The "completely typical for an animal of its type" clause also specifies a level one druid's animal companion.
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The "completely typical for an animal of its type" clause also specifies a level one druid's animal companion.
I've found fighters to be very useful. They're very hard to play, far more so than a wizard, cleric or druid.
The job isn't just to hit stuff. The job is to face off on the front line. That involves hitting stuff, getting hit, manipulating the trade off in your groups favour, and making sure you're pursuing the right options. Playing a good fighter is about what's good for the group. Putting yourself in harm's way and trying to stack your personal combat prowress is almost always a bad idea for the individual, but it gives the rest of the group the edge that allows them, for example, to play a character that's really weak in defence but has a great selection of spells. That's why, if you just compare what each can do by themselves, or worse, what they can do to eachother, you get a distorted picture.
Part of the reason why some people don't rate front-line fighters is because they play them badly. Part of the reason is that, yes, there are now enough spells out there that a spellcaster can prepare for almost any eventually. The key word there is can. The sample cleric being discussed is cloistered, has the war and trickeryand dragon domains, divine metamagic, and apparently enough rounds and spell slots to heal, buff themselves, debuff the enemy and still full attack every round. I'd love to see his sheet. Flexibility is key yes, but spellcasters have to make choices, typically at the start of the day, on what to focus on and what not to.
Take your cue from what people choose to ban. One of my groups has come up with a fairly lengthy list, including divine metamagic, VoP and polymorph, sure, but also including two-weapon fighting with armour spikes, the marshal, and some of the more egregious archer builds. So long as you avoid the really cheesiest builds, a balanced party still works better than all spellcasters, although I'm sure that's a lot of fun, just like a playing an all-rogue party is great fun. I'm not saying that the spellcasters aren't powerful, or even that they aren't too powerful, merely that if you've reached the stage of calling all front-liners useless, no matter how well played, then you're probably overstating the case.
I don't think so either.Quote:
Actually changing into monsters isn't too strong.
This gentleman seems to think thats its a big part of the problem though.Quote:
Cleric yes. Druid not so much. All you need to do to break the Druid is crack open the MM1 and look at the stats for the list of monsters provided in the PHB, then take Natural Spell. That's it.
As stated above I really think that a big part of people suddenly NOT liking druids, is the whole "Eye opening experience" thing in which they learn that banning all those books isn't going to help preserve balance you're just being unfair to you non caster players.
Honestly magic is ... Magic can get pretty wonky powerful in D&D. Thing is the monsters have it too. IN SPADES.
The suck part is the guy with the twin swords doesn't get to be the hero who lives through it all and defeats the Evlulz, and that challenges some peoples perspectives.
Likewise ... and this is what Engine was saying, when someone actually creates a fighter that can do ANYTHING well, it leads to complaints. Which likely stems from the fact that they have to do 1 thing well, the spam it till they can invest enough resources to do a second thing well... and they rarely get enough to do a third thing and not be somekind of science experiment race.
Its a multifaceted problem. It irks me though that how many people ONLY look at it from one narrow perspective.
EDIT
I wanted to take a sec and comment on the above poster.
SpoilerAgree. When discussing theoreticals, I too have noted that any theoretical caster has everything he needs. They really won't they have to make choices. So at somepoint they could make the wrong choice. The thing is they have choices at all. So you're right, overall.Quote:
Flexibility is key yes, but spellcasters have to make choices, typically at the start of the day, on what to focus on and what not to.
However...
The last paragrapch of your post went into somestrange land about banning armor spikes. Its was very LOL,WuT?. Cause that means someone in that group doesn't know what they're talking about mechanically and are banning things that are absolutely Unbroken. I started to do a line by line but its not even that crucial, banning archery focused builds ends with only casters being useful in ranged combat beyond 60ft on an open plain. Which is sad.
This is totally contingent on how you define "cheesiest" it sounds like your definition includes any caster whose dedicated to doing anything but evocation.Quote:
So long as you avoid the really cheesiest builds, a balanced party still works better than all spellcasters
An all caster party works better than a balanced party if the the All caster party is balanced. I could show you how they work better in every way if you like. Though if you're arguing that anycaster that is gishing, is cheesy, you've insulted gotten rid of many favored archtypes for many people and some our favorite chars of all time.
Frontliners is a very wierd term but you have to understand that the job is pretty easily replaced via Caster. Further well it should be, the option at least, cause there are monsters in D&D that NOBODY should engage in melee.
If you ask me, while clerics aren't quite druids in their 'Hey I can turn into a bear? Cool!'... they're pretty breakable.
I was playing a timid party-healing goblin cleric, and hit level 7. Upon doing so, I looked in the PHB for 4th level cleric spells, to find that... well, most of them are fairly dumb to memorize, and then there's divine power.
