4th Edition and other editions: Did the Fighter get nice things?

[Libertad]

I posted this here instead of the 4th Edition boards because it may have bearing on the direction of D&D Next and future ideas for Fighter fixes.

The chronicle of the 3rd Edition Fighter and its overall suckitude is fairly well-documented on these boards and other sites.  Spellcasters had mad power in earlier editions, but the difference between Fighter and Wizard/Magic-User was greatest in 3rd Edition.

So what could the Fighter do effectively in 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and 4th Edition that it could not do in 3rd Edition?

[zugschef]

2nd edition: AC mattered, fighter had good saves, fighter had multiple attacks, you could move AND go through your full attack routine, a higher hit die fuckin' mattered.

[Unbeliever]

^ yeah, and it was very hard for a spellcaster to replace a Fighter anytime he wanted to.  There were still a fair number of ways to shut them down, but they were probably overall fewer.  There wasn't any Celerity spell, for instance. 

Comparing AD&D to 3E strikes me as probably comparing apples to oranges, though.

[veekie]

You could actually look to it as a sequential(well, not really but that's how it turned out) progression.

In earlier editions, capabilities were unique to the classes. Martial stuff were practically exclusive to the Fighter, Skill stuff exclusive to Thieves, etc. While maybe not strong, they certainly weren't weak because they could do things nobody could, and much of the best gear were class-exclusive. Their role was protected, but everyone was sort of playing a different game really.

In 3E, martial and skill stuff were absorbed into the core system, but magic was not. This undermines the value of being a martial character, as any character, including skilled and non-martial characters, could be a martial character so long as you could get your numbers big enough. Pretty much everyone could get those. This meant there wasn't really any particular point to adding a martial character, other than making the buff/BFC mages more efficient with their spells.

In 4E, everything was absorbed and homogenized into the core system. Everyone, mage, skilled, martial, was a martial adept as far as combat was concerned. Now there was no particular reason to have a FIGHTER specifically, but there was also no reason NOT to have a fighter.

[oslecamo]

To add my 2cents, before 3e magic may be pretty powerful, but had pretty severe drawbacks. Wanna craft your own stuff? Be ready to see your ability scores reduced. Haste costed you years of life. No concentration checks, a single point of damage was enough to disrupt your spellcasting, and you were gonna get disrupted whitout a meat shield because most spells weren't instant.

[FlaminCows]

So what could the Fighter do effectively in 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and 4th Edition that it could not do in 3rd Edition?

In first and 2nd edition D&D, the Fighter could deal more damage than other classes, and he could take more damage than other classes. There were a couple of other minor things (immunities at high level, Exceptional Strength), but at its core it was about dealing and surviving damage.

The problem is, while it certainly worked for that style of game, it won't fly for D&D's modern audience. If you build the Fighter now like you built the Fighter then, people would be complaining that the Fighter is too boring, that he is just "I attack again," and in many ways they would be right. People are now used to games with more tactical depth and complexity.

Now, what did the 4e fighter have that the 3e fighter did not? The 4e fighter had what everybody else had: a number of special abilities he could use. What made the 3e fighter so terrible is that the designers assumed feats were as good as class features when they were not. The fighter simply had less than every other class.

So, I suppose the lesson to be learned here is that every class needs its own interesting abilities and that one should be wary of making a class too simple, and also that a game needs a lot of testing by different people to check for assumptions that the designers might have made about the game.

But don't overlook the Warblade. It might not be called the Fighter, but the audience used it as such and it is what I'd call a well-designed fighter class. The D&D Next fighter needs to look beyond the classes called "Fighter" in the past, there are a lot of good ideas to draw from.

[Libertad]

What's the D&D Next Fighter look like so far?

[veekie]

Confusing in implementation. It rather resembles an Alpha testing product rather than Beta....which given that they say it might be out in a few years...seems about right.

