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What do you think a Fighter should be?
When you think of a Fighter, how what do you see them? And how strong do you feel they should become? At level one are the raw recruits or skilled warriors? At level twenty do you think they should be seen as close to as what a real-life master swordsman would be capable of? Perhaps closer to peak human specimen? Or should they have long since left human limitations behind and be an unstoppable engine of destruction such as the Juggernaut?
At levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 what do you think the fighter should be?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Gettles
When you think of a Fighter, how what do you see them? And how strong do you feel they should become? At level one are the raw recruits or skilled warriors? At level twenty do you think they should be seen as slimier as what a real-life master swordsman would be capable of? Perhaps closer to peak human specimen? Or should they have long since left human limitations behind and be an unstoppable engine of destruction such as the Juggernaut?
At levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 what do you think the fighter should be?
Slimier? Fighters are... slimy?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
hewhosaysfish
Slimier? Fighters are... slimy?
Depends on what they've been killing, doesn't it?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
As mages are masters of magic and able to manipulate the battlefield with spells, I see fighters and the masters of the physical side of combat, able to manipulate the field with tactical prowess.
It usually doesn't work out as ideally as that, but a well-structured party working together helps.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
There are a lot of assumptions baked into the question!
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Fighters should be the unquestioned masters of straight up tactical combat.
Able to keep interrupting enemies that want to get past them at the squichy ones, and able to take hits as well as effortlessly deflect them.
What Fighters should have in my opinion:
- Free Combat Reflexes with a minimum of 1 extra AoO regardless of Dex.
- Ability to intercept even when its not their turn. Basically, can move their speed as extra movement in one round in increments of 5 feet whenever it would stop someone from moving past them at the squishies.
- Ability to deflect blows. Effectively you can pit your attack roll against the enemies and if you are better the attack is deflected. Uses up one AoO.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I think a Fighter should be better, at least in 3.5
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I quite like GrodTheGiant's Fighter reboot. I forget the specifics, but they had a nice set of class abilities that in the RAW game would take an entire feat chain just to get part of that capability. Still no flight or teleportation, but that's an area in which mages (and anything but setpiece encounters) need to be brought down instead of melee fighters being raised up.
Fighters need to be able to tank, pretty much. Not with 4e-style 'attack me or else' abilities, but with basic rules of the game that allow anyone to slow down an enemy trying to get at the squishies but which make characters with Fighter levels the absolute best at it.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
What do you need to engage a dragon? If you answer that, you've got most of what I think a fighter should be.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Since Dungeons & Dragons is a game full of monsters and spellcasters capable of pulling of superhuman feats, a Fighter should get superhuman abilities around the middle levels (8+).
Ideally, a Fighter archetype would be capable of contributing outside of combat as well. Different archetypes for different stuff: a guerrilla commando can create traps and hide from the enemies (including magical detection), an inspiring warlord can grant "buff" effects to his allies, etc.
Also, a Fighter (and noncasters in general) need abilities which can circumvent or resist magical effects. A fighter might be capable of smashing through a forcecage or indestructible magical wall with "sheer martial power/force of will/etc." Or able to detect invisible and incorporeal opponents by "listening to the air."
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Gettles
When you think of a Fighter, how what do you see them? And how strong do you feel they should become? At level one are the raw recruits or skilled warriors? At level twenty do you think they should be seen as close to as what a real-life master swordsman would be capable of? Perhaps closer to peak human specimen? Or should they have long since left human limitations behind and be an unstoppable engine of destruction such as the Juggernaut?
At levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 what do you think the fighter should be?
Assuming we're talking 3.5 level range here:
Fightes should be the most dangerous people on the battlefield, and among the toughest. If you take your eye off the fighter for an instant you are dead meat.
Level 1: Strong, tough, shows potential. Blooded warrior.
Level 5: About as fit, strong, and versatile as an olympic pentathlete. Except in a much, much bloodier school. Peak human is around this point.
Level 10: The bastard offspring of John McClane, Indiana Jones, and Conan. Can find the weak point to knock down walls in less than a minute. Doesn't even need to roll to kill anyone who isn't a major boss monster (e.g. dragons, beholders, major demons, seriously named blackguards - wizards never qualify) or someone with five levels in non-casting classes (incl. Paladins and Rangers) as a standard melee action. Tough enough to shrug off almost all spells not cast by a God (but this does nothing against indirect spellcasting like walls or flight).
Alternatively the AD&D version: a major badass capable of shrugging off most spells and who comes with his own army. Also the game changes here - and the most powerful PC in Greyhawk was Level 14 (Robilar).
Level 15: At this level if the fighter gets line of sight on anything non-martial it dies. He can pin a fly to a tree with a dagger from 50', behind him. If level 15 fighter brings his sword down on anything it breaks - this includes things like Prismatic Spheres (and any other spell) or even cutting the tops off mountains, Celtic Myth style - or he can cause an earthquake by smashing a mace into the ground. He is more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Any wizard stupid enough to try casting a spell on the fighter when the fighter knows about it finds that the fighter simply plays baseball and bats it back. Or can put a dagger through his eyeball from 100' away before he's finished casting even a quickened spell.
Level 20: If he dies he beats up death itself to return to life. He can cut through the walls between planes with his sword and run faster than a speeding bullet. (Speed breaks things).
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A fighter should be a person with a weapon that they forcefully puts into other things in an effort to cause them grievous bodily harm. Could be anything. A bandit, their mom, a chair. I don't care.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
The Fighter should be the guy who can deliver a beatdown no matter what. It shouldn't matter if his enemy is a Wizard, a Dragon, an Ooze, a Demon, or a mind-eating eldritch horror. The Fighter should perform well, whether he's swinging a scimitar, tossing a spear, firing arrows, flinging rocks, or smacking someone with his fists. A magic wall should only inconvenience a Fighter, not stop him.
There should not be ways to render the Fighter obsolete. Summons should not be nearly as strong as the Fighter. Miss chances should not make the Fighter worthless. Flight should not make the Fighter worthless. Whether this is accomplished by making the Fighter highly resistant to these, or giving him powers to deal with them, or changing the nature of these mechanics so they do not stop him completely, is not as important.
The Fighter must have viable innate defenses against all forms of attack, including mental attacks. That is to say, he must be reasonably able to resist any form of assault (whether through a saving throw, or his Hit Points, or anything else). There should not be a "no button" to the Fighter. Conversely, the Fighter should be able to fight and defeat all types of opponents, whether they're misty and insubstantial, or masters of magic, or giant monsters.
In short: The Fighter must be the best at fighting. Other classes might be situationally strong (like getting surprise, or fighting a certain enemy type) and be weak when their tricks don't work (or have a strict tradeoff between combat ability and out-of-combat ability), but the Fighter will kick ass in every fight, no matter what.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Libertad
...a Fighter should get superhuman abilities around the middle levels (8+).
This is a sentiment that I totally disagree with. I'm going to say something that might be considered slightly controversial now...the Tome of Battle did it wrong.
Sure it may have brought so-called martial classes closer into line with the "top tier" caster classes, power-wise, but it did it by making them non-marital and more magical. Some of the abilities were ok, but many of them were just magical effects with a mundane label (and some not even that). It also made the mistake of making these so-called martial effects behave mechanically like spells and spell-like effects; something that 4ed did to the detriment of the game (in my opinion, of course).
