Pathfinder 2 Playtest 2nd Edition: If it ain't broke, still fix it.

[Midnightninja]

Like the idea that a warrior is by default a big, dumb door-opener with no non-combat skills to speak of. Which is thankfully slowly being abandoned, even in PF2e.

Slowly is right. At the begining of the playtest fighters had 3+Int trained skills. It took a bunch of yelling on the forums and, presumably, survey data for them to give everyone a baseline of 5+Int skills. Even with that, the skills feats are largely anemic.

Today they're releasing the final update of the playtest. They said it's big and is all about classes. Maybe the feedback they've gotten has told them that leaving the fighter in the box they've put it in is a bad idea, but I already know they're not making a game I want to play.

Also, this worries me (emphasis mine):

IF YOU’RE A FIGHTER, YOU LIKELY...
• Know the purpose and quality of every weapon and piece of armor you own.
• Have your friends’ backs no matter the situation.
• Recognize that the danger of an adventurer’s life must be balanced out with great
revelry or ambitious works.
• Have little patience for puzzles or problems that require detailed logic or study.

[Minion #6]

IF YOU’RE A FIGHTER, YOU LIKELY...
• Know the purpose and quality of every weapon and piece of armor you own.
• Have your friends’ backs no matter the situation.
• Recognize that the danger of an adventurer’s life must be balanced out with great
revelry or ambitious works.
• Have little patience for puzzles or problems that require detailed logic or study

God, I forgot about these. They're so awful. Class prescriptivism for roleplaying really gets my goat.

[Rhedyn]

I'm sceptical of people saying they can pound out a decent PF1 character at level 12 in less than 131 minutes.

Oh easily, but that is because I have sheets on sheets of character builds in storage.

[Hunter Noventa]

IF YOU’RE A FIGHTER, YOU LIKELY...
• Know the purpose and quality of every weapon and piece of armor you own.
• Have your friends’ backs no matter the situation.
• Recognize that the danger of an adventurer’s life must be balanced out with great
revelry or ambitious works.
• Have little patience for puzzles or problems that require detailed logic or study.

This is the only thing that even could apply to all fighters, and even then. Do they even know who they're writing for? because if they did they wouldn't have written this.

[Midnightninja]

God, I forgot about these. They're so awful. Class prescriptivism for roleplaying really gets my goat.

Mine too. The line between general advice for how your character may be and cleaving super close to the most basic of tropes is a fine one.

This is the only thing that even could apply to all fighters, and even then. Do they even know who they're writing for? because if they did they wouldn't have written this.

The thing is, they're trying to make a game for ttrpg vets and newbies. They don't have luxury of knowing who's experienced or inexperienced when they sit down at the table. That being said, I'm pretty sure we both rolled our eyes upon seeing that for the first time.

[Kish]

That looks a whole lot like something from 5ed D&D.

Dictating that a wizard should be brilliant by default, a cleric or druid wise, a paladin a holy champion of Good, those things make sense. Dictating that a fighter should be stupid, a wizard conceited, a cleric preachy, or a paladin humorless, not so much.

[Morty]

That depends on what options you take.

But yes, you can grab abilities that let you treat BAB as ranks in select skills. Advance Weapon Training selects two skills at a time while advance armor training selects one skill at a time.

That's actually surprising, and not bad as stop-gaps go. Makes it all the stranger that people had to complain before PF2E fighter was given more than 3 skills.

As far as the "If you're a fighter" sidebar... well, what else were they going to write there? It's not like the fighter class has an identity beyond "uses weapons with great skill and no innate magic". Though I guess that's still no excuse for effectively writing "you're probably not very smart" there.

[Rhedyn]

That's actually surprising, and not bad as stop-gaps go. Makes it all the stranger that people had to complain before PF2E fighter was given more than 3 skills.

As far as the "If you're a fighter" sidebar... well, what else were they going to write there? It's not like the fighter class has an identity beyond "uses weapons with great skill and no innate magic". Though I guess that's still no excuse for effectively writing "you're probably not very smart" there.

An honest description of a Fighter is one that uses magic arms, armor, and items well.

[Kish]

An honest description of a Fighter is one that uses magic arms, armor, and items well.

Yes, this.

