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Are there any good 3rd party fighter/martial classes?
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Apr 5, 2015 02:12
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I don't know whose idea is this, but I kept it saved in my notes:quote:When you choose this archetype at third level, gain a number of grunts equal to your proficiency bonus. This number increases with your Proficiency bonus. See "Grunts", below.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:45
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Needs a patch to ".Attacks on Grunts count as attacks on you. Damage to grunts counts as damage to you. " so a wizard doesn't get to deal quadruple damage with a fireball. Clarify that aoes don't count multiple times, and add the ability to exhaust a grunt to protect the fighter and all his grunts from any AoE effect. "Jump on the Grenade" or something.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:59
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Not sure if there are any, I haven't found any yet, except this one with like 11 classes for a "Modern 5e", not sure how good they are, it sounds like they don't get specific archetypes, but have a list of archetypes you can choose from despite class and that all of them get archetype features at the same level, and in some cases you might have to choose between class feature and archetype feature. This last is the only really questionable part. Don't know the quality, but there is a Faceman that Proficiency to AC when wearing light armor or less, Protagonist abilities that they start with 2 and get one more at 5th and each multiple of 5. These include things like picking an Int, Wis or Cha skill and doubling Proficiency, they can choose this option up to 3 times, gain more languages and more as you level, gain resistance to psychic, get a way to impose disadvantage as an action, get advantage on wis or cha saves, etc. Gets an ability score increase/feat at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th levels, though the chart also shows one on 6th level. Gets a few other features, but the big ones are the protagonist abilities. They do get a 2nd attack, at 17th level, and at 20th they gain proficiency in all tools. There is a Martial Artist. It gets to choose between Dex and Str for attacks, Dex gets to use its reaction to attack someone that misses them, Str gets well basically Brutal 1 from 4e, also if they roll the max on the damage die they get +1 damage instead. They do 1d4 for unarmed so uh okay. They get Martial exploits at 1st, 4th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 13th, 16th and 19th level, can forego archetype selection at 3rd to gain more martial exploits at those levels. Some exploits are Back Control to give yourself cover when grappling something, with a chance for attacks that miss you to hit your grappled target, and you can take it a 2nd time to improve it,; Bone Breaker lets you add Str and Dex to damage when using a melee attack against a target you are grappling; Bulldozer gives you advantage when trying to shove a target and the shoved target is pushed 10 feet instead of 5; C-C-Combo Breaker lets you use a reaction to attack someone that has hit you 2 or more times in a turn and if your reaction attack hits it ends that opponent's turn; there is one that lets you follow someone that moves away from you albeit as a reaction; one gives advantage with grapple checks; another lets you hit another target when you crit one; Marker makes it so when you hit something with a melee attack it has disadvantage against any attacks that don't include you until the beginning of your next turn; Knockout Power can be selected up to 3 times, each time it increases the damage die size of your unarmed attack. Gets the same number of Extra Attacks as the Fighter, though the 3rd attack is at 10th instead of 11th level. Other classes include things like Gunslinger, Heavy, Grounder and such. Mostly focus on guns and stuff. There is a Marshal class though. Gets some auras, start out at 10ft, increasing at various levels to eventually be 20 feet at 13th level. Can have multiple auras up at a time. Each aura looks like it has a constant effect, and a named boosted effect that lasts 5 minutes and then cannot be used again until after a long rest, they also look like they can be selected multiple times to improve them. An example is By Example, allies in range have advantage on Con, Wis and Cha saves, Exemplary Example is the five minute boost and all allies in range also gain a +1 bonus to AC and again once used it cannot be used again until after a long rest, then there is the Tier 2 if you select By Example a 2nd time, if you do then allies in range also gain advantage on Int and Str saving throws so pretty much all but Dex saves, and it also increases the Exemplary Example bonus to +2 AC for the five minutes. There is an aura to reduce fatigue levels, an aura that causes enemies to treat area in it as difficult terrain, an aura to allow allies in range to re-roll natural 1s on their damage rolls, an aura to reduce damage taken by 1, and an aura to grant a +1 bonus to attack rolls. Can sacrifice your own action to give an ally an extra attack, either as a reaction on your turn, or as an extra action on their turn. Can also swap your initiative order with another ally. They get Team Presence at 1st level and every fourth level after, they do various things like giving an ally an attack on an enemy that crit another ally, or granting all allies +5 speed for a turn if you move more than 20ft on your turn, use an action to move all allies, granting allies bonus damage to the last enemy you hit, etc. At 2nd level can spend an action to grant wis mod+1/2 level as a bonus to damage on an ally's next hit, at 17th it becomes a bonus action to use. Allies get a bonus to hit the last thing that hit you, at 9th you get a 2nd attack, and at 20th level you gain 1d4 natural 20s per long rest that you can replace an ally's d20 roll with as a reaction.
