Quadratic Fighters?

[StSword]

Oh to whoever might be interested, I remember Malhavoc Press released a few books to give fighters a bit more oomph.

Book of Iron Might included new feat types- Arcane Battle feats for a warrior who is supernaturally good at combat, Battlemind feats that range from entering a barbarian like rage to entering a gun fu style meditative trance, and fighting style feats that you take at level one and give new options as you level up.

It also provides combat applications to a lot of skills and a stunt system.

The Book of Experimental Might 2 provides fighter domains, and reworks the feat system to make the extra feats a fighter get more impressive- double feats, oblation feats, and uberfeats, and feats that give an extra bonus if you get them as a fighter bonus feat.

That one I'm a tad fuzzy on, since it's been a while and I don't have my book with me.

[Melcar]

The problem as far as I can tell is that the rules are doing a more or less competent job of modeling certain fantasy archetypes, unfortunately some those archetypes are capable of far more impressive feats than others. When you start trying to twiddle with the rules in an effort to create balance you almost always either don't create balance, or create balance by making the rules no longer represent the intended archetypes. In short, there's virtually no way to make a fighter just as capable as a wizard without turning into something that is not a fighter.

I think this ^^^ pretty much hits the nail on the head!

[AvatarVecna]

I think this ^^^ pretty much hits the nail on the head!

Indeed. The closest I've seen is maybe the PF 3rd party "Spheres Of Power/Might" system. Casters in general are brought down to high 3/low 2, with some particular builds creeping into 1, but generally going for too much versatility spreads you too thin to be super-powerful at any one particular thing, so often a specialization in a couple thematically-linked kinds of magic makes for a fitting mage. Makes it harder to play a proper archmage without really focusing on it but ehhhhh. And then martials are very generally speaking buffed up a good bit with the SoM spheres generally into the high 4/low 3 range - not only getting more feat-equivalent abilities than usual, but having about 700 from 25 spheres to choose from, and most whatever you come up with will end up pretty interesting to play because the system is designed to incentivize playstyles besides "I stand still and full attack again", and most of them get slightly better as you level. I wouldn't say balance is perfect in Spheres by a far shot, but it seems to do a good job of beefing up noncasters without turning them into psuedocasters.

[Efrate]

I think that there are better fighterish classes than fighter. Fighter as a class poorly executes the fighter concept. Path of War or ToB classes are better at executing the fighter concept.

It boils down to how often you cannot actually fight. When circumstances limit your ability to perceive or to reach the enemy to attack you, you cannot contribute. If you are not getting full attacks off every turn your damage falls off drastically past level 6. If you fail a save (generally will) you also cannot do anything.

Both subsystems have options that give you more options to overcome those times. Swift action movement (in 3 dimensions), alternate sensory methods, save replacement effects, and pounce equivalents all are needed and fighter does not get access to any of them.

[Mordaedil]

What fighters really lack are solutions to problems. The fighters pool of abilities unique to them is the number of feats they get, while it is class abilities for martial classes like paladins, rangers and barbarians.

Having fighter bonus feats that can solve problems or provide versatility for the fighter would go a long way to help them. Trade attack bonus for skill bonuses, allow them AOE effects from smashing the ground etc.

Paladins and rangers need boosts to their specific abilities, like favored enemy and smite evil and probably more uses and applications for their powers.

Now, Tome of Battle is infamous for being the go-to example, but it doesn't address the core issue of fixing the fighter as-is. The main problem in D&D is that the game has 3 sources of power; feats, skills and spells. And Skills and Feats are piss-weak. Skills even more so than feats. And this is why rogues and fighters suffer greatly. And rogues are sort of redeemed by getting sneak attack that sort of allows the rogue to still perform in an area outside of their ideal "expertise".

Monks require basically a complete rewrite to save. They might as well get fly speed instead of slow fall and it still wouldn't make them good.

[DMVerdandi]

I'd just overhaul all the classes. From a pathfinder standpoint, I think that there is enough variety for most of the classes, but I'd just freely give the path of war alternative class features.

If it was straight 3.5, I'd switch the core.

1.Fighter.
Have the fighter prepare maneuvers from all schools, not unlike a wizard. Can learn maneuvers from martial scripts. Also Gestalted with Artificer. So fighter becomes the master of fighting, and creating the tools of war, rather than being beholden to others [Think Sigurd and Hrunting]

2.Druid/Spirit shaman/Ranger Gestalted. animist.

