Are D&D Fighters Boring?

hello soldiers yeah yeah yeah it's me Anton Deo this is pointy hat and welcome to D and D with a Twist the series where I pick a D and D thing could be a monster could be a lineage could be a class guess what I look at it wave it around like a child playing with action figures explain it to you in detail and then we change it irrevocably within an inch of its life for fun so when I think of Fighters I think of yes I am human fighter yes we do exist fighter is the class for new beast of the game and people that fantasize about going to the military in high school future US Army soldier Fighters are Fighters they fight good that's that's pretty much it through the power of the Ancient Art of training montage Fighters dominate the battlefield by being able to do basically everything Marshall well need a tank a barbarian oritan will do nicely but a fighter can't tank too need a Bruiser a fighter can do that swimmingly they are their Jack of all trades of combat being able to be built in basically a thousand different ways to suit your preferred stabby stabby shooty shooty method of choice you might notice that I'm not talking much about Flavor here just about how fighty they are and that's because there's not much of it at all fighters are good at combat and not much else and this lack of flavor has been giving them a reputation in the DND D Community Real Talk here Fighters are actually my favorite Marshall class in D and D but that does not mean they are without flaw oh boy are they not with off law and that's precisely what this video you're watching is about but before we get into that we got to understand the intricacies of stabbing real good so let's take a look at where the stabbing is stored in the fighter in the abilities but before we get knee deep into abilities we got to make sure our fighter is safe from all attacks even the ones a Fighter's kid might not be ready to deal with Northern Fighters have long known the importance of protection phased with threats unseen they have built an entirely new fighting style all about defending themselves from Shifty attackers that rely on darkness and subterfuge the name of this technique the Nord technique and guess what you're at risk of these attacks too regardless if you're a northern fighter or not which is why you might want to consider nordvpn you have probably heard of them by now seeing as they are the most popular and fastest VPN out there nordvpn ensures a safer experience when just going about your usual dark biddings online protecting you from people trying to grab your data when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks fishing attack with their threat production feature and they can even save you from inadvertently downloading some malware or other cybernetic curses and you know if a show is not available in your region nor VPN can 100% make it so that your connection works exactly like it does in your or any region so you can watch anything really the world is now your oyster they are also super privacy oriented which means they don't do any funny business like tracking what you do online you are perfectly safe so if all of this sounds good go to nordvpn.com poad and check it out for yourself if you do you get four extra months of subscription time and it's completely risk-free with their 30-day money back guarantee that's nordvpn.com poiny hat Link in the description and now that we've done everything to protect our fighter offline and online as well as ourselves let's jump back into abilities as I said Fighters shine in how customizable they are and nothing exemplifies this more than their abilities so let's see what they have in stock and you know how we like to do around these parts lightning round lightning round first off the basics Fighters get access to all armors all simple weapons all Marshall weapons all berries this lets you basically do whatever once again customizability people and speaking of fighting style right out of the gate The Fighter hits you with the build-a bear approach to class structure choices you pick a fighting style the style in which you you fight the possibilities are endless there is stabbing stabbing with an arrow stabbing with a shield stabbing with a spear stabbing times two stabbing with your fist stabbing at the anime Beach episode stabbing in Minecraft and big stabbing in all seriousness these range from extremely Niche to fantastic and really change how you well how you fight one a tank protection and interception are solid one to be an anime character two weapon fighting is strictly mandatory want to make the monk cry unarmed fighting anyway next up Golden wind you heal 1 the10 plus your level pretty good once then you get a nap at least it's some extra survivability action search aha I was waiting for the signature action search allows you to take a whole additional action yes this includes however many attacks you make when you make an action so after level five you do make four whole attacks when you do this and then it's nap time again as I said action search is sort of the bread and butter of the fighter no other class has this which is interesting it would be cool to see more subclasses using this more ability score Improvement so yeah I normally don't talk about these but the fighter is the class that gets