Archers vs outsiders split from unfairly powerful monsters

[Dagroth]

I mean, I didn't claim that they were useless. The words I used all those threads ago were that a fighter "Does not have a level-appropriate response to situations".



Well, I think the point is that responding to tone (for example) isn't a valid argument and this is generally understood in debate, and that "Fighters don't have resources which they lose as the day goes on" is patently untrue, and so forth. So, the point is that they're invalid objections on a bingo card. The bingo part of it is a general metaphor for "These incorrect arguments are so common that if I take 25 of them, it's likely that five of them will be mentioned which also conform to an arbitrary rule about which five those have to be."

Even a +1 weapon hits an Allip 50% of the time...

Okay, so Commoners are useful? Having a PC play an awakened rat with no class levels is useful? Because those both satisfy the inequality in question.



"People who disagree with me are friendless losers."

Why should Bob be punished for having different preferences than you? Maybe he wants to play a Fighter that competes with optimized 20th level Wizards. Why should the game be harder for all of Bob's friends because Bob wanted to play a Fighter? Why should Bob's DM have to do extra work planning their encounters around a gimp? Why shouldn't things that have equal costs provide equal benefits?

Of course, Psyren has no answers to these questions, so he will simply ignore this post and continue to snipe passive-aggressively at me because he doesn't have the intellectual fortitude, integrity, or ability to defend the things he professes to believe are true.

This breaks down to a difference in GMing style, IMHO.

Do you GM as Ceasar? "Entertain me!"

The adventure is 'Trap-fest Dungeon Crawl!' Even a party of 4 Wizards/Sorcerers will run out of summons before they run out of traps. A party of Clerics/Druids will be in worse shape unless one takes the Kobold Domain. Fighter-types? Toast unless they've got a Barbarian trap-crusher. Rogue/Monk (i.e. Skill Monkey classes) party? They've got a cake-walk.

The adventure is 'Undead-fest in Town!'. The Wizards/Sorcerers will do fair-to-good, unless they've got the wrong spell selection... but throw in a Necromancer and they're doing really well. The Clerics/Druids will do fair-to-very good, depending on spell selection. The Fighter-types? Not so good without really lucky equipment selection... they're going to way outlast the Skill-Monkey party though.

Or do you GM as a Storyteller? "Let me entertain you!"

The party is 4 Wizards? Hmm... better throw away the 'Trap-fest Dungeon Crawl!' adventure and do things that challenge this party.

The party is 2 Fighters, a Rogue and a Healer? Hmm... Bring on the Orc tribes! As long as I don't throw more than one caster against them and one of the Fighters is good with a bow, everything should be fine. Better throw out the 'fight against the shadow swarm' adventure though...


If you're not at least partially tailoring your game to the players when the players make lopsided parties... you're doing something wrong, IMHO.

[Anthrowhale]

This is the issue. Your Fighter is not a stock Fighter. The stock Fighter is the one depicted on the "Fighter" NPC table in the DMG. If you want to fight a stock Pit Fiend (as opposed to one that has used its SLAs, treasure and other resources to enhance its threat level), you need to use a stock Fighter. Otherwise the whole comparison is meaningless because you aren't comparing like to like.

Your claim is that a Fighter is only useful if it can defeat a Pit Fiend solo after being robbed of 70% of it's wealth? That test probably will give you the result that you seek, but it seems remarkably irrelevant to actual gameplay to me.

Instead of trying to move goal posts all over, maybe just admit that a fighter can be useful?

[Psyren]

I never said anything about people.

Even a +1 weapon hits an Allip 50% of the time...

It's even better in PF - half damage instead of miss chance, so you're hitting the Allip every time. They were also nerfed from 3.5 (Wis damage instead of drain.)

If you're not at least partially tailoring your game to the players when the players make lopsided parties... you're doing something wrong, IMHO.

This is as true for tabletop games as it is for video:



Properly tailoring challenge to ability lands you in the sweet spot. That is any designer's job, and the GM is no exception.

[Dagroth]

This is as true for tabletop games as it is for video:

Spoiler

Show

Properly tailoring challenge to ability lands you in the sweet spot. That is any designer's job, and the GM is no exception.

And this is why the whole "A core basic Fighter can't beat a core basic Pit Fiend" is a ridiculous argument.

A Good GM won't create the scenario where a single basic Fighter has to fight a Pit Fiend out of the blue.

