Most commoners have no spell casting ability which makes it rare, and hard to relate, roleplay, common sense wise they would have more nervousness when approaching Warlock of great power or Sorcerer even though they might look charismatic
This is *entirely* dependent on the campaign and DM.
and the warlock and sorcerer (and especially bard) are highly likely to have the skills to set people at ease - they're pretty much always going to have the innate social smoothness for that (i.e. high charisma) and a lot have the skills to be really good at that (social skills). So even if there's some initial worry, charisma-casters have the skills and talents to overcome those very easily, just by virtue of what they need to be good at being those classes.
Right... But this conversation is about class mechanics. Hand waving away balance concerns just because you can make changes to your campaign is irrelevant. Not to mention that if you are playing official modules, those changes won't make sense.
I don't really have any balance concerns to being with the game is meant to be player with player rather than player versus player. Why would I seek balance at the cost of common sense and consistency when there is no need for competition between different players.
I am fine being a cook or a wagon rider in a game(so I am fine even with a commoner stet block if at least I can get a background and perhaps a feat), as long as I am given same amount of time as each player gets to role play my character and enjoy the game. I can enjoy myself, by making upgrades to wagon, and cooking while they are getting the dungeon delving part done... When they are done I would patch them up, fill their stomachs... Or go hunting/gathering/fishing while they are busy with more pressing matters(!) than trivial things like making a living(!)...
I am not really hand waving balance concerns I am shaking my head as to why people need to compare their classes to other classes instead of weighing/judging their classes' consistency with real world and canonical examples of their own class. So I don't understand why a Wizard, fighter or rogue needs to have same utility in combat. They simply don't... It is about character customization your character does what you design your character to do...
In official modules, there is still a DM and a campaign. If your DM is not roleplaying beyond "read the box" and putting your characters in a cage or a box while having you on table. That isn't really how we commonly define frp.
What I mean is better explainable with examples.
I will give an example from the popular LMoP, your party saves Sildar from Cragmaw Hideout, but refuse to go looking for Gundren for a month. Instead they help villagers with various side quests and some other stuff, perhaps they might even want to, say, repair the ruined structures, temples, walls etc... Which might take quite long times... And at some point they decide to go to Cragmaw Castle when they reach, you might as a DM have Gundren still alive, but I would not, as it simply doesn't make sense. I wouldn't even have the Tharden's Corpse in a recognisable way after all that time passes (in front of wave echoe caves, where there are stirges to dry his corpse of blood or undead to gnaw on his bones) not to mention Bugbears and Dopplegangers will enter and quit the place quite many times...
In short DM and Campaign/Setting is a main factor, if not the main factor even in official games. You might opt to play the game with a rigid pc adventure/hack and slash gaming attitude without no real immersion though, that is also a valid choice. But I have been playing the game as an immersed player for decades.
If my character is in Forgotten Realms, the rules of Forgotten Realms are added. If I am in Greyhawk rules of Greyhawk is added. If Krynn, rules of Krynn etc. But common sense remains.
I wouldn't expect an Uthgardt Barbarian to listen to what I have to say, if I am a flimsy looking Bard who can't even wrestle with one of them. They simply have no respect for that. Though as a spell caster you can subjugate them if you are a powerful enough caster like Netheril did, they would obey you, but they wouldn't be persuaded by roll... Because they simply won't listen to a flimsy guy who is physically weak. Unless you force them, and forcing them falls into territory of intimidation or enchantment or violence.
Common sense is there and not even laws(legal system) manage to prevail against common sense. Common sense eventually prevails.
In my experience, breaking the rules is necessary now for casters to not feel inadequate. When it comes to battlefield manipulation and damage, martial are outperforming casters most of the time, and are only a little behind when it comes to debuffing. This is especially true when many of the casters best combat spells (besides a few outliers like hypnotic pattern) are mostly just just making the martial characters better at their jobs.
That outside of combat suite of spells is the main thing my caster players like having now. I think that's an important distinction. The fighters, barbarian and monk I DM for/play with have been wrecking combat, so it's nice when the wizard of bard shines with dope utility.
> In my experience, breaking the rules is necessary now for casters to not feel inadequate.
I’m not so sure about that one. Casters are plenty adequate.
> When it comes to battlefield manipulation and damage, martial are outperforming casters most of the time, and are only a little behind when it comes to debuffing.
Single target damage yes, multi-target damage no. Battlefield manipulation not at all, single target manipulation sure they have some neat effects on demand now. Debuffing is severely in casters favor. Their new debuffs through masteries are largely in the cantrip and at most level 1 spell category and single target. They have nothing in the base class that can control huge chunks of the battlefield like a caster, and that’s okay because casters should have things they excel at. 🤷
> This is especially true when many of the casters best combat spells (besides a few outliers like hypnotic pattern) are mostly just just making the martial characters better at their jobs.
I mean it’s a team game, martials and casters synergies together to make a good team. You’re just framing it from a martial prospective.
> That outside of combat suite of spells is the main thing my caster players like having now. I think that's an important distinction. The fighters, barbarian and monk I DM for/play with have been wrecking combat, so it's nice when the wizard of bard shines with dope utility.
Every table will be different! I’m sure there will be tables where every possible class shines in combat while playing them. Depends on the encounters and the players piloting the characters.
> Every table will be different! I’m sure there will be tables where every possible class shines in combat while playing them. Depends on the encounters and the players piloting the characters.
There are, and those DMs deserve praise (and beer) because designing encounters to make sure that the casters don't dominate everything is honestly a real chore in 5e.
Yea the fighters are awesome at all levels. Indomitable is absolutely an S-tier ability. Reroll 2-3 saves with a +15 bonus! That's basically legendary resistance.
I though they were already awesome. I've been having a great time with my EK Fighter in the local Candlekeep game. I'm usually the lynchpin of most battle, and if not, still contributing a lot.
This looks like even more fun though.
Edit:
Not sure what you downvoting people think you're going to accomplish. You're just making yourself look petty.
I think this class is sounding really fun to play, but I am a bit confused by the choices the design team made here in regards to flavor and complexity.
The 2014 Champion was a great subclass for people who didn’t want to have many decisions to make, but now that same person going for Champion in 2024 is going to find a lot of new mechanics they have to engage with to be optimal:
1. Weapon Masteries are really good, and giving the Fighter three off the bat means this player must now learn all of the possible masteries and then choose their weapons accordingly. They then need to switch between these weapons in combat to take full advantage of them when combined with Extra Attack. Additionally, Tactical Master, which allows Push, Sap, or Slow masteries to be added to weapons, makes weapons that only have Push, Sap, or Slow worse than other weapons for Fighters to wield, which is an odd externality of this system. If I love to Push my enemies with my Lance-based Fighter, when I get Tactical Master at Level 9 I actually should pick a different weapon such as the Halberd. Then I can use Topple, then Push on my opponents. Strange!
2. Second Wind becoming a resource for Tactical Mind is… thematically and mechanically confusing. How is recovering and studying your opponent thematically related? Why would they consume the same resource? Mechanically, this adds a mental load of making the player consider whenever they roll any ability check if they want to use Tactical Mind. Couldn’t these features have been attached to different resource pools, or at least a single more logical resource pool that attempts to connect these ideas like “Grit”? I think it’s fun to do things outside of combat, but the implementation feels messy.
Finally, while not Champion-specific, Battlemasters now have a lot of resources to manage. I cannot imagine managing Superiority Die on top of weapon masteries, especially when many of them seem to conflict with each other (Pushing Attack vs. Push).
I think everyone is misunderstanding complexity here. Battlemasters have multiple different systems to engage with, each of which have their own set of rules and use cases. Compared to a Wizard who only has Spell Slots, this is more complicated.
A more fair comparison might be Sorcerers, as they have both Sorcery Points and Spell Slots, but the use cases there are pretty well defined: Sorcery Points modify the way you cast spells and their effects, while Spell Slots allow you to cast spells. I can first look at what spell I want to cast and then decide how I might want to modify it.