3. Cleric/Crusader/Archivist Gestalted. wis+Cha for spells.All divine spells short of Druid and Ranger.

4.Unarmed swordsage,Ninja and Erudite Gestalted. Now MONK. Int+Wis for powers.
Sudden strike, and ninja class features become shadow hand maneuvers. Sudden strike in particular being a stance. all psionic powers accessible.

5. Barbarian and shadowcaster Gestalted into Rogue. Get shadow hand, diamond mind, and tiger claw.
Barbarian class features become tiger claw maneuvers.

6.Bard and Marshal Gestalted into wizard. Bardic inspiration songs get turned into martial auras That have chanting component or they go inert.Big focus on the power of words. truenamer fluff.
Can cast all arcane spells as bard. Changes spells prepared with concentration check. No spellbooks.
Also can use war weaver's web as a greater aura.

7.Sorcerer, Warlock and Binder Gestalted. Now Atavist.
Binding gives access to vestiges that unlock genetic potential of host.Each creature type has a vestige. Basically each vestige gives a whole focused spell list, some at will invocations, and other normal bonuses.
As normal, when a vestige is not bound, they don't have access to any of the powers.

8. Magic of Incarnum gets all thrown into one class. Incarnate. Access to all soulmelds.

Finally, for the characters that are not fighters but get maneuvers, they would have to pick one school they know, and they only get maneuvers from level 6-9 in the chosen school. Only the fighter would have access to all of them.


This would be high powered as heck, and enemies would probably need some buffing after level 3, but it would be high flying, and everyone kind of gets reinforced, as well as all having REALLY different systems for each as far as powers go.

Everyone can contribute, and even moreso, they contribute in radically different ways and with different systems.

[upho]

The problem as far as I can tell is that the rules are doing a more or less competent job of modeling certain fantasy archetypes, unfortunately some those archetypes are capable of far more impressive feats than others. When you start trying to twiddle with the rules in an effort to create balance you almost always either don't create balance, or create balance by making the rules no longer represent the intended archetypes. In short, there's virtually no way to make a fighter just as capable as a wizard without turning into something that is not a fighter.

True, but why not simply slightly stretch/alter especially the archetypes intended to be represented by the weakest non-casters? Or more precisely, why not alter said classes to better represent different suitable archetypes depending on their level?

In other words, a 5th level fighter should still represent the classic Fafhrd- or Conan-ish martial hero archetypes, but a 15th level fighter should instead represent the (arguably more) classic Hercules-, Cú Chulainn- or Hulk-ish martial superhero archetypes.

This is what I was getting at in my original comment. If you add much more broad utility to maneuvers, you've suddenly just got another kind of wizard on your hands. Imo all the best solutions for balancing casters and mundanes are the ones that knock casters down a couple pegs. I believe this is the case because wizards and their ilk can exist at a much broader range of "power levels" while still accurately representing a caster archetype.

I largely agree. Though from a design PoV, I'd say another large issue with casters - more so in 3.5 than in PF - is that there are a dozen different spells providing a dozen different solutions to each and every conceivable adventuring problem (and quite few inconceivable ones). Which means it's darn difficult to design a martial ability which doesn't provide a solution to a certain problem which isn't also very similar to one or more existing spell. Which in turn means it's darn difficult to design especially any actually useful higher level martial abilities which doesn't also risk being called "a spell in disguise" and/or the martial using it "just another kind of wizard". I mean, some people even believe ToB and PoW options make martials "too similar to casters", despite the obvious major differences between maneuvers/initiating and spells/vancian, not to mention that the vast majority of maneuvers provide only combat benefits.

By reducing especially the ridiculous out of combat versatility full casters can gain, increasing the design space for new and distinctly unique abilities increasing the same versatility for martials, I believe a large majority of the causes for C/MD issues could be removed without necessarily turning the martials into psuedocasters. At least in mid-/high-op PF games with access to PoW, psionics and Akashic (3.5 and PF games limited to 1PP material would also need a bunch of notably stronger martial combat abilities).

A couple examples that I think do this particularly well are Spheres of Power, and Grod_The_Giant's fixed list caster homebrew. These both preserve the thematic trappings of the caster archetype while both decreasing their raw power, and versatility.

Indeed. The closest I've seen is maybe the PF 3rd party "Spheres Of Power/Might" system.

I agree Spheres really does greatly improve balance, to the point of removing causes for C/MD issues from the rules themselves. However, I also think the Spheres system unfortunately provides PC builds that are very static in combat in comparison to vancian casters and PoW initiators. Basically, while Spheres does get rid of the old martial "full attack for max damage, repeat ad nauseam", the builds it enables - notably including Sphere casters - will typically still repeat their one superior "trademark" action/ability combo round after round in combat, having little means to adapt that combo between days, combats or rounds to better meet changing tactical needs.