I ended up memorizing spell immunity and neutralize poison, and never used them during the time I had them memorized. Each time I was picking spells... there was divine power, just asking me to be a lateral to the party's fighter... just sitting there...
As far as I'm concerned (but I could be wrong) a fighter won't be able to do that without magic equipment and some good buffs from the wizard or cleric. In this situation, the fighter is only able to fullfil his only role by having casters spend spells on him. Let me repeat that: to do the only thing he's good at, a fighter needs magic, which he has no access to. I think a wizard would rather have a cleric as his companion than a fighter. The cleric is also a good frontline fighter (having heavy armor proficiency, proficiency with all simple weapons + one martial weapon if he has the war domain and only a marginally worse hp and BAB (both of which are solved by divine power)) and from time to time the wizard might even expend a spell on his behalf, but said cleric has his own spells too. It's the same story for a druid, but with more bears.
Now ToB classes (especially the crusader) are a different ballgame. They are not only much better in combat due to their manouvres, but can actually force the enemy to attack them, something the average fighter can only dream of doing.
Maybe... maybe people just hate this?Quote:
As far as I'm concerned (but I could be wrong) a fighter won't be able to do that without magic equipment and some good buffs from the wizard or cleric. In this situation, the fighter is only able to fullfil his only role by having casters spend spells on him. Let me repeat that: to do the only thing he's good at, a fighter needs magic, which he has no access to. I think a wizard would rather have a cleric as his companion than a fighter. The cleric is also a good frontline fighter (having heavy armor proficiency, proficiency with all simple weapons + one martial weapon if he has the war domain and only a marginally worse hp and BAB (both of which are solved by divine power)) and from time to time the wizard might even expend a spell on his behalf, but said cleric has his own spells too. It's the same story for a druid, but with more bears.
HATE IT.
...but then I get the idea that many people hate this too.Quote:
Now ToB classes (especially the crusader) are a different ballgame. They are not only much better in combat due to their manouvres, but can actually force the enemy to attack them, something the average fighter can only dream of doing
I'm starting to get the idea that people hate Melee Characters in someway, secretly.
They never really say it but when there is a melee character keeping up with or exceeding the monsters in damage. Theres always a complaint.
Where as even if we take away the ability from ALL CASTERS TO FIGHT.
Casting would still includ things like "Save... or Die" which I wonder if some people like better becaues the dm can always cheat that I guess.
Maybe its becaue fighting in D&D isn't like fighting in WoW or something along those lines. People seem to keep saying "tank"... which would imply that you're a guy in heavy armor protecting weak phsyically casters.
... so I'm thinking may some of the reason that there's all this animosity is that, many people (not that I've NEVER SAID "All, Most, or You, if myu post offends you at all) many people get upset because they're talking about this but they're trying thier best to defend the sacred cow.
Sacred Cow:
So it occurs to me that many people aren't going to be happy with ANY change from that original paradigm, sometimesSpoilerSpoiler"Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue" = The party.
"Add a bard" = Five man band.
So the idea... that
Spoiler
"Wizard, Wizard, Cleric Druid" = The party
"Add a monk" = for the Lulz
"Add a sorcerer" = for the fun.
Is more effective, just offends some people cause they're partial to what they've always been taught works.
Especially when you get into tings like
Spoiler"Crusader, Warblade, Swordsage, Druid" = The party.
"Add a binder" = For the variety.
Too much anime...
...Just makes people foam a the mouth sometimes...
I agree that the casters can get away with ridiculous stuff while a decent melee class always gets called out on being 'too anime', but I think that our train of thought is mostly to blame. When we think of magic, we think of things that would in no way be comprimisable with modern science, like a man that flies on his own strength, throws around balls of fire, changes shape, cures wounds etc. Phrases like 'a wizard did it' or 'it's magic, I ain't gotta explain sh*t' perfectly express the common sentiments among DnD players. However, a melee class is limited to the rules of physics. I remember a guy I played a PbP game with saying that warblades are too anime (he referred to ToB as BoWFM btw) and completely unrealistic because a round represents six seconds and a warblade with the raging mongoose strike can make 4 x OMGWTFBBQ attacks in those six seconds.
:smallsigh: If you're going to complain about that, then why not call out the druid on his ability to change into a bear and summon bears out of thin air?
IMHO ToB being a bit 'anime' is a good thing, because anime is known for 'normal' melee focused characters performing insane feats of strength/skill, which is exactly what DnD needs to make melee a viable alternative to CoDzilla. I actually remember a demotivational poster that perfectly expressed my thoughts on this: it depicted Goku as a swordsage and Hercule (or Mr. Satan outside of the US) as a monk (the implications are obvious).
