He’s gotten some of the historical facts wrong but overall it’s an ok presentation. Proficiencies (AD&D ‘skills’) were introduced in 1985 by the Oriental Adventures supplement, two years before the first Gazetteer. And ‘Basic D&D’ was just D&D, the basic rules pertaining to the first three (later five) levels. The Expert, Companion, Master and Immortals rules effectively made a game as complex or even more so than AD&D, and today is usually referred to as BECMI with most players preferring the Rules Cyclopedia as the definitive edition of that game.
The fighter’s hardest challenge in every edition has been asking if, after the druid turns into a bat, the wizard teleports in a puff of smoke and the warlock uses arcane power to levitate, they can use an athletics skill check to scale the 30ft wall to join them. And every DM would scoff, “Pfft, no, that’s so unrealistic.”
Yeah I remember these arguments. Most fighter players would counter back with "If we're going for realism, then waggling your fingers leaves you at the base of the cliff because levitation isn't `realistic' either." 🤓
This is not a problem in first edition D&D, since the wizard has an incredibly low number of hit points and spells and is very weak defense-wise, so there's no problem in having him get out of trouble with a spell from time to time.
Fighter is one of my favourite classes, especially those with a more mundane tone. There's something about being just a mundane warrior with nothing but there skill and a keen blade in there hands going up against arcane liches and towering dragons.
This. 100% this. When you have a world filled with fantastical creatures and people born with wild magical powers, the fact that a guy can just pick up a sword and get SO GOOD with it to the point where he can more than keep up with all the crazy shit around him is the coolest.
Same the fighter and the barbarian are my favorite classes because they are just warriors, people relying on the strength of their arms, their ferocity and a good weapon to cut down their foes.
In defense of Fourth edition: The Power system was flawed but the design was genius. Hit Die in 5E came from healing surges in 4E. Healing without magic wasn't a thing before 4E made it normal. Also 4E abstraction allowed for non-magical parties. The Warlord, a charisma/intelligence based support fighter healed with inspiring words and commanded allies to strike. 5E has the Commader's Strike and Rally Maneuvers in the Battle Master Fighter that are worse copies of what a warlord could do.
Agreed - the 4E section also only covered the Fighter (Weaponmaster) class, leaving out the lacklustre de-4E-ed Fighter (Knight) and Fighter (Slayer) from the Essentials series, and arguably the Warlord as the not-only-swinging-a-sword fighter that was hinted at but rarely achieved in 3E. It also missed that the genesis of 4E's taunt (marking) mechanic existed in the 3.5E Knight, which had an actual MMO Taunt ability (removing any control from the DM and making a monster attack, versus 4E's "give the DM a difficult choice" implementation).
Oh I'd say the Power System was a great idea for 4th Edition and in general... but it had the problem of "This doesn't look like D&D" to most people. And to be fair... it had a level shifted problem to people's perspectives. Like a first level fighter's exploits were on the level of what (comparatively) it'd take at least 6th level for a Fighter to achieve in 3rd Edition. Thus also giving a kneejerk reaction beyond just the formatting and what not of "These are magic powers!" for something like... Tides of Iron. "I hit someone with a shield, taunt them, and step into their space". Hardly big magic powers. But it was something a fighter in 3rd Edition couldn't do until... I believe it was 10th level in a single round to that level. There was a lot of elegant and frankly inspired design in that for fourth edition. Like less "All or Nothing", where the player always got SOMETHING out of their efforts (Be it Reliable powers that just came back if you missed to things like the Sleep spell where enemies were slowed even if they saved against the initial spell). Lots of beautiful things like the Fighter actually had a reason to specialized in a weapon other than "It's the best magic weapon I found lately" with different exploits working better with the right gear. Something that made Bob the Spearmaster play differently than Bob the Axe Master. Which was really unique for D&D. Or just characters being broadly competent at things in 4th Edition unlike 3rd where a first level wizard probably had a 70% chance to fail to climb a ladder. But... it never stood a chance. People saw that the 4th Edition book didn't look like the 3rd Edition book on the quick flip through then saw "Magic powers" for classes they didn't want to have magic powers like Fighters or Rogues, and it was pretty much done for most people. Sadly... a lot of good was tossed aside to get the fans back for 5th edition as a classic nostalgia bait edition. But yeah, a lot of 5th edition's body was build on 4th edition skeletal structure. Like Long and Short Rests, Hit Dice healing, abilities you can only use X times per Long/Short Rest for various classes outside of "I cast magic". Heck even the idea of making the game more about the abilities of your characters and less about the 20 pieces of magic flair you stapled onto your character is right out of it.
