Dungeons & Delvers Deep Dive Review: Fighters

And we're up to the fighter class. Monk is next, and I'm really curious what Bruce will think about that one.

Some answers and commentary (you'll need to watch the review for full context): 

Fighters ended up getting nerfed multiple times throughout development (they used to add extra dice to damage instead of a static modifier), and I still think they're one of the most powerful classes. I didn't even want to give them a starting Talent, but they needed it to offset some class features that barbarians and paladins start with.

To clarify how Exploit Talents work: you make an attack roll. If it hits you can trigger any one Exploit you have, so long as the attack roll meets-or-beats the Exploit value.  For example, Trip Attack has an Exploit value of 18+, so if you rolled an 18 or higher on your attack roll you could trigger it. 

You can only trigger one per attack, even if two or more qualify. It can still be helpful to have a few Exploits, however, as they can have different values (Sweeping Strike has an Exploit value of 20+), or won't always be useful in a given situation (ie, you only have Trip Attack but the enemy is already Prone, or is too large to trip).

This approach avoids the issues we had with 3rd Edition and stuff like Improved Trip or Improved Disarm, which barring hyper-specialized builds no one ever took. Why waste your turn trying to maybe trip an enemy, when you could just smack them?

Here you just invest a precious Talent into Trip Attack, and every time you roll 18+ it's assumed that during your fighter's attacks, either a clear opportunity to trip your opponent presents itself, or something otherwise happens that potentially happens causes them to fall on their ass.

Something to point out is that while Trip Attack is limited to your size, you can take The Bigger They Are to trip enemies one size category larger than you, doubling up on your Damage Bonus if you happen to knock them over.

Bruce mentioned Improved Critical: it increases your Critical Range, which is the "natural" number you need to roll on a d20 in order to trigger a Critical Hit. This is normally 20, so taking this Talent means that you score a Critical Hit on a natural d20 result of 19-20.

Other things can further increase this, like a masterwork weapon with the Improved Critical property. I don't think any cleric Miracles can, but that's something to add in for the War Domain.

In the chat replay, T-Shirted Historian commented that "the Fighter actually looks to be able to DPS as well as the rogue."

Since you don't get to add Dexterity to damage, probably. A rogue with a short sword would reliably deal 2d6 damage, assuming Sneak Attack, which averages 7 damage. A fighter with an arming sword and a typical Strength of, say, +2 would deal 1d8+3 per strike, which averages 7.5.

But longswords inflict 2d6 damage and can benefit from the Slayer talent, which spikes the damage up to 2d6+4, or 11 damage on average.

By the time both hit 5th-level, the fighter will deal either 1d8+4 or 2d6+5 per strike, get two attacks per round (average damage of 17 or 24 respectively, and start benefiting from Weapon Specialization. The rogue will probably deal 3d6 damage assuming Sneak Attack, which gives him an average damage of 10.5.

But of course I expect the fighter to deal more damage reliably. He is a fighter after all. The rogue is intended to be more supporting and opportunistic. So, here and there the rogue might out-damage the fighter (especially a fighter that emphasizes defense), but generally speaking, the fighter is going to come out on top.

I should note that all "warrior" type classes get the same Attack and Damage Bonus progression, as well as multiple attacks at the same time. So really, assuming weapons and stats are equal, the damage output will be precisely the same, but the specific class changes how it plays, and what options are available.

For 2nd Edition I was going to divvy up the book into smaller books (ie, a player book, GM book, monster book, etc), and remove all the odd-ball races from the "core" game, but Bruce really seems to like them so I guess I'll have to keep them in. Ah, well, they'll still be incredibly rare.