Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032713It's true in every edition except 3rd. That's a lot of editions, and a lot of settings.

Sorry, personal experience.  Not fact.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;10327132e wizards don't need to find scrolls?

Personal experience, Magic Users didn't USE scrolls for anything other than to add them to their spell books.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032713How does a Monk's Flurry of Blows power make the fighter's Extra Attack a trap? Is there some rule I'm missing where when the party's Monk spends a ki to make two bonus attacks, the Fighter is subject to Level Drain?

Because to get 4 attacks (without dual wielding) a Monk just needs to spend a resource, whereas a fighter to has to wait until level 20.  And the Monk will be able to maintain that four attacks, AND will get d10+Dex by level 17.  Thing is, the Monk as a class is kinda lackluster.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032713Hunter's Mark isn't "always on," and if you're using TWF, it's "frequently off."

Lemme check the core book, I was reading it off a wiki, but apparently I wasn't wrong.  According to the PHB, after the first round's Bonus Action to activate HM, as long as you HIT your target and keep Concentrating, you add a +D6 to the damage roll.  So effectively, as you keep hitting a target, with a Handaxe or Shortsword, your damage is the equivalent to a Greatsword strike.  And if you're fighting multiple targets as Hunter Ranger with Horde Breaker, that's up to four attacks at level 5.

The Fighter's extra attacks are cute, but not really as earth shaking as people are being fooled into thinking.

Personally, is it too much to ask for higher level fighters like 10+, to be able to do feats of incredibly physical activity?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1032716Personal experience, Magic Users didn't USE scrolls for anything other than to add them to their spell books.

So how else did they get new spells? IME it was typically from finding scroll.

QuoteBecause to get 4 attacks (without dual wielding) a Monk just needs to spend a resource

So? Monks who spam flurry of blows are what we call in common parlance "dead before anyone in Orlane has gotten to know them." By contrast, a Fighter who takes an offensive style gets that bonus everywhere and always. How's that shake out in practice? We'll look at a couple options, all at level 6, all humans.

Fighter 1: Duelist, Shield Bash Feat, +1 sword. 20 AC, 18 STR
Fighter 2: Great Weapon, +1 sword. 18 AC, 20 STR
Monk: Minmaxed so he has 17 AC, 18 DEX, and a +1 staff.

Target: A Vrock, who stupidly has decided not to fly. We are assuming that the Monk's Way of the Open Hand technique succeeds (reality: it has I think about 50% chance of failure), so he gets advantage on his fourth attack.

The monk, spamming Flurry of Blows, has a damage distribution of 25.72 +/- 8.79.
The duelist knocks the Vrock down and opens up with an Action Surge for 48.92 +/- 9.72
The Big Sword Man is just his Big Sword self and opens up with an Action Surge 46.33 +/- 14.72

The monk is not catching up in damage before the Vrock goes down (medium fight probably will last 4 or 5 rounds). What he's going to do is die because he has the lowest AC and HP of all three, and he's not doing something smart like Step of the Wind or Fangs of the Fire Snake or Stunning Strike. The reality is that standing there and swinging away is an idiotic thing for a 5e Monk to do.

QuoteLemme check the core book, I was reading it off a wiki, but apparently I wasn't wrong.  According to the PHB, after the first round's Bonus Action to activate HM, as long as you HIT your target and keep Concentrating, you add a +D6 to the damage roll.

Fantasy World: TWF Ranger with HM and Horde Breaker is ssssuuuuuuppper OP bro!
Real world: You are frequently having to choose between making your off-hand attack and moving/recasting your HM. Also pretty much all your spells are Concentration. When Horde Breaker + FOB + HM all activate for two consecutive rounds, it's pretty badass, but it's not reliable. On balance, melee rangers (WHY) are better off choosing Dueling or Defense.

Quote from: S'mon;1032707There was a level 20 Barbarian in my 5e game who was certainly 'incredibly strong', STR 24 CON 24, 325 hit points & half damage while raging making that more like 650; he could easily solo ridiculously powerful monsters just like epic mythological warriors (his battle with a huge ancient black dragon was laughably easy). I saw similar running 1e too.

(His 500gp boots of striding & springing were handy for those superhero giant leaps)

I had a reasonably high level Eldritch Knight in my campaign open up against an adult dragon by doing over 100 damage. 1 round in, and almost 2/3 of the dragon's health is gone.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1032716Personally, is it too much to ask for higher level fighters like 10+, to be able to do feats of incredibly physical activity?

