r/dndmemes • u/Reluctant-Paladin Druid • Mar 20 '23

Fighter is my second favorite class ngl Generic Human Fighter™

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952

u/AddictedToMosh161 Fighter Mar 20 '23

Yeah, always remember that John Wick not once used magic. Maybe he is just a lvl 20 fighter, showing all those charisma based pricks what you can accomplish with weapons and enough hit points.

471

u/Reluctant-Paladin Druid Mar 20 '23

"He took down three guys, with a pencil."

135

u/OneSaltyStoat Mar 20 '23

A. Fucking. Pencil.

40

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

A. *Fookin. Pencil.

18

u/Rekanvirr Mar 20 '23

You can say he schooled them, maybe even taught them a lesson :)

3

u/moderatorrater Mar 20 '23

He worked it out with a pencil, just like a constipated mathematician.

2

u/SmileyDayToYou Mar 20 '23

Action surge

211

u/StarMagus Warlock Mar 20 '23

"Fighters are great when everybody they fight are lower level fighters."

Sure.....

147

u/Square-Ad1104 Mar 20 '23

Fair point given what was shown here, though that one lady clearly tried to pull out some magic near the end. Funnily enough, though, given their single-target focus Fighters are actually best at fighting individual powerhouses bigger and stronger than themselves.

22

u/ProfBleechDrinker Fighter Mar 20 '23

Another dude looks more like a ranger, though he went in with melee. The horned dude is deffo a fighter though, they have armor.

4

u/Arkhaan Mar 20 '23

Barbarian, rogue, and what is in dnd terms basically an arcane trickster kinda.

1

u/ProfBleechDrinker Fighter Mar 20 '23

See, I thought barbarian at first too, but if they are they are not that good of a barb, since them wearing armor means they get none of the benefits of rage, and they get like, +2 to AC at most.

Edit: Also I think what you wanted to say is Eldritch Knight.

8

u/JokersWyld Mar 20 '23

They can wear Light and Medium armor - only heavy armor prevents rage.

​

In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren't wearing heavy armor:

2

u/ProfBleechDrinker Fighter Mar 20 '23

Gotta be honest I have no fucking clue how I ended up missing the word "heavy". Guess thats what sickness does to a mfs brain.

2

u/JokersWyld Mar 21 '23

RP-wise it makes more sense. When you think of a barbarian, most people default to the bare chested, 1 shoulder pad, loincloth, axe swinging mfer....but ya, they can wear half plate ;-D

1

u/Arkhaan Mar 20 '23

Nope, the elf is at most a ranger but closer to an arcane trickster rogue.

Also as the other person said, barbarians can wear light an medium with no issues

82

u/StarMagus Warlock Mar 20 '23

Was actually thinking of John Wick. He's a level 20 Fighter in a world where most of the people he is fighting are level 1 fighters.

36

u/Curioughfzfg Mar 20 '23

Just play for honor, inspired me to make more normal human fighters than I care to admit

15

u/rtakehara DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 20 '23

though that one lady clearly tried to pull out some magic near the end.

that's what most people would think, but hear me out. heavy armor, long sword, spellcasting as last resort, a level 3~5 eldritch knight can still be considered a "lower level fighter".

7

u/TexMechPrinceps Mar 20 '23

I think fighter is so undervalued because of how stingy most dms are with magic weapons

15

u/Square-Ad1104 Mar 20 '23 edited Mar 21 '23

Yeah, but the books don’t provide the best recommendations for how to give those out. And where the DMG does provide those guidelines, IT’S really stingy with them. Between that and the fact that Martials (particularly Fighters and Rogues) do best in a dynamic environment where lots of ability checks and alternate attack options can be used, it kinda puts the burden of balancing the Martial/Caster disparity on DMs, which isn’t fair. Not to mention that the degree of superhumanity Fighters and Martials in general should achieve at high levels to match their spellcasting compatriots, while generally accepted by the community to exist, isn’t really mechanically supported by much other than high HP, except for a few features that don't come online until level 20.

3

u/robot_wrangler Mar 20 '23

Looking at the DMG, +1 weapons are on table F, which occurs in 10-15% of encounters at CR 0-10. Table F has a bunch of other weapons and armor, along with a few caster items (pearl of power, etc) that come up rarely. This table should come up about once in an adventuring day (1/6 of encounters) if it's being decided just by chance.

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u/Square-Ad1104 Mar 21 '23

Ah, I was referencing the table in the DMG on page 38, which says in a standard fantasy world, PCs anywhere below 11th level shouldn't start the game with any magic items.

3

u/JBSquared Mar 20 '23

I feel like martials get more understated superhuman antics that feel obfuscated because of the game mechanics. Most of the superhuman caster stuff is new stuff. New spells, new familiars, new things to spend your actions on. Meanwhile, martials mostly get stuff like buffed move speed, bonus actions, etc. Buffs to mechanics that they have access to from the start. So while in fiction, a high level fighter is moving 100 feet and unleashing 4 attacks in under 5 seconds, the player will say "I move next to the orc and spend a resource to attack him 4 times with my longsword". It's up to the DM to provide the flavor that makes them feel powerful, which kinda sucks. A new cool spell has a built in description and all that stuff.

1

u/Square-Ad1104 Mar 21 '23

This is the best-written take on the flavor/storytelling side of the Martial-Caster disparity I've heard so far

1

u/ENDragoon Mar 20 '23

Fighters are actually best at fighting individual powerhouses bigger and stronger than themselves.

You aren't wrong, this is generally how I feel when my Fighters challenge an enemy to single combat.

