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2012-09-29, 02:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A fighter should be the man who said "no".
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2012-09-29, 08:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Sounds like Anima: Beyond Fantasy. It's Ki Abilities(which every class can get a bit of) allow things from detecting all beings in certain radius based on a skill check, slowing aging, minor shapeshifting, Wuxia-esque jumping, DBZ-ish flight, eating and sleeping 1/10th as much and more.
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2012-09-29, 10:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
this is actually a failure of the system overall. Sure, ToB does what it needed to to make physical combat actually viable. on the other hand, it does not do it in the right way at all.
what tome of battle should have done was rebuild the entire physical combat system so that "Full Attack" was not the only viable option if you were not the Animated Meatgrinder that is a dungeoncrasher fighter or the Shiskkebab specialist that is every single ubercharger as well as the Ubermount paladin. What tome did without suck was to make Weapons of Legacy slightly less suck. OtoH, it still invalidates most of the other classes in the game.My Homebrew: found here.
When you Absolutely, Positively, Gotta Drop some Huge rocks, Accept NO Substitutes
PM Me if you would like a table from my homebrew reconstructed.
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2012-09-29, 10:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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2012-09-29, 11:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Found the thread I was talking about in my last post: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136474
Also, earlier in this thread, I saw someone suggest (perhaps jokingly, I can't remember) that a necromancer should only be able to cast Animate Dead. In the words of Jon Stewart, you're exactly #$@!ing right.
Rant, ignore at your leisure:
SpoilerA level 1 fighter has a sword that deals 1d8 damage. A level 20 fighter has a sword that deals 1d8+5 damage, and maybe cuts off someone's head 10% of the time. Compared to the ability to send everyone in a cone-shaped burst to another plane, that's a pretty pathetic power boost. Or summon a hailstorm 10 times a day. Now consider: those are both spells from one of the weakest schools of magic, and no spellcaster is confined to a single school of magic.
If you want to bring wizards down to the same level as fighter, they should be one-trick ponies who cannot contribute outside their specially-designed field.
Even when a fighter can use different weapons (i.e. didn't take their own specialized class abilities: weapon focus, etc), wizards can use wands.
The reason I chose the examples I did in my last post was because I looked at monsters of that CR and said "who could beat these creatures 50% of the time in a 1-on-1 fight?"
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2012-09-29, 03:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
When I think of Fighters, I think of someone who's skilled in the art of combat - more like a class out of ToB than the standard 3.5 Fighter. As someone who's a bit of an amateur history buff when it comes to warriors, it doesn't make sense for Fighters to just be "Durr, I hit things with a sword." Real life combat involves tactics, stances, and technique - if you just go into combat with a sword and just swing it at everything without putting any more thought into it than "Durr, I hit things with a sword," you're gonna get killed. That's probably why I love the ToB classes and 4E Martials so much.
Wizards and other Casters should be very powerful, yes but a Fighter (and other Martial classes), if we're going by real life, should be a bit more complex than merely a meat tank who hits things. And if we're going by fantasy and mythological heroes, he should also be pretty daggone powerful at higher levels thanks to a combination of special techniques and powerful weapons. Sure, he may not have spells like a Wizard, but his magic sword and all the special techniques he's learned - including some that no ordinary human could perform - should allow a Fighter to go toe-to-toe with a Wizard with a roughly 50/50 chance of victory for either of them.Last edited by The LOBster; 2012-09-29 at 03:23 PM.
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2012-09-29, 11:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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2012-09-30, 09:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Everybody seems to think that because the Fighter does an Attack or Full Attack every round, that he's just taking one swing. The central concept of 3E's combat system is that every character in a fight is constantly performing maneuvers and stances, which constitute their Armor Class and their Attacks of Opportunity and maybe a few other things. That's the basic mechanism of combat. Giving martial adepts a list of "spells", even if they function a little differently, still makes them feel too much like the casters for my taste. To me, the fighter is elegant in his simplicity, and all the flavor is added in description - it doesn't matter whether you say he does a spinning roundhouse kick or performs the Adamantine Seven-Cuts Collapsing Kata, because the basic attack stands in equally well for any and all attacks no matter how you describe them. They all have the same effect - you hit your target for damage or you don't. It might be nice to have a bit more complexity in the basic system, allowing for things like knockback or mobility or or multiple weak attacks instead of a single all-out one, but the bottom line is that the fighter should not have a subsystem; he should instead be the absolute master of the supersystem, the basic mechanics of combat. Which he pretty much is, because he has a point of Base Attack Bonus every level, and that gets him iterative attacks much, much faster than the Cleric or Wizard. Once those two run out of spells, it's the fighter's time to shine, as he advances down the tunnel with a blade in each hand, spinning like propellers and forcing the kobold horde to fall back lest he have the chance to Great Cleave them all to death in the space of seconds.