As I said, high level Barbarians definitely can do feats of incredible physical activity. I do think Fighters seem a bit underpowered by comparison. The designers seem determined to keep specifically the Fighter class as the 'not magic guy'. My solution was to have some race-limited fighting styles that do more damage and increase the Fighter's power closer to the other marshall classes, while leaving it the 'mundane class' - so Cuchalainn is a Barbarian, Arthur a Paladin; Fighter is for the everyman hero with a lot of DPR - Xena Warrior Princess might be a Fighter. It works ok as a niche class in 5e; it doesn't cover the breadth of mythic and fantasy warriors.

The fighter class works really well if you use the feat system. By being Single-Ability-Dependent (plus Con, of course), and getting extra Ability Score Increase/Feat opportunities, they can rapidly get their stat boosting done with and then take the crème of the crop of feat abilities.  A Shield-bashing, critical-fishing Champion is a consistent, damage dealing powerhouse. A Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master with a Halberd and some way to get advantage (such as Battlemaster trip maneuver, or having a familiar or ally aid them) can dish out obscene damage. Eldritch Knights don't play like the Elves of TSR-era (by the time you get each new level of evocation spell, it is usually not worth the round's action), but they pretty much can't be hit for the first 2-3 encounters per day.

I think the real limitation of fighters is the same as the limitation of warlocks -- some of their best stuff requires longer workdays than a lot of people play. The base-fighter expendable perks (2nd wind and action surge) are short-rest recharging, as are battlemaster maneuvers. Only the EK has long rest recharging benefits, and their schtick is defensive (and thus it looks less impressive). Yet apparently most people don't get the expected 2 Short rests per long rest (as I've mentioned before, this was entirely foreseeable, as game group encounters/day distribution appears to be bimodal). The Champion actually comes out ahead (of other fighters, barbarians, paladins, and the spellcasters) if you play long, drawn-out sessions similar to TSR-era dungeon crawls where places to short rest are rare and places to long rest almost nonexistent (and/or leaving the dungeon to rest might have serious consequences to layout and enemy setup).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032779I think the real limitation of fighters is the same as the limitation of warlocks -- some of their best stuff requires longer workdays than a lot of people play. The base-fighter expendable perks (2nd wind and action surge) are short-rest recharging, as are battlemaster maneuvers. Only the EK has long rest recharging benefits, and their schtick is defensive (and thus it looks less impressive). Yet apparently most people don't get the expected 2 Short rests per long rest (as I've mentioned before, this was entirely foreseeable, as game group encounters/day distribution appears to be bimodal). The Champion actually comes out ahead (of other fighters, barbarians, paladins, and the spellcasters) if you play long, drawn-out sessions similar to TSR-era dungeon crawls where places to short rest are rare and places to long rest almost nonexistent (and/or leaving the dungeon to rest might have serious consequences to layout and enemy setup).

I am fairly sensitive to making rests possible but not a sure thing.  No doubt that contributes to the fighter types being more impressive.  In particular, the caster players know that if they blow all their spells early, I'm not cutting them any slack just because they did.  The ability to rest is based on the environment, the situation, and how clever the players are about finding a way to do it.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032779The fighter class works really well if you use the feat system. By being Single-Ability-Dependent (plus Con, of course), and getting extra Ability Score Increase/Feat opportunities, they can rapidly get their stat boosting done with and then take the crème of the crop of feat abilities.  A Shield-bashing, critical-fishing Champion is a consistent, damage dealing powerhouse. A Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master with a Halberd and some way to get advantage (such as Battlemaster trip maneuver, or having a familiar or ally aid them) can dish out obscene damage. Eldritch Knights don't play like the Elves of TSR-era (by the time you get each new level of evocation spell, it is usually not worth the round's action), but they pretty much can't be hit for the first 2-3 encounters per day.

I think the real limitation of fighters is the same as the limitation of warlocks -- some of their best stuff requires longer workdays than a lot of people play. The base-fighter expendable perks (2nd wind and action surge) are short-rest recharging, as are battlemaster maneuvers. Only the EK has long rest recharging benefits, and their schtick is defensive (and thus it looks less impressive). Yet apparently most people don't get the expected 2 Short rests per long rest (as I've mentioned before, this was entirely foreseeable, as game group encounters/day distribution appears to be bimodal). The Champion actually comes out ahead (of other fighters, barbarians, paladins, and the spellcasters) if you play long, drawn-out sessions similar to TSR-era dungeon crawls where places to short rest are rare and places to long rest almost nonexistent (and/or leaving the dungeon to rest might have serious consequences to layout and enemy setup).

I do find the Barbarian with Reckless Attack is a far superior GWM/Polearm Master than the Fighter - a highly tactical, Reckless Attacking PM & GWM barbarian with halberd is my favourite build.

