| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 08:13 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. |
| Bob Loblaw02-10-07, 08:36 AM | There are plenty of reasons to play fighters. Concensus on the boards is meaningless in most games. Whether or not those who feel the fighter is underpowered, or sucks, or whatever are correct is meaningless. Not every game conforms to the standards that they use. If you want to play a fighter, and have fun doing it, then play the fighter. Ignore the nay-sayers and have fun. It's your character not theirs. |
| Caliborn02-10-07, 08:49 AM | No, There's no real reason to have a fighter. Well actually I suppose you might want to be a fighter if you wanted your to lack any really outstanding or superhumanish abilities; you know, kind of be an everyman or champion of the people or something. |
| Argaud02-10-07, 08:53 AM | The only valid reason to play a fighter is wanting to play a fighter. Also, consensus on the boards? Surely you jest! |
| Ghenesh02-10-07, 09:29 AM | Many players are dissatisfied with the fighter class because they actually "want" to play the class and not regret it later. You must observe that this feeling is solely based on higher level (11+) optimization, below this and/or on a non-optimized play the fighter can be a decent class (below par in power but decent after all). Those who claim that "pure fighters" suck to the level of unplayability surely play in a highly optimized party, where power acquisition is maybe the main motivation and reason of fun for the players, and there's nothing wrong with it, after all there's nothing on the PHB explaining where the fun of the game comes from. I do play in a high level campaign where optimization is the main dish, and playing a 20th level fighter is not an option to me, i would bore to death if i do so, i wouldn't be doing much in combat and... that's it, fighter only activates during combat, so i share many of the fighter's suckitude coments, but it depends heavily on the campaign type, DM bias and party motivation. |
| Electricbee02-10-07, 09:40 AM | The fighter class was built around some assumptions that don't seem to follow through in actual game play. All of the uber caster builds i've seen revolve around an ability score array that its outrageous compared to a 25 point buy or the actual results of real 4d6 drop the low. Other classes can get a lot more mileage out of bending the rules or using higher end methods for ability scores than a fighter, and I think that this is one of the things that makes a fighter seem "weak" (to be a successful tank fighter, you need good str, an respectable con doesn't hurt, and a dex of at 12 or enough to qualify for any dex related feat tree you want to access, to be good cleric good Str (you have to overcome you weaker attack progression, con (you have to watch hitpoints more closely with a smaller HD, Wis (so that you can cast all those spells), and Cha is important too if you want access to turning and or divine feats. A druid is similar except that dex becomes more important with the armor restrictions and Charisma isn't so much a factor. Add to that the fact that in 3.5 most combat spells have been tweaked to last long enough for combat, not all day, and you have a caster who needs to lose several rounds buffing up to be able to do what a fighter can do out of the gate. I think that Fighters are a lot less 'broken' than a lot of players perceive but that other classes are a lot easier to break with outrageous (from a game design perspective) ability scores. |
| Rez02-10-07, 09:56 AM | I say, every party needs at least a fighter. Someone who doesn't need to rest to regain spells, has a lot of hit points and doesn't necassarily need neat tricks. With the right feats, any fighter could prove fun to play. I actually wanted to play a farmer who turned fighter (two weapon fighting/quarterstaff). Drop skills ranks in some professions/crafting skills. All depends on the build. If you like fighting, go fighter. :) Of course at like lvl 20 without a PRC most likely (though depends on the gear you have) a spellcaster will be more powerful. But the fighter can just keep slugging along and along and along..... |
| WayneTheGame02-10-07, 09:59 AM | The problem is that all the "uber-caster" builds are only that uber because they abuse spells (Polymorph and Wildshape, usually). Not everyone is that much of a twink that they'll abuse a spell in the way the CO boards do, so honestly their concensus of what sucks and what is good is quite frankly, incorrect in the vast majority of games. |
| Generic Poster02-10-07, 10:47 AM | Well, no class is required to be in a party. There are certain roles that a party should have though, and one them is being a melee tank character. Characters with high hp, AC and BAB are going to naturally make the best tanks. So you can throw a fighter, knight, barbarian, paladin, or warblade for example up in front and they'll all do the job their suppose to do nicely. There are two problems that seem to often be brought up with the fighter though. One is that people bring up the issue of tanking in general tends to be less effective at higher levels. This is especially true when a fighter specializes in some sort of alternative techniques such as tripping which doesn't serve them well at high level. Netherless, this is just a general problem for every melee oriented character. Replace fighter with barbarian for example and you end up with exactly the same problem. Which wouldn't be too bad if there wasn't a second problem related to the fighter. The second problem is that the fighter can usually no do much other then fight. They get very few skill points and usually have no non-combat related feats, that is if they wish to be good at combat at all that is. So people will say that, yeah a barbarian is also less important at high levels, but he listen for enemies and survive in the wild and thus isn't completely useless. Likewise , other warrior classes get spells or other special abilities not easily reproduced by other classes. Which is all true to some extent. However, the fighter does fill a role that no other class does, in that it gives you the flexibility to implement fighting styles that other core classes won't make you any good at. Play any other melee class and you become alot more limited in your set of options for how you fight. On the other hand, the difference between two fighters can be greater then the difference between two classes. So thus the reason why the fighter isn't that strong. They have to be made generalists so that they represent any warrior archtype, and feats can't be too powerful since can be taken by anyone, and can synergize with any other feat in unexpected ways. So if there is a fighter in a party, it's probably because someone wanted to utilize a combat style that isn't better represent by some other class. Since the party is player vs. monster though, and being able to step in front of a monster and take some blows and dish out some damage while the spellcasters have time to concentrate on casting spells is important through much of the game, warriors do have a role in the party. If a fighter wasn't doing it, then someone else probably would, who then wouldn't be casting and wouldn't be generally more powerful then letting a fighter take the job anyway. But sure, you can try to make a party completely of spellcasters, and it might even survive well if you were smart enough about it. But I can gurantee you that one or two of your spellcasters wouldn't be casting spells in combat as they would be busy holding back a horde of monster. Party of four rogues would be screwed if they encounted anything that was immune to sneak attack (which is quite a few monsters honestly). Plus they would go down quickly in melee with their d6 hp and light armor, plus they wouldn't really get to use UMD as much without a wizard to give them stuff to play with. In short though, diversity is power in dnd. The more diverse abilities and powers you can bring to the gaming table, the more powerful your party becomes. 4 of any one type of thing is usually a bad idea. Although I admit that warrior class character is probably the easiest to replace with another class, but it still will have to be replaced. |
| mkill02-10-07, 11:10 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. I think we are talking about at least three things here. - 1 - Does a party need a competent melee warrior (whatever the class)? - Hell yes! All the casters, even the cleric, and the rogue and many other classes are just not good at absorbing damage, taking hits and keeping the enemy occupied. Any good party needs at least one character who takes the front line, whether that's a fighter, a knight, a paladin, a barbarian, a psychic warrior, a duskblade or one of the ToB classes is not so important. Only with someone in the front the rogues can sneak, the wizards blast away, the clerics heal, the archers shoot etc. - 2 - Can a party of four rogues or four casters work? Sure it can! But they will fight their combats differently. The 4 rogues will avoid direct confrontation and either dispose of the enemies quick with their sneak attacks or retreat. They lack the AC and hp for a longer combat. The 4 casters will have to devote some of their ressources to get a melee frontline. Either they summon creatures, or they get cohorts, or they hire mercenaries. - 3 - Is it a good idea to play a fighter (i.e. play a character with class levels in fighter)? Sure it is. Just get a decent prestige class sooner or later. The fighter is fine up until mid-levels, then being a straight fighter starts to suck in most cases. (Yeah, as if this was news after fighter thread #564) |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 11:11 AM | I think Fighters just need better feat trees. Trip doesn't work so well at high levels? have new feats like: Very Improved Trip Prereqs: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Weapon Focus (any), 16 Strength, Character level 9 Benefits: Gain an addition +8 to your trip rolls. Supreme Trip Master Prereqs: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Very Improved Trip, Weapon Focus (any), Weapon Specialization (any) 19 Strength, Character level 15 Benefits: When you trip a creature, or a creature tries to trip you, creatures bigger than you count as the same size as you for the purpose of the opposed Strength/Dexterity check. In other words, they no longer get the Size bonus. In addition, creatures with more than two legs or is others more stable than a normal humanoid does not get the +4 against you when you try to trip them. As long as feats get better at higher levels, fighters can probably keep up. The feats just NEED to be vastly improved over what is available in the PHB. |
| Generic Poster02-10-07, 11:27 AM | As long as feats get better at higher levels, fighters can probably keep up. The feats just NEED to be vastly improved over what is available in the PHB. Well phb feats are underpowered at high levels, to the point that there is never a point in having a core level 20 fighter. However, there are better feats for the fighter at higher levels. Check out the complete warrior, phb II and book of nine swords for examples of some better fighter feats. There are even a few good feats scattered around in other supplements such as complete adventurer and complete arcane. While the fighter started out with having more feats then he actually needs from what is available, the fighter now doesn't have enough feats for all the good stuff that's out there. No one should be playing a high level fighter without at least the PHB II, and probably the other two supplements mentioned above as well. If anyone has a problem with the fighter now, it's no longer because of a lack of good feats. Granted they should have had good fighters feat right there in phb, but it's too late to change that. Basically you left with the options of admitting that fighters are unplayable at high levels, getting the supplements mentioned to make them playable by having good feats available, or making your own or finding homebrew feats or making/finding a variation of the fighter to make them suck less. |
| AMGriffin02-10-07, 11:33 AM | Playing pure fighters is indeed difficult, but there is something that needs to be remembered about fighters, that being they have a relatively easy time compared to other melee classes getting access to prestige classes. I've also toyed around with giving melee classes special attack techniques of sorts, but I'm still a fledgling in the realm of class modification. |
| OneWinged4ngel02-10-07, 12:00 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Not really. Heck, even Wizards of the Coast has said that "If you're going to have a 3-man party, drop the Fighter, because he's unlikely to be missed." Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels Not just casters. They lose to monsters. Or out of combat situations. Etc. why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. A party with all casters can indeed be quite effective, since they can potentially cover every role. |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 12:03 PM | A party with all casters can indeed be quite effective, since they can potentially cover every role. How would a party of 4 Druids deal with traps? Continuously cast Summon Nature's Ally 1 to summon badgers to trip traps? |
| Olskool02-10-07, 12:06 PM | Every party needs at least 2 fighters. Clerics and Druids are the classes a party doesn't need. |
| Ghenesh02-10-07, 12:07 PM | I think Fighters just need better feat trees. Trip doesn't work so well at high levels? have new feats like: Very Improved Trip Prereqs: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Weapon Focus (any), 16 Strength, Character level 9 Benefits: Gain an addition +8 to your trip rolls. Supreme Trip Master Prereqs: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Very Improved Trip, Weapon Focus (any), Weapon Specialization (any) 19 Strength, Character level 15 Benefits: When you trip a creature, or a creature tries to trip you, creatures bigger than you count as the same size as you for the purpose of the opposed Strength/Dexterity check. In other words, they no longer get the Size bonus. In addition, creatures with more than two legs or is others more stable than a normal humanoid does not get the +4 against you when you try to trip them. As long as feats get better at higher levels, fighters can probably keep up. The feats just NEED to be vastly improved over what is available in the PHB. Why the Weapon Focus and Specialization prerequisites if you're not using the weapon? How about this: Weapon Trip Prerequisite: Int 13, Str 15, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Weapon Focus (any), BAB +6 Benefit: You may make trip attempts with a weapon you have focus with, this way you use your weapon attack bonus in the touch attack, you also get a +2 bonus on all trip attempts made with the weapon. You don't generate a free trip attempt against you when you fail the opposed Strenght check. Special: A fighter can take this feat as one of his bonus feats. Greater Trip Prerequisite: Int 13, Str 17, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, BAB +9 Benefit: You are considered to be one size category larger when making opposed checks to resolve trip attempts, this implies that you could no longer automatically fail when resolving a trip attempt against an opponent two size categories larger than you and an enemy one size category smaller than you could automatically fail the opposed check. This effect doesn't stack with the racial feature "Powerful Build", but does stack with any kind of size increase and other racial features such as "Stability". Special: A fighter can take this feat as one of his bonus feats. |
| OneWinged4ngel02-10-07, 12:13 PM | How would a party of 4 Druids deal with traps? Continuously cast Summon Nature's Ally 1 to summon badgers to trip traps? Sure, if you don't care about having an insane badger body count (Poor badgers :() |
| megageek1202-10-07, 12:22 PM | Every party needs at least 2 fighters. Clerics and Druids are the classes a party doesn't need. Your joking right? Druids and clerics make better fighters than fighters...Especially druid with wildshape and natural spell. |
| Scavelock02-10-07, 12:23 PM | The only valid reason to play a fighter is wanting to play a fighter. Also, consensus on the boards? Surely you jest! I agree with the above 100%. Why chastise somebody in your group for the class they want to play? |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 12:25 PM | Sure, if you don't care about having an insane badger body count (Poor badgers :() Better yet, CELESTIAL badgers! :D Of course, some archon from the celestial EPA might get ****** at you... Is it un-druidly to sacrifice animals like this to achieve your objective? |
| Olskool02-10-07, 12:28 PM | Your joking right? Druids and clerics make better fighters than fighters...Especially druid with wildshape and natural spell. Maybe in your game. In mine, they're about as superfluous as a third nipple. You are playing version 3.5 right? |
| megageek1202-10-07, 12:34 PM | Yes, and if you make a bunch of nerfs and houserules about druids don't come and preach their worthlessness to everyone else...Come on, is there any way that a fighter could possibly be more useful than the druid? RAW that is. Don't bring houserules into a conversation about balance. |
| Olskool02-10-07, 12:40 PM | Yes, and if you make a bunch of nerfs and houserules about druids don't come and preach their worthlessness to everyone else...Come on, is there any way that a fighter could possibly be more useful than the druid? RAW that is. Don't bring houserules into a conversation about balance. Is there any way a Druid can be more useful than the fighter is the real question. And I'm talking about in actual play, not theory. Fighters finish fights before clerics and druids have a chance to finish casting all of their summoning and enhancement spells. Maybe on paper the divine casters look better, but in actual play, they're pretty ineffectual. |
| Generic Poster02-10-07, 12:45 PM | Your joking right? Druids and clerics make better fighters than fighters...Especially druid with wildshape and natural spell. I never understood what was so great about wildshape that it would own a fighter. You basically lose all your equipment for the fight, until level 15 are limited to turning into something like a CR 4 animal, and you get to keep your original constitution and hp. Sure you can cast spells and bring havoc down from the sky or improve yourself, but those are turns which your aren't fighting, which by it's very nature would change your role in combat. Clerics are actually a better example of someone who can replace the fighter. However, I think the whole divine metamagic is purely broken, and without using such cheese the cleric would have the same problem of buffing yourself up to be like a fighter which would be rounds where you weren't actually fighting, which the fighter would be. In short, while both those classes can take over the role of the fighter, it would more efficient for them to just buff the fighter who already has the feats and equipment necessary to maximize their role as fighter, so that the spellcasters can focus their feats, spells and equipment on improving other aspects of their abilities. But yeah, I do think the original poster must have been joking. Obviously the fighter is alot more replaceable then the cleric/druid. |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 12:46 PM | Druids don't need buffing spells. A druid's animal companion will kill a fighter in the lower levels. after the Druid gets Wild Shape, it only takes one standard action for the Druid to become better than the fighter by HIMSELF, without even counting the animal companions. I'm sure someone will take up the challenge if you want to create a level 11 fighter vs a level 11 druid or something and fight it out. Or heck, have them both go up against a monster. A Druid outperforms a Fighter at every single level. Generic: you're just not using the right Wildshape form then. |
| megageek1202-10-07, 12:52 PM | And no olskool wasn't joking, just telling us(wrongly) how fighter can solo against monsters of equal CR before the cleric and druid are ready to attack... |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 12:53 PM | There are reasons to have a Fighter later on the game But its much harder to make a Fighter as worthy as other class's later in the game but it makes for a good Challenge there are some builds out there that makes your Fighter at later levels pretty good there not the best but not the worst eather Eh just read my Sig fighter joke there but true and fighters can take over some other class's on reguards 2 Just harder to do and most people dount want to put the time or effort into that collem so they ditch em and thats understable Hm Inless where talking about Core? Then they lose a lot of important Abilitys/Ways to play no they kinda suck in Core But they become better with other books Still not the best but not the worst many people say they suck coz there not the Best class to play Eh News flash wizards suck compared to Psi (Come on Level 1 spell dos 1d10 damage best wizard can do on damage is 1d6 or 1d4+1 ...) So quit saying Wizards are the best Point is No Class is the best but there are better choices out there normoly ... Granted there are Worse class's out there as well Rule of Tumb you can allways be safe taking a fighter just relize your not the greatest neather are you the worst tho Plus its a good Newbie type class or a Fun class for the older/More experince type of players |
| megageek1202-10-07, 12:56 PM | No, barbarian's and ranger's are good newbie classes, and psionics is far worse than magic. But is much cooler and just plain balanced and fun to play! |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 12:59 PM | Druids don't need buffing spells. A druid's animal companion will kill a fighter in the lower levels. after the Druid gets Wild Shape, it only takes one standard action for the Druid to become better than the fighter by HIMSELF, without even counting the animal companions. I'm sure someone will take up the challenge if you want to create a level 11 fighter vs a level 11 druid or something and fight it out. Or heck, have them both go up against a monster. A Druid outperforms a Fighter at every single level. Generic: you're just not using the right Wildshape form then. Depends are you doing Core Only? You do relize that later on (None Core) Druids are Not As more powerfull as fighters at evey single Level Wild Shape is kinda cool But your HP along with many other things stay the same (Wasnt in Core tho) which means there not as powerfull anymore Allso notis the CR of many of the monsters the druid can be? the best path for the druid is plants for the special abilitys but he can still get raped without reverting to spells/buffs needed Pet Animol? Depends on the situation ill give it tho a good 50% Chance on winning the trick hear is to have Pet+Master VS Fighter Tho Fighters make better Leadership feat people so he could do better on raiseing an army to take you on Cleric is better then Druids Just useoly most clerics are busy healing/buffing eveyone up protecting people Druids are not better Healers then Clerics there good healers but there not better then Clerics get an Offince Cleric and you have a Better Person then the Druid No now if you said CLERIC over the fighter? Maybe the only thing is the Cleric is more offtin Healing more then he is fighting But if you had an offince Cleric ok ill agree with you on that Druids tho are not better then Fighters at evey single Level Wild Shape kinda got Dimmed down with the added things of other books and what they changed on it Still good but not as powerfull as it use to be No give me that cleric! **** the druid/Fighter GIVE ME THE CLERIC!!! |
| Olskool02-10-07, 01:03 PM | And no olskool wasn't joking, just telling us(wrongly) how fighter can solo against monsters of equal CR before the cleric and druid are ready to attack... No , you're wrong colonel sanders. Fighters are better than druids and clerics and that's that. I don't know about your fancy CRs, but a 5th level fighter can kill 4 bugbears before a druid or cleric is ready to even get in the fight. The same thing happens w 2 ettercaps, or 4 bandits, or 3 hellhounds. Maybe the players in you group just stink at making fighters. Maybe you use house rules that benefit Druids and Clerics, I dunno. All I know is that fighters whup the Cleric and Druid's ash in terms of fighting capability. And that's OK. They're supposed to. They're fighters. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 01:06 PM | No, barbarian's and ranger's are good newbie classes, and psionics is far worse than magic. But is much cooler and just plain balanced and fun to play! Ranger kinda sucks but eh w/e Barbians for a newbie isnt a good match coz then you just get the annoying person shouting "SMASH STOMP CRUSH" On eveything DM : So Bob Bob Interupts : SMASH STOMP CRUSH! DM : Eh ... Good Class for something who knows a little bit more then that Psi is much better then Magic in my option ill fight you over that! Hm wait dos Clerics count in your Magic option? Curse you coz Clerics are cool! so i mean Wizard Psi is able to do more damage at the lower levels ... meaning he can kill something with his 1st level spell No more of this "Im a Wizard i wasted my 1st level spells to Badly hurt a creature but not kill coz i didnt roll max!" Psi only need to get 50% Or higher on the dye to do more damage Or Effect spells are better on some reguards as well After all Color Spray isnt a cool spell coz if a creature makes it? The Creature charges the now clouse up wizard and smacks him in the face ... poor wizard Thouse are just a few Examples tho |
| megageek1202-10-07, 01:08 PM | Look, I wish fighters did beat Codzilla at fighting...But they don't:weep: . $ bugbears? 4 CR2 ceatures might lose to an unbuffed wizard...Same for the CR3 hellhounds. Stop giving us vague examples with absolutely no evidence. |
| megageek1202-10-07, 01:10 PM | Ranger kinda sucks but eh w/e Barbians for a newbie isnt a good match coz then you just get the annoying person shouting "SMASH STOMP CRUSH" On eveything DM : So Bob Bob Interupts : SMASH STOMP CRUSH! DM : Eh ... Good Class for something who knows a little bit more then that Psi is much better then Magic in my option ill fight you over that! Hm wait dos Clerics count in your Magic option? Curse you coz Clerics are cool! so i mean Wizard Psi is able to do more damage at the lower levels ... meaning he can kill something with his 1st level spell No more of this "Im a Wizard i wasted my 1st level spells to Badly hurt a creature but not kill coz i didnt roll max!" Psi only need to get 50% Or higher on the dye to do more damage Or Effect spells are better on some reguards as well After all Color Spray isnt a cool spell coz if a creature makes it? The Creature charges the now clouse up wizard and smacks him in the face ... poor wizard Thouse are just a few Examples tho Read the myth sticky on the psionics board. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 01:13 PM | No , you're wrong colonel sanders. Fighters are better than druids and clerics and that's that. I don't know about your fancy CRs, but a 5th level fighter can kill 4 bugbears before a druid or cleric is ready to even get in the fight. The same thing happens w 2 ettercaps, or 4 bandits, or 3 hellhounds. Maybe the players in you group just stink at making fighters. Maybe you use house rules that benefit Druids and Clerics, I dunno. All I know is that fighters whup the Cleric and Druid's ash in terms of fighting capability. And that's OK. They're supposed to. They're fighters. most of the time a Cleric is healing/Buffing but a Offince Cleric can give even the good Fighters/ hm ... evey class a run for there money (Maybe? ... eh not the Tome of 9 swords class's there just insane ... being able to have heal casted on you with each attack you make is just ... insane and being able to do +100 damage per attack is just insane as well ... Eh ... but w/e anyways) WITHOUT Counting thouse things ... Offince Clerics are cool Just no one makes them becouse the Cleric is the best scourse of healing and HEALING IS GOOD! very good But yes a Fighter can be a powerfull class just Harder to make one of them then normol Hm ... a good tastic could be a modification to what people where doing on D&D online ... you know the one where fighters where running around dealing con damage with each of there hits and effectly killing creatures faster then all the other class's (Inless Melee Based doing the same thing) That was kinda lame tho how melee people just did 1 tastic over and over again and it became so good ... Eh change it a bit tho to fit in the game however ... if it can work the diffcult part of fighters is later on in games Fighters need to play more Intellgently and go off the path of a "Normol" Fighter the Fighter needs to start useing his brain later on more then he was earlyer like no more chargeing into rooms yelling FOR THE GLORY OF HORINDIUS AAAAHHHHHHHHH Coz later on that just means death to anyone who dos that ... |
| megageek1202-10-07, 01:17 PM | Wow...Just wow...For one thing 100 daamage is not very much, and Tob is quite balanced and 2d6 constitution only kills weak pansy-*****ed elves! http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=692629&page=6 |
| Olskool02-10-07, 01:19 PM | Look, I wish fighters did beat Codzilla at fighting...But they don't:weep: . $ bugbears? 4 CR2 ceatures might lose to an unbuffed wizard...Same for the CR3 hellhounds. Stop giving us vague examples with absolutely no evidence. You do realize that those were specific examples? Right? You do know what the word vague means don't you? It's pretty much the oposite of specific. Besides, it's not like you've provided indisputable evidence to the jury either Johnny Cochran. You're opinion is that CoDs are better than fighters. That's fine. But remember it's just an opinion. The cleric, while seemingly a favorite of munchkins worldwide, ain't all that without it's cheatbooks... er, sorry, I mean splatbooks. Most DMs don't use the book with divine metamagic in it. Most DMs don't allow persistant watchammacallit. Most DMs know how to run a campaign without letting a twinked out non core cleric unbalance it. In those campaigns (again I'm asserting that these are the majority of campaigns) a fighter is every bit as effective mechanically as a cleric. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 01:20 PM | Read the myth sticky on the psionics board. what about it? Psi and Arcane casters Psi are good class's and in some respects better then Arcane casters There not allways better but Dammit there still good class's and earlyer on in levels i beleve the Psi is much better then the Wizard! Come on dount start pointing at other treads if people do that then give a few extra examples on it or more Persisly where it is located Besides i could just now start pointing out 5 other treads that come to mind and have you read all of em ... Rather not coz 1) Im sure you dount want to start reading other treads 2) That take to bloodly long ... wait thats the same as number 1 i guess ... |
| WayneTheGame02-10-07, 01:22 PM | Again, Wildshape only makes the Druid better than a fighter if you ABUSE it by turning into a Dire Bear or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 01:23 PM | You do realize that those were specific examples? Right? You do know what the word vague means don't you? It's pretty much the oposite of specific. Besides, it's not like you've provided indisputable evidence to the jury either Johnny Cochran. You're opinion is that CoDs are better than fighters. That's fine. But remember it's just an opinion. The cleric, while seemingly a favorite of munchkins worldwide, ain't all that without it's cheatbooks... er, sorry, I mean splatbooks. Most DMs don't use the book with divine metamagic in it. Most DMs don't allow persistant watchammacallit. Most DMs know how to run a campaign without letting a twinked out non core cleric unbalance it. In those campaigns (again I'm asserting that these are the majority of campaigns) a fighter is every bit as effective mechanically as a cleric. I like clerics alot tho i dount useoly play them coz i dount like to Minchkins i agree with that in many ways but allso disagree in some ways Overall a good tread that i can agree with just a little bit of changes and it be perfect |
| Squirrelloid02-10-07, 01:26 PM | The fighter class was built around some assumptions that don't seem to follow through in actual game play. All of the uber caster builds i've seen revolve around an ability score array that its outrageous compared to a 25 point buy or the actual results of real 4d6 drop the low. Other classes can get a lot more mileage out of bending the rules or using higher end methods for ability scores than a fighter, and I think that this is one of the things that makes a fighter seem "weak" (to be a successful tank fighter, you need good str, an respectable con doesn't hurt, and a dex of at 12 or enough to qualify for any dex related feat tree you want to access, to be good cleric good Str (you have to overcome you weaker attack progression, con (you have to watch hitpoints more closely with a smaller HD, Wis (so that you can cast all those spells), and Cha is important too if you want access to turning and or divine feats. A druid is similar except that dex becomes more important with the armor restrictions and Charisma isn't so much a factor. Oh wow, all the misconceptions. First, 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange to taste is approximately equivalent to 32PB on average. If given a choice between 25PB and 4d6 drop the lowest, I will roll for everything but a druid (who only cares about one stat) and possibly a wizard. Second, casters have fewer stats that need to be decent (Cleric being a possible exception, depending on what you want your cleric to do). Wizard's need a good Int, and would like halfway decent Con and Dex (but can get by without it). Druids just need a good Wis. Fighters need good Str and Con, and decent Dex, and probably decent Wisdom as well (to help out their awful Will save) + 13 int if they want combat expertise. Melee classes have more inherent MAD, because they have more essential stats. Thus higher PB benefits Fighters (and the like) over spellcasters. Druid wanting dex... hah - he's going to be using an animal form's dex most of the time, he doesn't care. Clerics are only 1 hp/level behind fighters on average, so have the same Con demand, are generally less concerned with dex (generally no interest in dex-based feats), and probably won't care about Cha all that much. So you're looking at good Str and Wis, with decent Con - actually less MAD than fighters. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 01:27 PM | Again, Wildshape only makes the Druid better than a fighter if you ABUSE it by turning into a Dire Bear or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. By useing what Core only? Ok ill agree with you But non core? Then i have to disagree with you sure its a nice feature but it dosnt auto make it better then a fighter even tho im not a Big Fighter fan (More of a Barbian/Crusader/Cleric/Scor/Monk/Drunken Master) Fan ... thats alot of things i like ... Anyways ill be willing to argue on the fighter side of this Look it up and explane to me (Non Core) how its better? |
| megageek1202-10-07, 01:28 PM | You do realize that those were specific examples? Right? You do know what the word vague means don't you? It's pretty much the oposite of specific. Besides, it's not like you've provided indisputable evidence to the jury either Johnny Cochran. You're opinion is that CoDs are better than fighters. That's fine. But remember it's just an opinion. The cleric, while seemingly a favorite of munchkins worldwide, ain't all that without it's cheatbooks... er, sorry, I mean splatbooks. Most DMs don't use the book with divine metamagic in it. Most DMs don't allow persistant watchammacallit. Most DMs know how to run a campaign without letting a twinked out non core cleric unbalance it. In those campaigns (again I'm asserting that these are the majority of campaigns) a fighter is every bit as effective mechanically as a cleric. That's because any evidence I have has been hopelessly repeated literally hundreds of times, meanwhile you persistently insult me, and only say "in my games the fighter is uber and solo-killes everything that comes along" without giving us how they did so. If you have a playstyle that heavily favors fighters, there is nothing wrong with that. |
| Olskool02-10-07, 01:36 PM | That's because any evidence I have has been hopelessly repeated literally hundreds of times, meanwhile you persistently insult me, and only say "in my games the fighter is uber and solo-killes everything that comes along" without giving us how they did so. If you have a playstyle that heavily favors fighters, there is nothing wrong with that. Gee whiz. I wasn't aware I'd insulted you. I apologize if you feel insulted. Was it the Colenol Sanders and Johnny Cochran comments? I personally haven't read those threads where the clerics superiority over the fighter is indisputably proven, so it appears you have me at a disadvantage here. All I have is DMing experience to draw on, which I admit is entirely subjective from group to group. Also, the only time I've ever used the word "UBER" was in an essay about Nietzsche. Please don't put out of character words in my mouth. Fighters rule. |
| Kresalak02-10-07, 01:38 PM | Again, Wildshape only makes the Druid better than a fighter if you ABUSE it by turning into a Dire Bear or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. What the **** are you talking about? |
| megageek1202-10-07, 01:45 PM | Gee whiz. I wasn't aware I'd insulted you. I apologize if you feel insulted. Was it the Colenol Sanders and Johnny Cochran comments? I personally haven't read those threads where the clerics superiority over the fighter is indisputably proven, so it appears you have me at a disadvantage here. All I have is DMing experience to draw on, which I admit is entirely subjective from group to group. Also, the only time I've ever used the word "UBER" was in an essay about Nietzsche. Please don't put out of character words in my mouth. Fighters rule. Sorry if it seemed like I was putting words in your mouth, but I was trying show what I felt was the gist of what you were trying to say, and yes the name calling did get to me... |
| Squirrelloid02-10-07, 01:47 PM | To the OP: There is no place for a fighter in a party unless someone really wants to play one, and you're low level. (Or you're playing in a sane environment where full spellcasters are banned). The optimal party is probably Cleric/Wizard/Druid/X, where X is another C/W/D. With additional sources, Archivist or Artificer make decent additions. Druid's easily tank level-appropriate challenges, and Clerics can as well. Wizard's are great at disabling opponents. At really low levels, a Rogue might be worthwhile. Find Traps (cleric) and Detect Magic make him totally irrelevant however. (Magical traps do radiate magic... Why bother searching for them?) If you really want one in the party at level 6+, have someone get one as a cohort via leadership. Seriously. A 4 Druid party is probably the worst all caster party, and it still isn't hurting for lack of a fighter. Lack of a wizard? most certainly. A 4 wizard party is perfectly playable, as is a 4 cleric party. But mixing caster types gets you the best array of spells, and thus is desirable. To the pro-fighter camp: Even in Core only, the wizard gets most of the spells that makes him win. At 11th level he can acquire enough free wishes to give himself +5 inherent to all his stats without trying too hard (Planar Binding for one route). He can acquire arbitrary wealth with Fabricate at 9th level. Wizards don't play by the wealth per level guidelines - their resources are mostly limited by their imagination and knowledge of spells on their core spell list. He also gets access to all the important defensive abilities, such as Mindblank. Clerics can compete with the fighter as a tank. They can also cast flamestrike (probably the best DD spell in the game as measured by power at the time it becomes available). They can heal themselves without requiring someone else to do so. They can cast blasphemy/holyword/etc... They have the summon monster line for when you need minions to supplement your tanking. They also have a variety of utility spells available to them. I could repeat the same analysis for Druid's, but I will also point out that Druid's are the AC kings of the D+D world, making them the best tanks in the game. Consider a druid with Wild Dragonhide Platemail +5 (via MV from the party cleric) - he gets the AC bonus while wildshaped, but doesn't otherwise count as wearing armor (because he's not, it melded into his form like all his other equipment). After wildshaping, he puts on a monk's belt, which lets him get his wisdom to AC +1. He has NA from his animal form, can put on an amulet of NA (for another up to +5 unnamed to NA), and can cast Barkskin on himself (enhancement bonus to NA). Add the ioun stone with +1 insight to AC and that's already 50 AC at 20th (+12 wisdom mod) and there's still more that could be done. But you've already made most monsters need a natural 20 to hit you. With some actual thought, you *can* wrap the Tarrasque off the RNG. A fighter can't do that. And none of this requires anything to be cast during combat! No other class can out-tank a druid, it just is numerically impossible. And note that this is all core so far. Non-core Druid's get Wylding Clasps, and hitting 70-80 AC becomes childplay. (Note that a tank is just ability to absorb damage, not ability to deal damage. As damage dealing becomes inconsequential sometime mid-late levels, I won't dwell on it, but clerics can out-damage fighters). And as to 'turning into a dire bear' being cheesy? Um... I'm sorry, its a specifically allowed option - how is it cheesy? Though really, why are you worried about Dire Bear, you should be more worried about the Druid becoming a T-Rex and swallowing whole, or a Megaloraptor and getting pounce. Come on, Dire Bear is small potatoes. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 01:48 PM | Oh wow, all the misconceptions. First, 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange to taste is approximately equivalent to 32PB on average. If given a choice between 25PB and 4d6 drop the lowest, I will roll for everything but a druid (who only cares about one stat) and possibly a wizard. Second, casters have fewer stats that need to be decent (Cleric being a possible exception, depending on what you want your cleric to do). Wizard's need a good Int, and would like halfway decent Con and Dex (but can get by without it). Druids just need a good Wis. Fighters need good Str and Con, and decent Dex, and probably decent Wisdom as well (to help out their awful Will save) + 13 int if they want combat expertise. Melee classes have more inherent MAD, because they have more essential stats. Thus higher PB benefits Fighters (and the like) over spellcasters. Druid wanting dex... hah - he's going to be using an animal form's dex most of the time, he doesn't care. Clerics are only 1 hp/level behind fighters on average, so have the same Con demand, are generally less concerned with dex (generally no interest in dex-based feats), and probably won't care about Cha all that much. So you're looking at good Str and Wis, with decent Con - actually less MAD than fighters. Druids care for much more then just 1 stat inless core only then ok But non for Druids need Con/Wis/Dex/Int (For skills but it can be a Dump) Possibly maybe Strength They change a lot more for druids in non core read up on it ... tho DM can rule it differntly in that case fine go ahead but sticking it with the book you need more then 1 state now Fighters are not MAD ... Thats more like Monk/Paladin there Mad ... Fighters are not Mad? WTF Why are they mad? Hm perhaps this is a VERY Bad example but its an example anyways Get your Strength as high as possible Pick up a 2 handed weapon take Power attack Done . A Fighter dosnt need Int that much ... at most 13 for feats (Most of em arnt that good anyways) Cha isnt that great anyways inless Leadership/UMD Type of a fighter Wisdom? Not realy needed ... you can make your Will Much better with just 1 maybe 2 feats but thats feats so ok wisdom needs to not be negitive at least Dex is kinda important depends on the fighter build Str and Con mostly Tho you could do without Super high in eather case again it depends on the Fighter build you want to do there are many options open to the fighter No Mad is monk Dex Wis Con and Str hey AC is good and many skills are based on Wis/Dex Con for the Life and other things Str for being able to deal Damage to creatures! they need thouse 4 has high as possible! Int? Eh skills ... but not realy Cha? Not realy Paladin Needs about evething but Int No a Fighter isnt mad my friend inless your trying to make a fighter do evey type of Build there is for him ... then allright you need to be Mad |
| Olskool02-10-07, 02:05 PM | To the OP: There is no place for a fighter in a party unless someone really wants to play one, and you're low level. (Or you're playing in a sane environment where full spellcasters are banned). The optimal party is probably Cleric/Wizard/Druid/X, where X is another C/W/D. With additional sources, Archivist or Artificer make decent additions. Druid's easily tank level-appropriate challenges, and Clerics can as well. Wizard's are great at disabling opponents. At really low levels, a Rogue might be worthwhile. Find Traps (cleric) and Detect Magic make him totally irrelevant however. (Magical traps do radiate magic... Why bother searching for them?) If you really want one in the party at level 6+, have someone get one as a cohort via leadership. Seriously. A 4 Druid party is probably the worst all caster party, and it still isn't hurting for lack of a fighter. Lack of a wizard? most certainly. A 4 wizard party is perfectly playable, as is a 4 cleric party. But mixing caster types gets you the best array of spells, and thus is desirable. To the pro-fighter camp: Even in Core only, the wizard gets most of the spells that makes him win. At 11th level he can acquire enough free wishes to give himself +5 inherent to all his stats without trying too hard (Planar Binding for one route). He can acquire arbitrary wealth with Fabricate at 9th level. Wizards don't play by the wealth per level guidelines - their resources are mostly limited by their imagination and knowledge of spells on their core spell list. He also gets access to all the important defensive abilities, such as Mindblank. Clerics can compete with the fighter as a tank. They can also cast flamestrike (probably the best DD spell in the game as measured by power at the time it becomes available). They can heal themselves without requiring someone else to do so. They can cast blasphemy/holyword/etc... They have the summon monster line for when you need minions to supplement your tanking. They also have a variety of utility spells available to them. I could repeat the same analysis for Druid's, but I will also point out that Druid's are the AC kings of the D+D world, making them the best tanks in the game. Consider a druid with Wild Dragonhide Platemail +5 (via MV from the party cleric) - he gets the AC bonus while wildshaped, but doesn't otherwise count as wearing armor (because he's not, it melded into his form like all his other equipment). After wildshaping, he puts on a monk's belt, which lets him get his wisdom to AC +1. He has NA from his animal form, can put on an amulet of NA (for another up to +5 unnamed to NA), and can cast Barkskin on himself (enhancement bonus to NA). Add the ioun stone with +1 insight to AC and that's already 50 AC at 20th (+12 wisdom mod) and there's still more that could be done. But you've already made most monsters need a natural 20 to hit you. With some actual thought, you *can* wrap the Tarrasque off the RNG. A fighter can't do that. And none of this requires anything to be cast during combat! No other class can out-tank a druid, it just is numerically impossible. And note that this is all core so far. Non-core Druid's get Wylding Clasps, and hitting 70-80 AC becomes childplay. (Note that a tank is just ability to absorb damage, not ability to deal damage. As damage dealing becomes inconsequential sometime mid-late levels, I won't dwell on it, but clerics can out-damage fighters). And as to 'turning into a dire bear' being cheesy? Um... I'm sorry, its a specifically allowed option - how is it cheesy? Though really, why are you worried about Dire Bear, you should be more worried about the Druid becoming a T-Rex and swallowing whole, or a Megaloraptor and getting pounce. Come on, Dire Bear is small potatoes. You're arguing from a high level perspective. Most people don't play that way. In reality, most campaigns don't make it past 10th lvl. So, we're basically arguing about 2 deifferent games with entirely different rulesets. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:05 PM | To the OP: There is no place for a fighter in a party unless someone really wants to play one, and you're low level. (Or you're playing in a sane environment where full spellcasters are banned). The optimal party is probably Cleric/Wizard/Druid/X, where X is another C/W/D. With additional sources, Archivist or Artificer make decent additions. Druid's easily tank level-appropriate challenges, and Clerics can as well. Wizard's are great at disabling opponents. At really low levels, a Rogue might be worthwhile. Find Traps (cleric) and Detect Magic make him totally irrelevant however. (Magical traps do radiate magic... Why bother searching for them?) If you really want one in the party at level 6+, have someone get one as a cohort via leadership. Seriously. A 4 Druid party is probably the worst all caster party, and it still isn't hurting for lack of a fighter. Lack of a wizard? most certainly. A 4 wizard party is perfectly playable, as is a 4 cleric party. But mixing caster types gets you the best array of spells, and thus is desirable. To the pro-fighter camp: Even in Core only, the wizard gets most of the spells that makes him win. At 11th level he can acquire enough free wishes to give himself +5 inherent to all his stats without trying too hard (Planar Binding for one route). He can acquire arbitrary wealth with Fabricate at 9th level. Wizards don't play by the wealth per level guidelines - their resources are mostly limited by their imagination and knowledge of spells on their core spell list. He also gets access to all the important defensive abilities, such as Mindblank. Clerics can compete with the fighter as a tank. They can also cast flamestrike (probably the best DD spell in the game as measured by power at the time it becomes available). They can heal themselves without requiring someone else to do so. They can cast blasphemy/holyword/etc... They have the summon monster line for when you need minions to supplement your tanking. They also have a variety of utility spells available to them. I could repeat the same analysis for Druid's, but I will also point out that Druid's are the AC kings of the D+D world, making them the best tanks in the game. Consider a druid with Wild Dragonhide Platemail +5 (via MV from the party cleric) - he gets the AC bonus while wildshaped, but doesn't otherwise count as wearing armor (because he's not, it melded into his form like all his other equipment). After wildshaping, he puts on a monk's belt, which lets him get his wisdom to AC +1. He has NA from his animal form, can put on an amulet of NA (for another up to +5 unnamed to NA), and can cast Barkskin on himself (enhancement bonus to NA). Add the ioun stone with +1 insight to AC and that's already 50 AC at 20th (+12 wisdom mod) and there's still more that could be done. But you've already made most monsters need a natural 20 to hit you. With some actual thought, you *can* wrap the Tarrasque off the RNG. A fighter can't do that. And none of this requires anything to be cast during combat! No other class can out-tank a druid, it just is numerically impossible. And note that this is all core so far. Non-core Druid's get Wylding Clasps, and hitting 70-80 AC becomes childplay. (Note that a tank is just ability to absorb damage, not ability to deal damage. As damage dealing becomes inconsequential sometime mid-late levels, I won't dwell on it, but clerics can out-damage fighters). And as to 'turning into a dire bear' being cheesy? Um... I'm sorry, its a specifically allowed option - how is it cheesy? Though really, why are you worried about Dire Bear, you should be more worried about the Druid becoming a T-Rex and swallowing whole, or a Megaloraptor and getting pounce. Come on, Dire Bear is small potatoes. Hm read my Tread for the rouge comment (Rouges suck in many cases inless VS Pc type people then there allright) many comments agest Rouges ... the arguement is that your taking so long to Buff Your Self AC 50 at level 20? hm well nice +12 Wisdom mod normoly you dount have that High of a Wisdom (34 there) but allright lets go with that so 50 AC at level 20? sense you have 34 into a score i beleve its only fair a character gets to have the same thing as well right? so +12 to hit + 10 to hit (Medium Bab ... kinda medium Low) + 5 + Feats ... btw inless where in pure core hear that can become an extra +10 easyly tho higher then that is possible ... so 12+10+10+5=37 that means he needs a 13 or higher on his Dye roll there with his more lower End Bab Attack bonus there ... K you ever see a legit fighter having 30+ AC At level 8? or how about 38 AC at level 10? hm more? Wait and they didnt get the max they could do! im not argueing that fighters are better im just stating the fighter could still hit your guy Summon Monsters become week later on ... if you dount know how to deal with it some good newbie tastics on how to deal with it would be ... Play Bulders Gate on the PC that should teach you how to deal with summon monsters later on in the game (If you know how to do it ... and thats the newbieish kinda way) Pet becomes week later on in the game but still handy so thats a nice outfit there Point is remeber how many spells/Turns your useing hear remeber most intellgent fighters that relize people are useing turns to benefit themselfs would be eh ... kinda nice to think (Have more then adverage intellgence of a player i say? dosnt take much to know what im saying hear ...) But allright the Fighter should be doing something inless hes your Charge in there type of fighter ... The DireBear wasnt Cheesy ... In Fact we where just asking How the Hell is that powerfull? Sure its nice but your makeing it sound like its uber or something sorry dount see it Druids arnt as good of Healers as Clerics there good just not as good as the cleric Cleric got better Buff/DD Type Spells then the druid ... So cleric beats Druid in that Compartment No if i was a fighter i pheer the Cleric more then the druid no offince Where talking about NON Core hear i beleve Not Core only so quit thinking that 4 wizard player party is Realy hard to play ... Eh you should play at least half the games i know of the wizards useoly are called "dirt Nappers" Inless they have a tank of some short (Im not saying fighter im just saying Tank ... Hell it could be a Dumb Rouge in that reguard ! eh kinda ... not ... eh w/e) Allso note the party clerics giveing you items as well? for all fairness why isnt anyone giveing the Fighter guy something? Eh ... hm +5 Padded armor Braves of armor +8 Ring of Pro + 5 Ammy + 5? Lets go with full +5 gear then sense ... somehow i think you are there with your examples there ... notised im kinda not doing the best gear hear but ok w/e 5AC + 8 AC +8 Dex + 5 + 5+ 10 = 41 ... hm belt of Wisdom and things like that as well like you where? Being all decked out for AC ok lets make the fighter the same as well hm i coulda used better gear hear (Like Shilds/Better armor and such) But i allmost got your AC by just picking kinda random items there not a bad shot for just picking some random things there uh? anyways just something to think about |
| Squirrelloid02-10-07, 02:08 PM | You know, your prose is really hard to read. Could you use punctuation please? Druids care for much more then just 1 stat inless core only then ok But non for Druids need Con/Wis/Dex/Int (For skills but it can be a Dump) Possibly maybe Strength Um, a 10 int is fine. You get 4 skills and don't really need more than that (5 if human, which you probably are). Why do you need Dex at all? I mean, your wildshape will replace your Dex, and levels 1-4 are survivable with a 10 Dex. Same goes for Str - in fact, for levels 1-4 you're playing a caster and your animal companion is tanking for you. Str? Like you'll use a melee weapon? Ha. Con - Here's the funny thing about the new rules: Wildshape itself (or Shapeshift or whatever they're calling it) doesn't change your hp based on Con, but if your Con subsequently changes, you figure out your new hp total based on the rules for doing so. Those rules tell you to look up your Con on a chart, figure out how many bonus hp per HD that Con gives you, and recalculate your hp total based on that number. So putting on a belt of Con +2 lets you use your animal form's Con modifier (+2 no less) to determine hp, because the rules are based on a look-up table. This is a known problem. Its been known since 3e, where wildshape originally told you to keep your hp total. Its the reason why it was changed in 3.5 - i don't know why they changed it back. Its not like the exploit went away. (Its actually even worse now, because hp have no memory of how they got there, so in animal form since none of your hp are from Con bonus you get the full bonus new bonus added to your total. Which means you can have 2 con items, one you wear before wildshaping and one that gets put on afterwards, and both give you bonus hp.) At best you can make an argument for needing a decent Con. Its still less MAD than fighters. They change a lot more for druids in non core read up on it ... tho DM can rule it differntly in that case fine go ahead I did. I picked it apart, gnashed my teeth at the stupidity of the new rules, and am still using the old ones because they don't make my head hurt in my games. But that doesn't mean I don't understand the change - its because I understand that I don't use it. but sticking it with the book you need more then 1 state now Not strictly RAW no, you don't. Fighters are not MAD ... Thats more like Monk/Paladin there Mad ... Fighters are not Mad? WTF Why are they mad? I'm sure you think you're funny. You're not. MAD - Multiple Attribute Dependency. See my previous post. Hm perhaps this is a VERY Bad example but its an example anyways Get your Strength as high as possible Pick up a 2 handed weapon take Power attack Done . And suck. Power Attack, oh no. Why don't you just play a Barbarian? Seriously. (Not that they compete with spellcasters, but a Barbarian does PA better than fighters by far). Halfway decent fighter builds grab things like Improved Trip and the like. This requires more than Str. And even our PA fighter needs Con and Dex. And probably 12+ Wis. A Fighter dosnt need Int that much ... at most 13 for feats (Most of em arnt that good anyways) Combat Expertise requires 13 int. It leads to a bunch of nice feats, including Improved Trip. I consider Combat Expertise vital to most fighter builds. Cha isnt that great anyways inless Leadership/UMD Type of a fighter Wisdom? Not realy needed ... you can make your Will Much better with just 1 maybe 2 feats but thats feats so ok wisdom needs to not be negitive at least Try arguing against what I said? I never said Cha was important. 1 dump stat isn't that many. Wisdom is important for Will, so you aren't an active liability to the party. You'll do 0 damage and tank nothing if you get dropped by a Colorspray. You'll attack your mates if you get Dominated. Even a decent Wisdom probably won't save you by itself, but it'll help. And you'll need all the help you can get. Dex is kinda important depends on the fighter build Str and Con mostly Dodge requires 13 dex. Its a crappy feat, but you need it for the evasive tactical feat from CW (name slips my mind at the moment). TWF requires 15+ dex (depending on how far along the chain you want to get). Dex also effects initiative. All fighters probably need some dex. Tho you could do without Super high in eather case again it depends on the Fighter build you want to do there are many options open to the fighter No a Fighter isnt mad my friend inless your trying to make a fighter do evey type of Build there is for him ... then allright you need to be Mad How many good fighter builds are there? Cause honestly, I can count them on one hand. And they all become ineffectual about 10th level, and generally superfluous by 7th. And they all need at least 4 stats. |