the most Asis out of all the classes f Fighters generally only care about Constitution and dexterity or strength so why all these abilities score increases well Feats no Feats that's right it's the fighters bread and butter again customizability you can get your 20 in the ability score you use to attack and in your con early on and then concentrate on feat to really tailor the very precise way in which your fighter stabs real good or you can bump up another stat to give you literally anything else to do in combat but why bother extra attack you attack but it's extra this time then when when you get to level 11 you do three attacks and then an insane four when you get to level 20 it's wild and finally indomitable wait that's it the Capstone is at level 9 oh okay anyway whenever you fail a saving throw you can roll it and then you have to go to bed you got it as you can see Fighters like the warlock or even more than the Warlock are all about customizability with most of their abilities and even their ASI distribution being all about allowing you to build your very own fighting bear there are also literally four abilities without Counting stuff like extra attack that's nothing to compare that to another class Barbarian gets 13 core class abilities and that's not even the class with the highest amount of class abilities I think that that's doid don't quote me on that the reason why this is the way that it is is because Fighters are meant to be people's introduction to the game so they got to be straightforward but also because Fighters are one of those classes that is extremely influenced by their subass which is interesting we'll put a inin on that for now let's see what these subclasses have in store fighter subclasses are called Marshall archetypes because they're all about how you fight yep there sure is a through line here these range from most iconic subass in the game to who cares so let's take a look and let's start with the most iconic one battle master all woman our queen battle Master Fighters are masters of battle Surly Fighters will never cease to amaze us they do indeed fight real good the whole thing is the study of combat while you were busy playing spellcasters they studied the blade and now that the monster has a high wisdom saving throw you have the audacity to come to them for help pathetic Battle Masters offer very little in the way of flavor but are once again all about combat in its purest sense with like a dash of academic in there study the blade and all they are also probably one of if not the best subass in the game not because they're overpowered but because they're just so fun and suit the fighters abilties so perfectly I'm a big Battle Master SI so let me tell you why the whole subass is structured around their combat superiority ability this ability allows you to use Maneuvers special moves that go along with your basic attacks that do more damage equal to a new resource the Battle Master calls superiority Dice and inflicts some kind of status on the enemy or the battlefield that sounds madly complicated let me give you some examples disarming attack has a chance to disarm an enemy evasive footwork as the result of your superiority dies to your AC as long as you keep moving goting attack is basically a taunt that ensures an enemy attacks you and not your friends grappling strike allows you to attack attack with your weapon and attempt to Grapple someone you get it they do more damage and then they inflict something on the enemy or allow you to do something all of them are really really fun and force you to think more tactically about what you want to do in combat instead of just hitting a bunch of times and calling it a day and there are 23 of these Maneuvers that you can choose for a total of nine to keep the whole customizability theme of The Fighter going now you might be thinking G pointy that sounds like a lot of work for just a subclass yeah about that Maneuvers were a core fighting feature during the play test of 5 that's right this was something all fighters got and you were supposed to get extra Maneuvers through your sop glasses and then those damned grard or as the Americans like to say rogards sorry that's very funny to me complained that fighter was supposed to be stupid and brainn numbingly simple and wizards listen to feedback and now Maneuvers are confined to only one subclass and and what did we learn sometimes things that play dusters want are worse anyway the res of the battle Master's abilities pale in comparison to Maneuvers student of War gives you Artisan Tools in sort of a half-hearted attempt to give you an out-of combat skill so now your fighter can roll all the countless times Jeweler's tool checks come up in the game no your enemy lets you make uncomfortable eye contact with someone for one uninterrupted minute my personal head Cannon is that you cannot blink while doing this to figure out one of their ability scores but not really it just tells you if the score is higher or lower than yours it's whatever improv combat superiority boost your superiority dice I am so bad at saying that word I am not a native speaker I am suffering the thing you use in Maneuvers which is great and finally Relentless makes it so that if you start combat without superiority my God superiority dice you get one I would