A Good GM might create hints that a Fighter might eventually have to fight a Pit Fiend so that the player can buy gear and otherwise optimize to fight said Pit Fiend.

A Good GM doesn't even just drop a Pit Fiend in to fight a generic party of 4 characters. There will be a build-up so that the characters can optimize at least somewhat for the fight.

[Lans]

The entire argument started when I said "Standard build core fighters don't do their job properly in 3.5", .

You are gravely mistaken, the argument started when you said

Well, fine: build me a level 20 core fighter that can take on a pit fiend. I'll be sitting here drinking ninth-level spells while I wait.

When you posted this, you weren't asking for a standard core fighter, you were literally asking for a core fighter that can take on a pit fiend. As such any level of optimizaton was on the table.

Yes, if you stack items on a fighter and give it stuff specifically to kill pit fiends, it can kill pit fiends. Sometimes. At length. But it can't without extreme difficulty, and no-one seems to understand that the majority of forumites don't play the game the way normal people do and therefore "Oh, I guess I'll carry around the best magic items in the game, carefully arrayed in such a way so as to optimally counter a pit fiend in this very optimised way" isn't how real people play the game.

I don't know about that. From my experience, even brand new players wind up with characters almost as good as I could build, and the fighter that I built in this thread is weaker than one I would build in an actual game, as the actual game one wouldn't be fighter 20 in core.

Well, no, I presented them immediately and then pointed out the most obvious failing of each build as it arrived. Though I did point out quite a lot of the failings of the original all-18s fighter of pitfiendbane arrows immediately (namely that it was illegal, massively optimised, tailor-made, and didn't even work)

You keep saying that it didn't work, but you never responded to the post where I pointed out that your math was wrong.

I honestly expect a core only game to have massively optimized characters, you don't have a lot to work with.


Also, could you point to where the item combining rules are just a guideline and not rules? They seem to be part of the rules from what I've seen.

"A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions."

This is the issue. Your Fighter is not a stock Fighter. The stock Fighter is the one depicted on the "Fighter" NPC table in the DMG. If you want to fight a stock Pit Fiend (as opposed to one that has used its SLAs, treasure and other resources to enhance its threat level), you need to use a stock Fighter. Otherwise the whole comparison is meaningless because you aren't comparing like to like.

I disagree, the game isn't about comparing stock vs stock, its about players who invest time into making one character vs the dm who invests time into multiple characters, history, lore, weather, climate, geography. As such the PC should be assumed to be more optimized than the NPCs that they are facing.

Would you rather have your summoned monster, your friend's animal companion, your friend's summoned nature's ally, and your friend who is now a tiger; or, your summoned monster, your friend's animal companion, your friend's summoned nature's ally, your friend who is now a tiger, and a Fighter?

No, the extra fighter is a hinderance to the long term health of the real party by taking experience and wealth that would be better used giving the druid's animal companion ion stones away from the rest of the party

Edit: Oh, and I´m still looking for the All-18s Fighter that person is rambling on about.

That was my build, before I tweaked it, due to complaints to that no real character would have all 18s. Though after I tweaked it I remembered a campaing where we did build characters with all 18s, and the dm banned psionics as they would be too powerful with all 18s. It was 3.0, psionic casting was 6 schools based on 6 casting stats.

[Cosi]

Useful is also when your presence in the party increases the overall survival chance of the party against its encounters by a measurable degree, versus a situation where you had not been there, and your wealth instead divided among the remaining party members.

No. In the context of limited resources, "useful" means that you are using resources comparably efficiently to other options, and the Fighter isn't. Also, if you're dividing wealth among the rest of the party, also divide XP. I have no trouble believing that Wizard/Beguiler/Druid with +1/3 resources each is better than Wizard/Beguiler/Druid/Fighter.

Well yes. But you cant make a reasonable wizard that stand that much better of a chance against the Balor. Not while remaining true to the sample Wizard who are clearly a blaster. Case in point. It has prepared 2 uses of Ice storm. Shout, and cone of cold. Thats the sort of spells it would take against the Balor for it to be a fair comparison with the NPC fighter.

The Wizard also prepares spells like enervation, glitterdust, and web. His spellbook contains options like dominate person, wall of force, and confusion. Clearly, the Wizard has at least some proclivity towards save or die spells.

You are missing a point that was already made a few times. That no, a commoner cant make that work. The drop in BAB leads to a huge drop in damage.