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2012-09-30, 09:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
How does it constitute their armor class? Seriously You have the same base AC whether you're a level 1 wizard or a level 20 fighter. I mean it's all well and good to be imagining that your Fighter isn't just standing there slack jawed doing nothing but 1-5 attacks each turn, but mechanically that is exactly what is happening. He actually is putting no real effort into defending himself (to do that you need to take unreasonable penalties to hit, and you can spend a feat to take even worse penalties!).
The real problem here is you say a Fighter is doing all these maneuvers and stances in the background, but he gets no benefit out of them, because he is effectively the same as a Wizard in that regard. Unless you want me to believe a Wizard is also using the same maneuvers and stances as the Fighter, and neither the Fighter or Wizard get any better at using these abilities as they gain levels... yeah just doesn't make sense.
That's the basic mechanism of combat. Giving martial adepts a list of "spells", even if they function a little differently, still makes them feel too much like the casters for my taste.
Found your problem. At no point to martial adepts get access to a spell list.
To me, the fighter is elegant in his simplicity, and all the flavor is added in description - it doesn't matter whether you say he does a spinning roundhouse kick or performs the Adamantine Seven-Cuts Collapsing Kata, because the basic attack stands in equally well for any and all attacks no matter how you describe them. They all have the same effect - you hit your target for damage or you don't.
It might be nice to have a bit more complexity in the basic system, allowing for things like knockback or mobility or or multiple weak attacks instead of a single all-out one, but the bottom line is that the fighter should not have a subsystem; he should instead be the absolute master of the supersystem, the basic mechanics of combat. Which he pretty much is, because he has a point of Base Attack Bonus every level, and that gets him iterative attacks much, much faster than the Cleric or Wizard.
Fighters need mobility, defenses, control, disabling capability, and access to the action economy on par with the other classes. The best way to give access to the breadth of abilities needed to compete without making the class too much is via the introduction of their own subsystem.
Once those two run out of spells, it's the fighter's time to shine, as he advances down the tunnel with a blade in each hand, spinning like propellers and forcing the kobold horde to fall back lest he have the chance to Great Cleave them all to death in the space of seconds.If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?
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2012-09-30, 10:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I was thinking mostly of Dexterity bonus but in retrospect I was mistaken, with Armor and Initiative being what they are, Wizards are more likely to buy Dexterity than Fighters are.
The real problem here is you say a Fighter is doing all these maneuvers and stances in the background, but he gets no benefit out of them, because he is effectively the same as a Wizard in that regard. Unless you want me to believe a Wizard is also using the same maneuvers and stances as the Fighter, and neither the Fighter or Wizard get any better at using these abilities as they gain levels... yeah just doesn't make sense.
Found your problem. At no point to martial adepts get access to a spell list.
(Really, the reason why the fighter sucks in 3E is probably just that the fighter is a jock, the wizard is a nerd, and the Wotco employees got beat up a lot in high school.)
You missed the important part though: Hitting the enemy for damage isn't enough to be either effective or mechanically interesting.
Feats however make for terrible features because since they are universal they are almost all pretty weak and terrible.
Fighters need mobility, defenses, control, disabling capability, and access to the action economy on par with the other classes.
Once the cleric runs out of spells, it's time for everyone to pack up and camp, because the Fighter isn't getting anywhere without the Cleric's healing.
Also what happens when instead of a horde of CR1/4 creatures, that Fighter runs into a level appropriate threat for the entire party, but half the party is dead weight? Here's a hint: We find out which party members taste good with ketchup.
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2012-09-30, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
The fighter has the Base Attack Bonus; his attacks of opportunity will actually hit, while the wizard's will not, if the wizard even bothers holding a weapon in his non-spellcasting hand despite how badly he sucks with it.
Warblades, despite supposedly having the same flavor as fighters, have to shop a list of maneuvers which they then expend during the fight exactly the way spellcasters shop a list of spells and then expend them. The refreshing mechanic is different, true, but everything is just details;
I mean if you really can't see the huge difference between can refresh and can't refresh, and call it just a trivial detail, I don't know what to say.
the truth is, maneuvers are like spells, in that you have to read what they do to even figure out whether you want to select them.
They complicate the process of character-making, and those complications are for wizards, who would suck if they didn't have those complications.
That's what I think the Fighter should be - a character who is the absolute best in the basic game, who is almost as good without spells as a wizard is with spells, because a wizard can run out of spells, while a fighter never has to track a single expendable resource other than his health and maybe some ammunition if he's a ranged specialist.
Expendable resources aren't a limitation when A) The expendable resource is MUCH more powerful than the non-expendable one, and B) The expendable resource is so plentiful that you will not regularly run out past the earliest levels.
Expendable resources are introduced as a way to justify the introduction of more potent abilities, because it allows those abilities to exist without dumbing the game down to "Use your best ability over and over until you win". The fact that Fighters don't have an expendable resource means no matter what build you go with them, they will have a best option and will always use it each round until they win. That's where the boring problem comes in. The fact that their best option just also happens to be on par with the Wizard's weakest options because expendable resources are also more potent is salt in the wound.