"You're a specialist in arms and armor. You do physical damage and can take lots of punishment. You probably want to wear the heaviest possible armor, which makes high Dexterity of relatively little use to you, though you might instead be a lightly-armored Dexterity-focused fighter. Your class abilities are all nonmagical."

There, somet+hing they could have put there.

Complimentary editing provided by my cat.

[Hunter Noventa]

The thing is, they're trying to make a game for ttrpg vets and newbies. They don't have luxury of knowing who's experienced or inexperienced when they sit down at the table. That being said, I'm pretty sure we both rolled our eyes upon seeing that for the first time.

That did cross my mind, but it's still very clear they only have one kind of fighter in mind.

[Callin]

Shouldnt 1.6 have gone live awhile ago?

[Midnightninja]

Shouldnt 1.6 have gone live awhile ago?

Went live about an hour ago.

For those that are interested.

[Faily]

Is that with or without background? That's always the part that takes me longest.

Same. Fleshing out a concept and background takes me much longer than deciding on feats, spells, etc.

Now, I *usually* prefer to spend a while on character creation if I can, as it allows me to think about planning ahead, doing some changes to fit the character (rather than just making a decent+ or optimal character), and most often in PF1 what takes me a long time is scouring through Ultimate Equipment for fun gear to complete my character idea (I've picked up so much fun stuff there for characters to give them a little extra bit of flavor or personality quirks that lept at me as ideas... like the Sorcerer I played with a pet turtle, whom she treated as her familiar even if it was just a completely regular animal, and just from that pet alone I added in so much fun shenanigans during play).


So making something mechanically: easy-peasy lemon-squeazy. Can hash out a Cleric super-fast since I've played those a lot. Classes I haven't played before requires a bit more thinking, but can be done in less than 2 hours.

Making a *character* (more than just mechanical parts): Can take 10 minutes, can take a couple of days. Depends on where my brain is at.

[Midnightninja]

That's actually surprising, and not bad as stop-gaps go.

I was very surprised when I came upon it the first time too. It was a really good patch for their skill deficiency.

It's not just skills either, there's weapon training that can get a fighter's will or reflexes saves to almost good progression (base 6+5 by levels 18 or 17, respectively), bonuses to initiative, pseudo-dex to damage, benefiting from team work feats even if your allies don't have them, Warpriest's Sacred Weapon progression, extra saves vs. fear for allies, and a few other things that are less interesting to me. Here's all of them if you're interested

Makes it all the stranger that people had to complain before PF2E fighter was given more than 3 skills.

What they chose to take or ignore from all of 1E to put into the playtest is baffling. How they chose to implement what they took, skill feats in particular, even more so.

As far as the "If you're a fighter" sidebar... well, what else were they going to write there? It's not like the fighter class has an identity beyond "uses weapons with great skill and no innate magic". Though I guess that's still no excuse for effectively writing "you're probably not very smart" there.

I agree with the fighter's concept being traditionally viewed as narrow

I was mostly critical of the "Must be played with this level of intellect" insinuation.

They could have written more, but anything I'd write to that effect would require a bigger conceptual space than what they've chosen to work with.

[Cosi]

Definitely not, no. Mundanes are a part of D&D in the same way that preposterous, disingenuous comparisons are a part of forum discussions.

Oh, good, I was hoping we'd get down to "only the kinds of games I like are legitimate". Now we just need "you're selfish for wanting the game to include things I don't like at all" and I have bingo.

Actually, if you are talking about fiction of the genre that D&D should strive to emulate, it should quite obviously be discarded, because of what I already explained.

The genre D&D emulates is fantasy. Fantasy stories inspired by or based on D&D are still, in fact, fantasy stories. Your position is incoherent nonsense.

They are very much more likely to exposed to modern fantasy which has nothing like D&D wizards. So essentially you made the same argument, and sorry: Compared to GoT or the LotR movies, your "well-acclaimed" book series are much less relevant.

I feel like you don't understand how genres work. Yes, the LotR trilogy is a large and important part of fantasy. But it's only three books. If you've read more than six fantasy novels, then the majority of your exposure to fantasy comes from things that aren't LotR. If you count all of Tolkein's works, you might get the number up to somewhere in the low teens. But that's still a comparatively tiny number of books. I've ready more than that many books this year.