have made this equal to your proficiency score or something one feels like such a let down especially because you get these back on a short me here anyway just for having access to Maneuvers the Battle Master wins the subclass game in my book perfect integration into the class built upon the established theme of customize ability and is just so incredibly fun to play Shame about the subar flavor but that's just a fighter thing in general so at least it's on theme again oh you again hi anyway moving on from Iconic and into newcomer to the fighter roster that is making some waves in the scene let's look at the echo knite echon knite is one of the most flavorful of the fighter sub classes only the runite can really give it a run for its money in that regard they are super intrinsically tied to the K Dynasty an Empire from the curric role setting created by Matthew Mercer most well known by everybody for his work on the seminal director video High fantasy filmic Saga mytha as sorlock reer of the dark Spore Li king and leader to the Golan Imperial Army behold the dark spor I got to be honest I'm not a massive fan of any player option that is extremely tied to its set setting because you have to do extra work to tie it back to another setting but nothing is stopping you from taking the echo knite shaking the drow St off and plopping it down whatever you feel like Echo night's whole deal is that they summon fading shades of unrealized timelight to Aid them in battle which in layman's terms means they can make copies of themselves these copies called Echo are the signature ability of the subclass and are super super strong you summon one with a bonus action it only has one head point and an AC of 14 but what's interesting is What it lets you do you can swap places with your echo in exchange for some movement you can attack through your Echo as if you were in its location and your Echo can take opportunity attacks and get this it doesn't consume resources to summon one true you can only have one Echo at a time for now but you can summon them whenever that's that's sick that's really really powerful all the subsequent Echo knite abilities power up the echo on incantation makes it so that whenever you take an attack action you make the echo attack too this means that if you and the echo have decided to gang up on the same creature and you use an action search and unleash incantation you can make up to five attacks five attacks at level five I'll get her forehead you get her kneecap also imagine if you take the Sentinel feet and plays your Echo next to you now you get a chance to Sentinel yourself I mean I think it sounds like it fun times with your Echo go on with Echo Avatar which lets you see through the echo's eyes like a familiar uh human familiar if you will curious anyway Shadow martyr allows your Echo to go all get down Mr President get down Mr President and take an attack for someone else reclaim potential lets you slurp up the remains of your Echo when it's destroyed and regain 2d6 plus your con which is a pretty chunky heal it's cap to your con modifier but still everything in this subass is tied to your Constitution which is something you already cared for as a fighter so it's not like you have to worry about getting another stat high up there for this to be effective isn't that right Mr eldrich Knight and finally we get to our level 18 Capstone with Legion of one did you think that the echo was powerful well how about summoning two instead of one you also get an extra use of unleash Incarnation if you forgot to pick one up at the store before starting combat neat all in all the echo knite is extremely powerful but I think one of the coolest things about it is how much flavor it brings if you're not playing in Wild Mount and there's no crin Dynasty in your world you can flavor the eonite a ton of different ways if you rub your little brain cells together how about a Naruto Style Ninja that makes copies of itself in combat how about a f fighter that uses Echoes as Illusions it works super well with the whole teleporting between echoes with the phas whole Misty step deal the possibilities are endless so restricting the echon knite one of the most flavorful subclasses to only the wild bound setting wouldn't do you much good because of how flavorful it is and God knows the fighter needs everything it can towards flavor oh is it time okay fine let's get into it we've talked about Fighters their place in the game their abilities their sub classes and that's all well and good but what if we get Fighters a new twist so you want to play a fighter forgive me I failed you Fighters use the power of swords and not sorcery to dominate the battlefield and get made fun of for being boring yep as I said in the intro if you spent any amount of time in the D and D Community you know the fighters reputation and that is that they are boring so as I said fighter is my favorite Marshall class in the game while I understand why people think they're boring I think the fighter is somewhat unfairly LED keywords somewhat some of these points I do agree with so I'm going to defend Fighters but I can't defend them if I don't explain the reasons why people find Fighters boring or bad or whatever so let's take a look at those the reasons are much like my talent multifaceted and complex