[FlaminCows]

I'll second what Veekie said; the playtest fighter is very rough right now, bare-bones. He has hit dice, an attack bonus, and a handful of manoeuvres: three at first level, four at 3rd, five at 5th (the playtest doesn't go any further than 5th level right now). The powers are sort of like at-wills. For the first few levels he can use only one per turn, at fifth he can make combinations of two of them. How it works is that he has a small number of dice, he can spend one to activate one of his powers. The size of the die is used to gauge improvement, as he levels up he gains bigger dice or more dice (he can start doing combos when he has has than one). Any spent expertise dice are recovered at the start of your turn, so in effect the number of them matters only for how many manoeuvres you can combine in a single turn.

[Libertad]

Maneuvers?  Sounds like they're being inspired by Tome of Battle!

This makes me want D&D Next to succeed now, in terms of its goals to get back alienated gamers and sowing up the Broken Base.

[FlaminCows]

I wish I could say it looked like a Tome of battle class, but it really doesn't. Manoeuvre is just the word they use to refer to the fighter's powers. The big highlights of the Tome of Battle (pacing-based manoeuvre recovery, the stances, the variety of effects produced) don't show up in the 5e playtest fighter. So far, and I hate to say this, but he plays more like the 3e Fighter. Instead of bonus feats, he gets some tame at-wills that are based on past bonus feats. Examples: Cleave. Knock Down. Precise Shot. Parry.

So don't get your hopes up in that sense. He's more powerful than the 3e fighter in the sense that he hits things and they die, but that has a lot to do with how weak the monsters in the playtest are. A lot of the people on WotC's forum are going gaga over it, but you can see it for yourself: the 5e fighter is the 3e fighter with the serial numbers filed off.

[Lord Slasher]

I wish I could say it looked like a Tome of battle class, but it really doesn't. Manoeuvre is just the word they use to refer to the fighter's powers. The big highlights of the Tome of Battle (pacing-based manoeuvre recovery, the stances, the variety of effects produced) don't show up in the 5e playtest fighter. So far, and I hate to say this, but he plays more like the 3e Fighter. Instead of bonus feats, he gets some tame at-wills that are based on past bonus feats. Examples: Cleave. Knock Down. Precise Shot. Parry.

So don't get your hopes up in that sense. He's more powerful than the 3e fighter in the sense that he hits things and they die, but that has a lot to do with how weak the monsters in the playtest are. A lot of the people on WotC's forum are going gaga over it, but you can see it for yourself: the 5e fighter is the 3e fighter with the serial numbers filed off.

Don't forget that the 5e fighter has NO customization what so ever. How 5e fighter works is that you choose your fighting style (Sword and Board, Two hand, etc) and this fighting style determines your maneuvers (I don't know about feats though as I got rid of that POS playtest).

And no they're not being Inspired by Tome of Battle cause because 1. It doesn't feel like D&D (Remember folks Wizards is looking for feel, not making a good game.) 2. Don't be silly that's giving non-casters nice things

[awaken_D_M_golem]

There's been a bit of chatter about the ToB guy
around here, and how that was a prelude to 4e.


Yeah, I'll 3rd/4th the 4e Fighter getting the same
shtuff that all the other classes got.  The question
whether that kind of "fighter" fit everyone's stereotype(d)
definition of F-ighter ... is a different issue.

Heck, the 4e Fighter could take the Mark Of Making feat
and be a better magic item crafter than the 3e Arty.
That is a very niice thing ... except so could everyone else.

1e Fighter got a nasty boost from the 1e splats.
But man, you couldn't really play that game.


Stereotype Fighter should be a frontliner that
is simple enough for a completely new player.
What is it to do with us C.O. types?  Who cares.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

4e Fighter ported directly into 3e would get:
bonus feat @ 11
Trained +5 in 3 skill groupings
Take that yummy Trained +5 feat in UMD please and thank you.
He should get Paladin-esque levels of spells
but deliverable at the point of his sword.
Have 1st level healing spells but only for himself,
through 10th level, get 2s at 11+.
Action Points and a bonus feat that applies to Action Points at level 11.
etc

[FatR]

To add my 2cents, before 3e magic may be pretty powerful, but had pretty severe drawbacks. Wanna craft your own stuff? Be ready to see your ability scores reduced.