And most importantly, expendable resources != spells. Seriously. You know what, real people actually do get fatigued. People fighting real enemies run into the problem that after using a trick on an enemy, they are now looking out for that trick and won't fall for it again without some sort of setup or distraction. You can't actually do the same thing over and over in a fight. If anything, a Fighter with an expendable resource, either to track fatigue, or to track whether an enemy will be open for a particular ability's use, makes more sense than a Fighter who does the same thing every round. Trying to say that doing the same thing every round is more realistic and the only way to not be a spellcaster is so fundamentally wrong I don't know how to describe it.
The Wizard is supposed to bend the rules of reality because he sucks at life and he needs to cheat. The Fighter should be someone who is inherently awesome and doesn't need any help in that department.
The Fighter gets six feats in his first three levels, twice what any other character gets in the same range. That isn't a marginal advantage. Some of the feats are definitely excessively weak, but there's a huge list; you can spend your bonus feats on utility stuff, then use your personal feats, which number the same as most classes' total feats, for things that the other classes can't afford because they need utility too. At least in theory.
I don't see why. All of those those things are excess baggage in what should be a fairly simple basic experience. They should only come into play on rare occasions, and the wizard should live for those.
Maybe if you're saying combat is a rare occasion, but in that case why are we having an argument about the Fighter who is even more useless out of combat than he is in combat? Everything I listed isn't some weird situational thing, it is a core component of how combat is resolved effectively. The Fighter's main problem is he lacks access to these things and is thus largely inneffective.
Nonsense. The fighter has a metric ton of hit points, and can wear the best armor; he can keep fighting until he's down to 1 HP. And the cleric is going to get murdered in his sleep if he spends his spells like they're going out of style.
Oh like the CR system is balanced in the first place. I always use under-CRed encounters because killing the party is no good for anyone. Plus high-level monsters tend to have absurd numbers of SLAs, none of them defined in the statblock, which makes them a pain in the rear to run.If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?
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2012-09-30, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Everyone so far has been defining the fighter in terms of what he does. I think a far more interesting approach is to define him in terms of what he stops.
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2012-09-30, 11:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
It's a functional difference in play; it has nothing to do with what I've been saying. It means you have to read a paragraph of text that says what you can do, and it means you're doing something other than just attacking every turn. Thusly, it's like a spell, and unlike being a fighter.
So what, you just pick whatever feats you think sound cool on your Fighter without reading them? This isn't even an argument. Yes, you are playing a RPG, which is based in books. You might need to read to build an effective character. God forbid!
What you are asking for is literally impossible. You're asking for a character with no special abilities and nothing but hp and a high attack bonus to compete with a character who can do anything they want.
Expendable resources aren't a limitation when A) The expendable resource is MUCH more powerful than the non-expendable one, and B) The expendable resource is so plentiful that you will not regularly run out past the earliest levels.
Expendable resources are introduced as a way to justify the introduction of more potent abilities, because it allows those abilities to exist without dumbing the game down to "Use your best ability over and over until you win". The fact that Fighters don't have an expendable resource means no matter what build you go with them, they will have a best option and will always use it each round until they win.
The Fighter gets 2 feats in his first 3 levels.
You measure class against class. The Fighter has 2 feats. The Wizard, cleric, and druid, have first and second level spells. 1 spell level to 1 feat is not really a good exchange rate, because feats are nowhere near potent enough to be worth a whole spell level. And that's ignoring the Wizard's bonus feat and Cleric's channel divinity, and the Druid's animal companion.
Defenses are things that come into play on rare occasions? Mobility comes into play on rare occasions? Controlling and disabling enemies come into play on rare occasions?
Everything I listed isn't some weird situational thing, it is a core component of how combat is resolved effectively. The Fighter's main problem is he lacks access to these things and is thus largely inneffective.
That metric ton of hit points is 3 more hp per level than the Wizard.
I think we hit your problem and the reason why you think Fighters are fine. Seriously under-CRed monsters and ignoring SLAs because it's too hard to run? Well yeah, if you play softball with the group and pretend enemy casters don't exist, then all that's left is a couple of people beating each other up. But the rest of us are actually playing the game that was written, using powerful monsters and taking advantage of their abilities, and that means that plain ordinary Fighters with their basic attack and 20ft move speed are basically dead weight.
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2012-09-30, 11:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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My Homebrew: found here.
When you Absolutely, Positively, Gotta Drop some Huge rocks, Accept NO Substitutes
PM Me if you would like a table from my homebrew reconstructed.
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2012-09-30, 11:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
For those who want better fighters... I strongly recommend the Soldier from Fantasy Craft. The only downside is learning a whole new system, and leaving your assumptions at the door.
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2012-09-30, 11:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
{{scrubbed}} None of those things come into play on rare occasions either in real life combat, or in the game.