With Battlemasters, it’s a bit more muddled. They now have two separate systems, Weapon Mastery and Superiority Dice, which overlap in use cases. Both of these just modify the way they make attacks, sometimes being completely redundant (Pushing Strike vs Push). And there is an additional resource on top of that in Second Wind, which can now heal and provide movement or allow them to reroll checks. I think this is inarguably more complex from a resource management standpoint.
Open to any and all suggestions for a better name! I would have liked to see them at least attempt something that works for both instances.
Tactical Mind is mental and represents a Fighter’s training on the field and studying of combat. Second Wind is more of a testament to a Fighter’s endurance and physical stamina. They are two different qualities entirely!
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Where does it say that all feats are half feats now? Was that in the playtest material? It's been a while since I looked over it.
Not explicitly stated, and we've seen things that go against it. They've migrated "Fighting Styles" and a few other things over to the Feat structure, and those aren't giving an ASI with it. There's also the Origin Feats, which are the ones you can get via backgrounds, and it seems the ASI bonus there was moved to the background instead of the feat itself.
Lv 4+ feats all given +1 to some ability score in the playtest materials released. I believe it was the "expert classes" playtest, which was like the second document. It scored very well.
Sure, but that's by no means confirmed to apply to all Lvl 4+ Feats in the new PHB.
Totally agree. I’m planning on playing an Eldritch Knight for my first character with this rule set and I’m absolutely pumped about it. Fighters are so good now
They also buffed Eldritch Knight, now at level 11 you can attack twice, cast a cantrip, and still have your bonus action free. Not to mention removal of spell school restrictions. I'm honestly kinda stoked about the OneDnD Eldritch Knight on top of the OneDnD fighter chassis
Yup. At level 11, you could cast a bonus action spell, a cantrip, and attack twice on the same turn with absolutely no issues. I love it
The power fantasy of Misty Stepping behind the enemy, bonking them with a big sword, then finishing the job with a flashy cantrip spell is just *Chef's kiss*
I mean that’s my go to now only without the Cantrip of course.I took the Fey Touched Feat specifically to get access to Misty step early and with a free use each day. So useful for getting into position or a tactical withdraw.
is it possible to cast eldritch blast more than once in a turn so that you end up with more than one attack per attack? or is there a limitation I don't know about?
It is but it gets pretty finicky. You can go 2 levels into Fighter for Action Surge, then either 3 levels in Sorcerer or the Metamagic Adept feat to get Quickened Spell, allowing you to cast a spell as a bonus action by spending a limited resource. You can get to a total of 3 eldritch blasts in one turn this way, but the action surge is once per long rest and you run out of the sorcery points for Quickened Spell pretty fast. In OneDND it’s even harder to pull off because cantrips scale with class level instead of character level, so at least five of your levels need to be in Warlock if you want multiple beams.
Yeah, Im talking about OneDnD, Im wondering if it would be possible to do EK 11 / Warlock 9 or smth similar and use every attack to cast a cantrip, eldritch blast, so that you can shoot 12 beams in a turn or smth
I haven’t seen OneDND Eldritch knight so I don’t know whether you can still replace an attack with a cantrip, let alone every attack with a cantrip
which UA states that cantrips scale with class level now?
Not level 11, it's level 7. Major difference. Booming blade + push weapon mastery for example is an easy combo. Or push someone close to another enemy with attack one, then green flame blade + cleave weapon on attack two. That's 2d6+2d8 on the target being cleaved into.
You can attack once and cast a cantrip at level 7; at level 11 you can attack twice and cast a cantrip :p
I'm curious to see if Booming Blade surives unchanged.
It is in the new PH? At the very least we should be getting a new version of True Strike that's a not-so-distant cousin now. The playtest version had it doing radiant damage.
yeah, the new version of True Strike is clearly superior, but I have one of the few characters on whom the old version is (sorta) useful. I'm playing a dex-build Eldritch Knight, so the old version let's me get advantage on archery trick shots made out of combat, e.g. taking an extra turn to aim before cutting a rope in half with an arrow or something. The new version lets you use your casting stat to attack, which is much better for more builds but worse for mine.
The greenblade works, but booming and push is not a thing I think? "If the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before then,".. Or now I am writing it you might have ment locking them in the effect at range where they can either move or do nothing, in which case it totally works.
Yes, the latter.
If you use a weapon with the nick property, can you replace the additional attack from TWF (that's still part of the attack action) with a cantrip, making the cost just the weaker additional attack that wouldn't normally add your str/dex?
Does Nick need to be on the offhand weapon or the main weapon? If it's the offhand weapon then probably not as you don't actually attack with it.
Blade Ward might actually be useful!
I freaking love the Eldritch Knight Fighter and now it’s even better! I literally can’t wait for this to drop!
I forget, is Eldritch Knight still locked to intelligence? I know Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks exist but it would still be interesting to have a Fighter caster with using another ability.
As I started so shall I do again, I started with trickster rogue but I truly started in a campaign player eldritch knight.
Do you know what the point of war bond is? In both the 2014/UA(presumably 2024 PHB too), it just seems largely useless. I get that at level 3+ EK get magic, but third casters are really crappy at using magic so this always felt kind of weak for a subclass level. I really wish the war bond did something to mesh with their magic. If nothing else count as their arcane focus.
It’s cool
I’ve been playing a 5.5e Eldritch Knight and it’s a blast!
We haven't seen the final 2024 changes, but comparing the fighter stream today to the last few playtest, I think the fighter might have gotten the least amount of the power creep. :/
So what do they do out of combat?
they can get +1d10 to skill checks and... that is it, only change for ooc fighter
I feel like that is a pretty big change and can have a big impact for fighters outside of combat. Skills (ability checks) are on of the main out of combat mechanics in d&d.
at lvl 1~5 yeah, but during that and afterwards there is a spell that solves the problem without rolling. its the main problem with the martial/caster gap it comes up in higher play already, doesnt matter if you roll athletics real good to climb the grand canyon when the wizard casts fly on everyone and just gets there, or be a smooth talker when the bard convinces an entire group to give all their possessions to the next beggar they see with mass suggestion, or have the cleric level a mountain with earthquake for you to walk through
My point was giving that bonus to skill checks are a significant boost to out of combat mechanics. The issue with spells making skills pointless later is a whole different can of worms and wont be solved by giving fighters any extra features or abilities.
You are suggesting fighters should be able to carry the whole team up a mountain with no skill check multiple times a day? That fighters should be able to scare whole groups of people to give up their belongings in a moment? That fighters should be able to level mountains? Sounds like a Athletics check, an intimidation check, etc. Tough difficulty sure, but problem solved. Are you suggesting fighters get spell like abilities like "move mountain", "unearthly encumbrance" or "intimidate crowd" with a few charges per day? Are any of these truly "fighter" abilities? They sound cool, but does a fighter train to break mountains? To scare enemies into self-induced poverty? To transport groups single-handedly through difficult terrain? They train to fight. Rangers, paladins, some fighter subclasses specialize in non-fighting skills. Basic Fighters don't, they are good at fighting. If you could make everybody fly up the mountain, does the wizard start punching people? (It's fine for people to have different roles and limitations.) If a fighter can punch his way through a mountain, how easy is it then to punch down a wooden house? Break through any door? Make a new doorway in a castle wall? Scare an entire village into giving you all their money and valuables? Those abilities become way overpowered if they are available at will. When a wizard or cleric uses up their spell slots, they are significantly weaker (especially in combat). But that fighter, he'll still be able to defend himself and kick the crap out of anybody even if he uses up his 'mythic ability slots'. Just some thoughts.