Now to be clear, I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't at least consider LotR or GoT. But those also shouldn't dictate the entire game. D&D should be able to support stories that are like LotR. But it shouldn't let a focus on doing that cripple its ability to tell stories that are like Malazan, or Cradle, or Lord of Light. Because those are also fantasy stories, and also legitimate targets for genre emulation. And while LotR may be the largest and most impressive name in the fantasy genre, the overwhelming majority of fantasy isn't LotR.

Do you think that in the face of the fact that the most widely known and popular examples of the high fantasy genre, new and old (using LotR and GoT as cornerstones, so to speak), have nothing in the way of D&D wizards and feature non-wizard characters as their central protagonists, D&D (especially your proposed muggle-free version of D&D) somehow emulates "the fantasy genre" by relegating "mundanes" to low-level roles?

There's no inconsistency there. LotR and GoT are large influences in the genre. The game should support them. And it does -- at low levels. But emulating a genre rather than a specific work in that genre means not holding the game as a whole hostage to the choices made by particular works. The game should absolutely allow you to have a story like that of LotR where a party of characters with relatively little magic goes on an arduous overland journey. But it should also allow you to do other stories. Stories where characters from LotR would rate as minor characters at best. Because the fantasy genre includes stories like that as well.

If you think that's absurd, I invite you to explain how you would produce a game where both Cersei Lannister and Anasurimbor Khellus were both high level characters, despite the fact that Khellus does everything Cersei does better and can also fly, teleport, summon demons, shoot fireballs, control people's minds, travel to other planes, and effectively fight hand-to-hand.

Disregarding for the moment the fact that you again, work your a priori assumption of mana-powered artillery type wizards as a given

Khellus exists. Rand al'Thor exists. Anomander Rake exists (Quick Ben is probably a better example here, actually). The fantasy genre does in fact contain Wizards that are mana-powered artillery. Since D&D is emulating "the fantasy genre" and not "specifically LotR", it should include them. They don't have to be supported at every level, and I've never said that. But they are in fact incompatible with "mundane warrior" as a viable PC archetype.

You are not just one of those players who play wizards in every D&D campaign, play wizards in every other fantasy RPG, try to play wizards even in RPGs where there are no wizards but where you can make an effort to sneak around the rules to create a sort-of-wizard and flat-out refuse to play RPGs where there really are no wizards, are you perchance?

I reject your framing of the issue. As it happens, I do play other kinds of character, but even if I didn't there's nothing wrong with having a particular kind of character you want to play and picking games based on that. If someone likes playing Street Samurai, are they a bad person for playing Shadowrun instead of D&D? If someone wants to play a Superman expy, are they wrong for playing Champions instead of Paranoia? Of course not! People have tastes, and it's entirely legitimate to make decisions based on those tastes.

But even if we accept the obviously disruptive connotation you're trying to give "playing games that support the kinds of stories you want", that's still better than your position. Because you don't just want to only play games that do what you want, you want to prevent the game from supporting things you don't like at all. I have no problem with there being some levels where mundane swordsmen are viable. But you seem to think that it's totally unacceptable for there to be any levels where mundane swordsmen aren't viable. This is a pattern I see consistently when arguing with people about the viability of mundane characters. Somehow "the game should include a variety of different paradigms" is the selfish position, and "the game should only include the paradigm where mundane characters are viable" is the reasonable one.

I'm sceptical of people saying they can pound out a decent PF1 character at level 12 in less than 131 minutes.

Honestly, I don't think that's hard. Certainly, you're going to make different choices in terms of class, and you're going to end up with a less optimal set of feats and magic items, but I think you could definitely produce a viable character in that time. And a lot of the things that put pressure on that time are things that should probably be simplified.

God, I forgot about these. They're so awful. Class prescriptivism for roleplaying really gets my goat.

Eh. I think that kind of thing is fine, at least to a degree. Yes, it's a problem when the game acts like any other way of playing a Fighter is wrong, but giving some tips for how you might play a Fighter is genuinely useful for new players, or players who have trouble developing a character. The issue is just that these are bad tips, which is another case of "Fighter is a garbage class concept".

[NomGarret]

Yeah, what’s concerning in those suggestions is that it feels like an insight into what the designers feel is or isn’t a valid fighter concept, and therefore what they have an interest in supporting in their design.