| megageek1202-10-07, 02:09 PM | No such thing as +8 ring protection. Please try to clean up your post format if not your grammar and speling...Your posts are incredibly hard to read! |
| SilverFoxKnows02-10-07, 02:10 PM | Here's my two coppers. So much of it is situational. Much will depend on the DM's style and the campaign location. If the DM has a thing for undead the Cleric will really shine. In a city based adventure you could easily have a party of four Rogues. If the campaign is mostly out in the wild Rangers, Scouts and Druids will shine. If dungeon crawling is the order of the day the lowly Half-Orc, with darkvision, may outshine a Human of the same class. Foes without SR and/or DR may become easy pickings for the Wizard. In a recent game we tangled with a mineral warrior Barbed Devil. I can't help but wonder what would have happened to a Wizard or Rogue if it teleported within arm's reach. This thing had a high BAB, DR, barbed efense, good saves, and dealt a lot of damage in a short amount of time. If you allow third party splat books the Fighter gets some interesting options when it comes to Feat selection and PrCs. Enough to make them viable at higher levels. In a small party the Fighter's lack of versatility may really hurt the party. In a bigger group you might not even notice. Are there reasons to have a Fighter in the group? Sure. He can deal enough damage to take some of the heat off the Rogues. He can act as a shield for the Wizards. And he's consistant. He doesn't have to worry about how long a spell is going to last or how many spells he has left. He doesn't have to be flanking, make a Feint or be fighting a Favored Enemy to do his best damage. He doesn't have to worry about how long his Rage will last. Plate mail and a great sword are just as strong at round 1 as they are at round 20. Not fancy and not versatile but solid and dependable. Room for a Fighter? Yeah. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:11 PM | Level 18 for the T-Rex by then the fighter could have Freedom of movement and or other things and thank you for letting him get free attacks off on you that basicly Hit Level 8 ... wait level 15 they can become huge ... Eh Mega Raptor Pounce at level 15? ... w/e ok i can picture much better then that at level 15 No whats that one plant ... gah ... theres a Plant thats much better then that! forget its name ... damn ... |
| Argaud02-10-07, 02:13 PM | To the pro-fighter camp: Even in Core only, the wizard gets most of the spells that makes him win. At 11th level he can acquire enough free wishes to give himself +5 inherent to all his stats without trying too hard (Planar Binding for one route). He can acquire arbitrary wealth with Fabricate at 9th level. Wizards don't play by the wealth per level guidelines - their resources are mostly limited by their imagination and knowledge of spells on their core spell list. He also gets access to all the important defensive abilities, such as Mindblank. Planar binding assumes the creatures called (and more important, the DM) will consider reasonable to give the wizard wishes for nothing. Hint: only crazy DMs consider that reasonable. So it never happens in good games. I could repeat the same analysis for Druid's, but I will also point out that Druid's are the AC kings of the D+D world, making them the best tanks in the game. Consider a druid with Wild Dragonhide Platemail +5 (via MV from the party cleric) - he gets the AC bonus while wildshaped, but doesn't otherwise count as wearing armor (because he's not, it melded into his form like all his other equipment). After wildshaping, he puts on a monk's belt, which lets him get his wisdom to AC +1. He has NA from his animal form, can put on an amulet of NA (for another up to +5 unnamed to NA), and can cast Barkskin on himself (enhancement bonus to NA). Add the ioun stone with +1 insight to AC and that's already 50 AC at 20th (+12 wisdom mod) and there's still more that could be done. But you've already made most monsters need a natural 20 to hit you. With some actual thought, you *can* wrap the Tarrasque off the RNG. A fighter can't do that. And none of this requires anything to be cast during combat! No other class can out-tank a druid, it just is numerically impossible. And note that this is all core so far. Non-core Druid's get Wylding Clasps, and hitting 70-80 AC becomes childplay. Wow. I have rarely seen such a crazy interpretation/abuse of the rules. Dragonhide Plate: need a colossal dragon to die to use the skin. Consequence: never available in any game except at epic levels. Monks belt: clearly does not work with armor, since monks get no AC benefit if they wear any kind of armor. So won’t work with dragonhide even if it is wild. Amulets of natural armor: give the same bonus than barkskin, an enhacement bonus. So they don’t work together. So no, or rather, yes, druids can get fairly high AC, but they only break the game in games with crazy or ignorant DMs. OTOH I have to agree dire bears are a quite so-so form for a druid to take. Large, no reach, no ability to get through DR, mediocre AC... phew. About the only good thing they have is the decent Str and the automatic grapple. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:18 PM | You know, your prose is really hard to read. Could you use punctuation please? Um, a 10 int is fine. You get 4 skills and don't really need more than that (5 if human, which you probably are). Why do you need Dex at all? I mean, your wildshape will replace your Dex, and levels 1-4 are survivable with a 10 Dex. Same goes for Str - in fact, for levels 1-4 you're playing a caster and your animal companion is tanking for you. Str? Like you'll use a melee weapon? Ha. Con - Here's the funny thing about the new rules: Wildshape itself (or Shapeshift or whatever they're calling it) doesn't change your hp based on Con, but if your Con subsequently changes, you figure out your new hp total based on the rules for doing so. Those rules tell you to look up your Con on a chart, figure out how many bonus hp per HD that Con gives you, and recalculate your hp total based on that number. So putting on a belt of Con +2 lets you use your animal form's Con modifier (+2 no less) to determine hp, because the rules are based on a look-up table. This is a known problem. Its been known since 3e, where wildshape originally told you to keep your hp total. Its the reason why it was changed in 3.5 - i don't know why they changed it back. Its not like the exploit went away. (Its actually even worse now, because hp have no memory of how they got there, so in animal form since none of your hp are from Con bonus you get the full bonus new bonus added to your total. Which means you can have 2 con items, one you wear before wildshaping and one that gets put on afterwards, and both give you bonus hp.) At best you can make an argument for needing a decent Con. Its still less MAD than fighters. I did. I picked it apart, gnashed my teeth at the stupidity of the new rules, and am still using the old ones because they don't make my head hurt in my games. But that doesn't mean I don't understand the change - its because I understand that I don't use it. Not strictly RAW no, you don't. I'm sure you think you're funny. You're not. MAD - Multiple Attribute Dependency. See my previous post. And suck. Power Attack, oh no. Why don't you just play a Barbarian? Seriously. (Not that they compete with spellcasters, but a Barbarian does PA better than fighters by far). Halfway decent fighter builds grab things like Improved Trip and the like. This requires more than Str. And even our PA fighter needs Con and Dex. And probably 12+ Wis. Combat Expertise requires 13 int. It leads to a bunch of nice feats, including Improved Trip. I consider Combat Expertise vital to most fighter builds. Try arguing against what I said? I never said Cha was important. 1 dump stat isn't that many. Wisdom is important for Will, so you aren't an active liability to the party. You'll do 0 damage and tank nothing if you get dropped by a Colorspray. You'll attack your mates if you get Dominated. Even a decent Wisdom probably won't save you by itself, but it'll help. And you'll need all the help you can get. Dodge requires 13 dex. Its a crappy feat, but you need it for the evasive tactical feat from CW (name slips my mind at the moment). TWF requires 15+ dex (depending on how far along the chain you want to get). Dex also effects initiative. All fighters probably need some dex. How many good fighter builds are there? Cause honestly, I can count them on one hand. And they all become ineffectual about 10th level, and generally superfluous by 7th. And they all need at least 4 stats. like i said Int isnt that much of a Big Deal but still need to waste 2 points in it (32 point buy adverage right?) and with the new rules on Wild Shape you need at least a decent Dex/Str to be good ... i beleve your To hit gets used not the monster anymore ... They kinda dumbed down WildShape ... Con for the hp they defintly Makeing you use your Con on eveything on Wild Shape (Sep Based Saves i think but ability is yours) Wisdom for Spells so 2 above adverage 1 adverage (Int) And 2 useoly good scores not super mad but it gets there and i was stating that Cha is normoly a Dump State But yes there are many good fighter builds ... there just much harder to do which is why i suggest playing something eles like a Cleric/Psi or some other Melee class its easyer to be them then it is for a Fighter a Fighter can be good but more rarly do you see them most people dount want to take the effort it takes which is understanble Combat Expertise for you not realy needed for many of the fighter builds i saw/seen around ... But ya if your going that type of build then go ahead Like i said it depends on what type of fighter build your trying to make |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:20 PM | Planar binding assumes the creatures called (and more important, the DM) will consider reasonable to give the wizard wishes for nothing. Hint: only crazy DMs consider that reasonable. So it never happens in good games. Wow. I have rarely seen such a crazy interpretation/abuse of the rules. Dragonhide Plate: need a colossal dragon to die to use the skin. Consequence: never available in any game except at epic levels. Monks belt: clearly does not work with armor, since monks get no AC benefit if they wear any kind of armor. So won’t work with dragonhide even if it is wild. Amulets of natural armor: give the same bonus than barkskin, an enhacement bonus. So they don’t work together. So no, or rather, yes, druids can get fairly high AC, but they only break the game in games with crazy or ignorant DMs. OTOH I have to agree dire bears are a quite so-so form for a druid to take. Large, no reach, no ability to get through DR, mediocre AC... phew. About the only good thing they have is the decent Str and the automatic grapple. yes i agree the bear is nice but i dount see how its as nice as there makeing it sound like ... |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:22 PM | No such thing as +8 ring protection. Please try to clean up your post format if not your grammar and speling...Your posts are incredibly hard to read! first off where is the +8 Ring comming from? I Said +5 +8 ring in epic level but that wasnt epic level again the list of items in that list was +5 Ring + 5 Ammy +5 Armor padded armor for the 8 dex bonus * AC Braves which replaces the 1 AC of the PAdded armor (But the +5 Magicol bonus is still in effect) Maybe when i said +8/+8 you got it confused? the first +8 is from dex the second + 8 is from the Brac |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 02:23 PM | Non core wildshape means you keep your own HP, but as far as I know that's the only thing that has chnged. So, you now need Con and Wis as a Druid. Still not too bad. High level Druids kill Fighters At low levels, the Animal companion kills fighters. In the middle, it might take a concentrated effort with both the companion and the wildshaped druid, but they can still kill the fighter. It's sad, and I WISH IT WERE NOT SO, but it is *cries* A Riding Dog is a level 1 companion, and you can kit it out with a chain shirt barding, and it pwns Fighters thanks to awesome tripping abilities. |
| Argaud02-10-07, 02:27 PM | A Riding Dog is a level 1 companion, and you can kit it out with a chain shirt barding, and it pwns Fighters thanks to awesome tripping abilities. But you can't give him the chain barding at first level, the druid does not have the gold! And a dwarf will usually defeat that animal companion (and the druid). Same hp, better AC, more damage, hard to trip. At second level it is not even a contest. Third level the animal might have a chance, but later on the animal companion has not a prayer unless the druid has buffed it to the gills. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:30 PM | Here's my two coppers. So much of it is situational. Much will depend on the DM's style and the campaign location. If the DM has a thing for undead the Cleric will really shine. In a city based adventure you could easily have a party of four Rogues. If the campaign is mostly out in the wild Rangers, Scouts and Druids will shine. If dungeon crawling is the order of the day the lowly Half-Orc, with darkvision, may outshine a Human of the same class. Foes without SR and/or DR may become easy pickings for the Wizard. In a recent game we tangled with a mineral warrior Barbed Devil. I can't help but wonder what would have happened to a Wizard or Rogue if it teleported within arm's reach. This thing had a high BAB, DR, barbed efense, good saves, and dealt a lot of damage in a short amount of time. If you allow third party splat books the Fighter gets some interesting options when it comes to Feat selection and PrCs. Enough to make them viable at higher levels. In a small party the Fighter's lack of versatility may really hurt the party. In a bigger group you might not even notice. Are there reasons to have a Fighter in the group? Sure. He can deal enough damage to take some of the heat off the Rogues. He can act as a shield for the Wizards. And he's consistant. He doesn't have to worry about how long a spell is going to last or how many spells he has left. He doesn't have to be flanking, make a Feint or be fighting a Favored Enemy to do his best damage. He doesn't have to worry about how long his Rage will last. Plate mail and a great sword are just as strong at round 1 as they are at round 20. Not fancy and not versatile but solid and dependable. Room for a Fighter? Yeah. there are good fighter builds but only 2 realy fit my play style eather the way of a fighter to get to the nme casters and start buggin them to help the party out in distracting probly the more important factor in the nme group away from battle so the group can do something to help out or the "Im the wizards body guard you want to hurt him you have to get past me" Type of fighter most of the time when people think of battle they think of eveyone fighting Fighters Eh sometimes that the way to go (Mostly during low levels) But higher levels meaning theres much more quicker trasnportation that you need to be able to move around alot and defend your self example as long as the master keeps summoning creatures you will allways have more creatures to fight if you have some way to prevent that master from summoning creatures and possibly killing him? Then the creatures will follow suit with the master If you just sit there and hack and slash you wount do as well ... tho later on in the game where people can cast fly and such (Or have items do such things) The Fighter has a better chance of getting up and smacking the spell caster the game becomes battle of the Arcane Spell casters Mission : Keep your Arcane spell Caster alive and kill the nme Arcane Spell Caster Its kinda like playing a Video game where your so pos to protect someone and kill someone eles at the same time ... you dount want the guy your so pos to be protecting getting raped a good tastic is useoly forceing the nme to fight you so the other guy can get to where hes going (Useoly the safe spot) Then you can get out of there if need be tho in this example the guy your protecting happins to be fighting back |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 02:31 PM | A Dwarf may or may not, but not everyone is a Dwarf. Besides, you probably won't be fighting a lot of Dwarves in yuor campaign. Most likely you'll be fighting goblins and orcs and kobolds at level 1. And don't forget you've got the Druid riding on the dog slinging spells while the dog attacks. |
| Novabomb02-10-07, 02:33 PM | No , you're wrong colonel sanders. Fighters are better than druids and clerics and that's that. I don't know about your fancy CRs, but a 5th level fighter can kill 4 bugbears before a druid or cleric is ready to even get in the fight. The same thing happens w 2 ettercaps, or 4 bandits, or 3 hellhounds. Maybe the players in you group just stink at making fighters. Maybe you use house rules that benefit Druids and Clerics, I dunno. All I know is that fighters whup the Cleric and Druid's ash in terms of fighting capability. And that's OK. They're supposed to. They're fighters. If none of your games go past level 4, thats cool. Some groups like low level games. Fighter may be a reasonable option for those levels. After level 7, without heavy optimization they just get shafted. |
| GalaGalaxia02-10-07, 02:35 PM | Not really. Heck, even Wizards of the Coast has said that "If you're going to have a 3-man party, drop the Fighter, because he's unlikely to be missed." Nah, lose the player complaining about fighters ... |
| Generic Poster02-10-07, 02:36 PM | At really low levels, a Rogue might be worthwhile. Find Traps (cleric) and Detect Magic make him totally irrelevant however. (Magical traps do radiate magic... Why bother searching for them?) If you really want one in the party at level 6+, have someone get one as a cohort via leadership. Seriously. A 4 Druid party is probably the worst all caster party, and it still isn't hurting for lack of a fighter. Lack of a wizard? most certainly. A 4 wizard party is perfectly playable, as is a 4 cleric party. But mixing caster types gets you the best array of spells, and thus is desirable. To the pro-fighter camp: Even in Core only, the wizard gets most of the spells that makes him win. At 11th level he can acquire enough free wishes to give himself +5 inherent to all his stats without trying too hard (Planar Binding for one route). He can acquire arbitrary wealth with Fabricate at 9th level. Wizards don't play by the wealth per level guidelines - their resources are mostly limited by their imagination and knowledge of spells on their core spell list. He also gets access to all the important defensive abilities, such as Mindblank. I could repeat the same analysis for Druid's, but I will also point out that Druid's are the AC kings of the D+D world, making them the best tanks in the game. Consider a druid with Wild Dragonhide Platemail +5 (via MV from the party cleric) - he gets the AC bonus while wildshaped, but doesn't otherwise count as wearing armor (because he's not, it melded into his form like all his other equipment). After wildshaping, he puts on a monk's belt, which lets him get his wisdom to AC +1. He has NA from his animal form, can put on an amulet of NA (for another up to +5 unnamed to NA), and can cast Barkskin on himself (enhancement bonus to NA). Add the ioun stone with +1 insight to AC and that's already 50 AC at 20th (+12 wisdom mod) and there's still more that could be done. But you've already made most monsters need a natural 20 to hit you. With some actual thought, you *can* wrap the Tarrasque off the RNG. A fighter can't do that. And none of this requires anything to be cast during combat! No other class can out-tank a druid, it just is numerically impossible. And note that this is all core so far. Non-core Druid's get Wylding Clasps, and hitting 70-80 AC becomes childplay. (Note that a tank is just ability to absorb damage, not ability to deal damage. As damage dealing becomes inconsequential sometime mid-late levels, I won't dwell on it, but clerics can out-damage fighters). Fabricate wouldn't make you uber-rich. If it was that easy to develop infinite wealth, then plenty of wizards would have done so before, to the point that the mineral in question would become nearly valueless through deflation, and the spell would hardly be worth casting. Any DM who lets you break the wealth by level guidelines through such a cheesy tactic doesn't know what they are doing. If you could create nih-infinite wealth you will have won the game and you can go on to create new characters in a world where metals are valuelss and slaves are the only valuable currency. As for planar binding, lets say that you bind an efreeti for example, and offer it up some treasure in exchange for a granted wish or two. Do you think other Efreetis are going to stand by and allow you to kidnap their people without coming after you? You do realize they all have planeshift and are lawful in nature. How long after you captured an efreeti do you think you would have until half the city of brass is on your tail for what you did? And for this, your not even ensured success on your binding. Any DM worth his salt will know about such cheap tricks to break the game and will have ways to foil such attempts to break the game. As for the druid. First off, who is holding all of the Druids equipment? Second of all, who is crafting equipment that can fit on a dire bear (I'm not even going to mention the stuff that will need to be recrafted when you can wildshape to huge). Third off, where are you getting all this time to do this stuff. Most combats don't give you that much time to prepare, as most monsters have some sort of spot and can see you as soon as you can see them, if not before. Wasting both you and another persons time so that you can put on specially made items just so you can get a really tough armor class seems a little unproductive if you ask me. I'm assuming all these specially made magic items were made by the wizard who ruined the value of precious metals as well. I'd say more about the rogue, but I have to go. I just don't see how doing an additional 10d6 + weapon damage + stagger with 5 attacks isn't something worthwhile. As for your methods of trapfinding, they aren't foolproof. Finding a trap and disabling it are two different things. And traps are one of many things that radiate magic. Is that object radiating magic because it trapped, or because it is a valuable magic item? How you going to open that chested set to explode if it's tampered with without a rogue to disable it and avoid causing it ruin the valuable contents of the chest? |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:37 PM | But you can't give him the chain barding at first level, the druid does not have the gold! And a dwarf will usually defeat that animal companion (and the druid). Same hp, better AC, more damage, hard to trip. At second level it is not even a contest. Third level the animal might have a chance, but later on the animal companion has not a prayer unless the druid has buffed it to the gills. lol True and at higher levels the fighter should have quick ways of how to move around and not get killed in the first few rounds and end it quickly in other words change his tastics a bit yes Dwarfs ftw ... Gotta love them Dwarfs and there beer ... best beer there is when your a drunken master ... ah ... eh wait where talking about something hear better quit fasinating about the drunken master ... and dwarfs ... cant help it there there so cool ... anyways higher levels inless the fighter is playing how most people end up playing them (The charge into the Dragons Den type style which never works for any class ... sep maybe inless your from the book of 9 swords .. then ok i can see that working) Con things stay the same To Hit is now your To Hit ... sure the Str isnt effecting Damage but its a To Hit thing ... kinda need it with thouse lower end HD Monsters (Like the Mega Raptor you where talking about) Saveing DC are yours i beleve just differnt Base Saves ... meaning your Dex mod is going to your Saves ... not AC or anything eles but still it counts for something mostly it was the Con that was drasticly changed |
| GalaGalaxia02-10-07, 02:38 PM | without heavy optimization they just get shafted. Heavy optimization is metagaming ... "Oh, if take this feat now, while I'm a lowly level 3, I can qualify for this feat by level 12" Metagaming! |
| Argaud02-10-07, 02:43 PM | A Dwarf may or may not, but not everyone is a Dwarf. Besides, you probably won't be fighting a lot of Dwarves in yuor campaign. Most likely you'll be fighting goblins and orcs and kobolds at level 1. And don't forget you've got the Druid riding on the dog slinging spells while the dog attacks. No... it could also be a human with a spiked chain, combat reflexes and weapon focus, so the dog was tripped before coming close enough :) The druid really, really shouldn't ride the dog. In the first place, not enough ride skill at first level to let the dog attack. In the second place, not enough concentration to avoid AoOs every time he tries a spell (also, no Ac or hp to survive a single hit). So butter keep away from the front line for a few levels. Now, humanoid warriors. Sure, trip away! Goblins are very easy targets, orcs not so much, but it will work often enough. Fighter tripmasters are awesome too, until the large critters start appear all too often. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:45 PM | Fabricate wouldn't make you uber-rich. If it was that easy to develop infinite wealth, then plenty of wizards would have done so before, to the point that the mineral in question would become nearly valueless through deflation, and the spell would hardly be worth casting. Any DM who lets you break the wealth by level guidelines through such a cheesy tactic doesn't know what they are doing. If you could create nih-infinite wealth you will have won the game and you can go on to create new characters in a world where metals are valuelss and slaves are the only valuable currency. As for planar binding, lets say that you bind an efreeti for example, and offer it up some treasure in exchange for a granted wish or two. Do you think other Efreetis are going to stand by and allow you to kidnap their people without coming after you? You do realize they all have planeshift and are lawful in nature. How long after you captured an efreeti do you think you would have until half the city of brass is on your tail for what you did? And for this, your not even ensured success on your binding. Any DM worth his salt will know about such cheap tricks to break the game and will have ways to foil such attempts to break the game. As for the druid. First off, who is holding all of the Druids equipment? Second of all, who is crafting equipment that can fit on a dire bear (I'm not even going to mention the stuff that will need to be recrafted when you can wildshape to huge). Third off, where are you getting all this time to do this stuff. Most combats don't give you that much time to prepare, as most monsters have some sort of spot and can see you as soon as you can see them, if not before. Wasting both you and another persons time so that you can put on specially made items just so you can get a really tough armor class seems a little unproductive if you ask me. I'm assuming all these specially made magic items were made by the wizard who ruined the value of precious metals as well. I'd say more about the rogue, but I have to go. I just don't see how doing an additional 10d6 + weapon damage + stagger with 5 attacks isn't something worthwhile. As for your methods of trapfinding, they aren't foolproof. Finding a trap and disabling it are two different things. And traps are one of many things that radiate magic. Is that object radiating magic because it trapped, or because it is a valuable magic item? How you going to open that chested set to explode if it's tampered with without a rogue to disable it and avoid causing it ruin the valuable contents of the chest? Rouges Agest PC (Player Characters) Are Good Rouges agest monsters are not however inless humanoid ... Example is that there SA Cannot effect anything with some short of concelment meaning you need DV To do it right at night time Allso you can only do it to certain Creature types and to only Creatures around certain size as you and Creatures who cant get Flat footed ends up kinda ignoreing the SA ... there skills? Well there skill madness but there Thife skills (Aka Disable Trap Open Lock) Many of them are such a High DC that even with a +8 at first level your going to have a very hard time disabling some of them Thats what my Sig is for to let players know that Rouge Skills (Aka Skills mostly Only Rouges can take) Can be replaced by the Fighter whos goal is to replace the Rouge ... or in fact many other class's can replace the rouge on thouse Reguards ... Allso with the "Faint" Movements you can Ignore them ... i beleve you can add you BAB to your skill to ignore it meaning Melee people have a nice bonus on that as well ... Face it Fighter skills suck so a fighter is probly going to be cross classing his skills ... Eh a Rouge VS PC Very good Rouge VS Monsters=Not so good ... But one thing is for sure PvP And PvM requires many differnt tastics remeber Druids/Spell casters the reason why you have time to do such things is becouse the Barbian or someone eles is buying you that time ... dount let them down tho sometimes you are prepared but not allways remeber that Ah most traps are not Magicol tho Thats where the part of my sig where it says Disable Traps : Ochy Remeber its only a joke but it makes a good point lol |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 02:45 PM | You gain the BAB of the from you wildshape into, but you don't get extra attacks I believe. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:48 PM | No... it could also be a human with a spiked chain, combat reflexes and weapon focus, so the dog was tripped before coming close enough :) The druid really, really shouldn't ride the dog. In the first place, not enough ride skill at first level to let the dog attack. In the second place, not enough concentration to avoid AoOs every time he tries a spell (also, no Ac or hp to survive a single hit). So butter keep away from the front line for a few levels. Now, humanoid warriors. Sure, trip away! Goblins are very easy targets, orcs not so much, but it will work often enough. Fighter tripmasters are awesome too, until the large critters start appear all too often. thats why in my option (Tho you can do it differntly) You have imp Sunder and other things like that after all you do now have some extra feats laying around wanting to be put to use so 3 feats at first level then bigger creatures come ... how many feats did you get? Remeber you are a fighter you should have feats ... so you should have plunty of feats to start spending now thats just my option tho |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 02:49 PM | You gain the BAB of the from you wildshape into, but you don't get extra attacks I believe. something like that i dount remeber (Dount have books ...) but i do remeber you need Str for something its not all important but it dos help enough that its worthwhile |
| Argaud02-10-07, 02:52 PM | You gain the BAB of the from you wildshape into, but you don't get extra attacks I believe. No, you keep the bab of the druid (and the hp). This is true even if you are taking the shape of an animal with less HD than the druid has levels. The hp won't grow if the new form has more Con, which is why druids often dump Str and Dex but never Con. It is very true druids have a major advantage over other casters being able to dump all his abilities but wisdom, and con. A fighting cleric needs decent physical stats, a DMM-oriented cleric needs decent cha. A druid needs nothing but wis and some con. When wildshaped the druid gets all the natural attacks of the creature. Which are often a good number of attacks at his full bab (and usually with a nice bonus due to high strength) but since they can't usually use weapons DR becomes a major problem to deal damage. |
| Rez02-10-07, 03:01 PM | Quite frankly, it comes down to the game setting. A lot of magic or little? A lot of psionics or little? All depends. Makeup of the party, ect. |
| Tony Vargas02-10-07, 03:13 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party?Rather than a Barbarian or Paladin - or even Ranger or Monk in some campaigns? Not really: which class fills the iconic roll is largely a matter of the preference of the player. Some parties might do better, or at least get along better, with a particular class, though - a party that's otherwise very stealthy would work better with a ranger than with a heavy-armored paladin or fighter, for instance, or there can be alignment issues. Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters?It depends on the campaign. If you're starting in a game at mid-to-high level, and are confident that it favors casters to that degree, then deciding to play a caster is just sensible - you might still play a non-caster if you're intent on such a concept, but you accept that you're going to take a power hit because you're playing a type of character the campaign doesn't particularly favor. If you're starting from low level, even the most ardent caster-boosters have to admit that a warrior type can come in pretty handy at first (and even be kinda fun), and that, at low levels, the fighter can be quite an effective warrior type. Now, in many campaigns, there's nothing to stop you changing characters part way through, either because you feel like it, or because your old character died. So you could start out with a fighter or other non-caster or two (or more), in the party, and, later, between 4th and 6th level, perhaps, replace them with a wizard, wildshape-abusing druid, or other character that'd be coming into it's own around that level. Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters.ih. Feel free to try it. If your DM isn't entirely competent when it comes to challenging casters - and isn't the kind that responds to easy PC victories by constantly ratchetting up CRs - you'd probably do really well. If 'well' means rarely facing anything resembling a challenge. OTOH, some DMs are up to the task of dealing with radically non-iconic parties. It requires more work and care, but your DM may well be able to present you with apropriate challenges for apropriate exp gain, in spite of party composition. It's a lot easier on the DM to come up with an iconic party, but it's certainly possible to run for other sorts. OTOOH, some DMs /try/ to challenge a party that's performing differently from the 'typical' iconic one by simply increasing enemy CRs until the party stops winning easy victories. There are a number of problems with this. For one thing, the ever-tougher foes encourage the PCs to pull out all the stops tactically, as well as seek the most powerful 'build' options possible as thier characters develop - which creates a sort of 'arms race.' Similarly, it means the party earns more experience for each, higher-CR, encounter, so gains levels faster than normal - which also compounds the problem, as both the DM and players will have less opportunity to get used to each successive level. How such campaigns end depends on how soft-hearted the DM is. Eventually, the DM, in trying to avoid an excessively easy victory for the PCs will throw down something that crosses the line, and, instead of a one- or two-round victory for the PCs, you end up with a sudden and unexpected TPK - unless the DM fudges things to prevent it (more likely than you might think, because this is likely to happen after the campaign's been going a while, and players have become attached to thier characters). |
| Olskool02-10-07, 03:16 PM | If none of your games go past level 4, thats cool. Some groups like low level games. Fighter may be a reasonable option for those levels. After level 7, without heavy optimization they just get shafted. We tend to play till about 12th lvl.Which, from what I understand, is longer than the average campaign's lifespan. 12th lvl is when the game breaks and stops being fun for us. It usually takes about a year to reach that point. Fighters are effective throughout the entire campaign. Also, my players tend to vicariously enjoy bashing someone's head in with a morningstar than than they do hold personing them. They don't care if fighters are mechanically inefficient at a level they'll never play at anyways.They just care that they're more fun at the level they're playing at right now. |
| Nephlite02-10-07, 03:27 PM | As for the druid. First off, who is holding all of the Druids equipment? Anyone, amulets of health don''t weight that much. Neither do Monk's Belts. What else did he put on after changing (btw you can change in the morning and it lasts effectively all day by level 7 or 8). Second of all, who is crafting equipment that can fit on a dire bear (I'm not even going to mention the stuff that will need to be recrafted when you can wildshape to huge). Anyone who likes to be paid and can craft. Third off, where are you getting all this time to do this stuff. the Morning. You do realize that Wild Shape has a duration of hr/level. |
| Kurama Youko02-10-07, 03:31 PM | depends on what books are allowed. If the Book of Nine Swords is allowed but Not the Player Handbook 2, then no. If the PHB2 is allowed and the book of Nine Swords isnt, hella yes. If both are allowed then its all a matter of preference. |
| skywyze02-10-07, 03:37 PM | No. The fighter is only really brilliant when combined with a huge selection of books (which means the bonus feats they get do some real good). However, if you are using a lot of books, odds are there are improved versions of the fighter in at least one of them. The Tome of Battle has three alternatives to the fighter, all of which are more powerful (barring some of the broken feat combos that no sane DM would allow). My advice to you: If you want to play a fighter, don't. Instead, play a Warblade from the ToB. You'll do the same stuff, but now you'll actually have fun doing it! |
| TheCobra02-10-07, 03:40 PM | No, there's not much reason to have a fighter. Powerwise, the ideal party contains a beguiler, cleric, druid, and wizard. For flavor, however, I prefer beguiler, cleric, hexblade, and wizard , or cleric, druid, scout, and sorcerer. |
| Olskool02-10-07, 03:42 PM | My advice to you: If you want to play a fighter, don't. Instead, play a Warblade from the ToB. You'll do the same stuff, but now you'll actually have fun doing it! I have a player who prefers playing a fighter to a Warblade. He has more fun with fighters. Your advice isn't universal. Now if you want to say a warblade is mechanically superior to a fighter at certain levels, I'll give you that. But fun is subjective. And you don't know what's more fun from person to person. |
| Arcane Guyver02-10-07, 03:46 PM | By core, I'd rather have a Druid or Cleric in the team rather than a Fighter (even if there's already a Dru or Clr in it). With the Druid you get a wolf companion, which is ridiculously useful at early levels, while the Cleric is just as able to tank with the heavy armor and almost as good hit points. As an added bonus, both they can heal themselves if necessary, throw lighting/holy fire when physical attacks aren't working, and there's much less chance of them failing a Will save and killing the party due to mind control. That's not even getting into wild shape or undead turning! |
| skywyze02-10-07, 04:00 PM | I have a player who prefers playing a fighter to a Warblade. He has more fun with fighters. Your advice isn't universal. Now if you want to say a warblade is mechanically superior to a fighter at certain levels, I'll give you that. But fun is subjective. And you don't know what's more fun from person to person.*keels over* Someone actually prefers the fighter? :eek: :confused: If so, then... Wow. Sorry about that assumption then. :s |
| Wrathamon02-10-07, 04:01 PM | There is no reason to have ANY class. I have played in games where there was no arcane or divine magic classes and they group did fine. Yes they had to spend lots of money on potions and wands but it really didnt make them unable to play. I have yet to be in a game where there was no fighter types.. I think players like to smack things with swords. ;) |
| Arcane Guyver02-10-07, 04:12 PM | *keels over* Someone actually prefers the fighter? :eek: :confused: I'm guessing this player likes ranged combat, which is one thing the Warblade isn't as good at. Or he thinks the whole martial adept thing is overly complicated and less fun than just picking a feat every other level. |
| TheCobra02-10-07, 04:14 PM | There is no reason to have ANY class. I agree. In one campaign I ran, the players were all commoners with average or perhaps rolled (3d6) stats. They fought cats and dogs, going through many characters at first. Eventually they defeated a goblin. It didn't last too long, but the players loved it. |
| Olskool02-10-07, 04:17 PM | Or he thinks the whole martial adept thing is overly complicated and less fun than just picking a feat every other level. Bingo. He prefers to imagine knocking a guys teeth down his throat with a good old fashioned punch in the mouth than to imagine performing complex honk kong kung fu movie type manuevers. |
| megageek1202-10-07, 04:30 PM | Flavor is subjective and can be adjusted. You can roleplay maneuvers however you like. |
| Coridan02-10-07, 04:42 PM | I was just in a level 5 game where the Goliath Spiked Chain fighter w/ Combat Reflexes whooped a lot of zombie butt while my Half Fey Sorc was just kinda stuck flying above him and hoping I didn't get hurt. Fighters are great at lower levels, but they're meant to go into PrCs once able really. And then they're still great, just not pure fighters anymore. I personally think sticking with one class is kinda dull anyway =p |
| skywyze02-10-07, 04:48 PM | I agree. In one campaign I ran, the players were all commoners with average or perhaps rolled (3d6) stats. They fought cats and dogs, going through many characters at first. Eventually they defeated a goblin. It didn't last too long, but the players loved it. That's beautiful. I wish I could get in on a campaign like that. Unfortunately I'm stuck in the Frozen Wastes where no sane person would live. No D&D players either. ;) |
| Olskool02-10-07, 04:49 PM | Flavor is subjective and can be adjusted. You can roleplay maneuvers however you like. True. But there's an implied flavor to the class . And not everyone is capable of working past that. |
| megageek1202-10-07, 04:53 PM | Tombstone strike: I smash him extra hard with my greatsword. See Tob works with "normal" D&D too. |
| Olskool02-10-07, 04:56 PM | See Tob works with "normal" D&D too. I totally agree that it does. I think it's a really cool book. Some people just prefer to keep their asskicking simple. |
| megageek1202-10-07, 05:04 PM | Alright, seeing as the fighter appears fine in your games I suppose tob is not neccasary. |
| Olskool02-10-07, 05:07 PM | Alright, seeing as the fighter appears fine in your games I suppose tob is not neccasary. I would'nt say it's necessary either. It is a cool book and I do permit most of the stuff in it into my campaigns. At higher levels I could definitely see it upping the powers of a straight fighter too. |
| Squirrelloid02-10-07, 09:12 PM | Planar binding assumes the creatures called (and more important, the DM) will consider reasonable to give the wizard wishes for nothing. Hint: only crazy DMs consider that reasonable. So it never happens in good games. Um, you need to win an opposed Cha check to make it automatically accept whatever deal you offer if it doesn't decide to automatically accept it. You can keep trying until you roll a natural '1'. Child's play, perfectly RAW, and I don't want to hear about your house rules. Wow. I have rarely seen such a crazy interpretation/abuse of the rules. Um, its how the rules are written... Dragonhide Plate: need a colossal dragon to die to use the skin. Consequence: never available in any game except at epic levels. It has a market price. That price is low enough to be available by 10th level easily. Thus it is reasonably available according to the rules. Monks belt: clearly does not work with armor, since monks get no AC benefit if they wear any kind of armor. So won’t work with dragonhide even if it is wild. The druid is not wearing armor once it has melded - he gets to count the armor bonus, but its melded into his form, not worn by the animal form. Therefore, he is not wearing armor. (Note the Wild ability doesn't say you count as wearing your armor even when wildshaped, it says you may count the AC bonus. Ergo, since the animal is not wearing the armor, you are no longer wearing armor). Any other interpretation involves definitions of wearing that don't involve the armor physically present in any way, which makes no sense whatsoever. Amulets of natural armor: give the same bonus than barkskin, an enhacement bonus. So they don’t work together. Ok, I was wrong once. Sue me. Grab a ring of protection for that +5. There's still plenty of other ways to pump your AC through the stratosphere. So no, or rather, yes, druids can get fairly high AC, but they only break the game in games with crazy or ignorant DMs. We're talking about the balance of the system. That means no house rules. If the rules say it, its how it works. I don't care if you think Monk's Belt + Wild armor is cheese - its allowed by the rules. House rule it in *your* games, but don't bring it up here. |
| Squirrelloid02-10-07, 09:36 PM | Fabricate wouldn't make you uber-rich. If it was that easy to develop infinite wealth, then plenty of wizards would have done so before, to the point that the mineral in question would become nearly valueless through deflation, and the spell would hardly be worth casting. Any DM who lets you break the wealth by level guidelines through such a cheesy tactic doesn't know what they are doing. If you could create nih-infinite wealth you will have won the game and you can go on to create new characters in a world where metals are valuelss and slaves are the only valuable currency. The D+D world does not obey supply and demand laws. You can tell because the value of things are given as fixed prices. Heck, there's a strict xp:gp conversion ratio thats used as an identity for crafting prices. Does currency get devalued when you level? Does all the treasure you're bringing back from the dungeon ruin the local economy? Heck, look at the Craft skill rules! Throw everything you know about economics out the window - it doesn't apply in D+D because the rules have this strange concept of inherent value. Its nice to say "supply increase => price decrease", but the rules of D+D say no. As for planar binding, lets say that you bind an efreeti for example, and offer it up some treasure in exchange for a granted wish or two. Do you think other Efreetis are going to stand by and allow you to kidnap their people without coming after you? You do realize they all have planeshift and are lawful in nature. How long after you captured an efreeti do you think you would have until half the city of brass is on your tail for what you did? And for this, your not even ensured success on your binding. Any DM worth his salt will know about such cheap tricks to break the game and will have ways to foil such attempts to break the game. You offer it its freedom for 3 wishes. You make an opposed Cha check (thats easily tilted in your favor) and can repeat until you win or roll a '1'. If you win, it gives in. Now, you're a powerful caster and it gets those wishes *every single day*. It doesn't really hurt it to lose them. It would rather not be kept trapped for a month. It deals automatically or you make it deal via Cha check. Now, it goes home. Why would anyone seek to get back at you - there are infinitely many efreet, so its not like it knows another efreet you've entrapped in this way. (P(knows another efreet so bound by *anyone*) = 0). You're powerful enough to take 2 or even 3 efreet easily, and have powerful friends. It just forgets about it, writes the 'hour' (or whatever) off as the cost of being a relatively low CR monster with a wish SLA, and goes about its life. Heck, you can Charm Monster it (automatically friendly) and make a DC 20 Diplomacy check to make it fanatic, and it will offer those wishes freely! No DM intervention needed - the rules cover everything necessary. I don't care about your houserules - i'm not talking about mine. I'm talking about what the rules say. As for the druid. First off, who is holding all of the Druids equipment? Second of all, who is crafting equipment that can fit on a dire bear (I'm not even going to mention the stuff that will need to be recrafted when you can wildshape to huge). Third off, where are you getting all this time to do this stuff. Most combats don't give you that much time to prepare, as most monsters have some sort of spot and can see you as soon as you can see them, if not before. Wasting both you and another persons time so that you can put on specially made items just so you can get a really tough armor class seems a little unproductive if you ask me. I'm assuming all these specially made magic items were made by the wizard who ruined the value of precious metals as well. Um, you get your cohort to do it. Or another party member. You hand them the stuff right before you change. They spend one minute putting gear on you. Magic items automatically re-size themselves to fit the user in general. This is why we don't have Magic Boots for small people as a generated treasure option. Your wildshape lasts *hours*. You take a form and walk around in it for most of the day. If you need to wildshape (or shapeshift) into another form in that time, you can do it from your other form (see Rules of the Game, for instance), and the equipment will meld from that form, but will be there when you end the second wildshape and return to the first one. No muss, no fuss. You're a caster, you can take item creation feats too... doesn't everyone take craft wondrous? I'd say more about the rogue, but I have to go. I just don't see how doing an additional 10d6 + weapon damage + stagger with 5 attacks isn't something worthwhile. As for your methods of trapfinding, they aren't foolproof. Finding a trap and disabling it are two different things. And traps are one of many things that radiate magic. Is that object radiating magic because it trapped, or because it is a valuable magic item? How you going to open that chested set to explode if it's tampered with without a rogue to disable it and avoid causing it ruin the valuable contents of the chest? Dispel magic. Investigate. If its an item, it'll come back online in 1d4 rounds. If its a trapped door or whatever, you'll already be past it by then. Alternately, dim door past it, and so forth. Items that are trapped (ie, cursed items) can't be disarmed by a rogue anyway. Normal traps (easily found with Find Traps) can generally be avoided. Jump the pit trap (or fly or whatever). Break the lock instead of getting pricked by the needle. And so forth. There's no trap that can't be bypassed with some ingenuity. In fact, its often more fun that way. Exploding chest - well, it depends on what the DM thinks a successful search check implies. My understanding is it tells you something about the nature of the trap, because you have to disarm it somehow. Possible solutions (I'm assuming this is a non-magical chest trap, otherwise dispel magic will disable the trap): 1) Determine whats in the chest - if nothing (relevant) is going to be destroyed, stand back and let a summoned monster or Unseen Servant open it. There are a number of ways of doing this, including Augury (useful items getting destroyed is most definitely woe), Divination, Etherealness (pass head through the chest to look inside), etc... 2) Figure out what the mechanism is. Use ingenuity to stop the mechanism from triggering (for instance, holding down the release spring with Unseen Servant while the chest is opened - the trap will 'think' the chest is still closed). 3) Put the chest in your portable hole. Deal with it when you get back to town (call in a specialist if need be). 4) Get into the chest in a way that bypasses the mechanism. Carefully cut a hole in the side (with the adamantine dagger you carry) if it triggers by being opened. And so forth. And thats 5 min of thought. |
| MerrikCale02-10-07, 09:39 PM | most importantly, fighters can be fun to play. All of those feats and "tanking" can be a blast. Plus, its a good class to throw in a couple of levels |
| Bob Loblaw02-10-07, 10:16 PM | One thing I find very interesting is that people will rules-lawyer everything they can for their casters. When it comes to the poor fighter, the rules-lawyering is no longer acceptable and the fighter is left in the dust. Take a look at how people handle Cleave off of Attacks of Opportunity for an example. I think if people put the same effort into playing their fighters that they put into playing their casters, they would find that the fighter isn't all that bad. |
| FrostHammer02-10-07, 10:18 PM | I think Cleave should work off of an AoO. |
| Argaud02-10-07, 10:20 PM | Um, you need to win an opposed Cha check to make it automatically accept whatever deal you offer if it doesn't decide to automatically accept it. You can keep trying until you roll a natural '1'. Child's play, perfectly RAW, and I don't want to hear about your house rules. This is not a house rule, read this: If the creature does not break free of the trap, you can keep it bound for as long as you dare. You can attempt to compel the creature to perform a service by describing the service and perhaps offering some sort of reward. You make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. The check is assigned a bonus of +0 to +6 based on the nature of the service and the reward. If the creature wins the opposed check, it refuses service. New offers, bribes, and the like can be made or the old ones reoffered every 24 hours. This process can be repeated until the creature promises to serve, until it breaks free, or until you decide to get rid of it by means of some other spell. Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to. If you roll a 1 on the Charisma check, the creature breaks free of the binding and can escape or attack you. Wishes for nothing is a clearly unreasonable demand and it is never going to happen except in the weirdest, most broken games. This is not a house rule, it is in the damn spell description. It has a market price. That price is low enough to be available by 10th level easily. Thus it is reasonably available according to the rules. That the cost is reasonable does not mean the colossal dragon is easily available. Do you play in a game where colossal dragons (minimum CR 25) are regularly killed for their skins? If so, then I am sure the armor is easily available, otherwise it is going to be almost impossible to find. The druid is not wearing armor once it has melded - he gets to count the armor bonus, but its melded into his form, not worn by the animal form. Therefore, he is not wearing armor. (Note the Wild ability doesn't say you count as wearing your armor even when wildshaped, it says you may count the AC bonus. Ergo, since the animal is not wearing the armor, you are no longer wearing armor). Any other interpretation involves definitions of wearing that don't involve the armor physically present in any way, which makes no sense whatsoever. If the druid is not wearing armor, then he can't benefit of the armor, right? So if he is benefiting of the armor, then he is wearing armor, so the belt can't work. It is extremely simple to understand. Armor=no belt No armor=belt works No armor=no armor bonus Anything else is some weird houserule created to benefit wildshape to the point of ridiculousness. |