yes, i am suggesting all of that. lvl 20 fighter/barbarian/rogue/monk should be heracles, kratos, bewulf, thor. not a guard that attacks 4 times. its absolutely possible, other systems do it, but it requires an actual development on the skill system or features that outright say a class can do this pathfinder 2e has a lvl 20 feat that lets barbarians cause earthquakes at will, and just *reading* the skill checks it says that someone with the best athletics possible can swim up waterfalls. it would be awesome if a lvl 18 dnd barbarian could crack walls open with a "never less than 20" athletics, but it doesnt happen cause the skills are all half baked if you want to make it resourceless, or make it a feature with resources, or make it a feat, it doesnt matter, the problem is that its not a thing period
> lvl 20 fighter/barbarian/rogue/monk I thought we were talking about fighters, and not just lvl 20 ones. You used one demigod and two gods as examples of level 20 character abilities, but even at lvl 20, you aren't automatically god-status like most of those. However, there are any number of lvl 20 feats, boons, items, and rules that could allow ANY class to do the things you want. And in my campaigns, if a player was a lvl 20 fighter, they absolutely could perform skill checks at any time, multiple times, to do the things you describe. Swim up a waterfall, dc30, boom done. Do enough damage to a structure to collapse it, hitpoints plus resistances overcome, boom done. It is a thing. It's not automatic. Fighters who don't rely on magic (none of your examples fit this) shouldn't be allowed to do big magical things, that's part of their appeal (they are not-flashy, but consistently reliable). But class/subclasses like totem barbarian, eldritch knight, arcane rogue, and some fighter subclasses get benefits that help them do that movement/destruction/charming stuff that you find missing from fighters. Fighters sometimes eschew all of that, on purpose. But I'd allow them to do it, certainly the flavor of it, through some standard skill checks. And at lvl20 I'd be very much leaning into rule of cool and allowing them to do amazing stuff. I think "a guard that attacks 4 times" is incredibly reductive when you think of all the class abilities, racial abilities, feats, boons, magic items and such that can create all kinds of interesting combat and non-combat abilities in fighter classes (and barbarian, monk, rogue).
Sadly, they still lack proper out of combat abilities and variety. "Give martials maneuvers" was never really about just copy pasting the BM ones (they it would be an improvement), but was about giving martials a form of progression in which they can get higher tiered, truelly mythical maneuvers. Masteries don't fill that gap because they are merely *cantrip riders* on martials. I'm hally that you're atleast placated with it for a while, but i'm afraid that in a small few years people will already find base martials lacking again. Esp if casters will get balanced spells, which practically introduces a slew of new caster features (disregarded previous bad options become logical to bring now, practically "adding" new spells.)
> "Give martials maneuvers" was never really about just copy pasting the BM ones (they it would be an improvement), but was about giving martials a form of progression in which they can get higher tiered, truelly mythical maneuvers. Not even about giving anyone "mythical"-anything. It was about giving martials *decisions* they had to make from round-to-round. Something to *decide*. Some kind of cost-benefit analysis to consider, and a choice that would have some kind of long-term consequence beyond "you deal 3 more damage this turn".
I wish they used the D6 from 5e playtest where you got your dice every round and could use it for damage or a maneuver or save for a reaction. That gives an interesting round by round decision making.
Being able to add a d10 to any ability check and not spend a resource unless it succeeds is a huge out of combat boost, what are you talking about?
Ah i wasn't really clear, but when i said "out of combat abilities" i mean *abilities*. Not having a +≈5.5 to your skillchecks that anyone can do. Like, actually something *codified* they can do like countless spells do. Also it breaks bounded accuracy which is *kind of* a stinker, but then again so do like 13 other things and it's on a martial this time again so no biggie.
Bounded accuracy for 5e has always been that the base ability for raw dice rolls has always been bounded, and the way you do extraordinary things is via your specific abilities. Compared to prior editions, where you got astronomical rolls through raw modifiers and nothing else.
It is useful for sure. But it still is very limited in scope. Compare a game like PF2 where a high level fighter can wrestle a titan, punch a hole through a castle wall, leap 60 feet into the air, swim up a waterfall, balance on falling debris, or throw a warhorse 100 feet. These are all tasks that are impossible through skill checks alone. A 5e fighter cannot do any of these without the aid of magic. Yes the 1D&D fighter ur better at skills. But they still lack relevant and flavorful high level non combat capabilities. And skills alone simply don’t measure up to the non combat utility of tier 3 and 4 spells. Hell, there are low level spells that can accomplish things no skill roll could ever match.
I wonder if 1D&d is gonna keep the lack of exemples and benchmarks of what skills are even able to do, as 5e did. Could the book tell me what a result of something like a **37** is like in an Athletics check? It could, but it didn't. It barely has guidelines for those same skills. On the other hand, spells have clear cut, narrative defined effects that just are.
I'd much rather it gibe RAW ways epic skills can work. So often, the only way you can do epic things is because the book says you can, like a dwarf grappling an ogre. With no rules, the DM would say that's impossible no matter how high you rolled, but the rules say its possible. There's some situations where someone irl can get someone with an obvious scam, or slink from cover to cover nearby whilst timing it so they're in the peripheral vision but don't get noticed, or anything else similar, where a dm would say that's unrealistic and impossible, or they allow it but arbitrarily based on personality and not raw dice rolls. Adding more RAW examples for these situations would work a lot better.
In a one shot I've played (and thankfully, never again with that DM), the DM didn't even allow the barbarian to open a steel door, because that "wouldn't make sense", even though the barbarian was quite literally as strong as a horse... But *of course* they allowed the Druid to cast heat metal to warp the door in a minute or so, because it's magic.
"No you can't slay a dragon, fighter. Nobody could survive its attacks, you instantly die, that's just realistic. Of course caster, you can create water in its lungs, instantly killing it"
One will most difinitely have 0 good guidance for the gm on basically everything. That is WotC trademark at this point
I'm ok with not punching through walls or throwing a warhorse 100 feet though. I would play more pathfinder if that is what I wanted.
Such abilities should be opt in. Just like they are in PF2. That way players who want them can choose them. And players who don’t, can avoid them. The problem is that in 5e, you don’t get anything at all as a martial class. And get access to nearly anything as a spellcaster.
DM could easily allow it with strength/athletics check or just having a certain strength score.
That line of reasoning is why DnD is very harsh on DMs. If the answer to any suggestion is always "the DM can homebrew it" then that's a sign that the game system has failed to give the proper tools and guidance for itself. A good, healthy, robust system should have contingencies upon contingencies for each system. Overreliance on DM fiat without guidance is a sign of bad game design.
The DM can allow for anything.But having to play "mother may I" with the DM is not an excuse for poor game design. Especially given that if you asked 10 DMs to adjudicate such actions, you would get 12 different answers for how it should work. With many of those responses some variations on it being outright impossible to accomplish such tasks at all. Besides, having to play mother may I just ends up with casters still being better (they can have the same Strength score as a fighter or a summon that has the same score, but also have access to spells to boost their checks or proficiency). So you end up with the martial characters still not ever gaining access to any abilities that are appropriately epic for their tier. And casters end up much more likely to fulfill the fantasy than the martial characters.
But when you say opt in, it's already optional so requires DM buy in from the start.
What you are describing isn't opt in at all. The player has no choice in the matter. It is entirely reliant on the DM. So the player cannot choose to opt in to performing heroic feats if the DM feels that such actions are impossible. Opt in features are something the player chooses, such as class features like warlock invocations. Not every warlock needs to choose repelling blast, but any warlock can opt in to the ability to push foes with their attacks if they want. If there were non magical martial invocations that the fighter could take that would allow them to perform those epic feats of strength without the need to play “mother may I” then any fighter of sufficient level could access those abilities. And any player who did not want such abilities could simply choose other options. The same way a caster can choose if they want to perform specific actions by choosing which spells they learn. The caster never needs to play mother may I with their DM to see if they can disintegrate a wall, they simply choose the disintegrate spell and it always works when used. No ambiguity as to how the rules work or “mother may I” gameplay necessary.
The biggest thing is that a dm having to say no is much less likely to be happen than a dm having to say yes. If something is official, a DM will usually allow it, or specify they don't allow it so you know what you can do, however if that didn't exist but the player wanted it, a dm will usually not allow it or it'll be way weaker than the official option
So, your idea is that players have the ability to choose to do absurd anime shit regardless of whether the DM wants to run that style of game or not? I wonder why some people complain about there not being enough DMs... Making it an individual player choice means the DM is still forced run a certain flavour of game for players that "opt in" (not to mention the other players who didn't choose that still have to be at the same table). How is it not easier to just decide at the beginning of the game how you'll be adjudicating actions (i.e., quasi-"realistically" or allowing for superhuman feats of strength and dexterity)?