          That's why you crafted while jacking someone else's body with Magic Jar. Moreover, this primarily penaltized fighters, who needed to be much better at sucking a wizard off, so that he deigns to craft them stuff that was absolutely necessary for contributing.

Haste costed you years of life.

           Again, fighters' problem.

No concentration checks, a single point of damage was enough to disrupt your spellcasting, and you were gonna get disrupted whitout a meat shield because most spells weren't instant.

          Only at low levels. Past about 7th level only the most elite monsters and people decked with specific magic items (see above about that) had a chance of ever touching a wizard. And you only hauled fighters around because the assumption of a charmed/summoned retinue was considered a bad taste before the advent of charop boards. And unless you mostly fought outerplanar stuff you only needed this retinue to clear dungeons faster, by not blowing resources on minor enemies.

          That's before we even touch supplements like Skills & Powers/Spells & Magic which literally allowed you to duplicate everything a fighter had, but still retain some clerical spheres (or combine everytning you cared about on both wizard and cleric spell lists). That's before we even touch spells from supplements, which included at least 3 superior versions of Contingency and ways to deal with problems like high saves and spell resistance. All that 2E fighter has on 3E fighter is, at most, 2-3 extra levels of relevance, before going obsolete. It wasn't even contested at that time, that a party babysits its wizard for the first 3-4 levels, and then the wizards babysits the entire rest of the party past 7-9. People seem to mostly remember the meatgrinder of low levels, where your comments on a wizard's vulnerability are true, because that's what was played most often.

[FatR]

Nevermind, double post

[phaedrusxy]

It wasn't even contested at that time, that a party babysits its wizard for the first 3-4 levels, and then the wizards babysits the entire rest of the party past 7-9. People seem to mostly remember the meatgrinder of low levels, where your comments on a wizard's vulnerability are true, because that's what was played most often.

All very true, even if you didn't "min/max" all that much. We never bothered crafting anything, because it seemed that if you ran the "canned" 2nd edition adventures, you'd have more loot than you knew what to do with, anyway. They all seemed very Monty Haulish. I had a character who literally kept all the "junk" magic items that the other PCs were going to throw away (because IIRC there weren't really even prices on items, much less magic item shops). I still remember her never-ending saltshaker fondly... 

Also, it seemed that you weren't as dependent on magic items back then, except for magic weapons (to even be able to hurt higher level monsters ). And like you said, that (then as now) was just if you weren't the wizard. 

Also, blasting actually worked because no one had the boatloads of hit points they have now, even dragons.

[Unbeliever]

It's been what ... a decade, nearly 2?  So, I can't trust my recollections.  But, I played a lot of wizardly badasses in AD&D.  And, I don't remember them having quite the tools for "no, you didn't hit me, now please sit in a corner mister warrior monster thingy" that 3E has.  Maybe I'm mistaken.

What I do remember is being able to make melee powerhouses that were incredibly tough as well, though.  Now, whether that was just b/c I'm an optimization maven (sufficient amounts of optimization level the playing field between classes) or not, I don't know. 

I think in general, there was a little bit more niche protection in earlier editions.  But, comparing any strong, you choose this class and that defines you, system to 3E is a bit like apples and oranges. 

[StreamOfTheSky]

a higher hit die fuckin' mattered.

Yeah.  I barely played 2E, it was just when I started in D&D.  But I do definitely recall from Baldur's Gate.  The lower HD classes literally could NOT benefit from a super high con.  Like, if you weren't a martial class, you never get more than +2 hp per level from Con.  Ever.  Suck it.

In 3E, HD matters very little because it's too easy for a SAD caster to get a good con and make the difference seem miniscule.  If you're unfortunate enough to have a DM that actually does random hp rolls, oh man... I still recall one game where the sorc had more hp than the fighter.  Wasn't even trying to be a mountain of hp, nor the fighter a wimp.  Sorc just made con her 2nd best stat, and fighter rolled awful.  So sad...