| Squirrelloid02-10-07, 10:33 PM | This is not a house rule, read this: Wishes for nothing is a clearly unreasonable demand and it is never going to happen except in the weirdest, most broken games. This is not a house rule, it is in the damn spell description. 3 resources that automatically renew every day for not spending weeks locked in a cellar. Sounds reasonable to me. Or you can just Charm Monster the poor sap. He'll *offer* the wishes to you once you make him a fanatical follower with a simple DC 20 diplomacy check. That the cost is reasonable does not mean the colossal dragon is easily available. Do you play in a game where colossal dragons (minimum CR 25) are regularly killed for their skins? If so, then I am sure the armor is easily available, otherwise it is going to be almost impossible to find. Hey, all the rules tell me is a level N character has x gp to spend, and that dragonhide platemail costs k gp. If k < x (really less than some fraction of x which is the most value an item owned by the character can have, i think its 1/3 ish), then you can own it at the appropriate level N. Period. The rules say nothing more. If the druid is not wearing armor, then he can't benefit of the armor, right? So if he is benefiting of the armor, then he is wearing armor, so the belt can't work. It is extremely simple to understand. Armor=no belt No armor=belt works No armor=no armor bonus Anything else is some weird houserule created to benefit wildshape to the point of ridiculousness. Relevant definition of wear (courtesy www.dictionary.com): 1. to carry or have on the body or about the person as a covering, equipment, ornament, or the like: to wear a coat; to wear a saber; to wear a disguise. When you wildshape, the armor is neither on or about the body. It is melded into the body. It is not physically there in any way. Thus it is not and cannot be worn. The Wild ability allows the AC bonus to continue to function despite the armor being subsumed into the body. This does not make them 'wearing' armor. The bear body is in all ways verifiably not wearing armor. The armor is magically transmuted into the bear's flesh while wildshape is in effect. *if* the armor was worn, the druid would also suffer the max dex, penalty to some skills, and so forth of the armor, as per the rules for *wearing armor*. They don't. Wild doesn't say the druid continues to wear the armor, it merely says the AC bonus is retained. You can't imagine text into the rules. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 10:53 PM | Um, you need to win an opposed Cha check to make it automatically accept whatever deal you offer if it doesn't decide to automatically accept it. You can keep trying until you roll a natural '1'. Child's play, perfectly RAW, and I don't want to hear about your house rules. Um, its how the rules are written... It has a market price. That price is low enough to be available by 10th level easily. Thus it is reasonably available according to the rules. The druid is not wearing armor once it has melded - he gets to count the armor bonus, but its melded into his form, not worn by the animal form. Therefore, he is not wearing armor. (Note the Wild ability doesn't say you count as wearing your armor even when wildshaped, it says you may count the AC bonus. Ergo, since the animal is not wearing the armor, you are no longer wearing armor). Any other interpretation involves definitions of wearing that don't involve the armor physically present in any way, which makes no sense whatsoever. Ok, I was wrong once. Sue me. Grab a ring of protection for that +5. There's still plenty of other ways to pump your AC through the stratosphere. We're talking about the balance of the system. That means no house rules. If the rules say it, its how it works. I don't care if you think Monk's Belt + Wild armor is cheese - its allowed by the rules. House rule it in *your* games, but don't bring it up here. sorry i left earlyer ... But anyways its a Misruleing of the Rules ... you cant have more then 1 thing giveing you Natrual Armor you cant have more then 1 Armor Bonus or Shield bonus you cant do some of the things you where useing Allso the Price of Dragon armor is just normol you need to end up makeing your own most weapons need to be made from Things never used Meaning to make that Dragon Armor have a Bonus to your AC someones gotta craft it you cant use your old Masterwork armor for that Monk Belt dos NOT Add your Wisdom to your AC Monks Belt gives you the AC of a 5th level monk (The AC Class bonus not the Wisdom Mod) so thats not adding your +12 wisdom score there buddie so Yes thats abuseing the rule system on many of the things your doing there to some form of degree some more then others Monk Belt is normoly better on a Monk Tho having the Unarmed damage of a 5th level monk i guess could maybe help? |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 10:57 PM | 3 resources that automatically renew every day for not spending weeks locked in a cellar. Sounds reasonable to me. Or you can just Charm Monster the poor sap. He'll *offer* the wishes to you once you make him a fanatical follower with a simple DC 20 diplomacy check. Hey, all the rules tell me is a level N character has x gp to spend, and that dragonhide platemail costs k gp. If k < x (really less than some fraction of x which is the most value an item owned by the character can have, i think its 1/3 ish), then you can own it at the appropriate level N. Period. The rules say nothing more. Relevant definition of wear (courtesy www.dictionary.com): 1. to carry or have on the body or about the person as a covering, equipment, ornament, or the like: to wear a coat; to wear a saber; to wear a disguise. When you wildshape, the armor is neither on or about the body. It is melded into the body. It is not physically there in any way. Thus it is not and cannot be worn. The Wild ability allows the AC bonus to continue to function despite the armor being subsumed into the body. This does not make them 'wearing' armor. The bear body is in all ways verifiably not wearing armor. The armor is magically transmuted into the bear's flesh while wildshape is in effect. *if* the armor was worn, the druid would also suffer the max dex, penalty to some skills, and so forth of the armor, as per the rules for *wearing armor*. They don't. Wild doesn't say the druid continues to wear the armor, it merely says the AC bonus is retained. You can't imagine text into the rules. Yes dragon plate cost X gold to HAVE and make (Provided you have the Reasureses) The order of makeing it however is expensive and useoly dos not work intill higher levels Remeber its just the normol Armor to its not even magicol meaning your not wearing Mithrill Full plate +5 or w/e your just wearing Full plate It states that the armor is still there Just ... Part of his skin ... meaning the armor becomes his skin ... kinda like it polymoprh with him to form harden skin its still there just its now acting like Glimmerd armor i beleve along with a few extra things You get the AC Bonus but thats not how the Belt works my dear friend Monk Belt Gives you (On a none monk character) The AC Bonus of a 5th level monk it dos not allow your wisdom mod to be added to there AC the Wisdom bonus for the monk is considerd differnt then that its acting like its the Monks Dex Score so it counts has Dexterity (An Added bonus to it acouly) meaning Wisdom is added to his Dex Score The AC Bonus of the belt is talking about the +1 AC you get at level 5 Along with the anarmed damage No the reason why the belt is good is you put it on a Monk your damage and AC is uped by 5 levels which is good on a monk Not Other class's Get a few levels into monk then allright Hell go level dip in the monk then to get that bonus One other arguement is that most of the creatures you can become are not that Powerfull considering the level you can be them later on in the game most of the time the only thing Druids can become is creatures who where 6 or more levels below them (In ECL/CR Wise stateing) Thats not very powerfull Its nice earlyer in game but they Restrict on the size you can be and what type of things you can be the Animol Main form of str for its Level is some small abilitys and Extra HD for its CR Cr 1 creatures normoly only have 1 HD but animols (and most undead) one special purpose of them is to have a Higher HD then there system Like early in the game its HD=to CR+1-4 later on it becomes higher No **** the Animol wildshape go become a Plant Or an Elementol ... tho you can only become it medium size but hell if your on the plane that works best for the elementol then good! Example turning into a Fire Elementol in hotlava is a good idea |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 11:18 PM | Allso note yes you have X Amount of gold but how much did you spend on increaseing your Wisdom to 32? (+12 Bonus you mentioned) max at level 1 character is 18 Wisdom level 20 gives you +5 to a ability +6 Wisdom probly and +3 Book im guessing? remeber you cant get higher then +5 from a book not even if you have 2 +5 Books even if you use them both you only get a +5 Bonus its the max you can gain from that Scoure There are other scourese that can upgrade it but there expensive and very rare You have to figure you probly just used up a good chunk of your gold there And in a 32 point buy game you only have 16 points left now Thats enough for 1 more 18 and the rest are 8's Remeber that even if you have 18 con / 18 wisdom other things are effecting your character now for a low str/dex/int/cha (tho druids dount need Cha/Int to much) but still its effecting your character and remeber Druids BAB Isnt the greatest its better then a Wizards but monsters useoly have a better To Hit then your character remeber you Bab at level 14 is +10 (First attack) lets look up a CR 14 monster ok Night Wing you beat on BAB but thats Undead (And only by 2 points) not to mention a 17HD Trumpet Archon has a higher BAB then you but its an outsider ... hm there arnt realy many Animol/Plants you can be Lets look up Fey not many of them 2 ... and DireBear you have to be level 12 to get it its Bab is 3 better then yours at that time in all more offtin your To Hit is less then the Creature and the Creature main point is to up your melee standing right? No the point of the creature your wildshpaing into should have some other Purpose like sneaking or hideing away from the foes then surpirzeing them with a spell attack or 2 WildShape isnt the greatest thing around with its Retrictions |
| Vaelan02-10-07, 11:19 PM | I think if people put the same effort into playing their fighters that they put into playing their casters, they would find that the fighter isn't all that bad. Yes, they would. I have played optimized Fighters up to level 20 in the presence of Wizards, Druids, and Clerics played by people who are perfectly aware of the usual tricks and they never outclassed me in combat. Outside of combat, however, my class provided very little to work with. |
| Argaud02-10-07, 11:22 PM | Itwasntme, would you please spellcheck your posts. I am sick of reading 'animol', 'normol', 'remeber', 'magicol', 'abilitys' and so many typos that I am tempted to add you to my ignore list just to avoid seeing them :( |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 11:26 PM | Yes, they would. I have played optimized Fighters up to level 20 in the presence of Wizards, Druids, and Clerics played by people who are perfectly aware of the usual tricks and they never outclassed me in combat. Outside of combat, however, my class provided very little to work with. I beleve the Fighter needs a little bit more input into him to be usefull like the Wizard/Druid/Cleric Thats the negitive thing about Fighters needing more input into the character then you normoly have to There are a lot of Bad Builds and most of the builds people think fighters should have isnt that Greatest Allso note that just becouse i flunk spelling dosnt mean it gives you the right to start ignoreing the post i put they still have points in them But after this ill do my best to use the spell checker tho i hate it coz its allways giveing me a differnt word but hell w/e |
| TheCobra02-10-07, 11:39 PM | That the cost is reasonable does not mean the colossal dragon is easily available. Do you play in a game where colossal dragons (minimum CR 25) are regularly killed for their skins? If so, then I am sure the armor is easily available, otherwise it is going to be almost impossible to find. Wait, are you arguing that's it both relatively cheap (3.3k) and nearly impossible to find? That doesn't make sense. If it's almost impossible to find, it should more expensive. (Obviously demand exists. Druids love the stuff.) Look, dragonhide plate is in freaking DMG. If they wanted it to be impossible to find, this probably would have been noted in the item description. If you want explain it, just assume the heroes of old killed red dragon great wyrms left and right. |
| Argaud02-10-07, 11:46 PM | 3 resources that automatically renew every day for not spending weeks locked in a cellar. Sounds reasonable to me. Wishes for nothing, it sounds unreasonable to me. The Efreet is an immortal outsider that does not need eat, drink or sleep, a few weeks is nothing to him. He has probably spent years watching the grass grow just for kicks. And being an evil and cruel creature he will probably spend the weeks planing a horrible revenge. It is also in the spell description the creatures called may seek revenge, and the efreet is a particularly vengeful creature in all myths and legends. Given he has 3 wishes/day to work with, for the rest of his immortal existence, I bet the revenge is going to be quite painful. Or you can just Charm Monster the poor sap. He'll *offer* the wishes to you once you make him a fanatical follower with a simple DC 20 diplomacy check. This won't work either. Why not? I could give you a dozen reasons, but your unwillingless to grasp logic when it is inconvenient to you makes them irrelevant. For the others readers, though: Because simply wizards in no game, ever, have had access to infinite wishes even at epic levels. Never, ever. Not in Eberron, not in Greyhawk, not in Forgotten, not in Dark Sun. The exact reason why these plans to grow infinitely rich and powerful will fail is ultimately going to be up to the DM. But the rules, which Squirrelloid likes to quote so much when he finds loopholes, give charts of wealth for level for the characters. The players can't ignore them with Fabricate, Planar Binding or any other way and pretend they are playing D&D as the rules are written. The DM can reward them with some extra cash for smart planning and spell/skill use, but if they grow too wealthy compared with the charts, the game stops working. Hey, all the rules tell me is a level N character has x gp to spend, and that dragonhide platemail costs k gp. If k < x (really less than some fraction of x which is the most value an item owned by the character can have, i think its 1/3 ish), then you can own it at the appropriate level N. Period. The rules say nothing more. The rules also say colossal dragon. Which you keep ignoring. Here: Armorsmiths can work with the hides of dragons to produce armor or shields of masterwork quality. One dragon produces enough hide for a single suit of masterwork hide armor for a creature one size category smaller than the dragon. By selecting only choice scales and bits of hide, an armorsmith can produce one suit of masterwork banded mail for a creature two sizes smaller, one suit of masterwork half-plate for a creature three sizes smaller, or one masterwork breastplate or suit of full plate for a creature four sizes smaller. In each case, enough hide is available to produce a small or large masterwork shield in addition to the armor, provided that the dragon is Large or larger. So colossal for a medium druid. Just gargantuan for a small druid. There are gargantuan dragons for just CR 20, so it is slightly easier. Again. How many colossal dragons have been recently killed in your game world? Relevant definition of wear (courtesy www.dictionary.com): 1. to carry or have on the body or about the person as a covering, equipment, ornament, or the like: to wear a coat; to wear a saber; to wear a disguise. Welcome to D&D who has a glossary of terms and where the written rules, and not any online dictionary, define what is allowed and what is not. That the armor is merged with the body does not mean you aren't using it. If you aren't using it, then it is not giving you AC bonus. To use an armor, you have to wear it, that is how armors work, they don't give benefits from just carrying it around in the backpack or somewhere else. And if you are wearing it, then the belt does not work. That is how the monk's ability works. |
| itwasntme02-10-07, 11:52 PM | Wait, are you arguing that's it both relatively cheap (3.3k) and nearly impossible to find? That doesn't make sense. If it's almost impossible to find, it should more expensive. (Obviously demand exists. Druids love the stuff.) Look, dragonhide plate is in freaking DMG. If they wanted it to be impossible to find, this probably would have been noted in the item description. If you want explain it, just assume the heroes of old killed red dragon great wyrms left and right. No the DragonHide Without any bonus is easy to find a Magicol Dragonhide however or the ability to Craft one is VERY Expensive and very hard to do Note to make something magicol it must be Masterwork Quility and NEVER been used before meaning the Dragon hide (Which is like Full plate but cost more money but is Masterwork so) Can not ever be used and needs to get a magicol enchantment on it you cant buy it with a a Bonus to armor allready on it meaning once you buy it you have to give it that Enchantment your self or have someone eles do it for you thats more of the problem PS The spell checker isnt doing it job (It hates me) So ill try harder to spell correctly (Waste time) If you try harder to understand/be willing to wait for the extra time it takes for me to post? |
| TheCobra02-10-07, 11:53 PM | So colossal for a medium druid. Just gargantuan for a small druid. There are gargantuan dragons for just CR 20, so it is slightly easier. Again. How many colossal dragons have been recently killed in your game world? That doesn't matter at all. Dragonhide plate costs 3.3k. Period. You can buy it in any small city. OMG, look what the DMG it says about adamantine: Found only in meteorites and the rarest of viens in magical areas... Does this mean adamantine should also be nearly impossible to find? a Magicol Dragonhide however or the ability to Craft one is VERY Expensive and very hard to do No, such armor costs the armor bonus squared + 3.3k. |
| Kullak-Kobold Sorcerer02-11-07, 12:06 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Yes. If you need details, then I will continue. Every party has a party dynamic. Every party is different, but in essence the point remains the same. Someone must do something to help the others or else everyone dies or at least someone dies. From early to mid levels, the fighter is the protector of the weaker members. He hits more often and can deal more damage. At later level, spellcasters are like Gods. Fighters are just mortals. Some people think that taking the blows from levels 1-11 doesn't make them worthwhile since spellcaster become much more powerful from 12-20+. This is not exactly truthful. Follow these points: Not every campaign goes to level 20. Not every campaign allows all the extra material beyond Core. Not every campaign is based on optimized charcaters. Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters.Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. Again, this is assumptive. There are a lot of factors to each combat. Spellcasters are weak if facing more than 4 encounters a day. Fighters are weak without healing magic. Fighters and wizards are both weak to surprise rounds. Does that make Rogues superior to both? The truth is that a good PARTY will recover from any challenge and overcome it. A good DM will make a party always feel challenged. Any player that works outside of what the party does best is weaker and vulnerable to counter attacks. Example: We faced a beholder. The fighter charged (worst move). I cast Good Hope (for bonus to saves and to attacks) as a Bard. The Cleric cast Bigby's Grasping Hand (Str domain, failed grapple). The wizard cast Disintegrate (failed save). Technically, the Cleric and I both wasted our spells, but the Wizard only had a % chance of success. If the Beholder won his save, our efforts were far from wasted. I will also say from level 1-12, the cleric and I (as a Bard) were healing often (we have a large group from 5-7 people at a time). There are many variables when determining when a fighter is a good choice. I cannot see any when it is a bad choice for a party, but that is my opinion. A well supported fighter is a good choice. A fighter left to his own devices (as a party of individuals rather than a party) is a poor choice. |
| Kullak-Kobold Sorcerer02-11-07, 12:06 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Yes. If you need details, then I will continue. Every party has a party dynamic. Every party is different, but in essence the point remains the same. Someone must do something to help the others or else everyone dies or at least someone dies. From early to mid levels, the fighter is the protector of the weaker members. He hits more often and can deal more damage. At later level, spellcasters are like Gods. Fighters are just mortals. Some people think that taking the blows from levels 1-11 doesn't make them worthwhile since spellcaster become much more powerful from 12-20+. This is not exactly truthful. Follow these points: Not every campaign goes to level 20. Not every campaign allows all the extra material beyond Core. Not every campaign is based on optimized charcaters. Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters.Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. Again, this is assumptive. There are a lot of factors to each combat. Spellcasters are weak if facing more than 4 encounters a day. Fighters are weak without healing magic. Fighters and wizards are both weak to surprise rounds. Does that make Rogues superior to both? The truth is that a good PARTY will recover from any challenge and overcome it. A good DM will make a party always feel challenged. Any player that works outside of what the party does best is weaker and vulnerable to counter attacks. Example: We faced a beholder. The fighter charged (worst move). I cast Good Hope (for bonus to saves and to attacks) as a Bard. The Cleric cast Bigby's Grasping Hand (Str domain, failed grapple). The wizard cast Disintegrate (failed save). Technically, the Cleric and I both wasted our spells, but the Wizard only had a % chance of success. If the Beholder won his save, our efforts were far from wasted. I will also say from level 1-12, the cleric and I (as a Bard) were healing often (we have a large group from 5-7 people at a time). There are many variables when determining when a fighter is a good choice. I cannot see any when it is a bad choice for a party, but that is my opinion. A well supported fighter is a good choice. A fighter left to his own devices (as a party of individuals rather than a party) is a poor choice. |
| Jo_Pistachio02-11-07, 12:28 AM | Yes. If you need details, then I will continue. Every party has a party dynamic. Every party is different, but in essence the point remains the same. Someone must do something to help the others or else everyone dies or at least someone dies. From early to mid levels, the fighter is the protector of the weaker members. He hits more often and can deal more damage. At later level, spellcasters are like Gods. Fighters are just mortals. Some people think that taking the blows from levels 1-11 doesn't make them worthwhile since spellcaster become much more powerful from 12-20+. This is not exactly truthful. The fighter and any other melee character is the protector of the casters. This includes two full casters. The druid and the cleric can both protect the casters adequitely for 10-11 levels. Also, a barbarian can do the roll of blocking a little better than a fighter, due to his slightly higher hit point total, his rage hit points, his damage reduction and his slightly better saves (when raging.) Follow these points: Not every campaign goes to level 20. Not every campaign allows all the extra material beyond Core. Not every campaign is based on optimized charcaters. None of these factos make a fighter required. In fact, the only two that are required are a cleric or druid, and a rogue or a ninja. Again, this is assumptive. There are a lot of factors to each combat. Spellcasters are weak if facing more than 4 encounters a day. Fighters are weak without healing magic. Fighters and wizards are both weak to surprise rounds. Does that make Rogues superior to both? No. Spellcasters can avoid encounters when they can't go further, can use items to push past the 4 limit, and so forth. fighters literally cannot continue when they are low on hit points. A rogue is superior to the fighter because he can both go all day and heal himself. He is an inferior killer, but an all around better character. He is about the same as the caster but in completely differnt ways. The truth is that a good PARTY will recover from any challenge and overcome it. A good DM will make a party always feel challenged. Any player that works outside of what the party does best is weaker and vulnerable to counter attacks. This is an opinion. While I value this opinion, I also realize that it is also legitimate for a DM to create the monsters and the world at large, and not change them for the PCs. Example: We faced a beholder. The fighter charged (worst move). I cast Good Hope (for bonus to saves and to attacks) as a Bard. The Cleric cast Bigby's Grasping Hand (Str domain, failed grapple). The wizard cast Disintegrate (failed save). Technically, the Cleric and I both wasted our spells, but the Wizard only had a % chance of success. If the Beholder won his save, our efforts were far from wasted. Yes, but his just proves that casters can layer on contingencies, and adding that certainty that the thing would die, or be incapacitated, or that the party could survive was worth the effort, since it was impossible to say if the thing would pass the save or not. Try this thing again with a cleric that casts recitations. This group gains better saves and lowers the beholders saves, meaning the wizard would be more likely to dust him. I will also say from level 1-12, the cleric and I (as a Bard) were healing often (we have a large group from 5-7 people at a time). In this situation, a second cleric who is primarily a fighter and a healer secondary is a much better option. You will literally be wallowing in the heals with a party with two clerics and a bard. A druid also works very well. Not only that, these two classes can cast things that make the rest of the party members better at what they do. A fighter cannot. The fighter can block or maybe stab things. So can the druid with his animal companion. There are many variables when determining when a fighter is a good choice. I cannot see any when it is a bad choice for a party, but that is my opinion. A well supported fighter is a good choice. A fighter left to his own devices (as a party of individuals rather than a party) is a poor choice. Of course he would be a good choice in some situations. Name one where there is not a better choice though. That is the problem. |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 12:31 AM | and a rogue or a ninja. Or a scout. Or a beguiler (the best option). |
| danielinthewolvesden02-11-07, 12:59 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? . Well, you have to get to higher levels, first. Warriors rule at the lower levels and they do fine at the mid-levels. Besides fighter can & do get into some mean PrC's. Then, who gives a rodents behind which classes "win" in a one one one arena battle? Folks do not play IRL D&D like that. Finally- because some folks have fun running them. And, that is really the only reason that counts. |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 01:06 AM | Warriors rule at the lower levels Not really. Thanks to the animal companion, druids even provide better tanking service. Wizards, sorcerers, and beguilers own things with color spray and sleep, though they run out of juice very quickly. |
| Squirrelloid02-11-07, 01:11 AM | Wishes for nothing, it sounds unreasonable to me. The Efreet is an immortal outsider that does not need eat, drink or sleep, a few weeks is nothing to him. He has probably spent years watching the grass grow just for kicks. And being an evil and cruel creature he will probably spend the weeks planing a horrible revenge. It is also in the spell description the creatures called may seek revenge, and the efreet is a particularly vengeful creature in all myths and legends. Given he has 3 wishes/day to work with, for the rest of his immortal existence, I bet the revenge is going to be quite painful. And I bet he'd rather burn his 3 wishes (that he wasn't going to use anyway) to go back to watching grass (which is at least growing) than stones. This won't work either. Why not? I could give you a dozen reasons, but your unwillingless to grasp logic when it is inconvenient to you makes them irrelevant. For the others readers, though: Because simply wizards in no game, ever, have had access to infinite wishes even at epic levels. Never, ever. Not in Eberron, not in Greyhawk, not in Forgotten, not in Dark Sun. The exact reason why these plans to grow infinitely rich and powerful will fail is ultimately going to be up to the DM. But the rules, which Squirrelloid likes to quote so much when he finds loopholes, give charts of wealth for level for the characters. The players can't ignore them with Fabricate, Planar Binding or any other way and pretend they are playing D&D as the rules are written. The DM can reward them with some extra cash for smart planning and spell/skill use, but if they grow too wealthy compared with the charts, the game stops working. Wealth by level is a guideline. But its what's expected based on rewarded treasure for xp generated encounters. Binding an efreet and then Charm Monstering him generates no xp for you - thus you're breaking the paradigm by which wealth supposedly correlates with level. However, its perfectly RAW. Oh no, it couldn't possibly be true that the rules allow you to do something which breaks guidelines elsewhere. I suppose a CR N monster will always eat 20% of a level N party's resources too - the DMG says it will, it must always be true! Your position is ridiculous. Wealth by level is a guideline based on average treasure rolling for 13 CR N encounters for all N from 1 to your current level. Nothing more nothing less. Its not a hard and fast rule (though it is a convenient approximation for creating characters at levels higher than 1). I mean, you aren't supposed to own an item worth more than 1/3 your expected wealth either - but if you *craft it yourself* its easy to do so, and doesn't actually violate the rules. And anything you do to earn wealth outside of xp-earning encounters isn't factored into wealth by level guidelines. So, for example, a Bard should significantly exceed them if he takes the chance to Perform every chance he gets. The rules also say colossal dragon. Which you keep ignoring. Here: So colossal for a medium druid. Just gargantuan for a small druid. There are gargantuan dragons for just CR 20, so it is slightly easier. Again. How many colossal dragons have been recently killed in your game world? It has a price of 3.3k before enchanting. After that its enchanted like a normal suit of magical armor. So a Wild dragonhide platemail +5 (assuming we can't find a cleric to cast MV for us) is a mere 67.3k. Pocket change for a 20th level character. Heck, as dragonhide platemail is a nonmagical inanimate object, PAO could turn something into it trivially. Or turn something into the corpse of a Colossal Dragon (also a nonmagical inanimate object) which you could fabricate into the suit of armor. But no, clearly killing such a dragon is the only way you could acquire that dragon-hide. You're right. Magic couldn't possibly create any way for non-living matter to be created from other non-living matter. And if you must know, 1 Colossal and 1 Gargantuan dragon (as per the model ones they released with the Con event), ran to see how hard they would be with characters in a campaign were running. 4 15th level characters, no primary spellcasters allowed. Time to kill: 2 rounds each. PC deaths: 0. Splats allowed: lots, but whatever, they were still melee characters. Assumptions: Both sides were prepared (remember, no primary spellcasters on the party side). Welcome to D&D who has a glossary of terms and where the written rules, and not any online dictionary, define what is allowed and what is not. That the armor is merged with the body does not mean you aren't using it. If you aren't using it, then it is not giving you AC bonus. To use an armor, you have to wear it, that is how armors work, they don't give benefits from just carrying it around in the backpack or somewhere else. And if you are wearing it, then the belt does not work. That is how the monk's ability works. Actually no. What happens when you are wearing armor is well-defined. If all those conditions do not apply to you, you are not wearing it. (To whit, reduced speed, max dex, armor check penalty, etc...). Only the AC bonus applies while wildshaped with Wild armor, therefore you can't be wearing it because that causes a contradiction. Oh, your human form is wearing it, but your wildshaped form is not. Similarly, if you wildshape with a magical belt on, this in no way pre-empts you from wearing another belt while wildshaped. That slot is open because your wildshaped form is wearing no belt, even if your human form was. The glossary does not define 'wear'. It is used in the armor section in the standard sense, and the implications of wearing armor are enumerated as above. Its also especially hard to wear a suit of armor when the armor *isn't even there*. Its transmuted into your flesh (wildshape being a transmutation effect). Itwasntme: Honestly, it hurts too much to read your prose. I got the following out of your post: "You're wrong about Monk's belt". I'm not. Here's why: Monk's belt says you get the unarmored AC of a 5th level monk. A 5th level monk gets wis mod +1 to AC. Thus, since you get unarmored AC exactly as a 5th level monk does, you also get wis mod +1 to AC. Its all one ability in the monk's description, so there is no support for separating the effects. |
| Bob Loblaw02-11-07, 01:15 AM | No. Spellcasters can avoid encounters when they can't go further, can use items to push past the 4 limit, and so forth. fighters literally cannot continue when they are low on hit points. This sentiment is the problem, in my opinion. Why is it that the fighter isn't assumed to have appropriate gear while every one else is? Sorry, but the casters are useless without their spells. The rogue is useless without being in the best situation to maximize his ability to take advantage. The barbarian isn't a powerhouse when he's fatigued. The paladin really isn't all that great against neutrally aligned creatures (or even good-aligned opponents). Why can't the fighter have something to help him with regaining hit points. I know there are dozens of items available, shouldn't he be allowed to have at least one? |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 01:25 AM | Why is it that the fighter isn't assumed to have appropriate gear while every one else is? Actually, in most of these threads, the fighter has l33t l00t and the casters are basically naked. Fighters really need items. The paladin really isn't all that great against neutrally aligned creatures (or even good-aligned opponents). He's pretty good at talking to them. Why can't the fighter have something to help him with regaining hit points. I know there are dozens of items available, shouldn't he be allowed to have at least one? He'll have potions of healing, sure. Those get consumed rather quickly. Eventually he'll have a ring of regeneration, perhaps, but not until he's a high-level character. Free healing isn't all that the easy to come by in D&D. |
| Squirrelloid02-11-07, 01:28 AM | This sentiment is the problem, in my opinion. Why is it that the fighter isn't assumed to have appropriate gear while every one else is? Sorry, but the casters are useless without their spells. The rogue is useless without being in the best situation to maximize his ability to take advantage. The barbarian isn't a powerhouse when he's fatigued. The paladin really isn't all that great against neutrally aligned creatures (or even good-aligned opponents). Why can't the fighter have something to help him with regaining hit points. I know there are dozens of items available, shouldn't he be allowed to have at least one? hp regaining items the fighter can actually use... ... ... Give me a moment, i'll think of something... ... Oh, Ring of Regeneration. For 1 hp/level-hour. Go it. Yup, that's it in core. This might be why we're assuming fighters can't handle healing themselves. (Also note that any cash fighter's spend on items to heal themselves is cash they aren't spending on their weapon(s), armor, shield, items to boost str/con, items to otherwise boost AC, items to gain necessary immunities (eg, Mindblank), and so forth. Fighters, and melee characters in general, are one of the most cash strapped classes because they are so equipment dependent. Casters, on the other hand, can make whatever gear they need, and can use a wand or staff after they've run out of spells to supplement their casting power). edit: there are potions. Potions take a standard action, provoke AoOs, and heal diddly squat at mid-high levels. Useless. A fighter needs good long-term healing for between combats or HEAL during combat if its going to matter. And by good long term I mean Fast Healing 1 or something (10hp/min is good for between combats). |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-11-07, 01:36 AM | This sentiment is the problem, in my opinion. Why is it that the fighter isn't assumed to have appropriate gear while every one else is? Sorry, but the casters are useless without their spells. The rogue is useless without being in the best situation to maximize his ability to take advantage. The barbarian isn't a powerhouse when he's fatigued. The paladin really isn't all that great against neutrally aligned creatures (or even good-aligned opponents). Why can't the fighter have something to help him with regaining hit points. I know there are dozens of items available, shouldn't he be allowed to have at least one? Because all of the other classes gain their abilities by waking up in the morning. The fighter gets his by spending money. A resource the fighter is very poor at aquiring and conserving. A fighter can buy items to regain hitpoints, or mimic rage, or do a lot of other things. But if he spends his money on that he won't have that potion of fly, or oil of weapon alignment, or extra +1 magical effect to his sword. Fighter uses an item to get fly, the wealth needed to aquire that item is gone forever. Mage casts fly? It's back tommorow free of cost. Fighter use a buff item that he didn't need to? He's down that money forever. Mage make a mistake and cast a spell he didn't need to? He can use his scroll if he needs it to survive later in the day, but more likely is just going to wake up tommorow down absolutely nothing. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:07 AM | That doesn't matter at all. Dragonhide plate costs 3.3k. Period. You can buy it in any small city. OMG, look what the DMG it says about adamantine: Does this mean adamantine should also be nearly impossible to find? No, such armor costs the armor bonus squared + 3.3k. you where talking to 2 (Maybe more) Differnt people Ill answer the last one the Cost of the item You cannot get Specific Armor/Weapons Differnt then how there stated inless your useing your own Craft means In other words DragonHide Plate is just a normol Fullplate it has no magicol Means on it You cannot Buy it stronger then what it is inless YOU enchant it or make it on your own Which is fine you can do that but thats harder to do then just "buy" The item |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 02:11 AM | You cannot Buy it stronger then what it is inless YOU enchant it or make it on your own I guess that's one way to play it. It hurts fighters more than druids, though, as you'd have to apply the same logic to weapons made from special materials. That's certainly not how my group plays it, but I'm pretty loose (probably too loose) with items. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:11 AM | Actually, in most of these threads, the fighter has l33t l00t and the casters are basically naked. Fighters really need items. He's pretty good at talking to them. He'll have potions of healing, sure. Those get consumed rather quickly. Eventually he'll have a ring of regeneration, perhaps, but not until he's a high-level character. Free healing isn't all that the easy to come by in D&D. Your arguement is about how characters are Naked vs Characters with items? Not True Fighters just becouse they need items dosnt make them worthless if that was the case then eveyone gets owned in the face by the monk od doom or monk/drunken master ... no just monk drunken master needs beer (Which is an Item) No if your going to do the whole "Fighter VS Commener" Arguement then fighter wins that arguement The Fighter has feats along with other things that make him better with his Items then the commener is So the fighter has money ... Let him use it to get the items he needs? After all earlyer arguements where about not having the right items So let the fighter be able to get the items he wants just like you! sure he wount get the Dragonhide plate ... Like the Druid Or ring of Wizerdy like the Wizard But why the hell dosnt he have some other gear? Thats just an arguement on a differnt point of view |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 02:15 AM | You've lost me almost completely. Maybe you haven't read many of the older threads on this subject, but caster vs. fighter duels usually go something like this... Poster A: The caster uses spell x on the fighter. Poster B: That doesn't work, because the figher has y item. (And on and on.) |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:21 AM | I guess that's one way to play it. It hurts fighters more than druids, though, as you'd have to apply the same logic to weapons made from special materials. That's certainly not how my group plays it, but I'm pretty loose (probably too loose) with items. The reason why it dosnt hurt fighters to much is becouse they could just buy items thats not on the "Specific" List Ie they can get there own full plate Mithril and enchant it useing the guild lines and people will perhaps be selling it Why? Becouse it is not a Specific Armor Its just armor Its going to cost more and you probly wount find it in the Village But you can buy it somewhere in the kingdom (Or w/e the hell you are) No by Specific i mean Things with Propertys that you cant normoly get Dragonhide armor is something you normoly Cant Get Full plate is something you can get Adamtine Brestplate is something you can get You can allso get it at a Stronger Vaule becouse they give you the price/listing / propertys of Admintine/Mithril and other things further on in the DMG Its costly more then normol but yes you can get it It dos not show the Price of Dragonhide armor/Plate Or it dos not show what a +5 Holy Longsword (In Normol Hands) That acts like a +8 Holy Keen Longsword in the hands of a paladin granting him SR of 20+ Level You can not get that item becouse normoly the Holy Advenger is a Specific weapon/Armor You can however get a Long sword with Holy/Keen on it with +5 The ability to make it Stronger and unlock other abilitys however Makes it a Differnt type of weapon Most Specific Armor/Weapons useoly cost less then they normoly would Example With the Holy Advenger it cost 120630 high price if your not a Paladin for just a simple +2 Cold Iron Longsword Now makeing it +5 cold iron with SR = to 5+Level is expensive not only can you not get a SR weapon that increases with someones Level you useoly can only get a SR of a set number +5 Weapon=50k + Cold iron + Longsword + A Very nice SR (Tho its kinda low) Its about the price of the Weapon yes normoly However you cannot get the ability of SR+Level on a weapon with any other weapon Thus it is a Specific Weapon you cant make it better inless your epic level (Perhaps) |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:24 AM | You've lost me almost completely. Maybe you haven't read many of the older threads on this subject, but caster vs. fighter duels usually go something like this... Poster A: The caster uses spell x on the fighter. Poster B: That doesn't work, because the figher has y item. (And on and on.) Ah then Caster wasted a round of Combat on a spell that didnt effect the fighter the fighter gets to move on his turn now Example Fighter and Wizard are going to fight each other the roll ini Wizard gets Ini higher then the Fighter Lets say 20 the fighter gets 18 The wizard casts a spell at Fighter but it dosnt work Fighter turn This is the arguement while your working away at the fighter the fighter is moveing/attacking the wizard in some way or another Useoly the Wizard/Fighter dosnt know each other and plus 1on1 combat is very rare |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:29 AM | Because all of the other classes gain their abilities by waking up in the morning. The fighter gets his by spending money. A resource the fighter is very poor at aquiring and conserving. A fighter can buy items to regain hitpoints, or mimic rage, or do a lot of other things. But if he spends his money on that he won't have that potion of fly, or oil of weapon alignment, or extra +1 magical effect to his sword. Fighter uses an item to get fly, the wealth needed to aquire that item is gone forever. Mage casts fly? It's back tommorow free of cost. Fighter use a buff item that he didn't need to? He's down that money forever. Mage make a mistake and cast a spell he didn't need to? He can use his scroll if he needs it to survive later in the day, but more likely is just going to wake up tommorow down absolutely nothing. this is very untrue There are boots of flying which allows the fighter to fly X amount per day as long as he has the item he can fly a Group useoly gets a Certain amount of gold on Adverage meaning the characters are all getting a certain amount of gold the Wizard dosnt use his amount as much as the Fighter is Allso note your arguement is agest All Forms of Melee non Caster Class's Ok so your wizard is now flying ... lets see i can fly or i can shot you with a Bow sense you didnt use Windwall to defend you self Quick draw shot wizard in the face or Gloves of Sotreing Free action i have a differnt Weapon out I make a full round attack with my Repeating Crossbow or some other Ranged Weapon |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 02:32 AM | Ie they can get there own full plate Mithril and enchant it useing the guild lines and people will perhaps be selling it Why? Becouse it is not a Specific Armor Its just armor Uh, no. Any restrictions you apply to dragonhide armor should also be applied to all other items made of special materials, including mithril. If the PCs can't buy magical dragonhide plate, they certainly shouldn't be able to buy magical mithril plate. Dragonhide armor is something you normoly Cant Get Adamtine Brestplate is something you can get Wrong. An adamantine breastplate is more expensive than dragonhide plate. Thus, it's harder to get. It dos not show the Price of Dragonhide armor/Plate Yes, it does. DMG page 220. 3.3k. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:37 AM | hp regaining items the fighter can actually use... ... ... Give me a moment, i'll think of something... ... Oh, Ring of Regeneration. For 1 hp/level-hour. Go it. Yup, that's it in core. This might be why we're assuming fighters can't handle healing themselves. (Also note that any cash fighter's spend on items to heal themselves is cash they aren't spending on their weapon(s), armor, shield, items to boost str/con, items to otherwise boost AC, items to gain necessary immunities (eg, Mindblank), and so forth. Fighters, and melee characters in general, are one of the most cash strapped classes because they are so equipment dependent. Casters, on the other hand, can make whatever gear they need, and can use a wand or staff after they've run out of spells to supplement their casting power). edit: there are potions. Potions take a standard action, provoke AoOs, and heal diddly squat at mid-high levels. Useless. A fighter needs good long-term healing for between combats or HEAL during combat if its going to matter. And by good long term I mean Fast Healing 1 or something (10hp/min is good for between combats). there are many effects which the fighter can heal himself Allso note the fighter has more HP then most Casters (especouly a Barbian) Which means later on the All so powerfull 100 damage to him is something normol hes use to taking high amounts of Punishments the wizard/casters on the other hand useoly cannot take that much punishment and need to quickly revert to some other means allso note when i say Fighter I Mean any type of Melee class Barbian/Monk/Rouge/Fighter useoly Fighter is the word i use coz they are the simplost things to deal with a Rouge can SA Targets yes but cant take much punishment Monks can just run at you from far far away where you couldnt see him and hit you in the face then run away no the normol guy people see are Fighters People like to brag that there casters are all powerfull i dount think your all powerfull but i dount think your week eather |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:44 AM | Uh, no. Any restrictions you apply to dragonhide armor should also be applied to all other items made of special materials, including mithril. If the PCs can't buy magical dragonhide plate, they certainly shouldn't be able to buy magical mithril plate. Wrong. An adamantine breastplate is more expensive than dragonhide plate. Thus, it's harder to get. Yes, it does. DMG page 220. 3.3k. you got eveything i said wrong Ok let me explane it to the bottom of your questions Up Dragonhide plate what i meant was it dos not show the worth of makeing something out of Dragon Hide That is Just 1 form of armor mithril can be a chain shirt full plate or some other means of armor thats what i meant by not showing the price They Can Buy Magic Full Plate it even shows armor being made of Magicol Full plate Get Mithril and enchant it you not have some form of Magicol mithril armor It cost more Yes but you can buy it hell there is the Mithrill Fullplate of speed (I think thats it name?) Just get some other form of it sense you cant upgrade that then find some other form of that type of armor Yes as stated earlyer its going to be more expensive then just normol Magicol Fullplate Its just like your +3 fullplate its just made out of Mithril they give you the states of what Mithril added cost is and what it effects is like they even state that you can buy magicol Full plate made out of Mithril |
| Sutemi02-11-07, 02:46 AM | I don't know if anyone has said this already but here the main reason IMO to play fighter: It's so relaxing!! Rogues have be sneaky all the time and thier players really need to think smart, spellcaster worry with their spells and their players read the endless spell description and so on. Fighter can just pick up the sword and start hacking! And if you are feeling neglected, then it's not fighters fault but the DM's fault, because even if you're playing armless dim-witted halfling you still get to say what your character says and does as much as everybody else! |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:47 AM | Uh, no. Any restrictions you apply to dragonhide armor should also be applied to all other items made of special materials, including mithril. If the PCs can't buy magical dragonhide plate, they certainly shouldn't be able to buy magical mithril plate. Wrong. An adamantine breastplate is more expensive than dragonhide plate. Thus, it's harder to get. Yes, it does. DMG page 220. 3.3k. to the top most question You cant get Dragonhide made out of Mithril Why? Becouse in Mithril it states that you can only add this to armor of Metal meaning Chain mail/Chain shirt/Breast plate cant add it to Leather or non metal plateing Dragonhide is a very hard form of Leather persisly what just normol dragonhide dos to you we dount know we only know what Dragonhide can do when its made into a Full plate piece of Armor |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:50 AM | I don't know if anyone has said this already but here the main reason IMO to play fighter: It's so relaxing!! Rogues have be sneaky all the time and thier players really need to think smart, spellcaster worry with their spells and their players read the endless spell description and so on. Fighter can just pick up the sword and start hacking! And if you are feeling neglected, then it's not fighters fault but the DM's fault, because even if you're playing armless dim-witted halfling you still get to say what your character says and does as much as everybody else! this is true a fighter is much easyer to play then other class's now if your worried about sucking then its time to put thought into the fighter and make him worthwhile eh ... Take the fighting Stance for fighters when your in combat for gain Fast healing X it starts low but gets higher later on in the game and you could abuse that by just being in combat with a fly/Chipmonk and start getting Fast Healing ... |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 02:52 AM | ah crap i can see how a fighter can abuse that feat now ... I Enter Combat with the chipmonk! dude ... its not hostile YES IT IS ITS A POLYMOPRH EVIL WIZARD! Detect evil ... its not evil! Well Its a Netrual Polymoprh Wizard come to spy on us and attack us when we let our guard down! I Take Full Defence Action! Eh retardidly i beleve the fighter could do that and gain fast healing ... retarded ... just retarded but ok fine w/e |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-11-07, 03:13 AM | this is very untrue There are boots of flying which allows the fighter to fly X amount per day as long as he has the item he can fly Which comes out of his damage or defense spending. a Group useoly gets a Certain amount of gold on Adverage meaning the characters are all getting a certain amount of gold the Wizard dosnt use his amount as much as the Fighter is Only because the wizard has to sacrifice his share to allow the fighter to play. If he didn't have the fighter he could be storing up on metamagic rods or other items that make his casting even more powerful. Allso note your arguement is agest All Forms of Melee non Caster Class's Paladin can get flying mounts, but usually they are left in the worthless pool with Fighters, Monks, 2 wep rangers and Barbarians. THe paladin, and 2 weapon fighting rangers at least can go on healing detail. And the Monk and Barbarian are secure in the knowledge that at least they have more skills and class features then the fighter for after the battle. Ok so your wizard is now flying ... lets see i can fly or i can shot you with a Bow sense you didnt use Windwall to defend you self Quick draw shot wizard in the face or Gloves of Sotreing Free action i have a differnt Weapon out I make a full round attack with my Repeating Crossbow or some other Ranged Weapon 1) This is not a dueling scenario this is what happens when your party faces a flying monster with half a brain. 2) The wizard doesn't need to fly. His spells have range. 3) Your piddily little ranged weapon isn't going to do any damage aggainst the monsters DR unless you speced as a ranged fighter, in which case you could have been a ranger and gotten some cool spells and skills to go with the package. Edit: btw if you did spec your fighter as a gatling archer you are in my opinion a playable character even at high levels. It's just anyone with full BAB and the same equipment can do the same thing with only around a 30 damage point hit, in echange for all their other cool abilities. You also aren't the party tank anymore. |
| Gnarl02-11-07, 03:16 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. You only need 1 reason to have a fighter in a party: someone wants to play one. Plus fighters are very decent at low levels and still do pretty well arround 10th-12th level when most D&D games end. |
| Squirrelloid02-11-07, 03:49 AM | you got eveything i said wrong Ok let me explane it to the bottom of your questions Up Dragonhide plate what i meant was it dos not show the worth of makeing something out of Dragon Hide That is Just 1 form of armor mithril can be a chain shirt full plate or some other means of armor thats what i meant by not showing the price They Can Buy Magic Full Plate it even shows armor being made of Magicol Full plate Get Mithril and enchant it you not have some form of Magicol mithril armor It cost more Yes but you can buy it hell there is the Mithrill Fullplate of speed (I think thats it name?) Just get some other form of it sense you cant upgrade that then find some other form of that type of armor Yes as stated earlyer its going to be more expensive then just normol Magicol Fullplate Its just like your +3 fullplate its just made out of Mithril they give you the states of what Mithril added cost is and what it effects is like they even state that you can buy magicol Full plate made out of Mithril The spelling. The grammar. It burns! To the best of my ability to tell, you just said you can't enchant Dragonhide Platemail... Dude, huh? To price an item - figure out the material price, add the magic price. A +8 (Wild +5) armor is 64k. Base price of Dragonhide Platemail is 3.3k. Sum. 67.3k price. Note you have to do this with any other special material - you just have to add the material cost to the armor type cost first (Dragonhide, iirc, just has the price for finished suits of various types). So you'd take the Adamantine +15k for heavy armor and add it to the price of platemail (1.5k is it? Don't feel like looking it up), then add the cost of the enchantments you want. The rules cover all of this. And no one was trying to make Adamantine Wild Dragonhide Platemail. Why would you bother - the DR wouldn't transfer to the wildshape anyway, only the AC bonus does as per the Wild armor enchantment. Itwasntme: Please, read your rulebook? And learn how to type in English so we can actually figure out what you're saying without our eyes bleeding. |
| Argaud02-11-07, 08:29 AM | Wealth by level is a guideline. But its what's expected based on rewarded treasure for xp generated encounters. Binding an efreet and then Charm Monstering him generates no xp for you - thus you're breaking the paradigm by which wealth supposedly correlates with level. Wealth by level is a guideline as much as everything else in the books. You are just ignoring a rule that is inconvenient to the twinkfeast that are the games to play (killing dragons 10 CRs over your level, indeed). A wish is worth 25,000 gold pieces. That is the reasonable minimum an efreet would ask for a wish, the best diplomacy check of the world shouldn’t lower that cost much, since when the demand becomes unreasonable the spell fails. When you ignore the wealth by level you will always find the PCs are more powerful (with extra wealth) or weaker (with scarce wealth) than their level indicates, and that they handle the monsters too easily or can’t handle at all. Since in your game the players have infinite wealth/wishes I am not surprised at all they could defeat a CR 25 dragon at level 15. I can do it with a level 1 commoner. I bet all the PCs had an inherent +6 to all ability scores, among a host of ridiculous equipment, super-powers and badly interpreted/abused class abilities. That doesn't matter at all. Dragonhide plate costs 3.3k. Period. You can buy it in any small city. OMG, look what the DMG it says about adamantine: Actually the rules for dragonhide armor state that the armor costs double than a masterwork steel armor. The rule is applicable to all armor, from hide to full plate. Hide dragonhide is actually quite common, since large dragons, like Wyverns, aren’t uncommon. This does not mean dragonhide fullplate is common, since it is almost impossible to get the raw materials. Adamantine -might- be equally hard to find, depending of the campaign. Or might not. In all the game settings I know adamantine is more common than colossal dragons. I reluctantly agree with Squirrelloid that Polymorph Any Object could be used to get dragon corpses, although a simple dispel magic or an AMF would return the armor to its original form, probably destroying the enchantment. PAO can make permanent transformations, but not instant ones. By the time the wizard has PAO, however, the druid can wear ironwood platemail if he wants (and the fighter spends weeks polymorphed into war trolls, lionals and other powerful forms that make him very powerful, far more powerful the druid can be with wildshape). Actually no. What happens when you are wearing armor is well-defined. If all those conditions do not apply to you, you are not wearing it. (To whit, reduced speed, max dex, armor check penalty, etc...). See? This is a clear example of the rule abuse you use to justify your ridiculous statements. ‘If all those conditions do not apply, you are not wearing it’ is as arbitrary as saying ‘if any of those conditions apply, you are wearing it’. The reason why I consider a wildshaped armor is still being worn has nothing to do with interpreting the wording of the rules as I find the most convenient to make my character more powerful. I simply think that if the armor is still working it is still worn, even if -some- of the armor traits are not longer working. That this simple logic also prevents the ridiculous abuse of the AC rules is an extra bonus. On a completely unrelated tentacle, Itwasntme is now in my ignore list because his posts are just too painful to read. Squirrelloid is right regarding the workings of the Monk’s Belt, though. It gives Wisdom Bonus +1 to AC when the person wearing it is not using armor or shields. It is that good, and that limited. |
| Bob Loblaw02-11-07, 09:00 AM | Actually, in most of these threads, the fighter has l33t l00t and the casters are basically naked. Fighters really need items. All classes need items. You will not be able to convince me otherwise. I have been playing long enough to know this is a fact. Note that I am not talking about PvP combat. Also, the post I was refering to said that fighters can't survive once their hit points get low. This holds true for every class. Every thread assumes that the caster has chosen the perfect spell selection for the day. That doesn't happen. I know that every caster I have seen in actual play has said "ah crap, I guess this spell is a wasted slot today." [The paladin's] pretty good at talking to them. Not every creature can be conversed with. The paladin is always assumed to be fighting Evil creatures when compared to the fighter. This is not the case in all games at all times. He'll have potions of healing, sure. Those get consumed rather quickly. Eventually he'll have a ring of regeneration, perhaps, but not until he's a high-level character. Free healing isn't all that the easy to come by in D&D. WIth all the feats a fighter gets, why not take Leadership? This would get him a sidekick who can help out with the healing. Also, the fighter does not exist in a vacuum. There are other characters in the group. If the healers aren't healing him and the other characters not casting defensive spells on him to aid him, then they are at fault. Sorry, but this is a team effort. Sending the fighter in is a good idea. As someone pointed out earlier, not everyone on the team can be the quarterback. hp regaining items the fighter can actually use...Give me a moment, i'll think of something... Oh, Ring of Regeneration. For 1 hp/level-hour. Go it. Yup, that's it in core. Keep thinking. There are other options. I know I saw a table in there about making magic items somewhere. Why limit yourself to what the game designers thought of? This might be why we're assuming fighters can't handle healing themselves. Neither can the barbarian, wizard, rogue, sorcerer or any other class without healing spells on their list yet this is not listed as a weakness for that class. A little unreasonable if you ask me. (Also note that any cash fighter's spend on items to heal themselves is cash they aren't spending on their weapon(s), armor, shield, items to boost str/con, items to otherwise boost AC, items to gain necessary immunities (eg, Mindblank), and so forth. Fighters, and melee characters in general, are one of the most cash strapped classes because they are so equipment dependent. Casters, on the other hand, can make whatever gear they need, and can use a wand or staff after they've run out of spells to supplement their casting power). Every class needs to be beefing themselves up somehow. I really don't think that fighters need specific items to gain immunities. Maybe the player can keep in mind his weaknesses and not get himself into situations where he needs to have that Mindblank. I know that I would certainly keep that in mind if I was an adventurer. edit: there are potions. Potions take a standard action, provoke AoOs, and heal diddly squat at mid-high levels. Useless. A fighter needs good long-term healing for between combats or HEAL during combat if its going to matter. And by good long term I mean Fast Healing 1 or something (10hp/min is good for between combats). There are also other options. Creating unique magic items. Perhaps intelligent items. What about a way to remove himself from danger and let his ring of regeneration work? Maybe he can use a device that allows him to teleport back to town, get healed, and then teleport back (I know I have used this trick before). Cash may not be an issue either if the fighter knows how to barter. It's a great way for the DM to provide adventure hooks. Because all of the other classes gain their abilities by waking up in the morning. The fighter gets his by spending money. A resource the fighter is very poor at aquiring and conserving. A fighter can buy items to regain hitpoints, or mimic rage, or do a lot of other things. But if he spends his money on that he won't have that potion of fly, or oil of weapon alignment, or extra +1 magical effect to his sword. All the other classes have the same issues. If the wizard is making items he is spending cash and XP, both are precious resources. Besides, why can't the rest of the team give him a hand when necessary? They expect him to get into danger to at least draw fire. Every enemy that is attacking the fighter is one that is not attacking them. The team should do something to show some gratitude. Fighter uses an item to get fly, the wealth needed to aquire that item is gone forever. Mage casts fly? It's back tommorow free of cost. Assuming that the wizard didn't prepare something else in place of fly. While I know that my wizards will usually have fly prepared, there have been times when it was unnecessary. Too often it is assumed that the caster always has the right spell ready to go. Sorry, but in actual game play this doesn't happen all the time. Fighter use a buff item that he didn't need to? He's down that money forever. Mage make a mistake and cast a spell he didn't need to? He can use his scroll if he needs it to survive later in the day, but more likely is just going to wake up tommorow down absolutely nothing. Wizard prepare a spell he didn't need to? He is down a resource as well. One that could cost him if the mistake is bad enough. Here is a classic example of how one can think he is prepared: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/cg/cg20010727a Now I know that not everyone will fall for this. I also know that not everyone is going to see through every ruse. |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 09:57 AM | This does not mean dragonhide fullplate is common, since it is almost impossible to get the raw materials. This doesn't matter, because PCs don't need to get the raw materials. They only need to roll into a small city and spend 3.3k. WIth all the feats a fighter gets, why not take Leadership? That's a great choice (in terms of power) for any character. But Leadership isn't a fighter bonus feat. Neither can the barbarian, wizard, rogue, sorcerer or any other class without healing spells on their list yet this is not listed as a weakness for that class. Wizards and sorcerers can summon creatures that can heal. Shapechange also gets the job done. |