Commoner can't make the same tactics work. Doesn't mean he can't make any tactics work.

The main focus on any martial class is using gear and items, improving that with feats. That´s why they are "mundane". So, yes, Bob the Fighter will use WBL, which is part of the basic rules for this game, outfit himself with it and go into battle with it. That´s the whole point of the mundane classes, after all. And unlike the Commoner or Warrior, they are good at that and will get results.

I'm pretty sure the focus of a martial class is "prowess as a warrior" the classes focused on gear are gadgeteers like the Artificer. The fact that the Fighter needs gear to not suck doesn't make that his concept. It just means he sucks.

If you're not at least partially tailoring your game to the players when the players make lopsided parties... you're doing something wrong, IMHO.

If you're not bringing a character that's in line with the standard the rest of the party is setting, you're doing something wrong.

Your claim is that a Fighter is only useful if it can defeat a Pit Fiend solo after being robbed of 70% of it's wealth? That test probably will give you the result that you seek, but it seems remarkably irrelevant to actual gameplay to me.

Why? You're robbing the Pit Fiend of equivalent resources on its end. Why does your test prove anything?

Instead of trying to move goal posts all over, maybe just admit that a fighter can be useful?

Because even if you can contrive a Fighter to beat a Pit Fiend (and you certainly can, because Candles of Invocation can be bought for gold), you haven't proved the Fighter is "useful". For that to happen, there needs to be some reason for me to have a Fighter instead of a second Cleric.

Also, "beat a Pit Fiend" is just one part of being level appropriate at 20th level. Can you beat eight Trumpet Archons? Can you beat a 20th level Wizard? Does the same character go roughly 50/50 over a representative gauntlet of EL 20 encounters?

And this is why the whole "A core basic Fighter can't beat a core basic Pit Fiend" is a ridiculous argument.

A Good GM won't create the scenario where a single basic Fighter has to fight a Pit Fiend out of the blue.

A Good GM won't let players make characters that need to warp their build to beat a single level appropriate encounter.

I disagree, the game isn't about comparing stock vs stock, its about players who invest time into making one character vs the dm who invests time into multiple characters, history, lore, weather, climate, geography. As such the PC should be assumed to be more optimized than the NPCs that they are facing.

A DM also adjusts encounters to match PC capability -- so say several posters in this thread. Or is that just adjusting down because otherwise we make Fighters sad?

[Anthrowhale]

Commoner can't make the same tactics work. Doesn't mean he can't make any tactics work.

Feel free prove it.

If you're not bringing a character that's in line with the standard the rest of the party is setting, you're doing something wrong.

Huh, you're acknowledging relative usefulness. So you agree that in a monk/rogue/paladin party the fighter is still useful?

Why? You're robbing the Pit Fiend of equivalent resources on its end. Why does your test prove anything?

It was Jormengand's test, remember? I also don't see any Pit Fiend robbery going on, at least until after the Pit Fiend is dead.

Because even if you can contrive a Fighter to beat a Pit Fiend (and you certainly can, because Candles of Invocation can be bought for gold), you haven't proved the Fighter is "useful". For that to happen, there needs to be some reason for me to have a Fighter instead of a second Cleric.

It looks like you are stuck with the opportunity cost definition of 'useful'. It's a reasonable definition in some settings, but I think that imposing it on playmates may not work well.

Also, "beat a Pit Fiend" is just one part of being level appropriate at 20th level. Can you beat eight Trumpet Archons? Can you beat a 20th level Wizard? Does the same character go roughly 50/50 over a representative gauntlet of EL 20 encounters?

For MM encounters at CR 20 it does better than 50/50.

[The_Jette]

I'd like to point out that a monster's CR is for a party of four of that level. So, a Pit Fiend, with a CR of twenty, is built to be a challenge to a party of four, not to a single character at level twenty. So, the argument that a class is a waste of resources because it can't solo a challenge meant for four people is a little strange. Also, if the assumed WBL is held to, then the other party members don't get a 33% boost in wealth because the Fighter isn't there. Maybe they level up faster, but that's a very strange argument to make for a group that's already level 20.

[Cosi]

Feel free prove it.

Candles of Invocation can be bought for gold. You don't even have to use wish cheese. Just summon the Pit Fiend you're supposed to beat, and tell it to do pushups while you murder it. gate is OP.

