Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Class Groups: Speculating on Warriors

 The presence of the Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk in the Warrior group is not really that controversial (some have argued the Monk is an odd fit, to be fair). Each of these is a combat-oriented class that gets the Extra Attack feature, and is most typically found in melee (Fighters can be built as ranged combatants, but I think most people first imagine Fighters as heavily-armored melee brawlers).

The weirdness of the Warrior group is the exclusion of other classes - the Ranger and Paladin - who share many of these traits. Rangers are most typically imagined as ranged combatants (though I, fool that I am, made a Strength-focused dual-wielding ranger). But Paladins, along with Barbarians and Monks, are obligate melee fighters - their mechanics only really work properly when they're fighting with a melee weapon.

People tend to divide the classes into two broad categories: "martial" classes and spellcasters. Essentially, where I think this breaks down, is that some classes are generally going to be fighting with a weapon while others will generally use spells. There are some exceptional cases: Clerics' main focus is clearly spellcasting, but about half the subclasses have features that buff their melee weapons (and often give them proficiency with martial weapons) in what I imagine is an effort to encourage them to use these attacks not necessarily as their main group role, but to function as their "default action" when they don't need to cast any big spell. (I think the buff to their weapon damage doesn't tend to keep up with a cantrip like Toll the Dead.) Druids can also be somewhat weapon-based, either using the natural weapons of a wild shape form or with things like shillelagh or even just using a scimitar while buffed with something like Circle of Spores' Symbiotic Entity. Warlocks, likewise, can sort of build themselves a bit as a "martial" class with things like Pact of the Blade (especially when combined with the Hexblade patron).

With the Experts, we saw that the things linking the classes are the following: they all get the Expertise feature, Epic Boons (which are basically level 20 feats,) are categorized by class group, and we've been told (though have yet to see) that magic items that may have previously said "requires attunement by a cleric, druid, or warlock" or the like will now likely say "requires attunement by a Priest."

With the Ranger update, we see that, exceptionally, Rangers are allowed to pick a Fighting Style despite not being a Warrior, which I think strongly implies that Fighting Style will be the unifying class mechanic between the Warrior classes.

This is actually quite a change, because of the three Warrior classes, only the Fighter currently gets Fighting Styles. At a baseline, only Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins get them. The only class I believe can get Fighting Styles outside of a feat (which all Fighting Styles will be considered) is the College of Swords Bard, which can pick up Dueling or Two Weapon Fighting.

Barbarians getting Fighting Style, I think, makes a lot of sense. You could argue that their lack of it in the past was meant to reflect the notion that they don't really have any formal training, the way a Fighter might. Many of the conventional fighting styles would work well for them - Great Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Fighting (and given the Light weapon buff, this might be a very popular choice for Barbarians, who already liked dual-wielding) and Dueling all make a lot of sense for them. Really, only Defense wouldn't make sense for them (they can wear medium armor, but what Barbarian gives up their mobility for a little more AC when you have Unarmored Defense?) Oh, and Archery.

Now, Monks are another matter. Archery, Defense, and Protection are basically useless to them. Great Weapon Fighting is also, I'd imagine, unlikely to be too popular - it basically only applies to a quarterstaff (turning a d8 from an average of 4.5 to 5.25 - or I suppose 5.5 to 6.3 if you're tier 4). We also don't yet know whether Martial Arts and its bonus action attack will still work that way, or if it will be folded into the attack similarly to the light weapon change. I've often felt that the Martial Arts bonus action attack more or less lets the Monk dual-wield their fists, with two-weapon fighting rolled in. If they can wield two light weapons and then also get a bonus action unarmed strike, that would be very powerful (essentially getting four attacks per turn after level 5).

The thing to bear in mind is that there might be more fighting styles we didn't get in the Expert Class UA because this was meant to just provide the ones a Ranger might take. One that buffs unarmed strikes might be too obvious for a Monk. If we see some of the Tasha's era Fighting Styles, things like Blind Fighting could be a really fun choice for a Monk.

Beyond Fighting Style, the way the group is described, they seem to be designed to play a tank-like role for the group, dishing out damage in melee but also mitigating damage they take.