| Bob Loblaw02-11-07, 10:35 AM | That's a great choice (in terms of power) for any character. But Leadership isn't a fighter bonus feat. It doesn't have to be a bonus fighter feat. The fighter has 17+ feats at level 20. He can probably afford to spend 1 of them on Leadership, if he wants. Other classes don't have that luxery. Personally, I never take Leadership as I don't like the bookkeeping that comes with it but it is still an option. Wizards and sorcerers can summon creatures that can heal. Shapechange also gets the job done. This is assuming that the wizard has the spells prepared. Every argument about the power of spellcasters always hinges on them having the right spell at the right time. This is simply not the case. What if I ran out of summoning spells? What if Conjuration or Transmutation are oppositional schools for me? What if I am not level 17 yet and can't shapechange? What if I don't like summoning monsters and have a different play style? I would never say that fighters are uber. I would never say that they are the most powerful class out there. I would say that they are not the worst. I would say that the arguments showing that fighters are weaker than spellcasters are unreasonable. The two classes aren't held to the same standards. No one ever looks at the other classes' weaknesses. They only compare the fighter's weaknesses with the other classes' strengths. Of course the fighter will fare poorly in those comparisons. |
| Krevon02-11-07, 10:45 AM | To me when you take one of the other classes that can fill in for a fighter, the combat gets really boring. I mean I can do the baseline as well a a fighter but there are no cleave power attack sundering...etc...options available. Also when I play the big one of the big three. I try to focus on whatevers biggest and baddest and let the warrior classes deal with minions. Useually by the time the warrior classes have finished up with the minions I'm hurt and need somone to take the heat off me. Many of the times the warriors will finish off whatever we're facing. And as a wizard, unless I specialize meaning there is another generalist around, I will take tie to help my part fly or whatever else is need assuming I have time and the spell slots for it. I know helping the party is becoming a foriegn concept but I still do it. Nothing is funnier than seeing my druid companion wildshaper into a corcodile and flying through the air.;) |
| Argaud02-11-07, 10:58 AM | Keep thinking. There are other options. I know I saw a table in there about making magic items somewhere. Why limit yourself to what the game designers thought of? There are feats a fighter can take to heal if the party has no divine caster. They aren't very efficient, but they are still more efficient than the wizard using summons to call unicorns to heal, or using polymorph to heal a handful of hp. For instance: * Combat Vigor, from PHB2, gives the fighter fast healing 2 for a few rounds. * Martial Spirit stance, from ToB, allows a character to heal 2 hp with each successful melee attack (and the character can also heal others). It is not easy, and it is not as efficient as having a cleric in the party, but fighters can do it. I think we are getting away from the OP question, though. I re-state my original opinion: The only valid reason to have a fighter in a party (or a wizard, or a druid, or a commoner, or an astral deva slowly progressing through the Savage Species' advancement table) is that there is a player than wants to play the character. |
| Jo_Pistachio02-11-07, 11:00 AM | This sentiment is the problem, in my opinion. Why is it that the fighter isn't assumed to have appropriate gear while every one else is? Sorry, but the casters are useless without their spells. The rogue is useless without being in the best situation to maximize his ability to take advantage. The barbarian isn't a powerhouse when he's fatigued. The paladin really isn't all that great against neutrally aligned creatures (or even good-aligned opponents). Why can't the fighter have something to help him with regaining hit points. I know there are dozens of items available, shouldn't he be allowed to have at least one? A wizard can cheaply and easily make scrolls of essential spells, regardless of item availability, as a class ability. There are very few things a fighter can do or make that will increase his personal healing abilities. |
| Jo_Pistachio02-11-07, 11:35 AM | It doesn't have to be a bonus fighter feat. The fighter has 17+ feats at level 20. He can probably afford to spend 1 of them on Leadership, if he wants. Other classes don't have that luxery. Personally, I never take Leadership as I don't like the bookkeeping that comes with it but it is still an option. It is an option. Sadly, you get a cohort who is a cleric and could wipe the floor with the fighter if both are well thought out. It's not a strong point for the fighter if you claim that a fighter is strong based off of his ability to use other characters instead. That's like me claiming a wizard is the most powerful because he can cast 10 world shattering powers in a round by using a planar sheperd cohort. This is assuming that the wizard has the spells prepared. Every argument about the power of spellcasters always hinges on them having the right spell at the right time. This is simply not the case. What if I ran out of summoning spells? What if Conjuration or Transmutation are oppositional schools for me? What if I am not level 17 yet and can't shapechange? What if I don't like summoning monsters and have a different play style? He lost conjuration and transmutation... The wizard will die in a Darwinian fashion, and the power of wizards goes up a fraction. Barring that, shadow conjurations could work, as well as some necromancy, though that only offers temporary hit points. If he did not have shapechange, he could cast polymorph. If you have a different playstyle, that's your problem, not a weakness of the class. I could similarily ask what your fighter would do to not just fail at life if he refused to take heals from other characters and items. I would never say that fighters are uber. I would never say that they are the most powerful class out there. I would say that they are not the worst. I would say that the arguments showing that fighters are weaker than spellcasters are unreasonable. The two classes aren't held to the same standards. No one ever looks at the other classes' weaknesses. They only compare the fighter's weaknesses with the other classes' strengths. Of course the fighter will fare poorly in those comparisons. Fine, a fighters best feature is his feats. These are a finite, concrete resource of power that is entirely up to the individual at hand. There is only one capstone feat that I can think of, weapon supremacy. All others are roughly equivalent to class abilities ranging from level 1 to about level 6 in power. Compare this to the wizards best ability. Spells. The wizard has at any given level a certain number of fluid spells that all are in isolation superior to a certain cluster of feats. This, again, assumes intelligent play on both parties. Spells simply cap in power higher than feats. There is nothing a fighter can do to increase the power of the feats he has already taken to the level of well chosen spells. He can merely level up, allowing his increase in BAB to help increase the power of the feats. Now, I look at a wizards weaknesses. It is low hit points, which is why con is always my secondary, and why I always cast heart of earth. This creates a wizard with a wealth of hit points even before I buy items, it I need to. Fighters can do likewise and probably have better by a certain amount. However, if the fighter also goes con secondary, the wizard is behind by exactly a single point until level 15 where he trails behind. By level 20, the wizard would only have 25 hit points less than the fighter. Secondary casting of heart of earth creates a 5 point favour for the wizard, assuming breaks of at least 6 seconds between encounters. HP is clearly not a real problem once you hit mid levels. If the fighter buys a con item, by then the wizard can also get a con item, and again, be roughly equal. Uses per day. This argument asserts that a wizard is utterly incapable of having spell slots after the fourth encounter of the day. At a mid to high levels, a caster can at any rate have a large reserve of lower level spells, not commonly used in the process of going nova. Spells like scorching ray, fireball, disintegrate and so forth all should be available at these levels, and still effective when chosen properly for the environment. Also, scribe scroll is a class ability for a reason. This argument also assumes that 20% of the parties resources will be spent in a given encounter. This assumption assumes no use of tactics on the part of either side. It also negates the fact that many combats with agrressive style play tend to end within a few rounds for either side, before any reasonable amounts of resources are used. Another wizard weakness is often claimed to be his spell book. Not only is taking it in the middle of combat generally difficult if not impossible, but it does not aid the NPCs in taking the thing anyway. It also assumes the caster will not take any measures to make sure it is not taken. For instance, I shring object mine into fabric and keep it in my sock. I also use metal pages, and some tattoes for critical spells. It is very, very difficult to remove all of my spells. Another is the spell component pouch. Simply carry more than one. The enemy can only sunder them by making a readied action, since a smart caster will not provoke an attack of opportunity. This means that attacking spell component pouches is a poor idea offensively, especially since it does not stop the spell anyway. So, assuming a caster player that takes all of these weaknesses into consideration, a caster will not have any of these typical weaknesses. A fighter cannot even make his strength equal to a wizards, let alone make his weaknesses of no versatility, limited options, need for assistance and lack of skills covered up. This does not mean some people won't enjot playing a fighter. It just means that he's neithe necessary for a parties survival, nor is he actually better than any of the other classes. Except perhaps the paladin and barbarian, but those two make you ask what your prioritize are. |
| megageek1202-11-07, 12:08 PM | There are feats a fighter can take to heal if the party has no divine caster. They aren't very efficient, but they are still more efficient than the wizard using summons to call unicorns to heal, or using polymorph to heal a handful of hp. For instance: * Combat Vigor, from PHB2, gives the fighter fast healing 2 for a few rounds. * Martial Spirit stance, from ToB, allows a character to heal 2 hp with each successful melee attack (and the character can also heal others). It is not easy, and it is not as efficient as having a cleric in the party, but fighters can do it. I think we are getting away from the OP question, though. I re-state my original opinion: The only valid reason to have a fighter in a party (or a wizard, or a druid, or a commoner, or an astral deva slowly progressing through the Savage Species' advancement table) is that there is a player than wants to play the character. All that does is make a point about the fighters outdatedness:rolleyes: . |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-11-07, 01:05 PM | All the other classes have the same issues. If the wizard is making items he is spending cash and XP, both are precious resources. Besides, why can't the rest of the team give him a hand when necessary? They expect him to get into danger to at least draw fire. Every enemy that is attacking the fighter is one that is not attacking them. The team should do something to show some gratitude. Wizard gold costs are less then any other class for their items, so they get more of them. And a due to the way XP is rewarded a Wizard can actually end up with more XP then the rest of the party by crafting at opportune times. And the party should show their gratatude to the fighter by having him retire at level 12 and getting someone who can take those high level hits. The "D&D" is a team game doesn't belong in ballance argements unless you can show the character actually is helping the team more then any other sack of high HP meat. Assuming that the wizard didn't prepare something else in place of fly. While I know that my wizards will usually have fly prepared, there have been times when it was unnecessary. Too often it is assumed that the caster always has the right spell ready to go. Sorry, but in actual game play this doesn't happen all the time. Wizard prepare a spell he didn't need to? He is down a resource as well. One that could cost him if the mistake is bad enough. Here is a classic example of how one can think he is prepared: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/cg/cg20010727a Now I know that not everyone will fall for this. I also know that not everyone is going to see through every ruse. You missed the point. If a Wizard makes a mistake, and can't correct it with one of his other spells, he loses money. A Fighter has to spend more money to cover his weak points whether or not he makes a mistake. The wizard can spend money to cover player error, the Fighter has to spend money to cover class weakness. |
| ninjarabbit02-11-07, 01:23 PM | The thing with the fighter is that almost every other class in D&D can fill the warrior role of the party as well or better than the fighter and bring things to the table that the fighter simply can't on his own. Moreso than almost any other class in D&D the fighter relies more on his equipment and buffs from others to make himself even somewhat effective while other classes like the druid, cleric, paladin, barbarian, and hexblade can buff themselves and don't need to rely on having certain pieces of equipment ot be effective. |
| FrostWolf02-11-07, 01:24 PM | I wish the Fighter got real abilities, not just feats. Maybe let them ready for an action and take an action, so long as they don't move? Or ready for more than one action at a time. I dunno. I have several ideas. Maybe let them get one spell of level three or less as a spell like ability once a day. Let them get one every 5 levels (Enlarge self as a SLA! Weeeee!). Or maybe a special, custom weapon they make as they gain levels. Gets stronger as they go or something. ` |
| Squirrelloid02-11-07, 01:42 PM | Wealth by level is a guideline as much as everything else in the books. You are just ignoring a rule that is inconvenient to the twinkfeast that are the games to play (killing dragons 10 CRs over your level, indeed). A wish is worth 25,000 gold pieces. That is the reasonable minimum an efreet would ask for a wish, the best diplomacy check of the world shouldn’t lower that cost much, since when the demand becomes unreasonable the spell fails. When you ignore the wealth by level you will always find the PCs are more powerful (with extra wealth) or weaker (with scarce wealth) than their level indicates, and that they handle the monsters too easily or can’t handle at all. Since in your game the players have infinite wealth/wishes I am not surprised at all they could defeat a CR 25 dragon at level 15. I can do it with a level 1 commoner. I bet all the PCs had an inherent +6 to all ability scores, among a host of ridiculous equipment, super-powers and badly interpreted/abused class abilities. Look, Charm Monster makes the Efreet helpful. He'd probably cast that wish for less than 25k, because he *wants* to help me. Now i make a simple DC 20 diplomacy check (even cc that's 7 ranks + cha mod, which i could have cast a spell to improve by 4 beforehand for at least a 9, and there are easy ways to get more, like a cheap +10 competence item) to make the Efreet a *fanatic devotee* of my character. He'll offer me the wishes without even my asking. He actively wants to lay down his life for me. 'Reasonable' is in the eye of the beholder. A person who would die for me would gladly offer something he gets by waking up in the morning, every morning. And he wouldn't even be mad at me later, because the diplomacy effect is permanent until changed by later diplomacy checks (or me being hostile to my buddy, etc...). Actually the rules for dragonhide armor state that the armor costs double than a masterwork steel armor. The rule is applicable to all armor, from hide to full plate. Hide dragonhide is actually quite common, since large dragons, like Wyverns, aren’t uncommon. This does not mean dragonhide fullplate is common, since it is almost impossible to get the raw materials. Adamantine -might- be equally hard to find, depending of the campaign. Or might not. In all the game settings I know adamantine is more common than colossal dragons. I reluctantly agree with Squirrelloid that Polymorph Any Object could be used to get dragon corpses, although a simple dispel magic or an AMF would return the armor to its original form, probably destroying the enchantment. PAO can make permanent transformations, but not instant ones. By the time the wizard has PAO, however, the druid can wear ironwood platemail if he wants (and the fighter spends weeks polymorphed into war trolls, lionals and other powerful forms that make him very powerful, far more powerful the druid can be with wildshape). You know, that does obviate this discussion. The druid has access to full plate he can wear, end of discussion. See? This is a clear example of the rule abuse you use to justify your ridiculous statements. ‘If all those conditions do not apply, you are not wearing it’ is as arbitrary as saying ‘if any of those conditions apply, you are wearing it’. The reason why I consider a wildshaped armor is still being worn has nothing to do with interpreting the wording of the rules as I find the most convenient to make my character more powerful. I simply think that if the armor is still working it is still worn, even if -some- of the armor traits are not longer working. That this simple logic also prevents the ridiculous abuse of the AC rules is an extra bonus. Sigh. Ok, actually finding the word wear in the armor section isn't easy, but its by implication all of the things. However: If a character is wearing armor and using a shield, both armor check penalties apply. Here is an instance of "wear" being immediately proximal to "armor". So our druid has a shield and armor before wildshaping. After wildshaping, the ACPs don't apply, so he is no longer wearing them (assume he's wearing them, =><=, QED). He gets no benefit from them. Now we imagine that armor is instead Wild. He still doesn't suffer ACP (Wild doesn't say that transfers), but he does gain the AC bonus from the armor. He is not wearing it because he is not suffering ACP (again, QED as before). Therefore a wildshaped Druid is not wearing armor, even if it has the wild ability. Sorry Argaud, you're strictly wrong here. On a completely unrelated tentacle, Itwasntme is now in my ignore list because his posts are just too painful to read. Now there's something I can agree with. |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 07:37 PM | Secondary casting of heart of earth creates a 5 point favour for the wizard, Doesn't stack (though it is a way to "heal" once you've lost the temp hp from the first one). Use false life instead. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 08:24 PM | i love how people would just ignore post/treads that have points in it just becouse they dount want to deal with something anyways First off fighter buying the boots of flying (Or any other item) Isnt hurting the fighter damage/defence bonus you can only get so much on your weapon/armor bonus once your there you have to figure out other ways to spend your gold The Wizard wouldnt be getting more money if the fighter wasnt in the group there is nothing the fighter is doing that no other character isnt doing the fighter is getting his share of the loot the wizard is getting his share of the loot the rouge is getting his share of the loot the cleric is getting his share of the loot get raid of the fighter add someone eles to fill in the melee/tank role you still have 4 people shareing the loot you find 40000 gp loot ... split it 4 ways (The normol party size) eveyone gets 10000 gp it dosnt matter who you are you get 10000 so your suggesting that the wizard should be alone with no other party members? |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 08:29 PM | Your forgetting that charm monster dosnt allways work allso remeber when your "charming" A monster that the monster wount jump off a cliff to help you it just acts like a friendly person its not acting like a kiss ass type of a person he'll help you but he has to see how and charm person a Geni is very rare Allso just becouse someone makes a mistake on something is no reason to ignore them/ban them for life remeber makeing a mistake on thinking that Monk Belt lets you add your Wisdom bonus to your AC when it dosnt? |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 08:37 PM | I wish the Fighter got real abilities, not just feats. Maybe let them ready for an action and take an action, so long as they don't move? Or ready for more than one action at a time. I dunno. I have several ideas. Maybe let them get one spell of level three or less as a spell like ability once a day. Let them get one every 5 levels (Enlarge self as a SLA! Weeeee!). Or maybe a special, custom weapon they make as they gain levels. Gets stronger as they go or something. ` Fighters feats allow him to pick differnt special abilitys In PH2 for example your fighter can now take feats that allow him to do certain things while eather weilding a certain weapon or feats that give them bonus's when they start combat the thing with the fighter is you can chooice which type of things you want to do with him the druid is kinda set you have wild shape you can choose what you want to wild shape into |
| High Octane02-11-07, 09:10 PM | Higher level fighters have the best capacity for AC and combat manuevers and straight tankability than any other class. Barbarians can do slightly more damage (Raging results in a +4 to attack and damage, +6 to damage with a 2 handed weapon, at 20th level. +3/+3/+4 from 11-19, But a fighter gets weapon Specialization/focus Which puts him at +2 to hit and +4 damage all by 12th level). The Barbarian takes a -2 hit to AC and the Fighter can certainly manage the highest AC of any base class through heavy armor, dodge, Combat expertise etc, however the barbarian also gets DR and a plus to Con. However he also suffers fatigue after a rage until 17th level, which as near as I can tell is not removed during another rage throughout the day, and a second rage results in exhaustion for an hour after it (Fatigue turns to exhaustion) and if the barbarian is dropped below 10 of what his unmodified hit point total is before his rage ends, he dies. A Fighter also has the freedom to specialize in other areas and have backup things such as blind-fight and the barbarian loses pretty much all of his advantage from rage if he cant get into melee, whereas a fighter can do amazing comparatively if he specializes in bow at ANY range. In short, hes an excellant tank with a good amount of versatility. The fighter has his issues, but I think that he needs only some tweaking, not anything major to up his power high enough. Now stepping out of core, of course you are going to find classes more suited towards a specialized field, b ut straight corse a fighter can hold his own. And also stepping out of core you can most certainly find better feats for the fighter (PH2 has a ton) And he will have the extra feats for it. Fighter also makes a great multi-class since it gets some good benefits for 1, 2 or 4 levels. (4th level is not only a bonus feat, but weapon specialization) One of the TOP benefits of fighters though is that they have one of the easiest time reaching fighter type prestige classes since he gets the excess feats. |
| Kresalak02-11-07, 09:19 PM | Higher level fighters have the best capacity for AC and combat manuevers and straight tankability than any other class. What? Fighters don't get anything that helps them get a high AC. Well, if you use the PHBII, you can get... +2 from feats. Meanwhile, the Druid is getting +7 from being a Dire Bear for no reason at all, and he can still get all the magical bonuses. Only he saves money because he can cast Barksin instead of buying an Amulet of Natural Armor. Once he hits 20, he can become a Legendary Bear and upgrade to +10. tl;dr Don't care, Barbarians also suck. It's just that the Fighter is the martial poster boy, and so we focus on him. In short, hes an excellant tank with a good amount of versatility. You're only versatile if you can actually do different things. Having the capability to be something else is worth precisely nothing. Fighter also makes a great multi-class since it gets some good benefits for 1, 2 or 4 levels. (4th level is not only a bonus feat, but weapon specialization) 2 levels of Barbarian are totally better than the last 2 of Fighter, since Weapon Specialization sucks ass and Barb. 2 gives you Rage 1/day and Uncanny Dodge. Rage gives +4 Str, which means +3 damage and +2 attack. One of the TOP benefits of fighters though is that they have one of the easiest time reaching fighter type prestige classes since he gets the excess feats. How many of these mythical PrCs are actually worth taking, and of those, how many have egregious feat requirements? By the way, egregious is the right word here; if the feats were any good you wouldn't need to be a Fighter to take them. |
| scienceman4702-11-07, 09:39 PM | May I point out that the concept of "tank" is a misnomer? In WoW or some ****, some guy with a lot of armor and no damage potential stands still and yells taunts to force a given opponent to attack him against his better judgement. Its a game of managing "aggro". Turns out, a lot of enemies don't have that big of an ego, especially when the "squishies" in back are actually doing damage. If the enemies are big, they overrun or some such. If the enemies can teleport, they do. If the enemies have will save spells, the fighters the first target. If a rogue is flanking, they turn around and beat him till he goes. The fighter doesn't have the ability to keep attention. If there was a designated tank, it would be the knight. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 10:28 PM | The thing with the fighter is that almost every other class in D&D can fill the warrior role of the party as well or better than the fighter and bring things to the table that the fighter simply can't on his own. Moreso than almost any other class in D&D the fighter relies more on his equipment and buffs from others to make himself even somewhat effective while other classes like the druid, cleric, paladin, barbarian, and hexblade can buff themselves and don't need to rely on having certain pieces of equipment ot be effective. this is true in many reguards however remeber that the fighter can use his gear better then the other class's thats his main class ability to use gear better then other class's Take the commener give him the same stuff has the fighter the fighter is better not only becouse of the extra HP/saves/BaB but becouse of the feats the fighter put into useing his gear more effectively then other characters the commener can only do so much witht he feats limited to him sense he has no other class ability the fighter has feats that can make thouse items of his better usefull then they normoly are for example he can give bonus to hits/damage/extra moves to use with thouse items then other class's can Sure the +5 Long sword is powerfull in a level 1 character hands but its a little bit more better in the level 1 fighters hands then other level 1 characters the point of the fighter is to use Gear Better then any other class in the game while this is fun to people in differnt ways its not fun to other people why? Becouse they rather relie on them selfs then items the point of war however is to use eveything you have Yourself AND Items to beat your nme the mind flyer is going to be useing mind blast and other abilitys to use and the Rods/Powers he has sure there not items but there abilitys/things only he has or if someone eles has it there not like the mind flyer in that respect yes fighters can be usefull all the class's can be usefull its up on your play style tho in short it depends on the type of game your playing if your playing in a No Magic game then Wizards are going to suck and the Barbian/Fighter/Melee people are going to rampage all over the place |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 10:32 PM | May I point out that the concept of "tank" is a misnomer? In WoW or some ****, some guy with a lot of armor and no damage potential stands still and yells taunts to force a given opponent to attack him against his better judgement. Its a game of managing "aggro". Turns out, a lot of enemies don't have that big of an ego, especially when the "squishies" in back are actually doing damage. If the enemies are big, they overrun or some such. If the enemies can teleport, they do. If the enemies have will save spells, the fighters the first target. If a rogue is flanking, they turn around and beat him till he goes. The fighter doesn't have the ability to keep attention. If there was a designated tank, it would be the knight. thats WoW Lets talk about StarWars now all of a sudden! differnt rule play/play style my friend just becouse in D&D online fighters run around eveywhere with Daggers of uber con drain kills eveything then they swich to a differnt weapon to kill off the rust monsters dosnt mean we should start argueing that it should work in D&D thats a differnt Game yes its D&D but its online and a certain type of play style in other words dount bring other games/play style into a system like dount bring homebrew type of things into the game plz |
| Bob Loblaw02-11-07, 10:40 PM | It is an option. Sadly, you get a cohort who is a cleric and could wipe the floor with the fighter if both are well thought out. It's not a strong point for the fighter if you claim that a fighter is strong based off of his ability to use other characters instead. That's like me claiming a wizard is the most powerful because he can cast 10 world shattering powers in a round by using a planar sheperd cohort. To make sure I understand what you are saying: Needing someone else to help you means a weak point. And one of the strengths of casters is that they can summon. Sounds to me like the argument is inconsistent. He lost conjuration and transmutation... The wizard will die in a Darwinian fashion, and the power of wizards goes up a fraction. Barring that, shadow conjurations could work, as well as some necromancy, though that only offers temporary hit points. If he did not have shapechange, he could cast polymorph. If you have a different playstyle, that's your problem, not a weakness of the class. I could similarily ask what your fighter would do to not just fail at life if he refused to take heals from other characters and items. I haven't summoned a creature in several years of gaming. I also dislike the polymorph/shapechange spells. Strangely enough, I know what I'm doing with my characters so I haven't lost one yet because of these failings. I also do not use much in the way of illusion spells. Trust me, there isn't any problem with how I play fighters or casters. The problem is that the nay-sayers do not think in broad enough terms. They only assume how the classes fit intot the campaign(s) they have been in. Since the are far more campaigns than any of us will ever see, it is unreasonable to assume that your prespective is the only one. Fine, a fighters best feature is his feats. These are a finite, concrete resource of power that is entirely up to the individual at hand. There is only one capstone feat that I can think of, weapon supremacy. All others are roughly equivalent to class abilities ranging from level 1 to about level 6 in power. Compare this to the wizards best ability. Spells. The wizard has at any given level a certain number of fluid spells that all are in isolation superior to a certain cluster of feats. This, again, assumes intelligent play on both parties. Spells simply cap in power higher than feats. There is nothing a fighter can do to increase the power of the feats he has already taken to the level of well chosen spells. He can merely level up, allowing his increase in BAB to help increase the power of the feats. Spells are more powerful. I will never deny that. I also don't think it's reasonable to compare the two. I have played fighters and casters for many years and I have enjoyed them both for a variety of reasons. One of the things my groups tends to do (and this may be why we don't have the same "issues" others have) is to determine each character's role in the group. We then try to make sure we don't step on each others' toes. While we can all do a little of each character's role, we try to stay focused on our own. Now, I look at a wizards weaknesses. It is low hit points, which is why con is always my secondary, and why I always cast heart of earth. This creates a wizard with a wealth of hit points even before I buy items, it I need to. Fighters can do likewise and probably have better by a certain amount. However, if the fighter also goes con secondary, the wizard is behind by exactly a single point until level 15 where he trails behind. By level 20, the wizard would only have 25 hit points less than the fighter. Secondary casting of heart of earth creates a 5 point favour for the wizard, assuming breaks of at least 6 seconds between encounters. You also forgot to mention that spells are also a weakness of casters. Casters are not always able to regain their spells. With the number of options that people throw out there that the caster can handle, you simply should not be able to pull it off until mid to high levels, if at all. Also, note that the way you play wizards is not going to be the same way I play them. We want different things out of the class. I don't ever focus on my hit points. In fact, I focus on not needing them in the first place. I don't want to be hit, and I rarely am. Uses per day. This argument asserts that a wizard is utterly incapable of having spell slots after the fourth encounter of the day. At a mid to high levels, a caster can at any rate have a large reserve of lower level spells, not commonly used in the process of going nova. Spells like scorching ray, fireball, disintegrate and so forth all should be available at these levels, and still effective when chosen properly for the environment. Also, scribe scroll is a class ability for a reason. Scrolls, wands, potions, etc should not be part of the discussion since fighters are not assumed to be allowed to have them. Also, note that I never talked about using up all of your spells. If that's happening, your DM may need to lighten up the encounters. What I'm talking about is: How many times did you prepare Scorching Ray? What did you give up to prepare that spell? What if you needed a polar ray instead? Can you adjust on the fly? The fighter doesn't need to as much. His tactics do not require that level of advanced planning. This argument also assumes that 20% of the parties resources will be spent in a given encounter. This assumption assumes no use of tactics on the part of either side. It also negates the fact that many combats with agrressive style play tend to end within a few rounds for either side, before any reasonable amounts of resources are used. 20% is only for an equal challenge rating. I don't like using that number because, in my experience, it really isn't all that accurate. Another wizard weakness is often claimed to be his spell book. Not only is taking it in the middle of combat generally difficult if not impossible, but it does not aid the NPCs in taking the thing anyway. It also assumes the caster will not take any measures to make sure it is not taken. For instance, I shring object mine into fabric and keep it in my sock. I also use metal pages, and some tattoes for critical spells. It is very, very difficult to remove all of my spells. I think that claiming the spellbook as a weakness is akin to claiming the sword is a weakness for the fighter. Taking either away can be a crippling event. And taking away the spellbook in combat is meaningless since the wizard has already prepared his spells. Another is the spell component pouch. Simply carry more than one. The enemy can only sunder them by making a readied action, since a smart caster will not provoke an attack of opportunity. This means that attacking spell component pouches is a poor idea offensively, especially since it does not stop the spell anyway. This rarely happens in games so it's not really a weakness. It's also like saying archers are weak when you take away their arrows. It's a no-brainer and a poorly thought out argument. So, assuming a caster player that takes all of these weaknesses into consideration, a caster will not have any of these typical weaknesses. A fighter cannot even make his strength equal to a wizards, let alone make his weaknesses of no versatility, limited options, need for assistance and lack of skills covered up. Perhaps you should join us in one of our games. You would see that the fighters are often very fun and versatile characters. This does not mean some people won't enjot playing a fighter. It just means that he's neithe necessary for a parties survival, nor is he actually better than any of the other classes. Except perhaps the paladin and barbarian, but those two make you ask what your prioritize are. I would never say that any class is necessary for survival of the group. That would be bad adventure design. I would say that the fighter can be a great addition in the right group. The group doesn't have to be a bunch of idiots either. I think that the group has to have a dynamic set up that allows everyone to shine. |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 10:52 PM | And one of the strengths of casters is that they can summon. Casters summon significantly better than fighters. In fact, casting summon spells is a class feature for such classes. On the hand, fighters are no better than any other class when it comes to taking and using leadership. Perhaps you should join us in one of our games. You would see that the fighters are often very fun and versatile characters. In one of the campaigns I'm running, the players are refusing to play characters that can't cast spells. Tanking is relegated to cohorts, undead minions, and so on. It's kind of strange. |
| megageek1202-11-07, 10:56 PM | this is true in many reguards however remeber that the fighter can use his gear better then the other class's thats his main class ability to use gear better then other class's Take the commener give him the same stuff has the fighter the fighter is better not only becouse of the extra HP/saves/BaB but becouse of the feats the fighter put into useing his gear more effectively then other characters the commener can only do so much witht he feats limited to him sense he has no other class ability the fighter has feats that can make thouse items of his better usefull then they normoly are for example he can give bonus to hits/damage/extra moves to use with thouse items then other class's can Sure the +5 Long sword is powerfull in a level 1 character hands but its a little bit more better in the level 1 fighters hands then other level 1 characters the point of the fighter is to use Gear Better then any other class in the game while this is fun to people in differnt ways its not fun to other people why? Becouse they rather relie on them selfs then items the point of war however is to use eveything you have Yourself AND Items to beat your nme the mind flyer is going to be useing mind blast and other abilitys to use and the Rods/Powers he has sure there not items but there abilitys/things only he has or if someone eles has it there not like the mind flyer in that respect yes fighters can be usefull all the class's can be usefull its up on your play style tho in short it depends on the type of game your playing if your playing in a No Magic game then Wizards are going to suck and the Barbian/Fighter/Melee people are going to rampage all over the place What is the point you're making? And why can fighters use magic items better than everyone else? And there is no limit on the number of special abilities a weapon can have. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 10:57 PM | What? Fighters don't get anything that helps them get a high AC. Well, if you use the PHBII, you can get... +2 from feats. Meanwhile, the Druid is getting +7 from being a Dire Bear for no reason at all, and he can still get all the magical bonuses. Only he saves money because he can cast Barksin instead of buying an Amulet of Natural Armor. Once he hits 20, he can become a Legendary Bear and upgrade to +10. Don't care, Barbarians also suck. It's just that the Fighter is the martial poster boy, and so we focus on him. You're only versatile if you can actually do different things. Having the capability to be something else is worth precisely nothing. 2 levels of Barbarian are totally better than the last 2 of Fighter, since Weapon Specialization sucks ass and Barb. 2 gives you Rage 1/day and Uncanny Dodge. Rage gives +4 Str, which means +3 damage and +2 attack. How many of these mythical PrCs are actually worth taking, and of those, how many have egregious feat requirements? By the way, egregious is the right word here; if the feats were any good you wouldn't need to be a Fighter to take them. first off the arguement was on that ok the Druid gets +7 from the direbear the fighter has other things giveing him AC bonus as well the Direbear lowers the to hit on the Druid as allready pointed out the Druid lose's other abilitys/effectiveness by wildshapeing into some other creature He gains and he loses some things No this arguement isnt forthcomeing There are more things allowing to give the fighter a bonus to AC then normol however allso remeber that 1 thing dosnt count for eveything which is why fighters dount want to go Pure 1 thing like eveyone argues on Just becouse you have an AC of 50 dosnt mean creatures cant hit you lets say you run across a creature that has +70/+70/+65/+65/+60/+55/ to hit your AC 50 dosnt matter anymore so your whole PURE AC Way dosnt matter anymore and the creature starting hitting you you should find a way to balence AC/HP/To Hit/Damage/Saves/Abilitys they cant All be super high to make something super high you lose the benefit of something eles a Smart character should Balence all of thouse things out ok i lose 1 AC but in exchange for that i get +10 to hit? seems like a good trade dount give an arguement on how the character lost 1 AC he got an extra +10 to hit maybe the +10 to hit is worth it more then the 1 AC? and none of this arguement on how the character 2 hit sucks what my AC is 3 lower then yours Big Deal my to hit is 5 higher then yours! so i can offord to get a lower number on the D20 to hit you then you can now you need to have a balence of damage i deal more damage then your character but +10 damage at least ok but your character has special abilitys! you have to have a balence of things something the fighter can do more of though dount forget that eveyone can do something so if your 1 weekness is Your Saves then a smart character will figure that out and use it agest you so have a Balence of things dount Deck your character out all in 1 thing or if you do make sure its REALY GOOD or a fair amount ahead after all being able to deal +100 damage is over kill on a dum kobolt with 5 hp all you needed was to get a +5 damage on your weapon yes a little bit can count tho example Barbian VS Fighter Barbian has about 2-6 extra damage then the fighter and +2-4 to hit and a little bit of DR/HP the Fighter can take feats to match any of thouse deals that he wants if the fighter wanted to he could make him self better then the barbian ... the problem is hes now more on the lines of a barbian but allright the Fighter has More AC then the barbian about 5 points lets say in this battle So the barbian has a -1 to hit the fighter (On bonus wise) the fighter has a +1 to hit (Where saying 2 same state/% on hit rolls/HP rolled and things like that) so the fighter hits more lets say the fighter needs to roll a 10 or higher to hit the barbian the barbian needs a 8 or a 9 to hit the fighter due to the higher AC so 50% of the fighters attacks land there only doing 2-6 less damage then the barbians the Barbian only lands about 40-45% of his attacks the Barbian has extra HP tho (Lets say 1 per level there not allways rolling max or smaller and remeber even tho its a D12 theres a lower chance of the barbian getting more then the fighter with a D10 yes he has the chance of getting 2 more hp then the fighter but the % of it is low) the Fighter has his feats to overcome the DR and the Extra HP the barbian only has 3-4 feats lets say the fighter has 12 feats thouse 12 feats can end up makeing the differnce of Extra Damage/To Hit or even more AC to make the barbian miss more offtin so it depends on the type of Fighter you want to play if you just want to beat the barbian then perhaps the fighter would up his AC with the feats or To/hit/damage but the fighter is taking away possiblitys of other things but hes able to beat the barbian in his own game (That game is Tank VS Tank Battle) theres many differnt types of ways how to fight someone remeber in this match it could go Eather way eather the Barbian or the Fighter could win it remeber no matter what the Barbian Or the Fighter is doing hear there negating Other Possiblitys same gos to wizards you have to pick an X Amount of spells out of your spell book/what you Learn becouse remeber not all wizards know evey spell in the game thats just a chance if all the wizard did was run around and get more spells in his book then very well theres allso just a chance that the other person has more gold/more experince then you do so without takeing thouse small amount of % of MAYBE something is happning you have about the same type of strength character just in differnt ways the level 1 wizard will more then likly lose to the level 1 barbian tho yes the wizard can win if he was able to play it smarter then you normoly would be its the same at level 20 sep Reversed the barbian vs the wizard the barbian has a bit higher chance of loseing then the wizard its still anyones game tho becouse no one is the same as someone eles even if you are twins your not the same your not allways getting the same results my twin rolled a Nat 20 so i should as well! the chances of the other person getting a Nat 20 is there ill give you that but its small |
| megageek1202-11-07, 11:04 PM | first off the arguement was on that ok the Druid gets +7 from the direbear the fighter has other things giveing him AC bonus as well the Direbear lowers the to hit on the Druid as allready pointed out the Druid lose's other abilitys/effectiveness by wildshapeing into some other creature He gains and he loses some things No this arguement isnt forthcomeing There are more things allowing to give the fighter a bonus to AC then normol however allso remeber that 1 thing dosnt count for eveything which is why fighters dount want to go Pure 1 thing like eveyone argues on Just becouse you have an AC of 50 dosnt mean creatures cant hit you lets say you run across a creature that has +70/+70/+65/+65/+60/+55/ to hit your AC 50 dosnt matter anymore so your whole PURE AC Way dosnt matter anymore and the creature starting hitting you you should find a way to balence AC/HP/To Hit/Damage/Saves/Abilitys they cant All be super high to make something super high you lose the benefit of something eles a Smart character should Balence all of thouse things out ok i lose 1 AC but in exchange for that i get +10 to hit? seems like a good trade dount give an arguement on how the character lost 1 AC he got an extra +10 to hit maybe the +10 to hit is worth it more then the 1 AC? and none of this arguement on how the character 2 hit sucks what my AC is 3 lower then yours Big Deal my to hit is 5 higher then yours! so i can offord to get a lower number on the D20 to hit you then you can now you need to have a balence of damage i deal more damage then your character but +10 damage at least ok but your character has special abilitys! you have to have a balence of things something the fighter can do more of though dount forget that eveyone can do something so if your 1 weekness is Your Saves then a smart character will figure that out and use it agest you so have a Balence of things dount Deck your character out all in 1 thing or if you do make sure its REALY GOOD or a fair amount ahead after all being able to deal +100 damage is over kill on a dum kobolt with 5 hp all you needed was to get a +5 damage on your weapon yes a little bit can count tho example Barbian VS Fighter Barbian has about 2-6 extra damage then the fighter and +2-4 to hit and a little bit of DR/HP the Fighter can take feats to match any of thouse deals that he wants if the fighter wanted to he could make him self better then the barbian ... the problem is hes now more on the lines of a barbian but allright the Fighter has More AC then the barbian about 5 points lets say in this battle So the barbian has a -1 to hit the fighter (On bonus wise) the fighter has a +1 to hit (Where saying 2 same state/% on hit rolls/HP rolled and things like that) so the fighter hits more lets say the fighter needs to roll a 10 or higher to hit the barbian the barbian needs a 8 or a 9 to hit the fighter due to the higher AC so 50% of the fighters attacks land there only doing 2-6 less damage then the barbians the Barbian only lands about 40-45% of his attacks the Barbian has extra HP tho (Lets say 1 per level there not allways rolling max or smaller and remeber even tho its a D12 theres a lower chance of the barbian getting more then the fighter with a D10 yes he has the chance of getting 2 more hp then the fighter but the % of it is low) the Fighter has his feats to overcome the DR and the Extra HP the barbian only has 3-4 feats lets say the fighter has 12 feats thouse 12 feats can end up makeing the differnce of Extra Damage/To Hit or even more AC to make the barbian miss more offtin so it depends on the type of Fighter you want to play if you just want to beat the barbian then perhaps the fighter would up his AC with the feats or To/hit/damage but the fighter is taking away possiblitys of other things but hes able to beat the barbian in his own game (That game is Tank VS Tank Battle) theres many differnt types of ways how to fight someone remeber in this match it could go Eather way eather the Barbian or the Fighter could win it remeber no matter what the Barbian Or the Fighter is doing hear there negating Other Possiblitys same gos to wizards you have to pick an X Amount of spells out of your spell book/what you Learn becouse remeber not all wizards know evey spell in the game thats just a chance if all the wizard did was run around and get more spells in his book then very well theres allso just a chance that the other person has more gold/more experince then you do so without takeing thouse small amount of % of MAYBE something is happning you have about the same type of strength character just in differnt ways the level 1 wizard will more then likly lose to the level 1 barbian tho yes the wizard can win if he was able to play it smarter then you normoly would be its the same at level 20 sep Reversed the barbian vs the wizard the barbian has a bit higher chance of loseing then the wizard its still anyones game tho becouse no one is the same as someone eles even if you are twins your not the same your not allways getting the same results my twin rolled a Nat 20 so i should as well! the chances of the other person getting a Nat 20 is there ill give you that but its small what monster has +70 to hit... |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:04 PM | What is the point you're making? And why can fighters use magic items better than everyone else? And there is no limit on the number of special abilities a weapon can have. my point on that is this The Fighter has feats which gives him bonus's to use a weapon depending on the level of the fighter is depending on the bonus he could just up the attack rating of the weapon so he could have a +1 or higher better attack rating then the other character with that item thus its a bit better (Again depends on the level) In the hands of the fighter then the commener the commener could pick Weapon Focus and Improve Weapon Focus (Lets just give him that) he gets a bonus to hit on it the fighter allso picks thouse 2 feats and gets the same bonus BUT The fighter has more feats so he picks Improved trip with the spiked chain along with other feats So the fighter has the same To Hit then the commener but the fighter is more likly to trip/hit the commener then the commener dos agest the fighter becouse the fighter has improved Trip with his spiked chain its the same for any item the fighter can have extra benefits on it then any other character useing the item yes they gain the benefits but in some way the fighter if he wanted to can gain some short of benefit over it then you can example (Revering to my Sig) A Fighter if he wanted to can take over the role of a Rouge the problem is now that the Fighter made him self weeker in other respects he took over that class role tho should we say the rouge is useless now? no but it dos help to point out that the Fighter can do things if he wanted to he cant be perfect but no one eles can we could sit hear and argue how the fighter is beating the rouge in his own ways but i rather not becouse one im makeing the rouge look terrible and 2 the fighter is now gaining the weekness of the rouge and other things sure the fighter replaced the rouge but now the fighter cant do the job thats normoly open to him there are useoly things on how fighters can do things better then other class's he cant Cast Wish but he could have other things do it for him He cant do ALL the things eveyone eles can do no thats dumb but he can fill some roles on the battle field better then other class's can |
| megageek1202-11-07, 11:06 PM | my point on that is this The Fighter has feats which gives him bonus's to use a weapon depending on the level of the fighter is depending on the bonus he could just up the attack rating of the weapon so he could have a +1 or higher better attack rating then the other character with that item thus its a bit better (Again depends on the level) In the hands of the fighter then the commener the commener could pick Weapon Focus and Improve Weapon Focus (Lets just give him that) he gets a bonus to hit on it the fighter allso picks thouse 2 feats and gets the same bonus BUT The fighter has more feats so he picks Improved trip with the spiked chain along with other feats So the fighter has the same To Hit then the commener but the fighter is more likly to trip/hit the commener then the commener dos agest the fighter becouse the fighter has improved Trip with his spiked chain its the same for any item the fighter can have extra benefits on it then any other character useing the item yes they gain the benefits but in some way the fighter if he wanted to can gain some short of benefit over it then you can example (Revering to my Sig) A Fighter if he wanted to can take over the role of a Rouge the problem is now that the Fighter made him self weeker in other respects he took over that class role tho should we say the rouge is useless now? no but it dos help to point out that the Fighter can do things if he wanted to he cant be perfect but no one eles can we could sit hear and argue how the fighter is beating the rouge in his own ways but i rather not becouse one im makeing the rouge look terrible and 2 the fighter is now gaining the weekness of the rouge and other things sure the fighter replaced the rouge but now the fighter cant do the job thats normoly open to him there are useoly things on how fighters can do things better then other class's he cant Cast Wish but he could have other things do it for him He cant do ALL the things eveyone eles can do no thats dumb but he can fill some roles on the battle field better then other class's can Stop comparing the fighter to the commoner...:rolleyes: |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 11:08 PM | what monster has +70 to hit... The stone colossus. By the way, did you really have to quote his entire post? |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:10 PM | what monster has +70 to hit... well theres epic level monsters there monsters who are just touch attacking you theres monsters that have that high of a Grapple check later on in the game depends on the Type of level and type of monsters your going after many monsters just flat ignore AC so a smart character shouldnt just fully deck him self out in that reguard |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:11 PM | The stone colossus. By the way, did you really have to quote his entire post? i beleve he was just trying to make it clear it was aimed at me dount have to be rude theres no need |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:13 PM | Stop comparing the fighter to the commoner...:rolleyes: i wasnt i was just giveing an example that someone ask about the fighter/commener so i was giveing an example on that ill give examples on other things if people ask about them i just dount see people asking on things besides my example to the commener vs fighter |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:17 PM | Casters summon significantly better than fighters. In fact, casting summon spells is a class feature for such classes. On the hand, fighters are no better than any other class when it comes to taking and using leadership. In one of the campaigns I'm running, the players are refusing to play characters that can't cast spells. Tanking is relegated to cohorts, undead minions, and so on. It's kind of strange. if you wanted the effect of summon you could just have a Leadership type of fighter now he has an whole army on his side evey of which are differnt class's/races in answer to his post i beleve summon is week coz if you kill the caster you useoly end up killing the summoned monsters so find some way how to just start hitting the caster and keep it up then the creatures will leave you alone coz most of the time they disapear when the caster who summoned them dies now a smart summener would have some way how to defend himself agest that |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 11:21 PM | if you wanted the effect of summon you could just have a Leadership type of fighter now he has an whole army on his side evey of which are differnt class's/races But fighters aren't any better at using leadership than any of the other classes. then the creatures will leave you alone coz most of the time they disapear when the caster who summoned them dies Really? I wasn't aware that that's how it works. |