The only question is how many restrictions you have to put on the Commoner's use of items before he stops being able to win.

Huh, you're acknowledging relative usefulness. So you agree that in a monk/rogue/paladin party the fighter is still useful?

Sure. Of course, that means zero in terms of his usefulness to the Wizard/Beguiler/Druid party.

It was Jormengand's test, remember? I also don't see any Pit Fiend robbery going on, at least until after the Pit Fiend is dead.

You were the one who thought you couldn't beat a blinged out Pit Fiend.

It looks like you are stuck with the opportunity cost definition of 'useful'. It's a reasonable definition in some settings, but I think that imposing it on playmates may not work well.

First, this issue should be solved by designers. If your game goes to print with a Cleric who can fight better than the Fighter while also seeing the future and summoning angels, you screwed up.

Second, in actual play you are obligated to bring a character that is appropriate to the game, as determined by the group as whole. If the group wants you to bring a character that contributes to their Wizard/Beguiler/Druid party as an equal and you bring a Fighter that doesn't, you are in the wrong. You are also in the wrong if you bring an optimized Wizard to a Rogue/Ranger/Fighter party to overshadow them (assuming they don't want that). But this isn't just a power thing. If your character concept is "Cyborg Spaceman", it is probably not welcome in a campaign that is a magical western, but might be completely appropriate in one that is set in the galaxy of Warhammer 40k. In general, you have an obligation to bring a character that conforms to whatever power, genre, or concept standards the group has agreed on.

[The_Jette]

Candles of Invocation can be bought for gold. You don't even have to use wish cheese. Just summon the Pit Fiend you're supposed to beat, and tell it to do pushups while you murder it. gate is OP.

As a side note to the whole "Candle of Invocation" thing, you'd have to buy a Lawful Evil Candle of Invocation in order to be able to summon a Pit Fiend, since what you summon has to be of the same alignment as the Candle. Plus, the commoner would have to take into account that the candle can be blown out, and compensate.

[Anthrowhale]

Candles of Invocation can be bought for gold. You don't even have to use wish cheese. Just summon the Pit Fiend you're supposed to beat, and tell it to do pushups while you murder it. gate is OP.

You've clearly left the realms of real gaming.

You were the one who thought you couldn't beat a blinged out Pit Fiend.

Citation needed.

Second, in actual play you are obligated to bring a character that is appropriate to the game, as determined by the group as whole. If the group wants you to bring a character that contributes to their Wizard/Beguiler/Druid party as an equal and you bring a Fighter that doesn't, you are in the wrong. You are also in the wrong if you bring an optimized Wizard to a Rogue/Ranger/Fighter party to overshadow them (assuming they don't want that). But this isn't just a power thing. If your character concept is "Cyborg Spaceman", it is probably not welcome in a campaign that is a magical western, but might be completely appropriate in one that is set in the galaxy of Warhammer 40k. In general, you have an obligation to bring a character that conforms to whatever power, genre, or concept standards the group has agreed on.

This sounds reasonable.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Candles of Invocation can be bought for gold. You don't even have to use wish cheese. Just summon the Pit Fiend you're supposed to beat, and tell it to do pushups while you murder it. gate is OP.

The only question is how many restrictions you have to put on the Commoner's use of items before he stops being able to win.

I've heard about Commoner charging builds. I'll crunch some number and see if one can kill a Pit Fiend.

Edit: You need a one level dip in Barbarian, but other than that I'm pretty sure it can be done in one turn.

[Cosi]

I'd like to point out that a monster's CR is for a party of four of that level.

This is ... not even wrong.

A monster's CR isn't "for" anything. Every monster has some particular CR, and that CR is invariant for that monster (unless you do something to change its CR like give it a template or class levels). What can change with circumstance is EL.

But even if you meant EL, you're still wrong, because that doesn't change for party level. EL does sometimes change (for example, fighting undead without a Cleric is a higher EL encounter per the DMG). If a 1st level party fights a CR 5 monster, that's not a different EL than the same party fighting it at 10th level, the EL is just in a different position relative to the PCs and the challenge gives more XP (and is considered more difficult).

Finally, a single PC is supposed to go roughly 50/50 with CR = Level opposition. A party is supposed to defeat a CR = Level monster after using only a portion of their resources.

You've clearly left the realms of real gaming.

Did we define some standards I missed?

Citation needed.