[Koshiro]

Oh, good, I was hoping we'd get down to "only the kinds of games I like are legitimate".

The ones for people who don't understand sarcasm?

The genre D&D emulates is fantasy. Fantasy stories inspired by or based on D&D are still, in fact, fantasy stories.

As we say here on the "R" side of the fence: Circular logic is circular. You're still effectively saying you want D&D to emulate itself.

D&D should be able to support stories that are like LotR.

If you actually think that D&D, especially a D&D that was structured like you would have it, could support "stories that are like LotR", I am truly sorry for the time I lost trying to engage in serious discussion of this.

If you think that's absurd, I invite you to explain how you would produce a game where both Cersei Lannister and Anasurimbor Khellus were both high level characters, despite the fact that Khellus does everything Cersei does better

I wouldn't. From what I read about Kellhus, he's the type of character that probably evolved from roleplaying, but is actually poison to roleplaying.

Since D&D is emulating "the fantasy genre" and not "specifically LotR", it should include them.

Okay. Apparently there has been a misunderstanding.
I don't think D&D should be emulating "the fantasy genre" in its entirety. As any sane person, I am quite aware that this is not even possible. I am, however, in favor of broadening the game's horizons and maybe steer back a little more towards including classic, heroic fantasy instead of the extremely constricted and incestuous self-emulation that you advocate.

I reject your framing of the issue.

"Yes, but I played a few alibi non-wizard characters over the years" would have sufficed. It is painfully obvious that not only is this your character preference, but that you also so taken with it that you want to define the entire game along your lines of preference. Hate to break it to you, but you're a type: Plays only wizards (irrelevant alibi characters which take up less than 10% of playing time disregarded), is obsessed with superpowered magical characters in genre fiction without realizing that they obviously could never be viable characters in an RPG, wants to be better at everything than everybody else with his magic, thinks that's the way how it should be, again without realizing that it can't work like that in an RPG. If you also GM and habitually design super-powerful magical characters of the Elminster type as sponsors of your players' characters, I can call bingo.

The issue is just that these are bad tips, which is another case of "Fighter is a garbage class concept".

Q.e.d.

[EldritchWeaver]

The ones for people who don't understand sarcasm?

I didn't recognize your statement as sarcasm, considering a previous comment of yours, where I'm sure you used the same way of expressing yourself seriously. So this communication breakdown is on your side.

The issue is just that these are bad tips, which is another case of "Fighter is a garbage class concept".

Q.e.d.

Actually, Fighter is a bad class concept. It is inherently impossible to make a generalist be better than specialists, because the generalist has a too narrow focus and has no way to express superiority in a way that doesn't step on the various specialists.

[skaddix]

Paizo is simply out of touch. I have said before that I thought the only think Pathfinder 2E is based around is their own internal play groups. Looks like they did no real market research but then again they might just listen to their own forums which are a safe space echo chamber filled with sycophants.

[Koshiro]

I didn't recognize your statement as sarcasm, considering a previous comment of yours, where I'm sure you used the same way of expressing yourself seriously.

Well, I am sure I did not, and you did not provide any information on what previous comment you meant or what you refer to as "the same way", so this communications breakdown is quite clearly on your side.

Actually, Fighter is a bad class concept. It is inherently impossible to make a generalist be better than specialists, because the generalist has a too narrow focus and has no way to express superiority in a way that doesn't step on the various specialists.

... speaking of which, I don't even know what you're waffling on about here. What the hell does that have to do with the facts that...

a.) ...the author included a description of what the character likely isn't good at, in contrast to most of the other classes, by the way, in the roleplaying hints for the Fighter.
b.) ...this strongly implies the Fighter as a non-intellectual, one-dimensional character, which is a facepalm-worthy cliché by any standard.
c.) ...thinking that this somehow says something about the viability of the class does in fact say that you share the limited vision and lack of imagination of the author.

[Cosi]

As we say here on the "R" side of the fence: Circular logic is circular. You're still effectively saying you want D&D to emulate itself.

And you seeming don't understand that the way things are created involves the interchange of ideas. Yes, ideas that showed up in D&D first (or that D&D popularized, or that D&D presented in particular ways) show up in other places. That's proof that those are ideas people like, and that D&D should use them -- perhaps learning from adaptations that other people have made of them. Your notion appears to be that if D&D does something popular enough that others emulate it, D&D must immediately abandon it. That's not just nonsense, it's actively making the game worse in the service of some bizarre grognard/hipster ideology.