let's get the boring reason for why they're boring out of the way boringly fighter is according to D and Beyond the most played D and D class human fighter being the most popular combo now in a game where you can make packs with things like this and look like this going for guy with with a sword can be seen as underutilizing the possibilities at your disposal going for lwh hanging dudes if you will in a table full of weird looking weirdos that fight with constructed toys and cast PS with the power of sing the sword guy is bound to look well less interesting by comparison at least At a Glance the second reason is that it's the Newbie class this is very common in video games too you want an entry point for people to play the game and that entry point should be kept simple so that you don't overwhelm a player with like a textbook of rules before they even know if they like the game and this game has a literal textbook to even start so you especially don't want to throw a second one at them related to only their character fighter and Rogue oh wow what do you look at that Rogue is the second most played class it's almost like I'm onto something are seen as the Newbie friendly classes because they are legit simpler than other classes to play especially spellcasting classes and so they're associated with new players who might not have the tools or expertise to make particularly compelling characters which in turn gives the class itself the same reputation it's kind of like how Unity as a game engine is seen seen as worse because it's just an easier engine to get into than other engines so newer deps who are bound to make worse games get into Unity to start out their Game Dev journey and people associate Unity with bad games but do not worry they sure thought to be seen as bad for legitimate reasons nowadays they deserve everything they get now so I will say those are the two main reasons why Fighters are seen as boring but here's the thing I don't necessarily see those as problems for the latter one Fighters being newbie friendly there's not much to do because you do need simpler classes for people to get into as a matter of fact I think that D and D needs a simpler magic class where people to get into the game that want to play a magic guy no warlock is not simple guys not in the slightest have you seen how many choices you going to make with that one before even starting out absolutely not and for the former Point Fighters being less flashy well they are they are less flashy that's a good thing because having only weird looking weirdos makes all the weird looking guys look mundane humans create contrast in a fantasy world people that are only able to wield a sword make magic feel like magic all that is needed in the gate so is that it is the fighter just an unfairly malign class that did nothing wrong ever in their life no I actually have two main issues with the fighter that I think are actively hurting the class and contributing to its current vanilla boring reputation even if they are my favorite I know I know criticizing a thing you love instead of blindly defending it and putting your fingers in your ears when people bring up legitimate points unheard of anyway let's talk about these issues the first one is that Fighters are too broad no not broad shouldered I I like that in a class anyway their class identi is too broad I've talked about class identity before especially in my monk video check that out if you haven't but basically it's the fantasy that a class allows you to embody fighters Class identity is a guy that is good with weapons and fights good and that steps on the toes of like more than half of the classes in this game here's the thesis statement of this problem in a game about fighting the fighting class can replace most classes whenever a non-c casting class has any problem in D and D you will see Reddit philosopher king say it should just be a fighter subass Ranger is bad it should just be a fighter subass monk is bad it should just be a fighter subclass spellblade wizard is not what you want it to be it should just be a fighter subclass I've heard these a thousand times you have heard these a thousand times and the reason why is that they could be a fighter subclass because fighter is about being good at Battle which all classes are also about the identity encompasses too much in it by virtue of being so loosely defined it's not a precise enough fantasy of course there are ways to make it feel more unique I for one fighter should be the only class to get Proficiency in all simple weapons and all Marshall weapons but nope that's literally the case with nearly every Marshall class for some reason so no can do for that fighter remains too broad for its own good which in turn makes it feel paradoxically enough too simple when in reality it can be basically anything there is a reason why people fight about Aragorn being a fighter or a ranger he could be either the second problem I have with Fighters is tangentially related to the first and also tangentially related to why people think they're boring fight is the subass that gives you the least amount of prompts in character creation let me explain when you make a warlock you immediately have to think about who your daddy I mean who your Patron is who what led you to make a pack with them and