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Apr 5, 2015 03:24
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Tunicate posted:Needs a patch to Yeah, for sure, that's how it was supposed to be anyway. What it really needed was to be it's own whole thing. My original idea was to turn the Fighter back to the idea of "a team of soldiers", so your mundane character isn't an individual but a whole lot of dudes acting together (thus, you can do stuff that's impossible for one guy to do - or in D&D terms "magic spells"). The mental and rules-language gymanstics required to fit "your character is a whole bunch of dudes" into the framework Next provides just kept tripping me up so I wrote it as a new fighter archetype instead. It doesn't really work as intended, but I'm not putting any more effort into something I'm never going to get to use.
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Apr 5, 2015 04:07
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Oh drat, I like that idea, and I've got a player who's jonesing for EXACTLY something like that. I'm totally going to lift it for inspiration for my own 5E houserules, if you don't mind.
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Apr 5, 2015 16:25
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Fighter Archetype: Do you wanna join my gang? You get a possé of [4 * Level] Level 1 Fighters, who fighter for you while relax in a lounger off of the map. Each group of 4 fighters swings as one, and does 4[W] with each hit.
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Apr 5, 2015 17:25
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh drat, I like that idea, and I've got a player who's jonesing for EXACTLY something like that. I'm totally going to lift it for inspiration for my own 5E houserules, if you don't mind. If anyone wants to take this thing or anything else I've sketched out in this thread and make it actually work in a game, please feel free to do so. It would be awesome if you posted your version of whatever it is when you're done changing it. I think what inspired the whole thing was the idea that with enough dudes you could emulate most wizard spells, if that helps. My goal was to produce a purely mundane character that amounts to a collection of skilled people, like Jason+Argonauts or The Expendables or I guess Ocean's 11. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 04:46
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I think that "a Fighter is a handful of skilled dudes" is a valid option to fixing things; I just think the fighter as-is has no niche. I mean, I don't think I need to go into how/why the fighter archetypes suck, but the root of the problem is basically, what is a fighter supposed to be good at that some other class is supposed to be bad at? Fighters are supposed to be good at combat, but so are Barbarians, Paladins, and Rangers. Champion Fighters are supposed to be good at physical skills, but Rogues and Bards can be much better. Eldritch Knights can use magic, just not as well/as much as anyone with half- or full-casting progression (and AFAICT there's no synergy with Fightering and Magicking, aside from the too-high level thing where you can cast a spell and make an attack as a Bonus Action.) Like, I think Mike Mearls' idea of "a fighter is better at fighting than anyone" was "can use any weapons and/or armor and gets Fighting Style at level 1 instead of 2." Which gets completely turned around backwards by multiclassing out of Fighter after level 1, and equipment selection is basically something you pick at level 1 and likely never changes (since both weapons and armor are dependent upon ability scores, which also don't meaningfully change.) The closest thing to a unique niche that a Fighter has in 5e is the Battle Master, which is more like a Warlord (and Maneuvers make you jump through far too many hoops IMHO). That, and getting a couple extra ASI's; if spent on picking up some fightery-ish feats, you might be able to start to carve out a niche (if you want to specialize, around the time other classes' options are expanding) but this basically amounts to an ASI/feat tax on a class that needs too many good ability scores to begin with. Honestly, I'm starting to come around to the idea that maybe Fighters should get some free feats just stapled onto their Archetypes/Fighting Styles, as like, a good place to START fixing fighters within the existing framework. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 05:34
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Yeah it is kind of hard to set the Fighter apart as something worthwhile, still kind of like the idea of trying to expand the Champion archetype like I had previously posted.Ryuujin posted:Okay again thinking about ways to improve the Champion archetype of the Fighter, and while I like the idea pd0t, I believe it was, had about Fighters/Rogues/Barbarians/Rangers grabbing two archetypes from a specific list of classes when they grab their archetype, I have another idea. Maybe making Parry and Shield Bash, and some other options, dependent on what Fighting Styles the character has. Or maybe giving them a feat for each Fighting Style they have, like P.d0t was just mentioning. About to start a recruit, tempted to use the above houserule for a Champion Fighter if anyone selects it.