If you actually think that D&D, especially a D&D that was structured like you would have it, could support "stories that are like LotR", I am truly sorry for the time I lost trying to engage in serious discussion of this.

You can do LotR in 3.5. Obviously you can't do it as well as you could in a system solely dedicated to that, but I invite you to explain which parts of LotR you think are fundamentally incompatible with D&D.

You shouldn't feel sorry though, as you clearly haven't been trying to engage in a serious discussion.

I wouldn't. From what I read about Kellhus, he's the type of character that probably evolved from roleplaying, but is actually poison to roleplaying.

All right then. I'm shifting my position: the game should not make any effort to support LotR or GoT. A first level character should be someone like Vin from Mistborn, and things should scale up from there. No D&D characters should ever be mundane swordsmen. If you're not willing to compromise, I don't see why I should be.

I don't think D&D should be emulating "the fantasy genre" in its entirety. As any sane person, I am quite aware that this is not even possible. I am, however, in favor of broadening the game's horizons and maybe steer back a little more towards including classic, heroic fantasy instead of the extremely constricted and incestuous self-emulation that you advocate.

Yes, "broadening the games horizons" to "only things that no one likes enough to emulate". Presumably as soon as someone published a fantasy novel that was a collection of stories from a campaign of your LotR/GoT-inspired D&D, we would have to find some other, even more obscure corner of fantasy to emulate. Maybe we could start riffing off China Melvile.

Of course, "incestuous self-emulation" is anything but what I'm asking for. I would love to see the game incorporate more influences from eastern stories, and I think adopting the variety of magic systems present in other works of fantasy would make the game more interesting. I think the Dominions series of games are a good guideline from what high-level play should look like. I'm entirely willing to play a game that works for LotR (and even play games like that from time to time) -- though the people who want LotR in their fantasy are manifestly unwilling to support the kinds of games I enjoy.

There are rather a lot of non-D&D fantasy stories I've read, enjoyed, and would like to emulate. I should think that things like The Fifth Season and Three Parts Dead are both radically more different from D&D as it exists than either LotR or GoT. But you don't see me insisting that those are the only legitimate fantasy sources for D&D to draw on.

"Yes, but I played a few alibi non-wizard characters over the years" would have sufficed.

Oh, of course! When I play non-Wizards it's not something I do to have fun, it's something I do so that I can tell a random stranger on the internet about it so he'll be more likely to accept my preferences for what D&D should try to emulate. Do you see how obviously absurd that is?

It is painfully obvious that not only is this your character preference, but that you also so taken with it that you want to define the entire game along your lines of preference.

No, as I noted repeatedly, I'm quite willing to play a game -- even play games -- where Wizards don't have the power level I describe. All I'm asking is that the system support that power level ever at all. But apparently knowing that you can't play "mundane sword guy" at every level in the game is a totally unacceptable sacrifice for you to be asked to make. Heaven forbid that a kitchen sink fantasy game include in its kitchen sink any fantasy you don't personally and explicitly approve of.

Hate to break it to you, but you're a type

Yes, and you're a type too. Except instead of being content to play games you like, you've decided that everyone everywhere must only be allowed to play games you like. And yet you've sill somehow convinced yourself that the people with the gall to suggest that they might enjoy anything you don't are the bad guys.

is obsessed with superpowered magical characters in genre fiction without realizing that they obviously could never be viable characters in an RPG

Actually, funny story about that. I was going to explain the whole "genres contain more than three books" thing to you by walking you through the books I read last year (which include LotR and also other stuff), but it turns out that none of the actually fit the "super powered Wizard" archetype very well. I'm really much more widely read than you seem to think, it's just that I happen to be widely read enough to know that fantasy actually does include characters more powerful than "mundane guy with a sword". I happen to like that stuff, but I don't think it needs to be the only thing in the game. Somehow, that's a more radical position than "literally only things that are compatible with LotR belong in kitchen sink fantasy".

You really seem to be projecting here, as every conversation with you seems to inevitably turn to "I've meticulously read LotR and memorized a bunch of plot and setting details". And of course, characters like the ones from GoT are infinitely less viable for D&D than anything I've suggested. How many times does Cersei go into a dungeon?