Personally, although I really like especially the greater out of combat versatility SoM grants, in PF games I prefer the rather considerably greater mechanical variety and tactical versatility possible with PoW, psionics and akashic combined with nerfed 1PP full casters.

I think that there are better fighterish classes than fighter. Fighter as a class poorly executes the fighter concept. Path of War or ToB classes are better at executing the fighter concept.

So much this.

It boils down to how often you cannot actually fight. When circumstances limit your ability to perceive or to reach the enemy to attack you, you cannot contribute. If you are not getting full attacks off every turn your damage falls off drastically past level 6. If you fail a save (generally will) you also cannot do anything.

Both subsystems have options that give you more options to overcome those times. Swift action movement (in 3 dimensions), alternate sensory methods, save replacement effects, and pounce equivalents all are needed and fighter does not get access to any of them.

And so much this. I'd only like to add "action economy boosts" in general to that list of things which especially the 3.5 fighter sorely lacks in combat.

What fighters really lack are solutions to problems. The fighters pool of abilities unique to them is the number of feats they get, while it is class abilities for martial classes like paladins, rangers and barbarians.

Having fighter bonus feats that can solve problems or provide versatility for the fighter would go a long way to help them. Trade attack bonus for skill bonuses, allow them AOE effects from smashing the ground etc.

This is arguably at least half of the reason why the PF fighter is so much stronger than the 3.5 fighter, PF combat feats allowing for a considerably greater number of distinctly different effective martial combat roles and styles than the 3.5 equivalents do. (The other half is that the PF fighter also gets actual unique class features, including quite a few not focused on combat.) At least in high-op games, of course these things aren't anywhere near enough to make the PF fighter actually balanced to PF full casters or let them play in the same premier combat league as PoW initiators and a few Paizo classes, but it's a start and a definite improvement from the 3.5 fighter.

Paladins and rangers need boosts to their specific abilities, like favored enemy and smite evil and probably more uses and applications for their powers.

Now, Tome of Battle is infamous for being the go-to example, but it doesn't address the core issue of fixing the fighter as-is.

I think basically all of the class archetypes on this list actually does much of that and more, primarily by adding initiating and secondarily by adding other strong class features to all the core non-casters.

[Melcar]

What fighters really lack are solutions to problems...

I have begun, when DM'ing (which is not often mind) to allow fighters to gestalt into another mundane class. However, only when playing in parties with tier 1 classes. Its not a perfect solution by any stretch, but it makes the fighter a little better at solving problems outside battle-rounds.

Examples are: Fighter/Barbarians, Fighter/Monk, Fighter/Rogue... etc!

[DEMON]

True, but why not simply slightly stretch/alter especially the archetypes intended to be represented by the weakest non-casters? Or more precisely, why not alter said classes to better represent different suitable archetypes depending on their level?

In other words, a 5th level fighter should still represent the classic Fafhrd- or Conan-ish martial hero archetypes, but a 15th level fighter should instead represent the (arguably more) classic Hercules-, Cú Chulainn- or Hulk-ish martial superhero archetypes.

To be fair, of the stronger "mundane" archertypes, the former two are demigods and the latter is an "irradiated freak of nature". Their abilities are hardly mundane or derived from a mundane class.

And that's the crux of the problem: It's not the Fighter's problem that he can't match up to the Wizard, it's that they play a completely different game, but are somehow present in the same one.

At that level, pure mundanes simply can't compete. Yet, some players still want to bring their Conan into an Elminster-fight.

[Katie Boundary]

1) Allow them to jump enormous distances and AoE stun anything nearby when they hit the ground
2) Give them a huge bonus detecting traps and all non-magical forms of stealth
3) Let them deflect magic missiles, fireballs, and other such projectiles with their weapon like a lightsaber
4) Grenades?
5) Let them make attacks of opportunity in response to spells that can be cast as free actions

[Peat]

To be fair, of the stronger "mundane" archertypes, the former two are demigods and the latter is an "irradiated freak of nature". Their abilities are hardly mundane or derived from a mundane class.

And that's the crux of the problem: It's not the Fighter's problem that he can't match up to the Wizard, it's that they play a completely different game, but are somehow present in the same one.

At that level, pure mundanes simply can't compete. Yet, some players still want to bring their Conan into an Elminster-fight.

I get what you're coming from, but at the same time, the existence of these examples is as much as anything an argument against high level Fighters/Martials having to be solely mundane.