Without mobility, you have an issue of effective exploration tools, as well as combat manuevering rendering the full-attack worthless. Without defenses, they're liable to have their advantage in durability completely negated by spells and render the player a bystander. Without control, they're advantage in being tough and heavily armored is moot, as enemies shouldn't be engaging them making that advantage irrelevant. Without disabling capability, the class as a whole cannot meaningfully threaten enemies without coming down just to DPR, which compared to other classes they will fail at. And without access to the action economy on par with the other classes, half the fighter's turn is wasted every turn, and is a compelling enough reason to fully excise the Swift and Immediate actions from the game.
This is a basic design problem with 3.5.Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2012-10-01 at 07:22 PM.
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2012-09-30, 12:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Doing something other than each turn is not casting spells. I already went over this in my last post.
I don't even care whether he's effective, but you can't build even an incompetent wizard without reading the spells. Even the spells you have no intention of ever taking; you have to read them to find that out!
Huh? There's like 3000 spells out there. You don't need to read them all to play a Wizard. You might need to do so optimally. But a wizard doesn't need to be optimal to be effective. You can look at the general list, pick something that sounds good and use it, and 99% of the time you'll be more effective than the Fighter.
I've never read most of the wizard spells and am constantly mystified by what they're capable of; the same condition could have been created by not writing ANY spells for them and just letting them do whatever they want with a wave of their hand. It's just too much. I'm fine with reading a few pages of text, to create a character - not a novel's worth, which is a different novel for every character, and you have to re-read it every time you play that character so that you know what they, and not some other one of the same class, is capable of. It's okay sometimes, but the more classes can avoid it, the better.
Except wear heavy armor.
You'll be murdered horribly at the earliest levels if you don't have a fighter watching your back. And do you think he'll do that if he knows you plan to obsolete him?
And seriously, you don't need a Fighter, even at low levels. I've played plenty of campaigns with a caster as the main front liner even from level 1. And if you do have a Fighter, nothing prevents that fighter from branching out and going Gish to keep up. A level or 2 of Fighter is generally a good idea for a gish build.
The inevitable consequence of this "tierist" attitude is that your only options are a low-magic burn-the-witch setting or a Tippyverse. To get anything else, you have to stop thinking this way and accept that the two are REQUIRED to be equal, no matter how much you have to bend the rules to make it happen. Give the fighter the Devil's own luck, so every coincidence works in his favor ("your sword slides off Lord Bloodmace's armor without effect, but just as the tip hits the wall, it strikes a spark which sets the Dark Scroll aflame, and he howls in rage at the knowledge that even if you die, you have won"), and spontaneously nerf the wizard's spells with every excuse you can come up with ("you used too much eye of newt, so the divination comes in 5000% color saturation and you'll have a migraine for the next week"). Done correctly, it comes out looking like fortune favors the bold while making magic seem mysterious and sophisticated, so that the spellcaster still has incredible cool factor for being able to master it at all, even if it's nowhere near as effective as the theory indicates it should be.
I agree that for the game to work, Fighters and Wizards should be equal. I want that to be a part of the system, not something you have to rely on the GM to force to happen in play.
There's no reason whatsoever why a fighter can't experiment and be creative in each battle. Use the terrain to your advantage, perform cool stunts, and ask for a circumstance bonus. If the wizard tries to do the same, have him make a Dexterity or Wisdom check not to fumble. If your fighter is boring it's because you're not playing him right. Though admittedly it helps a lot if you introduce some optional rules like hit locations, though these can slow combat to a crawl, which is why they were left out.
Actually he gets 4 - normal ones at 1st and 3rd, and bonus at 1st and 2nd. Everyone else just has the 1st and 3rd. 4 feats vs. 2 is huge. 6 feats vs. 3 within the first 6 levels is likewise huge. The progression tapers off after that but I forget by exactly how much.
The druid's animal companion isn't a robot, you know...you're supposed to need a Handle Animal check for every single thing it does. The wizard's bonus feat is Scribe Scroll, which lets him spend XP so he'll level up slower, in exchange for slightly mitigating his critical spell shortage. The cleric...okay I'll give you that one. I play clerics as being the buttmonkeys of their gods and thus having an unenviable lifestyle, but absent that they do tend to get out of hand (as do druids, but they at least have limitations, if not the most relevant ones).
Yes, in every case. You don't need to be resistant to fire, you don't need to be able to fly, and you don't need to be able to web up your enemies or make them feel dizzy. You just need to be able to kill your enemies. If they shoot fire at you, have lots of hit points. If they fly, use ranged weapons or jump-attacks or indirect terrain attacks. Inflicting status conditions is not as important as inflicting the "dead" status as quickly as possible. As long as the fighter can deliver the damage, that's all that matters in 4 fights out of 5; the 5th can be against a pixie or a balor or something and the Wizard can have his turn to shine, until then he ought to be a buff-bot if not just a brainiac who sits back and makes comments about what the fighter should be doing, while the fighter actually does it.
I doubt your definition of effectiveness. It might be true of RAW but certainly now of how I run my games, and surprise surprise, I consider my way more correct.