74

u/FishToaster Mar 20 '23

Oh come on - John Wick was definitely a zealot barbarian. I've never once seen a better film example of Rage beyond Death.

62

u/AddictedToMosh161 Fighter Mar 20 '23

I never really saw him as angry. More like determined. He seems very much in control. Not something I associate with a raging barbarian.

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u/Sexybtch554 DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 20 '23

BRB. Making a zealot barbarian where I flavor my rage as sheer determination and will.

26

u/AddictedToMosh161 Fighter Mar 20 '23

You can do that. I will use my fighter feats for improved improvised weapons and kill people with a fuckin pencil. Or block attacks with my suit.

25

u/samaldin Mar 20 '23

He is raging in Tranquil Fury

28

u/Mooniebutt Goblin Deez Nuts Mar 20 '23

TVTropes calls that "Tranquil Fury". John Wick is a very...VERY angry man.

9

u/DerWaechter_ Mar 20 '23

I mean while it's called rage, you don't have to treat it as losing control and raging necessarily.

I have a barbarian in one of my games who plays it as more of a matter of determination and hyperfocus on the fight he is in. Basically tuning everything else around him out, reading his enemies, their moves, letting his training/experience guide him, etc. So he is extremely calm, not letting anything cloud his judgement.

In that sense it could absolutely apply to john wick too. A silent determination, where he won't be stopped by anything.

1

u/derpicface Chaotic Stupid Mar 20 '23

Would you rule Moon Knight slipping into his alters as a flavor of rage?

1

u/DerWaechter_ Mar 21 '23

Honestly I could see that work. It would be a really interesting take, playing a barbarian with split personality basically.

18

u/FishToaster Mar 20 '23

Yeah, but as far as I remember, he spends the latter half of the first movie perpetually at/near 0 hit points, but just barely continuing on "focus, commitment, and sheer will."

I think that if you interpret his determination as an internal rage, he fits a barbarian to a T.

5

u/-entertainment720- Mar 20 '23

Mechanically, that is represented as rage. Remember, flavor is free, and "John is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will". Rage doesn't actually have to be anger (though John is certainly angry in the first movie).

He seems very much in control

Barbarians in D&D are not out of control, that's a stereotype. They do exactly what they want to while they're raging, unless their player wants to lean into the stereotype for flavor.

1

u/WickedTemp Mar 20 '23

It's confirmed at the end of the third movie that he's officially pissed off.

John Wick 4 will include thoroughly pissed off John Wick, so we'll see how that goes.

9

u/not-a-velociraptor Mar 20 '23

I think Boromir's death was a pretty good example

47

u/Several-Operation879 Mar 20 '23

Pretty sure he's a barbarian with a dip in fighter and rogue

36

u/Reluctant-Paladin Druid Mar 20 '23

Or maybe he's Gonk

6

u/muklan Mar 20 '23

Gunslinger Monk.

3

u/psiren66 Mar 20 '23 edited Mar 20 '23

John Wick is a Monk and bullets are his shurikens. You can tel he’s level 20

  • Unarmored movement
  • Purity of body
  • Tongue of the sun and moon
  • Timeless body
  • Perfect self

Dude running all feats

4

u/laix_ Mar 20 '23

Thats because john wick exists in a world without magic, and also the story is written to make him always come out on top and be a badass. In the real world, he'd be dead.

12

u/GearyDigit Artificer Mar 20 '23

"[Fictional person set in modern day Earth] is a martial!" will never be a compelling argument because 5e isn't. Also if you want to do cool stuff like John Wick there's actual systems for that, like Feng Shui.

3

u/Scalpels Forever DM Mar 20 '23

Holy shit! I thought I was the only person who knew Feng Shui!

3

u/GearyDigit Artificer Mar 20 '23

I played a cool sci-fantasy game in high school with Feng Shui 2, will definitely never forget it.

3

u/MARPJ Barbarian Mar 20 '23

In PF2e he would be a Monk with the Bullet Dancer archetype (aka gun-fu).

Or maybe just a gunslinger with martial artist archetype

3

u/scatterbrain-d Mar 20 '23

It's not that the fighter in OP's video isn't badass. It's that in a full D&D party, the fighter is just picking up his great sword when the bard casts Mass Suggestion and sends all three of those enemy fighters on a wild goose chase, immediately ending the encounter.

But sure, if you play in a game with only fighters then fighters are real badass.

0

u/Arkhaan Mar 20 '23

That was a berserker barbarian, assassin rogue, and a melee ranger who are supposed to be basically the pinnacle of their classes.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

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4

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

Bad bot, stop stealing comments

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

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1

u/asirkman Mar 20 '23

Copybots are never great.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

John Wick was also playing in a far more versatile system than 5e

0

u/hewlno Battle Master Mar 20 '23

Ehhh.

I don't think he fits in dnd. Because, no, no amount of proficiency bonus increases, or hit points is letting you both be as awesome as john wick and remain human(without immense luck) instead of becoming some sort of demigod.

I'd say he's something like a level 10 fighter in pf2e, or some other non-bounded system.

1

u/Valuable-Banana96 Mar 20 '23

if you don't build John wick with a bucket of rogue levels then you didn't build john wick.

1

u/TheCosmicPopcorn Mar 20 '23

Lol i won my first dnd battleroyale against my teammates as Sean Vic, sharpshooter crossbow expert battlemaster. He packed a punch and said "Whoa..." a lot

1

u/neoslith Mar 20 '23

Now I haven't seen John Wick, but I would have assumed Monk as his class.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

He min-maxed to not be able to roll below a 18 for his attacks tho :/