Actually, Fighter is a bad class concept. It is inherently impossible to make a generalist be better than specialists, because the generalist has a too narrow focus and has no way to express superiority in a way that doesn't step on the various specialists.

The problem with "Fighter" is that the concept it implies is simultaneously a specialist and a generalist, and both in ways that are problematic. On the one hand the name literally means "one who fights", which leaves you with a pretty limited set of things you might conceivably do that aren't fighting. On the other hand, the name doesn't give you any indication of what the character might do in a fight. It's a problem coming and going, and as far as I can tell people's attempts to square the circle amount to "I have some other, better concept that I've internally decided to call 'Fighter'". Really, the class should be called Soldier or Champion. Those are names that evoke characters with meaningful depth.

[Beckett]

In all honesty, I was thinking redoing the class to make it based off of soldier, but that too would be both very specilized and general.

Goung off of the PF1 base, for simplicity, it wouldn't be to hard to add in a few curcumstantial bonuses for a few skills similar to weapon training.

For instance, maybe at 2nd level the Soldier/Fighter gets to pick two Skills between Know Architecture, Nobility, a few pertinent Crafts, and the like. A small list, but not Intimidate, Diplomacy, Acrobatics, Perception, etc.

They are considered Class Skills, and treated as getting 1 rank in those skills every 3 Fighter Levels, and get to add their choice of Str, Dex, or Con to Prof Soldier. At 10th, and again at 15, they chose another Skill to add.

[EldritchWeaver]

Well, I am sure I did not, and you did not provide any information on what previous comment you meant or what you refer to as "the same way", so this communications breakdown is quite clearly on your side.

Let me quote you:

It isn't. Specifically, it is not a good thing to allow me being frustrated, so I'm just going to bow out of this in lieu wasting more time by responding to disingenuous, eristic posts.

Definitely not, no. Mundanes are a part of D&D in the same way that preposterous, disingenuous comparisons are a part of forum discussions.

"The same way" refers to that you are using similar words and tone, where IMO you the first time didn't were sarcastic, but supposedly were the second time.

... speaking of which, I don't even know what you're waffling on about here. What the hell does that have to do with the facts that...

a.) ...the author included a description of what the character likely isn't good at, in contrast to most of the other classes, by the way, in the roleplaying hints for the Fighter.
b.) ...this strongly implies the Fighter as a non-intellectual, one-dimensional character, which is a facepalm-worthy cliché by any standard.
c.) ...thinking that this somehow says something about the viability of the class does in fact say that you share the limited vision and lack of imagination of the author.

The point is that since fighters are mechanically and conceptually bad, this limits what a fighter can actually do well. This expresses by

a.) ...by having not enough items in a list what a fighter can do well.
b.) ...by projecting low intelligence (maybe Int 10 or 12 at level 1) along with low number of trained skills as well signature skills in Acrobatics, Athletics and Crafting - which are most certainly not intellectual - into a cliché dumb person.
c.) Actually, I have seen a number of proposals, how fighters could be improved out of combat. All had the commonality, that while the class was better mechanically, conceptually they moved away from the origin. So this isn't a lack of imagination on my part alone. Also, if you don't share my view of the viability of the class, what do you think can the fighter do actually well mechanically?

[Rhedyn]

"Mundane Swordsman is a bunk concept"

Idk about that, in Savage Worlds my mundane Swordsman feels fine next to a wizard, but my swordsman is an action hero and the wizard isn't nearly as crazy as D&D/PF (though he can still cast fireball, turn invisible, shapeshift, fly, disguise, teleport, summon monsters, create zombies, charm, buff, bestow "combat feats" on himself, etc).

Of course, there is nothing to say that a player/GM couldn't have the "powers" "trapped"/flavored as purely mundane. So super wuxia swordsmen can play next to Ned Stark or Guts without too much issue.

What I am getting at is that there is no reason PF Fighters have to suck to play.

[TiaC]

I'm reminded of an old quote about mundanes in high-level play: "I want to stab dragons the size of a small keep with skin like supple adamantine and command over time and space to death with my longsword in head to head combat, but I want to be totally within realistic capabilities of a real human being!"