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Apr 6, 2015 05:44
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P.d0t posted:The closest thing to a unique niche that a Fighter has in 5e is the Battle Master, which is more like a Warlord (and Maneuvers make you jump through far too many hoops IMHO). That, and getting a couple extra ASI's; if spent on picking up some fightery-ish feats, you might be able to start to carve out a niche (if you want to specialize, around the time other classes' options are expanding) but this basically amounts to an ASI/feat tax on a class that needs too many good ability scores to begin with. I suspect that the extra ASIs is the niche Fighters are designed around. Everyone has access to the same feats, but the game is basically designed under the assumption that you won't be hitting the hard level cap (because the surveys said most campaigns ended/dissolved by level 10 on average) so the Fighter is the only class that actually has enough ASIs to grab multiple feats and still get a boost to your primary stat before the campaign is done.
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Apr 6, 2015 05:48
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AlphaDog posted:I think what inspired the whole thing was the idea that with enough dudes you could emulate most wizard spells, if that helps. My goal was to produce a purely mundane character that amounts to a collection of skilled people, like Jason+Argonauts or The Expendables or I guess Ocean's 11. "The Fighter becomes a landed lord at high levels and has a posse of low-level men and high-level knights to break even with the Wizard" was a design concept that I felt was never sufficiently fleshed out. Not that I blame TSR: by the time there were hard rules on who the Fighter could recruit, it was already the much more complicated AD&D 2e and tacking on multiple NPCs for the Fighter to manage in play would make the system even more cumbersome, and design hadn't yet iterated to the point where you could abstract it out as abilities that cost "footman points" P.d0t posted:I mean, I don't think I need to go into how/why the fighter archetypes suck, but the root of the problem is basically, what is a fighter supposed to be good at that some other class is supposed to be bad at? I agree - Fighters don't even have a theme. You could have something like Paladins are Fighters that accomplish their Fightery things with divine powers, Rangers are Fighters that accomplish their Fightery things with nature powers, and Barbarians are Fighters that accomplish their Fightery things with Conan powers, and then Fighters are differentiated from Barbarians because of martial discipline and training rather than brute force. Or something like Rangers specialize in traps and ranged shooting, Barbarians specialize in dealing melee damage, Fighters specialize in taking melee damage, and Paladins specialize in providing buffs/support/healing while staying in melee. But ability lay-out in 5e is both sparse and disjointed enough across too many classes that I don't think there's enough differentiation to go around.