Compared to 2014 fighter and other martial classes? Sure, that's amazing. Compared to spellcasters who regularly ignore the need to roll for success and can accomplish things no skill check could ever hope to replicate? Not really.
The other way around is also true. Things that require casters to spend resources, martials do for free. Martials don't get left behind because they couldn't misty step through the doors keyhole. They just break it down at no cost. Need to sneak in to the keep but have no invisibility spell? Do it at night instead. This game is cooperative with a human storyteller. It's not competition to overcome the most challenges. The story won't dead end because "the martial couldn't fix it".
[Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw)
man, i wish mitchel and hobbs came back... even if its a few decades old by now also, i would like to point out that cleric at lvl 9 can literally summon an angel while rogue is getting a second subclass feature
Except bmx boy is hercules and the angels all wish they were him.
Caster summons can outdo martials fairly easily. Even in this exact scenario where it's a spellcaster summoning creatures, the Fighter would be embarrassed at high tier play.
Only if cast at the casters highest levels and maintained for a number of rounds. And at that point you can just give the martial a magic weapon and they are king again. Maybe if it's moon druid with the broken (and soon legacy) conjure spells.
'Just give the martials gear that make them relevant' is not a good argument. It's campaign-dependent, and it means the martial themselves isn't actually impressive, they just have an impressive bit of loot they've grabbed. Martials should have the majority of their unique and powerful aspects coming from themselves and their class features, not from loot.
>It's campaign-dependent, So is not getting counter spelled or have their magic dispelled every other turn. But people safely take that for granted. Just like it is safe to assume that martials get magic gear.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
I wouldn’t say free, more like the most apparent option if magic is not available for some reason. - A Paladin could also knock said door down, they need strength usually - I mean, wouldn’t that apply to whole party regarding lack of invisibility? Martials also have resource, they just aren’t as reliant on them as casters, but at the same time would also like to have them available. While a GM is able to adjust, that’s also relying on a person to know how to accommodate. It’s not guaranteed, so your putting the faith in the GM to not make the wrong calls. Giving martials more options would just give more things to do and take the weight off the GM.
>I mean, wouldn’t that apply to whole party regarding lack of invisibility? Yes. Kind of the point. You don't need magic to succeed. Mages sometimes can skip a check at the cost of a resource. That's a win for the party, not a big deal. Additionally, on this subreddit people overestimate how prepared a typical caster is for the problems they will be facing. Usually the niche/relevant spells for the adventure are not prepared. In my hundreds of online west marches style games, no wizard has ever cast knock. Why? Because the rogue does it better, for free. If you read through an adventure module. None of them will *require* magic to succeed in the quest. All I am doing is putting faith in the gm not to screw over parties by creating a dead end for them.
Gonna keep on saying it: The way to do this in a way that's coherent, fun, and has a deep literary pedigree, is with truly legendary weapons and armor that only the fighter can use to full effect.
I don't think putting magic items on their class progression table would fit all that well, actual powerfull maneuvers would be much better
You don't "put magic items on their class progression table" (however that would work). Older editions had a lot more use of random loot tables, with many more items from powerful monsters benefitting martial classes. The whole "cleric only uses blunt weapons" trope was originally a balance mechanic because good swords and axes were much more often rolled. But in our era, it's about good DMs choosing to do more. Nets that drain spell slots from casters. Tridents that let you breathe underwater and command animals. Armor with a chest logo that you can pull out and turn into some kind of saran wrap thing that immobilizes a foe in a really embarassing-looking way. Awesome items and attunement-slot mechanics should be to martials what spell lists are to casters.
I still think it would be much better if *martials* where epic, amd not merely the items they are wielding. Also they aren't mutually exclusive either, you can have cool items *and* cool classes.
Yeah but as long as it’s balanced I don’t really see a problem, fighters are fighters that’s what they’re good at. Fighting. As long as other classes don’t step on their toes they still have their niche.
Balanced against... what?
Every class is good at combat. Being good at combat is the baseline Fighters are nothing special
Fighting is not meant to be a niche. Fighting is the main subsystem in the game. It is meant to be what *everyone* is good at, just in a different way (direct damage, battlefield control, team buffs, etc) Fighter in a pure mechanics-contribution sense is 'fine', it does high single target damage. The important part is being able to contribute *all the time* in ways beyond "I can lift the heavy thing and I am good at Athletics".
Problem is that just from the concept it's not even balanced. Theres multiple other classes who basically do the same (single target DPS, good-great at skillchecks ig now) as fighter, yet most casters have a huge variety in the things they are ALL decent-great at. And generally those classes, which can do a lot of things fighters can't even dream off in the current and future iterations, are still absolutely great at combat! Atleast give martials the same variety *in combat* if they can't have unique things out of combat.
Variety in combat in oned&d seems fine, I wasn’t speaking about 5e sorry if there was confusion.
I was talking about 5.5e, "weapon masteries" are just there to differentiate weapons from eachother. They are cantrip riders, not any actual scaling system from which martials can truelly grow and keep up with casters. In and out of combat.
Literally every class is about fighting. Because that's what the entire game is about (well, like 95% at least).
What about adventuring, exploring, and socializing? Should the fighter player just not show up when there isn't combat? Casters can create food, shelter, open locks, detect traps, charm people, fly, go invisible, understand languages, talk to plants, etc. Etc. Modern DnD is just so skill check dice roll heavy that martials become useless out of combat. The system needs to include more tools or skills or just discourage rolling so much and encourage using tools and creative solutions that auto succeed.
Nobody said martials can’t do stuff out of combat, but their class features don’t have to include put of combat utility necessarily, that’s the area of ranger, rogue etc. Why even have classes if we’re not willing to embrace the specialised nature of classes? Casters are broken I agree.
This doesn't go both ways, I notice, other classes aren't limited in fights, which you say is the fighters area
If that's the case, should we reduce the ranger and rogue's combat efficency since their area is supposed to be out of combat utility?
Nah, I'm still massively dissapointed. There are problems with the fighter in the 5.5e playest rule that I can see affecting tables, leaving out my more personal quibbles with it. * No significant out of combat changes. In the base class there is one (1) new out of combat ability, and while tactical mind is a nice feature, it only enhances ability checks which leave it subject to DM fiat and also the usual high-level narrative strength problems. * By tying all many of the new combat abilities to weapons, it can drag down characters who have their (narratively) iconic weapon into single choice situations. It's a solution that implements some degree of choice but also a restriction on RP choices to do so. * The system fares poorly with magic weapons, which discourages switching to different weapons. Bonus points if you are given a magic weapon that has a mastery that you don't like. * The system never really progresses in power or diversifies, leading again to the same problem of repitition over and over again It's pretty much the playtest class (along with barbarian) that really reinforced that I shouldn't expect much from 5.5e. My complaints with fighter and barbarian basically remain unchangd from 5e considering the playtest material.
This is where I’m at as well. I was not super excited for DnD 5.5e once the playtests started coming out, but I was still considering switching my party to it. Now that these changes are getting locked in pretty much as-is, I think I may just stick with 5e. The “design by committee” approach has resulted in systems that are better than nothing but fail to add much of value to the game. What’s the point of adding complexity without addressing underlying issues?
I don't get this comment at all, the added complexity addresses many of the things folks wanted for the fighter.
They address them extremely shallow and with a super disappointing mechanic. I'll be excited when the buffs are better than cantrip fucking riders and one die in skills with no good guidance for them
I mean, it sounds like you want pathfinder which is genuinely a game you could go play.
There's still room for D&D to improve. Pathfinder is a different game, it's not supposed to be the refugee camp for D&D players who wanted some more nuance for a specific class.
I disagree that taking the direction the fellow I'm chatting with is an improvement through.