The "martial" character, the Fighter being the foremost proponent of the title, should be everything the Wizard, Cleric and other spellcasters and characters are not. The Fighter should have a firm grounding in reality; he should be a foil to magic by the mere fact of how mundane he is. The Fighter should be more than a greatsword toting beat-stick; he should be a master of exotic weaponry, an adept of many styles, able as easily to take up a lance and pierce the dragons heart as he can hew his way through lesser warriors with his trusty battle axe. He should be the guy who can spot the tactical advantage and exploit it, the guy with the magic sword leading the charge and the one that everyone sees as the man of the hour, champion of the battlefield and hero of the people whilst the magician is too mistrusted, the priest only doing the duty expected of him and the thief merely a background presence at best.
In short, I don't think Charisma should neccesarily be a dump stat for the Fighter. Think of every warrior protagonist you've ever read about or seen in a film...Boromir, the archetypal Fighter, was loved by his father and his people both, whilst Faramir, the so-called "wizards pupil", took a mere second place in their eyes. Conan, though a pirate, mercenary and barbarian, was held in awe by those who met him; men would die for him and women willingly give themselves to him (though admitedly they sometimes required, uh, persuasion). I think this kind of "hero status" should be part and parcel of being a Fighter, far more so than any other class, simply because it's something that is seen so often in fiction (and, if truth be told, history as well...throughout recorded history until very recently, it's always been the strongest, the most skilled in battle that have dominated society, whilst the advisors and instigators take a more secondary role).
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I wish I were making a sword-and-sorcery movie, so that I could steal some of these quotes and give them to the guy who trains the hero.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I have been considering making fighters more viable by reducing their xp to level
it makes no sense that it takes a fighter as long as a wizard to hit 16-17 bab as it does for 9th spell level.
How is their bab progression and extra hp and feats just as hard to master as the arcane might to warp reality to whims?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Ravenica
I have been considering making fighters more viable by reducing their xp to level
it makes no sense that it takes a fighter as long as a wizard to hit 16-17 bab as it does for 9th spell level.
How is their bab progression and extra hp and feats just as hard to master as the arcane might to warp reality to whims?
Because they're supposed to be just as effective in-game-world. Otherwise the CR system is even more meaningless than it already was.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Short version, if a fighter is level X, it should be able to compete with other level X characters.
Long version, it might have some degree of an advantage in combat, and pay for it with reduced out of combat utility, but I don't agree with the idea that the fighter should be vastly superior in battle. However, it shouldn't just be able to be shut down.
The problem is that wizards have a serious weakness in their base stats, but loads of ways to cover it up. Fighters have a great strength in their base stats, but there exist far too many ways to circumvent the stats entirely. If the fighter is supposed to be a defensive class, and the wizard a squishy one, then the fighter should generally be able to withstand a concentrated assault, and the wizard not, whether that assault is physical, energy, psychic, melee, ranged, whatever.
Certain characters may be better or worse against certain things, and may even specifically take a weakness, but giant gaping defensive holes should not be built into a defensive class.
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Although a concept that I also find interesting is a more rock-paper-scissors style of balance between fighters, mages, and monsters. The fighters have the high stats, so they have a high chance at succeeding to defend against/overcome/otherwise deal with the spells the mages throw (save against the attack spells, dodge the rays, strength check to ignore the battlefield control, whatever). They also, due to statistical superiority, only need to land a couple solid shots to bring down a mage, whereas the mage probably needs to unload a good clip of blasts to take out the fighter, and can only keep it disabled for a short time before good ol' heroic willpower throws the enchantment off.
However, monsters have powerful inherent abilities and odd but exploitable weaknesses. The fighters have trouble against monsters, because hack and slash until it dies doesn't always work, but the mages have all these tricks that they can use to counter their offenses and exploit their weaknesses. A giant is a massive ol' hunk of combat stats, but is vulnerable to enchantments and has squat danger sense for dealing with invisible foes. You can't stab a ghost, but a circle of protection can keep it at bay, and a divination can reveal how to put it to rest. Trolls regenerate as fast as you can hurt them, but engulf them in a fireball and they can't heal, and their rending claws are not very effective against foes a hundred feet in the air. And so on.
Not to say that each should be useless against the opposing one. A skilled fighter who is careful or lucky or just plain higher level can take on a giant, and might be able to get creative or acquire relevant gear (sword-and-torch against the troll, stake-and-cross for the vampire, silver weapon for the werewolf). A mage can still blast its way through a fighter's hit points given enough time, and with some good rolls keep it disabled frequently enough to play keep away. A monster is probably buff enough to out-stat the mage, especially if it can catch it unprepared. But each one has its advantages and disadvantages.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
JellyPooga
This is a sentiment that I totally disagree with. I'm going to say something that might be considered slightly controversial now...the Tome of Battle did it wrong.
Sure it may have brought so-called martial classes closer into line with the "top tier" caster classes, power-wise, but it did it by making them non-marital and more magical. Some of the abilities were ok, but many of them were just magical effects with a mundane label (and some not even that). It also made the mistake of making these so-called martial effects behave mechanically like spells and spell-like effects; something that 4ed did to the detriment of the game (in my opinion, of course).
It's almost like I'm reading a checklist of things to look for in someone who has never played, or possibly read, Tome of Battle.
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The "martial" character, the Fighter being the foremost proponent of the title, should be everything the Wizard, Cleric and other spellcasters and characters are not.
So nothing? He's already a good part of the way there.
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The Fighter should have a firm grounding in reality; he should be a foil to magic by the mere fact of how mundane he is. The Fighter should be more than a greatsword toting beat-stick; he should be a master of exotic weaponry, an adept of many styles, able as easily to take up a lance and pierce the dragons heart as he can hew his way through lesser warriors with his trusty battle axe. He should be the guy who can spot the tactical advantage and exploit it, the guy with the magic sword leading the charge
These don't sound like much more than more feats. Nothing that allows for being competitive with casters.
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and the one that everyone sees as the man of the hour, champion of the battlefield and hero of the people whilst the magician is too mistrusted, the priest only doing the duty expected of him and the thief merely a background presence at best.
So DM favoritism and fluff rewards for being the most useless character in the group. Somehow I don't see this going over well.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I'm all for a fighter being a bada$$, master of tactical combat, eventually being of such prowess even a dragon would take pause. However, that should not come at the expense of making spellcasters chumps of pathetic nobodies. Not that I really think 3E fighters suck, but it's not the wizard's fault the fighter sucks and should not be punished for it. There's plenty of room for both the warrior and spellcaster to be omnipotent terrors against all monsters.
Fighters should not have 100% or close to it immunity to every possible instance of hostile magic all the time, every time, suck it wizard. A flat 50% is boring. I'm fine with 100% or close to it for some magic but quite vulnerable to others and everywhere in between for everything else, mix and match to taste depending upon various builds of flexible choices.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Gettles
When you think of a Fighter, how what do you see them?
As a class specialising in either melee or ranged combat, or both. Very good at killing things. Fairly good at staying alive (more so than clerics, thieves and especially mages).
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And how strong do you feel they should become? At level one are the raw recruits or skilled warriors? At level twenty do you think they should be seen as close to as what a real-life master swordsman would be capable of? Perhaps closer to peak human specimen? Or should they have long since left human limitations behind and be an unstoppable engine of destruction such as the Juggernaut?
I feel they should become quite strong, although I'm not sure how to answer 'how strong' very accurate. Clearly, to me, they should be the class that is most competent in combat, and against a single opponent they should be capable of handling themselves at least as well as any other class.
I think that, at level twenty, it should be more the master swordsman. I see level twenty as the highest level that people are generally expected to reach, and so at that point they should ideally be at the pinnacle of their profession.
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At levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 what do you think the fighter should be?
At level one, I think they are raw recruits. At level one, I imagine every class is just starting out, barely out of apprenticeship if that - after all, the base XP for level one is 0.