People. They love hating things.
Without getting into an Edition War, because God knows we don't need another one of those, this is a terrible way to approach game balance.
It's like if one of the classes gets a free rocket launcher at level 1, and then you give all the monsters rocket launchers to compensate. It's just going to make the guy without a rocket launcher suck even more.
This absolutely is not true. I challenge you to build a "balanced" first level party that "works better" than a first level party of all spellcasters will. If it works at first level, it works at every level, because spellcasters scale quadratically.
Nope. Not overstating at all. With spellcasters in the party, you have absolutely no need for frontliners.
Fighter: Need me to stand in front of you while you cast spells so you don't get grokked?
Wizard: Nah. Fly.
Fighter: Oh. Need me to fly in front of you so you don't get grokked by a mook with a bow?
Wizard: Nah. Mirror Image.
Fighter: Oh. Need me to charge the mooks and deal some damage?
Wizard: Fell Drain Magic Missile. Nah. Druid cleaned up the BBEG during the two rounds it took me to cast those spells. I just nailed the group of mooks with that spell I just said out loud.
Fighter: Oh. Need me to go make dinner or something?
Wizard: Nah. Cleric's got that covered, and the Bard is Prestidigitation'ing some flavor into the food. Plus, you don't really have the skills to spare for Craft: Cooking, do you?
Fighter: Oh. Damn.
Frontliners = useless. I'm currently playing a Cleric who is frontlining for a party consisting of a Paladin, a Knight, and a Rogue. I'm not wearing heavy armor. Or any armor, actually. DMM suits me just fine.
Yes, but how?
There's no mechanic in the Fighter class that could do that. In my current group my Wizard gets targeted a lot more than the tank.
Unfortunately the Fighter could do nothing about that, D&D has no aggro system for the Fighter class. And by the way a Fighter isn't really that durable without magic. Yes, she has a lot of HP. But she could be entagled, blinded, slowed, paralyzed, stunned and much more. And she could do little about that. Primary casters could protect themselves with spell, Fighters couldn't. By the way, Fighters don't have great saves. They need the primary casters' support to survive, while primary casters have little need of them: I found that a well placed Summon Monster most of the times could replace a Fighter all too well.
It's sad: and I'm not speaking because I'm a huge fan of casters, but because I love melee warriors. I played them a lot, from Fighters to Paladins. And a lot of times I found that they lack in choices: yes, the casters could make bad choices, but at least they have that chance. As a Fighter, most of the times, I'm stuck with the few tricks I have and nothing more. I feel like I'm just a warm body in the battlefield, which is really annoying.
And I never played in a high-optimization group.
Sorry, but I'm unsure on what you're trying to say with that. Could you explain, please?
Once more you are blind apparently to a party working as a group - the bad guy is flying so cast fly on the Fighter and he can come up and join the battle.
Diplomacy - well that is what happens when you you rely solely on a skill and its numbers, never played like that with any of the groups i have joined or run over time - if you You cant say what you want to say diplomatically then having a +100 to the skill is not going to change anything.
Diplomacy is not mind control you may well get the target up to being helpful but if no means no then all you have a a helpful person telling you no you cant do that
I play a Cleric, i know all these silly things you can do with them. I don't buff the wazoo out of my self and wade into combat to dominate as i know that its better to buff the wazoo out of everyone else and make for a better group as a whole than be selfish in a group environment.
No, you don't need Optimization - its just that many of you have done so much with it for so long that you forget that its not needed.
The Fighter/Monk/Whatever all work and do so well without it.
Fine its not earth shattering breakable like a full spell caster is but its also not bad and can do its thing just fine but more so with a bit of magical support.
If you are lording it over another player who is not playing a full spell caster for not having what your class can do then you are a bad player.
The wizard is being a jerk - the fighter would best find a group with better players.
Waste of resources. The Cleric can Air Walk himself, thus spreading the resources out and allowing the Wizard to do something useful, instead of acting as a crutch to a terrible and unnecessary party member.
Not sure what you mean here. Your houserule is not a valid argument.
It isn't selfish if everyone can contribute. The only time it's selfish is when one or more party members have chosen to be useless by comparison, and thus are insisting that the Cleric/Wizard/Whoever spend their resources in order that they might contribute.
I call that "baby bird syndrome".
Actually, it would appear that you don't need optimization. The rest of the crowd appears to like challenging, interesting, and engaging fights. You are welcome to play the game however you like, but don't tell us what we need or don't.
Your opinion.
Again, nobody is lording anything over anybody. You seem to be taking offense that we're suggesting that Clerics and Druids simply don't need Fighters. Namecalling is unnecessary.