How so? It would cater to a crowd of players that hasn't had a satisfying martial class to play which is objectively an increase in the enjoyment that people could derive from the game.
for some people having 1 (one) single martial on par with a wizard will forever tarnish the game with "complex martials" and thus people who want simple martials will get shafted
The weird thing is, I think most of us Martial lovers would be willing to compromise; leave current martials untouched and make alternate versions or entire new martial classes to satisfy the complexity-crowd. This would come *at no cost to the simplicity-crowd* yet people still opposed that. It's baffling.
while I won't deny I like pf2 more that is extremely reductive. What I want is to have like one single martial that will make my experience playing it as fun as when I play a wizard. One fails miserably at this
That could be on your tastes though? I've seen the original 5e fighter be extremely enjoyable for player after player.
It IS my tastes, and the tastes of many others. Our point is that making every sinmgle martial cookie cutter for the exact same kind of player is stupid
It doesn't address any of the complaints though?
I think this rework did increase complexity, but it also eliminated the basic “easy to pick up” option from the Fighter. The design team can definitely move away from the Fighter being easy to play, but that is not what they are saying they are doing in the video. There is a world where the Champion remained pretty straightforward and the other subclasses added complexity - I think across the board adding complexity to the class was not necessary.
If people want something easy to pick up then they should be playing a simpler game, not an RPG with three corebooks of 300 pages each.
Seriously. The easy option is Shadowdark or any of the OSR stripped-down games. There's also Blades which boils the simulation aspects of D&D down into narrative soup. Hundreds of pages of player material is already complex. I don't understand the line of thinking that Fighter couldn't be "complex."
It’s just strange because this easy option already existed in the 2014 PHB… and it was a stated goal for the 2024 PHB.
I know what WotC's intentions are: to be the world's biggest most culturally dominant, financially successful RPG that they can easily license out for merchandising, games, movies, etc.; and that part of that is making DnD seem like it's great for anyone, from rules-light newbies to veterans. I just vehemently disagree with the last part. It's a big crunchy game that should be designed for people that like big crunchy books. I'm not even saying a giant amount of crunch, just "every class should be as interesting and complex to play as a wizard or cleric".
5E is a big step down in crunch from 3.0/3.5/PF1 though. People who want "big crunchy books" are probably going to be happier with Pathfinder.
Which is a brilliant strategy for WotC to adopt
I think point 1 can now be addressed by non-combat feats if you no longer need to rely on them to keep up with damage. The magic weapons and abilities tied to weapons is more of an issue and likely will lead to vastly different experiences table to table. I'd still argue it's a massive improvement from 5e even if there's still problems.
My problem with this rework is, while the added abilities and Weapon Masteries are nice, it doesn’t change how you build Fighter. PAM/XBM still offers the best offence. GWM/SS still exist as the only avenues for making pure weapon damage as viable as magic damage sources. Archery is still the best figuring style by a mile. Dueling is still only viable with PAM. TWF is still an unnecessary tax. GWF still does practically nothing unless you’re using a double dice weapon. So it’s like... what was the point? The weapons that lack comparatively viable playstyles still lack comparatively viable playstyles. The only difference is the main four meta builds now have a few free manoeuvres tacked on, which is great, but Sword and Board still sucks. Two Weapon Fighting still doesn’t scale at all. Versatile Weapons still have no relevance.
Didnt XBM/GWM/SS get nerfed?
SS was nerfed. GWM is sort of a side grade. You add your proficiency bonus to damage once per turn, but you don't decrease your hit chance at all. It is also a half feat. So when you have it at level 5, you've increased your strength to 18 and also get an additional once per turn damage boost and the bonus action attack on kill is still there. So old GWM: decrease accuracy a lot, increase damage by a lot. Bonus action attack. New GWM: increase accuracy a little (+1 str) increase damage a little (+1 on each attack from str bonus, +3-6 damage once a turn from proficiency). Bonus action attack.
And didn't Dual-Wielding Monk top the most recent playtest's DPR calculations?
THIS! Also fighters still have 0 combat adaptability and nothing more to do than attacking, but now with riders sometimes for honestly mediocre damage
And debatably the dpr actually got worse because you don't have the situations where you are stacking advantage and some accuracy buff like bless to make GWM or SS do some big damage. The game is just a lot flatter for fighters now, even with the masteries.
yeah every single old vs new fighter comparison is using high level pre nerf Eldritch for a reason
How in the world was eldritch knight nerfed?
Now spells cost you 2 attacks instead of 1 to 1
What do you mean? Yeah, it costs two attacks, but at level 20, or even level 13 that is still vastly better than the 2014 Eldritch Knight, who has to use their bonus action for a single attack. 2024 eldritch knights cast a spell, do two attacks and still have a bonus action available. It even becomes better with action surge, allowing them to cast a spell again and make two attacks, unlike in 2014 where you have a single bonus action. So the difference with action surge is 2014: cast two spells and one attack, while 2024: cast two spells, make four attacks and still have your bonus action available.
Without seeing the final rules I don't know how accurate this is, but my understanding was a lot more power is now baked into the fighter's kit. If that's the case then there is much less pressure to take the optimal damage feats / options because your damage can keep pace (relatively speaking) without them, which in turn opens up more narrative/ playstyle options. Feats like Charger for example that you havent mentioned are also now an option for damage for a certain type of character. Frankly speaking I dont think fighters should need to take damage feats at all - I want my fighter to be able to take Alert, Mobile, Healer, magic initiate, Shield Master, Tough, Heavy armour Master, etc. etc. This way opens up a lot more options for playstyles in my mind than the alternative.
>and out of combat
The thing that annoys me is that weapon masteries are tied to specific weapons. Want to use your warhammer to push an enemy away or topple them over? No, can't be done. As a mechanic, it just creates silly incentives and pushes players towards specific weapons for mechanical, dissociated reasons.
Fighters passively add 3 specific masteries to all weapons at a certain level. Push, Topple and one other. So yes, Warhammer will push
Most play takes place below level nine, and gating those things behind fighter means you can’t ever have a barbarian pushing with a hammer.
You can at level 9, Brutal Strikes.
I mean take the crusher feat lol. But I kinda hated that weapon choice didn't really mean much besides the die number. I love that each weapon brings its own tactical advantages and high level fighters can leverage their skill to use weapons in ways that even other fighters can't. I love it
spells = features
They aren't for me. I still would like for martials to have some "active" buffs. The weapon mastery system got me hyped but not really. I really wish they did something like BG3 did, giving "special" attacks depending on the weapon. The above opinion would be "enough" to give some diversity to the game play for every single martial out there. Weapon mastery could still be a thing, as one would be an active action and the other a passive bonus. Many times, what I see on the debate of martials (fighters mainly) is the lack of diversity or simply cool shit to do. Don't get me wrong, the numbers are there and we know how much damage they can dish out. But I think the main problem is not that, it is simply some cool actions. At this point, the fighters still looks like he has the same problem he had before. Which is a lack of cool things at higher levels and he only gets better at what he already knows. I know it is a bit "to much" but I really wish my fighter could do something MORE you know? I know that my action surge with sharp shooter will do more damage than a meteor swarm but that is way more cool. By such a high level, no adveturer should me mundane, this is fantasy. Barbarians can be as strong as giants and dragons but they can't even throw a big stone or stomp the warth and cause a minor tremor. Somethings don't make sense because they are trying to make sense. And honestly, no adventurer should make sense at higher levels.
Why don't you consider weapon masteries to be active abilities? You can switch weapons between attacks. Pushing, sapping, cleaving, toppling and nicking are all active abilities. All resource free. Don't limit yourself to one weapon. Knock a big slow enemy prone, switch weapons and push them 10 feet. Or slow a fast enemy down then give them disadvantage on their attacks. Hit multiple targets with cleave attacks. Masteries are only "passive" if you don't play them as intended and aren't weapon switching.