By fifth level they should be reasonably competent, although nothing to write home about in terms of skill. By tenth, they should be starting to be recognised as powerful, and by fifteenth they should compare with a fairly high ranking soldier in some army. By twentieth, they should be able to expect to be better than most all enemy soldiers that they meet. Other classes ought to follow a similar pattern, in my opinion, although of course not precisely the same.
I would also say that the number of weapons that they master should go up in those jumps, or possibly even more frequently.
Basically, I think that a fighter should be the best at combat, be it melee or ranged. They should be proficient in most any style of combat, and excel at several. They should, of course, not be invulnerable and unbeatable, because that's no fun - just very good, and very tough. Aside from using magical equipment, they shouldn't use magic, and shouldn't have to.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
To make the non-magical guy with a stick to work, you need the system well-balanced with them in mind.
If you're going to have things like Flight and Invisibility in the game (which they shouldn't be IMO, since they're very powerful effects), the Fighter needs to be able to compete. Maybe he becomes enough of a hardcore badass to beat these things by virtue of his class abilities. Maybe magic or Ki see how awesome he is and start attaching to him as he grows in level, allowing him to do things which "Muggles" couldn't otherwise (see magic in the air, use his sword as a boomerang, cut spells in half, step through dimensions, etc). He should also be able to inflict more status effects and replicate spell effects (smack someone on the head to trigger a Save vs. Daze, knock people around by hitting them really hard, move so fast he can't be seen, etc).
An easier way would be to play a low-magic system (sort of like TES). That is, one where magic doesn't have so many "game-changers" and "plot breakers" like Invisibility, Flight, Teleport, and so on. Mental control is very limited, and essentially constitutes a bonus on social skills. Most spells are either blasting, shielding, have a long casting time, or are otherwise severely restricted (costly components, short duration, etc). The Fighter is at home here; he can stand up to warlocks and magicians, snapping their pencil-necks in a straight-up fight, as he should. Of course, if the magicians have time to scheme or gather their own fighting-men to hold him back, then the Fighter should be wary, or make preparations of his own...
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Frankly, I think the 4e Fighter is darn close to ideal. They dominate the battlefield, crush their opposition, and hinder enemies from doing anything more useful than flailing uselessly against their superior armor and health.
-O
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A Fighter should be something the roleplaying community looks back on as a novelty, seen as a poorly made class long after class systems have been largely abandoned for generally being inferior methods for all that they are.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Seerow
It's almost like I'm reading a checklist of things to look for in someone who has never played, or possibly read, Tome of Battle.
You're right, I've never really given ToB more than a brief skim (which, for me, constitutes a fairly thorough reading by anyone elses standards). This is largely because I took one look at what they were trying to do with marital classes and considered it a poor way to go. Sue me.
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These don't sound like much more than more feats. Nothing that allows for being competitive with casters.
Yeah, I think that a Fighters abilities should work much like Feats. Per day or per encounter abilities that have effects like teleport, healing and AoE fire effects are the realm of wizards and clerics, not fighters. It's rather one of the points of being a Fighter that, if he so chooses, he can simply rinse and repeat the same moves over and over.
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So DM favoritism and fluff rewards for being the most useless character in the group. Somehow I don't see this going over well.
I'm rather saying that part and parcel of being a Fighter should include these kind of things instead of making it "DM favouritism", as you call it. The Wizard gets awesome spells, the Cleric gets the favour of the gods, Rogues get to be the guy behind the scenes and the Fighter is the one in the spotlight, whatever that may mean; followers, titles, morale bonuses for their allies or morale penalties for their enemies, circumstance bonuses in social situations, that sort of thing. The Aura abilities of the Marshal are along the lines of the kind of thing I imagine should be part of the Fighter, myself. In fact, were you to kind of mash together some of the 'splinter-class' fighters of later publications, like the Marshal, Knight and Swashbuckler, then you might end up with something that resembles what I consider the Fighter should be.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A Fighter should be like Riddick. Yes, he kills you with his Teacup :smallbiggrin:
gr,
Geri
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A fighter should be like the heroes of myth. The ones that wrestled dragons for fun and could lay waste to whole armies and cut mountains in two with a single swing of their sword. This grounded in reality stuff needs to stop.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
JellyPooga
You're right, I've never really given ToB more than a brief skim (which, for me, constitutes a fairly thorough reading by anyone elses standards). This is largely because I took one look at what they were trying to do with marital classes and considered it a poor way to go. Sue me.
Yeah, I think that a Fighters abilities should work much like Feats. Per day or per encounter abilities that have effects like teleport, healing and AoE fire effects are the realm of wizards and clerics, not fighters. It's rather one of the points of being a Fighter that, if he so chooses, he can simply rinse and repeat the same moves over and over.
Apparently a skim for you is a skim for anyone else - you've managed to entirely miss how the Bo9S works. There are three classes in the Bo9S not one - and the fighter maps to the Warblade. The Warblade has direct access to five of the nine schools. The Teleports are part of Shadow Hand (the Ninja school) -Warblades don't have access. The AoE fire is Desert Wind. Warblades don't have access. Both these schools belong to Swordsages - a medium BAB class that is magical. And the healing is almost all Devoted Spirit - once again Warblades don't have access. Devoted Spirit belongs to Crusaders - who replace Paladins. Are you saying Paladins shouldn't heal?
And doing the same moves over in different situations and expecting no one to learn them is part of what makes fighters tedious in pre 4e (or rather pre Bo9S) for me.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
neonchameleon
There are three classes in the Bo9S not one - and the fighter maps to the Warblade.
You're correct, yes, that I chose three examples of maneuvers that the Warblade doesn't have access to. This is largely because they are some of the only examples that I remember from reading a book I had access to for a short period of time several years ago. I've got a good memory, but it's not an eidetic one, sorry. :smallwink:
That the Warblade doesn't have access to the particular examples I gave is besides the point; there are others that the Warblade does have access to that have similar psuedo-magical effects. Admittedly, not perhaps as overtly so as those that the Swordsage gets, but they crossed the line enough for me to ditch the book as something I wasn't interested in.
As for repetitious actions, yeah, it's something that the Fighter has long been prone to. This is because the combat system in D&D has long been quite abstract; HP do not map directly to "health", the "attack roll" is not just a single swing of your sword, etc. I'll not deny that it can be boring, but for me half the point of being a Fighter style character is that you have the freedom to do as you please instead of being restricted to the limited effects of the written spells and abilites of other classes. Maybe it's just my experience from playing AD&D, where 'combat maneuvers' like shoving enemies aside, tripping them up and such were something done on the fly and just given an ad-hoc ruling by the GM instead of relying on a rule to do it for us. The very basic combat system was just used as a framework to hang the rest of the actual action instead of the be-all and end-all of the Fighters role. One of the things I disliked most about 3ed is that it pinned those "moves" down with rules and made them very difficult or even impossible to achieve without the requisite Feat or Class ability.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
JellyPooga
I'll not deny that it can be boring, but for me half the point of being a Fighter style character is that you have the freedom to do as you please instead of being restricted to the limited effects of the written spells and abilites of other classes. Maybe it's just my experience from playing AD&D, where 'combat maneuvers' like shoving enemies aside, tripping them up and such were something done on the fly and just given an ad-hoc ruling by the GM instead of relying on a rule to do it for us.
You see, this is exactly what I don't want to see. The DM doesn't adjudicate on whether or not a fireball goes off or a healing spell works. But everything you're listing for a Fighter requires that kind of permission.