what your Patron wants you to do in exchange for your powers that is a massive character creation prompt do you have an adversarial relationship with your Patron did you make your deal willingly or were you forced to do it what happens if you don't follow the instructions all of those questions immediately pop in your head when making a warlock this is absolutely not the case for fighters fighters ask you to only think why you're good at fighting where did you pick up a sword and learn how to wave it around that's it most of its sub classes do not help with this at all as nearly all of them answer this question by by training with an X banner and Cavalier by training with a knight Samurai by training with a Samurai Battle Master by training with a guy that didn't get invited to parties I studied the blade that's why subclasses like the echo knite are important because by virtue of them being weird they generate prompts to help you during character creation Fighters are all about versatility and paradoxically again when your guy could be anything and become a fighter in any way it feels harder to come up with something the Paradox goes on with Fighters because while they don't give you strong character prompts to help you come up with a unique and compelling character they are at the same time the class for newbies as we explained which means that new players that choose fighter have the least amount of help coming up with a character from their character's class yes experienced role players can come up with a thousand reasons why your guy wants to be a knight or wants to be a fighter or wants to be a samurai or wants to study the blade but the newcomer to the game that is already kind of iffy on this whole sitting around doing bad British accents in front of your friends not so much and it ends up making a Fighters a bad newbie subass for role-play reasons so those are my main issues with my beloved Fighters but here's the thing they are not impossible to overcome which is why I still love them are human Fighters boring no they can be but they are not by default as a matter of fact I tend to think that human Fighters kind of like slot themselves into the most protagonisti role in a group full of weirdos does fighter give you prompts to create good characters no it doesn't but you can very much still do it even if your class is not helping you to and having no prompts other than good with sword makes it so that you can pretty much make any character be a fighter including extremely compelling ones fighter doesn't stop you from making interesting characters it just doesn't help you and when you're experienced enough at this game you might enjoy taking the training wheels off and flying solo so yeah those are some problems now I might be an extremely powerful Arcane being that defies human and nonhuman comprehension but I'm just a hat I can't change the fighter class but you know what I can do I can come up with one of the things the fighter is sorely missing prompt what about a subass that gives you those good good character creation prompts in a way that feels intrinsically tied to the fighter class something that feels for once like a thing that only a fighter can do hear me out legendary weapon [Music] we all know this fantasy you have a legendary weapon in your possession maybe it's passed down in your family line for Generations or maybe you stole it from one of these families or it chose you as you came across it by chance and now those that wish to use this weapon for what you can only assume is evil are after you point is you got a really cool cool cool sword or bow or axe or underwater basket you get it this is such a common fantasy Trope and yet I feel like D and D is particularly bad at reproducing it because if you start with this weapon you are bound to find a better one along the way and then what you toss it out that's not the fantasy at all the fantasy is to learn how to wield this impossibly powerful weapon throughout your journey as a matter of fact it should grow become stronger alongside you as you learn how to wield it unlocking not only the weapon through potential but also yours as its wield wielder if this was a real subass the weapon should be the centerpiece of the subclass's design but you shouldn't feel like an accessory what if its true powers are locked by what you are able to do action search the one signature ability of the fighter I'm imagining a literal ultimate move unleashing the potential of your weapon in devastating burst kind of like Smite what if you could literally absorb enchantments into the weapon so you don't have to toss it out the moment your DM tosses a plus one knitting needle at you what if the sword gives you an extra Attunement slot allowing you to customize it okay I think we have enough theoreticals the whole point of this imaginary subclass that we're making here is to give you character prompts to build characters around so why don't we do just that a small duy has been under the tyrannical rule of a powerful vampire D within living memory each year she raises the tithes and those that can't pay in coin pay in blood vampires have flocked to the duy knowing that if they pledge themselves to the duches her rule makes it so that the cover of night might as well exist during daylight hours and they roam