| Lotus Crane02-11-07, 11:26 PM | Every party needs a competent melee warrior. The question is, is a (pure) fighter the most competent melee warrior? The answer, for better or worse, is no. Practically any melee warrior might benefit from 1, 2, or even 4 fighter levels (3 is a terrible idea for reasons too obvious to mention), but if you're a fighter 1/X 9/Y 10, I don't think you can properly call yourself a "fighter." For a melee warrior closest to the feel and flavor of fighters, warblades are an excellent choice. They even have the weapon familiarity class features which lets them count as a fighter of their level -2, so yes, warblades can qualify for Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery, and Weapon Supremacy, just like a fighter can. Clerics with Divine Persisted divine power, or druids in wildshape form, also make excellent melee warriors. Even though such characters lack the combat feats of a fighter, their physical ability scores (and thus total attack bonuses) tend to be higher. And at the end of the day, having a higher Strength and attack bonus is probably more useful than having a bunch of feats. At 1st level, a druid with his wolf or riding dog, when considered together, are probably at least as effective as a fighter when it comes to screening the wizard from enemies. People who claim that a fighter could beat a druid or an animal companion might be correct, but it's almost impossible for a fighter to beat a druid and an animal companion simultaneously, and in any fair class comparison or duel setup, the fighter should be forced to fight both of them simultaneously, since the animal companion is literally part of the druid class. if you wanted the effect of summon you could just have a Leadership type of fighter now he has an whole army on his side evey of which are differnt class's/races If we can assume that the fighter will have the Leadership feat, we can assume that the caster will also have the leadership, plus his summon spells. Practically speaking though, except for the cohort, Leadership attracts NPC's that are more liability than ally. now a smart summener would have some way how to defend himself agest that The simplest defense is casting the 2nd level spell invisibility. It'll last a minimum of 3 minutes, and casting summon monster is not a directly offensive action, so the caster can keep generating creatures every round while safely invisible. The fighter will be too busy struggling against the summons to search for the square the caster's hiding in. |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:32 PM | on a side note yes a druid can end up wearing something like Full plate Dragonhide Plate the problem is the Fullplate can get more Bonus's to it then the Dragonhide plate can and by normol arguements evey point counts so yes the druid can get Fullplate to a Degree it just isnt the Same as Fullplate however inless you ban Crafting items on your own to make DragonhidePlate Better with Enchanments You cant buy it like it is but you can effectivly Craft it better in some ways the problem with this is that Unlike Mithril or Admintine Dragonhide has no Normol States just has a substence Mithril lowers Armor check and gives a Bonus to Dex on the armor and makes it act like its 1 catagory lighter then it normoly is by reduceing the wight and it gives the cost of the Mithril by what type of armor your trying to make Admintine gives you its own Bonus (DR and such) And its Price on its own list both Mithril and Admintine has retrictions on it (Like only to Metal items) but it gives the full listing of the type of metal your useing to contruct something stateing you can use it on any metal type item and hears how to do it DragonHide Dos not it only gives 1 specific type of armor that it is You dount know the Abilitys Dragon hide gave you all you know is that Druids can now wear Fullplate in some form Well theres Admintine Full plate and Mithril fullplate if it just gave us thouse stats of just thouse items we wouldnt fully know all the things Thouse metals can do For all we know Dragonhide could be realy powerfull and offer that the Check Penity can be lowerd down to 0 or even give you a a bonus VS Check penity we dount know becouse its not something you can normoly make items out of you can only realy make Full plate out of it (And its Not Magicol) |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:41 PM | Every party needs a competent melee warrior. The question is, is a (pure) fighter the most competent melee warrior? The answer, for better or worse, is no. Practically any melee warrior might benefit from 1, 2, or even 4 fighter levels (3 is a terrible idea for reasons too obvious to mention), but if you're a fighter 1/X 9/Y 10, I don't think you can properly call yourself a "fighter." For a melee warrior closest to the feel and flavor of fighters, warblades are an excellent choice. They even have the weapon familiarity class features which lets them count as a fighter of their level -2, so yes, warblades can qualify for Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery, and Weapon Supremacy, just like a fighter can. Clerics with Divine Persisted divine power, or druids in wildshape form, also make excellent melee warriors. Even though such characters lack the combat feats of a fighter, their physical ability scores (and thus total attack bonuses) tend to be higher. At 1st level, a druid with his wolf or riding dog, when considered together, are probably at least as effective as a fighter when it comes to screening the wizard from enemies. If we can assume that the fighter will have the Leadership feat, we can assume that the caster will also have the leadership, plus his summon spells. Practically speaking though, except for the cohort, Leadership attracts NPC's that are more liability than ally. The simplest defense is casting the 2nd level spell invisibility. It'll last a minimum of 3 minutes, and casting summon monster is not a directly offensive action, so the caster can keep generating creatures every round while safely invisible. The fighter will be too busy struggling against the summons to search for the square the caster's hiding in. summon monsters low in levels is nice later on the characters could just make a spot check to see where your character is And in Leadership feat you get negitives if you happin to have a Familer or if you have a mount or many other deals so spell casters with a familier would get negitives to such use allso depending on your aliment/class you allso get negitives to use leadership like Paladins is the simplest to point out they cant Hire people they must be willing to follow him a big negitive to many people And yes in normol D&D standerds when you kill the person who casted such a Summon spell then normoly (Sometimes its not true like Demon summoning or Gate) The creatures go away Now if you where a Balor you could summon 1 more Balor to help fight you just remeber that Balor loses all effects of being able to summon creatures and sometimes summoning creatures later on in the game has a good chance of turning agest you or if they dount turn agest you neather do they have to help you Summong monsters/creatures isnt the greatest thing later on in the game for many reason the best creature after a while is the pixy but only becouse of Ottos dance you do not control the Creature the DM Normoly dos that and inless hes going to let the creature allways do something to the MAX of the summer effect (Which many players like to think) Its not going to happin at least not all the time |
| itwasntme02-11-07, 11:45 PM | to the Question on if a Fighter could be the Main Melee role is yes it can sometimes its better then the other class's sometimes its not Its on how the chracter plays the character most of the time its not the good way on how to play a character but yes a fighter can fill in that Melee in a good way Example of the Barbian/Fighter fighting eather could win it just depends on the fighting style and eveything eles What type of Melee person do you want tho should be the question someone who cant take hits but deals more damage? or someone that just prevents the nme from getting to the back row but cant do much killing? |
| TheCobra02-11-07, 11:58 PM | And yes in normol D&D standerds when you kill the person who casted such a Summon spell then normoly (Sometimes its not true like Demon summoning or Gate) The creatures go away Why? Nothing in duration section of the PHB says anything about spells ending when the caster dies. In general, casters have to take a standard to end their spells, if they even have the power to do so. |
| Greendevilman02-12-07, 12:47 AM | Holy **** itwasntme I really hope English isn't your first language because your posts make my eyes bleed. And I've been on these here interwebs long enough that that shouldn't happen anymore. Basically- -Dragonhide armor isn't worth arguing about since it should be trivial to get Ironwood armor by then anyhow. In any case both of them are easier to get than Admantium armor unless you're in a odd home brewed setting. There is not some mysterious lack of information that keeps you from using dragonhide plate. It is just masterwork full plate that is made out of a dragon and thus is compatible with druids. It has the same stats and bonuses and penalties as any other suit of steel masterwork full plate. That is it. Full stop. You can enchant it/have it enchanted for you/purchase it pre-enchanted just as easily as any given mithril chain shirt. Dragonhide in the DMG isn't some mysterious substance that is impervious to magic being applied to it and has bizzare bonuses that arn't spelled out and is thus not available for use. Its chunks of Dragon corpse that can be used to make a high quality suit of plate armor that happens to be compatible with druid class restrictions. Oh noes! To relate this back to the original argument it basically goes like this- 1. Can people purchase enchanted items out of the DMG or have things enchanted for them? Is there a market for magical items? If this is the case Druids and Fighters can get exactly the same armor except the Fighter gets a possible +3 in additional bonuses that he can use that the Druid has to spend on Wild Armor. Which the Druid doesn't care about anyhow because all he wants is the armor's AC bonus. The Druid cringes in horror at what those devestating +3 in random armor bonuses bring the fighter. Or possibly not. 2. Is magic so rare that all you get is what you can find/make for yourself? Basically GM fiat here, but a Druid can actually make his own armor or use Ironwood to make use of whatever armor he finds. In the abstract this actually makes a Druid even stronger than a fighter since many of his bonuses to AC don't depend at all on items he finds. Look, all else being equal a Druid is simply going to have better physical stats (attack bonus, strength, AC) than a fighter while wildshaping with a possible exception of (on average) a 1hp per level loss assuming he does nothing to pump his con. This is possibly untrue though as a Druid only has 1 stat he really needs to care about unlike most fighters who can only really dump 1 to 2 stats and thus can afford to spend more on a high Con. A fighter gets lots of feats that give him cool combat options. However many of these feats can be duplicated by spells or wildshape abilities and a Druid is a strong full casting class for the duration of the game. Certain PrC builds can make the fighter (or Fighter/Barbarian) do some pretty amazing damage output but we arn't talking PrCs here and if we were then frankly casters usually have better ones. A straight and not terribly well optimized druid should be able to perform in a melee role about as well as a well put together fighter. Except the Druid can heal, nuke, summon and do utility stuff too. He may only be able to do 2-3 of these well at once on average but he can change what he does every time he has a chance to rest. Unlike a fighter who is pretty much limited to hitting/tripping things with his favored cutting device and doesn't even have the class skills to notice a rock falling on his head. Past a certain point there is no excuse for a caster who can buff themselves and cares to melee to have worse raw physical stats than a Fighter. The fighter does have more tactical options in terms of how he wants to hit things and has less needed buffing time in cases of suprise (except for druids/DMM clerics) but the casters have the option of Just Winning without having to resort to hitting things in the first place. And they can give themselves utility outside of combat. And they don't need items to be good. But they still benefit from them in similar ways to a fighter. Understand that I'm not saying this because I don't like the idea of a fighter class. I do. I really do. I have often played melee guys in the past and with Tome of Battle opening some new options up I'll continue to play them because I like the concept and hitting things with a big sword is fun and easy. And because they're pretty decent at low levels. But I still know that even in a low powered game after about level 6 or 7 fighters as a class (rather than a handy dip for feats) are pretty much garbage without increasing ammounts of support from other party members. Support that could be used more effectively elsewhere. PS: No summons do not go away when the caster dies and if you arn't a complete moron you'll be able to talk to anything you were planning to summon for its utility spells. Since casters have spells and extra skill points to help with that kind of thing. |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 08:10 AM | Why? Nothing in duration section of the PHB says anything about spells ending when the caster dies. In general, casters have to take a standard to end their spells, if they even have the power to do so. normoly i thought this as well but some Wizo person told me other wise so i took there word on it I would otherwise agree with you but im takeing Wiz Advice over the book |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 08:27 AM | Holy **** itwasntme I really hope English isn't your first language because your posts make my eyes bleed. And I've been on these here interwebs long enough that that shouldn't happen anymore. Basically- -Dragonhide armor isn't worth arguing about since it should be trivial to get Ironwood armor by then anyhow. In any case both of them are easier to get than Admantium armor unless you're in a odd home brewed setting. There is not some mysterious lack of information that keeps you from using dragonhide plate. It is just masterwork full plate that is made out of a dragon and thus is compatible with druids. It has the same stats and bonuses and penalties as any other suit of steel masterwork full plate. That is it. Full stop. You can enchant it/have it enchanted for you/purchase it pre-enchanted just as easily as any given mithril chain shirt. Dragonhide in the DMG isn't some mysterious substance that is impervious to magic being applied to it and has bizzare bonuses that arn't spelled out and is thus not available for use. Its chunks of Dragon corpse that can be used to make a high quality suit of plate armor that happens to be compatible with druid class restrictions. Oh noes! To relate this back to the original argument it basically goes like this- 1. Can people purchase enchanted items out of the DMG or have things enchanted for them? Is there a market for magical items? If this is the case Druids and Fighters can get exactly the same armor except the Fighter gets a possible +3 in additional bonuses that he can use that the Druid has to spend on Wild Armor. Which the Druid doesn't care about anyhow because all he wants is the armor's AC bonus. The Druid cringes in horror at what those devestating +3 in random armor bonuses bring the fighter. Or possibly not. 2. Is magic so rare that all you get is what you can find/make for yourself? Basically GM fiat here, but a Druid can actually make his own armor or use Ironwood to make use of whatever armor he finds. In the abstract this actually makes a Druid even stronger than a fighter since many of his bonuses to AC don't depend at all on items he finds. Look, all else being equal a Druid is simply going to have better physical stats (attack bonus, strength, AC) than a fighter while wildshaping with a possible exception of (on average) a 1hp per level loss assuming he does nothing to pump his con. This is possibly untrue though as a Druid only has 1 stat he really needs to care about unlike most fighters who can only really dump 1 to 2 stats and thus can afford to spend more on a high Con. A fighter gets lots of feats that give him cool combat options. However many of these feats can be duplicated by spells or wildshape abilities and a Druid is a strong full casting class for the duration of the game. Certain PrC builds can make the fighter (or Fighter/Barbarian) do some pretty amazing damage output but we arn't talking PrCs here and if we were then frankly casters usually have better ones. A straight and not terribly well optimized druid should be able to perform in a melee role about as well as a well put together fighter. Except the Druid can heal, nuke, summon and do utility stuff too. He may only be able to do 2-3 of these well at once on average but he can change what he does every time he has a chance to rest. Unlike a fighter who is pretty much limited to hitting/tripping things with his favored cutting device and doesn't even have the class skills to notice a rock falling on his head. Past a certain point there is no excuse for a caster who can buff themselves and cares to melee to have worse raw physical stats than a Fighter. The fighter does have more tactical options in terms of how he wants to hit things and has less needed buffing time in cases of suprise (except for druids/DMM clerics) but the casters have the option of Just Winning without having to resort to hitting things in the first place. And they can give themselves utility outside of combat. And they don't need items to be good. But they still benefit from them in similar ways to a fighter. Understand that I'm not saying this because I don't like the idea of a fighter class. I do. I really do. I have often played melee guys in the past and with Tome of Battle opening some new options up I'll continue to play them because I like the concept and hitting things with a big sword is fun and easy. And because they're pretty decent at low levels. But I still know that even in a low powered game after about level 6 or 7 fighters as a class (rather than a handy dip for feats) are pretty much garbage without increasing ammounts of support from other party members. Support that could be used more effectively elsewhere. PS: No summons do not go away when the caster dies and if you arn't a complete moron you'll be able to talk to anything you were planning to summon for its utility spells. Since casters have spells and extra skill points to help with that kind of thing. im useoly a person who dosnt Like Admintine i rather have Mithril i find the Extra Dex lighter loud lower check pen better then the DR and other propertys of Admintine no only thing that should be Admintine for me is the Weapon the arguement is that its a Specific pieace of armor you normoly Cant upgrade Specific type of Armor/Weapons The example was about the Holy Advenger how you cant take it and upgrade it tho you could end up makeing something that resumboled something like that Dragonhide falls under the same rules you cant buy it allready pre enchanted tho you can enchant it your slef (Provided you never used it before hand) And it has to be that Certain type of armor (Fullplate) You cant make it into something eles allowing dexterity to be useful sense there is no propertys of Dragonhide But yes having WildArmor is nice for a Druid but it shouldnt be considerd as the all powerfull armor of godlyness Its nice armor and i can see why druids would take it dount get me wrong but you guys seem to make it sound like its the best armor in the game eveyone should have it if they could Magic items are only rare early in the game and then later on it becomes much more open useoly by then characters have enough gold and such to start buying there gear on what they want and are not Very strict on what they can/cant buy before then the only real magicol items characters have is off of loot Ironwood is a better Sustence for Druids sense it gives the listing on it Dragonhide they do not apart of the first arguement a Druid is not going to have a better To Hit HP Or damage of a Fighter when Wildshape First off Druids have lower HP Then that of a fighter and they keep there normol standings of HP Even when wildshape so there a bit lower then the fighter on HP sense your useing your Own BaB On attacks and not the creatures you have a slightly less BaB On attacks meaning less to hit not only that but you normoly can only wildshape into a creature whos ECL or CR Is lower then yours meaning there To Hit is good for there Level But not the greatest later on The AC Of The Creature and yours improved i beleve but not to much useoly the fighters Extra AC before hand is more then yours then it becomes about even if not the druid pulling ahead by a few points tho the fighter has a Better to hit then your character dos so hes more likly to hit you and your less likly to hit him allso with your lower amount of HP You cant take has much punishment as the fighter can Allso the special attacks you get are nice and usefull but if your fighting a fighter or some other melee class your special attacks/abilitys are useoly not as good anymore eather by the fighter being able to easoly counter them by triping (Earlyer Statements) Or by some other way No .. The Druid is good in combat in wildshape becouse he is able to cast his Druid spell list in combat This is what makes the fighter or other melee types worried is not the Melee effectiveness of the Druid but the spellcasting Effectiveness of the Druid If the druid only stays with being a Melee type of character he'll get boned more offtin then he thinks Now if he starts useing Spells in combination with his Melee fightingskills then your able to do other things like Cast Ottos Dance or some other type of spells to help you win In short the druid isnt winning becouse of his Melee standing but of his ability to cast spells I still rather have a Cleric or a wizard or some other caster however to play as but if you just want to play a Tank Role then i rather play has a Barbian or fighter or a monk or something eles on that lines tho personily i stay with a Paladin there useoly my type of thing ... ya i rather take a Paladin then a fighter the only problem is there a bit Raw ... but i seem to allso do good with the Paladin better then most other players so i stick with what works for me |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 08:39 AM | To the Summon monster however at low levels its a good spell and i would use it however later on in the game the creatures you are able to summon just blow except for a very few amount of them and considering that summon monster are not under you command (Meaning you play them) But act like your Allies in combat meaning they act on there own and consider you an allie and would normoly attack the creatures harming you and will take basic commands You cannot control there evey action however and to dummon thouse higher evil creatures and not have it attack you is risky becouse even if you get it to not attack you its not a certain fact that it will now start helping you no for all shake it may go "Allright i cant attack you ... Ill Buff up the person who is able to attack you however" so thouse are much more Hostile and can backfire on later in the game u cannot cast level 4 spells intill level 7 the monsters you can summon are on adverage ment for level 3 characters meaning a level 3 character can take them on its still usefull but its starting to lose its usefullness at this point summon monster 5 u cant cast intill ur level 9 your now fighting level 5 creatures its still usefull but by then you have more powerfull gear and normoly things 4CR or smaller shouldnt be though at characters becouse its to easy same in Reverse a creature 4Cr or higher shouldnt normoly be tossed at players as its normoly 2 high there are rare examples on how creatures very week can still pos a challenge (like getting hordes of them to fight you) you have to figure its a waste of the casters turn to summon a creature that wount come to you intill next round meaning the creature (Or fighter in this case) Gets a full round to do what he wants eather attack move or cast a spell on his own (If he can cast spells) 1 full round is enough however to start attacking the caster and do some amount of damage to him however so summoning monsters later on in the game starts to lose its advantage as a whole round of combat could mean the differnce of Life or Death |
| Krevon02-12-07, 09:03 AM | when you summon evil creatures you cast circle of protection evil and that prevents summoned creatures from attacking you. Other spells, you negotiate a fee for doing what you want. gate is one where they are forced to do your will and you generally tick them off. |
| Greendevilman02-12-07, 10:02 AM | Ok your posting style still hurts my eyes and you just arn't looking at the reality. I'm not arguing about the dragonhide again except to say that it is a suit of nonmagical armor that is no more difficult in the abstract to get enchanted with whatever you like than any other metal. If you don't understand why this is you really have no business arguing at all. As for the physical stats thing actually take a look at what you can do: We'll assume that we're a medium to high level- say level 14 or so. And I'll be extremely generous and assume that the fighter has 20 base strength due to an 18 and being a half-orc or whatever. I'll be even more generous and say the Druid and Fighter have the same con score, though if we're using point buy the druid will likely have a higher score. The Fighter is going to probably pump his strength unless he needs to pump another score for feat purposes so we'll say that he ends up with a base strength of 23. At this level the standard wealth guidelines indicate no item should cost more than 37500 which means that a fighter can get at most a +6 to strength item at the cost of close to 1/4 of his total wealth. That puts him at a strength of 29 for a total bonus of +9. A druid can beat this strength with multiple forms that give a strength of at least 30. Given comparative BAB this puts him at most +3 (edit- actually +4, forgot about weapon focus) to hit behind the fighter and assuming weapon spec possibly losing a damage. This assumes the druid spends absolutely no resources to enhance himself, which he can easily do. It doesn't even particularly matter if the Druid uses self-buffs or items- if the Druid feels like it he can just cast something like Bite of the Werebear and completely dominate the fighter's strength score/attack bonus. Additionally most good combat forms are going to give useful abilities and at least as many attacks as the fighter would get. Now this is strength. Lets move on to con. Assuming average rolls on the part of the Druid and the Fighter and exactly even con by 14th level the Druid should be behind a whopping 15 hitpoints- two at level 1 and one at every other level. This is significant, but by level 14 not *that* significant and again a Druid is likely to be able to prioritize con more than a fighter so there may only be a 1 point average difference. This is assuming the Druid doesn't cheese out and use something like Bear's Endurance to recalculate HP with his Wildshape con modifier. And given that I demonstrate below that the Druid has on average better AC and saves a slight reduction in HP shouldn't affect things too much. On to AC! I'm assuming the fighter isn't godawful and is using an animated shield so he can 2h or 2 weapon fight. Guess what? So can a Druid. A +6 modifier is the largest wealth limits allow for magical armor or shields which means that while a . Just so you won't get all uppity I'll be really strict and assume that a Druid can only get a +5 bonus on dragonhide due to the cost of the armor. This means a fighter gets at best a +13 AC bonus if he has generic +5 full plate of random +1 bonus and his dex bonus is limited to 1. A Druid gets +2 Wild Dragonhide Plate for a +10 bonus and no cap to dex while Wildshaped. Lets say the Druid decides to hang out in a low AC form like Dire Bear. This form only has a +1 dex bonus, +7 NA bonus and -1 from size. This still puts him at least 3 AC over the Fighter without even trying. Considering he can cast Barkskin (a level 2 spell that by this point lasts over two hours) for +5 NA Enhancement bonus and that this isn't even his best armor boosting option I would say that the Druid has a decided edge here. A fighter can't even catch up with more gear because anything spent here a Druid can easily replicate and it would take away from other expensive gear the fighter NEEDS TO HAVE TO LIVE like rings of flying. On top of this the Fighter has only 1 good save while the Druid has two that are tied to abilities they usually maximize while the Fighter has one of his weak ones tied to a dump stat (which is unfortunate since making will saves is required to not die). Considering how high a Druid can boost even his Reflex save with the right Wildshape form, and how the Druid has the option of forms with flight and increased speed if he feels like using them I would say a Druid has a pretty good edge in overall survivability. You can complain about the level chosen but frankly Fighters are even more outclassed at earlier and later levels where (respectively) either gear isn't good enough to give Fighters decent stat boosts or Wildshape forms give even bigger bonuses. I also set up most of the assumptions to give the fighter a slight edge, with limited resources the Druid actually comes out even further ahead. And the point isn't even that the Druid always outperforms a fighter in melee ability. The point is that the Druid can post comparable stats without investing much time or energy into the process. While still retaining the awesome in and out of combat power that comes with being a full caster. A totally optimized melee Druid *can* beat an "average" fighter at his or her own game but frankly that Druid doesn't really have to bother doing so. Thus a Druid can probably "tank" as well or better than the average fighter, though the damage output and ability to disable multiple opponents at once through melee may be somewhat less than a totally optimized fighter. But again, the Druid doesn't *have* to do that because by the time the gattling tripper (or whatever) fighter really comes into its own the Druid can just win through casting. |
| Squirrelloid02-12-07, 10:24 AM | Can anyone else read page 6? Cause i know i posted on it, and i haven't been able to read it since. (I have no idea where the discussion is at this point, other than itwasntme must be saying something, but he made my ignore list). |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 10:28 AM | when you summon evil creatures you cast circle of protection evil and that prevents summoned creatures from attacking you. Other spells, you negotiate a fee for doing what you want. gate is one where they are forced to do your will and you generally tick them off. ive allready stated you could have protection agest that but in reading on it there is a chance of the evil creature breaking agest it and attacking you or as i pointed out the creature dosnt attack you ... but nether dos he help you ... insteed he starts buffing/healing the character/creatures that are able to attack you so in sense the Demon isnt attacking you or doing you any harm but he is agest you still by supporting the other creatures attacking you you summoned him from his home im sure hes mad at you for doing so but allso he could just kill the other creature as well but if hes intellgent he might use that creature to his advantage |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 10:30 AM | Ok your posting style still hurts my eyes and you just arn't looking at the reality. I'm not arguing about the dragonhide again except to say that it is a suit of nonmagical armor that is no more difficult in the abstract to get enchanted with whatever you like than any other metal. If you don't understand why this is you really have no business arguing at all. As for the physical stats thing actually take a look at what you can do: We'll assume that we're a medium to high level- say level 14 or so. And I'll be extremely generous and assume that the fighter has 20 base strength due to an 18 and being a half-orc or whatever. I'll be even more generous and say the Druid and Fighter have the same con score, though if we're using point buy the druid will likely have a higher score. The Fighter is going to probably pump his strength unless he needs to pump another score for feat purposes so we'll say that he ends up with a base strength of 23. At this level the standard wealth guidelines indicate no item should cost more than 37500 which means that a fighter can get at most a +6 to strength item at the cost of close to 1/4 of his total wealth. That puts him at a strength of 29 for a total bonus of +9. A druid can beat this strength with multiple forms that give a strength of at least 30. Given comparative BAB this puts him at most +3 (edit- actually +4, forgot about weapon focus) to hit behind the fighter and assuming weapon spec possibly losing a damage. This assumes the druid spends absolutely no resources to enhance himself, which he can easily do. It doesn't even particularly matter if the Druid uses self-buffs or items- if the Druid feels like it he can just cast something like Bite of the Werebear and completely dominate the fighter's strength score/attack bonus. Additionally most good combat forms are going to give useful abilities and at least as many attacks as the fighter would get. Now this is strength. Lets move on to con. Assuming average rolls on the part of the Druid and the Fighter and exactly even con by 14th level the Druid should be behind a whopping 15 hitpoints- two at level 1 and one at every other level. This is significant, but by level 14 not *that* significant and again a Druid is likely to be able to prioritize con more than a fighter so there may only be a 1 point average difference. This is assuming the Druid doesn't cheese out and use something like Bear's Endurance to recalculate HP with his Wildshape con modifier. And given that I demonstrate below that the Druid has on average better AC and saves a slight reduction in HP shouldn't affect things too much. On to AC! I'm assuming the fighter isn't godawful and is using an animated shield so he can 2h or 2 weapon fight. Guess what? So can a Druid. A +6 modifier is the largest wealth limits allow for magical armor or shields which means that while a . Just so you won't get all uppity I'll be really strict and assume that a Druid can only get a +5 bonus on dragonhide due to the cost of the armor. This means a fighter gets at best a +13 AC bonus if he has generic +5 full plate of random +1 bonus and his dex bonus is limited to 1. A Druid gets +2 Wild Dragonhide Plate for a +10 bonus and no cap to dex while Wildshaped. Lets say the Druid decides to hang out in a low AC form like Dire Bear. This form only has a +1 dex bonus, +7 NA bonus and -1 from size. This still puts him at least 3 AC over the Fighter without even trying. Considering he can cast Barkskin (a level 2 spell that by this point lasts over two hours) for +5 NA Enhancement bonus and that this isn't even his best armor boosting option I would say that the Druid has a decided edge here. A fighter can't even catch up with more gear because anything spent here a Druid can easily replicate and it would take away from other expensive gear the fighter NEEDS TO HAVE TO LIVE like rings of flying. On top of this the Fighter has only 1 good save while the Druid has two that are tied to abilities they usually maximize while the Fighter has one of his weak ones tied to a dump stat (which is unfortunate since making will saves is required to not die). Considering how high a Druid can boost even his Reflex save with the right Wildshape form, and how the Druid has the option of forms with flight and increased speed if he feels like using them I would say a Druid has a pretty good edge in overall survivability. You can complain about the level chosen but frankly Fighters are even more outclassed at earlier and later levels where (respectively) either gear isn't good enough to give Fighters decent stat boosts or Wildshape forms give even bigger bonuses. I also set up most of the assumptions to give the fighter a slight edge, with limited resources the Druid actually comes out even further ahead. And the point isn't even that the Druid always outperforms a fighter in melee ability. The point is that the Druid can post comparable stats without investing much time or energy into the process. While still retaining the awesome in and out of combat power that comes with being a full caster. A totally optimized melee Druid *can* beat an "average" fighter at his or her own game but frankly that Druid doesn't really have to bother doing so. Thus a Druid can probably "tank" as well or better than the average fighter, though the damage output and ability to disable multiple opponents at once through melee may be somewhat less than a totally optimized fighter. But again, the Druid doesn't *have* to do that because by the time the gattling tripper (or whatever) fighter really comes into its own the Druid can just win through casting. as you may notised im answering to 3 differnt peoples treads at time so im not allways talking to you tho useoly i am (Latly) The Druid can be better then the fighter yes but the fighter can be better then the druid there both good class's im just argueing at the fact that your makeing it sound like the Druid is 100% Better then the fighter which i strongly disagree on |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 10:35 AM | Can anyone else read page 6? Cause i know i posted on it, and i haven't been able to read it since. (I have no idea where the discussion is at this point, other than itwasntme must be saying something, but he made my ignore list). well thats your fault for not knowing whats going on sense you ignored the person whos manly giveing the examples on differnt subjects someone tell this person that on PG 6 and the continue arguement is this that one side (Me along with a few others but there not argueing) Is arugeing on the fact that fighters can do a good job in the party and that he is allso argueing on the point that no other class's are all powerfull and deserve a complete Kneeling or anything eles on that form and on the other side is eather Questions on things ive said and wanting examples of it happning or someone argueing that the fighter (Which seems like to me plz change it if you wish) Is a idioticol class and should never be given a second look Look i like caster im just trying to argue on the fact that Fighters can be reasonable and you shouldnt just "Diss" On them just becouse they have "Fighter" In there class name on a level above 8 |
| Argaud02-12-07, 11:48 AM | Lets see... CA of a level 14 fighter vs. druid in dire bear form I am going to assume the druid has the heavy armor proficiency and wild ironwood full plate +2 (or dragonhide, if you want to have him getting the colossal dragon skin, but ironwood is easier in 99% of the games). I am also going to assume the druid has a large floating shield of equal AC then the fighter. Notice this shield needs to be large because the dire bear is large, and it needs to be equipped after the wildshape because otherwise it would merge with the new shape. This shield is useless if the druid is medium, being the wrong size, and it will also be useless when the druid becomes huge. But this is not terribly important if there is a cleric with magical vestment in the party, since a floating shield +1 isn’t too expensive at level 14. I am going to assume the druid and the fighter have exactly the same Con, this is because they both started with the same, and they have been pumping their wisdom and strength with the level points, since it is completely retarded if the druid puts his points elsewhere, and I am going to assume the druid is not played by a retarded player. Some fighter builds would pump dex instead of strength, but I am going to assume a meleer here. So the druid gets the same AC from the shield, and 3 less from the armor. Then he gets a +7 natural armor from the bear, although also a –1 because of size. So far the cleric has 3 more points of AC than the fighter. Now, the fighter at level 14 is wearing a mithril full plate, he also has dex 16 thanks to gloves +2. The bear-druid has dex 13 and no hands, so he can wear no gloves, but since he could be wearing an ioun stone of dex +2, we will say he has dex 15. Now the fighter is only 2 AC behind the druid. The ioun stones is a bit more expensive than the gloves, but very little more. Now the druid casts barkskin and his AC goes up an awesome +5 for 140 minutes. Wait, lets make it 280 minutes thanks to extend. But seeing the awesomeness of the spell, the cleric demands to be given barkskin too, after all he is giving the druid magical vestment, making his shield better. Then the wizard, the ranger, the rogue and the fighter also ask for barkskings. ‘I haste you most combats’, says the wizard. ‘We kill the guys that want to kill you’ say the others. But the druid has not enough spells slots for all the party, his companion, the familiar, and the companion of the ranger. NO problem, all that want barkskin buy pearls of power so the druid can recast the spell as many times as needed. As a consequence the whole team has +5 to natural armor when they need it. This is assuming the druid is not an *******. But if the druid is an *******, he was kicked from the party at level 2. So the druid is still with an AC 2 points higher than the fighter. But then the fighters dons his ring of protection, and since he is level 14, it is +2 at the very least (most likely +4). The bear-druid has no fingers, so no ring for him. He can use some non-standard item to have the deflection bonus somewhere else, sure, but it generally costs more, and contrarily to the gloves, a good deflection bonus is not a trivial cost even at level 14. There are a few other ways to increase AC, like more ioun stones, but both will have them at the same cost. 2 points of AC can very easily come from feats, of which the fighter has 14-15 against the druid’s 5-6 (and he has already take heavy armor, natural spell and probably extend). Now, fighting. Well, the druid is much stronger. He has Str 31 (+10 to hit and damage) plus whatever gear he has, and the fighter will have 17 (7 points less of bonuses) plus gear. But the fighter gets +3 to hit from bab, +4 from focus and mastery and +x from the magic of his weapon, so he hits more often. Damage for the druid would be 2d4+10 twice (maybe trice when the wizard uses haste) and 2d6+5 (at –5 to hit, bite) plus he can grapple medium or smaller creatures hit, but he is unable to get through any DR except maybe magic, and this only with an expensive amulet of mighty fists. The fighter with the typical 2-handed sword (if he has a floating shield he will have one of these, or a spiked chain, with reach) will be 2d6+8+magic bonus, with iterative attacks at –5/-10, plus criticals, and maybe an extra attack from haste (he can even be wearing boots of haste, which the druid can’t use as a bear because... no feet). Notice the druid has no hands, so he can’t use rods of metamagic (no, he can’t have them in the mouth because he still needs to growl correctly to cast spells). He can’t even talk (although by level 14 it is likely the wizard is casting Rary’s Telepathic Bond so the party can communicate silently at all times). Every time he wildshapes, he loses all the gear, so he needs several rounds of re-equipping every time (and he needs help, since most forms have no hands). So what we have here is a large creature, without reach, without feats and that can’t get through DR. On the other hand it is enormously strong and can grapple medium and smaller enemies automatically, and can cast spells. It is not bad, but the fighter hits more often, does more damage and gets through most DR. Now, the druid has buff spells, and at level 14 he has even Bite of the Werebear. But the bite spells last only 1/round level, so the round he casts that one, he can’t do anything else. This is the same problem the cleric have with Divine Power and Righteous Might. Lost rounds. And the druid has no cheese like DMM-persistent to have it all the day (not that DMM-persistent is every allowed, but that is not important right now). Incidentally the bonuses of the Bite spells are all enhancement bonus, so they don’t work with the gear that raises the abilities. They won’t stack with Barkskin or amulets of natural armor either. |
| Kresalak02-12-07, 11:50 AM | Fighters are actually provably mathematically underpowered. A Fighter gets 11 discrete abilities, each worth exactly 2 spell levels (Heroics). He then has 22 spell levels. His higher HD and BAB compared to the Cleric are worth precisely 4 spell levels via Divine Power. However, let us assume we must make each of these spells Persistent; the Fighter, therefore, has 98 spell levels, compared to the Cleric's 240. The Wizard gets 180, but he also has 5 bonus feats, putting him at 190. This makes him just under twice as good as the Fighter. Hell, why don't we give the Fighter another 8 levels from a Persistent False Life to put him at 106; he's still 84 levels short. That's over 9 9th level spells. |
| Argaud02-12-07, 12:38 PM | Fighters are actually provably mathematically underpowered. A Fighter gets 11 discrete abilities, each worth exactly 2 spell levels (Heroics). He then has 22 spell levels. His higher HD and BAB compared to the Cleric are worth precisely 4 spell levels via Divine Power. However, let us assume we must make each of these spells Persistent; the Fighter, therefore, has 98 spell levels, compared to the Cleric's 240. The Wizard gets 180, but he also has 5 bonus feats, putting him at 190. This makes him just under twice as good as the Fighter. Hell, why don't we give the Fighter another 8 levels from a Persistent False Life to put him at 106; he's still 84 levels short. That's over 9 9th level spells. I am not going to argue that fighters are underpowered compared with clerics or druids (or that Heroics is a balanced spell) but comparing feats to spells isn’t the way to go. Feats can’t be dispelled and will work in AMFs and do not need to be recast every day. Do you know some kind of metamagic that makes the spells ‘instant’ so they can work forever? I don’t know any either, but would it exist I bet it would be far more expensive than just a +6 to the spell level. Something like +12 or even +18 sounds more likely. Incidentally, Heroics only allows to copy feats from the fighter list for which the caster is qualified. So it can allow emulating Power Attack if the caster has Str 13, or Combat Reflexes if the caster has Dex 13, or Specialization if the caster has 4 levels of fighter. For a Str 10 caster Power Attack is not available, for most casters Specialization or other advanced feats of the focus-mastery tree aren’t possible. |
| TheCobra02-12-07, 12:44 PM | For a Str 10 caster Power Attack is not available, for most casters Specialization or other advanced feats of the focus-mastery tree aren’t possible. Polymorphing effects allow the caster to get whatever physical stats he needs, and I don't think anything stops layering on the heroics. |
| Kresalak02-12-07, 12:54 PM | You do realize I calculated those costs based on the spells being Persistent, right? Also, there are two sources of Antimagic Fields. Beholders and 11th level casters. Beholders have precisely zero worthwhile offensive abilities while they're layering you in Antimagic; the tactical use of that cone is to negate the abilities of some members of the party while the Beholder kills others with eye lazers. The other source is a 10 foot emanation, and as such you can escape it by taking a 5 foot step. |
| Argaud02-12-07, 01:11 PM | You do realize I calculated those costs based on the spells being Persistent, right? Also, there are two sources of Antimagic Fields. Beholders and 11th level casters. Beholders have precisely zero worthwhile offensive abilities while they're layering you in Antimagic; the tactical use of that cone is to negate the abilities of some members of the party while the Beholder kills others with eye lazers. The other source is a 10 foot emanation, and as such you can escape it by taking a 5 foot step. You are forgetting there are also items that give AMF to anyone, including grappling barbarians and sneaky-stabbing rogues, there won't be a 5' step in many cases. And there are also dead magic areas in many game worlds. And then you have the dispel magic spells, which come in many flavors. I did notice the persistent spell. Which means 24 hours duration, which is not the same as 'forever', 'undispellable' and 'working in AMFs'. For a spell having those traits it would have to be turned into an instant spell. I think that can be done only with epic spells. |
| solbergb02-12-07, 02:43 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? . Very briefly. This is also true of other "Warrior" types, to a greater or lesser degree. What a fighter does at high levels is reliably destroy anything he's placed next to, usually in one round and without need for any preparatory buffing. The other thing he does is mop up easy encounters without burning party resources (usually not even hitpoints, fighters tend to have high AC) The defensive role of fighter is less important in high levels, although vs stupider opponents they can still be the wall sometimes. It is the job of the party to make use of these basic capabilities. Just as an example, it's easier to move a size medium fighter to where he can full attack than it is to move a huge druid and his gargantuan animal companion. Some fighters are also built to be significant ranged threats, able to destroy anything they can see in 1-2 rounds. Party assistance may be needed to get the archer in position to avoid things like wind walls, or to defeat concealed enemies. |
| Bard-of-all-trades02-12-07, 03:05 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. Please remember that "most everyone here" is only a small fraction of D&D players. They are not a statistical representation of the all D&D players. So, take what they say with a grain of salt. Please. The gaming group I play in has 173 years worth of combined D&D experience and all of us, at one point or another, have played fighters. On that same note, none of us would think about not having a fighter in the party, since the game, originally, was made to be played with a party consisting of the "POWER 4": Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard. There are plenty of reasons to play fighters. Concensus on the boards is meaningless in most games. Whether or not those who feel the fighter is underpowered, or sucks, or whatever are correct is meaningless. Not every game conforms to the standards that they use. If you want to play a fighter, and have fun doing it, then play the fighter. Ignore the nay-sayers and have fun. It's your character not theirs. Amen. |
| Clawhound02-12-07, 04:17 PM | Believe it or now, there are as many people who play "low power" games as there are people who play "high power" games. Fighters simply fit the flavor of low-power games better. The class also keeps the game in touch with the genre. In sword and sorcery, half the genre is the sword. |
| OneWinged4ngel02-12-07, 04:31 PM | Can't comment extensively. Eyes bleeding. :weep: Anywho, no, there is little point to having a core Fighter in the party over some other class. |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 11:37 PM | im not going to reply to the treads im refering to becouse that would take to much of the Screan Your example of the Druid vs the level 12 fighter was based only on AC on many differnt points your fighter is allso pumping his Wisdom for will saves im guessing right? I rather just waste 2 of my feats and have that problem be solved and pump my Con/Str insteed for the melee person but thats your play style Your fighter allso didnt have many things i would consider for a fighter but thats again your play style when people are playing class's that fit there play style it noromol makes them a better player behind that class your play style dosnt seem to be well for the fighter But allright now first lets consider the cost of eveything the Druid has agest the things you gave the Fighter the Fighter Armor and your Armor lets consider about the same Next you have a Large Shield witch ups the price along with other things and your not useing it in the first round of combat (You said so) So thats 1 free round going to the Fighter you allso stated that insteed of going into combat your character going to Buff himself up before hand lets give about 2 free rounds to the fighter (To be nice to the druid) so both players AC is clouse to the same in your example but the fighter is behind on 3points? if i remeber right tho the fighter if useing a shield and was realy worried about AC and nothing eles i think woulda taken Tower shield but this is your example so ill stick with it as much as possible So the fighter has AC of about 31? lets just say so and the Druid then gets an AC of 34? now lets consider the to hit on both characters the druid is useing the Bears to hit which is +19/+19/+13 he needs a 12 or higher to hit the first 2 times and a 7 to hit the 3rd time remeber your now useing the BaB Of the creatures and his new Str Score of the Creatures the fighter (If useing your BaB I beleve hes going to melee way smash em right? nothing fancy at all? k no fancy feats even tho the fighter could be doing so) has a BaB Of about 12/7/2 str gives him a +6/+7 bonus? so 19/14/9 hes useing a single weapon in your example and a 1handed weapon (Tho in most case's the Fighter is wielding a 2handed or is deul wielding or is a Archer type of fighter but lets again go with your example) his weapon is about a +3? so 22/17/12 his feats should be added in about now but i do not know what type of feats you think fighters should get and sense im useing your example ill only give him a +5 bonus? (Remeber he could have better i dount know tho the fighters you see so ill stick with a normol number i see at least around that level) so 27/22/17 the AC Again was 31 fighter 34 Druid the Druid needs a 12/12/17 on his attack rolls (This is before the buffs i only gave you 2 free rounds to cast buffs eather damage or To Hit or something its up to the player) the Fighter needs a 7/12/17 to hit you in overall the fighter has a better chance of hitting your character the fighter has 3 free rounds (Considering im taking what you said that your going to do in combat ie cast buffs and wildshape then get the shield up to protect you) HP now They both have the same Con? Im presuming then they both started with probly a 16 to your example? and made it into a 22 later on with items? allright sense its your example lets go with it 22 is a +6 bonus the Druid HD is a D8 the fighters is a D10 2 extra hp per level lets say? so if both characters got max on there life (for example i do not know if your fighters roll low on life or what) if max then the fighter has 192 hp (Tho games are not max but this is an example) the druid max life is 168 the damage on both characters the druid inless useing spells Deals about 2d4+10 damage per claw and 1 bite that deals 2d8+5 damage the fighter is dealing about (BTW what weapon is your fighter wielding again?) lets say 1d10+12? (Depends on what type of feats he wants to take he could have differnt weapons or tastics open to him but your example of the fighter is just to charge in and attack things so ill use that) so Damage 12-18 Claws 7-21 Bite 13-22 Sword better Min damage over all And the fighter has 3 free turns lets say? now inless where talking about an Arena battle ill say the fighter gets to you in 1 round? the next 2 rounds he uses to attack you? so the first 2 rounds he hits with 4 of his 6 attacks dealing an adverage of 17 damage each time? 17x4=68 points of damage HP Druid=100 now Fighter=192 Now the druid is ready to attack and his buffs kick in (If 2 buffs) the fighter allready has a nice advantage over the Druid in your example (Which btw kinda sucks but its your example) lets say you up your damage by 4 and to hit by 4? allowing all 3 attacks to have somewhat a good chance of hitting or perhaps AC? (Remeber Natrual AC dos not stack and you allready have other forms of AC on your character) lets say you hit with both Claws and a Bite during your turn (Or casted a spell but your in melee so you can get a AoO On you but lets just take adverage?) 15x2 (claws)+11 Bite +12 (Buffs) dealing 53 damage and you can use a Grapple agest the Fighter your Grapple check is +23 his is +21? (Depends again its your fighter example) Do you can grapple him now Now the fighter has a backup im hopeing in this case right? that or he can try and escape from the Grapple he should knowing hes a fighter have ways to get out of this or deal with this? (Most fighters or other melee type people end up getting ring of Freedom of movement at this time at least so the Grapple wouldnt be working) if we go with the normol fighters i see in your example they would have this ring? but ITS Your example again so again the fighter is doing/dosnt have something that normoly is there for him In my point of view eather side could win But allso in my point of view your makeing a fighter that normoly isnt seen but its your example remember if the fighter couldnt charge or attack you 1 extra round (Perhaps you stop with the buffing?) thats fine Tho allmost evey fighter i see isnt a Charge in and just attack without any special effects thats more on the lines of a Barbian who can do that just Great and gets more bonus's to it so if i was playing and i wanted a character who just charged in without anything special going for me i woulda picked the Barbian whos special effects (Rage) Are coming in Right off the bat so hes doing more damage then the fighter was in my arguement the fighter in your example wasnt the greatest in fact your whole example wasnt the greatest |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 11:40 PM | Can't comment extensively. Eyes bleeding. :weep: Anywho, no, there is little point to having a core Fighter in the party over some other class. i dount beleve we where talking about Core But if so then yes go be druid/barbian/Monk/Cleric/Wizard then or something eles normoly again im not the greatest player with the Fighter so i do not know all the differnt things they would do however seeing the examples givein above i can allready tell that i wouldnt normoly see a fighter doing thouse type of things But there your examples not mine perhaps you just live in a place filled with horrible fighters? |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 11:43 PM | Polymorphing effects allow the caster to get whatever physical stats he needs, and I don't think anything stops layering on the heroics. in that example when you have 10 str then polymorph into a creature with higher Str it dosnt mean you can NOW Take the powerattack feat or anything eles like that YOUR Character in normol Form must meet the Reqs for things not the creature your changeing into or after a buff or anything eles like that |