@@hitomisalazar4073 Do you think that it's spellcaster players or martial players who complained that fighters actually had powers? If it's martial players, then I don't quite understand because I'm a martial player and I love being able to do other things than spam basic attacks. Plus I love actually being able to keep up with spellcasters at high level. If it's spellcasters, then it seems a bit petty that spellcasters say "NO, you martial players don't get to have fun toys, only we get to have fun toys. We want to outshine martials at high level, damnit, and we're not going to play an edition where high-level martials can keep up with us."
@@lightworker2956 I personally found that, in general, it was spellcasters (or those who routinely played spellcasters primarily in 3rd edition) who complained about the Powers system more than anyone else. Because in general the Powers system did two things. It stopped them from being able to one shot an encounter (For example Sleep went from a spell every wizard had because it had a decent chance of just slaughtering an encounter outright, or at least crippling it heavily, to a spell that was useful but far from a "I used a single action and won forever" ability in 4th as you had something like overall about a 25% chance on average to knock out any given target, as opposed to like a 70% for the 3rd Edition version, but instead you had a 100% chance of some useful effect being applied regardless in 4th, just not a one shot the encounter effect), and also gave other people cool things to do that were flashy abilities. Thus why it was usually framed up as "giving fighters magic". I'm sure other people had other issues, and to be fair there was a general pushback against 4th because... it didn't "look" like D&D. Just the way the book was written, often with very direct, blunt and simplistic language to how abilities were formatted down to like 1 sentence of fluff and clearly stated and organized mechanics was very much not something D&D did before then. So there was a generalist sort of push. Which is honestly something you see a lot in sort of D&D discussion spaces and what was at 4th edition, the new idea of the internet D&D community being a major thing. About how the game was "dumb" because "everyone had magic now". Where they'd look at something like the Ranger's Twin Strike (I hit with both melee weapons for double damage, with a bonus to do it instead of like a -6 penalty at first level) and call it "a magic power" that broke the baseline concept of what a Ranger was allowed to be. Like this view that D&D is a competitive Esports video game where X and Y and Z have to be very specifically balanced so there is a Rock Paper Scissors balance to them and parity. Which makes people kind of freak out a little when they see something that looks like "X+1". Like when the Echo Fighter in 5th Edition came out I saw people freaking out about how Fighters shouldn't be able to do things like Unleash Incarnations and Action Surge to get 6 attacks in a single round at level 5. That it was TOO MUCH and broken. And 4th Edition got that result because people saw the baseline competence of classes. Where right from level 1 characters were actually good and capable at what they were supposed to do. A Paladin didn't have to grind out 4 levels before they could put a holy smackdown on people. The Fighter didn't need like 8 levels before they could do a minor trick like "I knock someone prone" without penalties. It was a violation expectation of "What a Fighter is allowed to be" in this theoretical "balance" idea like they were playing some game that was giving out a 10,000 cash prize every year at EVO. Instead of how I try to look at it. It's a cooperative narrative game. Giving someone a chance to do something cool means... you have a moment where something cool happens. YOu havet hat moment where Legolas kills one of those massive war elephants like in the Peter Jackson movies. Or when Kyle Reese shows up to save Sarah Connor by just unloading like 8 unanswered shotgun blasts into the terminator knocking it back and stunning it. Or when you see the main character of Fist of the North Star go all: "You are already dead" and have someone explode into blood from attacks they didn't even see.