In any case - giving fighters CuChulainn level abilities mostly only makes them even nastier in combat; it doesn't increase their range of problem solving abilities and options much. That I suspect lies mainly in allowing high rank skill use to be really good.

[Quertus]

I'd just overhaul all the classes. From a pathfinder standpoint, I think that there is enough variety for most of the classes, but I'd just freely give the path of war alternative class features.

If it was straight 3.5, I'd switch the core.

1.Fighter.
Have the fighter prepare maneuvers from all schools, not unlike a wizard. Can learn maneuvers from martial scripts. Also Gestalted with Artificer. So fighter becomes the master of fighting, and creating the tools of war, rather than being beholden to others [Think Sigurd and Hrunting]

2.Druid/Spirit shaman/Ranger Gestalted. animist.

3. Cleric/Crusader/Archivist Gestalted. wis+Cha for spells.All divine spells short of Druid and Ranger.

4.Unarmed swordsage,Ninja and Erudite Gestalted. Now MONK. Int+Wis for powers.
Sudden strike, and ninja class features become shadow hand maneuvers. Sudden strike in particular being a stance. all psionic powers accessible.

5. Barbarian and shadowcaster Gestalted into Rogue. Get shadow hand, diamond mind, and tiger claw.
Barbarian class features become tiger claw maneuvers.

6.Bard and Marshal Gestalted into wizard. Bardic inspiration songs get turned into martial auras That have chanting component or they go inert.Big focus on the power of words. truenamer fluff.
Can cast all arcane spells as bard. Changes spells prepared with concentration check. No spellbooks.
Also can use war weaver's web as a greater aura.

7.Sorcerer, Warlock and Binder Gestalted. Now Atavist.
Binding gives access to vestiges that unlock genetic potential of host.Each creature type has a vestige. Basically each vestige gives a whole focused spell list, some at will invocations, and other normal bonuses.
As normal, when a vestige is not bound, they don't have access to any of the powers.

8. Magic of Incarnum gets all thrown into one class. Incarnate. Access to all soulmelds.

Finally, for the characters that are not fighters but get maneuvers, they would have to pick one school they know, and they only get maneuvers from level 6-9 in the chosen school. Only the fighter would have access to all of them.


This would be high powered as heck, and enemies would probably need some buffing after level 3, but it would be high flying, and everyone kind of gets reinforced, as well as all having REALLY different systems for each as far as powers go.

Everyone can contribute, and even moreso, they contribute in radically different ways and with different systems.

That's some interesting flavor you've got. This probably deserves its own thread - maybe people would actually respond about our balance then.

I have begun, when DM'ing (which is not often mind) to allow fighters to gestalt into another mundane class. However, only when playing in parties with tier 1 classes. Its not a perfect solution by any stretch, but it makes the fighter a little better at solving problems outside battle-rounds.

Examples are: Fighter/Barbarians, Fighter/Monk, Fighter/Rogue... etc!

How's that work out at low level, when Wizards are usually falling behind anyway?

[Blue Jay]

I think a better way to go about this would be to get class abilities as if it were level^2

This was my first thought, as well. The numbers get too silly too quickly if you're throwing exponential math into the equation. But, if the fighter just gets tons and tons of feats as if he was a higher-level fighter, that increases his combat versatility in several ways. For example, he could "specialize" in four or five different forms of combat, so he'd have enough round-by-round options to mitigate many of his deficiencies and turn him into more of a problem-solver than a simple beatstick. When he can't get off his uber-charger shtick, he can fall back on swarm archery, or he can hunker down to defend a choke point with defense-oriented options, or something else.

He's still not going to have the same breadth of options as an optimized wizard has, but he'll be versatile enough that the vast majority of games won't really notice that he's fallen behind. At 20th level, he'll have something like 200 feats, which I imagine is basically all of the [fighter] feats, so he can kind of be all the warrior archetypes in one (assuming non-conflicting prereqs, of course).

[DEMON]

I get what you're coming from, but at the same time, the existence of these examples is as much as anything an argument against high level Fighters/Martials having to be solely mundane.


In any case - giving fighters CuChulainn level abilities mostly only makes them even nastier in combat; it doesn't increase their range of problem solving abilities and options much. That I suspect lies mainly in allowing high rank skill use to be really good.

I pretty much agree with the consensus. I'm neither against strongre Fighters, nor non-mundane Martials, I just don't think they necessarily need to be the same thing.

Fighters could most certainly use a leg up (e.g. +2 skill points and more class skills and/or a Bonus Feat per level, with some of them not locked to Fighter bonus feats), so they are enjoyable to play in their own right, but they don't need to become Hulk, Hercules, someone from DBZ or what have you.