I want Fighters to have that same degree of fiat and world-manipulation. But they can do it because they are impressive, skilled warriors - paragons of fighting ability - rather than because they read a few books somewhere or prayed really hard.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
JellyPooga
You're correct, yes, that I chose three examples of maneuvers that the Warblade doesn't have access to. This is largely because they are some of the only examples that I remember from reading a book I had access to for a short period of time several years ago. I've got a good memory, but it's not an eidetic one, sorry. :smallwink:
That the Warblade doesn't have access to the particular examples I gave is besides the point; there are others that the Warblade does have access to that have similar psuedo-magical effects. Admittedly, not perhaps as overtly so as those that the Swordsage gets, but they crossed the line enough for me to ditch the book as something I wasn't interested in.
Actually, no. Well ok, there is one maneuver that I cannot explain that Warblades get, Lightning Throw, which pretty much allows you to be Captain America throwing your weapons everywhere and having them come back, which I personally cannot explain. So, no Warblade I've ever made has ever gained that maneuver. It's actually really easy to only have your Warblade pick maneuvers that fit your personal level of realism. Hell, you can go from level 1-20 with your character just being able to do a variety of awesome strikes, if things like negating magic effects by being an awesome warrior feels wrong to you. It's a bit boring, since some of the cooler abilities are counters and boosts, but it can be done.
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As for repetitious actions, yeah, it's something that the Fighter has long been prone to. This is because the combat system in D&D has long been quite abstract; HP do not map directly to "health", the "attack roll" is not just a single swing of your sword, etc. I'll not deny that it can be boring, but for me half the point of being a Fighter style character is that you have the freedom to do as you please instead of being restricted to the limited effects of the written spells and abilites of other classes. Maybe it's just my experience from playing AD&D, where 'combat maneuvers' like shoving enemies aside, tripping them up and such were something done on the fly and just given an ad-hoc ruling by the GM instead of relying on a rule to do it for us. The very basic combat system was just used as a framework to hang the rest of the actual action instead of the be-all and end-all of the Fighters role. One of the things I disliked most about 3ed is that it pinned those "moves" down with rules and made them very difficult or even impossible to achieve without the requisite Feat or Class ability.
Now for me personally, I like that things are given rules on how to bull-rush, how to disarm, and so on. I just think 3-3.5e messed up in it's difficulty. At the very least Fighters should by say level 5 or 6 or so should not be suffering AOO for doing things that all the cool warriors in shows and stories do.
Personally, I believe a similar level of abstraction has to be used by Magic Users and Warrior. If every minor little thing you can do with magic is given it's own spell, then warriors should have a list of attacks they should be able to do.
Now what should a Fighter be?
I personally enjoy playing more lower power level style campaigns. So for me a Fighter should be:
Level 1: Most skilled of the new recruits
Level 5: Trained soldier
Level 10: Champion of an army
Level 15: Conan
Level 20: Druss the Legend
An army coming at you should always be worrying, even if they're 10-15 levels lower than you. Of course casters would be scaled down to match.
As to how they'd play. They should have varying stuff to do that is useful in different situations. If you pick up a fighting style to focus on what you've come to expect that someone with that fighting style should be able to do you should be able to by around level 5. Beyond that you just get better. Now that doesn't mean you don't learn new tricks, that'd be dumb, but let's say you want to be a shield fighter. Looking at what shield guys do in books/movies: Block attacks, defend against AOE, protect allies, push folks away with shield, knock people silly by hitting them in the head. Ok those 5 things need to be able to be done by level 5. Beyond that level you can perhaps gain an area around you were you can protect allies, maybe earlier you could only daze an opponent with your shield, later you can stun them. And so on. Plus add in a few more tricks that I haven't even thought of (I am not a very good game designer), and that should be a very fun to play class.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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That the Warblade doesn't have access to the particular examples I gave is besides the point; there are others that the Warblade does have access to that have similar psuedo-magical effects. Admittedly, not perhaps as overtly so as those that the Swordsage gets, but they crossed the line enough for me to ditch the book as something I wasn't interested in.
Yeah, I see what's so mystical about making two attacks against two enemies, or shrugging off a status effect. Or even looking at his highest level maneuvers, get +damage, make two full attacks in a round, deal constitution damage, save or die, you and your allies charge a target and stun them.
I can really see the magic just oozing off the page.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I'm pretty well known for stumping for the Fighter around this forum; he's one of the few classes (the only one that I know of) who has no spells, supernatural, or even extraordinary abilities, and so I see him as the "people's champion", the ordinary guy who has the sheer cajones to try to slay a dragon with just a sword and his wits and courage. It shouldn't be EASY for him, obviously, but I take more than a little umbrage at how he's dismissed as utterly useless (tier 5), especially on the website of a comic whose main character is a Fighter and generally an awesome guy - Roy is not precisely a typical fighter, given his Intelligence, but he does strike me as a great illustration of how any Fighter that isn't just a dumb mook ought to be portrayed - savvy, pragmatic, and never calling it quits. Fighters make great quintessential hero-types to me, though of course there's plenty of room for ordinary sell-swords, bullies, blood knights and so forth within the class.
In every case, I think it's very appropriate for them to officially have no class features, but have the GM pulling for them in any way that he thinks is within his rights; they shouldn't have plot armor or a charmed life, but they should get opportunities to put their particular strengths to good use, opportunities that need not be pushed so far for characters who have inherent powers to rely upon. (This obviously needs to be done with a great deal of finesse not to come across as being completely unfair; I think of it as an extension of the same principle as XP awards for good roleplaying, not a violation of the game's rules but just a stretching of them to the limit of their acceptible reach.)
A level 20 fighter should be a Gilgamesh, a Hercules, a Goemon or a Rambo. At level 1 he's just a guy with the guts to intentionally place himself in (or as) harm's way; through the low-to-mid levels, he becomes a seasoned veteran, and past level 10-15 he starts to become a living legend, like the best and brightest celebrities of our world, people who do something that anyone theoretically could do, but make it seem miraculous.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
willpell
It shouldn't be EASY for him, obviously, but I take more than a little umbrage at how he's dismissed as utterly useless (tier 5), especially on the website of a comic whose main character is a Fighter and generally an awesome guy - Roy is not precisely a typical fighter, given his Intelligence, but he does strike me as a great illustration of how any Fighter that isn't just a dumb mook ought to be portrayed - savvy, pragmatic, and never calling it quits. Fighters make great quintessential hero-types to me, though of course there's plenty of room for ordinary sell-swords, bullies, blood knights and so forth within the class.
That's Problem 1.
I agree that Fighters are portrayed as awesome in fiction. Is it too much to ask that their mechanics help make them awesome?
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In every case, I think it's very appropriate for them to officially have no class features, but have the GM pulling for them in any way that he thinks is within his rights; they shouldn't have plot armor or a charmed life, but they should get opportunities to put their particular strengths to good use, opportunities that need not be pushed so far for characters who have inherent powers to rely upon. (This obviously needs to be done with a great deal of finesse not to come across as being completely unfair; I think of it as an extension of the same principle as XP awards for good roleplaying, not a violation of the game's rules but just a stretching of them to the limit of their acceptible reach.)
IMO, no class should need to depend on DM whim or fiat to do the basic stuff which makes them capable of playing on the same table as people who are warping the fabric of reality.
Again - I agree this is the fictional ideal. I disagree that it in any way resembles what the pre-4e D&D Fighter actually does.
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A level 20 fighter should be a Gilgamesh, a Hercules, a Goemon or a Rambo. At level 1 he's just a guy with the guts to intentionally place himself in (or as) harm's way; through the low-to-mid levels, he becomes a seasoned veteran, and past level 10-15 he starts to become a living legend, like the best and brightest celebrities of our world, people who do something that anyone theoretically could do, but make it seem miraculous.