I know there's a good chance it was just a joke, but I wanted to point out that the darts employed in D&D are weighted war darts similar to the Roman plumbata. These are essentially short javelins, not tiny modern pub darts. Quite deadly.
Tome of Battle is the best D&D book of all time and I'm pissed that they refuse to bring it back and instead obsess over the bullshit "fighter must be braindead simple" concept
Tome of Battle was the most fun I ever had with 3.5. I still haven't forgiven the grognards that were deeply offended that martial characters could do cool stuff. There was a LOT of backlash and controversy in the community, and yet the vast majority of it strangely came from players who played casters...They hid behind the fig leaf of "flavor" but fooled no one, they just didn't like martials encroaching on their territory. I suppose the only legitimate complaint was that in a low magic world, they were very strong. But the same is true of casters, people only thought the ToB classes were strong in comparison to the boring ass-fighter
I also think that's a part of why people hate fourth edition (although there's other reasons too): spellcaster players don't like martial characters being able to keep up with them. The old stereotype is that smart but physically weak teenagers play D&D for the fantasy that they can outperform the dumb school jock by studying magic. Maybe that stereotype is true more often than we thought?
A couple of months ago, my bro in law invited me to join into a new campaign he was going on, which would be a 5th edition. Thus, as proper IRL DnD was a new experience for me, I went with a Fighter. That bronze-scale dragonborn is now a level 5 Battlemaster and while I was originally plotting to do the suggested Sentinel polearm builds I was sitting around, I think I'm more than happy to look into my more supportive Battlemaster feats I have available, beyond just the ones for increasing my already ludicrous melee range and hitting a secondary target. In general though I was surprised at how well the first few levels worked with a fighter, just Greatweapons Master's ability to reroll 1/2 on damage and Second Wind meant we didn't have to hit the breaks too often that didn't seem unnatural, even with the rest of the party being stacked with mages (paladin, wizard, ranger with spells)
Battlemaster was less "subdued 4e fighter" and more "a blind-man's attempt at a 4e Warlord". For those unaware, the Warlord was a "leader"-type of class, effectively a force multiplier. Different leaders had their own specializations: Clerics and Warlords could both heal, but the cleric had more and better healing options. The warlord, however, could best be described as "A Fighter uses a sword. A Warlord uses a Fighter." with the ability to not just give non-magical healing (the warlord's healing was less "may pelor heal your wounds" and more "angry drill sergeant yelling at you to get up because he didn't give you permission lie down for a nap in the middle of a warzone" or "[anime protagonist friendship nakama family speech]"), but a much greater ability to maneuver his allies or grant them extra actions with bonuses, and unlike the 5e battlemaster this didn't use up any of their target ally's actions or reactions. This meant on the same turn a fighter dropped an enemy, his warlord ally could grant him an off-turn charge against another enemy, and should that enemy try to run away, the fighter could still use their reaction to smack that enemy with their sword, stopping them in their tracks, because the 5e sentinel feat was the standard class ability for the 4e fighter. The 4e fighter was a zone of hard control wrapped in iron and wielding a broadsword on two legs and the Warlord made dang sure the fighter gave 110% to the party.
This is fantastic. I love the fighter, and this is a spectacular breakdown. The allure of the fighter was never really about doing amazing things, it was about being consistent and resilient, and needing to be there for your more vulnerable allies. As the game goes on, individual classes get less and less vulnerable, and now the fighter has no one to protect. I get why they do it; they want each class to seem individually appealing, and the vulnerability of the old wizard classes seemed daunting. I definitely don't think we need to go back to BECMI days for wizards, but I wish they didn't have every option available to them from level 1 (but giving them d6 hit die was always a great idea, fuck a d4 I just hate d4s). It's a shame because fighters are in my top 3 all time favorite classes, because I love tough and strong martial classes (barbarian, paladin, and fighter are my top 3, maybe not in that exact order but it's close). In fact, I'm playing in a 5e game now where I do get to live out that ideal, because I have the highest AC among the party and I took defensive feats, so I am frequently the one getting in the way of enemies while my spellcaster friends throw out damage spells from the safety of the back line. It's wonderful, and if you can fulfill that power fantasy, fighters are golden.