Possibly 3, possibly more like 6.
And he's marginally more likely to have a high CON as well, though of course that stat is fairly indispensible for everyone.
Plus he's more likely to be able to spare a feat for something like Improved Toughness, or even Wild Talent and Psionic Body (poor man's psychic warrior, without needing to shop the powers list; it's not a great payoff but combined with the right psionic feats it could be fun in a mid- to high-level game).
If you want to run games which have insanely high lethality rates, take six hours to get through 120 seconds of combat,
As for extremely high lethality rates, lethality is a bit higher, but high CR doesn't mean instant TPK unless your group's baseline effectiveness is a core only fighter. I think in the last year the closest we've come to a TPK was one encounter that had 3/4 party members down. We frequently have one or two party members disabled, but lethality isn't a frequent issue as you imply.
and completely contradict the fictional and mythological underpinnings of their source material, be my guest.
I like having a game where the resonant essence of fantasy is clearly visible, where combat flows quickly and efficiently with minimal required reading, and where players' effort building characters is not wasted because 4 out of the 12 kobolds managed to roll critical hits. I'm here to tell a story and to play a game, not to study for a test and make my players feel like they wasted a piece of their life they'll never get back.If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?
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2012-09-30, 12:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-09-30, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
As the game is now, the wizard generally has a better answer to every situation than a fighter.
Want a bunch of enemies neutralized? Sleep, Web, or Fireball.
Ever since if everything you fight is mundane, which h is not a guarantee in d and d, those are almost always better options than move up and charge.
Especially late levels is where this shows through. You will be fighting strange and powerful things, but everyone should be able to meaningfully contribute in every fight, in my opinion. I would hate it if my dm ran oh this is a wizard opponent, I'll sit over here when he shines. oh cool, a fighter opponent sit on the sidelines, wizard.Thanks Gigi Digi for the avatar.
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2012-09-30, 01:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I feel the need to step up and say: Fighter getting more feats than anyone else is a really cool. So is the idea of Fighter-exclusive feats.
These are both legitimate class features. Too bad D&D 3.x screwed the important part: the feats themselves! There are hundreds of cool spells, but out of hundreds of Fighter feats, only a couple compare.Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2012-09-30 at 01:54 PM.
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2012-09-30, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
So: You don't want to read a paragraph of text for some ability, yet for some reason you want to play D&D, a game where the core rules are about a thousand pages and a good five hundred pages over most other rules heavy systems (though I think HERO is longer). The obvious solution here is just to pick a game which isn't built to be incredibly rules heavy, such as basically the rest of the industry, including several games that do D&D style gameplay just as well as D&D.
Firstly, there is no reason that every other class in the game can't do the same thing, which means that calling this an advantage of the Fighter is disenguous. Secondly, given that using terrain to your advantage probably involves moving, and the full attack mechanic specifically disincentives that the Fighter is actually going to be worse at this than any class which isn't so dependent on full attacks.
Putting aside how six hour out of game, two minute in game combats probably don't exist, this brings me back to my previous point regarding systems. Minimal required reading for combat involves the entire combat chapter and much of the equipment chapter, which is longer than some entire games. Once you add in the necessary underpinnings to even understand those chapters (e.g. abilities, races, classes) it's significantly longer than a fair few games. If you want fast combat, which isn't hugely lethal, and which isn't swingy why are you playing D&D? D&D is terrible at all three of those points, with a slow grid based system involving a lot of stats and a lot of rolls, fun things like binary hit conditions, critical hits, save or die effects, and other such things in a high enough quantity to earn the nickame "rocket tag", where the borderline between down and completely dead is generally tiny - it doesn't even exist in half of the editions, in 3.x it is a whole 10 hp, in 4e it's somewhat larger but still well within a critical or two, and in D&D next it ends up in the mid teens and probably eventually reaches the mid 30s or maybe 40.
You're complaining about a game built exactly against your specifications in every way not working with your specifications well. It's like pulling a romance book off the shelf and then complaining when there isn't enough action, that that would be a problem was obvious from the start given how it was a completely different genre.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
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2012-09-30, 02:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
An important factor to consider is that most classes have a lot ways to contribute outside of combat.
Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, and Wizards can get utility spells. Rogues and Rangers get lots of skills. The Bard gets both.
The Fighter? He's got poor skill points, a shoddy list of class skills, and lots of bonus feats which are situational, can be replicated better with spells, or require "feat chains" to be effective.
So in addition to what you think Fighters should do in combat, ask what they should do out of combat.Last edited by Libertad; 2012-09-30 at 02:21 PM.
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2012-09-30, 07:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
A fair theory. Rebuttal?
@willpell: Sorry, I couldn't resist Now seriously:
Once those two run out of spells, all the enemies are dead. They have a lot of spells, and some of them are VERY effective. Badly played, they can be on a similar level as the fighter. OTOH, a well-played fighter can't catch up with a well-played wizard or cleric.