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Apr 6, 2015 06:10
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isndl posted:I suspect that the extra ASIs is the niche Fighters are designed around. Everyone has access to the same feats, but the game is basically designed under the assumption that you won't be hitting the hard level cap (because the surveys said most campaigns ended/dissolved by level 10 on average) so the Fighter is the only class that actually has enough ASIs to grab multiple feats and still get a boost to your primary stat before the campaign is done. That's my point, though; over the life of the typical campaign, they get ONE more ASI as compared to other classes (and on a class that natively needs to bump more ability scores to keep up). That just isn't enough. Like, I'd be looking to do something like, "At level X, you gain one of the following feats based on your archetype/fighting style. You gain additional feats at level X+4 and X+8" or something. Just a quick flipthrough of the feats in the PHB, I came up with a list something like this: Champion: Athlete, Charger, Grappler, Tavern Brawler Battle Master: Actor, Inspiring Leader, Skilled, Lucky Eldritch Knight: Mage Slayer, Magic Initiate, Spell Sniper, War Caster Archery: Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter Defense/Protection: Shield Master, Sentinel Two-Weapon Fighting: Dual Wielder Great Weapon Fighting: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Savage Attacker [Any]: Defensive Duelist, Tough
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Apr 6, 2015 06:11
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gradenko_2000 posted:"The Fighter becomes a landed lord at high levels and has a posse of low-level men and high-level knights to break even with the Wizard" was a design concept that I felt was never sufficiently fleshed out. Not that I blame TSR: by the time there were hard rules on who the Fighter could recruit, it was already the much more complicated AD&D 2e and tacking on multiple NPCs for the Fighter to manage in play would make the system even more cumbersome, and design hadn't yet iterated to the point where you could abstract it out as abilities that cost "footman points" I remember having a discussion about this topic in the late 90s where the idea of "spending" (ie, killing or exhausting) x HD worth of followers for y spell-like ability came up and was fleshed out a bit, but the idea petered out because 3e was going to sidestep this particular problem by giving fighters "heroic feats" that were going to be a lot like spells. 
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Apr 6, 2015 06:26
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Okay just posted my recruit, and threw in a bunch of fighter houserules, including the Grunts/Leader archetype, P.d0t's idea of giving Fighters bonus feats based off Archetype/Fighting Style, and a vague outline of my improving Champion archetype, though if someone wants to select that I am going to have to finalize it to specific levels before they get to 3rd level.
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Apr 6, 2015 06:27
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Ryuujin posted:Yeah it is kind of hard to set the Fighter apart as something worthwhile, still kind of like the idea of trying to expand the Champion archetype like I had previously posted. Ryuu already knows my thoughts on this, but I'll just post them here for everyone else' benefit. To make a simple-but-effective Fighter Archetype, you have to actually make them good at what they're supposed to be good at. As a starting point, I'd do it like this:
P.d0t fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 06:35
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Basically you need to tone down other classes' HPs/AC to make it so them getting hit , especially at low levels, means imminent death. Then you keep scaling up Fighter damage with weapon proficiencies that other classes like rangers/paladins don't get to take. Finally you use actual movement throughout a round like 2/2.5e had so that you can actually have the melee guys take hits via getting in enemy's ways. It's really simple without having to do all this crazy stuff.
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Apr 6, 2015 18:16
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mastershakeman posted:Basically you need to tone down other classes' HPs/AC to make it so them getting hit , especially at low levels, means imminent death. I see what you're getting at, but 5e needs a much wider range of baseline HP for this part to work.