| itwasntme02-12-07, 11:50 PM | allso note that in some of my gameing groups i perhaps have one of the best Spell Casters/Druids ive seen play he use's Wildshape to the maxium effect and is a VERY intellgent player in fact hes useoly the brains of many things tho eveyone eles has many differnt Brains on certain matters hes just a very good player and knows D&D Very well Hes done Wildshape/Polymorph and hes stated that Yes it can be usefull but that he wouldnt count on it as a means to save himself or be more powerfull in most of the situations you can find your self in so he states that having WildShape/Polymoprh can have good Outside combat effects is useoly not the greatest thing when you go into combat and the examples he showed invovled that A) You do not pick the battle fields most of the time if at any B) The Monsters attacking you are not going to just waste there time needed for you to cast your Buff spells C) The Fighter or other Form of Tank is needed to Buy the time the caster needs to make himself powerfull if the caster is counting on himself he should forget the whole idea and revert to his Spells then he made a comment that spell casters are given spells for a reason To Use them to kill people or to help out your Fellow allies not to make your self be able to Solo agest Creatures/Monsters hes tryed in many differnt situations and ended up finding out that while it has benefits in some situations that it more then half the time isnt the greatest thing your character could be doing and is in fact just wasteing Vulable Time that you need |
| OneWinged4ngel02-13-07, 12:09 AM | Do you really need to take up two to four consecutive posts with inane, poorly written and formatted drivel, itwasntme? You kinda... uhhm... do that alarmingly regularly. Some basic message board etiquette. Please. For the sakes of our bleeding eyes. You use one post, you use a spellchecker, etc. |
| MeklorIlavator02-13-07, 12:20 AM | Believe it or now, there are as many people who play "low power" games as there are people who play "high power" games. Fighters simply fit the flavor of low-power games better. The class also keeps the game in touch with the genre. In sword and sorcery, half the genre is the sword. Because, you know, no one but fighters can wield swords. I mean, when I play a fantesy game, I want to be playing fantesy. Not "I'm Bob Normal, and only my companions and items have any magic in them." I don't want munchkins in a game, but I want my character to, at least occationally, "Tell the laws of Physics to shut up and sit down."(from V in Giantitp) |
| PoorHobo02-13-07, 12:34 AM | Its the obscene amount of feats that make fighter attractive to some character concepts that are extremely feat heavy. Two weapon fighters that don't want to be rangers, Horse archers, weapons styles, tactical feats etc.. The only reason to have a fighter is because it helps you a approximate a character concept. Not to mention the lead into feat heavy prestige classes. |
| Azreil Nightshade02-13-07, 12:44 AM | lol this is a horrible comparison but drizz't's adventuring group is all fighters and a rogue i believe. And they messed up many a bad guy. |
| NineInchNall02-13-07, 12:47 AM | Some basic message board etiquette. Please. For the sakes of our bleeding eyes. You use one post, you use a spellchecker, etc. Seriously, just ignore him. If he doesn't respect others or himself enough to take the time and effort to type posts that are legible enough for people to understand without a decoder ring, then he should not be offended when others don't respect him. |
| MeklorIlavator02-13-07, 12:54 AM | lol this is a horrible comparison but drizz't's adventuring group is all fighters and a rogue i believe. And they messed up many a bad guy. True, but they have something that adventures don't have, and that is the almighty force of Plot. Because they are the main characters, they can't die because RA Salvatore will save them. Also, except for a Balor, which was defeated by luck and mighty magic, the group usually fights orcs and giants, which is what fighters can do reasonable well. |
| navar10002-13-07, 01:02 AM | Heavy optimization is metagaming ... "Oh, if take this feat now, while I'm a lowly level 3, I can qualify for this feat by level 12" Metagaming! I sense a wind blowing, a big storm. It's Stormwind Fallacy. |
| navar10002-13-07, 01:29 AM | There is no reason to have ANY class. I have played in games where there was no arcane or divine magic classes and they group did fine. Yes they had to spend lots of money on potions and wands but it really didnt make them unable to play. I have yet to be in a game where there was no fighter types.. I think players like to smack things with swords. ;) My group's current campaign has no fighter or any dedicated warrior PC. We were going to have one, but the player couldn't play due to real life interference after the first session. :( We are hurting for it. The rogue player, after literally years and years of playing rogues, is tired of just relying on sneak attack and wants to be able to hit more and do decent damage than just letting the sneak attack add up. That was his last character which he did enjoy. He originally wanted eventually to become a Shadowdancer, but as the campaign progresses, he wanted to be a better fighter "now". He was more than willing to multi-class a few levels in fighter. He could become a Shadowdancer a couple of levels earlier, didn't care about the stunted sneak attack, and have better combat options. However, he decided to forget Shadowdancer and multiclass in swordsage because its stances and manevuers will synergize well with his sneak attack such that he gets to sneak attack more often. He still wants to be roguish, he'll never give that up, but he wants to fight better. The DM is very happy about this. It's a true player growth situation. He's incorporating it into the campaign plots. Still, we lack a tank and it shows. We are doing okay, but the DM keeps sending in an NPC dedicated warrior to help in combat. It is logical when we get such help, but from a metagame perspective I can see how we needed it. Since I'm the only one who plays clerics and decided after 5 real world years with this group I didn't want to play a cleric again, our party cleric is an NPC. The DM doesn't give her much combat tactics. Her deity is of Healing and the DM dedicated her to healing - Healing Domain, Augment Healing Feat, etc. That is pretty much all the NPC cleric does in combat, only casting a buff spell once in a while, and even that is usually when a PC asks for one. We (PC party members) all have terrible AC and decent though not the greatest in hit points. Any one of us in melee is in trouble. In theory my warlock will be getting mithral breast plate, not that I plan to be in melee, but that along with DR/Cold Iron will help. Only because of the DR had my character not gone into death's door a couple of battles which helped a lot because it gave me an extra round to do something, even if just getting out of the way to be more effective in later rounds when I'm not in immediate danger. There are campaign specific circumstances happening that entails a heavy use of Rule 0 for campaign plot reasons such that we are a higher ECL than we would be by the book, so we might not be as bad off as a normal ECL party. Still, while I'm not upset the DM conveniently but absolutely logically gives us an NPC dedicated warrior to help in various combats (not the same NPC), I'm aesthetically displeased we don't have a PC dedicated warrior, darn you real life taking away our dedicated warrior player! :censored: |
| navar10002-13-07, 01:51 AM | I don't know if anyone has said this already but here the main reason IMO to play fighter: It's so relaxing!! Rogues have be sneaky all the time and thier players really need to think smart, spellcaster worry with their spells and their players read the endless spell description and so on. Fighter can just pick up the sword and start hacking! And if you are feeling neglected, then it's not fighters fault but the DM's fault, because even if you're playing armless dim-witted halfling you still get to say what your character says and does as much as everybody else! Interesting, that's also why I'm having fun playing my warlock. When I was playing a cleric, I had so many spells to choose from to prepare. Then in combat, I have to decide if I'm going to attack with a weapon or cast a spell, and if casting a spell, which one. With my warlock, I only have to attack with my eldritch blast, currently with frightening invocation, and be done with it. It is such a relief not to have so many choices. |
| itwasntme02-13-07, 02:32 AM | lol this is a horrible comparison but drizz't's adventuring group is all fighters and a rogue i believe. And they messed up many a bad guy. Lol Your Wrong Tho Fighter Dwarf Fighter/Barbian Human guy They where all eather Fighter or a multy Class fighter Drizzit was a Ranger however with a little bit of Fighter in him as well |
| Greendevilman02-13-07, 04:36 AM | Stuff[QUOTE] Ok so your point was that by leeching buffs off the rest of the party the Fighter can get similar AC to a Druid? While still having inferior physical stats and spending most of his available income on said AC boosting items? And while not contributing anything useful outside of combat? Amazing. The point wasn't that Druids totally wtfpwn Fighters in melee combat at all times, the point was that Druids are very comparable to Fighters without trying very hard at it while being strictly better in every other area of the game (Except fighting things with clubs under an AMF. :rolleyes: And actually even there the animal companion is probably pretty comparable to/better than the unbuffed and ungeared fighter.). Also you make several faulty assumptions here. An example would be the shield merging with Wildshape. It doesn't for the same reason Ioun stones don't. It also doesn't need extra effort to resize for the same reason the Fighter doesn't need to get all new equipment whenever he has enlarge person cast on him. And as a side note I hear Greater Magic Fang may in fact be a to hit and damage bonus a druid will commonly have up at all times(what with it being hours/level and all) and it may enable him to get past magic based DR. The only thing a Fighter really has an easier time getting past is DR/Cold Iron, Silver or Adamantine and those all require him to have specific (either expensive or suboptimal) weapons available for doing so. Which, if he doesn't, makes him way more useless than the Druid as the Druid can still cast and do other stuff besides clubbing things to death with a chunk of metal. Beating DR is still an advantage of the Fighter over the Druid but I never claimed the Druid was strictly superior in all things, and in the abstract (i.e. you don't know in advance the campaign is Against The Fey And Golems) I don't think its a huge difference. If we allow that forms with opposable thumbs like the Legendary Ape can use tools then the Fighter's advantage essentially disappears entirely (or is reduced to having one more attack/round at level 15+ vs selected opponents). I *do* understand how enhancement bonuses stack for purposes of Bite of the Wearwhatever. The point was that those enhancement bonuses are much higher than anything the Fighter will be able to get at the applicable levels (or in the case of Bite of the Wearbear *ever* in pre-epic) and they stack on top of physical stats already superior to the Fighter's. You can go to the fighter getting PAOed if you like but that *really* isn't a can of worms you want to open and in any case abusing another class' abilities doesn't really say much about the fundamental viability of the class itself. PS- The Druid doesn't really need Heavy Armor proficiency for Dragonhide Plate unless he wants to be using it effectively outside of wildshape anyhow. No wildshape armor check penalty = no need to bother with proficiency. If we're using noncore sourcebooks there are also some better options than Dragonhide Plate available such as Elven Darkleaf. [QUOTE=itwasntme;11471012]Inane Ramblings Your example was horrible and uses bizzare assumptions that generally are untrue (maxed HP etc.). It takes the druid a round to use a magic floating shield that he always has out? It takes multiple start of combat rounds to pre-buff myself with spells that have durations that last for hours? You also apparently don't understand how Wildshape works at all since druids use their own BAB instead of that of the creature they turn into. A level 14 dire bear has an attack bonus of 10 from BAB + 10 from unbuffed strength (assuming no items) plus at least +3 from Greater Magic Fang for a total bonus of 23. The fighter has BAB 14 + 8 or 9 from STR (assuming the extremely generous things I already was in the fighter's favor) plus weapon focus and probably a +3 from weapons (*maybe* +4 if he hates things like having good weapon abilities) for a total between 26 and 28. This *is* better than the Druid, unless the Druid feels like buffing his strength (again with long lasting buffs or items) in which case he'll pull about even again. The Fighter can probably get an extra bonus or two from his feats but if he does he's sacrificing that super sweet ability to do more than just hit things you were going on about. Again, the point here isn't that the Druid beats a Fighter in a stupid arena fight, the point is that a Druid who devotes a couple of low level spell slots a day and some of his phat lewts to improving melee performance can pretty much pull even in terms of combat performance. Note that this totally discounts the animal companion (who gets the Druid's buffs for free) or the ability for a Druid to do good blasting damage on the way into melee. The good tactical fighter builds are usually some variation on charging or reach tripping, but a truely good charge build is usually barbarian based and requires a fair bit of PrCing and multiclassing (to the point that fighter is at best a good 2-4 level dip which I don't think was ever under dispute) and a good tripper is (a) not going to outdamage the Druid and (b) still only has similar battlefield control when you take animal companion grappling into account and is probably inferior if you look at Druid spellcasting (c) straight up fails vs. some things that the Druid can still deal with. These builds are not bad by any means and can contribute something to the group and will outperform the Druid in their areas of expertise but the Druid still is a better grappler and the Druid is STILL A FULL CASTER. If you can get similar or superior meatshield performance to a good Fighter build out of a Druid who doesn't try at it very hard then why the hell are you using a Figher? Please understand I really like it when melee classes are good. And while they're never as good as full casters melee *can* be good through proper use of multiclassing, feat selection and PrCs especially with ToB. The thing is though that a straight Fighter as Fighter in and of itself (and not the superhappyfuntime 2 levels for 2 feats dip class its actually used as) is quite poor in terms of effectiveness compared to alternative choices. In almost no vaguely normal circumstances would a group be better served by having a fighter instead of another class. |
| itwasntme02-13-07, 07:54 AM | Hm that wasnt my example tho i was just takeing what you said and made them go into combat i was just giveing Max HP as an example that was provided i just gave the numbers and started the attacks I beleve in all my tread i keept pointing out that it was a horrible example that was posted up Like him being able to have the shield needed to come up during combat and other such things Not only that but the set up the person gave to the fighter was not very well in my mind the whole example coulda been done better but again it wasnt MY Example it was yours so saying now that it was a bad example is ... Intrusting all i did was add in the numbers and proved the first 3 rounds of combat for your example (Again yours) i proved some infomation on many thoughts you could change in it yes but overall i just used your examples put the numbers in it and tryed to see how the first 3 rounds would go to your standerd I beleve it was allready pointed out that the Animol Compinan wasnt very powerfull earlyer in the tread I Allso beleve that it was allready stated how fighters vs druids (1on1) could be a battle that could go eather way Again thank you for saying the example i seted up was horrible when in fact it was yours ... all i did was put in the numbers that you didnt and the possible reasons why you where doing thouse things I was trying to make clear in all my Side notes that it was a horrible example so thank you for agreeing with me i guess? Allso just to the Drizzit Thing you notised that normoly yes main characters dount die there are however plunty of examples where some (If not all) The Main characters do end up dieing and in that World with Drizzit there was only mostly a Ton of Orcs and Giants there where no huge armys of Dragons .. why? becouse dragons are so pos to be Very rare Orcs dount just Disapear when you become higher level you notised that useoly when your level 12 your never fighting an Orc or anything eles like that? In more realistic (As you where kinda puting it) The Orcs would have class levels they would be the Crazed Barbian Orcs of X Level or w/e thats more on the lines of what would realy happin so yes even at higher levels your fighting orcs ... there just more experince orcs |
| TheCobra02-13-07, 09:17 AM | YOUR Character in normol Form must meet the Reqs for things Not with heroics. That spell just adds insult to injury. Poor fighters. |
| Greendevilman02-13-07, 09:50 AM | Hm that wasnt my example tho i was just takeing what you said and made them go into combat i was just giveing Max HP as an example that was provided i just gave the numbers and started the attacks I beleve in all my tread i keept pointing out that it was a horrible example that was posted up Like him being able to have the shield needed to come up during combat and other such things Not only that but the set up the person gave to the fighter was not very well in my mind the whole example coulda been done better but again it wasnt MY Example it was yours so saying now that it was a bad example is ... Intrusting all i did was add in the numbers and proved the first 3 rounds of combat for your example (Again yours) i proved some infomation on many thoughts you could change in it yes but overall i just used your examples put the numbers in it and tryed to see how the first 3 rounds would go to your standerd I beleve it was allready pointed out that the Animol Compinan wasnt very powerfull earlyer in the tread I Allso beleve that it was allready stated how fighters vs druids (1on1) could be a battle that could go eather way Again thank you for saying the example i seted up was horrible when in fact it was yours ... all i did was put in the numbers that you didnt and the possible reasons why you where doing thouse things I was trying to make clear in all my Side notes that it was a horrible example so thank you for agreeing with me i guess? I should probably just ignore you but how do you not get this? Max HP doesn't matter at all because HP is rolled for all levels after 1 meaning that *on average* a d10 yields 5.5hp a level to a d8's 4.5. I really don't get what you were trying to demonstrate? If you don't like the example I used just substitute your own, the numbers I pulled were just averaged things I pulled out of a hat. But you clearly don't understand what I'm trying to get across which is that in almost all actual adventuring circumstances the Druid will do a comparable job to the fighter. Assuming we're going into Generic Dungeon A I as an adventuring Druid can expect a certain degree of bodily harm to be coming my way. As a result I will wildshape in the morning and then apply certain very long lasting buffs to myself like Greater Magic Fang (to name one). Before going into harm's way I probably make use of spells that'll last me for a couple of hours like Barkskin. I already have my floating magic shield out in the same way that the fighter has his. I have my wild armor on like the Fighter has his. At this point my physical stats are very comparable to those of the fully buffed fighter (or better) and I'm good to go for any possible fights but I havn't had to spend the money on stat boosting items like he has (though I probably have a collar of +wisdom). I can flip out and start mauling things to death about as well as the fighter can without having to waste rounds buffing myself. If I *do* know a fight is coming soon or the fight starts with the combatants far apart (since I can cover ground twice as fast as the fighter without trying) I can use a round to cast one of my extremely strong rounds/level buff spells on myself and be in a position to totally outclass the fighter in terms of physical prowess. Or I can just toss out a Flamestrike or something else like one of my Save or Lose spells. You can name plenty of Fighter builds that with buffs can situationally outperfom me but due to my form changing abilities I actually am a better generalist combatant than the Fighter (who is even worse than usual if he doesn't specialize in 1-2 areas of combat) and I don't have issues with my character's schtick getting totally negated by some guy who bothered to pick up Elusive Target or takes advantage of cover. Or is just bigger than you. At best you can optimize for damage but if *all* you really add to a party is slightly more damage on a round when you full attack then guess what? You arn't actually needed and the party would be better off with a different class that can actually contribute something more useful. I'm not really going to respond to some of the other stuff in here. I mean, "fighters vs druids (1on1) could be a battle that could go eather (sic) way"? I suppose its possible if the Fighter ambushes the Druid at breakfast before he prays for spells I guess. Given any vaguely fair scenario the Druid will wipe the floor with Fighter without trying. If you mean in melee then it probably is more even so long as the fighter sports a ring of freedom of movement. This fact does not help your case that the fighter is at all useful for anything other than as a feat horse for entering PrCs or rounding out a multiclass build. The fun part is that all these examples are using Druids who arn't taking especially heavy advantage of spellcasting or highly entertaining and in no way overpowered ( ;) ) feats from supplements like Draconic Wildshape. TL;DR Version- You didn't fill in the numbers on anything I said, filled them in wrong when you tried, made a bunch of faulty and unwarranted assumptions that betrayed a complete lack of understanding and then proceeded from there. Specifically you proceeded to a player vs. player "example" that has only a vague relation to the subject at hand. If you really want to prove me wrong put up an actual example of what you'd consider a good Fighter build that pays attention to basic assumptions (average HP per level, normal wealth, etc.) and demonstrates the advantages of the Fighter class and tell me why it is demonstrably superior in melee. |
| Seerow02-13-07, 10:09 AM | Funny thing: You can put Wild on a Shield, thus bypassing the entire "your animated shield wasn't ready" argument by having a shield bonus built right into your normal AC. Sure it costs slightly more, but it also won't get destroyed or whatever. Though the real benefit is just ignoring this whole argument of "You didn't have that ready! whine whine" |
| Archangel6202-13-07, 10:29 AM | The big problem that the fighter has isn't power gap, the problem is that the fighter has nothing to call its own. The fighter is outdamaged by the barbarian, rogue, and even paladin. The paladin and ranger make better mounted warriors, the paladin is a better tank, as is the barbarian. The Ranger will be a more effective archer, and each of these classes can do things outside of combat as well. The fighter has an issue of versatility, in theory I imagine the power of the fighter was going to be that the fighter could master dozens of combat styles and tricks. Instead the fighter tends to be locked into one style that becomes increasingly difficult and obsolete. The reason for this is one thing, the fighter is a locked class. A caster can prepare new spells the next day, the other classes with locked abilities have class features which augment certain feat chains enough to make them useful more frequently. However the fighter is unable to modify their feat trees, they can't suddenly go from archer to polearm master to tank to some other design in the span of a few minutes. The fighter becomes trapped in their own design because each design has weaknesses and vulnerabilities, ones that are more likely to be faced frequently than those typically listed as being the foe of a caster, and those weaknesses don't just lessen the impact of the fighter, they can remove their impact entirely. The argument that the fighter can get a lot of feats is nice, but the problem is that because of how the system works specialization is rewarded far more than generalist strategies. Thus the fighter will either find themselves overshadowed by other classes in their arena of choice (with the exception of tripping) or be kind of mediocre and everything. The builds shown also have a strong emphasis on gear, the archer wins because he has the bow of EEEP, or having certain weapon enchants. Then there is that the other characters are constantly buffing and boosting the fighter, so apparently their belief is that all other classes exist solely for the use and convenience of the fighter which is not only erroneous but frankly insulting. The fighter apparently needs all these buffs and boosts from the team to remain useful to the group, that says that they're a resource drain on the party if it takes that much work to make them even viable. Also, don't try to tell me that the problem is that full casters are broken or anything like that, that's basically moving the goalposts. You argue that any other character class that is more effective is apparently absurdly broken and then complain if anyone uses it, you aren't making valid points you're simply moving the goalposts until you can reach a conclusion that you find suitable. |
| Bob Loblaw02-13-07, 10:33 AM | I think I figured out one more reason why some of us don't have the same issues with fighters that others have. In the games I run and play in, magic items are not freely available. We get what the DM gives us and what we make on our own. There aren't any magic shops where we can just grab the wild animated +2 shield (I just used the last magic item mentioned, this is not a response to anyone in particular) off the shelf. While the game may assume that this happens to a point, not all games use that assumption. This goes back to what I was saying earlier, everything depends on the group dynamics. I remember reading a thread where someone didn't give domain spells to clerics who took prestige classes. There was another thread where someone would only allow wizards to have a single spellbook. While these are both misinterpretations of the rules, these things can have an impact on what classes are more powerful. It's all in the group's dynamics. |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 10:35 AM | Funny thing: You can put Wild on a Shield, thus bypassing the entire "your animated shield wasn't ready" argument by having a shield bonus built right into your normal AC. Sure it costs slightly more, but it also won't get destroyed or whatever. Though the real benefit is just ignoring this whole argument of "You didn't have that ready! whine whine" Wild Tower Shield ftw! Hey, that means you can get Wild platemail (appropriate material), Wild Tower Shield, *and* have a buddy put a monk's belt on you after you wildshape. Rock. |
| TheCobra02-13-07, 10:40 AM | The wild armor + monk's belt still seems wrong to me. Does it really work by the RAW? The wild description implies the armor still exists in some sense, saying that it can't be seen. |
| Archangel6202-13-07, 10:44 AM | I think I figured out one more reason why some of us don't have the same issues with fighters that others have. In the games I run and play in, magic items are not freely available. We get what the DM gives us and what we make on our own. There aren't any magic shops where we can just grab the wild animated +2 shield (I just used the last magic item mentioned, this is not a response to anyone in particular) off the shelf. While the game may assume that this happens to a point, not all games use that assumption. This goes back to what I was saying earlier, everything depends on the group dynamics. I remember reading a thread where someone didn't give domain spells to clerics who took prestige classes. There was another thread where someone would only allow wizards to have a single spellbook. While these are both misinterpretations of the rules, these things can have an impact on what classes are more powerful. It's all in the group's dynamics. True, but it's easier to argue a balance perspective assuming an equal playing field and equal access to things. If a DM states that all casters have to make saves against the forces of reality for bending them and need to fear some sort of backlash (Ala Mage the Ascension) but melee classes get special bonuses and abilities then fighters might seem fine, even overpowered. If we want to compare balance then let's look at everything available and work from there. Otherwise any attempt to look at the capabilities and contributions of a class will only devolve into a game of constantly moving goalposts. |
| Kresalak02-13-07, 11:06 AM | The wild armor + monk's belt still seems wrong to me. Does it really work by the RAW? The wild description implies the armor still exists in some sense, saying that it can't be seen. You're not actually wearing the armor, only getting the AC bonus. 12th level Druid AC time! +5 +1 Wild Tower Shield +9 +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate +6 Monk's Belt+Wisdom -AC 30, 47,000 gold spent +7 Dire Bear -1 size +4 Barkskin +1 Dex -AC 41, level 12, assuming a mere 20 Wisdom. If you use actual buffs beyond Barkskin, you can get much more. |
| Greendevilman02-13-07, 11:15 AM | I think I figured out one more reason why some of us don't have the same issues with fighters that others have. In the games I run and play in, magic items are not freely available. We get what the DM gives us and what we make on our own. There aren't any magic shops where we can just grab the wild animated +2 shield (I just used the last magic item mentioned, this is not a response to anyone in particular) off the shelf. While the game may assume that this happens to a point, not all games use that assumption. This goes back to what I was saying earlier, everything depends on the group dynamics. I remember reading a thread where someone didn't give domain spells to clerics who took prestige classes. There was another thread where someone would only allow wizards to have a single spellbook. While these are both misinterpretations of the rules, these things can have an impact on what classes are more powerful. It's all in the group's dynamics. Oh I don't think anybody would disagree that things like this change the situation dramatically, just that they arn't really worth discussing because you can't have meaningful conversations about balance if you posit people are imposing house-rules willy-nilly. RAW (with some concessions to obvious RAI issues that either break the game outright or make something not work) is the baseline becasue its the one thing people should all have access to and be able to agree on. You can have entire campaign worlds covered with random anti-magic zones or the like, which certainly makes casters less good (though Fighters still get rolled by anything at higher levels), but that changes the baseline D&D assumptions dramatically enough that you arn't talking about the same game as everybody else. Houserules can make anything workable (I've played enjoyable games of RIFTS!) but they don't change the fact that at its core fairly severe class imbalance exists. And the thing is that the only way a Fighter benefits from a low magic item setting is either lucky rolls on loot tables or blatant DM favoritism. Casters can craft items if they like and can often replicate the effects of gear through spells (for example a Druid can use the Luminous Armor line of spells to get armor AC bonuses). To some degree the fighter can benefit more from the party semi-randomly being given gear because he is pretty flexible in what he can use, but since most fighters focus on a single weapon or type of weapon and want the heaviest armor possible in reality they're just as subject to not the getting gear that optimizes them. Frankly I don't have a problem with a DM including more goodies for the Fighter because he needs the help, but that really just underscores the problem. Fighters need items to compete, they need more of them, and they are in all ways less able to aquire their own or do without. Similarly a Fighter can avoid appearing overshadowed by casters (at least till level 15+...) if those casters devote energy to enhancing him and using suboptimal spells like d6/level direct damage but the fact that the "group dynamics" are such that casters are behaving in inefficient ways that don't capitalize on their potential doesn't change the fact that at their heart the casting classes are vastly stronger. Its like the comparative destructive power of a man who has a main battle tank vs. a man who has a battle rifle. If the guy in the tank sits on the top and fires short bursts from the mounted machine gun he isn't really doesn't have much more destructive potential or protection than the man with the rifle. But if he uses the tank to its full potential he will annihilate things the man with the rifle couldn't harm while moving faster and while being a great deal more resistant to harm. There are tons of problems with that metaphor but I think it gets my point across. Fighters are never totally worthless because at an absolute minimum they're another player who can propose creative solutions, be another warm body, etc. Its just that as a party would generally benefit more from having that player play another class. I've enjoyed Fighters I've played (especially at low levels) and felt I contributed in a useful manner with them and nobody I play with would kick a player to the curb because they wanted to play a fighter, but if we're being realistic the Fighter is just weak compared to the alternatives. |
| Argaud02-13-07, 11:22 AM | The big problem that the fighter has isn't power gap, the problem is that the fighter has nothing to call its own. The fighter is outdamaged by the barbarian, rogue, and even paladin. The paladin and ranger make better mounted warriors, the paladin is a better tank, as is the barbarian. The Ranger will be a more effective archer, and each of these classes can do things outside of combat as well. The ranger... a meleer? Surely you jest! (Insert here a long rant about how lightly armored warriors do not work in D&D). I agree the paladin makes a better mounted warrior and a better tank, but the barbarian is only better at anything at low levels (and, arguably, at level 20) and the ranger is good only as an archer (and skillmonkey, but that is out of combat). |
| Argaud02-13-07, 11:27 AM | The wild armor + monk's belt still seems wrong to me. Does it really work by the RAW? The wild description implies the armor still exists in some sense, saying that it can't be seen. It doesn't work. Squirrelloid just wants to destroy CR25 dragons with his level 15 party, so he needs to 'creatively reinterpret' the rules to make the characters far more powerful than they really are :) But it does not work in normal, non-bizarre D&D. |
| Seerow02-13-07, 11:30 AM | The ranger... a meleer? Surely you jest! (Insert here a long rant about how lightly armored warriors do not work in D&D). He mentioned the Ranger as an Archer and a Mounted Combatant. And he does beat the Fighter at both of these. (Though debatable. Mounted Combatant is ONLY because of the animal companion, which should honestly be progressed as a Druid's, not at half level. And Archery is due to the spells. Some people maintain that feats are better than spells for archery. I think that's wrong though) |
| NineInchNall02-13-07, 11:33 AM | It doesn't work. Squirrelloid just wants to destroy CR25 dragons with his level 15 party, so he needs to 'creatively reinterpret' the rules to make the characters far more powerful than they really are :) But it does not work in normal, non-bizarre D&D. What the crap? Anything within a population center's price limit is assumed to be available as per the DMG. It isn't necessary to go mine adamantine when one wants to make a suit of armor, and neither is it necessary to go kill a great wyrm dragon in order to make a suit of armor. |
| Argaud02-13-07, 11:35 AM | Ok so your point was that by leeching buffs off the rest of the party the Fighter can get similar AC to a Druid? While still having inferior physical stats and spending most of his available income on said AC boosting items? And while not contributing anything useful outside of combat? Amazing. The point wasn't that Druids totally wtfpwn Fighters in melee combat at all times, the point was that Druids are very comparable to Fighters without trying very hard at it while being strictly better in every other area of the game (Except fighting things with clubs under an AMF. And actually even there the animal companion is probably pretty comparable to/better than the unbuffed and ungeared fighter.). Wow, you get a D- in reading comprehension and an A+ in creatively interpreting ‘stuff’ to fit your warped perception of reality. I mathematically proved that in a real party the fighter has an AC as good as the druid, better to hit and caused more damage and you keep on saying the fighter is not contributing in the party fights. That druid was also optimized to high AC, wearing several buffs and using the so-vaunted dire bear form. Yes, I know the difference is not important, but it does not look as if it is leaning in favor of the druid at all. Then again, I can imagine how some people plays the game. “Cleric, I need healing!” “Sorry Bob, you are not leeching my healing, I will use my selfbuff #24” “Wizard, we need haste!” “Sorry Bob, you are not leeching my spells, I will use improved invisibility and start casting offensive spells in 3 rounds, once I finish buffing to invincibility.” “Rogue, we need some scouting!” “Sorry Bob, you are not leeching my skills, I will hide in the middle of the party and pick the pockets of our enemies for my exclusive benefit.” “Hey Bob, how is you are not fighting that troll, it just grappled the wizard!” “Sorry guys, you are not leeching my sword and my hps, I will stay here and shot arrows, it is inefficient, but safe.” Leeching, indeed! That kind of parties do not last for long. Good parties share their recourses and elaborate efficient strategies so the whole is greater than the individuals. Good parties are far stronger than a single adventurer 3 levels above them (which is why I think the whole concept that to be balanced a single PC needs to be able to defeat a monster of CR=level is a bit screwed). Also you make several faulty assumptions here. An example would be the shield merging with Wildshape. It doesn't for the same reason Ioun stones don't. All the druids gear merges with his body when the druid transforms. Including floating shields and ioun stones. Both items need to be unequipped and re-equipped every time he changes shapes, just like everything else. The fact they are magically floating a few inches from the druid does not means they aren’t subject to the same rules than the rest of the gear. The only thing a Fighter really has an easier time getting past is DR/Cold Iron, Silver or Adamantine and those all require him to have specific (either expensive or suboptimal) weapons available for doing so. Not really. Adamantine is the only material that is expensive, and it is almost without doubt the material from which his best weapon is going to be made because it is hard to sunder and great to make holes in doors, walls and anything else. Silver and cold iron are dirt cheap. The main problem is the DR/alignment, which requires a Sure Striking weapon, which is a +1 enchantment and hardly expensive at level 14. You can go to the fighter getting PAOed if you like but that *really* isn't a can of worms you want to open and in any case abusing another class' abilities doesn't really say much about the fundamental viability of the class itself. Wait, wait. Why PAO is a can of worms and wildshape isn’t? Sure, it makes all meleers ridiculously powerful, but realistically speaking a meleer druid is also going to be using PAO. Oh yeah, with PAO wildshape is rendered completely obsolete, and the druid no longer has any size/ability advantage over the fighter, so he is clearly a far worse meleer, lacking bab, feats and a few hp. I can see why it is problematic for druids! |
| Kresalak02-13-07, 12:02 PM | It doesn't work. Squirrelloid just wants to destroy CR25 dragons with his level 15 party, so he needs to 'creatively reinterpret' the rules to make the characters far more powerful than they really are :) But it does not work in normal, non-bizarre D&D. Squirrelloid is a powergamer, hence, everything he says is wrong. |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 12:08 PM | It doesn't work. Squirrelloid just wants to destroy CR25 dragons with his level 15 party, so he needs to 'creatively reinterpret' the rules to make the characters far more powerful than they really are :) But it does not work in normal, non-bizarre D&D. That level 15 party was *all meleers* well optimized with PrCs and virtually any sourcebook (just pre-ToB, so nothing from it or released after it). Party included a non-casting changeling wildshaper (wildshape gotten through a very interesting path, then entered MoMF), a Psychic Warrior something-or-other with Karmic Strike and approximating King of Smack, and an Iaijutsu Master build with 30 Cha (at that point, including items) and UMD (um, i think it involved 5 or 6 classes and PrCs by that point - it was a pretty weird build). Its really not my fault the party was theoretically capable of doing ~double the dragon's hp in damage in one round - D+D by 15th level looks like Rocket Launcher tag. The fact that it took 2 rounds to kill it attests to some difficulty in hitting. On the main issue, saying Monk's Belt doesn't work with Wild Armor is still an unsupported assertion on your part. The wild-shaped Druid is not wearing armor, its melded into him. If he was *wearing it*, he'd apply ACP and similar. He doesn't. Therefore he's not wearing it. Its conclusively provable through the RAW that Wild Armor is not "worn" while wild-shaped. If you can cite a rule proving wild armor is "worn" by the wild-shaped form, do so. (If you did so on page 6, or tried to do so... well... I still can't see that page - stupid database error) |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 12:14 PM | Squirrelloid is a powergamer, hence, everything he says is wrong. Heh. I usually only play one on the forums. I've played in exactly one power-gamey campaign. That happens to be the campaign in question with the level 15 characters and the CR 25 dragon. I generally adapt to the needs and desires of the DM. (Actually, my favorite thing to play is the arcane caster that makes the rest of the party look like a rockstar - i specifically played a sorceror in a recently ended campaign to keep my power level in check, and refrained from taking polymorph or abusing Alter Self. I then went Divine Oracle and grabbed a bunch of divinations from the Oracle domain for character reasons. This is more typical than me playing a power-gamed character). However, on the forums i can't assume houserules and the like. We're discussing balance, that makes this a discussion about what the rules as written say, not how I choose to nerf myself in actual play. Oh, and Kres, i'm totally sigging that. |
| Clawhound02-13-07, 01:00 PM | Do remember that the druid gets a -2 to hit while using the tower shield (even if it is floating), plus another -10 armor check penalty because he is not proficient in tower shield. That's -12 to hit. (The shield can't be made of mithral because it is substantially composed of wood.) The druid can always choose to dip into fighter, or take Tower Shield proficiency. Those are expensive options early in a druid's career. That is not an unworkable tactic, but certainly not as cheap and accessible as it seems to be. |
| moscatabaco7602-13-07, 01:03 PM | Just my $0.02.... * If you want to play a fighter, play a fighter. Do yourself a favor and get PH2; that way it will be easier to make yourself useful at higher levels. * As you can see, everybody experiences the game differently, so a fighter might just work well in your game. As many ppl mentioned however fighters tend to be useless outside battle. Barbarians listen, Rangers listen, spot and track, Paladins Talk and Heal, hell even Knights are great tanks. Fighters... fight, and fight well, but not necessarily better that the other classes. * Wild Shape is overrated. In wild shape ALL your equipment becomes nonfunctional, your AC sucks, and extraordinary qualities of the animal don't work; still you do get excellent movility, skill bonuses (my 8th level druid has a total spot of +22 in eagle form) and your offensive spells are slightly better than the cleric's (Flame Strike in particular rocks). |
| Seerow02-13-07, 01:06 PM | Do remember that the druid gets a -2 to hit while using the tower shield (even if it is floating), plus another -10 armor check penalty because he is not proficient in tower shield. That's -12 to hit. (The shield can't be made of mithral because it is substantially composed of wood.) That's why it's a Wild Tower Shield. It melds into his form, the same as the armor. |
| TheCobra02-13-07, 01:14 PM | Including floating shields and ioun stones. No way. Ioun stones are not worn. They orbit 1d3 feet away from the character. Wait, wait. Why PAO is a can of worms and wildshape isn’t? Sure, it makes all meleers ridiculously powerful, but realistically speaking a meleer druid is also going to be using PAO. Oh yeah, with PAO wildshape is rendered completely obsolete, and the druid no longer has any size/ability advantage over the fighter, so he is clearly a far worse meleer, lacking bab, feats and a few hp. I can see why it is problematic for druids! PAO certainly helps the fighter, but the druid can still do okay in melee, as she can buff herself. You know the usual spells. At higher levels, druids are better off as air elementals anyway, flying around and using their amazing spells. |
| Argaud02-13-07, 02:07 PM | That's why it's a Wild Tower Shield. It melds into his form, the same as the armor. Wild The wearer of a suit of armor or a shield with this ability preserves his armor bonus (and any enhancement bonus) while in a wild shape. Armor and shields with this ability usually appear to be made covered in leaf patterns. While the wearer is in a wild shape, the armor cannot be seen. Moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, baleful polymorph; Price +3 bonus. So the armor is still worn, making a belt monk's non-functional. It does not say here that ACP or penalties to attack from tower shields go away either. Has this been errated anywhere? |
| Seerow02-13-07, 02:11 PM | So the armor is still worn, making a belt monk's non-functional. It does not say here that ACP or penalties to attack from tower shields go away either. Has this been errated anywhere? No, it comes from an interpretation giving something different emphasis. Wild The wearer of a suit of armor or a shield with this ability preserves his armor bonus (and any enhancement bonus) while in a wild shape. Armor and shields with this ability usually appear to be made covered in leaf patterns. While the wearer is in a wild shape, the armor cannot be seen. Moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, baleful polymorph; Price +3 bonus. So this means it references back to Wildshape Rules, which claim that the Druid isn't affected by any armor that's melded into his form. What the ability does is allow the Druid to keep his armor bonus and enhancement bonus to AC, while losing out on nifty effects like fortification. |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 02:12 PM | So the armor is still worn, making a belt monk's non-functional. It does not say here that ACP or penalties to attack from tower shields go away either. Has this been errated anywhere? If its not wild armor, you don't get the ACP penalties, right? Therefore, since it only mentions the AC bonus, thats the only thing that transfers. You are _wearing_ it in your human form, but your animal form isn't - it melded into your body like everything else. The magic of the Wild ability lets the AC bonus keep functioning. Thus the 'wearer' (pre-wildshape) gets to preserve one and only one thing post-wildshape, the AC bonus. Nothing else is transitioned, including the state of 'wearing' it, because it never says it is. And please actually bother to *read* the wildshape rules, which explicitly tells you armor melds and becomes nonfunctional normally. |
| Nathreet02-13-07, 02:36 PM | Computer optimized answer: dwarf fighter 12, barbarian 8 is best general purpose melee A while back I wrote a computer program to determine the best general purpose melee fighter (no sneak attack or favored enemy), i.e.: ability to both take hits and dish them out. I considered core rules and PHB races&classes only, including the monk, paladin, self-buffing cleric, barbarian, ranger and combat rogue. Strangely enough I didn't know enough about the druid to consider him, so he's not included. The answer came out to be dwarf barbarian 1, fighter 12, then barbarian 7. If you have more than a couple encounters per day try fighter 12 barbarian 8 instead. Single weapon fighting, one handed. Ability priority: str, con, wis. Dex of 12+. Boost str at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20. The combat rogue came ahead if you can make at least 75% of your attacks sneak attacks. Rogue 13, fighter 7. Take opportunist and crippling strike. Everything else was the same with him (even SWF!). Magic Items: (split by cost) 4 parts to AC items (armor, shield, ring of protection, ioun stone dusty rose prism) 2 parts to a magic weapon: stick to +1 enhancement and buff the energy damage; once you're up to 14+HD monsters make it wounding; use a bane weapon only if over 33% of your opponents are the specified type 1 part to belt of strength 1 part to amulet of health Get boots of speed as early as possible, before all other magic items except +1 armor. Against heavy magic much less treasure went to AC items, and more went to the stat boosters & magic weapon. In that scenario a little more went into the cloak of resistance, but even then it was hardly anything. Important feats include: the fighter tree (duh) improved initiative improved crit (regardless of weapon) dodge Power attack and combat reflexes were surprisingly minor (though still helpful). As were save boosting feats, even in the heavy magic scenario. |
| Seerow02-13-07, 02:39 PM | The combat rogue came ahead if you can make at least 75% of your attacks sneak attacks. Rogue 13, fighter 7. Take opportunist and crippling strike. Everything else was the same with him (even SWF!). This already shows your program has flaws. You lose absolutely nothing to cut the Fighter levels down to 6, and bring in a Barbarian level for ***** and giggles. |
| Greendevilman02-13-07, 02:57 PM | Wow, you get a D- in reading comprehension and an A+ in creatively interpreting ‘stuff’ to fit your warped perception of reality. I mathematically proved that in a real party the fighter has an AC as good as the druid, better to hit and caused more damage and you keep on saying the fighter is not contributing in the party fights. That druid was also optimized to high AC, wearing several buffs and using the so-vaunted dire bear form. Yes, I know the difference is not important, but it does not look as if it is leaning in favor of the druid at all. No you mathmatically proved the fighter can have a higher AC by taking suboptimal feats, spending most of his available wealth on AC boosting items, and being buffed by other party members. This vs. a Druid that has spent far less of his available resources towards aquiring a high AC. The Druid just selected armor and a shield that were easy to use in wildshape, wildshaped and used a low level buff spell. You can improve the AC without losing too much statwise by chosing another form like Legendary Ape, or dramatically by choosing an AC form. The Fighter was blinged out with essentially every available AC item buff and certainly wasn't likely to have a ton of extra money to spend on useful wonderous items. Also note that the druid still has the same item slots as a fighter while wildshaped so can certainly still use items like rings for shield AC. If people in your party are mean it isn't like you can't spontaneously summon up helpers to slide on a ring or whatever. Given Wildshape duration you should really only have to go through this process once a day, maybe twice earlier on. If you wildshape again in the meantime you'll reabsorb your worn gear which is hardly ideal, but the only time you'd be doing it is if you needed a utility form for flight or something. Fundamentally, anything a Fighter can do for AC with gear a Druid can do as well (for slightly more money) if he cares to make the effort. This leaves us with bad AC boosting feats vs. wildshape dex and NA bonuses. I know which I'd rather have. As for the to hit & damage, any Druid with a clue will have just as high an enhancement bonus to hit and damage as the Fighter (without an item even!) on their claws at the very least and this means that by your own math will have roughly the same bonus to hit and fewer penalites from iterative attacks. Which means the Druid actually hits slightly more often (going from the figures you gave). A Fighter probably does usually do a bit more damage on a per hit basis if the Druid doesn't use a buff spell though. Then again, clawing things isn't the most damage a Druid can do on a per round basis and the Druid should get to add in the minor extra animal companion damage. I probably did overstate my case slightly. Overall, if supported by an entire party's worth of buffing effort a Fighter can maybe narrowly outperform a Druid who bought some armor and decided it would be fun to maul things in melee. Its not not contributing but it also isn't terribly impressive either. Then again, I can imagine how some people plays the game. “Cleric, I need healing!” “Sorry Bob, you are not leeching my healing, I will use my selfbuff #24” “Wizard, we need haste!” “Sorry Bob, you are not leeching my spells, I will use improved invisibility and start casting offensive spells in 3 rounds, once I finish buffing to invincibility.” “Rogue, we need some scouting!” “Sorry Bob, you are not leeching my skills, I will hide in the middle of the party and pick the pockets of our enemies for my exclusive benefit.” “Hey Bob, how is you are not fighting that troll, it just grappled the wizard!” “Sorry guys, you are not leeching my sword and my hps, I will stay here and shot arrows, it is inefficient, but safe.” Leeching, indeed! That kind of parties do not last for long. Good parties share their recourses and elaborate efficient strategies so the whole is greater than the individuals. Good parties are far stronger than a single adventurer 3 levels above them (which is why I think the whole concept that to be balanced a single PC needs to be able to defeat a monster of CR=level is a bit screwed). Yeah good parties totally do share resources. I'd certainly not refuse to hand out buffs to the Fighter or anything. On the other hand its not like the Fighter actually reciprocates and provides anyone else in the group with useful buffs, so he *is* leeching becaue he has no useful resources to share beyond being a hitpoint sack. Other classes can perform just as well in the melee role and can self buff/heal and/or buff/heal others in return. The fighter doesn't do anything uniquely useful with the buffs he receives and he has no *right* to call on anyone else's class abilities. So he may well be regularly buffed (almost certainly in fact) because it is better for the party to have him enhanced thusly but he still drains valuable daily spell slots and doesn't enhance the ability of anyone else in return. All the druids gear merges with his body when the druid transforms. Including floating shields and ioun stones. Both items need to be unequipped and re-equipped every time he changes shapes, just like everything else. The fact they are magically floating a few inches from the druid does not means they aren’t subject to the same rules than the rest of the gear. This is a fascinating interpretation of "Any gear worn or carried." I'm sure nobody disputes this interpretation of the rules. :rolleyes: Not really. Adamantine is the only material that is expensive, and it is almost without doubt the material from which his best weapon is going to be made because it is hard to sunder and great to make holes in doors, walls and anything else. Silver and cold iron are dirt cheap. The main problem is the DR/alignment, which requires a Sure Striking weapon, which is a +1 enchantment and hardly expensive at level 14. Certain animal forms having opposable thumbs and thus are possibly capable of using magic weapons? A level 2 spell fixes the problem if this is disallowed and the Druid really cares about melee? Fighters are down for using either 3.0 (heya Wildling clasps!) or Faerunnian material (which is fine but I've been trying to avoid using because the summoning feats are rediculously sick)? And this material is a version of Sure Striking I've never seen? Wait, wait. Why PAO is a can of worms and wildshape isn’t? Sure, it makes all meleers ridiculously powerful, but realistically speaking a meleer druid is also going to be using PAO. Oh yeah, with PAO wildshape is rendered completely obsolete, and the druid no longer has any size/ability advantage over the fighter, so he is clearly a far worse meleer, lacking bab, feats and a few hp. I can see why it is problematic for druids! The fighter is relying on another class' ability to make the fighter effective, and it is an ability the fighter cannot guarantee he has access to. In at most two additional levels the Druid gets Shapechange and can start shitkicking the PAOed Fighter as frequently as he chooses. This means the fighter at best pulls ahead notably in melee for two of the high end levels. Of course the Druid can do something like taking advantage of the inheritace loopholes combined with PAO, which may not make him a better meleer than a Fighter but sure makes him even stronger than he was. So by exploiting the abilities of other classes a Fighter can pull ahead in melee combat by a handful of feats and about a +4 BAB difference for two of the top end levels. While still not able to self buff as well as a Druid. Which may make a Druid who doesn't feel like exploiting the system (elemental wildshape inheritance) and is somewhat depressed that he isn't #1 top dawg in melee (though by no means bad) fall back on his secondary vocation as a full spellcaster. I'm truely impressed by the way the Fighter comes back on top. :rolleyes: Look, this isn't even a real debate. Fighters are just bad as a standalone class. You can have fun with them (I know I have in the past) and they make good bridges to PrC entry but given the nature of feats as they currently exist they're just inherently weaker than many of the alternatives. |
| Greendevilman02-13-07, 03:04 PM | This already shows your program has flaws. You lose absolutely nothing to cut the Fighter levels down to 6, and bring in a Barbarian level for ***** and giggles. You potentially take an XP penalty which I assume his program was set up to avoid. Its also possible he only considered two class combinations. But I know nothing. I'd actually really like to have more details on the program. |
| Argaud02-13-07, 08:02 PM | If its not wild armor, you don't get the ACP penalties, right? Therefore, since it only mentions the AC bonus, thats the only thing that transfers. You are _wearing_ it in your human form, but your animal form isn't - it melded into your body like everything else. The magic of the Wild ability lets the AC bonus keep functioning. Thus the 'wearer' (pre-wildshape) gets to preserve one and only one thing post-wildshape, the AC bonus. Nothing else is transitioned, including the state of 'wearing' it, because it never says it is. And please actually bother to *read* the wildshape rules, which explicitly tells you armor melds and becomes nonfunctional normally. You know, I got tired of this conversation and went to ask custhelp, I got this: Hey there <name>. Since the druid is considered to be still wearing the armor, they still incur any penalties and limitations of the wild armor while in wild shape. This means that you would incur any penalties for armor or shields that you normally would, including nonproficienty penalties and the penalty from a tower shield. Yes, Customer Support is not the Sage, and even the Sage rule strangely at times, but still, their opinion carries much weight. Not only is the druid still considered wearing armor, the ACP still applies 100%. |
| TheCobra02-13-07, 08:12 PM | So beastskin armor is almost strictly superior to wild armor? Interesting. |