They provide an option for a purely mundane class and players wanting that should keep their options. That said, players wanting their character to resemble the above mentioned archetypes, instead of Conan, Aragorn and their ilk, should also get the chance to do so, of course. I just don't share this forums obsession with the Wizard - Fighter parity, for one simple reason: This edition doesn't lock you into a particular class - with ~50 base classes and ~500 PrCs that you can mix and match at every single level, one shouldn't be hang up on choosing an inferior option at every level and trying to measure up to the stronger option. S/He should be looking for combinations that provide the desired effect.

[upho]

To be fair, of the stronger "mundane" archertypes, the former two are demigods and the latter is an "irradiated freak of nature". Their abilities are hardly mundane or derived from a mundane class.

But you agree their abilities are powerful and more of the "martial" than the "caster" type, right? That's pretty much my point: a 20th level "fighter done right" should indeed have abilities at a similar demigod/superfreak power level.

Or to put it in other words, "mundane Hercules" is about as much of a blatantly obvious oxymoron as "20th level mundane PC" is. There's virtually nothing mundane about Hercules, nor about a PC with 20 levels in the hypothetical "average" PC class.

Not to mention that even at 1st level, I really believe "mundane" should be a highly misleading label to put on the archetypes represented by martial classes, as well as the mechanical abilities granted by those classes. Past say 10th, describing said archetypes or martial abilities as "mundane" should be nothing but obvious irony. And even looking at your "typical" low- to mid-op builds of the existing 3.5 and PF martial classes, at least past 3rd level or so, I struggle to see how they're "mundane". And I usually fail to keep myself from laughing out loud whenever someone puts that word in the same sentence as say "high level", "high-op" and "initiator" or "PF barbarian", especially if the speaker also apparently manages to keep a straight face...

And that's the crux of the problem: It's not the Fighter's problem that he can't match up to the Wizard, it's that they play a completely different game, but are somehow present in the same one.

Kinda. But since neither the infinitely broad non-caster archetype/character concept, or its "martial" or even "fighter" sub-concepts, come with any inherent limitations which prevent them from playing the same game as the caster archetype/character concept may, I'd say the crux is people confusing these concepts with various inherently extremely limited "guy at the gym BSF"- or "Fahfrd/Conan"-types of low level martial archetype/character concepts.
'

At that level, pure mundanes simply can't compete.

Just out of curiosity, what would you say defines a "pure mundane"? Why?

Yet, some players still want to bring their Conan into an Elminster-fight.

That's actually fine IMO. What isn't fine is if/when the Conan players also refuse to play level-appropriate Hercules, but still complain about poor party balance and/or demand Elminster's power and the 20th+ game's challenge difficulties are brought down to their Conan 6th-level-concept's abilities...

1) Allow them to jump enormous distances and AoE stun anything nearby when they hit the ground
2) Give them a huge bonus detecting traps and all non-magical forms of stealth
3) Let them deflect magic missiles, fireballs, and other such projectiles with their weapon like a lightsaber
4) Grenades?
5) Let them make attacks of opportunity in response to spells that can be cast as free actions

You should probably check out PoW if you're looking for these kinds of higher level martial abilities.

I get what you're coming from, but at the same time, the existence of these examples is as much as anything an argument against high level Fighters/Martials having to be solely mundane.

Precisely.

In any case - giving fighters CuChulainn level abilities mostly only makes them even nastier in combat; it doesn't increase their range of problem solving abilities and options much.

Probably when it comes to Cú Chulainn, yeah. But I cannot see how similar issues would somehow reduce the viability of the basic design concept/idea, because if one archetype doesn't do it for you, you could simply replace or mix it some other powerful non-caster archetype(s) less exclusively combat focused (plenty available).

That I suspect lies mainly in allowing high rank skill use to be really good.

I know quite a few Playgrounders have made own attempts - and/or have been involved in a few open group attempts - to make such a skill-based "utility spell compensation" system for non-casters. Those I've been involved in or read about have unfortunately had very little success so far, most notably because it requires many many more hours of work and far more drastic changes to the existing system than what one might first assume.

One less time-consuming option could be copying the many decent to great related abilities found in Spheres of Might, reducing the amount of work required to put together new stuff (which will most certainly still be needed, and lots of it). Maybe offering these as feats, along with giving only non-caster classes related specific feat slots every few levels?

[DEMON]

Just out of curiosity, what would you say defines a "pure mundane"? Why?

One who can be reasonably assumed to follow his world's rules of physics, despite other beings in that world being able to bend these rules to their will or ignore them. And that, by default, puts that character at a disadvantage againts those that can ignore said rules.

