Fighter Discussion

[Gnaeus]

Yes, a fighter can often contribute competently in a party at low-mid op play. It is better to have a fighter than an empty slot. They sometimes make good buff targets.

But that role can be filled better by dozens of other classes in 3.5 or PF. The fighter just brings less to the table than the warblade, for example. He needs more support to do his job and cover the many weaknesses intrinsic to the class.

As was said above, it isn't useless. In many games, you could fill the slots with any 4 characters and you could do fine. But fighter is absolutely worse at its niche than most other classes for much of the game.

The real problem for me is predictability. I don't really care that fighter is worse at fighting than druid. There is a place for everyone at the table. But it hurts my character image when my guy, who in my brain is bad ass super warrior, is outperformed by the druid's pet, and in 3.5 that is totally a thing that can happen. Or the cleric just casts a bunch of spells that last all day and turns into a 10 foot tall killing machine that also gets all these other awesome powers. A FIGHTER should be best at FIGHTING. Thats what it is billed as. It just....isn't. Thats a big part of why a lot of people like Tome of Battle/Path of War.

Dispelling is a thing, yes. But the people who can do dispelling are, almost entirely, casters. And casters are way better at killing casters than fighters are. It is really hard for a fighter to make a pre-buffed wizard stand still and die.

AMF's are a little bit more problematic, until you realize that there are a lot of spells that just bypass them. (The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.)Odds are pretty good that the wizard can simply fall back on orb spells or other tricks to kill the AMF generator, while the fighter is at least as hampered as they are because all his buffs and magic gear deactivate the moment he steps up to the plate. The druid's pet can still eat face. The cleric's created undead are unaffected. My summoner sorcerer, for example, can simply cast a Wall of Stone (an instantaneous conjuration) around the AMF user, which blocks the emanation, allowing him to teleport away, or kill all the AMF user's allies then group assault Mr. AMF. It blocks summoned creatures, but not called ones, so my planar allies can walk right in and kick your ass. I can summon bralanis to fly around and shoot you with their bows. There are lots of ways around it.