Dm It All is my favorite channel for D&D content. Shame they don't release videos more frequently, but the long production times certainly show in the refined quality of their work.
Funny right now I'm playing a battlemaster fighter, one of two fighters in the campaign, and I have very high intelligence, second highest in the party (16) Having a high int hasn't helped me mechanically but I don't like playing stupid characters. Thankfully my DM is great and in this campaign research is a big deal, so it's between my fighter and the wizard to do this, since I have proficiency in arcana history nature and investigation, and also athletics (expertise in arcana, due to a feat) It's also been joked that since I'm one of two fighters that I'm the eagle scout fighter and the other fighter was the guy on the wrestling team, this is reinforced by the fact that I'm LG and I think the other fighter is true neutral. Our party consists of two fighters (LG and TN) a wizard (LE), and ranger (CG), even though we are all over the place in alignments we are actually a pretty tight knit group, probably because we all consider alignment secondary to circumstances, my LG fighter might not do or approve of some of the things the LE wizard does, but our characters are also best friends and help each other out even if they're shaking their heads at the shenanigans and situations the other one gets us into. The roleplay in this group is amazing, it probably also helps that we are all friends in real life, so even though on paper our characters should hate each other (and occasionally do like riffing on one another) at the end of the day we always stand by each other.... Kind of a "we can mess with each other but don't you dare mess with my friend" sort of dynamic
Please do a reivew of "White Plume Mountain" (which I missed out on buying as a boy) and "Night Below: The Underdark Campaign": Would love to see your entertaining and insightful insights on both. :) Thank You Good Sir.
I've been playing a fighter in a 2e campaign for the last 4 years and we're currently level 12, and it is very satisfying. While yes by pure class mechanics Spellcasters outscale the fighter at these levels. With proper magic equipment and especially how broken magic swords are in 2e you can find the fighter being very very comfortable in being the main damage dealers
Great video. Love this series. You missed a couple of extra abilities for the BECMI fighter. Fighters have more combat options than just multiple attacks. They can set spear and Lance charge for double damage, and at 9th level they get Smash (mentioned elsewhere in the comments), Parry and Disarm (as well as the multiple attacks you mentioned). At 9th level fighters can also decide whether to concentrate on becoming a landowning Fighter, or whether they should be a travelling Fighter. If they took the latter option they could then become a new subclass - Knight, Paladin or Avenger (depending on alignment). Each subclass had to swear fealty to an appropriate landowner or church, but then picked up further benefits as a result. These also combine with Weapon Mastery if you are so inclined!
This was a nice video, though probably not as well researched as it could have been. I think a big omission is the mention of the Fighting Man's "sweep" ability in OD&D. It meant that at higher levels (as in any level above 1) a Figher that was fighting against "Normal Types" (a rather unfortunately nebulous concept that, at various times, has meant anything with Hit Dice of 1 or less to up to 3 or less) could make as many attacks as a 1st level Fighter as their level. So a level 5 fighter up against normal types (which MAY include orcs, goblins, gnolls, other humans etc) would make 5 attacks per round, making them quite the threat and letting the fighter scale quite well in higher levels. After all, it doesn't matter how many teleports your Magic-user has when the party runs into a group of 40+ orcs when travelling overland and need to deal with them.
I’m enjoying the hell out of my Rune Knight fighter lots of CC options without having to get locked into the sentinel/halberd thing everyone else says is optimal. Excellent burst damage and downtime abilities plus rune knight are meme worthy muscle wizards.
I like Rune Knight because it has endless flavor. I played a mystic fighter and retitled all the runes to be the horology/alchemy planets and symbols. One could also, however, easily play a low fantasy version where runes are master-work technology added to your weapons to ensnare and enflame opponents
Glad to see that it’s getting a little easier for you guys to make contact quickly! Just remember to stay safe and to take your breaks when you need them!