To give some examples that fit the bill for me: Conan, Boromir, Gawain (knights of the round table), Milva (The Witcher), most of the fairy tales' heroes of my youth (e.g. Ivan of the Father Frost story, Atreyu of the Neverending Story etc.)

[Aotrs Commander]

Fighters could most certainly use a leg up (e.g. +2 skill points and more class skills and/or a Bonus Feat per level, with some of them not locked to Fighter bonus feats), so they are enjoyable to play in their own right, but they don't need to become Hulk, Hercules, someone from DBZ or what have you.

Well, I did do that latter part anyway, though I didn't give them more skill points (BUT we are essentially using very nearly Pathfinder's skill system, so their skill points do go a bit further), and I even gave them a few special bits for certain feats.

But yeah, that's the OTHER big problem fundementally - that there are the really keen people like me who will spend literally tens or hundreds of hours playing and modifiying 3.x/PF because they love all the mechanical options - and then there's the guy who just wants to have Man With Sword and roll dice to make attack rolls, and isn't interested in competing with the mage/psion/warblade and having loads of special power and abilities (and sort of WANTS his character to be as simple as an AD&D fighter). Or they don't play regularly enough. (If you play maybe once or twice a year...)

Which is why I didn't go too mad with my fighter upgrade, keeping at least one class (I'd have said others, but the last chunk of the afoementioned tens-to-hundreds has been porting all the PF rogue talants and such across!) which doens't require a lot of mechanical game knowledge. (I do, of course, ensure that we that is desired, we make sure we keep the numbers optimised for that desired effect.) If someone wants to do something more than that, that's why... Actually, I think you're right, my 3.5/PF hybrid DOES have 50 classes (and we don't tend to use PrC much, to be honest), so there's always multiclassing.

(Fighter is, I think, the second-most common dip class after Swordsage in our parties.)



(It is, of course, fine for us, since the paradigm I use tends to always give the fighter something to hit - heck, the only party we had hit low Epic had a pure fighter, and he did alright for himself!)

[RatElemental]

One who can be reasonably assumed to follow his world's rules of physics, despite other beings in that world being able to bend these rules to their will or ignore them. And that, by default, puts that character at a disadvantage againts those that can ignore said rules.

To give some examples that fit the bill for me: Conan, Boromir, Gawain (knights of the round table), Milva (The Witcher), most of the fairy tales' heroes of my youth (e.g. Ivan of the Father Frost story, Atreyu of the Neverending Story etc.)

I mean, in a world where magic exists, wouldn't magic be part of the world's physics? This is like defining 'pure mundane' as anyone from our world who has no access to modern technology that can among other things make you able to fly, freeze things in the dead of summer, reshape powdery material into a solid object and purify water instantly.

[frogglesmash]

I mean, in a world where magic exists, wouldn't magic be part of the world's physics? This is like defining 'pure mundane' as anyone from our world who has no access to modern technology that can among other things make you able to fly, freeze things in the dead of summer, reshape powdery material into a solid object and purify water instantly.

I thought it was pretty clear that they were referring to individuals without the inherent ability to use magical abilities. While your comments are technically accurate, they strike me as needlessly pedantic, and they don't seem to contribute to the conversation in a productive manner.

[Sereg]

I thought it was pretty clear that they were referring to individuals without the inherent ability to use magical abilities. While your comments are technically accurate, they strike me as needlessly pedantic, and they don't seem to contribute to the conversation in a productive manner.

Actually, I agree with them. Them not using magic is not the same as them not benefitting from it or being able to interact with it. Just like I don't have to be able to build technology to benefit from it.

This is is why I say martials should be able to learn to grab teleports out the air, stab a caster through the spell that gave them their minion, charge anywhere in line of sight as an immediate action, smash through force effects, jump between continents, run on water, smash the ground to create earthquakes, wave their arms to change the weather, smash through walls in a charge, smash traps, burrow and scream loud enough to be a breath weapon. Their use of armour and weapons makes them good at carrying, their need to aim makes them good at spot, listen and search, their badassery makes them good at intimidate, their knowledge of anatomy should make them effective healers, and their knowledge of their arms and armour as well as breaking stuff should make them excellent crafters. A fighter should be able to do all of this and still be a fighter.

For high level fighters, the archetypes they should be representing is superheroes like Flash, Hulk and Thor.

[RatElemental]

I thought it was pretty clear that they were referring to individuals without the inherent ability to use magical abilities. While your comments are technically accurate, they strike me as needlessly pedantic, and they don't seem to contribute to the conversation in a productive manner.