You didn't say explicitly, but this:

I could however imagine that if a DM is playing with optimized spellcasters using CR-inappropriate (or "CR-appropriate" with well beyond MM-level optimization), then a Fighter would have real difficulty. Maybe this is a point of divergence in experience?

The idea of this Fighter (with it's well-beyond PHB/DMG optimization) struggling with comparably optimized monsters seems to me to prove that it is not really effective.

[The_Jette]

This is ... not even wrong.

A monster's CR isn't "for" anything. Every monster has some particular CR, and that CR is invariant for that monster (unless you do something to change its CR like give it a template or class levels). What can change with circumstance is EL.

I'm not sure what EL is supposed to mean, so to back up my claim: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/i...hallengeRating

[Florian]

I'm not sure what EL is supposed to mean, so to back up my claim: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/i...hallengeRating

EL = Encounter Level. CR plus the sum of all modifiers.

[zergling.exe]

I'm not sure what EL is supposed to mean, so to back up my claim: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/i...hallengeRating

EL means Encounter Level. It changes with things like favorable or unfavorable terrain, additional creatures and other such things.

[The_Jette]

EL means Encounter Level. It changes with things like favorable or unfavorable terrain, additional creatures and other such things.

So, encounter level is like the challenge rating of the overall encounter, instead of the individual monster?

[Florian]

So, encounter level is like the challenge rating of the overall encounter, instead of the individual monster?

Exactly that.

[Cosi]

I'm not sure what EL is supposed to mean, so to back up my claim: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/i...hallengeRating

EL is Encounter Level. It refers to the average party level for which an entire encounter (as opposed to a single monster, trap, or other hazard) would be appropriate. There are a variety of rules for determining EL, but the simplest is that doubling the number of creatures raises EL by two. So a single Hill Giant is CR 7, but two Hill Giants are an EL 9 encounter.

Your quote doesn't back up your claim. It says that a monster of CR X is a moderate challenge for a party of average level X. That makes no mention of changing CR to start with, and doesn't contradict the rules in the DMG that explain that a "moderate" encounter (one where CR = APL) is supposed to consume 20% of resources, and which imply by some fairly basic mathematics that a single level X PC should go 50/50 with a slate of CR X monsters (or really EL X encounters).

[Anthrowhale]

Did we define some standards I missed?

Yes, there have been many references to real gaming.

You didn't say explicitly, but this:
...
The idea of this Fighter (with it's well-beyond PHB/DMG optimization) struggling with comparably optimized monsters seems to me to prove that it is not really effective.

I wasn't referring to a Pit Fiend there. Whether or not this fighter can take on a core optimized Pit Fiend remains to be determined. The earlier attempts upthread failed as they relied on low level undead that are snipe fodder. Feel free to make a suggestion.

I had in mind a high-op Cleric/Wizard/Druid, although it's not completely clear since that Hide check + Initiative bonus is pretty scary.

[Beheld]

I have returned from my sojourn into the real world, where I had no access to a computer, and felt quoting was necessary for my replies, so put them off. I will attempt to target representative points/quotes.

[*] Detect Magic+Permanency (via Ring of Spell Storing) 2.95K[*] Reduce Person+Permanency: 2.95K

I think it's strongly indicative of the joke of this idea that your entire character relies entirely on Detect Magic, something that doesn't even work the way you think it does, but also, has it from spending 3kgp and would permanently lose it and have to stop adventuring for the day from running into a CR 12 enemy.

[*]Low level undead is snipe-at-leisure fodder. Even if the 5% "paralyzed with Fear" effect occurs, the mummy still can't even find the sniper (and isn't even aware enough to look).

The first time you snipe an undead, you break your invisibility, and then all the other undead, and the Pit Fiend see you, and then you die.

[*]Sniping does require some way to hide so it does not work in all terrain. It does however often work.

It never works. I hate to break this to you, but your character has literally zero methods of obtaining cover or concealment after making an attack roll. You are 100% saying "I sure hope literally every location in the entire universe has a convenient hiding place within 20ft for me!"

[*]Illusions are defeated by detect magic. The disparity between sniper Move Silently and Pit Fiend Listen is high enough that creeping within 60' of illusions is no problem and detect magic will ping.

You still don't understand how detect magic works. You have to spend your standard action concentrating for 1 round to even know if magic is there, unless you use your standard action to detect magic every round of your life, you don't get "pinged" by illusions of walls, or illusions of Pit Fiends. So when you snipe that Pit Fiend from 120ft away, you actually are shooting an illusion, and when you get within 60ft, you are still shooting an illusion.