I think that 5e could use for more subclasses that eschew overt magical power. Too much of a good thing, and all that. But there ARE still options for playing "Low Magic" builds, albeit mostly limited to the PHB. Sometimes, you just want to emulate Conan style adventures. (Although those looking to tune 5e more towards an Old School power level might be best served picking up something like Five Torches Deep.)
Five Torches Deep and D&D Hardcore Mode are solid and offer a different game. I'd prefer more Conan and low magic sword & sorcery to everyone has magic powers, but whatever works.
Methinks anime may have helped reform the fighter in terms of magical abilities by demonstrating how "fighter magic" could be done. Notably like Sword Art Online and Overlord spring readily to mind.
i think the popularity of anime and jrpg's influenced d&d 3rd edition onwards. Even making the rogue/thief more useful and more of a sneaky fighter. Rather than a class that just hangs back until the fight is over lol
"This asymmetrical balance [between fighters and magic-users] wasn't a big sticking point for early D&D..." I wasn't alive then, and I agree that casters got stronger... BUT I wouldn't underestimate the force of Classic Nerdy D&D Arguments of the 70s!
None of my players (starting in the 1980s and on) complained about fighters until D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e, and these complaints were rare and relatively mild because almost all of my players gravitated toward paladins or rangers if they wanted a fighter character at all. Pathfinder came out with a supplement to make fighters feel more useful, and that solved the issue for my players that occasionally played fighters. D&D 5e solved the issue by passing around magical powers that imitated spells or worked like the disassociated mechanics of 4e.
Another thing to note in old AD&D you played multiple characters, characters could die easily, character creation was mostly luck based and unless you are playing some planer world shattering campaign most characters would retire around level 10 or 12 and turn into supporting characters. So wizards were rare to get but you could also probably have at least one wizard in your stable of characters you could switch to.
@@bigblue344 Good points. This was all true when we played, and my players that drifted over from modern games to AD&D (or Castles&Crusades) are experiencing the same play style now.
As an AD&D Magic-User, your AC sucked, your spells could (and did) get disrupted if you drew a mote of attention to yourself, and you had no backup plan. No Cantrips for you. No Dodge action. You were basically the guy who could read whatever ancient runes you might stumble across and who just tried to survive long enough to be the party’s wild card.
My first pc was a battle master fighter. While it's not the most powerful class, it was a blast to play. My goliath fighter Brick Handyaxe was the man!
I think they should have endgame abilities like the Fighter's Army or the Wizard's World Ender/Shaper Spell back in DnD. But as Epilogue Ribbons that may affect the following Campaign. 4e sorta had this in describing what each Epic Tier did after LV30.
I miss some of the iterations of the Fighter that turned up during the D&D Next Playtest that happened in 2012-2013 between the last releases of 4E and 5E coming out. Rather than a focus on Extra Attacks and Action Surge It was essentially like the 5E Battle Master with a pool of "Expertise Dice" or "Martial Damage Dice" (depending on exactly which version of the playtest it was) and Manoeuvres to use with them. Unlike the Battlemaster's Superiority Dice your dice pool came back in full every Round rather than after a rest. All Fighters had "Deadly Strike" which was just the ability to spend the dice and roll them as extra damage and Parry, which was use your reaction to reduce an attack by the amount you rolled on the dice you spent. Beyond these two there were lots of other Manoeuvres to pick to suit your Fighter's combat style Rogues used a similar dice pool and Manoeuvres but more focused around enhancing skills. What we ended up with in 5E is probably more sensible than hitting someone with a tea-cup then spending all your damage dice to cause them to explode but I really like the way you could use your quickly refreshing pool of dice.
But at the same time the fighter seems to be a very popular class. D&D Beyond releases statistics for class distribution, the most played class is fighter. I'm in the process of playing Baldur's Gate 2 again, going by Steam achievements, guess which stronghold is unlocked the most? Yep, the fighter's. I think there's just something very relatable regarding fighters. Everybody can imagine them.
its more a thing of complexity. 5e is the most popular edition of dnd and the /easiest/ class to play is the fighter because you have 2 abilities and you can ignore the rest. Barbarians are also just as simple but have more features that require a further level of interaction. Fighter is the class you give the new guy at the table and he can say 'i hit things' and feel included.