Wizards, one of the most castery archetypes to ever cast, aren't inherently magical either. They just learn how to use magic the same way a fighter learns how to use a sword. Take away their book and toss them in a dungeon, and they stop being able to cast.

My point was that at higher levels, you really can't expect to not be using magic at all, I don't think that makes martials any less martial. Whether they're still mundane or not, well, I don't think it really matters.

[frogglesmash]

Wizards, one of the most castery archetypes to ever cast, aren't inherently magical either. They just learn how to use magic the same way a fighter learns how to use a sword. Take away their book and toss them in a dungeon, and they stop being able to cast.

My point was that at higher levels, you really can't expect to not be using magic at all, I don't think that makes martials any less martial. Whether they're still mundane or not, well, I don't think it really matters.

You're conflating "inherent"with "innate," while still engaging in needless pedantry, and missing the point of the discussion. We're talking about general trends concerning character archetypes, and their comparative power. We're not discussing how the definitions of those archetypes breakdown with certain specific edge cases.
If you really need a hyper accurate definition, casters are characters whose access to magical abilities is achieved primarily through character build, and not through gear. The less this applies to a given character, the more "mundane" that character is. Now I'm sure you can find some examples that don't quite work with my definition, but the very fact that you can provide those examples demonstrated an understanding of the idea I am trying to convey, which is all that is necessary for a productive conversation.

[Mr Adventurer]

The distinction is completely pointless, something which I am pleased that the Tome of Battle recognised.

[RatElemental]

You're conflating "inherent"with "innate," while still engaging in needless pedantry, and missing the point of the discussion. We're talking about general trends concerning character archetypes, and their comparative power. We're not discussing how the definitions of those archetypes breakdown with certain specific edge cases.
If you really need a hyper accurate definition, casters are characters whose access to magical abilities is achieved primarily through character build, and not through gear. The less this applies to a given character, the more "mundane" that character is. Now I'm sure you can find some examples that don't quite work with my definition, but the very fact that you can provide those examples demonstrated an understanding of the idea I am trying to convey, which is all that is necessary for a productive conversation.

My point all along was to try and either show that 'mundane' is a silly concept to apply to DND characters, or to help refine the definition. You've actually just provided a workable definition that, no, wasn't clear all along to everyone. So thank you for that.

The question now, then, is whether mundane as you just defined it is workable in the game, or whether it would even be desirable to do so. And if so, how to go about doing that. I take the position that in high level DND, mundane as it's usually defined, has no place. You're fighting beings from beyond mortal ken at that point, and have long since transcended the physical limits of normal people.

[DEMON]

I mean, in a world where magic exists, wouldn't magic be part of the world's physics? This is like defining 'pure mundane' as anyone from our world who has no access to modern technology that can among other things make you able to fly, freeze things in the dead of summer, reshape powdery material into a solid object and purify water instantly.

Not necessarily. To assume magic in every setting is like a modern era's smartphone and everyone has access to it just does not apply as broadly as you portray it.
The examples I gave above are all actual characters from fantasy settings where magic exists, that do not possess any innate magical abilities, yet, in several cases, they are the main heroes.

Some people are drawn to these kinds of characters. And while they may not fit into every group and every story, their existence is just as valid an argument for mundane characters in even high fantasy settings, as are the powerhouses mentioned by other posters an argument for much more powerful "mundane" characters.

Yes, a Fighter is a weak class and can't compete with the top tier classes at high levels, where magic is the answer to pretty much anything. All classes are not created equal.
But do they have to be? As I've mentioned before, 3.5 is a flexible system and does not lock you into a single class for your whole career. Fighter 20 is not the answer for the people that want to play Hulk, it simply isn't. I'm not arguing that, I just don't believe it should be, or rather needs to be. Those players should look elsewhere, since they have other options that fit their bill.

As Aotrs Commander has said:

and then there's the guy who just wants to have Man With Sword and roll dice to make attack rolls, and isn't interested in competing with the mage/psion/warblade and having loads of special power and abilities

Which I will follow up with upho's quote:

That's actually fine IMO. What isn't fine is if/when the Conan players also refuse to play level-appropriate Hercules, but still complain about poor party balance and/or demand Elminster's power and the 20th+ game's challenge difficulties are brought down to their Conan 6th-level-concept's abilities...

[ThatMoonGuy]

So my question is: being able to cut three mountaintops with just your strength alone is mundane? Or is that too much? Because if mundane strictly means "not much higher than the limits of a real human" then... Yeah. That ain't got no place in high level.