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Apr 6, 2015 18:25
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Perhaps the way to go would be to give level 1 characters the hitpoints of a level 3 character, but your hitpoints don't advance again until level 4. Would make levels 1 and 2 much less lethal, which they probably should be as they ought to be the "training wheels" levels of the game.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:04
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Rename level 3 level 1 and do all the others accordingly. Levels 0 and -1 can be the masochist options.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:15
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goatface posted:Rename level 3 level 1 and do all the others accordingly.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:20
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goatface posted:Rename level 3 level 1 and do all the others accordingly. Levels 0 and -1 can be the masochist options. This is what I was hoping they would do when they talked about apprentice levels, but they didn't. And doing this now makes multiclassing awkward.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:39
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AlphaDog posted:If anyone wants to take this thing or anything else I've sketched out in this thread and make it actually work in a game, please feel free to do so. It would be awesome if you posted your version of whatever it is when you're done changing it. It's going to take some work to make it function, I'm honestly not sure I'll be turning it into anything I'd feel happy posting for public consumption for a long while yet. Mostly I'm stuck trying to come up with new things for the "Strategist" to do with his "minions," maybe I'm just not creative enough to come up with a decent list of powers.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:42
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Splicer posted:Literally how the game worked up until a few revisions before release. I remember it sounded cooler when they did that podcast with penny arcade and pvp. Like, they made it sound like the different classes would all have a really cool, unique mechanic they could mess with. The fighter, in particular, with the dice they could throw into different techniques, like shielding a companion, adding damage, making it more likely to hit. Etc. I was really surprised when I grabbed the new PHB and it read like a greatest hits of stuff I'd already seen. At this point, I'm seriously wondering why we need - Guy who has to memorize his spells - Guy who doesn't have to memorize his spells - Guy who has to memorize *some* spells but not other spells Honestly, that feels like one class that they could have done the path treatment to. Instead it's 9 paths. And the warlock in particular... it's like... Hey, I'd love to be a failed paladin who chose the pact of the blade rather than obesance to a god, but I don't want to wear *robes*. Like... am I supposed to take a rank of fighter if I want to be a warlock with a pact of the blade? Or a dex score that would serve me better as a rogue or ranger? The funny thing is, I was a one-issue guy over this edition. I flipped immediately to the alignment section, hoping they'd reversed that retarded 'law and order is good, anyone who likes art or science or freedom or whatever else is a flip-flopper! Make a decision! It's the war on fantasy terror out here'. And they had! and they'd even made more of an effort to explain the purpose of alignment. So I just bought it, my cheeks rosey and beaming with happiness at the bright future. Then I started reading through the classes. By the time I was at the spell list that's completely flat alphabetical, so that you have to flip back and forth between your classes allowed-spells list and each spell to find out what it does, I looked like this  PurpleXVI posted:It's going to take some work to make it function, I'm honestly not sure I'll be turning it into anything I'd feel happy posting for public consumption for a long while yet. Mostly I'm stuck trying to come up with new things for the "Strategist" to do with his "minions," maybe I'm just not creative enough to come up with a decent list of powers. Try looking at sports playbooks. Maybe you could do something where arranging guys in a pattern allowed one or more of them to exercise an unusual effect, or give someone advantage or something. So you'd have this desire to configure your guys into a 'play', but it might not always be possible in narrow confines or just due to needing to help out someone else in the party or whatever.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:48
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:Try looking at sports playbooks. Maybe you could do something where arranging guys in a pattern allowed one or more of them to exercise an unusual effect, or give someone advantage or something. So you'd have this desire to configure your guys into a 'play', but it might not always be possible in narrow confines or just due to needing to help out someone else in the party or whatever. That's not actually a bad idea. I think part of the problem, though, is that I already opened up a bunch of maneuvers to martial classes in general. Knockdowns, distracting attacks, disarming enemies, etc. meaning that I've kind of crowded the Strategist out somewhat because I wanted EVERYONE to be able to have fun maneuvers. Additionally, I'm also trying to avoid having the minions actually, uh, EXIST on the battlefield, if that makes sense. If I actually make them independent units that can move around, have stats of their own, engage independently, etc. then I've solved a lot of my problem regarding what to allow them to do. However, I'll also have massively bloated combat resolution for even a single round and made the entire archetype vulnerable to being rendered irrelevant if someone busts out a single AoE spell. So I'm trying to largely just have them be... effects, i.e. "commit X minions to tackling an enemy, penalizing him by Y per minion" or "commit X minions to helping out with this action, giving a bonus of Y per minion," etc. Obviously a BIT more interesting than that, hopefully, but I hope you get what I mean. Turning the minions into actual 0th-level or 1st-level guys running around the field would REALLY overcomplicate the whole dealio.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:04
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So the newest Unearthed Arcana is out. Talks about Modifying base classes. There's a spellcasterless ranger and a new sorcerous origin that tries to replicate the Favored Soul. Though all you really need to hear is "Gives sorcerers healing spells".