Lack of Short rests - agreed. I solved this decisively by making Long Rest a between-session benefit taking about a week, leaving short rests unchanged. I use a 'delve' structure where basically the group know they have 2-3 short rests that session & LR at the end.

Quote from: S'mon;1032782I do find the Barbarian with Reckless Attack is a far superior GWM/Polearm Master than the Fighter - a highly tactical, Reckless Attacking PM & GWM barbarian with halberd is my favourite build.

When a Berserker pops both RA and Frenzy, it's just about the single most potent offensive force in the game, just madness. The Fighter in my campaign is a Cavalier, and he's damned near unstoppable when mounted. He's Large. He has reach with a 1d12 weapon. He has 20 AC. His horse is practically untouchable. He is nearly impossible to knock off his horse. If something he attacks responds with AoE, it's going to die next round. And he just took Shield Master instead of an ASI, so he's nearly always attacking with advantage whether mounted or dismounted. Oh yeah, he can hop off his horse, shield bash, hop on his horse, then stab something with his lance.

QuoteLack of Short rests - agreed. I solved this decisively by making Long Rest a between-session benefit taking about a week, leaving short rests unchanged. I use a 'delve' structure where basically the group know they have 2-3 short rests that session & LR at the end.

My party rarely even tries to take short rests. It's weird. I think it's because it's a rotating 6-man team* where only one or two characters ever have short rest abilities. The current cast is up to six of Ro2/Ro4/S2/Wiz4/War4/F4/C1-S2/Bard3/P2.

So nobody even has Channel Divinity.

*Just like to take a moment of appreciation for this being a forum where mods don't give you shit for speaking English minus PC taboos.

Quote from: S'mon;1032782I do find the Barbarian with Reckless Attack is a far superior GWM/Polearm Master than the Fighter - a highly tactical, Reckless Attacking PM & GWM barbarian with halberd is my favourite build.

I find that if you play roll-stats and do well, or find stat booster items, or are willing to wear half-plate as a barbarian such that you only need a 14 Dex (violating half the reason I personally would want to play a barbarian), then a barbarian can do that. But the lack of extra ASIs really hurts, especially in point buy or array.

More to the point, 2handed fighting is lower AC (especially a medium armor character), and raging (and the complementary damage resistance) is Long Rest recharging. I find the great weapon barbarians end the afternoon leaking like sieves compared to a fighter (who may be in plate, plus have the defensive fighting style).

None of this is to say that barbarians aren't awesome, they are (and they exemplify the overall point that martials are not superfluous in this edition). There is simply a place for fighters to shine as well. Plus, with one of those extra ASIs, the fighter can pick up Sharpshooter and throw javelins 120' with no penalty, semi-eliminating the real penalty both these great weapon builds have such trouble with.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032791My party rarely even tries to take short rests. It's weird. I think it's because it's a rotating 6-man team* where only one or two characters ever have short rest abilities. The current cast is up to six of Ro2/Ro4/S2/Wiz4/War4/F4/C1-S2/Bard3/P2. So nobody even has Channel Divinity.

My party has Inspiring leader and healer feats in the mix. The opposite is true for us (people look for chances to short rest, but no one has trouble with Long Rests being between gaming sessions).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032796I find that if you play roll-stats and do well, or find stat booster items, or are willing to wear half-plate as a barbarian such that you only need a 14 Dex (violating half the reason I personally would want to play a barbarian), then a barbarian can do that. But the lack of extra ASIs really hurts, especially in point buy or array.

More to the point, 2handed fighting is lower AC (especially a medium armor character), and raging (and the complementary damage resistance) is Long Rest recharging. I find the great weapon barbarians end the afternoon leaking like sieves compared to a fighter (who may be in plate, plus have the defensive fighting style).

I found the opposite - my standard tactic is using Polearm Master & attacking with halberd from 10' then step back to 15'. The enemy can then either close on me and suck up an opportunity attack thanks to PM (& will do half damage thanks to rage) or they can attack one of the other PCs. Indeed often moving 10' up to attack me they would incur opp atts from other PCs too. If I wanted to take no damage, I usually could.

In fact this works SO well I often had to stop doing it since I had tons of hit points, with Rage far more than anyone else, while my squishy comrades were taking all the damage. So I took to Reckless Attacking from 5' away & encouraging enemies to attack me instead of the AC 21 Fighter.

DEX - I definitely would not make a barbarian with DEX higher than 14. Indeed the last Barb I played for a long time had DEX 10, STR 16, CON 16. Started off with AC 13 until he got some armour. It was a Primeval Thule game which has good Medium armour & the Slayer path that doubles 2hw Rage damage...

Edit: Pet peeves - people who talk about their charbuilds on the Internet.

