D&D 5e: As Simple As You like

One of the more remarkable things about Dungeons & Dragons 5th ed. is that there is little tradeoff between simplicity and power in character builds. In 1st & 2nd editions, "character build" was barely even a concept. You had your race, your class, your abilities...and not much else. The only real complexity on offer was in the caster classes. As a Cleric, you *could* just fill all your 1st-level slots with Cure Light Wounds and be fine, but at least you had options.

3.x/PF and 4e, by contrast, rewarded players who spent a lot of time learning the nuances of the class and fine-tuning their builds with massive payoffs in power. But players who didn't work too hard at their build were punished with weak, useless builds. If you were a 3.5 fighter who just picked cool-sounding feats instead of carefully planning out synergies...well, you might as well quit playing at Level 6.  4e narrowed the power band a bit, but it added the further wrinkle that players who didn't learn to use their Encounter, Daily, and Utility abilities effectively would still feel significantly underpowered.

5e starts with an AD&D-like foundation, and then allows more 3.x/4e-style flexibility as options. These options are laid out in such a way as to be mostly lateral moves in terms of power.  The most obvious change is in the feats. Feats are now an alternative to ability score increases. It's hard to say which is more powerful, two ability points or a feat. They're roughly even. But players who just take the ability bonuses won't be punished.

Let's look at how this philosophy affects the Fighter.

The simplest Fighter build is to be a Champion who takes ability score upgrades whenever he has the option. If you go this route, you end up with essentially an AD&D fighter: You roll a lot of attacks, you have a lot of HP, you can use any weapon, and you have some nice static bonuses to a variety of numbers on your character sheet. There isn't a lot to think about.

On the other end, you can be a Battle Master, and you can take a mix of feats and ability score upgrades. This results in a much more complicated character sheet with a mix of powers and feats, somewhere between 4e and 3.5. The crazy thing is that if you run the numbers (and a lot of people have), the damage output of these builds comes out pretty close.

Other classes follow a similar pattern. There's a lot of depth to be explored, but you can play the class in a simple, straightforward way and still be a force to be reckoned with. It's about how you want to play, not about finding the perfect combination of stats that results in you dumping a bucket of damage dice on the table every time you hit while that "stupid newbie" can't figure out why he only ever seems to roll a single, lonely d8.