@@bloodybagal well on top of all that, fighters are just cool and actually can win fights. Fighters also have a lot of flavor. The can be the whole "big dumb fighter" trope. Or they can be Bell Cranel from DanMachi. Or Thorfin from Vinland saga. They can be a samurai of any flavor. The Ronin type like Samurai Shamploo or the armored type. They can be the swashbucklers you see in old fantasy movies like lancelot or jack and the beanstock (since old d&d thieves werent good enough to fight like a swashbuckler lol even tho it's one of their kits). Fighters just have a lot of flavor. They arent just big dumb guy. So its no wonder they are so popular
Love all of your videos! As someone who started with 5e, it's fascinating seeing how the things I take for granted actually developed. Thanks for all of your hard work.
since 1e (A)D&D the "Lowly" Fighter has bean the default Party Leader, the Fighter with the best soft stats was the public face of the party since the Wizard was al tied up doing "Wizard Stuff" the Cleric, Paladin & Druid with Religosity and the politics of Religion could get in the way when they where free and the Thief had to keep Covert and deal with the parties "Extra Legal" stuff. with the DSG & WSG the Fighter was in the best place to take "Campaign Skills" since the rest of the classes where scrambling to take skills to Buff their Class Abilities, or just be able to do stuff the GM used to hand-wave. come 3E you could build the "Nerd Fighter" or MBA (Masters of Battle Administration) could use skill specials to buff their fighting or sub for Rangers & Rogues.
I must say that you glossed over the combat options available to 1st and 2nd edition fighters. How they balanced that out against spellcasters, and the expanded options in the Players Option books. Fighters used to be essential to a party’s success in earlier editions. They are now the objectively worse option to take in 5e.
I think I might house-rule 3e and pathfinder and say “fighters do not provoke attacks of opportunity unless faced by a character with a BAB 4 or more higher than themselves.” The only exception to this rule is if the Fighter casts a spell using a spellcasting class.
I played a Big Dumb Half-Orc Fighter in 3.5. I loved how it let me add fun and levity to even dramatic situations. And yes, I had next to nothing to contribute out of combat but in melee I was a beast. Towards the end, all those feats I had, meant I outclassed our rogue and monk combined.
My take on the 3.5E fighter was as an "elite pilot" for a set of high-level magical items. Kinda the same way fighter pilots are still a different and necessary specialty from flight crews and aeronautics engineers. That said, it wasn't perfect. The whole party would have to be in on kitting out the fighter with tailored gear.
"Supplement I: Greyhawk" also introduced percentile strength, a new subsystem that benefited Fighters exclusively, so we can't give it too much blame, except that it set a precedent for more and more specific additional classes.
Great video as always, but you got the wrong kinda dart. The darts of AD&D were actually plumbata. No one is throwing those at the pub. Did a whole video about it a few months back. : )
Fighter upon entering 3e: What do you mean it's all feats now? It's the stuff that used to be my class abilities and now I have to take it to even be doing decent? Fuck, the Warrior NPC class is better than me
Also good to point out that fighters and all the martial classes in 5e sometimes get the best armor classes. Dex and spellcaster classes usually need high stats and magic items, a feat maybe, but a fighter just neeeds plate mail and a normal shield and can have 20 AC at level 1
I wasn't around to hate 4th edition when it came out, but after watching all three of your class videos, I've noticed a pattern that the 4th edition class summary is almost exactly the same. Every class essentially had spells and functioned similarly mechanics-wise. I'm sure that I'm generalizing and each class had their own specific niche, but the fact that every single one can really be summarized in almost the exact same way shows, in my opinion, why people didn't like or were bored with 4th edition.
u are indeed generalizing. 4th edition wasnt bad. It got a lot of hate cause old heads dont like the idea of d&d adopting video game mechanics. If it released as a new table top rpg without any relation to dungeons and dragons, it wouldve been considered a good game
I love the 4e fighter and kinda sad to see how you glossed over it so fast. It did a lot of great things to bring fighters in line with casters, but at no point does it feel like you are casting spells, it just feels like you are bad ass
My issue is the Champion is so lackluster with its only 10% crit chance, no other items really giving crits unless you count rerolls and crits don't do much with only two feats makings use of crits that are useful.