The Wizard is being a jerk because he doesn't need the Fighter's help? :smallconfused:
Or is it just that the Fighter is unnecessary, and this bothers you because it doesn't fit with your narrow interpretation of what an "adventuring party" should contain?
1st: Do you run the other skills based on player skill too, or is it just the social skills, out of curiosity? I've seen a few games run to undervalue the character's social skills in favor of the player's - mostly by what I'd consider "old-school" DMs - and it always strikes me as curious that a DM would require the socially adept character to be played by the socially adept player, while not making similar demands on the strength-oriented character's player or the dexterity-oriented character's player.
2nd: Without a certain level of system mastery and/or optimization, you end up either running away, dying, or otherwise not meeting level-appropriate challenges adequately in every campaign I've ever seen. This runs both ways; a DM with good system mastery can arrange matters so that encounters don't curb-stomp the PCs who don't yet have a good grasp on what makes for an effective character in 3.X, just as a player with good system mastery/optimization skills can play a support character in such a way as to make the Half-Elf Monk feel consistently useful in combat. . . provided the DM has a modicum of system mastery, common sense and enough decency not to exploit the myriad weaknesses of a Half-Elf Monk relative to a stronger hit-and-run combat type.
My main issue with this argument is that it implies that both scenarios are equally possible; a DM cannot fly in the air and breath fire on someone, but they can act out the part of the dragon/prince verbally. If it were physically possible to be a D&D classed person, why would we play D&D?
How do these Clerics, Druids, and Wizards never run out of spells
if they are doing muti buffs, heals, debuffs damage spells, would they not run out after like one or two encounters
The one thing the fighter has is that he never runs out of hitting things
do you go to bed after every fight
do the NPC's let you
what ever happened to reasorce managment?
That might help. A link would be fine, since presumably it's been done already. The only examples I've seen show the casters breaking down into a number of specialist roles, some of would be better done by a non-caster. Maybe I've not seen a strong enough example.
I tried an all caster party, and by the end of the 5th fight they were leaning pretty heavily on the druid's animal companion and summoned speed bumps, and by the end of the 8th fight, they were running out of steam. Of course we'd banned persist and DMM. The all-casters did ok, they managed just fine, they just weren't as flexible as the balanced party.
You mention Gish, which gives me pause. If your casters include Gish, then you're not doing without front-liners, you're just giving them some casting levels. Which is fine, but means you need to give the same flexibility to the front-liner builds too.
I just use the term front-liner to avoid using fighter - a particular character class that has it's own problems - or meleeist, which gives a false impression of what a good front liner should be able to achieve.
? That doesn't follow.
I have played and DMed all caster parties, and played and DMed balanced parties. I don't agree that the former work better. Maybe it's because we don't use persist spell, or DMM?
You're using a 3rd level spell slot at the start of every fight? And relying on winning initiative?
You're using a 2nd level slot at the start of every fight? And relying on winning initiative. For a spell that might keep you safe for maybe two rounds?
Really? Because I'm looking a druid with an AC so sucky it's going to take forever and a day to heal him, and a group of mooks each of whom have taken token damage and have 1 neg level each. Which at a level at which you can cast multiple 3rd level spells at every encounter is going to do the square root of sod all.
Oh well, let's go on to the next fight.
Wizard: I can't, we have to rest now.
Fighter: already?
Wizard: Sure. I've spent all my spell slots trying to cover every possible contingency. After 2-3 encounters, I'm just not sure if I can contribute to the next fight or not.
fighter: Hang on... You don't sound like a terrbily viable character in all.. Are... are you... are you just a theoretical build?
I'm probably laying it on a bit thick. I've seen all caster parties work. But they do have problems, and in my experience balanced works better.
A lot of times I've played without DMM, and I found that spellcasters work better. I found they work better even just in Core.
Every character relies on winning the Initiative. Even the Fighter.
We have a Witch, a Cleric and a Wizard: none is a theoretical characters, and we do just fine. Because an encounter heavy on party's resources is heavy on Fighter's resources, too. To me, it seems that is your Fighter the theoretical character: a Fighter who can go on on fighting all day without running out of HP just like spellcasters run out of spell slots, who can effectively tank the enemies thus protecting the other party members without a single mechanic that let him do that (houserules don't count).
I love the concept of the Fighter; I hate the Fighter class.
Does it involve losing hp any faster than they are lost anyway? .
Taking a step back, I'd suggest that any discussion of what's better or worse can only be contingent on a single style of play. I played in one 1st ed campaign where manipulation of wealth made other character traits irrelevent.
I don't particularly like it. As a pure class it doesn't really do what it's supposed to, I generally go for a mix of base classes and then go for a prestige class, just as I do when playing a caster.