| Kresalak02-13-07, 09:13 PM | CustServ doesn't count when they don't follow the rules. |
| Bard-of-all-trades02-13-07, 10:34 PM | CustServ doesn't count when they don't follow the rules. We all know that. Check out my sig. :D |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 10:54 PM | I'd say thats the most ridiculous thing custserv has ever said, but no, they've said worse. Its still ridiculous. Oh, and CustServ carrying weight? Huh? At least it was funny when you said it - I laughed so hard it took me 4 minutes to be able to even start typing. I certainly hope you don't believe that. In fact, if you want to interpret the rules correctly, its often better to do the opposite of what they tell you. |
| Bob Loblaw02-13-07, 10:58 PM | True, but it's easier to argue a balance perspective assuming an equal playing field and equal access to things...[and other valid points] Oh I don't think anybody would disagree that things like this change the situation dramatically...[and other valid points] While I can agree with your points overall, the original question was: IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since the question is purely opinion based and has set no parameters, the answer must, by default be "yes, there is a point to having a fighter in the party." I would not argue that spellcasters are incredibly powerful. I would say that, in certain groups, a fighter can be a great addition. In our group, we try to let everyone have the spotlight. If that means that character needs a little boost, then that's the way it goes. Our DMs also make sure that the opponents we face fit our style and characters. It's all in the group. The mechanics are good, but they can't be the end-all-be-all of the discussion. |
| Argaud02-13-07, 11:08 PM | I was going to make a sarcastic comment about how Squirrelloid and Kresalak won't admit they are wrong even if Skip Williams, Monte Cook and Jonathan Tweet come from the heavens to tell them in person. Powergamering don't make you be wrong, nope, ignoring the rules does. But Bard-of-all-trades has it explained much better in his sig. Dude, I am politely requesting permission to copy it. I want it! :) |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 11:19 PM | I was going to make a sarcastic comment about how Squirrelloid and Kresalak won't admit they are wrong even if Skip Williams, Monte Cook and Jonathan Tweet come from the heavens to tell them in person. Powergamering don't make you be wrong, nope, ignoring the rules does. But Bard-of-all-trades has it explained much better in his sig. Dude, I am politely requesting permission to copy it. I want it! :) Because CustServe is always right about the rules? In my experience, they have never been right about the rules. Admittedly, i've never asked them an easy question (or any question), i just get to experience their ineptitude second hand on the forums. Its quite possible they get asked a lot of trivial stuff they get right. But seriously, if Wild Armor applies ACP to the wearer while wildshaped, then non-Wild armor should also apply ACP. Wild doesn't say anything other than you can count the AC (and enhancement to that) bonus, not that you count all aspects of the armor. Default for normal armor during wildshape is you aren't wearing it because it melds. Since Wild only describes one exception to this generality, thats all it does. Period. Its really not that hard to read. |
| pawsplay02-13-07, 11:29 PM | Virtually anything a wizard, rogue, or cleric can do works that much better if they have a fighter around to hold the monster's attention, so yes. If you're going to abuse polymorph, use a fighter to abuse it with. If you want to flank for buckets of sneak attack dice, you want a fighter opposite you who can move into a flanking position under nearly any circumstances and survive long periods of time in contact with the enemy. If you want to simply blast a distance, it works that much better if you have a fighter with a bow playing pickle for you. And the best thing about fighters is that one fighter can do ALL of those things reasonably well with very little loss of focus on their main tactic of choice. |
| Argaud02-13-07, 11:35 PM | But seriously, if Wild Armor applies ACP to the wearer while wildshaped, then non-Wild armor should also apply ACP. Wild doesn't say anything other than you can count the AC (and enhancement to that) bonus, not that you count all aspects of the armor. Default for normal armor during wildshape is you aren't wearing it because it melds. Since Wild only describes one exception to this generality, thats all it does. Period. Its really not that hard to read. Seriously, if Wild armor is not worn when the druid wildshapes, what prevents the druid from wildshaping into a dog, donning some wild barding, wildshaping into some other animal, donning yet more armor and so on until he has infinite AC? If you read the description of Wild you will see it -never- mentions the ACP is gone, or that movement is not impaired, or that the armor is suddenly weightless. I'd say something that important would be mentioned. All it says is that 'the armor cannot be seen'. What did you expect from a +3? A loophole to infinite armor. Even if it was just that Wild allowed the druid an AC 5-10 points above any other class thanks a Monk's Belt, it would still be a huge balance problem. It is not really that hard to read. And CustServe has been pretty clear about it. To pretend otherwise is, as Caelic so brilliantly posted in the the Stupid Arguments Thread, valuing the opinion of 'some guy' in the CharOp boards more than the rulings of the game creators. |
| NineInchNall02-13-07, 11:36 PM | Seriously, if Wild armor is not worn when the druid wildshapes, what prevents the druid from wildshaping into a dog, donning some wild barding, wildshaping into some other animal, donning yet more armor and so on until he has infinite AC? Stacking rules. |
| Squirrelloid02-13-07, 11:45 PM | Seriously, if Wild armor is not worn when the druid wildshapes, what prevents the druid from wildshaping into a dog, donning some wild barding, wildshaping into some other animal, donning yet more armor and so on until he has infinite AC? If you read the description of Wild you will see it -never- mentions the ACP is gone, or that movement is not impaired, or that the armor is suddenly weightless. I'd say something that important would be mentioned. All it says is that 'the armor cannot be seen'. What did you expect from a +3? A loophole to infinite armor. Even if it was just that Wild allowed the druid an AC 5-10 points above any other class thanks a Monk's Belt, it would still be a huge balance problem. It is not really that hard to read. And CustServe has been pretty clear about it. To pretend otherwise is, as Caelic so brilliantly posted in the the Stupid Arguments Thread, valuing the opinion of 'some guy' in the CharOp boards more than the rulings of the game creators. First, the default for wildshaping with armor is that the armor is no longer 'worn', as it is melded. This is what Wild modifies. Normal armor (while wildshaped) applies no ACP, no AC, no max dex to AC, etc.... Wild modifies this specific state of affairs to say you retain the AC bonus. It is still an armor bonus, and thus additional suits of "Wild barding" don't add anything. Come now, could you at least come up with a plausible slippery slope - we all know named bonus types don't stack with the same type (armor is a bonus type). There is no such abuse. This isn't to say the rules don't have balance problems. They do, lots of them. But we can't say the rules are wrong because there are balance problems - the rules still say those things which create balance problems. (What's needed is specific errata to correct those problems, after having done some careful playtesting). We can agree that Druids are overpowered. We shouldn't alter rules and present those changes as the way the rules are actually written to solve those perceived balance problems. Finally, I'm not valuing the opinion of some guy. I'm valuing what the rulebook actually says (presumably written by the game designers in their own words) over the opinion of 'some guy' at custserve who is neither a game creator, designer, or even editor - he's just some guy Wizards pays to answer e-mails about the game. And given the frequency with which they are provably wrong, I think my lack of faith in them is well founded. (Now, if they (or anyone connected to WotC) wanted to tell me what happened when a Druid takes con damage while wildshaped (something that is nowhere covered by the rules), I'd be happy to believe them. Although thats a case where an errata would be nicer). |
| Lotus Crane02-14-07, 01:28 AM | To return to the original topic of this thread, and to reiterate one of my earlier points, is the question really about the fighter class specifically, or melee warriors in general? And should we care so much more about the fighter class specifically, than melee warriors in general? Is it that important that we preserve a sacred cow of previous editions? Personally, I feel that given a party size of at least 3 PC's, yes, a dedicated melee warrior is useful, and perhaps even necessary. However, in 3.x, the fighter has never been the only choice (even at the begining of 3.0, there was the barbarian) for this role, and at times I'm puzzled by why people are so attached to the fighter specifically, and treat it as though it should be the only class capable of what it does (or at least, what it's supposed to do). |
| Archangel6202-14-07, 02:28 AM | To return to the original topic of this thread, and to reiterate one of my earlier points, is the question really about the fighter class specifically, or melee warriors in general? And should we care so much more about the fighter class specifically, than melee warriors in general? Is it that important that we preserve a sacred cow of previous editions? Personally, I feel that given a party size of at least 3 PC's, yes, a dedicated melee warrior is useful, and perhaps even necessary. However, in 3.x, the fighter has never been the only choice (even at the begining of 3.0, there was the barbarian) for this role, and at times I'm puzzled by why people are so attached to the fighter specifically, and treat it as though it should be the only class capable of what it does (or at least, what it's supposed to do). One of the big reasons is that the fighter has been with us forever, a result of that is that the fighter is loved by many. Also, admittedly we are working from theory, the idea that assuming each character is going to push themselves to their greatest limits and we compare abilities and contribution ot the group based on that. Part of it is this too, a fighter has a limited number of options, their design purpose was to...well FIGHT, the problem is that they can't really fight very well when compared to other classes, even classes that aren't melee first. |
| Lotus Crane02-14-07, 03:34 AM | One of the big reasons is that the fighter has been with us forever, a result of that is that the fighter is loved by many. I suppose since I've only been playing long enough to catch the tail end of 2nd edition (or was it AD&D?), I don't have quite the same attachment to the "core 4" that older-timers do. I only played a single non-3.x campaign (the first 3.0 books had just been printed, but the first group I played with hadn't bought them yet), and I was a seductress-type ninja from the Ninja Handbook, with the iron cloth technique to kill people with the bed covers. ^_~ To date I've only used fighter once, as a 2-level dip for a barbarian build, and even then, I wasn't all that impressed with the class (then again, this was before PHB II). I'm currently playing a cloistered cleric 2/swordsage 3/Onyx Knight Silencer* 2, with Divine Persistent divine favor (until I'm high enough level to use divine power instead), and yeah, the ranger/fighter and the duskblade in the party are both lagging behind me quite a bit. I guess I just don't have enough sentimental attachment to the fighter class, to care if it literally gets replaced by the martial adept classes in 3.5 and perhaps even 4th. *campaign specific adaptation of Ruby Knight Vindicator Part of it is this too, a fighter has a limited number of options, their design purpose was to...well FIGHT, the problem is that they can't really fight very well when compared to other classes, even classes that aren't melee first. I think that's an overly narrow design goal in the first place. It may have worked in 1st, 2nd, and Adv, but it barely functioned in 3.0, and I think it's past its prime in mid-3.5. When I look at fighter fixes on these boards, the most important fix I always look for is 4 + Int skill points and some more class skills, rather than even more bonus feats, or purely combat-oriented special abilities. Classes like ranger, warblade, swordsage, or even duskblade, aren't merely more powerful than a fighter; I find them to be a whole lot more fun, because they offer enough skill points (plus sometimes other abilities) to give me a whole lot to do in between fights as well. One (or even zero)-dimensional classes just don't do it for me. There's a reason why the beguiler and dread necromancer are actually decent and worth playing, while the warmage and healer are totally pointless. |
| itwasntme02-14-07, 08:26 AM | im only going to say this one more time it was your example not mine quit complaning and argueing over your example Allso i like to point something out AC is only good at low levels to mid levels Later in the game AC Dosnt realy mean anything inless you have FAT Bonus's to it All creatures (Players/Monsters) Later in the game have a bunch of ways to ignore the whole AC on characters in one way or another Examples A) The Creatures To Hit is so high that its going to hit most of the time with allmost all of its attacks save perhaps 1 big deal B) There not even aiming at your AC Maybe your Touch AC or something eles on that line C) There not trying to realy Hit you there just useing Special Effects/Abilitys D) The Creature is a spell caster he dosnt give a damn what the hell your AC Is to him D) Brillent NRG Weapons would just ignore most of your AC On your so called Epic AC Druid the only thing that staying for AC For your Druid is the few points you have in Dex your ring of Protection and your Nat AC Eveything eles (The Bonus to armor and eveything) Is Negated Cut your AC in half and thats what it realy is to most creatures in one way or another its not a big deal quit makeing it sound like your AC Means as much as it dose your druid yes can get high AC But not intill the point of the game where it kinda dosnt matter in the game anymore And allso i never see fighters running around with items that give them bonus's to Str Dex Con and Wis Honestly if your worried about saves then get a clock of Resistance inless your example fighters are now Dex Type of fighters there is no need for high Dex any if your even more worried about your Will save for the Fighter then just waste 2 feats and have your best (Or 2nd Best) Ability take care of it by makeing it where your Con Mod is replaceing your wisdom score on Saves (allso preventing you from failing on Nat 1's for Fort along with some other minor things) honestly your not trying to run evey single fighter build on the fighter theres no need No Need to build Chargeing Pallys + Archur Pally + Melee Pally it just wount happin so quit trying to do something like that Besides Chargeing Characters normoly Suck by just makeing the characters Fight on Hindering/Hard Surfaces and just haveing a Spear could totoly Own the Chargeing guy if you know what your doing Theres tons of ways to mess with Chargeing characters this is why when i play Pally i useoly dount count on my Horse being able to do things for me Besides you cant take horse into Dungions or anything eles like that Im sure the fighter would have enough money as well to offord a Brillent Nrgy Weapon seeing how your druid is having 6 (Or more) +3 (Or Higher) Items with Mods on it (Thus makeing It Effectifly Higher) Come on quit argueing about the Druids AC It isnt the greatest thing They can get ok AC but not the best in early levels In Mid levels they get ok AC As well But not the Best Again And as stated Later in the game you dount need AC Its only good for agest thouse Low Level Creatures or Swarms of nmes comeing at you which btw i beleve eveyone can agree that Swarms of weeker monsters = food for the fighter and most other characters Come on all the fighter needs to do (If your still compareing agest him on his To Hit agest your AC Even if he has a low str but with your idea of a fighter there shouldnt realy be a sucky to hit ... if so you just suck as makeing a fighter eather that or hes just made for Roleplaying purpose's) Honestly a Fighter dosnt need Str Dex Con Wis to all be realy high and then have at least adverage is not above adverage Int and Cha Plz quit thinking the Fighter is Raw or anything eles like that No Monks are Raw along with Pallys (Along with other things) No just quit argueing over a dumb thing |
| itwasntme02-14-07, 08:33 AM | Allso why the hell dos the fighter need skill points Inless hes only just give him one or 2 skills and he dosnt need much of anything eles Hell the Rouge is the Skill point Madness guy ill just have him do it for me hey level 1 rouge mind searching for Traps for me ... Sense that is your Field ? Hey Rouge mind sneaking up to the nme and stealing the Docs from them? After all that is your Field The fighter dosnt realy need Skill points If your so worried then just waste a feat and have a skill you want as a class skill then put the skill points into it Example is something like Able Learner I mean there was ways to solve a ton of things I made check out my Sig for just a simple example for it want it to get better? Oh it can a LOT Better examples of them going around what you dount think it can be fun? Hell my groups Fall over laugfing at the fact that a Fighter is doing a better job then the rouge at some jobs or have some way to do it My Groups allways end up laugfing over the whole point of needing a whole lot of skill points theres allways another way around it just use that head of yours half of em can be funny as hell Oh Rouge you found a trap but you cant Disarm it? Hear hang on *Carges Trap gets hit* Ow that kinda hurt *Smash trap* There its gone now ill just use Rapid matobolism or my own Pots of healing to heal my self coz i can kinda see why the cleric dosnt want to heal me now But Trap was Solved! Come on in guys its all clear now no need to worrie or waste any of your spells! i did it all for you! Oh what waste a day? Oh no food ration and water skin Hey look its a dead monster we killed Hmm i wounder if we can cook it and use it as food Hell im a fighter i dount realy have skill points why not put them into something like "cooking" Or Survivol or anything eles like that if you realy wanted to Hm water? Well theres a ton of blood its Nutrises and heathy for you sure it may taste bad or be posin's if it was off a posin/Undead/Other creature that is somewhat known to be unheathy Oh wait hang on a water skin kinda last forever if you do it right yay like in a forest? Look a small spring of water i think ill fill up my water bag now Ever read filling up a water bag or anything eles like that? No just do it in a differnt way some will work just great some wount however Oh Well it dosnt matter realy Oh eveyone make Fort Saves now? becouse where in a Desert crossing it anyways with low amount of water? Ok ... well looks like spell casters are having a hard time at it Sense for some reason they cant summon food or water! or better yet higher levels just get a ring of sustence to solve thouse needs besides how much is a damn food ration 5sp? Why am i spending that much money? All i need is something to eat for a day let me buy a chunk of cheese or a pieace of meat for a cheaper price to fill me up the first few days or w/e there i saved some money happy now? |
| rolig02-14-07, 08:54 AM | uber up the fighter with armor class and different stranght buffs and stuff.... and you will se a very dangerous tanking character indeed:rolleyes: |
| Greendevilman02-14-07, 09:24 AM | itwasntme, In some sense I want to point out to you why you're wrong, but I've already tried to do that and it apparently didn't take. I'll just point out again that the Druid's AC (which I never claimed was epic) isn't trying for incredible optimization, he's just using a class ability for a non AC optimizing form, a low level hours duration buff and some easily affordable magic armor. You know the same thing the Fighter does if he tries to "tank". A Cleric could do the same. You are of course correct that at higher levels AC matters less but since the Fighter has no defenses against those methods of AC negation (and casters do) your point was...? I'm happy you like fighters. It still doesn't make them good as a straight class. If you make an effort with them you can get something out, but its still an inferior product and in the end really isn't worth the effort. |
| jadehawk02-14-07, 12:15 PM | I say, every party needs at least a fighter. Someone who doesn't need to rest to regain spells, has a lot of hit points and doesn't necassarily need neat tricks. With the right feats, any fighter could prove fun to play. I actually wanted to play a farmer who turned fighter (two weapon fighting/quarterstaff). Drop skills ranks in some professions/crafting skills. All depends on the build. If you like fighting, go fighter. :) Of course at like lvl 20 without a PRC most likely (though depends on the gear you have) a spellcaster will be more powerful. But the fighter can just keep slugging along and along and along..... I agree with Rez here. A group of wizards and rogues would be pretty awesome in the first encounter, as long as they didn't get critically hit (or hit too hard in any event or too many times). But as more encounters elapse in the same day wizards will lose their spells and they will both lose precious hit points. Everybody needs a meatshield and consistent damage. A fighter (likely developed by prestige to do nastier things than a straight out fighter could do) is handy in the "gauntlet", as well as a great distraction to help wizards get their spells off and a steady flanking partner for rogues. |
| malisteen02-14-07, 12:47 PM | Virtually anything a wizard, rogue, or cleric can do works that much better if they have a fighter around to hold the monster's attention. Except this isn't a MMORPG, so the fighter has no way to hold a monster's attention. An intelligent monster knows that spell casters are the real threat, and even an unintelligent monster can attack the enemy that hurt them the most, or stop attacking something they can't hurt effectively in favor of a softer target. And since the fighter has no way of preventing an enemy from attacking whoever that enemy bloody well pleases (especially at high levels, when enemies fly, teleport, or are incorporeal/ethereal/spell casters), the fighter simply cannot perform this job. And even if he could, he can't do so significantly better then a summoned monster, cohort, or npc hireling. The fighter dosnt realy need Skill points. So, Fighters should never use skills. They never move in combat (so as to, say, get in the path of a monster or allow flanking), so they should not get Tumble. And they never fight from a precarious position (say, on the top of a moving carriage, or on a narrow ledge, or a swinging bridge, or a frozen lake), so they do not need Balance. And Fighters never serve as night watchman while the party sleeps, so they would never need to use Spot or Listen. And nobody ever wants to play an aristocratic or noble knight without also being full of magic powers, so a Fighter totally shouldn't have Knowledge: Nobility & Royalty or Diplomacy. And no adventuring warrior ever had another job back home, so Fighters certainly shouldn't get Profession. Finally, Fighters can roll to hit! Amazing! It would be totally greedy of a fighter player to actually want to have something, anything, to do outside of initiative as well. Do you see where I'm going with this? We can pretend that a fighter fights perfectly well. We can pretend that. But he doesn't fight so increadibly amazingly well that he should be the only PC class in the Player's Handbook with no out of combat utility what-so-ever. Barbarians have a decent number of skill points, a skill list that allows them to notice enemies before a battle starts (so they can take a watch), and other class abilities that make them useful in some out of combat situations. Bards have Illusion spells & social skills. Clerics have a wide range of spells, making them potentially useful in any situation Druids have a wide range of spells, plus at early levels get a wolf to help them hold their own in combat, and at later levels can turn into a variety of animal shapes with potential uses both in and out of combat. Monks have the skill selection and class abilities to be useful in a number of situations. Paladins have access to diplomatic skills and are almost automatically believed by npcs (since everyone and their mother knows a paladin can't lie), making them potentially excellent party faces, and they have a limited spell list with some out of combat utility to back them up. Rangers' skills make them excellent scouts, and have limited spell casting for additional utility. Rogues are the kings of skills, plus have a range of class features making them potentially useful in nearly any situation. Sorcerers with a clever spell selection can be useful in almost any situation. Wizards have a wide range of spells, making them potentially useful in any situation. Of all the PC classes, only Fighters have no potential utility out of initiative. Even ignoring the Spell Caster vs. non-Spell Caster rift, even ignoring any problems the fighter may have during combat, this complete lack of out-of-combat utility is simply unacceptable. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-14-07, 12:49 PM | I agree with Rez here. A group of wizards and rogues would be pretty awesome in the first encounter, as long as they didn't get critically hit (or hit too hard in any event or too many times). But as more encounters elapse in the same day wizards will lose their spells and they will both lose precious hit points. Everybody needs a meatshield and consistent damage. A fighter (likely developed by prestige to do nastier things than a straight out fighter could do) is handy in the "gauntlet", as well as a great distraction to help wizards get their spells off and a steady flanking partner for rogues. I bolded why the fighter class exists. To get into a real class. Fighter is one of the best classes in the game, for two levels. Past that You're better off with something else. Still while a party of rogues and wizards would have problems past encounter 3 (no cleric), they can probably bypass another 4 encounters entirely without expending any resources via stealth or other tricks. If they had a fighter the cost of bypassing those fights would become prohibative, actually decreasing their performance. Of course a far better party would be rougues and clerics of trickery, who could probably bypass half a dungeon then nova the BBEG and sneak out. This all assumes the party is below level 12 or so, when the 4 encounters = no spells left might actually be true. The further aboce that you get the less likely the wizards are going to be hurting for spell slots. |
| tiamot02-14-07, 01:09 PM | Fighters have their purpose, just like any other class. As to what that purpose is, I encourage players not to look to the book for answers but their own gaming experiences and styles. Playing a fighter may prove somewhat useless if you have a DM that loves magic and likes to draw that thread out to endless lengths. Truthfully, a game should be balanced so that a singular means cannot always produce a successful outcome. In a game that presents the PCs with a myriad of challenges, fighters will prove their worth. Fighter strength isn't always just for whomping monsters! They're perfect for busting down doors when magic just isn't feasible (or would prove wasteful), for intimidating, hauling, carrying, or dragging, just to name a few. Perhaps the true beauty of the fighter is that he is a simple character that can be highly customized. The bottom line is that each class's purpose or usefulness is justified by the player him or herself. I've seen many crafty and useful fighters in my days as a player and DM. I would call them far from useless. A class is only made useless by an ineffective player. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 01:26 PM | Still while a party of rogues and wizards would have problems past encounter 3 (no cleric), they can probably bypass another 4 encounters entirely without expending any resources via stealth or other tricks. If they had a fighter the cost of bypassing those fights would become prohibative, actually decreasing their performance. Of course a far better party would be rougues and clerics of trickery, who could probably bypass half a dungeon then nova the BBEG and sneak out. Ok, 2 halfling rogues, 2 grey elf wizards. So assuming the wizards are at least 3rd level - the rogues sneak in and scout out the place, disarm any traps, etc... One rogue walks out and tells the wizards they're ready. Then the wizards each cast invisibility and the rogue casts silence off a scroll, they walk past all the monsters, and each of them Color Spray the BBEG while the rogues throw flasks of acid (ranged touch dealing SA damage) in the surprise round. (These are probably Int 20 grey elf wizards, so thats DC 16 x2 or prepare to be CDGed by everyone). Assuming the BBEG is *not* CDG-bait, the BBEG is likely to go 3rd (or later, since the rogues will have a high init mod and the wizards probably have imp init), and gets color-sprayed and/or hit with sneak-attack dealing flasks of acid (2 per rogue with TWF). Assuming a CR3-6 BBEG, he probably never gets to act. Who says wizards can't bypass encounters? |
| Kresalak02-14-07, 01:35 PM | You know, if we go by Argaud's "intepretation", the Wild ability is useless, as Druids still get the AC bonus, ACP, max Dex, spell failure, etc. from armor when Wildshaping. This is true because the default CANNOT be that they get nothing, otherwise Wild only gives the AC bonus, as it doesn't override anything else. |
| Argaud02-14-07, 02:02 PM | You know, if we go by Argaud's "intepretation", the Wild ability is useless, as Druids still get the AC bonus, ACP, max Dex, spell failure, etc. from armor when Wildshaping. This is true because the default CANNOT be that they get nothing, otherwise Wild only gives the AC bonus, as it doesn't override anything else. Why is useless to have an armor that can be used in any shape? I think it is pretty good. A wild full plate made of wood and then ironwooded will give any druid a +9 to AC in any shape, and that before enchanting it further. A druid needs Wis 28 to get so much from a Monk's Belt. Truth is not all is good. In exchange for 8+ points of AC he gets a -5 to skills he rarely uses, -10 to movement (and carries a weight he will rarely notice). He cannot fly, though, because it is heavy armor. It takes a feat, too, which the druid could use is something else. And he gets no AC benefit from Dex over 12, which many animals have, and that he can get through spells. So a breastplate might be better. But then we have the wild shield. I asked if a wild shield would hamper the use of one of the druid's hands/claws but CustServe seems to have forgotten about that part of my email :rolleyes:. Regardless it is hard to beat the AC give by a magical armor and magical large shield (would be 10+magic, so up to 20) using bracers and a monk's belt. At the end the druid must weight his options and pick the most efficient. Beastskin is an option someone mentioned. Beastskin allows the armor shapeshift at the cost of 1 extra use of wildshape, and is just +2, instead of +3. The armor does not merge and is clearly visible after the transformation. Sometimes this could be a problem, but most times it does not matter. Beastskin can't be used with a shield, though. On the other hand a beastskin armor could have other properties too. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-14-07, 02:16 PM | Uh Argaud, you missed the point. What Kresalak meant is that because the only part of the wildshape rules the Wild enchantment changes is the AC bonus gained, and because wildshape states only that the armor fuses with the druids form one of the following must be true. 1 - Squirrelloid is right on how things work and custserve is wrong. 2 - Armor being fused with a character in wildshape give all bonuses and penalties as normal. 3 - There is errata somewhere that indicates that either Druids gain the penalties of armor with no benifits while wildshaping or that the Wild armor enchantment gives more then just the AC bonus in the listed rules. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 02:42 PM | Assuming the customer service ruling is correct, it looks like the monk's belt is the way to go now. That's too bad, as I think re-equipping items after wild shape is a little silly. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 02:48 PM | Uh Argaud, you missed the point. What Kresalak meant is that because the only part of the wildshape rules the Wild enchantment changes is the AC bonus gained, and because wildshape states only that the armor fuses with the druids form one of the following must be true. 1 - Squirrelloid is right on how things work and custserve is wrong. 2 - Armor being fused with a character in wildshape give all bonuses and penalties as normal. 3 - There is errata somewhere that indicates that either Druids gain the penalties of armor with no benifits while wildshaping or that the Wild armor enchantment gives more then just the AC bonus in the listed rules. The following could also be added. 2. Wild shape states: Any gear worn or carried by the druid melds into the new form and becomes nonfunctional. This has not been changed (to the best of my knowledge) by errata. Nonfunctional armor presumably has no effect on the druid whatsoever, since it loses all function. Thus 2 is an impossibility. (it is also melded into his form, so he could wear another suit of armor at no penalty (although if the first suit is Wild he only gets the best armor bonus). The armor slot is no longer occupied). Assuming the customer service ruling is correct, it looks like the monk's belt is the way to go now. That's too bad, as I think re-equipping items after wild shape is a little silly. CustServe can't possibly right unless there is a secret errata out there somewhere that no one seems to know about. |
| Argaud02-14-07, 03:21 PM | This has not been changed (to the best of my knowledge) by errata. Nonfunctional armor presumably has no effect on the druid whatsoever, since it loses all function. Thus 2 is an impossibility. (it is also melded into his form, so he could wear another suit of armor at no penalty (although if the first suit is Wild he only gets the best armor bonus). The armor slot is no longer occupied). Except wild armor is very obviously still functional, since it is giving the druid -all- the benefits and -all- the drawbacks of wearing armor. You can't have the one without the other. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 03:24 PM | So it's exactly like beastskin armor, except that you don't have to spend an additional use of wild shape? |
| Seerow02-14-07, 03:26 PM | Except wild armor is very obviously still functional, since it is giving the druid -all- the benefits and -all- the drawbacks of wearing armor. You can't have the one without the other. The point being made is that Wild Armor says it grants the armor bonus to AC. It DOESN'T say that it allows you to treat the armor as functional. If it said the latter, you would be correct. But it doesn't. ALL it says is that it grants the armor bonus to your armor class while Wildshaped. There is a difference in the two, and pretending otherwise is houseruling. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 03:27 PM | Except wild armor is very obviously still functional, since it is giving the druid -all- the benefits and -all- the drawbacks of wearing armor. You can't have the one without the other. Uh. According to what in the rules? (CustServe is not rules. Sorry. Any statement of theirs not verifiable with reference to the rules is just their opinion and has no basis in fact. In fact, they can and have been proveably wrong). Wildshape says its nonfunctional and melded. Wild is magic, it can do whatever it wants, and according to the rules does exactly and only what it says it does, which is let you count the armor and enhancement bonus. Thats it, end of text. So does normal armor apply AC, ACP and so forth when you wildshape? Because that would have to be true in order for your statement to be correct. At which point, Wild is pointless. But seriously Argaud, Daidoji gave you 3 choices. How do the rules work according to you? Those are your only possible options, anything else is blatantly false. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-14-07, 03:28 PM | Except wild armor is very obviously still functional, since it is giving the druid -all- the benefits and -all- the drawbacks of wearing armor. You can't have the one without the other. You can if the feat listed says you "preserves his armor bonus (and any enhancement bonus) while in a wild shape," instead of mentioning that the armor does not "meld into the new form." Edit: Whcih as stated above, means he is not wearing it. Admittedly I would not weep if errata was issued on such a matter, and it really doesn't hurt the Druid to any significant degree, but as written the ruling can not be correct without errata. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 03:31 PM | Judging by the description of beastskin armor, the authors of Complete Adventurer agree with Squirrelloid. Of course, those guys also thought you could activate a wand as a swift action... |
| Argaud02-14-07, 03:34 PM | Wildshape says its nonfunctional and melded. Wild is magic, it can do whatever it wants, and according to the rules does exactly and only what it says it does, which is let you count the armor and enhancement bonus. Thats it, end of text. By that rule I would point out that Wild does not say the armor loses the ACP or other drawbacks. So they stand. |
| Seerow02-14-07, 03:37 PM | By that rule I would point out that Wild does not say the armor loses the ACP or other drawbacks. So they stand. You're missing the point STILL. The WILD enhancement doesn't say that it loses the ACP and other drawbacks. However, the Wildshape Description DOES say that your armor becomes nonfunctional, meaning you lose ALL benefits AND drawbacks, by wildshaping AS A DEFAULT. Wild Armor explicitly gives back the armor bonus, but it does NOT give back the ACP, any extra ability enhancements (silent moves, whatever), max dex, or anything else. It is still effectively melded into your form. Wild Armor does NOT override that specific part of wildshape, which is the point we are making here. Please respond directly to THIS assertion, rather than continuing to state the same thing while ignoring the point entirely. |
| Nathreet02-14-07, 03:37 PM | This already shows your program has flaws. You lose absolutely nothing to cut the Fighter levels down to 6, and bring in a Barbarian level for ***** and giggles. Multi-classing exp penalties. Everyone in the forums will appreciate it if you think through your complaints in the future. Sure, if you never plan on going past level 20 you could take a level of barb. It's also interesting that you had to resort to complaining about a side build, not the main build. Furthermore, your logic boils down to: "omg! Someone might perceive a flaw to exist in your answer, therefore it must all be wrong." to which I say: "Omg! Your complaint is flawed! I'll never listen to any complaint you make ever again." J/k, I'm only saying this line of thinking is stupid. Though I will be skeptical towards future comments. For clarification, there have been some minor bugs in the program before, which I fixed thanks to people on these boards. However, the answer it spat out didn't change much. There may be more bugs, but I still imagine the answer won't change much. Also, the build uses only PHB races & classes, which limits it of course. Plus it is optimized for straight-up melee fighting (with no special challenges), which might not always be your goal. Oh, and for those looking for the build I posted it on page 9. |
| Seerow02-14-07, 03:42 PM | Multi-classing exp penalties. Everyone in the forums will appreciate it if you think through your complaints in the future. Sure, if you never plan on going past level 20 you could take a level of barb. Furthermore, your logic boils down to: "omg! Someone might perceive a flaw to exist in your answer, therefore it must all be wrong." to which I say "Omg! Your complaint is flawed! I'll never listen to any complaint you make ever again." J/k, I'm only saying this line of thinking is stupid. Though I will be skeptical towards future comments. Well I voiced more serious opinions last time I saw you bringing up this program. Honestly, I'll bet if I tried to write a program to do the same thing, we'd get different results. Why? Because the program organizes things based on the priorities you give. If your priorities are "High to hit and higher damage" then yeah, a TWFing Fighter/Rogue might actually come up ahead. In any real game? They'll feel themselves lagging behind for most of the game. If the priority is high AC, given the choices you allowed, Fighter is the only real option available, because you didn't include Druids, personal buff spells, or anything else that gives other classes a significant edge. Writing a program to do something doesn't make your analysis infallible. It is just as opinion based as any post we make here. The only difference is, you have a program that clearly states where your opinions are. Btw, people actually pay attention to xp penalties? That amuses me somehow. Edit: As an unrelated note, I -would- love to see your code. Just as a point of reference to see how this came about. And for personal study of course. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 03:52 PM | Judging by the description of beastskin armor, the authors of Complete Adventurer agree with Squirrelloid. Of course, those guys also thought you could activate a wand as a swift action... ? You can (assuming the spell is swift). The primary source on wands is the DMG, which says they are activated with the same action as the spell. The Primary Source rule tells you the primary source takes precedence over *everything* else. Thus Spell Compendium (i think thats where they said otherwise) is wrong according to their own rules. |
| Nathreet02-14-07, 03:53 PM | The criteria is best chance of winning a fight where each combatant stands besides the other and thwacks until one of them drop. Except the other opponent can use spells (whose frequency, damage, chance of disabling, etc. I estimated roughly). You know javascript? If not, then something similar like Java or C? If I were to release the code it would be after I cleaned it up a bit for readability. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 04:04 PM | Thus Spell Compendium (i think thats where they said otherwise) is wrong according to their own rules. The Spell Compendium was published later, however. It's the most recent WotC statement on the matter. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 04:08 PM | The Spell Compendium was published later, however. It's the most recent WotC statement on the matter. Doesn't matter, according to their own rules, the Primary Source *always* takes precedence. They would have to errata the DMG in order to change it, nothing else can replace that rule. Edit: The 'meta-rules' for determining which rule to follow when 2 rules contradict is as follows: A) If one rule is in a primary source for that rule, use the primary source. Not every rule has a primary source. B) If there is no primary source, or neither rule is in the primary source, use the most recently published. C) Exception: If one rule is a specific exception to a general rule, use the more specific rule. A and B are heirarchical - B only applies if A does not. |
| Seerow02-14-07, 04:10 PM | The criteria is best chance of winning a fight where each combatant stands besides the other and thwacks until one of them drop. Except the other opponent can use spells (whose frequency, damage, chance of disabling, etc. I estimated roughly). You know javascript? If not, then something similar like Java or C? If I were to release the code it would be after I cleaned it up a bit for readability. I know a bit of C and C++, enough to follow along with stuff. I'm going for a CS major, but currently lack experience. I was mostly looking to see the code just to try to learn something. Best way to learn programming is by imitation after all. |
| Kresalak02-14-07, 04:12 PM | Judging by the description of beastskin armor, the authors of Complete Adventurer agree with Squirrelloid. Of course, those guys also thought you could activate a wand as a swift action... You totally can, actually. But it no longer matters as much-the main use, Wands of Gravestrike, have been obsoleted by the Truedeath Crystal. Which, being unslotted, costs about 1/10th the price of a permanent unslotted item of Gravestrike. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 04:22 PM | The DMG doesn't even address swift actions at all. How can it be the primary source on the issue? Besides, even WotC isn't crazy enough to expect people to ignore a clear ruling in favor of the complicated and dubious application of a rule from an older errata file. |
| NineInchNall02-14-07, 04:30 PM | It's the primary source on wands and their casting times. Specifically that their casting times are equivalent to the casting times of the spells with which they are enchanted. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 04:31 PM | The DMG doesn't even address swift actions at all. How can it be the primary source on the issue? Besides, even WotC isn't crazy enough to expect people to ignore a clear ruling in favor of the complicated and dubious application of a rule from an older errata file. The DMG says a wand takes the same amount of time to use as the spell takes to cast. Its that simple. (Feather Fall is a perfectly good Core example why they might want to say this, even if they didn't classify it as an immediate action until later). Further, Wands of Quickened 0th level spells are also possible in core. The reason they want the Core books to be Primary Sources on a lot of basic mechanics (such as magic items) is because they *specifically tell their writers not to reference non-core material*, ie, every sourcebook (in theory) is supposed to be playable with only the core books. Thus every sourcebook from now till 4th edition will consider swift wands to be possible, because Spell Compendium doesn't exist for them. They expect their writers to ignore spell compendium - expecting it of players is perfectly plausible. |
| Nathreet02-14-07, 04:37 PM | I know a bit of C and C++, enough to follow along with stuff. I'm going for a CS major, but currently lack experience. I was mostly looking to see the code just to try to learn something. Best way to learn programming is by imitation after all. Fair enough. I dunno when I'll get around to cleaning up my code. But there are some remnants of logical naming & organization from the last clean up. OTOH there are some confusing variables whose purpose I changed without renaming, and long equations without explanation. I uploaded my code to www.geocities.com/ericjgrau/tweaker6.zip Contains 1 .html file. Edit with any text editor, open with any web browser. Bold number in bottom left is build's "rating": if you want to guess at a change yourself rather than having the program chug through all the many possibilities, just try it out and compare ratings. All the code revolves around this single line: rating = netDmgDealt * HP / netDmgTaken; The rest of the code is there to determine the net damage dealt (on average) and net damage taken (on average) each round against certain targets that get stronger with level. Reason: the number of rounds you live is HP / netDmgTaken and the total damage you deal before dying is netDmgDealt * (rounds alive). |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 04:49 PM | (Feather Fall is a perfectly good Core example why they might want to say this, even if they didn't classify it as an immediate action until later). Summon monster I is a better example of why they'd want to say that. because Spell Compendium doesn't exist for them. Well, it does exist for my group, so we play by its rules. They expect their writers to ignore spell compendium - expecting it of players is perfectly plausible. If want people to ignore the SC's clear ruling on the subject, they should at least issue errata. By the way, SC erratas many spells. Why shouldn't it also be able to errata (or clarify) the item activation rules? |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-14-07, 04:52 PM | If want people to ignore the SC's clear ruling on the subject, they should at least issue errata. They aren't going to issue errata because according to their own rules the DMG overides it. If they were to issue errata it would be to make the SC overide the DMG. |
| Nathreet02-14-07, 04:54 PM | The rule on rulebooks is as follows (I'm paraphrasing): When two rulebooks contradict eachother, use the primary one relating to the topic at hand. For example, the PHB trumps the DMG in matters like character creation. I'd have to check but I believe the core rule books trump all supplemental rulebooks. Likewise a spell's description trumps its summary, a section specifically on a topic trumps another section that refers to that topic in regard to something else, etc. e.g., if the TWF feat said, "normal: without this feat you take a -3 penalty to attack rolls when fighting with 2 weapons", the TWF rules section would trump that. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 04:56 PM | Wouldn't the primary source rule also mean the original versions of all the spells in the Spell Compendium are actually correct? Also, what's the primary source on swift and immediate actions? |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 04:56 PM | If want people to ignore the SC's clear ruling on the subject, they should at least issue errata. What's clear is that the writers/editors of the SC weren't paying attention and tried to change something that book couldn't. There's a reason the primary source rule exists - in addition to keeping all sources useable with only core, it stops bad writers or editors from screwing up something fundamental. By the way, SC erratas many spells. Why shouldn't it also be able to errata (or clarify) the item activation rules? Because individual spells have no primary source. Spellcasting mechanics have their primary source as the PHB. Similarly, how wands function in general has a primary source of the DMG, but Wand of Fireballs, for instance, has no primary source. Thus SC could change specific spells (or wands) but not spellcasting or wand use in general. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 05:07 PM | Similarly, how wands function in general has a primary source of the DMG, but Wand of Fireballs, for instance, has no primary source. The errata file doesn't say the DMG is the primary source for item activation rules. For magic item descriptions, yes, but that's another section. As the wand of fireballs is a described magic item, the DMG is indeed its primary source. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 07:02 PM | The errata file doesn't say the DMG is the primary source for item activation rules. For magic item descriptions, yes, but that's another section. As the wand of fireballs is a described magic item, the DMG is indeed its primary source. Maybe "Wand of Fireballs" is covered.. meh. However, the entire "wand" section is a magic item description, so is most definitely covered under Primary Source rules. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 07:15 PM | Nothing in the wands section contradicts the Spell Compendium. If anything, it supports the SC ruling. |
| Squirrelloid02-14-07, 07:18 PM | Nothing in the wands section contradicts the Spell Compendium. If anything, it supports the SC ruling. The DMG specifically says activation time is the same as casting the spell. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 07:26 PM | The DMG specifically says activation time is the same as casting the spell. But not in the magic items descriptions section. |
| NineInchNall02-14-07, 07:40 PM | But not in the magic items descriptions section. Using Items To use a magic item, it must be activated, although sometimes activation simply means putting a ring on your finger. Some items, once donned, function constantly. In most cases, using an item requires a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. By contrast, spell completion items are treated like spells in combat and do provoke attacks of opportunity. Activating a magic item is a standard action unless the item description indicates otherwise. However, the casting time of a spell is the time required to activate the same power in an item, regardless of the type of magic item, unless the item description specifically states otherwise. The four ways to activate magic items are described below. ... :) |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 07:45 PM | That's from the section titled "Handling Magic Items." |
| Kresalak02-14-07, 07:46 PM | And the DMG is the primary source for magic items. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 07:50 PM | No, according to the errata, the DMG is the primary source for "magic item descriptions," which is a specific section of the book. |
| Kresalak02-14-07, 07:52 PM | Then what is the primary source for magic item activation time? Could it be the DMG in which the rules are actually introduced and explained? Nah. |
| TheCobra02-14-07, 07:55 PM | Then what is the primary source for magic item activation time? Could it be the DMG in which the rules are actually introduced and explained? Nah. That's a possible interpretation of the errata, but it's certainly not spelled out. By that logic, you could also argue that Complete Arcane is the primary source for sword of deception, making the SC version wrong. And the wands section of the DMG says the activation time only gets longer if the spell's casting time is longer, not shorter if the spell's is shorter. |
| itwasntme02-14-07, 10:02 PM | Hm again the fighter dosnt realy need Skill points Why the hell should he make Tumble checks to move at a Target to attack him? there are other ways of doing just that So Brillint Nrgy dosnt do what it says it can do? shouldest expected an answer like that considering some people hear beleve Monk Belt grants your Wisdom bonus to your AC It Dosnthowever as allready pointed out a few times over No Monks belt is good on a monk then his damage/AC is higher then he normoly is and ups some of his Stunning Fist ability Again it was your example not mine i dount see why you want to argue about it go ahead |
| itwasntme02-14-07, 10:25 PM | an arguement was not that the druid had nice AC But that when the Druid gets his nice AC It starts to become worthless if its not allready The Examples where allready givin but hear they are again A) Later in the game things are doing damage or doing effects agest the character via spells B) Later in the game monsters are useing Touch AC At most C) If the creature is attacking the AC Of the other Creature then the first creatures To Hit Is useoly Very High that any real attempts to have a High AC Is Dumb in the eyes of the first Creature as it wount matter to him he'll still hit you The only good Example of AC Being worth while is as stated A) Hordes of weeker monsters are comeing to attack you Something eveyone can Deal with in 1 way or another correct? eather you can hack em all to bits as they do nothing to you or you cast fireball/metor shower or some other Aoe spell that effectly kills all the weeklings or damages them very much AC Is only realy counted on and worried in the early levels as examples are given below A) Most characters cannot cast many spells (If any) Are are forces to fight the other creatures in combat attacking each other with any type of weapon they have all at the same time deflecting attacks being made agest them B) The Swarm of weekmonsters still have a Effective chance of hitting you if your armor isnt above a certain point a better example A) Level 3 characters are in a very Heated Form of Combat there are swinging at each other with eveything they have barly missing and hitting each other doing damage takeing damage The Fighter needs his Protection from the Orcs attacking him while at the same time hes fighting off the orcs and hitting them The Barbian/Pallidin/Cleric are allso being attack and needs some form of protection or they will get hit for possible death by some form of an attack Mid Game this type of play style can still be in excistence but its starting to die down quickly has more and more people are getting such a way on how to deal damage to people eather with a High to hit or with more and more spells being casted that it starts to lose its usefullness at this point if not allready ... the only reason to realy have AC is to ignore the swarms of weeklings or for very long hard fights/battles At level 12 the Druid is able to get his High AC Into the game ... But its useoly to late as by this time there are so many things that can ByPass AC Or just ByPass normol Defence that it dosnt matter The Fighter isnt trying his hardest to deck himself full of AC Hes just doing his job by wearing the armor and his weapons after all that is what a fighter dos he attacks people with his weapons and defends himself with his armor or other forms of ways The Wizard after all isnt going to pick up a sword shield and armor and charge in after the Giants now right? (Hopfully not) So No While the druid isnt Realy Trying to much to get a High AC It dosnt matter becouse by the time the Druid can do such a thing his High AC Becomes worthless if not allready worthless So the only real protection you have is your Life totol and Damage output Which is lower then most evey other type of Class in 1 way or another the Wizard while has Very Few HP Dos have other forms of Protections ... Like Being such a far distance away from the nme they cant attack him Wind Wall vs thouse pesky Arrow attacks Fly or even Teleport comes into usefullness for them they still need something to help out incase some creature has some way to over come thouse defences but there allso casting spells at the nme and hopfully the Tanks in the party have Delayed the monsters Enough to help the Wizard Psi Scor or any other class back there to kill off the creature in one way or another or to call off a Retreat and by then the fighter if good enough can have some way to retreat perhaps with his own form of flying or teleporting |
| Adolfo_Mondschein02-14-07, 10:36 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. A party of Clerics is probably the best option. Make a party of Clerics, give them a variety of domains. Make one fighting oriented, one or two of them "cloistered" and watch them destroy everything in their path. Magic, Destruction, War, Sun, and Strength domains seem like some good choices. If a party member is injured... well you have at leat 3 clerics to heal him... You have somewhat decent bab and melee abilities and plenty of powerful spells to back them up. That's pretty much a win-win situation. Unfortunetly, it's hard to find that many people who all want to play a cleric in the same party. It seems many people avoid clerics like the plague unless they need buffing and healing... |
| itwasntme02-15-07, 04:31 AM | I Think a party of 3 clerics and 1 monk might be better for if the 3 clerics could keep that 1 monk alive intill higher levels Well then its time for the monks payback right? |
| Seerow02-15-07, 07:10 AM | But Monks SUCK at high levels. Even more than they do at low levels. |
| itwasntme02-15-07, 10:14 AM | Theres a tread with a guy having a level 20 monk challengeing any other level 20 class to challenge him to a fight Hes won eveything so far there allso one challengeing by just beating the monk if all he did was defence actions (Like running away) Before he got away you have to kill him So far no one has been able to do it without going into a form that reverts to brokeness like PunPun Not 1 other class or character No Monks are deadly high levels Just go to that tread and start complaning coz intill i see someone being able to hurt one of thouse 2 monks im not even going to bother argueing about the monks Allso by any means Good luck trying to do anything eles normoly Seerow sometimes you make good points other times you just say things that are incorrect and just stand there and challenge people to prove to you its incorrect and the worse thing is you wount even start to listen to them i dount mean to hurt your pride on that tho but yes Monks are Deadly Powerfull at high levels The Problem is getting them there |