That's why mundane fighter is a limited character concept. There are challenges that that concept cannot meet. Now, those challenges are high level challenges, and so a mundane character is fine at a lot of levels, but eventually, the character is going to occupy a larger conceptual space. This space doesn't have to be spellcasting, Hercules digs a canal in a day and holds up the sky, other greek heroes dig to the underworld, you'll find characters who cut mountains in half. The other problem with mundane fighter is that the Rogue exists. If you look at mundane heroes in fantasy, they tend to be clever and skilled, not just good with a sword. Conan is quite intelligent, and wins by guile as much as force of arms. By separating the two classes, neither of them get to do all of what the characters they emulate do.

[OgresAreCute]

I'm reminded of an old quote about mundanes in high-level play: "I want to stab dragons the size of a small keep with skin like supple adamantine and command over time and space to death with my longsword in head to head combat, but I want to be totally within realistic capabilities of a real human being!"

That's why mundane fighter is a limited character concept. There are challenges that that concept cannot meet. Now, those challenges are high level challenges, and so a mundane character is fine at a lot of levels, but eventually, the character is going to occupy a larger conceptual space. This space doesn't have to be spellcasting, Hercules digs a canal in a day and holds up the sky, other greek heroes dig to the underworld, you'll find characters who cut mountains in half. The other problem with mundane fighter is that the Rogue exists. If you look at mundane heroes in fantasy, they tend to be clever and skilled, not just good with a sword. Conan is quite intelligent, and wins by guile as much as force of arms. By separating the two classes, neither of them get to do all of what the characters they emulate do.

Maybe if you rolled all the mundane punchy/stabby/sneaky guys into a single, modular class it would work better.

[Silly Name]

"I want to stab dragons the size of a small keep with skin like supple adamantine and command over time and space to death with my longsword in head to head combat, but I want to be totally within realistic capabilities of a real human being!"

This hits the nail on the head. D&D/PF has certain tiers of power depending on the level of the PCs: within a certain range (let's say up to level 6, roughly), most mundane characters are exceptional but don't straddle verisimilitude too much, but past that they start battling mythical creatures and dealing with wizards who can alter reality on a whim - yet there is this weird concept that martials don't get to be mythical. No level 20 Fighter can tear apart the gates of Hell or hold the weight of the sky upon their shoulders, Barbarians don't get to swim across the sea for three days straight or wrestle with the great snake who coils around the world.

Sure, it can be argued that many of those mythical deeds were performed by divine or semi-divine characters, but at the levels of power one attains at level 20, you are squarely in the realm of the non-human. Heck, a Rogue's Evasion is already past the realm of normal human possibilities, and that is a fairly low-level class feature.

As long as players and designers don't come to terms with the fact that in D&D/PF there is a tipping point where you go from Sword & Sorcery to Fantasy-themed Superheroes, martials will get the short end of the stick because there is this dumb constraint of keeping them "within the realistic capabilities of a real human being". If you can accept being able to dodge explosions without receiving any sort of damage whatsoever, you shouldn't find striking through the thick, metallic hide of a gargantuan dragon with only the might of your sword-arm and stabbing the foul beast in its black heart, all with a single strike, to be "unrealistic" or "breaking immersion".

The issue of not wanting to give mundanes this kind of abilities natively is one of the origins of the Christmas Tree problem - the Fighter wants to do what Thor and Achilles do in the stories, but they are required to use magic items to do so because designers refuse to just them the Fighter do it.

[Rhedyn]

I'm reminded of an old quote about mundanes in high-level play: "I want to stab dragons the size of a small keep with skin like supple adamantine and command over time and space to death with my longsword in head to head combat, but I want to be totally within realistic capabilities of a real human being!"

I think you can solve this with action-hero logic.

No you aren't killing the dragon with your sword, it's too big, you need to do heavy weapon damage with a Siege Engine. In some games that is a viable strategy, in D&D/PF it's not. You didn't spec into "Use Siege Engine" and it's not a magical weapon so it will never do enough damage to be relevant in the big Dragon fight.

But yeah, a mundane swordsman commanding teams of soldier to fire ballistae and trebuchets while he personally slays any Dragon minions trying to stop them is a great role for him to have, even as the wizard is trying to counter the time/space magic and the wuxia martial artist is keeping the dragon distracted.