Even if you did spend every single round concentrating, it would still only tell you that there are a bunch of illusions, which would do you pretty much no good, since you 1) would just have to pick one at random to shoot, 2) Would have already given yourself away by shooting a Mummy.

[*]Beheld's Pit Fiend apparently wastes its action by casting Blasphemy. Everyone makes mistakes, but this is a fatal one.

Ignoring for the moment that this occurs probably from behind an illusory wall and you have no idea where the Pit Fiend is or even that it is a Pit Fiend, I think it's a bad sign if all non evil Fighters have a 100% loss rate against Pit Fiends. Hmmmmm.... almost like that thing where we said making fighters specifically for this challenge is a problem.

[*]Beheld lists several other monsters. Those can generally be dealt with as well, but let's stick to one opponent at a time.

Well that's kind of the point. While you probably can't build a core fighter that can beat each of these opponents, the fact that this one you made specifically and only for Pit Fiends can't seems to indicate you building for Pit Fiends is relevant and a problem.

The main thing I will say on this topic is something I have said many times before - a Balor with perfect knowledge of the Fighter coming his way and who also has prep time to raise an army of minions and otherwise prepare the battlefield is a harder encounter than the MM Balor was designed to represent.

What the rules actually say, is that if a Pit Fiend is not allowed to or arbitrarily refuses to use it's abilities, then it is lower EL. However, the Pit Fiend using it's actual abilities is of course, precisely the point.

No one is contending the Pit Fiend should have any specific advanced knowledge of the fighter except that granted by his abilities, since he has an objectively superior detection suite. Unlike the people defending the fighter, who often contend the Fighter needs to have advance knowledge of facing a CR at level threat without using his abilities to get that, like for example, the "all fighters that ever fight Pit Fiends are evil" example presented, and another specific claim coming up later.

You have done a fairly poor job of that in this thread, considering that each time someone manages to make a build that can defeat a pit fiend using core resources, you complain that it counters pit fiends specifically when it has fairly wide-ranging defenses like see invisibility and freedom of movement.

So far I haven't seen a single build that would actually beat the Pit Fiend. Even less impressive are the builds presented, which lose to Pit Fiends, but are also designed only to fight Pit Fiends, and also lose to other CR 19-21 enemies.

Because another way to judge that would be Wizard+Rogue+Cleric < Wizard+Rogue+Cleric+Class X. If the equation is true then Class X is in fact useful.

No one has ever contended that a Fighter is less present than nothingness. I mean, a single mirror image from a casting of mirror image is not "useless" by your definition. But I don't tell players they have the choice to play an equal part as the other players, and then make them play a single mirror image. If you have a bunch of a PC classes, implicitly, they are supposed to be equally as reasonable options. If one of them is objectively much worse, and doesn't manage to conform to the rules that are actually present for what a PC class should be balanced for, that's a problem.

A Good GM won't create the scenario where a single basic Fighter has to fight a Pit Fiend out of the blue.

A Good GM might create hints that a Fighter might eventually have to fight a Pit Fiend so that the player can buy gear and otherwise optimize to fight said Pit Fiend.

A Good GM doesn't even just drop a Pit Fiend in to fight a generic party of 4 characters. There will be a build-up so that the characters can optimize at least somewhat for the fight.

No, according to the rules, a good DM should in fact totally just present a Pit Fiend, and if the PCs didn't use their abilities to find out what they were facing, (of which, the Fighter has none), then they won't know in advance they are fighting a Pit Fiend. And if it's a party of 4, they might fight a Titan, a Balor, and a Dragon in the same day they fight the Pit Fiend, all with no warning except what is granted by their abilities.

I have no idea why people always say this about level 20 parties and CR 20 enemies, but never seem to say the same thing about CR 3 enemies and level 3 parties. I never hear "well of course you have to give the party advance notice they are going to fight a Medium Earth Elemental! And you can't have them just fight one without giving hints! And you can't expect them to fight a second encounter that day! And you can't have the Earth Elemental start off inside the ground using it's Earth Glide without raising CR!"

I wasn't referring to a Pit Fiend there. Whether or not this fighter can take on a core optimized Pit Fiend remains to be determined. The earlier attempts upthread failed as they relied on low level undead that are snipe fodder. Feel free to make a suggestion.