Also, 1 point of BAB doesn't amount to much. When rolling a D20, +1 to hit is +5% to hit, except that as you go up in level, enemies have higher AC, so it's actually not. At higher levels, the wizard is better at hitting than the fighter, because he can make touch attacks against the massive touch ac of 10 (/sarcasm).
Iterative attacks are terrible at higher levels, when the fighter gets 1/2 and 1/4 his BAB to attacks 3 & 4, which only hit rarely. Moreover, over the course of the first 10 levels (read: most campaigns), fighters and wizards have the same number of attacks for the first half, and fighters have 1 more per round for the second half. Meanwhile the cleric is casting spiritual weapon to make 2 attacks per round at level 4.
Nothing really. If it's corporeal, it can get around him and attack his friends. If it's not, he can't hit it anyway. If a level 3 fighter is left in an empty room with an Allip, he'll die 98% of the time (the other 2% have a ghost touch weapon and rolled well on their 50% miss chances, will saves, and got lucky against the wisdom drain). In a party, the frontline fighter ideally wants to stop enemies from attacking his allies and give the rogue flanking, whereas the ranged or striker fighter wants to deal a lot of damage. The problem is, there's about 1 good build for the former (Saph's horizon tripper), and nothing in core for the latter. In most games now the fighter dude has "taunt" which makes enemies attack him. D&D fighters don't.
That's a big downside, especially when other people want to play D&D
Pretty much. Frank&K address this with their Tome Fighter (and Races of War feats), and Pathfinder tries to do the same.
Everyone has a place to shine. The rogue is in stealthy stuff and dealing with traps. The bard is in social situations. The fighter is supposed to be combat. At lower levels, it is. At higher levels, only with optimization. Otherwise he's the guy shouting "please attack me because I have more HP than everyone else, but don't go after my mental stats, reflex saves, will saves, or dexterity score! And if you're large, don't grapple me!"
IMO, it leaves a bit to be desired =/
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2012-09-30, 07:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
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2012-09-30, 07:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
Because D&D is pretty much the only game you can find in real life without having to run and teach the entire game yourself. I'd look into one of the dozen other systems that get recommended in these kinds of threads, but I know I won't ever play the system, which makes the effort put into learning it worthless.
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2012-09-30, 07:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I'm going to try to match the "fluff" of fighter from the PHB into a class that actually does what the fluff says.
Fluff:Spoiler
Emphases mine. But please, read the PHB Fighter fluff to garner your own opinion. Most of these sentences are taken verbatim from PHB.
Of all classes, fighters have the best all-around fighting capabilities. Better than the warblade, barbarian, psychic warrior, shapechanged druid, etc. When it comes to fighting, this class should be the best. Furthermore: In addition to general fighting prowess, each fighter develops particular specialties of his own.
Lastly: The fighter excels in a straight fight, but he relies on others for magical support, healing, and scouting. On a team, it is HIS JOB TO MAN THE FRONT LINES, PROTECT OTHER PARTY MEMBERS, AND BRING THE TOUGH OPPONENTS DOWN.
1Skills:Spoiler
4 + Int mod. per level (x4 at 1st).
Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str)
Knowledge History (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Listen (Wis), Spot (Wis), Balance (Dex), Tumble (Dex)
Fighters should have the skills to help them be good at fighting. Battlefield mobility, resistance to being feinted in combat, never caught in a battle with his pants down, a well honed ability to know the most about combat maneuvers. Stuff that we would expect the ultimate fighting class to be good at.
1Class FeaturesSpoiler
Level 1: Weapon Aptitude, Basic Training
Level 2: Weapon Focus, Bonus Feat
Level 3: Heroic Reflexes
Level 4: Weapon Specialization, Bonus Feat
Level 5: Whatever it Takes
Level 6: Combat Training
Level 7: Improved Weapon Aptitude, Bonus Feat
Level 8: Heroic Fortitude
Level 9: Improved Critical, Bonus Feat
Level 10: Know the Battlefield
Level 11: Advanced Training
Level 12: Supreme Weapon Aptitude, Bonus Feat
Level 13: Heroic Willpower
Level 14: Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Bonus Feat
Level 15: Own the Battlefield
Level 16: Fighting Mastery, Bonus Feat
Level 17: Weapon Aptitude Mastery, Bonus Feat
Level 18: Legendary Heroics, Bonus Feat
Level 19: Weapon Supremecy, Bonus Feat
Level 20: Supreme Fighter , Bonus feat
What do those cool words mean?Spoiler
Weapon and Armor Aptitude At 1st level a fighter can spend 1 hour in weapon, armor, or shield practice to change the designated weapon, armor, or shield for any feat you have that applies only to a single weapon, armor, or shield. You must have the newly designated weapon, armor, or shield available during your practice session to make this change.
At 7th level a fighter need only spend a full round action to change the designated weapon, armor, or shield for any feat.
At 12th level a fighter need only spend a move action to change the designated weapon, armor, or shield for any feat.