At Level 1, a Wizard is flinging spells around and putting rooms full of kobolds to sleep. At Level 1, a Cleric is calling on powers from their god and compelling skeletons and zombies to retreat in fear.
A Level 1 Fighter in AD&D had the title of Veteran. I think that sounds about right. They are capable and powerful warriors already - or should be - rather than just scrubs.
I'd love it if a higher-level fighter were mythical figures like Gilgamesh or Hercules (and lower-level fighters were on their way to getting that impressive). The problem is, there's nothing whatsoever in the class's mechanics that lets them do this. No superhuman feats of strength, no mythical endurance, no ability to divert the flows of rivers to clean out stables or anything like that. At higher levels they get to hit things more reliably and ... trip stuff. And when mechanics are suggested that would let them fulfill these great and legendary things ... well, it's too magical.
-O
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
The way I see fighters is thus:
At level one they are the new recruits, they will have far more potential than warriors or other NPC classes, but they are the new blood.
At level 3-4 we are looking at professional soldiers, they fight and drill for a living, they will be brave, smart and disciplined; able to adapt to situations as they come.
Levels 5-6 are elite soldiers, the finest troops in the regular army or specialists from a crack company. They are the private guards of Nobility or powerful organisations.
7-8 are officers and men with years of combat experience, they've nearly seen it all and very little would surprise them. You might find small units of veterans like these, they will be renound units that have never lost a fight and are the pride of a nation. These are seasoned adventurers that have seen more than their fair share of carnage.
9-10 are the most capable men and women you are likely to find, they can dispatch most threats with out breaking out in a sweat. They will be the heroes that companies rally around, the champions of villages or cities. Songs will be sung about them in local taverns and places they fight in.
11-15 These are the champions of armies, elected to do single combat to win honour or glory, these are the men and women that are sung about across a country. These are king's personal go-to men. Adventures of such renound that kings and queens will know their names personally and follow them with interest.
16-20 Legends in their own right, these are the sorts of people that songs are sung about should they leave any witnesses to their deeds. A kingdom might have a few fighters this level and if they are lucky they will be elect to use their powers for good. A force of nature that could only be stopped by some immense combined effort. They will be the rulers or champions of the most powerful noble houses or Royal lines, or mercenaries that decide the fate of battles and wars.
21+ Far beyond mortal limits, they can barely be touched by any other man. They are killing machines that fear nothing and are known to the Gods, they direct the fate of worlds and planes
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
obryn
I agree that Fighters are portrayed as awesome in fiction. Is it too much to ask that their mechanics help make them awesome?
Good idea in theory, I just don't like pretty much every attempt I've ever seen at executing it, and dislike those efforts more than I dislike the as-written fighter (though I have admittedly never tried to make a Fighter 20 work to my satisfaction, I may eventually end up agreeing with the community, but that doesn't mean I'll accept their jaded assessment as more fact than bias; I'm big on figuring things out for myself).
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At Level 1, a Wizard is flinging spells around and putting rooms full of kobolds to sleep.
Maybe three times a day, he is doing those things. The Fighter is all that keeps him from being killed seventeen times after he runs out of spells and before he goes to bed for the night. (This is one big piece of the LFQW problem, unsurprisingly; the fighter always has the same amount of longevity, while the wizard gets more spells per day even while his existing spells get more powerful and he gets access to higher spell levels - actually, why do they say "quadratic" rather than "cubic"?)
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At Level 1, a Cleric is calling on powers from their god and compelling skeletons and zombies to retreat in fear.
Okay, I'll give you that one - but that's practically the cleric's entire shtick, and IMO undead are overused. In my game the cleric will routinely go a month without ever finding undead to turn, and then when he finally finds some, his daily turning allotment will run dry before the zombie horde stops coming. Undead are NOT about playing fair; treating them as a level-appropriate challenge is doing a disservice to their potential for horror.
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A Level 1 Fighter in AD&D had the title of Veteran. I think that sounds about right. They are capable and powerful warriors already - or should be - rather than just scrubs.
I completely disagree because of the way 3E's mechanics work. There IS no way to build a raw recruit who eventually becomes a "veteran" at Fighter level 1 and character level 1. If you take levels in Warrior or Commoner, you are detracting from the maximum fighter level you can ever attain, and making it take far longer to attain the first fighter level than if you just started as a fighter. Technically, the way the rules are set up doesn't make any sense outside of the adventurer paradigm, because they don't allow you to be a character before you take your first level; it's assumed that all the people around you are level 1 commoners, but you never were one, so why are they? It is for much this reason that the Warrior class simply doesn't exist in my campaign world (though I plan to eventually brew up a modified version of it to represent orcs and goblins and such who live by the club in the wilderness, something a little closer to a Barbarian or Ranger without the full features of those classes, with better HD and skill points). So in my game, the Fighter 1 is a fresh graduate of a military academy, a tribe member heading off to earn his manhood in the first hunt, a citizen accepting the call of destiny to defend their family against a sudden attack, or a budding mercenary off to prove that he's worth what it'll cost to keep him eating. At level 3-5 the "veteran" label starts to apply, though it might still be valid until 10 or later.
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No superhuman feats of strength, no mythical endurance, no ability to divert the flows of rivers to clean out stables or anything like that.
Actually D&D characters in general pretty much have all that, though it's more because of shortcomings in the rules than anything deliberate. There's not much in the way of fatigue rules, and the carrying limits are pretty generous; adventurers in general are pretty superhuman, and one simple way to make fighters look better would be to invent various rules for the strain of heavy physical labor, which are applied to characters in inverse order of hit die size (okay the Barbarian would still end up looking better than the Fighter, but that's appropriate since he's the one guy who is even more about living by the sweat of his brow).
[quote]And when mechanics are suggested that would let them fulfill these great and legendary things ... well, it's too magical.
There is a very fine line indeed between stretching the suspension of disbelief and snapping it. The best place to look for examples of what a "hyper-human but not superhuman" character ought to be capable of is probably the summer action movie, but unfortunately those tend to be quite long on cars and guns, and thus it's not easy to adapt them to D&D's medieval milieu.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Slipperychicken
To make the non-magical guy with a stick to work, you need the system well-balanced with them in mind.
If you're going to have things like Flight and Invisibility in the game (which they shouldn't be IMO, since they're very powerful effects), the Fighter needs to be able to compete. Maybe he becomes enough of a hardcore badass to beat these things by virtue of his class abilities. Maybe magic or Ki see how awesome he is and start attaching to him as he grows in level, allowing him to do things which "Muggles" couldn't otherwise (see magic in the air, use his sword as a boomerang, cut spells in half, step through dimensions, etc). He should also be able to inflict more status effects and replicate spell effects (smack someone on the head to trigger a Save vs. Daze, knock people around by hitting them really hard, move so fast he can't be seen, etc).
An easier way would be to play a low-magic system (sort of like TES). That is, one where magic doesn't have so many "game-changers" and "plot breakers" like Invisibility, Flight, Teleport, and so on. Mental control is very limited, and essentially constitutes a bonus on social skills. Most spells are either blasting, shielding, have a long casting time, or are otherwise severely restricted (costly components, short duration, etc). The Fighter is at home here; he can stand up to warlocks and magicians, snapping their pencil-necks in a straight-up fight, as he should. Of course, if the magicians have time to scheme or gather their own fighting-men to hold him back, then the Fighter should be wary, or make preparations of his own...