[Cosi]

I don't think "give them a pile of tiny men" is a good fix for the Fighter. I see three principal problems with that as a solution:

1. Not everyone who wants to play a swordsman wants to end up with an army. Lots of sword-wielders do, but some don't.
2. There are lots of people in the source material who lead armies or nations while personally being magic-wielding badasses. There are less wizard-generals than warrior-generals, but there aren't zero wizard-generals.
3. If the Fighter needs to bring a pile of tiny men to an engagement to be viable, that seriously constrains the kinds of engagements you can have. If one of your characters needs to bring 200 guys and some siege weapons to the battle to contribute appropriately, that basically writes off dungeon crawls.

I do think people should command armies, because that is an important thing that happens in fantasy, but it really can't be a replacement for personal combat competence. Any non-trivial combat subsystem consumes enough screen time that characters have to be doing something in it. Also, this would likely be true of any mass-battle minigame, which puts pressure on the "Fighter gets an army" paradigm from the other end.

Idk about that, in Savage Worlds my mundane Swordsman feels fine next to a wizard, but my swordsman is an action hero and the wizard isn't nearly as crazy as D&D/PF (though he can still cast fireball, turn invisible, shapeshift, fly, disguise, teleport, summon monsters, create zombies, charm, buff, bestow "combat feats" on himself, etc).

I wasn't trying to say that it's a concept the game can't support. Just that it's limited enough that you can't make it a cornerstone of the game. Because there are power levels where it isn't viable. It really is the exact same thing as shapechange for all Koshiro's protestations. shapechange should absolutely be a part of D&D, but it can't be a central pillar of D&D because there are stories we want the game to generate where it wouldn't be appropriate.

Of course, there is nothing to say that a player/GM couldn't have the "powers" "trapped"/flavored as purely mundane. So super wuxia swordsmen can play next to Ned Stark or Guts without too much issue.

You really can't though. Because that's insulting to what people want "mundane" to mean. Part of what people want from "mundane" is real limits. If you remove those you're going to bother people on both ends.

That's why mundane fighter is a limited character concept. There are challenges that that concept cannot meet. Now, those challenges are high level challenges, and so a mundane character is fine at a lot of levels, but eventually, the character is going to occupy a larger conceptual space. This space doesn't have to be spellcasting, Hercules digs a canal in a day and holds up the sky, other greek heroes dig to the underworld, you'll find characters who cut mountains in half. The other problem with mundane fighter is that the Rogue exists. If you look at mundane heroes in fantasy, they tend to be clever and skilled, not just good with a sword. Conan is quite intelligent, and wins by guile as much as force of arms. By separating the two classes, neither of them get to do all of what the characters they emulate do.

This is a very good summary of the issue.

Maybe if you rolled all the mundane punchy/stabby/sneaky guys into a single, modular class it would work better.

I don't really think you need to do that (and this applies to TiaC's comments about the Rogue as well). You could, but I think that once you stop trying to drag out "mundane" over the whole game and actually give people their mundane abilities in a reasonable timeframe, you can produce a variety of meaningfully distinct mundane classes. I really think the problem here is the Fighter. Because there's not really anything for it to do outside combat. A Barbarian or Ranger could have some wilderness survival skills that provide a meaningfully different set of abilities from a Rogue. A Knight could have diplomatic abilities that are useful, but distinct from the Rogue. But the Fighter just isn't well enough defined to do that.

[TiaC]

I don't really think you need to do that (and this applies to TiaC's comments about the Rogue as well). You could, but I think that once you stop trying to drag out "mundane" over the whole game and actually give people their mundane abilities in a reasonable timeframe, you can produce a variety of meaningfully distinct mundane classes. I really think the problem here is the Fighter. Because there's not really anything for it to do outside combat. A Barbarian or Ranger could have some wilderness survival skills that provide a meaningfully different set of abilities from a Rogue. A Knight could have diplomatic abilities that are useful, but distinct from the Rogue. But the Fighter just isn't well enough defined to do that.

The fighter is definitely the worst case of mundanes being too narrowly divided, but I think it's more generally a problem that there are skilled mundanes and fighty mundanes. Rogue should just be another mundane and all mundanes should have a fighty side and a skilled side. (Hopefully this would be set up so that mundanes don't dump all their mental stats.) The characters who exist alongside magic-users without having magic themselves are generally both smart and dangerous.