At 17th level any feat that applies only to a single weapon now applies to any weapon the fighter is currently making an attack with. In effect the feat's weapon designation switches automatically whenever the fighter makes an attack. Furthermore any feat that applies only to a single type of armor or shield now applies to any armor or shield the fighter is currently gaining an armor bonus from.
Heroic Reflexes: As an immediate action after failing a reflex save a fighter may select any effect that is currently affecting him, has a duration expressed in rounds, and is the result of failing a reflex save. With a successful saving throw (at the original DC) that affect ends immediately and then the fighter may take a move action as part of this action. If the fighter moves five feet or less during his move action then it does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Heroic Fortitude: As an immediate action after failing a fortitude save a fighter may select any effect that is currently affecting him, has a duration expressed in rounds, and is the result of failing a fortitude save. With a successful saving throw (at the original DC) that affect ends immediately and then the fighter may take a move action as part of this action. If the fighter moves five feet or less during his move action then it does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Heroic Willpower: As an immediate action after failing a will save a fighter may select any effect that is currently affecting him, has a duration expressed in rounds, and is the result of failing a will save. With a successful saving throw (at the original DC) that affect ends immediately and then the fighter may take a move action as part of this action. If the fighter moves five feet or less during his move action then it does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Basic Training: A fighter spends years training in all forms of combat. One never knows what weapons will end up in your hands. Of all classes, fighters have the best all-around fighting capabilities. By the time a fighter has finished his training he knows the basics of several different fighting styles. At 1st level a fighter gains the following feats: Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Shield Specialization, Point Blank Shot, Improved Unarmed Strike.
Combat Training: A fighter spends most of his free time in between adventurers practicing more advanced maneuvers. By the time a fighter has reached 6th level he has improved his all-around fighting capabilities in addition to his area of expertise. A fighter gains the following feats:
Improved Bull Rush, Two-Weapon Defense, Shield Ward, Precise Shot, Superior Unarmed Strike, and Blind-Fight. If the fighter already has one (or more) of these feats, he can select any other feat that has that feat as a prerequisite (as long as he meets the other prerequisites for the chosen feat).
Advanced Training: A fighter that advances to 11th level finds that he is still the best all around at fighting. A fighter gains the following feats: Rapid Shot, Quick Draw, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Shield Bash, Snap Kick. If the fighter already has one (or more) of these feats, he can select any other feat that has that feat as a prerequisite (as long as he meets the other prerequisites for the chosen feat).
Fighting Mastery: A fighter of 16th level would be considered a master at any style of fighting that he picks up. He is never without weapon, and in a straight battle, is without equal. A fighter gains the following feats: Greater Two-Weapon Defense, Flying Kick, Manyshot, Improved Overrun, Heavy Armor Optimization, and Toughness. If the fighter already has one (or more) of these feats, he can select any other feat that has that feat as a prerequisite (as long as he meets the other prerequisites for the chosen feat).
Whatever it takes
Sometimes a fighter is being swallowed whole, other times he's being grappled by a Roper, whatever the case may be don't count the fighter out just yet. The battle is not over until the waste of space stops screaming. A fighter of 5th level gains the feat Improved Grapple if he did not already have this feat. He gains the use of three tactical maneuvers.
I'm still fighting here: To use this maneuver, a fighter must currently exist inside of a creature that has swallowed him whole. He is not restricted to using light piercing or slashing weapons in order to escape but still cannot use bludgeoning weapons. Furthermore the damage done to the creature's gizzard counts against the creature's total hit points. Most creatures do not try to swallow a fighter whole twice.
Stunning Escape!: To use this maneuver, a fighter must currently be grappling or pinned by an opponent. By winning an opposed grapple check a fighter may deliver a stunning unarmed strike at a -4 penalty to the grappling creatures head (-8 if the Fighter is pinned). This attack is made with a head-butt, elbow, or any other available body part. A creature who takes damage from this attack must make a fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 Fighter Class Level + Str Modifier) or be stunned until the beginning of its next turn. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be stunned.
Charging Spree In order to use this maneuver a fighter must have charged an opponent and missed. If he wishes he can attempt to start a grapple as a free action.
Know the Battlefield (Ex):
A fighter is the best at fighting. He knows everything that is going on and can anticipate his opponent with uncanny prediction. It's not that the fighter is smarter or wiser than his opponents. It's that fighting is all he cares about. A fighter eats, sleeps, and dreams about kicking the snot out of hill giants. About fighting his way out of ambushes. Once initiative has been rolled the random hillside or the city street turns into the battlefield. A fighter knows the battlefield like a wizard knows her spellbook. At 10th level a fighter gains several advantages when fighting on his home turf (which is wherever he's fighting).
The fighter gains the following abilities:
No Place Like Home: A fighter cannot be an unaware combatant. He rolls initiative whenever anyone else does (but only once per battle obviously).
Improved Uncanny Dodge: Furthermore his knowledge of the battlefield borders on the supernatural. He has seen so much fighting that he knows exactly what his opponents are up to and can react appropriately. A fighter gains Improved Uncanny Dodge.