The previous Pit Fiend both 1) Absolutely would kill this fighter, and 2) Is literally the Pit Fiend from the MM, with no changes. Technically, by the rules, he also has to have treasure, but if you let me pick the treasure, and redo skill ranks and feats, that Fighter is dead as a doornail. Why not present a fighter that can actually beat a Standard Pit Fiend with no changes first before we move on to stage 2?




@everyone: I present an open challenge, that I will run any "totally standard fighter" against one of a very small set of core EL 20 encounters. Because it sure looks like pretty much every technique for fighter victory relies on enemies just not actually using their abilities, and/or nonsense rules interactions, and also for some reason spending 3kgp on a "permanent" effect that will last less long than a wand, because the first time your level 20 PC runs into a CR 12 enemy he will lose it forever.

[ColorBlindNinja]

SNIP

Interesting analysis. Do you think a charging build that pumps initiative could one shot the Pit Fiend?

[Beheld]

Interesting analysis. Do you think a charging build that pumps initiative could one shot the Pit Fiend?

In Core? I don't know, maybe? But I think you'd run into the same problems, where your Core Fighter has no ability to even confront the Pit Fiend, and a sufficiently careful Pit Fiend will kill you 100% of the time.

Outside of Core, expanded items could result in a fighter that gets within 120ft True Seeing range, and then uber charges or bow attacks for a kill.

Another thing all these "super stealthy" halfling sneak fighters with no ability to have cover or concealment should keep in mind is that activating a command word item, such as a wand, or Ring of Invisibility, or Winged Boots requires talking, or True Seeing item command activated and that often times doesn't help with plans to sneak up on people.

[Zanos]

None of the stuff you're doing is in the printed Pit Fiend's round by round tactics. Although any build would have to fight another devil too because it explicitly summons prior to combat.

Permanent concentration spells don't require concentration, so the fighter does not need to spend a standard action.

[ColorBlindNinja]

In Core? I don't know, maybe? But I think you'd run into the same problems, where your Core Fighter has no ability to even confront the Pit Fiend, and a sufficiently careful Pit Fiend will kill you 100% of the time.

Maybe an archery build for the core Fighter?

Outside of Core, expanded items could result in a fighter that gets within 120ft True Seeing range, and then uber charges or bow attacks for a kill.

That was more or less my idea.

Another thing all these "super stealthy" halfling sneak fighters with no ability to have cover or concealment should keep in mind is that activating a command word item, such as a wand, or Ring of Invisibility, or Winged Boots requires talking, or True Seeing item command activated and that often times doesn't help with plans to sneak up on people.

Indeed.

[Jormengand]

None of the stuff you're doing is in the printed Pit Fiend's round by round tactics. Although any build would have to fight another devil too because it explicitly summons prior to combat.

Please, please tell me you're not in the "Monsters only ever use the listed tactics, don't deviate from them under any circumstances, and if you change their tactics their CR is no longer valid" camp.

[Zanos]

Please, please tell me you're not in the "Monsters only ever use the listed tactics, don't deviate from them under any circumstances, and if you change their tactics their CR is no longer valid" camp.

Sure aren't, but I wouldn't expect a Pit Fiend to spend all day creating armies of undead that they can't control from all those corpses that aren't in Hell and hiding behind illusionary walls despite being the most prideful of fiends.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Please, please tell me you're not in the "Monsters only ever use the listed tactics, don't deviate from them under any circumstances, and if you change their tactics their CR is no longer valid" camp.

[Sarcasm] Naturally! Clearly, the designers intended for every monster to use full attacks over and over! [/Sarcasm]

On a more serious note, was CR ever valid in the first place?

[Beheld]

None of the stuff you're doing is in the printed Pit Fiend's round by round tactics. Although any build would have to fight another devil too because it explicitly summons prior to combat.

The round by round tactics of the Pit Fiend of course don't cover the things it did days ago, or hours ago, or 10 minutes ago.

Permanent concentration spells don't require concentration, so the fighter does not need to spend a standard action.

This appears no where in the Permanency spell description, or the concentration description in the magic overview, so I wonder where you get that from.

[ColorBlindNinja]

This appears no where in the Permanency spell description, or the concentration description in the magic overview, so I wonder where you get that from.

I remember reading that you have to spend an action to activate a permanent concentration duration spell. I don't recall where, though.