Bull Rush in a China Shop
In 4th Edition D&D fighters got spells. Or rather, daily abilities that recharged after a night’s rest, just like spellcaster class’ spells. This came after years of complaints that fighters could only hit things. With D&D 5th Edition, the spell-exploits are going away, and the chorus from 4e fighter fans is that “fighters cannot have nice things”, as if it was the class’ fault. Or suggesting there are players who honestly and truly want the fighter to be weaker and inferior to other classes.
In showing the sketch of this strip to my (pretty) wife, I gave the one-paragraph explanation of the “fighters can’t have nice things” philosophy. She got her start in 3rd Edition, played some 4th Edition, and currently plays in my Pathfinder game. I summarized that some people complain that fighters lack the special powers of spellcasting classes. She just rolled her eyes and said “that’s stupid” and continued that special once-per-day attacks made no sense. Certainly more blunt than most people I’ve seen discussing this on message boards…
The people who complain fighters are boring have plenty of other classes to choose from. Me, I like the simplicity of knowing now is the perfect time to use the ability that looks great in this situation, because if it ends up I Power Attacked against something with high AC, I can still Power Attack as much as I want every turn.
Well, as 3rd edition fighters showed, the threat of fighters being a waste of space is a very real problem.
First problem: People don’t necessarily complain that the fighter can’t get special manoeuvres, but that the fighter can’t do anything in compensation. things that used to be special to fighters: magical weapon adaptability (1st), iterative attacks (1st-3rd), extrodinary strength and hp (1st/2nd), high base damage and armour from equipment (1st-2nd) are all now shared. everyone has blanket proficiencies, and magical item shops are basically mandatory for fighters to be anything but a liability, that finding a magical bill-hook no longer is something that the fighter can uniquely take advantage of. Iteratives are now shared with everyone, and anything past the 1st iterative is of minor importance (as well as charging getting in the way of it). Extrodinary strength for fighters is gone so now anyone can hit hard, as well as hp bonuses past 2. and all the core bases such as better base hit die, armour, and weapons, all are far less important, as d4+2 hp is far less lethal than d4 with no reliable hp bonus, the better Great Sword damage doesn’t stand out as interesting when powerattack and strength mods get added, and reliable dex bonuses are given to everyone BUT the heavily armored fighter (and cleric) closing the AC gap.
Problem 2: while people don’t want the fighter to have special limited abilities, at the same time there isn’t the same amount of people upset with the reverse, the special powers wizard getting to do the mundain, but increasingly that is the case. cantrips have become all day, and more and more powerful, enabling wizards unique forms of action that is mundain to them and only them, and the rest are still within their capabilities, and it had just become increasingly common and powerful for wizards to be able to do things as casually as a fighter can swing a sword. furthermore, the lines blured on the wizard end with everything is a standard action, or often swift (quicken magic being essentially iterative spells), rather than a commitment. so even what is limited is as much of a commitment to the wizard as just swinging his arm.
problem 3: fighters are bound by reality. if something seems beyond the capabilities of a normal person (either real or imagined), it is seen as a problem. where as wizards have no upper bound for what people are willing to accept them doing. this isn’t a problem if the fighter never reaches his cap, however when the cap is around lvl 5 or 6, this is a problem in a 20 lvl game.
problem 4: there in fact are people who want the wizard to be more powerful than the fighter. to be fair, these people would usually be ok with making the wizard weaker early on than they really are, but since survival to the late game has gone from unlikely to almost guaranteed, this is no longer the case. people still have the view that the wizard “paid his dues” in the early level, but really it isn’t even clear a lvl 1 wizard is weak, much less the magikarp he is viewed as. for this to work, when the wizard hits lvl 13, he should be thanking everyone for all their hard work keeping him alive, and owe a ton of favours he has to return, but instead it was just a matter of course that the wizards hit lvl 13, but the mentality of the reward for the hard start has maintained despite that the start wasn’t really that hard.
Problem 5: some people think magic casting should be more powerful always. “Some of us do think that Wizards should be more powerful than Fighters. They are after all, Wizards.
There isn’t a right or wrong play style. But this thread is premised on the view that the classes should be balanced and treats perceived imbalances as problems. Some of us don’t think so and it should be noted.”
But that is very close to telling someone who wants to be a fighter that they are having badwrongfun. and creating a game where it is cooperative, but with tough limits on who gets to have fun any given campaign, while the others must either play the fighter out of necessity, or that playing a fighter isn’t a valid role in the party. both are bad for anyone who actually wants to play the fighter in a game.
So while manoeuvres (so called “spells”) aren’t required for the fighter to have nice things, things could be very bad for a fighter, especially since many of these problems are just going to be worse, and manoeuvres were a nice try at fixing them for Tome of Battle AND 4th edition. is it possible that they fixed these problems in 5th edition a different way? maybe. would I put money on it? no.
and that is why fighters not getting nice things is a real problem that people have a legitimate reason to worry about.