Not really, you don't have to cut out flight, invisibility and teleport to make the fighter keep up. You just need to model capability and keep magic from being all or nothing. If flight magic had a requirement that you move 1/2 your move distance every turn, then a fighter could have an ability that lets him hit you so hard with a ranged attack that you can't make that required distance, so you fall out of the air. Invisibility can be countered by giving fighters the ability to recieve AoO against melee attacks, or a immediate action ability, and not include any "line of sight" mechanics to it's activation. Invisibility is an advantage, but a fighter is so good at fighting, that he still gets a 50% chance of nailing you on your turn.
But the main thing is to make it outright impossible for a fighter to specialize in just one weapon. As an adventurer he should have a bow or some throwing weapons for distant enemies, not moaning about how an enemy is flying and he can't do anything to it. This also means that mundane combat has to change so that at all levels without any specific investment into a weapon, a character can still contribute, not as well as a character invested into that weapon. This also means enemies need to be designed such that all players are fighting it, so that it's not "optimal" to only let the ranger/wizard shoot at it or the fighter punch it to death.
And that's another thing, optimization. The system needs account for people doing profoundly stupid things in the name of "optimal" and when that actually harms the play experience, punish them for it. The GM needs the license to point out that "theoreticals" don't necessarily work on paper, which as far as D&D goes doesn't work because "Gentlemen's Agreement".
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
willpell
Good idea in theory, I just don't like pretty much every attempt I've ever seen at executing it, and dislike those efforts more than I dislike the as-written fighter (though I have admittedly never tried to make a Fighter 20 work to my satisfaction, I may eventually end up agreeing with the community, but that doesn't mean I'll accept their jaded assessment as more fact than bias; I'm big on figuring things out for myself).
The thing is - you can't have it both ways. If you relegate the fighter to only being capable of things via DM approval rather than player fiat (the mechanic spellcasters use) you'll always run into this. Fighters need the same degree of fiat capability. It can be handled differently - I think Next's Combat Superiority is a good step in that direction - but the ability to directly affect the game-world is hugely important.
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I completely disagree because of the way 3E's mechanics work. There IS no way to build a raw recruit who eventually becomes a "veteran" at Fighter level 1 and character level 1. ... At level 3-5 the "veteran" label starts to apply, though it might still be valid until 10 or later.
If the way the mechanics work is unsatisfying, change how the mechanics work. 1st level Wizards are not limited to cantrips. 1st level Clerics are not limited to orisons. And Fighters shouldn't be scrubs.
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Actually D&D characters in general pretty much have all that, though it's more because of shortcomings in the rules than anything deliberate. There's not much in the way of fatigue rules, and the carrying limits are pretty generous; adventurers in general are pretty superhuman, and one simple way to make fighters look better would be to invent various rules for the strain of heavy physical labor, which are applied to characters in inverse order of hit die size (okay the Barbarian would still end up looking better than the Fighter, but that's appropriate since he's the one guy who is even more about living by the sweat of his brow).
I refuse to accept that "carrying lots of gear" is functionally similar to "cleaning out the Aegean stables." :) And really, those are only the tenth part of the sorts of things high-level Fighters should be doing. I'm using Hercules as an example, but "capably clean stables through creative use of natural resources" is hardly enough to hang a class concept around.
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There is a very fine line indeed between stretching the suspension of disbelief and snapping it. The best place to look for examples of what a "hyper-human but not superhuman" character ought to be capable of is probably the summer action movie, but unfortunately those tend to be quite long on cars and guns, and thus it's not easy to adapt them to D&D's medieval milieu.
That's one of the fundamental problems, then. It's a limit of imagination, not a limit of the milieu. You're imposing vicious restraints on a Fighter's capabilities, but given that magic has unlimited potential, none on the clerics and wizards beyond, "Eh, just ... not too often, okay?"
Once you start worrying too much about realism when Wizards are calling down meteor swarms and Clerics are calling earthquakes, there is no possible way in which a character that's limited to being "good with a sword" can keep up. By that point, Fighters should be capable doing things every bit as impressive as raining fire from the heavens. (Or close, at least!)
So. Limit the casters by reducing the efficacy of their spells and enforce better niche protection of the other classes. Make Wizards and Clerics as good at fighting as Fighters are at spellcasting. Give Fighters better defense against magic than other classes, for example through spell resistance. Incorporate some sort of fiat system - like 4e's powers or Bo9S's maneuvers - to bring them up to par. Not necessarily all of these, but you have to start somewhere.
-O
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Zeful
And that's another thing, optimization. The system needs account for people doing profoundly stupid things in the name of "optimal" and when that actually harms the play experience, punish them for it. The GM needs the license to point out that "theoreticals" don't necessarily work on paper, which as far as D&D goes doesn't work because "Gentlemen's Agreement".
In 3.5, I find "optimal" usually means "Counter [X situation] with [Y magic] with 92% chance of success, then have the Fighter stomp its inert body into pulp".
I'm not sure which "profoundly stupid" things you're talking about. They do exist, although they usually aren't Optimal.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A fighter should be able to act far faster than a spellcaster. To me, that is the number one problem.
IF a lightning bolt took a full round to cast (start on round 1, spell goes off at start of mage turn on round 2), then the fighter could do much, much more to disrupt the spellcaster and level the playing field.
Also, the fighter needs to be far more powerful at dealing precise damage. Crtical threat ranges should drop and damage increase by level. That way, you could accurately portray the limb-hacking, neck-cutting swaths through minions more accurately. Also, you could have those moments where the well placed dagger throw pierces the spellcasters hand at a critical moment of gathering the magical energies, disrupting the entire ritual.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Slipperychicken
In 3.5, I find "optimal" usually means "Counter [X situation] with [Y magic] with 92% chance of success, then have the Fighter stomp its inert body into pulp".
I'm not sure which "profoundly stupid" things you're talking about. They do exist, although they usually aren't Optimal.
By "pofoundly stupid" I'm talking over-specialization, where a character is so far twinked out that only way to meaningfully challenge that character is to invalidate that character. If as a DM the only options are "let you destroy everything", "prevent you from playing at all", or "cheat so the encounter is still interesting at your expense" then quite frankly both the player and system have failed at their jobs.
But then I have a dim view of optimization in general due to that as a DM, I'm restricted to the same 10% of material, regardless of how powerful the players get, because "Gentleman's Agreement".
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
To the folks complaining about Tome of Battle, please keep this in mind:
Before Tome of Battle, martial characters in D&D were incapable of basic combat maneuvers such as sword parries or being trained in diving for cover. Thanks to Tome of Battle, they may now do things that every single fighting tradition on Earth considers the realm of novice-level learning like, oh, block shots or do jujitsu.
Just keep it in mind.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I'll just chime in and say that DM Fiat is not a good substitute as a primary feature of a class' power and versatility.
All the way back in 1st Edition, spells were highly specific. A fireball dealt a set number of damage, a certain type of energy, and had a set area radius. Since the rules of a game are a common reference for everyone, the power of a fireball by a 15th-level Wizard/Magic-User was virtually the same from one campaign to another.
With DM Fiat as a primary feature for the Fighter, the Fighter's power level and versatility varies drastically based upon the individual Dungeon Master and his personal standards of what a Fighter should be. Ideally, the Dungeon Master will have a good head on his shoulders and allow the Fighter to do cool stuff (probably through some house rules). Worse case scenario, he'll want all the Fighters to be bound by the "realistic limits of a human being." This is disastrous for a high-level fantasy game where dragons, titans, archmages, and other such characters are performing amazing feats beyond real-world limits.