Yeah, this is getting pretty off-topic from setting peeves. I think the point of divergence was from here:

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032624I have yet to figure out a solution to this problem, but according to most editions I am familiar with revival spells cannot reverse death by old age. This does not solve the problem completely but it does mean that succession will not diverse too much since kings still die permanently of old age. Honestly, magic has huge consequences for world building and one really needs to build the world around the magic from the start or provide really complicated reasons why magic does not upset the status quo. If magic is common then the setting will turn into some kind of magic technology scifi setting, and if it is rare then the magic-users will probably take over since there are few who can challenge them. Of course this also depends on how powerful and controllable the magic is as well.

Regardless of specific character builds, I think it's fair to say that magic probably should upset the status quo in some way. I think that's inherent enough in most settings and tricky enough to address that I wouldn't call it a pet peeve. But it does bother me sometimes.

Quote from: Whitewings;1032637One thing that infuriates me is when people reject things that, by the rules, should be fairly obvious. A first level cleric can, at will, stabilize even the most badly injured individual, purify fairly large amounts of food and water, and create modest amounts of clean drinking water, or instead of that, create temporary non-fuel-burning light sources. He's the go-to guy for emergency medicine and for night-time or bad weather search and rescue. "But that doesn't fit the setting! Clerics wouldn't treat their gods' gifts of grace so casually!" Why not? Their gods are the ones who allow such use, why would their priests be reluctant to use them when applicable? This isn't the (common perception of the) medieval Church, where everything bad was your own fault for being sinful. In a setting in which some gods are genuinely evil, the idea that maybe, just maybe, some evils are actually not the victim's fault could actually have some currency.

In a setting in which some gods are genuinely good, they might just like for their clerics to run around dispensing Cure Light Wounds, Purify Food and Drink, Light, etc. Because those spells make life better for people. A good god wants good things for his/her worshippers.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1033013In a setting in which some gods are genuinely good, they might just like for their clerics to run around dispensing Cure Light Wounds, Purify Food and Drink, Light, etc. Because those spells make life better for people. A good god wants good things for his/her worshippers.

I'm with this.  And it applies to Paladins in my settings too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031569Name something that's very common to find in a D&D setting that you really don't care for. And, if explanation is needed, why.

"Magic shops." Doesn't seem like resources devoted to the arcane would be available on shop shelves. You gotta figure they'd be ransacked on opening night (if not before). This is especially ridiculous if the GM paints magic as some dangerous, deadly, practice. If that's so, you'd think it be strictly regulated.

Gonna chime in about Dragons, as well, but only in the context of campaigns where they aren't super rare. (which explains why I never took to Dragonlance, though I liked the stories well enough--guess I'd visit, but would never play there)

Oh--Elves...Elves that never have to sleep, that live forever, that are beautiful and mysterious (yet appear in pairs in every adventuring group). I think Elves, I think "Woodland Archer." I guess I lack imagination...

And, finally, the conceit that the typical world might be humanocentric (which seems typical, IME), but the player party isn't. I blame favorable widgets and mechanics for non-human races on this phenomenon.

I also dislike construct races/classes. No reason, just a thing. Sorta jibes with the above, I guess.

Quote from: cranebump;1033189"Magic shops." Doesn't seem like resources devoted to the arcane would be available on shop shelves. You gotta figure they'd be ransacked on opening night (if not before). This is especially ridiculous if the GM paints magic as some dangerous, deadly, practice. If that's so, you'd think it be strictly regulated.

To be fair, in a lot of earlier settings the "magic shop" wasn't a magic item supermarket like it is in newer settings. Instead it was rather like your modern day occult bookshop that's full of snake oil/folk remedies and psuedo-magical quackery that also happens to have a lot of the material components (bits of amber, cricket legs, bat guano, etc.) that a wizard needed to actually use their spells in the days before the game started hand-waving material components via the "spell component pouch" and probably some of the more common banes for magical creatures (i.e. wolvesbane, silver knives, garlic, a whole array of holy symbols said to have been blessed by various holy men from mythical lands, etc.).

On the other hand, the actual "magic item shop" might make sense where magic is more common (ex. Eberron) and particularly if arcane magic is more like a PhD in Mechanical Engineering or a Medical Doctor specialized in Brain Surgery than basically an alternate religious path (ex. Hermeticism or many real world magical belief systems that mostly invoke spiritual entities instead of some universal principles like chemistry or physics; what used to be called the study of natural magic). In that setting arcane magic is just an extremely useful skill whose mastery requires more determination to achieve that most people are capable of and magic items are just the end results of some of their labors (and really... can you code the software that runs your iPhone? It may as well be magic for nearly all the people who use it know about how it actually operates).