Of the three, Barbarians are the only ones who really explicitly mitigate damage, but a Fighter can be built to have a high Armor Class and thus take significantly less damage. Outside of builds like my Eldritch Knight (who, I'll boast, effectively had an AC of 27 thanks to Shield) the Fighter doesn't really have any benefit in this strategy over the Paladin (and you could argue that, thanks to paladins' Aura of Protection, they play this role slightly better).

The Monk, though, falls behind on survivability. Monks can put out a lot of damage (though they suffer by comparison when their allies load up on powerful magic items - though perhaps not as much as some might think, as there's nothing preventing you from getting a really powerful quarterstaff) but while they can eventually get a decent AC, they suffer from not quite catching up with heavily-armored (or even medium-armored) classes in terms of AC while at the same time being a d8 hit die class, giving them generally less HP than Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, and even Rangers (I don't know why Rangers have a d10 rather than a d8).

I've proposed mechanics the Monk should have to reduce their incoming damage - I like the idea of subtracting their proficiency bonus (though this runs into the problem of being too powerful with a one-level dip, so perhaps it should simply go up with Monk level or maybe be based on Dexterity modifier,) which would make them stronger in some situations compared to the Barbarian, while less powerful in others. (The Monk becomes the mob tank while the Barbarian is the big-monster tank).

I really like the general approach to the Monk, but I'd like to see the class revisited in a way the Ranger was to really get it to a point where it can overcome the perception of being underpowered.

My speculation here is a little less focused on the class group than the classes itself. I will say that I think it would be very cool to see some Warrior-specific magic items. Granted, that can often just take the form of magic weapons (and armor,) but I'll be curious to see if they come up with some more creative ideas.

Regarding Barbarians, I think that some of the punishing elements of Rage could be removed. My Ravnica game has a Selesyna Loxodon Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. Now that we've finally hit 15th level, his Rage does not fade if he doesn't attack or get attacked. I've never really found Rage dropping in this way to be an interesting challenge - it just feels like a way to screw the player out of a major resource.

In general, I think that either Rage should be easier to maintain, or Barbarians should have more things they can do outside of Rage. For example, the Ancestral Guardian features basically all only work if you're Raging (except the ritual spells,) and so I ran a lengthy dungeon in which the Barbarian got to the final boss without any Rages left, and basically could do nothing beyond his normal attack action. Yes, resource management is important, but Barbarians should still feel like Barbarians even if they've run out of this fairly limited resource.

So I'd just let it last the full minute, but on top of that, I'd also let some features that currently require you to be Raging to work all the time.

For Fighters, I'm very curious to see how radical they go. I've speculated, and I've seen others speculate, that Fighters could wind up all getting Maneuvers like a Battle Master. This would be a pretty radical change. Currently, the Fighter is kind of a blank canvas as a base class, but with extra ASIs (or extra feats, as we'd say in the One D&D format) to build the class to your liking.

The Fighter, as a class, isn't broken, but it does rely on its subclasses to become interesting. Maneuvers would certainly raise the skill cap for the class if introduced, but I think it could also give the class a clearer identity than simply "the customizable class" while still being fairly customizable. I could even imagine new fighter subclasses being built with maneuvers in mind. The Eldritch Knight, for example, might use maneuvers to produce magical effects (or even just produce Arcane spells) rather than using a system of spell slots. The Arcane Archer, likewise, has always felt like a flavorful but not as powerful version of the Battle Master, with an emphasis on ranged combat. Rune Knights could easily reimagine their runes as maneuvers. Psi Warriors already use their psionic energy dice in a similar manner to superiority dice (admittedly, this was designed to look and work similar to Soulknife Rogues).

We don't know what subclasses are going to be printed in the One D&D PHB - for all the hollering that the online community has had over these documents, my takeaway has been that the approach has been a very conservative one - mostly built on tweaking the existing system as it is, usually providing quality-of-life improvements along with a few experimental concepts.

As such, I'm going in with the assumption that we'll be seeing every subclass from the 2014 PHB revised but kept, along with a few more (because the total they announced is more than the subclasses in the existing PHB).