Honestly, the way I see it, fighter is still pretty stupid. I despise the implementation of "Lol, fighter go brr with 50 attacks". That doesn't feel like a master swordsman/whateversman. That feels like a game mechanic. And, the feat tax that was in earlier editions is still there, even worse so. There is literally 2 builds to play as a fighter - PAM/GWM or CBE/SS. Subclasses are battle master, the others are just flavour. Like, why is the concept of a power attack baked into a feat? It literally just pigeonholes you. And how come someone who can swing a sword 50 times per round can hit as hard, if not harder, than someone who swings 2 times. This isn't a compromise, this is literally bad design. A fighter should be a master combatant, not a windmill. Battlemaster should be the base for a fighter, probably even without the superiority dice, but limited to once per turn/round or something. And the subclass design, even though some of the subclasses are cool, is still somewhat bad. But that goes for all martials. Like, as a caster, you can build almost every fantasy character you can think of. But I challenge someone to build Hercules. Martials are, still, most of the times, just worse casters with more HP but still somehow less survivability.
you had a really gross misunderstanding of 3rd edition and 3.5, it definitely had its flaws but the fighter was actually a lot better than you made it out to me, that being said Pathfinder improved on that dramatically just going to point that out
In no way do summoners or shapchangers outshine the fighter in his main role at best you can call them a stopgap replacement nor are they really outshone by the delicate spellcasters who would melt in 2 seconds without their fighters, barbarians, Paladins, and clerics keeping them nice and safe
Trying to make the 3.5 and 4e fighters sound less enjoyable then 2nd edition if pretty wack. That, and the idea that 3.5 feats were a weak choice when a lot of them are the crux to strongest builds. While yes, they were faaaar weaker then spellcasters they weren’t any worse then 5e or 2nd edition.
And honestly I liked how weapons had different flavors different crit ranges. Oh you are using a longsword, you hit harder then a scimitar but are less likely to crit. When you crit however an axe will hit way harder.
I have thing were I watch for the history, then when I get to the modern part I am just sat there waiting for "and then Pathfinder did it best". If you guys haven't played the Pathfinder games, they are some of the best d20 games, just ashame they lack multiplayer.
So I know it's DnD but can you explore Warhammer Fantasy, or rather how both of them split off in narrative despite sharing roots in DnD. Like in Dungeons and Dragon, Elves are noble and Dwarves are proud. Good fights evil. and universe is optimistic. But in Warhammer, Elves are arrogant and Dwarves are stubborn. Good has its rotten side despite being better than evil, and universe is bleak. Also earlier editions had more subversive tone on that genre (even Dwarves declared war on Elves for "stealking their kill" despite being allied in a war between the clans that led them to be annihilated by incoming Goblin army).
It's more accurate to say that both share roots in Lord of the Rings. Elves and Dwarves in D&D and Warhammer are based on what Tolkein made them to be. And I don't think Warhammer has a 'good' side, the conflict is more about order vs chaos. Dwarfs have destroyed entire settlements because the humans in them short-changed them by a few coins. This is most exemplified in lizardmen/seraphon, who are essentially the order version of daemons. They're allied with order in the sense that they oppose chaos, but they would genocide every other race in the world if given the chance because they don't adhere well enough to the great plan.
Hence why I said rotten side. But then again, it does show it as preferable to Chaos. Plus even good side had decent people like Teclis’ willingness to teach magic (without exploding) to human gave them a fighting chance, and Thorgrim trying his best not to start a grudge over minute issue (even avoiding putting a grudge on Elves after Tyrion made a tirade from failing to save Everqueen’s daughter who maybe his daughter). About the dwarf, they did ask for compensation (simple 2 gold coin) and the leader of the settlement rejected it, which wouldn’t be bad but they decided to threw him out and insulted him.