Too Predictable: Also, any time a creature makes an attack that the fighter can see or feel the fighter can make a sense motive check opposed by the creatures bluff check. If the fighter wins he gains blindsight 120 ft. against ONLY that creature until the end of the fighters next turn.
Know the Pieces: He can tell just by the way his allies move how many hit points they are at. Against any creature that he successfully identified with the appropriate knowledge check, the fighter may take a move action to determine how many hit points the creature has. It is not metagaming to keep track of damage that the players have done to know how close to victory you are.
Own the Battlefield
It's not enough to know the battlefield. Any true fighter struts around the place like he's been living there for the last 15 levels. Oh yeah, that's right. He has. When initiative has been rolled, the fighter welcomes everyone to his home. And as long as your living here, under his roof, you play by his rules.
First and Foremost: After all other effects have been calculated the Fighter goes first in combat. If there are two or more fighters with this ability they will roll separate initiative to see which of them goes first.
Supreme Blade Parry: The fighter was the first to develop this stance later stolen by the Iron Heart discipline. While you are in this stance you gain damage reduction 5/- .
Bring the Fight Home: A fighter can start a grapple any time that he successfully makes a melee attack. If his weapon has reach, then the fighter uses the weapon itself to begin the grapple, and moves with arms reach of his opponent on a successful grapple check.
Disrupting Flow: A fighter can make an attack of opportunity against opponents who let there guard down, even for a split second. Swift Actions and Immediate Actions provoke attacks of opportunity if they are spells or spell-like abilities and may be disrupted as normal. Five foot steps provoke attacks of opportunity. Blinking provokes two attacks of opportunities.
This is the direction I would go when rebuilding a fighter class. I personally do not know enough about high levels to give the fighter abilities that address the weaknesses at these levels.Last edited by Jopustopin; 2012-09-30 at 07:50 PM.
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2012-09-30, 08:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I don't think you should be giving non-core feats for free, no choice on the part of the player regardless of what sources are available.
And the problems of the fighter at mid- and high-levels are as follows:
Invisible enemies - No core magic item can deal with this, you either have to have the right splatbook (although MIC is pretty common) and pay for the item (Blindfold of True Seeing), or get a wizard to cast a spell on you.
Incorporeal enemies - You often don't have the money or room to pay for Ghost Touch on your magic sword.
Flying enemies - it's one thing when you're looking up at a dragon dropping rocks on you from 300 feet in the air, it's another thing when you've gotta take out your bow to deal with a manticore using Flyby Attack to swoop in and then fly up ten feet above you.
ToB deals with two of these problems, invisible enemies (to an extent: Hearing the Air still grants them total concealment, and there are other good-looking stances, but you at least know which square they're in), and flying enemies (Sudden Leap + Leaping Dragon Stance means that at mid-levels, you're either fifteen feet in the air and full attacking, or you're thirty feet in the air and using a standard action attack or strike). Incorporeal enemies aren't such a big problem, and it is suitable that you'd have to find a sword specifically made to deal with them (having extraordinary senses and jumping capability is one thing, being able to attack ghosts is another).
Maybe the Ghost Touch property should be taken out entirely, with swords that have effective +1 to +3 worth of magic traits (so as not to penalize the guy who wants a +2 Keen Flaming sword instead of a +4 sword) have a weak connection to the supernatural nature of the incorporeal, dealing half damage (rounded down), and anything +4 and above deals full damage. Bane would count as +2 for determining how it affects incorporeals of its hated type.Last edited by Hiro Protagonest; 2012-09-30 at 08:29 PM.
Avatar of George the Dragon Slayer, from the upcoming Indivisible!
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2012-09-30, 09:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I already did something like that.
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2012-09-30, 11:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
I play and have played many different games with my groups (including but not limited to GURPS, Shadowrun, Ars Magica, and Dresden Files), but D&D provides a different experience from all of them, just like Shadowrun and GURP run and play differently even if you use the same overall themes, style of technology, relative PC and NPC power levels, etc. So it's not always just a case of people who've never played or heard of anything else; even when there are other games available, there are some people who legitimately like D&D best of all the games they know.
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2012-09-30, 11:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What do you think a Fighter should be?
In Live Free and Die Hard, there are at least 11 instances where John McClain SHOULD die where he does NOT. It's not that he almost dies. Not that he gets injured or that he endures the pain. Just that he does SOMETHING which a human being could not physically do and also continue living. He rides on top of a HARRIER, for the sake of the one big thing up in that high place!!! I thoroughly argue that your statement with regards to lvl 10 wizards thoroughly underestimates the badassness of John McClain. Probably because you were not paying attention to how RIDICULOUS everything in that movie is. Humans can't realistically do that kinda stuff. But John McClain and high level Fighters can.
Please take everything I say with a grain of salt. Unless we're arguing about alignment. In which case, you're wrong.
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