at their Leisure after Sunset exerting The Dutch's will and taking as they please but never too much so that the population cannot sustain itself anymore as if the people of the land were livestock but that is all about to change vasil ardelene the latest in the long ardelene line of vampire Hunters that were once chased out of the duy themselves makes his triumphant return to these cursed vampire infested lands with a single goal on his mind using the Daybreak blade a weapon passed down from ardene father to Arlene son to slay The Duchess and end her undying rule vasil traverses the duche and valiantly defends the residence of a small Hamlet from a vampire Ambush and he dies just dead kapoot the end or at least it's the end of ail's life the Daybreak blade Falls from Vil's hand upon his death and is picked up during the chaos of the battle by a random Village girl DOA DOA understands that the blade is powerful on account of the Angelic choir that it admits when whenever DOA takes it by the handle and also the fact that it glows she considers selling it but giving it to anybody feels like a death sentence that strange Man in The Shining Armor clearly felt like he could bring the vampires down with the blade so what if he was right about the blade not himself DOA takes the blade wraps it in cloth and leaves the village under the cover of a bright sunny day she has no living relatives left after her mother offered herself as this year's tith to the duches so the vampire ruler cannot hurt anyone that matters to her DOA will leave the duy for now and train she has absolutely no combat experience but she used to cut down wheat with a sickle in the summer she'll train until she can wield the Daybreak blade to its full potential and once she's ready she'll come back to the duy to finish what the strange armored man once started and he will be waiting for her to come back having risen as a vampire too hellbent on getting the blade back I think that's a pretty sick character it directly uses the conceit of this hypothetical subclass we've been talking about the whole wielder of a super powerful magical weapon that is so common in fantasy and that you simply can't do in D and D give her high strength and Constitution and animal handling and nature because of her years of tending the fields and you're all set I mean not really since her sub class doesn't exist except it does because I made it and it's in the description of this very video for free it's called the Canan and it's about having a cool magical weapon that evolves with you I'm proud of it I think it's neat go check it out but what if you want to use it and have a hard time coming up with a character around it well what would you tell me if I had hypothetically made a video all about how to make a good dndd character like do here and if DOA sounds more like a paladin in training to you here is a hypothetical video All About paladins with its own free subass hypothetically of course just kidding not hypothetically it's all there free sub classes and all click on the screen you're welcome but before you go I just got to take a sec to say thank you thank you so much last Sunday I tortured my human familiar into streaming for charity I did a charity stream for make a wish yes make a wish contacted me John Cena hours and we raised $6,000 that's a whole lot of dollars I think that's the highest amount raised for this campaign by like a person so I'm thank you for that that's insane I think that's a lot of money I I don't use human money but it was amazing so I got to thank everybody that was kind enough to donate if you look to the right of me you'll see a bunch of names of people that gave more than $100 in their donation during the stream these truly are the real Fighters K plus or not if you couldn't make it to the stream but still want to donate there is a tiltify link on the description that you can click and donate there I don't want to spoil it for those that weren't there on the day of the stream but we unlocked some interesting things through donations who knows if we reach a certain threshold of donations with this video we could get even more stuff anyway thank you so much to those that donated thank you to those of you that decided to donate here if you want to please and thank you so much in general I was terrified I wouldn't be able to fundraise anything and yeah apparently we are like the the the fundraiser that donated the most so that's incredible you guys surprise me every single time so let's see if this video can move the needle and help some more kids oh and I'll be streaming this Sunday we're making an entire city on Stream So if you want to check out how to make a fantasy City and contribute to it check your subscription box and come hang bye cheers

Channel: Pointy Hat

Views: 381,379

Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, hat, homebrew, trailer, D&D trailer, OneD&D, one d&d, onednd, OGL, SRD, Wizards, wizards of the coast, WotC, WOC, OGL drama, classes, class, worst class, worst class in dnd, fighter, martial class, martial, battlemaster, champion, echo knight, scion, fighter boring, are fighters boring, fighters are boring, boring fighter, best class, human fighter

Id: j1rSKF5Aj_0

Length: 28min 23sec (1703 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 04 2023