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Apr 6, 2015 22:34
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 Only in fantasy art will you find poo poo as stupid as "guy holding flail in the dumbest way possible" and "archer chick drawing bow while canting bow in a ridiculously awkward way" in art.
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Apr 6, 2015 22:38
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That  guy in the middle is the only one who will survive level 1.he's the wizard
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Apr 6, 2015 22:43
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I dunno, the guy with the flail looks like he's just chilling, reading his scroll. I could believe that pose.
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Apr 6, 2015 22:44
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Dick Burglar posted:
If I'm not mistaken the chick is going to scar her face, miss, and maybe develop some secondary injury to boot.
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Apr 6, 2015 22:45
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This is 5e, the cleric in heavy armor is just dipping one level before going full wizard. He's already got his spellbook ready.
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Apr 6, 2015 22:47
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Cleric is likely to drop his flail holding it like that (gently caress I JUST SMASHED MY FOOT), and bowwoman is not going to be doing her arm or wrist any favors by holding the bow like that. Not to mention you can't draw the bow back nearly as far as you could if you were holding it normally.
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Apr 6, 2015 22:52
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Gort posted:Perhaps the way to go would be to give level 1 characters the hitpoints of a level 3 character, but your hitpoints don't advance again until level 4. Would make levels 1 and 2 much less lethal, which they probably should be as they ought to be the "training wheels" levels of the game. Sure, but only for martials. Spellcasters should die if something looks at them funny and they aren't properly hiding behind their martial companions.
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Apr 6, 2015 22:54
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That article is full of words. Some of them are literally nothing but "full caster progression is really important".
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Apr 6, 2015 22:55
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goatface posted:I dunno, the guy with the flail looks like he's just chilling, reading his scroll. I could believe that pose. In defense of the DBurg, the cleric is clearly *not* reading the scroll--he's looking off to the right as if thinking 'man, is this how you hold a flail? It feels wrong. These instructions are confusing...'
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Apr 6, 2015 22:58
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According to that article the Monk has more unique features than any other class. Are they counting all of the elemental abilities as separate features or something? drat D&D and its Kung Fu supremacy!
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Apr 6, 2015 23:19
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Dick Burglar posted:Cleric is likely to drop his flail holding it like that (gently caress I JUST SMASHED MY FOOT), and bowwoman is not going to be doing her arm or wrist any favors by holding the bow like that. Not to mention you can't draw the bow back nearly as far as you could if you were holding it normally. The bowwoman isn't gonna hurt anyone, let alone herself, without a freaking bowstring.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:22
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Kurieg posted:So the newest Unearthed Arcana is out. Talks about Modifying base classes. There's a spellcasterless ranger and a new sorcerous origin that tries to replicate the Favored Soul. Though all you really need to hear is "Gives sorcerers healing spells". Sadly they don't go far enough with these, the spellless Ranger is a nice start but its spellcasting is a lot less important compared to other classes. Would have been nice to see a spelless Druid. And the whole thing doesn't really seem all that helpful in trying to make alternate class features or anything like that.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:22
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Jimmeeee posted:According to that article the Monk has more unique features than any other class. Are they counting all of the elemental abilities as separate features or something? drat D&D and its Kung Fu supremacy! The elemental abilities, which are themselves a tiny subset of a wizard's spells. Edit: sorry, missed the unique part. It's probably true -- they do get a lot of things that nobody else gets.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:24
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A full spell list is a single class feature. Being able to enchant your fist five different ways is five class features. The Flail guy looks like he's holding a short baseball bat resting on his hip. Then they've hung a spiked ball on a chain off the thin end of the handle. Maybe he got it flat-pack and put it together wrong.
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Apr 6, 2015 23:28
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