I'm not saying that DM Fiat should never be used; in fact, it's great for home games. But it should not serve as an end-all be-all solution for the shortcomings of a class in official products.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
JellyPooga
You're correct, yes, that I chose three examples of maneuvers that the Warblade doesn't have access to.
...
That the Warblade doesn't have access to the particular examples I gave is besides the point;
Um... no. It completely undermines your point when you say the warblade can do something and he can't.
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there are others that the Warblade does have access to that have similar psuedo-magical effects.
Then don't take them. You might consider Iron Heart Surge to be too magical. (By the RAW I'd agree but only because Iron Heart Surge is spectacularly badly written). But there is nothing that says that any given Warblade has access to any given power - you pick the powers at character creation. And if you want to make them fairly simple things from Iron Heart, Diamond Mind, or even White Raven or Tiger Claw you can. On the other hand if you want to jump around like Wolverine on a pogo stick with Tiger Claw you can also do that. A level 20 Warblade knows a grand total of 13 maneuvers. Finding that many maneuvers that aren't more than lightly cinematic (on a character that can survive being dropped from orbit without any trouble) is not hard. The rest are irrelevant to any given warblade.
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As for repetitious actions, yeah, it's something that the Fighter has long been prone to. This is because the combat system in D&D has long been quite abstract;
No. It's because early D&D was designed with two factors in mind.
1: It's a hacked tabletop wargame.
2: You were intended to avoid combat as much as possible.
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I'll not deny that it can be boring, but for me half the point of being a Fighter style character is that you have the freedom to do as you please instead of being restricted to the limited effects of the written spells and abilites of other classes.
This makes literally no sense at all. Everyone can do as they please within the laws of physics. The casters can just cast spells as well as doing what they please the same way the fighter can.
And in combat the fighter should be the class least likely to improvise. You improvise when your standard techniques simply don't work. The fighter, as the best at fighting, should have his standard tricks as the most likely to work. The person who should be improvising in combat is the wizard (or the AD&D thief). Sticking a sword through someone is very effective and the fighter is best at this, so he has the least incentive to improvise - and the least additional ability to improvise. The fighter can use his body. The wizard can come up with creative spell use. And the rogue has exceptional skills.
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Maybe it's just my experience from playing AD&D, where 'combat maneuvers' like shoving enemies aside, tripping them up and such were something done on the fly and just given an ad-hoc ruling by the GM instead of relying on a rule to do it for us.
You mean your DM made a string of house rules to make the fighter better that had little to do with the actual rules in order to compensate for the fact fighters were boring? This is looking really good for the fighter... Especially as things like the 3.X trip were meant to be to systematise the sort of house rules that were needed to make the fighter something other than boring.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Lord_Gareth
Before Tome of Battle, martial characters in D&D were incapable of basic combat maneuvers such as SWORD PARRIES or being trained in diving for cover. Thanks to Tome of Battle, they may now do things that every single fighting tradition on Earth considers the realm of novice-level learning like, oh, block shots or do jujitsu.
SWORD PARRIES?! How dare WotC pervert my balanced medieval setting with this weeaboo munchkinry! Everyone knows that swords are for stabbing, not blocking! Next thing you know, they'll start begging to let Fighters hit people with their shields! No good can come of this, mark my words.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
First, let me establish one important thing: to me, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Monks, Knights and Swashbucklers are just specializations of a Fighter. They really should've been Prestige Classes or ACFs or class paths for a fighter.
But the essence of the broader archetype is three fold: the Fighter is Martial Artist - he can crush his enemies with any weapon from his own fists to siege machinery. He is a Schemer - he knows tactics, strategy and logistics and how they can aid him to victory. And he is a Leader - he can rally people under his own banner and make an effective military force out of them.
A beginning (1st level) Fighter is a mook - someone who has gone through basic training and not much else. His place is to feed the gears of war.
An experienced (2nd to 4th level) Fighter is a squad leader - he can lead a small band of troops from battle to battle. He is better fit both physically and mentally than most men, and can hand some lousy civilian their ass in personal combat. Think of a real-life Sergeant.
An advanced (5th to 7th level) Fighter is a famous military officer, Sensei of an esteemed Dojo or a really notorious combarant. These people develop the Art of War and get books written of themselves, or write their own! On personal level, their achievements can defy belief. Think Miyamoto Musashi, Simo Häyhä or Erwin Rommel here.
Master (8th to 10th level) Fighter has such prowess on the battlefield that they become figures of legend, their personal abilities hard to discern because they often get exaggerated in later retellings. Their feats are expected to include something like, oh, conquering most of the known world. Think of Julius Ceaser, Chengis Khan or Alexander the Great.
Mythic (11th to 14th level) Fighter has personal skills and abilities beyond those you can believe to exist in the real world. The Fighter is not strictly supernatural, but he is superhuman; his feats might technically be possible within laws of nature, but no single real human could be strong, fast and tough enought to do them all. He can swim over the ocean, leap over trees, wrestle with giants and win, tumble down a mountain and survive, hit one particular leaf of a tree from mile away or fights against dozen enemy swordsmen with nothing but a stick. At this point, you should stop looking at real life for reference, and instead think of Wuxia or Demigods of Greece.
Superheroic (15th+ level) Fighter stops bending laws of nature and instead spits on their face. Your closest reference points are now Zaraki Kenpachi from Bleach and the Strawhat Pirates from One Piece. Cut buildings with your sword! Grab cannonballs and throw them back! Spin your feet so fast the friction ignites them in flames! Run across the ocean! Drink the damn ocean! Shatter iron with your fingers! Take a dip in the local volcano and jump right back! Fall from orbit! Lift the World Serpent! Storm a fort of 10,000 troops by your lonesome! Get eaten by a dragon and tear your way out! Befriend people by punching them in the face! The root of your abilities are still the same, but so-called common sense is thrown out of the window.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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Originally Posted by
Libertad
Stuff.
Perhaps I should clarify that my comments regarding DM fiat earlier were pretty much just me musing that my stance on the subject probably originated from earlier editions of D&D in which DM fiat dictates the abilities of Fighter. I would like to see a system that caters for the wide variety of abilities a Fighter should have, but I can't envision one that would work within the 3.5 ruleset without looking like magic-by-another-name.
There would have to be a pretty serious re-working of the system to implement the kind of Fighter I'd like to see, starting with the whole to-hit mechanic in the first place. The relationship between Attack Bonus and Armour Class should be much more intrinsic; i.e. the higher the one the higher the other. After all, to coin a phrase, the best defence is a good offence and the reverse is arguably just as true. D&D, as far as I'm aware, is something of a peculiarity of a gaming system when it comes to its combat mechanic inasmuch as it doesn't factor the skill of the defender into the equation. By making the alteration to do this, you wouldn't need a "maneuver" to represent sword parries and block shots, because those things would already be factored satisfactorily into the already abstract combat system.
As I've mentioned previously, the combat system of D&D is very abstract. trying to pin specific maneuvers onto it whilst maintaining that level of abstraction is hard. Arguably, tripping someone up could be modeled as nothing more than a reduction in HP...if HP are an abstraction of stamina, health, luck, skill and a general ability to continue to contribute meaningfully in a combat situation, then being forced to the floor can easily be seen a reduction in at least two of these things from an arguably incomplete list. There is an argument that any given 'combat maneuver' is nothing more than a standard attack, the result of which can be fluffed any which way you like.
Now, I'm not advocating this as the way the combat system, or more specifically, the Fighter, should go, I'm just pointing out that this is something inherent to the system and has been since year dot. In order to make the Initiator system of the ToB (or whatever you want to call it), or something similar, viable in my eyes, then (as I said) there would have to be a significant revisiting of this abstraction. As part of this, for example, I imagine HP may have to map more directly to Health and by consequence, penalties for reduced (but above 0) HP may need to be implemented. Following this, amongst other things, a revision of the way HP increase with level would need to be considered, which would itself follow with its own consequences for Class balance and the way the level system itself works as a whole.