Well, you see, the problem is that there is no superhuman fighter class in D&D (or Pathfinder for that matter). Even the thing people say that comes closer (PoW and ToB to a far lesser extent) is far from being anywhere equal to a Wizard in game changing potential. So if I don't want to play a Wizard in a high level game my only option then is to either go full Christmas tree or to not play at all?

That's bad game design if you ask me.

[frogglesmash]

Y'all are conflating "mundane" with "realistic." In this context "mundane" refers specifically to a lack magical ability.

[Lans]

This was my first thought, as well. The numbers get too silly too quickly if you're throwing exponential math into the equation. But, if the fighter just gets tons and tons of feats as if he was a higher-level fighter, that increases his combat versatility in several ways. For example, he could "specialize" in four or five different forms of combat, so he'd have enough round-by-round options to mitigate many of his deficiencies and turn him into more of a problem-solver than a simple beatstick. When he can't get off his uber-charger shtick, he can fall back on swarm archery, or he can hunker down to defend a choke point with defense-oriented options, or something else.

He's still not going to have the same breadth of options as an optimized wizard has, but he'll be versatile enough that the vast majority of games won't really notice that he's fallen behind. At 20th level, he'll have something like 200 feats, which I imagine is basically all of the [fighter] feats, so he can kind of be all the warrior archetypes in one (assuming non-conflicting prereqs, of course).

Another idea would be to 'gestalt' in other low tier classes. So every level you get another class. Let's say you need to grab T5 and lower, and nothing more magical than a paladin

I think you will run out of T5 classes at around level 10, so just add in lower tier 4 classes from there

[Anachronity]

A lot of the most busted caster stuff is the stuff that doesn't really care about numbers, or gives the user extremely high numbers. This fix would only solve the latter sort of problem, but would also introduce so very many more problems.

But what's important to note about casters is that they also have a low floor in addition to a high ceiling. Someone who doesn't know what they're doing or who wants to play their T2 caster as a T4 character can totally do that, and can even more or less lock themselves into that playstyle.

If you were to follow through with this idea in a real game, you would find that your quadratic fighters would not have that low floor. Numbers are numbers and theirs are astronomical. Damage doesn't really scale without feats, but defenses do. Any caster would be forced to bust out the cheese in order to keep up, since if those 9th and 16th level fighters are ever allowed to swing for damage against your frail 3rd or 4th level wizard body it's totally over. Also hitpoints, saves, and so on are so high that your only effective options become those that don't care about either.


I think this idea might actually work though if you limit the exponential growth only to feats. So a 5th level fighter would have 9 feats from levels and 13 bonus combat feats (as per a 25th-level fighter), but the BAB/saves/Hit Dice/etc. of a 5th-level character (though they could also take epic feats). At that point I'd say they're pretty similar to a sorcerer; you can take the gamebreaker options or you can squander your many feats on thematics, but it's hard to change your choice once made without one of a few notoriously cheesy effects that most GMs won't flippantly allow.

Even then they probably still come out ahead in the earlier levels (unless your table is particularly cutthroat) while falling behind at the much later levels (I don't think any one feat or even any feat chain allows a fighter to compete with a typical strong 6th-level spell)

[Sereg]

This is roughly what I do:

Full attacks are now standard actions.

Iteratives have their penalties capped at minus 5, but they still accrue.

People get penalties for reaching 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 hp, as well as using up their spells. These stack. (For spells, this eventually results in fatigue and exhaustion that bypasses immunities)

Things previously immune to precision damage now take half precision damage.

Spells that replace skills now instead provide bonuses to them.

Transforming into another creature changes the racial adjustments of your ability scores instead of the ability scores themselves.

Natural Spell is a metamagic feat that raises level by one.

Most classes increase their skill points. Especially "mundanes" and "skillmonkeys".

Favoured class allows bonus hp or skill points like in early pathfinder.

Feat acquisition is raised to pathfinder rates.

Fighters get a good will save and their choice of good fort or reflex save.

Fighters gain a bonus fighter feat every level, except for first, where they get two and twentieth where they get three.

Every level, fighters can also replace one of their old fighter feats with a new one. If they lose a feat that is a prerequisite for a prestige class or feat, they keep all the benefits of that feat despite having replaced it.

Fighters add their class level to their skill ranks they are trained in for the purpose of meeting feat prerequisites. They add half their class level to their abilities for the purpose of meeting prerequisites for feats.

They gain full initiator progression and when they chose Martial Strike and Martial Stance as bonus fighter feats, it does not count towards their limit of number of times they can take those feats.

They gain other class features per level as well and their are feats that can replicate the effects I mentioned earlier.