The first question, then, is what happens to the Battle Master if, effectively, every Fighter is now a Battle Master. The other question that raises is what might have to give in order to make up for the greater power that Fighters in general would have.

Addressing the first question:

Likely, we'd have to either see the Battle Master replaced with another subclass or we'd need to see a significant redesign that seeks to revisit the concept of the Battle Master and evoke its flavor mechanically. I'd be in favor of the second option. Currently, the Battle Master's subclass features are all built around getting your maneuvers and the superiority dice that fuel them, and then improving those, with only two exceptions. At level 3, you gain one artisan's tool proficiency (which, to be honest, feels sort of out of nowhere and not really in line with the flavor of the subclass). At 7, you get Know Your Enemy, which lets you learn details about a creature if you spend a minute observing them. This one is actually very cool and flavorful, though of limited use (especially in a campaign without a lot of social gameplay and intrigue, like a dungeon crawl or a wilderness exploration campaign).

My sense is that if maneuvers became a Fighter-wide feature, it would make sense for subclasses to grant maneuver options. And in that case, I could see providing a more limited list as a baseline and then making the Battle Master really focus on being a battlefield commander - things like Commander's Strike, Distracting Strike, Goading Attack, Rally, and Bait and Switch are all maneuvers that make you feel like someone who is truly mastering the battlefield and in particular setting up your allies to work together as a unit - something I feel is really there as part of the Battle Master flavor (whereas a Champion is there to be the center of attention on the battlefield, the Battle Master is all about group tactics). I could see expanding the Battle Master's options as a team player could give them a nice niche if their current central mechanic is given to all Fighters.

Now, of course, giving Maneuvers to all Fighters - a class that isn't exactly underpowered as it stands - could risk making them a little too powerful. Power creep is somewhat inevitable in a game where nerfs are going to be booed while buffs are going to be celebrated (look at the pretty much universal positive response to the Light weapon change and the more or less total condemnation of the critical hit changes that were immediately rescinded,) and so I think taking power away from Fighters, even if balanced against making maneuvers universal, will elicit a lot of condemnation.

The simplest nerf I could imagine is taking away one or both of the Fighter's extra feats. Currently, Fighters get 7 ASIs (again, under the new system these would be simply referred to as feats) as they level up. Rogues get 6, while all other classes get 5. I've tended to see the Fighter's many ASIs as a way to make up for the fact that their base class only has a couple of features, and thus you're not paying as much to add in customization (something like Great Weapon Master, if it was a class feature, would be a pretty good and important one). With the greater complexity of Maneuvers, perhaps the Fighter wouldn't need those extra opportunities for Feats (especially given that taking non-ASI feats in One D&D looks like it will be less punishing due to your getting half an ASI anyway - I honestly think we might see lots of character builds that never take an ASI).

This, also, would probably not cause as much of an outcry as taking away something like Action Surge, or the Fighter's 3rd and 4th attack - things that people really love about the class (well, I'm assuming others love the latter - I don't know how many people actually play into tier 3, but I can tell you it feels pretty cool to get three attacks per round, or six with an action surge.)

Essentially, I see them going one of two directions with the Fighter - we're either going to see a radical redesign of the class, or we're going to see it barely changed at all. I don't really see them going with a middle ground between the two.

Now that we're in November, we're probably a week or two out from the next UA. I'd guess we'll be seeing another class group preview, but I have no idea which one they'll do next.

Furthermore, I don't know what other elements we'll see them explore. The Rules Glossary part of each of these has, quietly, been the most important part of the documents, given that it details things that affect everyone, rather than just the modular choices you make with a particular character.

I'll also say that I think the weird new spell preparation rules - where you're forced to prepare a certain number of spells at each level, rather than just a total number of spells in general - is something I'm hoping will be walked back. That's unlikely to be relevant to the Warrior group - the group for which only one subclass of its three classes has conventional spellcasting. But as a sort of broad summation for these class group posts, that's something I'm eager to see more about.

Fingers crossed we'll see that next UA soon and we can have a ton more information to analyze, critique, and speculate on.

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