I propose no solution to any of the ideas posited above, I merely mention them by way of explanation of my stance on this subject thus far. Hope it at least gives some food for thought :smallwink:
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I'll just note that, somewhat counter-intuitively, Fighters were a bit better off in AD&D (at least if Weapon Specialization is allowed) than they are in 3.x.
Yeah, I know, no feats. But among their perks are...
* Exceptional Strength (if they qualify)
* Minion-sweeping
* Much better ACs than most classes
* Restricted Constitution bonuses so only they profited from exceptionally high scores
* Hordes of followers
* And most of all, a very favorable saving throw table, starting especially at mid-levels. This part is huge.
What's more, interrupting spellcasting was fairly simple in comparison; there's no Concentration skill, so any hit is sufficient. And Wizards at least didn't get bonus spells for high Intelligence.
(Now, 1e Rangers and Paladins are even better off than Fighters, but also more likely to have to put their high scores into unfavorable stats.)
-O
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I think that Fighting Defensively and Total Defence were meant as abstractions for Sword Parries, the trouble is that they are not very good. They don't even scale with level.
Ed: +1 to obryn's comments BTW.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I think Frozen_Feet nailed it here. The devotion to realism for non-magical characters means they'll always be far inferior to magical ones. While I'm not a fan of E6, I like that they define 6th-level as the top limit of realistic human capability.
You should be able to be any realistic hero in fiction by 5th or 6th level. If you're not Conan or Dread Pirate Roberts by the time the wizard is throwing lightning bolts around, you're going to be permanently behind.
Trying not to start a flame war here, but Drizzt, who is basically an unstoppable dervish of destruction (I think he's been beaten twice?) is stated by Wizards as being ~17th level. Consider that the only competent wizard in that series (Robillard, I think his name was?) is probably 11th-level at most, and is universally more useful that Drizzt is. In a system like Frozen-Feet's, I'd stick him at 9th-level, maybe.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
The one and only problem I have with Frozen_Feet is that I do not automatically tie command of troops to a fighter. Take the Julius Caesar example, probably best not to put him down as a fighter, at all. If anything he'd be a weird non-magical Bard that decided to max out Intelligence and Perform (Oration).
Now Alexander the Great has possibility, considering he (supposedly, as pointed out a lot of these achievements have been exaggerated) jumped over the wall of the opposing forces and defended himself against them until his army was able to breach the wall completely.
That said, I don't think the potential for the leader style Fighter needs to be negated but I think it should be just one method of a Fighter to gain power and if done right, is about as useful as the guy who decided to just be one incredibly badass knight.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Here's how I think about it:
A level 1 Fighter is someone who has trained, but has little actual combat experience. Like the noble-born son who has trained for combat his whole life, but has seen very little combat himself.
A level 5 Fighter is someone who has substantial experience under their belt besides their training. They've applied their training and have had time to hone it. They're the sword fighting hero of a fantasy novel reaching his maturity, but not yet his full potential. Like Eragon about the time when Brom dies.
A level 10 Fighter would be one who is a veteran. They have seen plenty of combat, so that they have both the experience and the training to back their actions. They have had a chance to prefect some of their techniques, and their experience gives them insight. They're the kind who train the level 1 noble-born son types.
A level 15 Fighter is a badass. They are the "master swordsman type". They have skills which they have honed from their training through a number of experiences. They border on Bruce Willis in Die Hard awesome. They would be a sought after teacher.
A level 20 Fighter is the peak of human performance. They are complete masters of combat, with perfect and honed skills, tempered by their extensive combat experience. They ARE Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard. They seemingly don't die when they should, and they strike in a manner that baffles and overpowers their opponents. Certified BAMFs. Basically every over-the-top action hero at their peak.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BootStrapTommy
Here's how I think about it:
A level 1 Fighter is someone who has trained, but has little actual combat experience. Like the noble-born son who has trained for combat his whole life, but has seen very little combat himself.
A level 5 Fighter is someone who has substantial experience under their belt besides their training. They've applied their training and have had time to hone it. They're the sword fighting hero of a fantasy novel reaching his maturity, but not yet his full potential. Like Eragon about the time when Brom dies.
A level 10 Fighter would be one who is a veteran. They have seen plenty of combat, so that they have both the experience and the training to back their actions. They have had a chance to prefect some of their techniques, and their experience gives them insight. They're the kind who train the level 1 noble-born son types.
A level 15 Fighter is a badass. They are the "master swordsman type". They have skills which they have honed from their training through a number of experiences. They border on Bruce Willis in Die Hard awesome. They would be a sought after teacher.
A level 20 Fighter is the peak of human performance. They are complete masters of combat, with perfect and honed skills, tempered by their extensive combat experience. They ARE Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard. They seemingly don't die when they should, and they strike in a manner that baffles and overpowers their opponents. Certified BAMFs. Basically every over-the-top action hero at their peak.
The problem with this is who they're supposed to be paired with. Think of the most impressive feat of arms you have ever seen in one of those over-the-top action movies. I bet you that a wizard of significantly lower level than your proposed 20th could easily match that.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kardar233
The problem with this is who they're supposed to be paired with. Think of the most impressive feat of arms you have ever seen in one of those over-the-top action movies. I bet you that a wizard of significantly lower level than your proposed 20th could easily match that.
The problem? No. My friend, we're talking about Fighters. Not Wizards. Why would you bring a Wizard into the discussion? Of course a Wizard could do that.
THEY HAVE MAGIC.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kardar233
The problem with this is who they're supposed to be paired with. Think of the most impressive feat of arms you have ever seen in one of those over-the-top action movies. I bet you that a wizard of significantly lower level than your proposed 20th could easily match that.
My knee-jerk response to this kind of comment is that perhaps it's the Wizard that should be brought down into line rather than the Fighter being brought up...:smallwink:
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JellyPooga
My knee-jerk response to this kind of comment is that perhaps it's the Wizard that should be brought down into line rather than the Fighter being brought up...:smallwink:
The correct answer is in the middle, but some people refuse to accept Wizards who can do less than everything, or Fighters who can do more than attack stuff.
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BootStrapTommy
The problem? No. My friend, we're talking about Fighters. Not Wizards. Why would you bring a Wizard into the discussion? Of course a Wizard could do that.
THEY HAVE MAGIC.
So fighters are supposed to be worthless compared to magic classes?
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I hate the word "magic" being used as justification for anything. Without further definition, it's just a carte blanche for any author whimsy - and undermines logicality of a setting.
And once you actually go and define it to working condition, you no longer need the word "magic".
To give a glimpse of what I mean: in D&D 3.5 Warlocks, Warmages, Healers, Adepts and Truenamers all have "magic", just as Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids and Clerics have "magic".
But the former set does not outshine martial characters irreparably, while the latter does. That's because Invocations, Healer spells, Truenaming and limited Arcane spells don't include as much power or breath as unlimited Arcana spells, Druid spells or Cleric spells.
You can't use the word "magic" to explain why one set is less powerful than the other. You'll end up babbling about "different kinds of magic", and eventually you're going to name invidual spell effects to explain just what makes these classes different.
It is entirely possible to have level 20 fighter be a peak human, with just a slight touch of action movie hero, and then next to him have a level 20 Wizard who can do things impossible in real life, and still not overshadow him. But that's going to need a very specific sort of magic.