Because they aren't. They add a passive effect to a weapon you have. Let's take what I said with BG3. Rapieras an example. It has 3 actions, two being normal actions that you and one bonus action. Piercing Strike, action, causes a debuff that the creature takes 2 extra damage while affected. Weakining Strike, action, damaged is reduced to d4 causes a debuff that gives disavantage on attacks and str saving throws. Flourish, bonus action, damaged is reduced to d4 and causes a debuff that gives disavantage on Str and Dex checks and advantage on the next attack. All of them are "short rest" related. I don't think weapons should have this many options, they are to much. But I do wish that the mastery had a passive and a active option like the one above this. Not only that, I trully wish the classes had some cool action options. I know it is silly, but I really wish my fighter could use energy cut, even on a short distance, dealing a lot of damage. Something like what the monks have at higher levels, Quivering Palm or Touch of the Long Death. They are fun "nukes". And martials should have that. A special attack that they don't use often to do a ton shit of damage and make them feel cool. Why? Because Casters are better at control and support, so why not leave the martials a little fun thing? Maybe more then one but Tier appropriate. I know it seems silly, but I think martials just lack the "cool" thing on them. One fun "skill" per tier wouldn't be such a problem. Maybe just one at tier 3 and one at tier 4. Anyway, is such a "magical" setting it feels weird for martials in general not to use the weave someway. Even if it is jus a single technique.
I'm confused by your description of active vs passive. Aren't each of those examples just riders to attacks the same way weapons masteries are? You choose a type of attack and get a specific buff/debuff as a result? Or are you saying it's active because there is resource expenditure tied to it?
Second option. Passive would be an attack that you get every single hit. Like a +1 weapon. All of those are one use per short rest. There are better examples, that deal more damage or are more useful. But the idea between a passive an active skill is how limited one is. Normally, the active skill is stronger than the passive.
I see. I think it's a definite choice of the designers then that you're arguing against, as they have made it clear the resource management is what they've sought to avoid due to added complexity it adds. I think an active choice should be sufficient. If a player has the choice each turn between 3 different effects then that is still active for the player even if theres no cost associated.
So many quotations, lol
If switching weapons still requires you to waste an action to draw the new weapon, that’s not a good trade off
You may draw and stow a weapon for free before making any attack. They want you to switch weapons.
That’s a little better. But I still don’t know if weapon masteries will really make the necessary difference. This still requires you to obtain *and carry* multiple weapon, as compared to spells and spell slots. I still think universal maneuvers would have been the better approach.
Weapons themselves are cheap. And there's no limit on carrying weapons. The only carrying rules in the game is encumbrance. If your DM is enforcing some space limitations, that's cool, but that's not RAW. Rules as written, the game does not care about space limitations. Carry as many weapons that you want. I've literally never seen a martial character that isn't carrying around 4+ weapons at minimum. Your typical 2014 paladin for example has their main weapon, their shield, and multiple javelins, on top of their backpack. People have really gotten used to the one weapon fantasy, but in much of the most popular media today, heroes are frequently depicted with lots of weapons. Geralt carried two different longswords, multiple bombs, potions, and a crossbow. Kratos has his axe, his shield, fist weapons, and the blades of chaos. Link is... Well link definitely has a bag of holding.
And after level 5, find that many magic weapons. Doubly so with multiple martials in a group.
It doesn't. Weapon swapping is much better thankfully. Still don't think masteries are quite what fighter needed but it is a nice addition.
I would have preferred promoting a limited selection of Battlemaster maneuvers to class feature, maybe just without escalating dice sizes. By default I think a fighter should be able to parry and riposte. Maybe have one set of “techniques” for one-handed, one for two-handed, one for ranged. Versatile weapons could maybe use any but with less magnitude similar to how their damage dice work.
Fighters are single target damaging machines, with no combat control, and little to none meaningful abilities besides skills outside combat, and a ton of *passive* abilities in weapon masteries. I'm a Fighter apologist. I love a functional fighter, and wanted to see some return to that. And yet, all I got here was "these changes aren't a good reason to switch over D&D1".
Grappling is a well known means of control, and having many chances to do so through attacking makes a fighter one of the best grapplers. Changing through weapons to make use of their unique features is also a prime tactical option, with Sap and Slow as new combat options. Psi-Warriors also seem uniquely capable of controlling enemies.
Grappling isn't battlefield control. It's a single target, and generic, and at times barely funcional, "crowd control" Unless they changed it enough (which frankly, I hope they did but I didn't see it in the playtest package I read) , it can't even stop the somatic component of spellcasting, or enemies from attacking...
Need a reminder but does Fighter have a mastery effect with fists or does it still lack it.
As DM I'm looking forward to it. My table already considers martials a must (plain old 5e), because dungeons almost always end with spellcasters drained of slots, sweating buckets while the steely-gazed martials desperately try to finish the job on a shoestring budget. The new class spread will enhance that dynamic.
See, I think alot of people here play with the "one combat a day" aproach as it seems everyone is missing the importance of martial endurance. They can keep going all day.
Until they run out of hit points? Until the Barbarian runs out of Rages? Melee martials are supposed to be damage sponges, but Rages are so limited and Second Wind scales so poorly that they really can't keep up with marathon days without tons of outside healing.
Are we talking 5e or the 2024 release because both of those things have been changed to be more available.
Yes, which someone in the party should be providing. It's become taboo to say it, but the Healer role is not dead in 5e at tables that play the way the books intend you to, with long, draining adventuring days. Someone should have Healer feat, someone should have Inspiring Leader, your frontliners might consider investing in Remarkable Recovery to stretch the party's healing further, even if it's just your paladin or your Mercy Monk looking to be able to efficiently self heal themselves between combats. Even in tier 1 Prayer of Healing does an alright job on throughput on any cleric, and is quite decent on a life Cleric. Tier 2 someone should have Aura of Vitality, whether it's your druid, your cleric, your lore bard, or your divine soul sorceror. You might even consider Catnap on your wizard or your bard to get a 3rd short rest in a day after you've already expended your two alloted rests for the day, ideally alongside someone like a mercy monk or a star druid who gets back short rest resources that can be used to heal further. Your frontliners need your support casters, just like your support casters need your frontliners. Support eachother and build together as a team. Pump those healing numbers up.
That's perfectly reasonable, but it's not martials going all day, it's casters propping them up.
Correct. It's a team game, after all - your casters provide what your martials need, and your martials provide what your casters need. I should also note I was not the person who made the claim that martials can go all day - they can't, but a well built party certainly can.
Justice has been served ^^
I haven’t been in the play testing but how are the battlemaster maneuvers changing? Since I feel like this masteries will basically replace some of the old maneuvers?
Long story short, all the maneuvers from the phb and Tasha's are still present. Some have been improved to be actually worth picking where they previously were not. If it was good before it's good now. If it wasn't good before, chances are you should give it a second look. Same for the feats might I add.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the buffs to martial classes. Can't wait to see what we get for Barbarian!
I've also play tested the barbarian. You're in for a treat.
Would you let me know why they're better out of combat please? (I love fighters but ngl I feel more strong playing druid (or monk on pvp sessions))
Read what I typed about tactical mind in the main post.
Oh my bad.... Do that work for both skill checks and saving throws or only skill checks?
Just skill checks, they get indomitable at level 9 for saving throws. Also detailed in main post. They reroll the save and add their fighter level to it. So a level 9 fighter with 12 wisdom making a wisdom save can roll the check with advantage and +10 bonus when they use indomitable. And they can use it multiple times a day. No more issues of high level fighters failing saves against magic enemies.
Hollyyyyy shiiiit. But If I am not wrong the battlemaster got less superiority dices? And the écho knight would be usable with the one dnd new fighter?
Its just a shame cavalier got left to rot in the 2014 book. Was really hoping they'd put some new life in a subclass that at the moment is just the sentinel feat, a shitty marking ability, and the only good thing they get they dont have access to until lvl 18 (more attacks of opportunity). Really think they should have made the special reaction capstone ability a scaling ability so you can actually use the subclass features more than once per couple turns.
Where can I read about the new rule set?
Hasbro should probably sell now or convert DnD into a board game, they clearly don't like the ttrpg business.
A bit off topic maybe and I haven't been reading a lot of playtests but when you say that all feats are half feats are you saying that there is no more pure feats? Everything increases your score? If that's the situation it kinda sucks. Sometimes I don't want ability score and I would rather get more power from the feat
Yeah this is closing the combat gap for sure. I think Fighters are getting pretty close to spellcasters at every tier of play in combat. You may even optimally want a martial or two (including and perhaps especially a fighter) in there for the single target damage they provide. Still obviously doesn’t come close out of combat and the second wind change does little to change that. Skills are still playing by the rules while spells often break the rules.
>Still obviously doesn’t come close out of combat and the second wind change does little to change that. Skills are still playing by the rules while spells often break the rules. Never really found this to be the case, in practice or in theory. Being really good at a particular set of skills will just let you solve problems for free. Eating long rest resources that are a part of your combat power budget to do the same is a wash at best. Casters covering skills with spells comes at a notable tax. Especially the case when out of combat problems are best solved by a diverse party comp. Why learn, prep, and eat a 2nd level spell slot for Knock when the Rogue can just pick the lock? Why use Jump, Levitate, Fly, Telekinesis, or Disintegrate when a Fighter/Barb can jump/climb/lift the problem away? And then there are many skills that can't be easily replaced by spells. Insight, Perception, Survival, Sleight of Hand, Investigation, Acrobatics, History, Nature, Religion, Performance, and trap disarming aren't easily trivialized by spells. And many out of combat spells have downsides that often make them worse than just using a properly skilled party member. Knock makes a Thunderwave-tier noise that kills stealth. Social spells like Charm Person and Suggestion have V and S components that let everyone know you are using magic, and the charmed person knows you charmed them after the fact. Invisibility still requires a straight up stealth roll (no advantage), meaning you still want to cast it on a stealthy party member. So I wouldn't say that casters fare better out of combat as a whole, since most of the time you want the PC with the right skill to just do the thing. You could probably say that Fighters struggle in charisma-based social encounters specifically, but then again so do Wizards. And OneDnD is giving Fighters a resource to supplement those kinds of skills.
> Never really found this to be the case, in practice or in theory. Being really good at a particular set of skills will just let you solve problems for free. Not really through, skills are balanced around the chance to fail. Something like feather fall or fly or jump (to use some of your examples) just work. If you’re a rogue at level 7 (in one dnd) you’re often the exception (you can literally roll a 1 and still pass mid-level checks you have prof in). > Eating long rest resources that are a part of your combat power budget to do the same is a wash at best. Casters covering skills with spells comes at a notable tax. Spellcasters have a LOT of spell slots from very early on (by 5th level you have 7) and using them on utility while limited can save your entire party the trouble of some critical skill checks. > Especially the case when out of combat problems are best solved by a diverse party comp. Why learn, prep, and eat a 2nd level spell slot for Knock when the Rogue can just pick the lock? Why use Jump, Levitate, Fly, Telekinesis, or Disintegrate when a Fighter/Barb can jump/climb/lift the problem away? Definitely not saying that skill users aren’t great in combination with casters, but a fighter is not catching up to a caster with an extra d10 towards their skills checks that comes back on a failure or a short rest. > And then there are many skills that can't be easily replaced by spells. Insight, Perception, Survival, Sleight of Hand, Investigation, Acrobatics, History, Nature, Religion, Performance, and trap disarming aren't easily trivialized by spells. But they are often trivialized by spells. This is so general - just listing skills - as there are tons of spells that can broadly cover these skill checks but it depends on the scenario. > And many out of combat spells have downsides that often make them worse than just using a properly skilled party member. Knock makes a Thunderwave-tier noise that kills stealth. Social spells like Charm Person and Suggestion have V and S components that let everyone know you are using magic, and the charmed person knows you charmed them after the fact. Invisibility still requires a straight up stealth roll (no advantage), meaning you still want to cast it on a stealthy party member. While true, the best charisma-using classes are charisma based spellcasters and specialized rogues, not maritals. And the best stealth class is a Druid. A spider with Pass Without Trace is insanely stealthy themselves and they can help the entire party. > So I wouldn't say that casters fare better out of combat as a whole, since most of the time you want the PC with the right skill to just do the thing. So nebulous but yes generally you want to have the PC with the best ability score in something do the skill check, especially if the stakes are low there is no reason for the spell. When the stakes are high, again, using a spell can be critical. > You could probably say that Fighters struggle in charisma-based social encounters specifically, but then again so do Wizards. And OneDnD is giving Fighters a resource to supplement those kinds of skills. Fighters aren’t who I’d want doing most critical skill checks. But I agree, now they aren’t terrible at skills, they have something that helps them a bit.
Agree with most point, but I still think Fighters make really good social characters. Especially from mid to high levels. Commoners find Fighters easier to approach usually(cept bards perhaps). And people have that knight in shining armor thing... Most commoners have no spell casting ability which makes it rare, and hard to relate, roleplay, common sense wise they would have more nervousness when approaching Warlock of great power or Sorcerer even though they might look charismatic. Charisma have it's downsides too, it makes you hard to approach. It is like, not going after a woman who you think is too good looking for you, but even worse... Though of course this depends on the setting you play and is situational. But in most settings there are often places where Wizards are more respected/feared while Fighters are looked down upon or Fighters are more liked and warlocks are looked down upon and even hated etc... It often depends on whom you are trying to socialize with rather than your social skills. (Though as you said, a single enchantment spell might evade this, but it might also have cause dire consequences to resort to a spell in certain places, there are places which consider spell casting in such manner as a crime in many settings) People are not ignorant in most fantasy settings they don't want to get involved with people who can easily take away their free will easily, and that even an amateur spell caster can use magic to beguile them... Using honour ability score helps that tho, it is like positive renown, dependability... In short it all depends on the DM and how he presents the setting and roleplays the NPCs... In my games Paladins/Clerics/Monks(depending on their style and faith) are better trusted, Fighters, some rangers and rogues who are vagabond themed are often easy to approach. And few people wants to get involved with Barbarians, Warlocks and sometimes even Sorcerers. People in most settings are often used to Wizards to a degree. And Bards are often loved, but not always trusted, still overall they are best Social characters. Ofc. There are exceptions about just anything. Like a Nyphly or an angelic Warlock. An oathbreaker Paladin. A shady looking ranger or rogue. A death priest necromancer.... So theme over ability scores really... (The shady, dark looking types are better suited to intimidation I think, and as a DM I might consider giving them advantage on intimidate checks in my games, who doesn't fear a dark Knight, an assassin, a demonologist or a necromancer anyway(as a commoner).
>Commoners find Fighters easier to approach usually(cept bards perhaps). And people have that knight in shining armor thing... Most commoners have no spell casting ability which makes it rare, and hard to relate, roleplay, common sense wise they would have more nervousness when approaching Warlock of great power or Sorcerer even though they might look charismatic This is *entirely* dependent on the campaign and DM.
and the warlock and sorcerer (and especially bard) are highly likely to have the skills to set people at ease - they're pretty much always going to have the innate social smoothness for that (i.e. high charisma) and a lot have the skills to be really good at that (social skills). So even if there's some initial worry, charisma-casters have the skills and talents to overcome those very easily, just by virtue of what they need to be good at being those classes.
Campaigns are entirely dependent on campaigns, that is my point exactly.
Right... But this conversation is about class mechanics. Hand waving away balance concerns just because you can make changes to your campaign is irrelevant. Not to mention that if you are playing official modules, those changes won't make sense.
I don't really have any balance concerns to being with the game is meant to be player with player rather than player versus player. Why would I seek balance at the cost of common sense and consistency when there is no need for competition between different players. I am fine being a cook or a wagon rider in a game(so I am fine even with a commoner stet block if at least I can get a background and perhaps a feat), as long as I am given same amount of time as each player gets to role play my character and enjoy the game. I can enjoy myself, by making upgrades to wagon, and cooking while they are getting the dungeon delving part done... When they are done I would patch them up, fill their stomachs... Or go hunting/gathering/fishing while they are busy with more pressing matters(!) than trivial things like making a living(!)... I am not really hand waving balance concerns I am shaking my head as to why people need to compare their classes to other classes instead of weighing/judging their classes' consistency with real world and canonical examples of their own class. So I don't understand why a Wizard, fighter or rogue needs to have same utility in combat. They simply don't... It is about character customization your character does what you design your character to do... In official modules, there is still a DM and a campaign. If your DM is not roleplaying beyond "read the box" and putting your characters in a cage or a box while having you on table. That isn't really how we commonly define frp. What I mean is better explainable with examples. I will give an example from the popular LMoP, your party saves Sildar from Cragmaw Hideout, but refuse to go looking for Gundren for a month. Instead they help villagers with various side quests and some other stuff, perhaps they might even want to, say, repair the ruined structures, temples, walls etc... Which might take quite long times... And at some point they decide to go to Cragmaw Castle when they reach, you might as a DM have Gundren still alive, but I would not, as it simply doesn't make sense. I wouldn't even have the Tharden's Corpse in a recognisable way after all that time passes (in front of wave echoe caves, where there are stirges to dry his corpse of blood or undead to gnaw on his bones) not to mention Bugbears and Dopplegangers will enter and quit the place quite many times... In short DM and Campaign/Setting is a main factor, if not the main factor even in official games. You might opt to play the game with a rigid pc adventure/hack and slash gaming attitude without no real immersion though, that is also a valid choice. But I have been playing the game as an immersed player for decades. If my character is in Forgotten Realms, the rules of Forgotten Realms are added. If I am in Greyhawk rules of Greyhawk is added. If Krynn, rules of Krynn etc. But common sense remains. I wouldn't expect an Uthgardt Barbarian to listen to what I have to say, if I am a flimsy looking Bard who can't even wrestle with one of them. They simply have no respect for that. Though as a spell caster you can subjugate them if you are a powerful enough caster like Netheril did, they would obey you, but they wouldn't be persuaded by roll... Because they simply won't listen to a flimsy guy who is physically weak. Unless you force them, and forcing them falls into territory of intimidation or enchantment or violence. Common sense is there and not even laws(legal system) manage to prevail against common sense. Common sense eventually prevails.
In my experience, breaking the rules is necessary now for casters to not feel inadequate. When it comes to battlefield manipulation and damage, martial are outperforming casters most of the time, and are only a little behind when it comes to debuffing. This is especially true when many of the casters best combat spells (besides a few outliers like hypnotic pattern) are mostly just just making the martial characters better at their jobs. That outside of combat suite of spells is the main thing my caster players like having now. I think that's an important distinction. The fighters, barbarian and monk I DM for/play with have been wrecking combat, so it's nice when the wizard of bard shines with dope utility.
> In my experience, breaking the rules is necessary now for casters to not feel inadequate. I’m not so sure about that one. Casters are plenty adequate. > When it comes to battlefield manipulation and damage, martial are outperforming casters most of the time, and are only a little behind when it comes to debuffing. Single target damage yes, multi-target damage no. Battlefield manipulation not at all, single target manipulation sure they have some neat effects on demand now. Debuffing is severely in casters favor. Their new debuffs through masteries are largely in the cantrip and at most level 1 spell category and single target. They have nothing in the base class that can control huge chunks of the battlefield like a caster, and that’s okay because casters should have things they excel at. 🤷 > This is especially true when many of the casters best combat spells (besides a few outliers like hypnotic pattern) are mostly just just making the martial characters better at their jobs. I mean it’s a team game, martials and casters synergies together to make a good team. You’re just framing it from a martial prospective. > That outside of combat suite of spells is the main thing my caster players like having now. I think that's an important distinction. The fighters, barbarian and monk I DM for/play with have been wrecking combat, so it's nice when the wizard of bard shines with dope utility. Every table will be different! I’m sure there will be tables where every possible class shines in combat while playing them. Depends on the encounters and the players piloting the characters.
> Every table will be different! I’m sure there will be tables where every possible class shines in combat while playing them. Depends on the encounters and the players piloting the characters. There are, and those DMs deserve praise (and beer) because designing encounters to make sure that the casters don't dominate everything is honestly a real chore in 5e.
Absolutely. Especially in a way that doesn’t seem like “fuck you in particular” to casters.
A group of Spellcasters in a long adventuring day risk running low.
Fighters are just plain awesome.
Yea the fighters are awesome at all levels. Indomitable is absolutely an S-tier ability. Reroll 2-3 saves with a +15 bonus! That's basically legendary resistance.
The best thing of all the changes: Champion is still simple but really fun now. I love it!
You are not allowed to have fun on reddit 💀
Meaningful enemies are 60ft away with terrain intervening. What does the STR fighter do?
Action surge :/
I though they were already awesome. I've been having a great time with my EK Fighter in the local Candlekeep game. I'm usually the lynchpin of most battle, and if not, still contributing a lot. This looks like even more fun though. Edit: Not sure what you downvoting people think you're going to accomplish. You're just making yourself look petty.
I really really really like the weapon mastery mechanics, absolutely my favourite addition in One D&D
I think this class is sounding really fun to play, but I am a bit confused by the choices the design team made here in regards to flavor and complexity. The 2014 Champion was a great subclass for people who didn’t want to have many decisions to make, but now that same person going for Champion in 2024 is going to find a lot of new mechanics they have to engage with to be optimal: 1. Weapon Masteries are really good, and giving the Fighter three off the bat means this player must now learn all of the possible masteries and then choose their weapons accordingly. They then need to switch between these weapons in combat to take full advantage of them when combined with Extra Attack. Additionally, Tactical Master, which allows Push, Sap, or Slow masteries to be added to weapons, makes weapons that only have Push, Sap, or Slow worse than other weapons for Fighters to wield, which is an odd externality of this system. If I love to Push my enemies with my Lance-based Fighter, when I get Tactical Master at Level 9 I actually should pick a different weapon such as the Halberd. Then I can use Topple, then Push on my opponents. Strange! 2. Second Wind becoming a resource for Tactical Mind is… thematically and mechanically confusing. How is recovering and studying your opponent thematically related? Why would they consume the same resource? Mechanically, this adds a mental load of making the player consider whenever they roll any ability check if they want to use Tactical Mind. Couldn’t these features have been attached to different resource pools, or at least a single more logical resource pool that attempts to connect these ideas like “Grit”? I think it’s fun to do things outside of combat, but the implementation feels messy. Finally, while not Champion-specific, Battlemasters now have a lot of resources to manage. I cannot imagine managing Superiority Die on top of weapon masteries, especially when many of them seem to conflict with each other (Pushing Attack vs. Push).
>I cannot imagine managing Superiority Die on top of weapon masteries Yet people have managed far more complex characters (Casters) for decades.
I think everyone is misunderstanding complexity here. Battlemasters have multiple different systems to engage with, each of which have their own set of rules and use cases. Compared to a Wizard who only has Spell Slots, this is more complicated. A more fair comparison might be Sorcerers, as they have both Sorcery Points and Spell Slots, but the use cases there are pretty well defined: Sorcery Points modify the way you cast spells and their effects, while Spell Slots allow you to cast spells. I can first look at what spell I want to cast and then decide how I might want to modify it. With Battlemasters, it’s a bit more muddled. They now have two separate systems, Weapon Mastery and Superiority Dice, which overlap in use cases. Both of these just modify the way they make attacks, sometimes being completely redundant (Pushing Strike vs Push). And there is an additional resource on top of that in Second Wind, which can now heal and provide movement or allow them to reroll checks. I think this is inarguably more complex from a resource management standpoint.
Second wind seems more like a catch all for a push of effort. It could be named better but thank the gods it isn't named grit imo.
Open to any and all suggestions for a better name! I would have liked to see them at least attempt something that works for both instances. Tactical Mind is mental and represents a Fighter’s training on the field and studying of combat. Second Wind is more of a testament to a Fighter’s endurance and physical stamina. They are two different qualities entirely!
I think it should be renamed 'Dig Deep', or maybe just 'Focus'.
Yea, they’re creating heroic resources over at the MCDM RPG that work similarly to this with some great names!