| Seerow02-15-07, 10:17 AM | Link me? Because Monks are seriously even worse off than Fighters. I saw something similar once, which was kill the monk in ONE ROUND. But kill him before he gets away? A Wizard can do that -easily- Also, how is the monk being able to run away proving that he's deadly? |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 10:45 AM | I really wouldn't bother Seerow. As far as I've been able to determine itwasntme exists in a bizzare magical land where he sees things that were never actually written. And doesn't see things that were written. And misunderstands things he does see. Though I guess if he's actually found some thread where the monk is effective I'd be interested. I also have my doubts since that challenge you mention was pretty much ideally set up for the monk and he still lost. Also, anybody else getting weird database errors for this thread? |
| Seerow02-15-07, 10:49 AM | I didn't get the error until just now. Best way to read posts when that happens is hit "reply" and check the last posts underneath the reply button. |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 11:07 AM | Yeah thats how I was able to read and respond to anything in the first place. Didn't experience it until right after your last post either. I think it usually clears itself up when you get to a new page. |
| Seerow02-15-07, 11:08 AM | Doesn't make it any less annoying though. How many posts til we get to the next page to end this? |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 11:22 AM | Uh I'm not really sure how to check. |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 11:24 AM | I guess I could manually count but that seems like wasted effort when the end result is the same. |
| NineInchNall02-15-07, 11:25 AM | 30 posts per page. 11th page. This is the 324th post. 6 posts left on this page. |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 11:28 AM | Well I did just count and its 30 posts a page and this will be #25 for this one so... |
| Kresalak02-15-07, 11:28 AM | Posting to end database error! |
| Seerow02-15-07, 11:28 AM | getting close |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 11:36 AM | Closer. To give this some totally unrelated content anyone else excited about Dark Crystal 2 (http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=dark_crystal_2_it_s)? |
| Kresalak02-15-07, 11:47 AM | in b4 new page |
| Seerow02-15-07, 11:48 AM | lol nowai |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 12:03 PM | groundfloor of legendary thread wait no page 12 snypa |
| Seerow02-15-07, 12:03 PM | Okay, so we can see again. What were we discussing? The validity, or lack thereof, of the Monk, right? |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 12:18 PM | Something like that, though my vote is on "lack thereof." Its kind of sad because the monk actually has enough class features that a couple of power boots (and maybe less MAD) would possibly make it decent. But fighting classes don't really get to have nice things. |
| Archangel6202-15-07, 12:29 PM | Something like that, though my vote is on "lack thereof." Its kind of sad because the monk actually has enough class features that a couple of power boots (and maybe less MAD) would possibly make it decent. But fighting classes don't really get to have nice things. Not necessarily, a barbarian is pretty good, a ranger is fairly workable (and really nice if you use the variant in PH2) and the pally is quite nice, if a bit difficult at times because of alignment. |
| Greendevilman02-15-07, 12:42 PM | I was being snarky. :) In recent supplements (PHBII and ToB being steps in the right direction) they've slackened up and given them quite a few more options, but the core fighting classes were originally balanced around assumptions that don't really hold up as well in play. I'm not going to deny that the ones not named fighter do have a fair bit more to work with. They have actual class features after all. I just meant that a disproportionate number of the mechanical goodies have traditionally gone to the spellcasting classes, and the fighting classes class features historically havn't really scaled very well. I think/hope this is changing and it is a very good thing, but it won't stop me from taking verbal potshots at what has come before. |
| Seerow02-15-07, 12:46 PM | Not necessarily, a barbarian is pretty good, a ranger is fairly workable (and really nice if you use the variant in PH2) and the pally is quite nice, if a bit difficult at times because of alignment. Barbarian sucks as much as the Fighter with 4 SP per level. Period. Ranger is workable, but needs more spells per day, and favored enemy needs to be more effective in general. Paladin sucks. Period. The Alignment restriction has nothing to do with it. The Paladin is THE most nova based class in the game. Beyond even the Wizard. Except even when he full novas, and uses all of his expendable resources in 1-2 rounds (which is ENTIRELY possible for him) he's still only at the 'really good' level, and is entirely mediocre the entire rest of the day. |
| Clawhound02-15-07, 04:38 PM | I lay many of the non-spellcaster's woes as the feet of the Epic Level Handbook. I firmly believe that the ELH set the bar for feats far too low. As supplements came out, writers did not create non-epic feats that were appropriate to 10-20th level characters because those feats looked epic. That means that feats lagged behind the evolutionary development of the game. Fortunately, we are now getting appropriate feats for 10th+ level. Fighter looks better for PHBII. A few more years of iteration, and the fighter may gets its legs back. |
| Half1337Dragons02-15-07, 04:53 PM | Why would you even ask such a outrageous question? For me a fighter is a great asset to a party. If you really think you can say that a fighter will always lose to a caster your not too smart. It sucks that fighters only get bonus feats, but that is what makes them great. This is the only class that you can actually custom make him to do anything just about. Look if I want to kill off a caster, all I got to do is make a fighter into a grappler, give him feats to prevent this bastard from letting him cast, stun fists blah blah blah... over all fighters kick ass and suck ass at the same time. It all is how the character was built. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-15-07, 05:07 PM | Look if I want to kill off a caster, all I got to do is make a fighter into a grappler, give him feats to prevent this bastard from letting him cast, stun fists blah blah blah... over all fighters kick ass and suck ass at the same time. 1 - That probably won't work, because your fighter has no method of sneaking up on the caster. Until you get the potion of invisibility which he can counter with.... or in simpler form Duels still don't prove anything about class ballance. 2 - "Congratulations you've beaten fight number one. Fight number 2 is against a dire bear. Grapple Mod +23. Good luck. Make sure you have at least 50% hp for fights 3 and 4." or in simpler form Being kinda good at only one thing is bad. Edit: And fighters can really only be good at one or two things, because they need all their feats to make any of their tactics work with any amount of reliability. That measely +4 just doesn't cut it especially when size modifiers are part of the equation. |
| ninjarabbit02-15-07, 05:47 PM | Paladin sucks. Period. The Alignment restriction has nothing to do with it. The Paladin is THE most nova based class in the game. Beyond even the Wizard. Except even when he full novas, and uses all of his expendable resources in 1-2 rounds (which is ENTIRELY possible for him) he's still only at the 'really good' level, and is entirely mediocre the entire rest of the day. Obviously you've never seen a paladin use DMM: persistant spell on the righteous fury spell. |
| NineInchNall02-15-07, 05:53 PM | Look if I want to kill off a caster, all I got to do is make a fighter into a grappler, give him feats to prevent this bastard from letting him cast, stun fists blah blah blah... over all fighters kick ass and suck ass at the same time. Three words: freedom of movement. Or five words: ring of freedom of movement. Or one word: polymorph. But killing the caster isn't even the point in the slightest. The weakness of the fighter is in his general inability to deal with threats on the same playing field as, well, just about every other class (except Samurai) at higher levels. |
| Seerow02-15-07, 06:06 PM | Obviously you've never seen a paladin use DMM: persistant spell on the righteous fury spell. ah right, I forgot that little piece of brokenation wasn't exclusive to the Cleric. Fine, you have a Paladin who, while still inferior to the Cleric, can in fact beat out a Barbarian or Fighter with proper feats. |
| clannagh02-15-07, 06:29 PM | In terms of the original topic ... Any reason to have a fighter? .. In a party? Instead of an extra caster or druid or whatever ? Hell yes :) Any reason to have a fighter? As a character for PvP combat ? As a character to impress your friends with your leetness versus their characters ??? *slap* This is a co-operative game go back to WoW :P |
| TheCobra02-15-07, 06:32 PM | Except even when he full novas, and uses all of his expendable resources in 1-2 rounds (which is ENTIRELY possible for him) he's still only at the 'really good' level, and is entirely mediocre the entire rest of the day. At higher levels, there's no way he's spending of his spells or divine might uses in 1-2 rounds. No way. Besides, even without spells or smites, the paladin still has some of the best saving throws and class ability immunities in the game. And he's got a mount. Paladins aren't amazing like full spellcasters, but they don't suck. Monks also have good defenses against magic, though they lack much offense power. |
| Bob Loblaw02-15-07, 08:09 PM | I'm in the camp that fighters don't suck. I believe that they are not meant for every style of gaming, but they certainly don't suck. That being said, itwastntme you aren't helping our case. In fact, you are making a lot of valid points for the other team. You really aren't bringing up the fighter's strengths. For example, the fighter is really good at handling a CR of equal level if it consists of multiple creatures that add up to that CR. The more, the better. So an 8th level fighter should be able to handle himself fairly well against 4 minotaurs without much used in the way of resources. The casters will have to use some of their spells. The rogue shouldn't even get in there alone. The barbarian has a good chance, but with his lower AC it could be dangerous. Let's look at your monks. I have no intention on looking at the thread because I honestly know that I can beat them in 2-3 rounds with a properly built spellcaster, staying in the PHB. However, your argument says that they are better than casters because the monks can beat the casters. I know that a caster against a fighter has an incredible chance of survival (if I am playing that caster, the fighter has about a 0% chance). This would mean that casters are better than fighters. It has been proven continuously that casters are mathematically superior to fighters. There is no comparing magic to non-magic. The magic is supposed to be better. Your druid example (I know that it was someone else's that you ran with) is also invalid. It really only focuses on one or two little things that can be changed. A well played druid will dominate the fighter, almost every time. The fighter really only has a chance if luck is on his side. This is what magic is meant to do. If you are going to draw comparisons, you should use the fighting classes and keep the topic with those only. And please, I know that you have a lot to say. I know you probably have a lot of great suggestions. Show us that you care about them as much as you imply. Take a few more minutes and check the spelling and grammar. We all make mistakes, and those can be over-looked. It is easier for people to respond clearly to what you have said if you do the same. Another bit of advice that will make responding easier for you is to quote in segments. Break the post up into more managable chunks. You will find that much of what is being quoted can probably be dropped. It will help keep you focused on your thesis. This is not meant as an attack at all. It is meant to help you get more respect from those who disagree with you. I don't know if anyone respects me on these boards, but I know that I am usually understood and people don't usually attack me personally even when we disagree. |
| Thomas_Covenant02-15-07, 08:19 PM | Any reason to have a fighter? .. In a party? Instead of an extra caster or druid or whatever ? Hell yes :)I'd really like to see at least one reason here, instead of your opinion alone. Your last statement has got to be offensive to some group, I just can't honestly tell who it was targeted at. I agree with part of the sentiment though;PvP or dueling is quite meaningless, and no use in a balance argument of any kind, d20 isn't designed for it, much less DnD. A team vs. various Challenges (represented by CR, usually monsters of various types, and traps) is where a Fighter's weaknesses matter, and they are significant. |
| itwasntme02-15-07, 09:46 PM | there was kill the monk in 1 round which i agree was dumb but reading some of the earlyer post ... so a class isnt good inless it has skill points? hm how to solve not having skill points? *Thinks* ah wait i know its easy! but do i realy have to say differnt examples on what was allready given? again quit being dumb there are allways more then 1 way how to solve a situation aparently tho you cant understand that however go ahead and have your ego trip tho by all means go ahead its allready been pointed out how to solve most (If not evey) Question that you have tossed at this tread but your ability to follow it or learn from it seems to be 0 so go ahead and have your ego trip |
| NineInchNall02-15-07, 11:42 PM | I have to ask a question: itwastnme, are you uneducated, or are you just rude? If the former is true, please take the time to educate yourself in English spelling and syntax. Otherwise, stop posting. there was kill the monk in 1 round which i agree was dumb but reading some of the earlyer post ... so a class isnt good inless it has skill points? hm how to solve not having skill points? *Thinks* ah wait i know its easy! but do i realy have to say differnt examples on what was allready given? again quit being dumb there are allways more then 1 way how to solve a situation aparently tho you cant understand that however go ahead and have your ego trip tho by all means go ahead its allready been pointed out how to solve most (If not evey) Question that you have tossed at this tread but your ability to follow it or learn from it seems to be 0 so go ahead and have your ego trip There was a, "Kill the monk in one round," which I agree was dumb, but reading some of the earlier posts, ... So a class isn't good Unless it has skill points? Hm, how to solve not having skill points? *thinks* Ah, wait! I know. It's easy! Do I really have to give different examples of what was already given? Again, quit being dumb. There is always more than one way to solve a problem. Apparently, though, you can't understand that. Go ahead and have your ego trip; by all means go ahead. It's already been pointed out how to solve most, if not every, question that you have tossed at this thread, but your ability to follow it or learn from it seems to be zero. So go ahead and have your ego trip There. Is it really that difficult to use English? |
| Thomas_Covenant02-16-07, 12:01 AM | I have to ask a question: itwastnme, are you uneducated, or are you just rude? If the former is true, please take the time to educate yourself in English spelling and syntax. Otherwise, stop posting.Many have tried;none have succeeded in this effort. I heartily suggest the "ignore" feature. I used to resist the use of it, but I gave in, and I'm much happier now. True, you may have difficulty following some "Fighter" threads, but your eyes will bleed much less, and it will almost certainly help your blood pressure, if nothing else. |
| Archangel6202-16-07, 01:41 AM | If we really wnat to fix the fighter what we need to do is sit down and work out what the intended purpose of the fighter was. Every other class had a certain flavor and ability adjustment to show its concept. The paladin is the bulwark of righteousness, the holy warrior. The Ranger a deep woods scout, a warrior of the wood and a master archer or TWFer. The barbarian a warrior from deep within the woods, harnessing the inner beast to strike harder at his foes and to ignore their strikes upon him. The fighter provides no such groundwork, and considering how sub-optimal the fighter is and how so many of the fixes seem to involve focusing the fighter into one arena maybe if we can agree on what the fighter was intended to do we can do a better job at figuring out how to fix it. |
| Ghenesh02-16-07, 09:13 AM | If we really wnat to fix the fighter what we need to do is sit down and work out what the intended purpose of the fighter was. Every other class had a certain flavor and ability adjustment to show its concept. The paladin is the bulwark of righteousness, the holy warrior. The Ranger a deep woods scout, a warrior of the wood and a master archer or TWFer. The barbarian a warrior from deep within the woods, harnessing the inner beast to strike harder at his foes and to ignore their strikes upon him. The fighter provides no such groundwork, and considering how sub-optimal the fighter is and how so many of the fixes seem to involve focusing the fighter into one arena maybe if we can agree on what the fighter was intended to do we can do a better job at figuring out how to fix it. Great idea, i'll start with my concept (if it's okay with you). Role-playing concept I see the fighter as an elite soldier. A class capable of being the best guard or bodyguard, also capable of taking the role of the resilent footsoldier or the experimented military strategist. I think class skills has a lot to do with this, but this has been covered in almost any fix. So, we should define what class skills really suits the fighter, my guess: Class Skills (key ability): Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (History) (Int), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis) and Swim (Str). Skill Points at first level: (4 + Int modifier) x 4 Skill Points at each additional level: 4 + Int modifier Combat Role This is going to be hard because the fighter class is not really a "class", it doesn't fit a particular combatant concept, it's rather a "combatant template" that enables you take any combat style you want (charger, melee, ranged, mounted, tactician, etc). The main problem when talking about combat role is that every single class is made to combat, practically 90% of the class features and feats ever created are related to combat, so it's hard to define the role of such a generic class as the fighter without stepping onto some other classes's toes. I must say that one thing should the fighter do right: Endure the combat, yes, in my idea the fighter should be resilent, should have a better AC than the rest of the party (and we know that Clerics, Paladins and Wizards can do better), should resists the hazards of the almighty magic (and we know that... almost every other class do better), and be able to control battle with special attacks (and we know that at high level the monster are so big that this is simply impossible). I believe the fixes should focus on increasing the fighter's defenses (AC) and resistances (Saves), also providing a little edge when dealing with battle control (reach, opposed checks bonuses and movement). System-wise balance This last inclusion is to remark what the fighter should not be. The fighter shouldn't be the ultimate damage dealer, shouldn't have spell effects, shouldn't have supernatural abilities and shouldn't be as powerful as the casters. |
| Clawhound02-16-07, 09:43 AM | I've proposed a number of niches for fighter over the years, and there's always vocal opposition to give the fighter a niche. I wish that there was a consensus about the fighter, but about the only thing that I can tell is that the fighter has no consensus. As much as I like the fighter, I truly believe that the "fighter" class is really 10+ other classes. - Sword and Board - Unarmed - Swashbuckler - Two-Handed Weapon - Heavy Infantry/Polearm - Scout/Huntsman - Melee Weapon Specialist - Archer - Crossbowman - Bodyguard - Cavalry - Rager - Officer/Strategist/Diplomat I see each of these as distinct, non-prestige classes. That's before we toss any magic into the mix. Each of these classes really needs its own paths and abilities to make them work correctly. Summarizing fighters into a single statement: The fighter is that guy with chutzpah who faces down death with just a sword and shield, then walks out alive. Fighters are confident, quick to learn, and gutsy. A fight that they could barely win is a fight worth fighting. They do this without magic. |
| Gecon02-16-07, 09:58 AM | Hmm. Not that some of these classes might not better be handled by a less generic class, but wouldnt many people actually prefer to play a mix of these ? And nobody plays Crossbowman. Thats kinda absurd. If you want to go ranged combat, you go Bow, not Crossbow. Of course there are a couple of feats that allow to become as efficient with the Crossbow as with the bow, but historically thats incorrect. The ranged specialist uses a bow because with a bow you can get a much higher output in respect to projectiles. |
| maverick1594402-16-07, 10:11 AM | Who would be considered an expert on the subject of fighters. Its for a report. |
| Laucian The Black Hearted02-16-07, 10:12 AM | The problem I have with the fighter, which is more of the style of game we play than anything, is that beyond combat there is nothing. I just ran the first session of my new campaign and not a single roll made was for combat. The fighter doesn't possess the skills and (usually) the background information to make for a really useful RP character. He only shines in a fight situation. The reason why I encourage things Rangers and Paladins is because they're Fighters with out of combat abilities. |
| Leo02-16-07, 10:28 AM | Hmmm, BobLoblaw makes an interesting point there. The fighter has trouble dealing with huge creatures full of amazing powrs, but he's pretty good at dealing with huge amounts of small enemies. The polymorph will end sooner or later, same for rage, even magical buffs only last as long as a day, but a fighter can theoretically fight for more than 24 hours whitout stop against masses of small enemies. Yes, he has limited hp, but we all know a fighter can get the best "brute" AC for nonmagical combat. If, let's say, an enemy army decides to attack other country,and they have 10 000 lv1-2 warriors, an elite force of fighters around level 10 can take care of them whitout much hassle. I see the fighter as the resilient warrior. He can't go nova, but hell can he hold his ground for long battles. And fighters can still show use out of combat. Even if you have not a single rank in diplomacy and a charisma of 6, that doesn't stop you from thinking and trying to ask the right questions. There's nothing stoping you to use your logic to ty to deduce who murdered the count, or try to find out what you'll need to do to get the king's good grace. |
| Archangel6202-16-07, 10:37 AM | My own view is this For RP: The fighter can be almost anything, the basic idea is that they are supposed to be the Masters of Battle, the masters of dozens of combat techniques. for Mechanics: The concept was probably that the fighter was able to use multiple tricks and techniques in combat in order to be able to be effective in almost any situation. The idea is being versatile in combat. The problem with this is that there aren't enough feats, the gear necessary to do this is too expensive to be practical, and the mechanics of the system reward specialization. The fix I would reccomend is that either the fighter gain the ability to escalate their feats or gain a set of variation feats that would let them shift their strategies and design in order to be effective in more than one or two types of scenario. |
| Ghenesh02-16-07, 10:38 AM | And fighters can still show use out of combat. Even if you have not a single rank in diplomacy and a charisma of 6, that doesn't stop you from thinking and trying to ask the right questions. There's nothing stoping you to use your logic to ty to deduce who murdered the count, or try to find out what you'll need to do to get the king's good grace. This is the same as saying that the Fighter can deal with everything because he has access to magic items... everyone has access to magic items, everyone can role play and try to deduce who murdered the count, the thing is the fighter can't open the locked door, can't know what spell is in function right in front of him, can't track, can't even be a good guard because the sneaky thief who learned his ways in the streets will pass him without any chance of being spotted nor heard, may be disguised or simply bluff the fighter guard. System-wise he can't even be a good higher rank military officer, cause he doesn't have what it takes (Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Knowledge(History), Knowledge(Geography) and Knowledge(Royalty and Nobility)). Generic features such as "playing" the game must be put aside, must i remark that the Fighter have the crappiest skill list ever created in the game? This is no joke. |
| Archangel6202-16-07, 11:03 AM | A friend of mine suggested attempting to fix the fighter by turning it into an archetype rig, basically give it feats but also use the dead levels to turn it in a certain direction, the idea being similar to what the Ranger has with the paths of archery or TWF. The idea being that the fighter can take stuff from a chain for a particular combat archetype in addition to normal feats. It gives them class abilities but it also lets them focus on a particular style well or dip as generalists but have the feature bonuses to help them be more than mediocre at best. |
| Ghenesh02-16-07, 11:22 AM | But this has be done before, with the opposition that Clawhound mentioned before: the fighter is a class template, it chooses all of his class features, so it's not natural to add fixed class features. Although this might be the way to go (create fighter specialties), it feels weird to give the fighter fixed class features, anyway how things are in the game is almost the same, the fighter usually takes one or two tree feats and some extra, so it ends up being as specialized as any class. I think Lotus Crane created some specialties a year ago. I think a good idea would be to make military based concepts: Infantry, Archery, Cavalry and Sentry. |
| Archangel6202-16-07, 12:25 PM | But this has be done before, with the opposition that Clawhound mentioned before: the fighter is a class template, it chooses all of his class features, so it's not natural to add fixed class features. Although this might be the way to go (create fighter specialties), it feels weird to give the fighter fixed class features, anyway how things are in the game is almost the same, the fighter usually takes one or two tree feats and some extra, so it ends up being as specialized as any class. I think Lotus Crane created some specialties a year ago. I think a good idea would be to make military based concepts: Infantry, Archery, Cavalry and Sentry. I know, my idea was more to allow them, to either use a chain to grant a fixed plan if they wanted to be the master of one style or if they wanted to take the lower tiers of several styles and take feats accordingly to be good at several styles but not great at any one. |
| itwasntme02-16-07, 02:16 PM | I have to ask a question: itwastnme, are you uneducated, or are you just rude? If the former is true, please take the time to educate yourself in English spelling and syntax. Otherwise, stop posting. There. Is it really that difficult to use English? perhaps im not english? there are plunty of reasons for something to just say that someone who makes 1 mistake or isnt good at 1 thing should be completly ignored however i will grant that is a great excuse not to answer questions again nice way how to blunt things off it just shows that the person could A) Possibly be true about what he/she is speeking of and you just dount want to deal with it B) You honestly dount know the answer but dount want to show that Thouse are the only things people show by doing this |
| itwasntme02-16-07, 02:23 PM | Three words: freedom of movement. Or five words: ring of freedom of movement. Or one word: polymorph. But killing the caster isn't even the point in the slightest. The weakness of the fighter is in his general inability to deal with threats on the same playing field as, well, just about every other class (except Samurai) at higher levels. Of course most people seem to forget that fighters could have Ring of freedom of movement but most people forget about this when discussing about fighters in grapple checks .. Polymorph is Fort/Will so at least Half of it the Fighter is good at saveing agest of course there are many ways to deal with such things No if you realy want to be lame agest ANY player then use the call shot rules they can take down great many players/character/creatures (W/e you wish to say) However most people ignore this rule as it seems to be a great deal of pain when used agest players or when used at all so that arguement i can understand you wish to avoid becouse in truth i wish to avoid argueing about call shot as well |
| itwasntme02-16-07, 02:36 PM | Allso on a side note one reason why im still posting is becouse somehow you guys are just talking to your selfs and that seems ... insane/dumb no offince so i am just trying to make you guys acouly talk to something besides yourself in my view thats just silly to talk to your self if your going to talk to your self do it in pvt i rather look like an idiot then have all of you people be considerd insane for talking to your selfs so by all means make me look like an idiot (Or Try to its not realy working) becouse i dount mean to be rude but It just seems ... dumb to do that but yes again i dount mean to be rude but it is rather hard not to when people continue to just toss insults rather then just questions or just try and understand the person and have the manners to be polite Allso why the heck do you people care about how many pages you guys are on Lets cheer for the fact that we only have 9 more posts on a page If a topic takes alot of treads then there must be something worth answering eather that or people are just fueling each other in a big hump of idiotcy i rather have a discusstion you know insteed of tossing arguements you could perhaps come up with a polite question/answers to the other peoples questions? would work if both sides tryed you cant just have 1 side start it and go off on your own So the reason why im rude at times is becouse of the fact im talking to rude people them selfs |
| NineInchNall02-16-07, 02:37 PM | As much as I like the fighter, I truly believe that the "fighter" class is really 10+ other classes. ... I see each of these as distinct, non-prestige classes. That's before we toss any magic into the mix. Each of these classes really needs its own paths and abilities to make them work correctly. And this is why the Fighter will never be balanced. |
| NineInchNall02-16-07, 02:48 PM | perhaps im not english? There are several nations in which English is commonly spoken. I assume you meant, "Perhaps my native language is not English." Then open your textbook and learn that English sentences begin with a capital letter. Learn that the contraction of I and am is I'm. Learn that language names are capitalized. there are plunty of reasons for something to just say that someone who makes 1 mistake or isnt good at 1 thing should be completly ignored Plunty? PLUNTY? There is no such word. This is indisputable evidence that you did not use a spell checker, as you were asked to do. This is evidence that you have no respect for your fellow posters. The fact that you do not even make the effort is why people are ignoring you. however i will grant that is a great excuse not to answer questions "However, I will grant that that is a great excuse not to answer questions." again nice way how to blunt things off it just shows that the person could A) Possibly be true about what he/she is speeking of and you just dount want to deal with it B) You honestly dount know the answer but dount want to show that Learn English or at least show some respect for your fellow human beings' bleeding eyes and use a spellchecker. One does not "blunt things off." People are not true in the sense that you use the word. The other word is spelled speaking. The other other word is spelled don't. Thouse are the only things people show by doing this THOSE. PERIOD. |
| Bard-of-all-trades02-16-07, 02:59 PM | May I just interject something here ... Remain civil and try to stick to the point of the original post or the WizO's will come and shut this thread down. There is no need to be making personal attacks. This is a discussion board where people can post their opinions and beliefs and possibly try to come to a consensus, not a place to associate a persons intelligence or country of origin by how well (or poorly) they post a message here. This is an interesting thread that I, personally, would like to see continue. Please, shape up or they'll shut this down. |
| Greendevilman02-16-07, 03:27 PM | That was definitely a little harsh NineInch, but yeah I really can't disagree that there should be some level of adherence to writing conventions. Nobody cares if you misspell things or use slightly incorrect grammar if its clear you speak English as a second or third language. But a minimal level of effort is needed to make anyone take what you say seriously. Try writing sentences and paragraphs and punctuating things properly. itwasntme: Apparently you've decided you want to be discussing a complex rules system dependant on close reading and interpretation in a foreign language. This is doable but with your track record perhaps not by you at this point in time. If you want to have a conversation with other people you really need to have communication gowing both ways. The way you post actively hurts your arguments and undermines any validity they might have. Even a little effort to follow standard English formatting concerns would make you a far more credible debater. To put it another way I am very, very, very bad at writing and speaking Spanish. I havn't put much effort into it in the last few years and really lack the ability to do more than understand some simple spoken Spanish by people who are slowing down for me and string together a fairly limited vocabulary mostly confined to present tense. If I made an effort to be immersed in Spanish for several months I would pick a heck of a lot more up and be a much better Spanish speaker/writer than I currently am. However, even as bad as I am at speaking and writing in Spanish I WOULD STILL WRITE IN COMPLETE SENTENCES, USE PARAGRAPHS AND PROPERLY PUNCTUATE. Now as languages go there are certainly others with writing structures far less like English than Spanish. An important part of learning to communicate in English from those languages though (more important than individual words) is gramatical structure, syntax, etc. Most people I know who learned English as a second language and grew up using a character based writing system (and trust me I know plenty) are far more capable of writing good looking sentences in terms of things like capitalization and punctuation (to the extent of adding periods anyhow) than ones that are free of mistranslations/misunderstandings/etc. You havn't demonstrated any ability to do this so I am forced to assume either you're self taught (and to that end should be happy to work on improving your writing abilities as soon as possible) or are lazy and somewhat disrespectful. This isn't to attack anyone personally, just to say that there are certain minimum standards to be upheld when trying to contribute constructively and using speaking English as a second language as an excuse to be a bad poster isn't doing anyone any favors. Once again I and I think anyone without a stick up their ass doesn't have a problem with people who have language issues and are clearly trying. If I was going to go post on another language board I would make a concerted effort to actually use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation there as well. **** posting is **** posting no matter where you're originally from. :mad: |
| Ghenesh02-16-07, 03:56 PM | Greatest thread derail ever. |
| Seerow02-16-07, 06:29 PM | Greatest thread derail ever. meh, I've seen better. This is up there though. |
| Greendevilman02-16-07, 06:35 PM | meh, I've seen better. This is up there though. Oh come on- this isn't even in the top fifth of thread derails. |
| Seerow02-16-07, 06:38 PM | Oh come on- this isn't even in the top fifth of thread derails. Well, I was referring to on this board in particular. Wizards doesn't get very interesting thread derails often. |
| Kresalak02-16-07, 06:44 PM | It would be better if it involved: 1. Bestiality, 2. Communism, or 3. Internet memes. |
| DragonChild_02-16-07, 06:50 PM | In Soviet Russia, O RLY bird yarlys YOU! |
| Kresalak02-16-07, 06:52 PM | Now that's what I'm talking about! |
| Ghenesh02-16-07, 07:32 PM | meh, I've seen better. You always do :rant: . The thing is the fighter needs to write in complete sentences, use paragraphs and properly punctuate. |
| navar10002-16-07, 09:37 PM | The problem I have with the fighter, which is more of the style of game we play than anything, is that beyond combat there is nothing. I just ran the first session of my new campaign and not a single roll made was for combat. The fighter doesn't possess the skills and (usually) the background information to make for a really useful RP character. He only shines in a fight situation. The reason why I encourage things Rangers and Paladins is because they're Fighters with out of combat abilities. You don't have to have ranks in diplomacy to make a diplomacy roll. A fighter player can talk to NPCs just like anyone else. A fighter player can go to the library to do some research just like anyone else. A fighter player can gather information through the rumor mill just like anyone else. Certainly other classes by mere game mechanics will have, over time, more successes, but the fighter does not just twiddle his thumbs when there's no combat. |
| navar10002-16-07, 09:51 PM | This is the same as saying that the Fighter can deal with everything because he has access to magic items... everyone has access to magic items, everyone can role play and try to deduce who murdered the count, the thing is the fighter can't open the locked door, can't know what spell is in function right in front of him, can't track, can't even be a good guard because the sneaky thief who learned his ways in the streets will pass him without any chance of being spotted nor heard, may be disguised or simply bluff the fighter guard. System-wise he can't even be a good higher rank military officer, cause he doesn't have what it takes (Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Knowledge(History), Knowledge(Geography) and Knowledge(Royalty and Nobility)). Generic features such as "playing" the game must be put aside, must i remark that the Fighter have the crappiest skill list ever created in the game? This is no joke. "Playing" the game is not so easily dismissed as you make it. It is true when keeping watch a fighter will have trouble spotting a sneaking bad guy rogue with ill intent against the party, but will it always be a rogue? Will it always be someone with a high move silently or hide? It is the same analogy as the rogue will not always be fighting undead, plants, elementals, constructs, and oozes where his sneak attack is useless. Having magic items is also not so easily dismissed as you make it. So what if the fighter determines he needs some item to improve his awareness against those sneaky rogues? He gets the item. So he can't use the wealth he spent on that for something else. That is true for everyone. The fighter prioritizes for himself what he needs. Plus, "playing" the game is also a factor because not every game by obviousness plays the same way. Maybe the campaign has higher than book treasure. Maybe it has less. It doesn't matter how many scrolls, wands, and staves the spellcasters have. The fighter will use what items he has. In generic D&D, magic items are intrinsic to the game. Hooray for the wizard and rogue they may not need some magic item to improve their awareness. The fighter for a particular campaign may need one. So he gets one. Why should this be a big deal? |
| Ghenesh02-16-07, 11:43 PM | "Playing" the game is not so easily dismissed as you make it. It is true when keeping watch a fighter will have trouble spotting a sneaking bad guy rogue with ill intent against the party, but will it always be a rogue? I never said rogue, i said sneaky thief, just to exemplify something, it can be the camouflaged ranger or the invisible spellcaster, the fighter's chance to detect them is nil. If you think that's fun for the player using the fighter, good for you. Having magic items is also not so easily dismissed as you make it. So what if the fighter determines he needs some item to improve his awareness against those sneaky rogues? He gets the item. So he can't use the wealth he spent on that for something else. That is true for everyone. The fighter prioritizes for himself what he needs. Yes, he prioritizes what he needs, that's obvious, everyone does the same (in theory) but the fighter must patch with magic items what the class doesn't offer. The rest of the classes come with the whole package and "improves" what they have, the lacking classes "patch" with the features that don't have to remain competitive. Plus, "playing" the game is also a factor because not every game by obviousness plays the same way. Maybe the campaign has higher than book treasure. Maybe it has less. It doesn't matter how many scrolls, wands, and staves the spellcasters have. The fighter will use what items he has. In generic D&D, magic items are intrinsic to the game. Hooray for the wizard and rogue they may not need some magic item to improve their awareness. The fighter for a particular campaign may need one. So he gets one. Why should this be a big deal? Sure not every game is the same, but Oberoni stated a while ago that personal setting stuff must be set aside in a discussion about generic balance, otherwise we would never achieve consensus. I don't know what is your experience using Fighters at higher levels (beyond 12th), but mine is highly frustrating... the problem is the concept i like the most when playing DnD is exactly that, the dwarven warrior. |
| Archangel6202-17-07, 12:10 AM | You don't have to have ranks in diplomacy to make a diplomacy roll. A fighter player can talk to NPCs just like anyone else. A fighter player can go to the library to do some research just like anyone else. A fighter player can gather information through the rumor mill just like anyone else. Certainly other classes by mere game mechanics will have, over time, more successes, but the fighter does not just twiddle his thumbs when there's no combat. And a warrior, expert or commoner could do the same thing, so could any other class. RP interaction isn't somehow unique to the fighter, ANYONE can do it. You can't claim that the fighter is somehow balanced by saying that it can do what everyone else can do with any class. |
| Archangel6202-17-07, 12:13 AM | "Playing" the game is not so easily dismissed as you make it. It is true when keeping watch a fighter will have trouble spotting a sneaking bad guy rogue with ill intent against the party, but will it always be a rogue? Will it always be someone with a high move silently or hide? It is the same analogy as the rogue will not always be fighting undead, plants, elementals, constructs, and oozes where his sneak attack is useless. Having magic items is also not so easily dismissed as you make it. So what if the fighter determines he needs some item to improve his awareness against those sneaky rogues? He gets the item. So he can't use the wealth he spent on that for something else. That is true for everyone. The fighter prioritizes for himself what he needs. Plus, "playing" the game is also a factor because not every game by obviousness plays the same way. Maybe the campaign has higher than book treasure. Maybe it has less. It doesn't matter how many scrolls, wands, and staves the spellcasters have. The fighter will use what items he has. In generic D&D, magic items are intrinsic to the game. Hooray for the wizard and rogue they may not need some magic item to improve their awareness. The fighter for a particular campaign may need one. So he gets one. Why should this be a big deal? You'll notice though that the fighter needs a mage-mart to get what they need to cover those weaknesses. And the other problem is that after all the weaknesses were patched what's left for the fighter to really augment themselves and go to town with? |
| navar10002-17-07, 04:10 AM | Sure not every game is the same, but Oberoni stated a while ago that personal setting stuff must be set aside in a discussion about generic balance, otherwise we would never achieve consensus. I don't know what is your experience using Fighters at higher levels (beyond 12th), but mine is highly frustrating... the problem is the concept i like the most when playing DnD is exactly that, the dwarven warrior. I would argue you can't really take out personal setting stuff because a character is more than the numbers and words used to describe it. The numbers and words are important; they're just not the whole package. It is the DM's job to ensure everyone is having fun, including the fighters. That is not "coddling". A game where no one in the party is a rogue has a different feel than one that has a rogue. A game where no one in the party is a cleric has a different feel than one that has a cleric. Same too with the fighter. The fighter will get to do stuff. You can show mathematically, so to speak, that Great Cleave is useless at some given level because of all the hit points and high AC monsters. However, if a fighter is in the party and if that fighter has Great Cleave, a good DM will take that into account. Fighting bad guys is not always about fighting one big monster or a few tough ones. Some encounters could very well include beign against large numbers. Yes, a wizard could fireball a bunch of mooks. The fighter uses Great Cleave, maybe Whirlwind Attack. It's not a question of which is better. They're just different. Likewise, if a wizard player chose to specialize in Enchantment and took Necromancy and Illusion as opposed schools, the DM will take that into account. It doesn't matter how many monsters in the Monster Manual are immune to mind-affecting spells. All that matters is how many monsters immune to mind-affecting spells are in the particular game being played. I used to think bards "suck". In my actual game play experience, even though there was no bard in the party, I was noticing how a bard would have been useful. We got by without one just fine. a bard simply would have been useful. Those who were defending the bard were doing so by the game mechanics bards bring with them. I was seeing that. However, I now see another way of how silly I was to think bards "suck". My complaint against the bard was that other classes could also do what bards do but better. I often said clerics have better buffs. In one case when someone mentioned Use Magic Device, I responded with warlock. I now see cleric and warlock were irrelevant. What matters is what the bard does in that particular game. If someone was playing a bard, hooray for him. That I might have chosen to play a cleric or a warlock instead because I think it would make for a better bard was irrelevant. What about the Commoner, Expert, Aristocrat, etc.? This is where the numbers and words begin to make a difference. You want to say the fighter is the weakest of all the PC classes? Fine. I will use fighter as my line across the sand. In terms of numbers and words, the Commoner, Aristocrat, Warrior, etc., do not reach the Fighter. Game mechanics is part of the game. They do matter. In game mechanics the fighter is weaker than the wizard. What I'm disagreeing with is the concept of fighter "uselessness", however broad or narrow the term could mean. |
| navar10002-17-07, 04:19 AM | You'll notice though that the fighter needs a mage-mart to get what they need to cover those weaknesses. And the other problem is that after all the weaknesses were patched what's left for the fighter to really augment themselves and go to town with? Every class has their weak points. I apologize on behalf of fighters everywhere that they cannot meet your obligation of they must overcome 100% of their weaknesses and be uberfighter overlord of the combat arena. They have to settle for just being competent with a chance of failure. |
| Archangel6202-17-07, 07:55 AM | Every class has their weak points. I apologize on behalf of fighters everywhere that they cannot meet your obligation of they must overcome 100% of their weaknesses and be uberfighter overlord of the combat arena. They have to settle for just being competent with a chance of failure. If the fighter has to spend a majority of their financial resources to keep from being grotesquely vulnerable while other classes can use those same resources to push themselves up further it means that the fighter as a class was poorly designed and implimented in the context of the rules system. |
| magmer202-17-07, 08:15 AM | If the fighter has to spend a majority of their financial resources to keep from being grotesquely vulnerable while other classes can use those same resources to push themselves up further it means that the fighter as a class was poorly designed and implimented in the context of the rules system. Other than full spell casters I think most classes are in the same boat as the fighter. |
| Clawhound02-17-07, 10:12 AM | If the fighter has to spend a majority of their financial resources to keep from being grotesquely vulnerable while other classes can use those same resources to push themselves up further it means that the fighter as a class was poorly designed and implimented in the context of the rules system. Given that a major role of fighters is to put themselves into vulnerable situations, it only makes sense that they use the majority of their wealth on this role. What else should they use this wealth for? |
| Ghenesh02-17-07, 12:17 PM | I would argue you can't really take out personal setting stuff because a character is more than the numbers and words used to describe it. The numbers and words are important; they're just not the whole package. Nobody has said that the words before Game Rule Information weren't important, but they are all ambience stuff, it changes from player to player, from DM to DM, from game to game, we cannot discuss that cause it's futile in this topic, the guy next to me thinks his fighter is the town's protector's son who was trained by his father until he passed away, i see my fighter as the veteran dwarven soldier who has fought two great wars against the drows... but we both know that our character has a bonus feat from a restricted list at second class level. It is the DM's job to ensure everyone is having fun, including the fighters. That is not "coddling". A game where no one in the party is a rogue has a different feel than one that has a rogue. A game where no one in the party is a cleric has a different feel than one that has a cleric. Same too with the fighter. The fighter will get to do stuff... Pal, again, we cannot discuss DM bias. Not all of us has "nanny DMs", heck i'm not one myself, if the haunted castle is fill with shadows and the party don't have magical weapons nor prepared elemental damage spells, they are screwed and that's it. I DM players my age (23 ~ 27), and it's practically an insult to them to make the world adjust their exact abilities. I do adjust the story of the campaign to fit their own personal background, cause that gives the characters a reason to act and the players motivation to play, but i'm not gonna take out the locked door nor the magical trap if there's no rogue in the party: Say no to artifact swords. I used to think bards "suck". In my actual game play experience, even though there was no bard in the party, I was noticing how a bard would have been useful. We got by without one just fine. a bard simply would have been useful. Those who were defending the bard were doing so by the game mechanics bards bring with them. I was seeing that. However, I now see another way of how silly I was to think bards "suck". My complaint against the bard was that other classes could also do what bards do but better. I often said clerics have better buffs. In one case when someone mentioned Use Magic Device, I responded with warlock. I now see cleric and warlock were irrelevant. What matters is what the bard does in that particular game. If someone was playing a bard, hooray for him. That I might have chosen to play a cleric or a warlock instead because I think it would make for a better bard was irrelevant. It's not silly to simply not like a class, i don't like the bard, the druid and the monk, for fluff reasons, but if a player wants to use one of them is fine by me. But there's one thing you're not seeing here, and it's about class niches: What's supposed to do the Fighter? correct, fight. What's supposed to do every other class? correct, fight and other bunch of stuff. Exactly, every single class it's supposed to fight, but every other class has other things to offer, things that they do better than the rest of the classes... everyone except the fighter. It's no surprise that 90% of feats, spells and class features ever created have a use during combat, it's the main issue in the rules, so if a class can only "fight", better be good at it... and that's clearly not the case. I accept that, at the moment the fighter class design was introduced as we know it now (from 3.0), it didn't look so bad, but now with all the options around, specially with the enforcement of Prestige Multiclassing, the fighter has become an excuse of a class... a mere 2 level dip, and that's not ok to me. And the bard is a very powerful class, and incredibly useful in many instances. What about the Commoner, Expert, Aristocrat, etc.? This is where the numbers and words begin to make a difference. You want to say the fighter is the weakest of all the PC classes? Fine. I will use fighter as my line across the sand. In terms of numbers and words, the Commoner, Aristocrat, Warrior, etc., do not reach the Fighter. Game mechanics is part of the game. They do matter. We're not going there, that's just silly. I haven't said that the Fighter is the weakest PC... the Samurai and the Healer are in a tie for the spot, i'm just saying that the fighter, being one of the most important and basic classes offered by the game, it's boring and lame at higher levels and enforces multiclassing in such a way that annoys me. |
| Archangel6202-17-07, 01:22 PM | Given that a major role of fighters is to put themselves into vulnerable situations, it only makes sense that they use the majority of their wealth on this role. What else should they use this wealth for? Yes, except you're either being obtuse or deliberately misinterpreting my point. The fighter has poor reflex and will, will be smaller than many of his opponents, The fighter has poor saves compared to the spells and special ability DCs of its foes. Also, the fighter has poor mobility, the AC cap is low, and the fighter needs a lot of stat bumps to stay competetive for hit and damage. The problem is that a fighter is able to keep up with the CR based on their gear, but most of the other classes actually excell once the gear is added. |
| Kratch02-17-07, 02:22 PM | Actually, i see much of a wizards money going into spells and backup spellbooks, as well as CL items, stat boosts (to raise DC's, AC/to hit and HP's) and fort save boosts. seems to me like they're using they're coin to shore up weakness's and function, not so much to excel beyond they're level. after all, a wizard who doesn't spend his money on his spellbook is gonna be a pretty sub par wizard as far as versatility. a wizard that doesn't boost his AC, HP's and fort saves are gonna die even faster then the fighter, since there are more save or (actually) die spells with fort saves then will, and without a decent HP pool, normal physical damage becomes a real threat. Wizards need to boost they're DC's or they're spells will not be able to bypass the adversaries saves. Much of a clerics money goes into CL items, as well as AC and Stats (DC's and HP's). Again, these are not a way to excel beyound they're level, but rather to shore up his strengths/weakness's, just like the fighter is. After all, like the wizard, without the DC increase they're spells will be less usefull, without HP's and AC, they'll succumb to normal damage and without the CL boosts, they're spells will fail against a dispell magics. Sorcerer is very much like the wizard, except, instead of the spellbook, they're money goes into shoreing up the lack of versatility a wizard would have. You can ignore these all you want, but your fooling yourself if you think a caster isn't spending his cash to shore up his strengths/weakness's, just like the fighter is. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-17-07, 02:51 PM | Actually, i see much of a wizards money going into spells and backup spellbooks, as well as CL items, stat boosts (to raise DC's, AC/to hit and HP's) and fort save boosts. seems to me like they're using they're coin to shore up weakness's and function, not so much to excel beyond they're level. after all, a wizard who doesn't spend his money on his spellbook is gonna be a pretty sub par wizard as far as versatility. a wizard that doesn't boost his AC, HP's and fort saves are gonna die even faster then the fighter, since there are more save or (actually) die spells with fort saves then will, and without a decent HP pool, normal physical damage becomes a real threat. Wizards need to boost they're DC's or they're spells will not be able to bypass the adversaries saves. Much of a clerics money goes into CL items, as well as AC and Stats (DC's and HP's). Again, these are not a way to excel beyound they're level, but rather to shore up his strengths/weakness's, just like the fighter is. After all, like the wizard, without the DC increase they're spells will be less usefull, without HP's and AC, they'll succumb to normal damage and without the CL boosts, they're spells will fail against a dispell magics. Sorcerer is very much like the wizard, except, instead of the spellbook, they're money goes into shoreing up the lack of versatility a wizard would have. You can ignore these all you want, but your fooling yourself if you think a caster isn't spending his cash to shore up his strengths/weakness's, just like the fighter is. Sure the other classes shore up their weak points. But lets take a quick look at what that means. (Note ability increases are ingnored. That's universal to all classes, though really +1 save DC is far batter then +1 to hit and damage) Mage boosts HP, Fort and AC Results: Mage has higher AC (with miss chance) then the fighter and only slightly lower HP and Fort saves while having full spellcasting. Cleric boosts AC, HP and To Hit. Results: The Cleric has more hp, higher AC and equal to hit while dealing similar damage in melee and has full spellcasting. Fighter gets magic items he needs to bypass DR, attack flying opponents, attack incorporeal opponents and shore up their complete lack of skills. With luck he has cash left over to buy damage enhancements. Results: Fighter is better at melee combat (but not survivability) then the wizard, tied with the cleric (if he's buffed), and has no spells. |
| Eyeless Blond02-17-07, 03:29 PM | Don't forget the Fighter also has to boost AC and Will too. He doesn't have to pay as much for real armor as someone else would for bracers, but then again with Greater Mage Armor neither does a wizard. The fighter also has to pay separately for enhancements to melee attack methods and ranged attack methods. If he wants to bypass DR he has to either buy separate weapons for different forms of DR (adamantine warhammer, silvered longsword, cold iron scythe or Ranseur, bow with cold iron and silver arrows), enhancing each separately, or pay for the expensive Metalline property. Even then he's got to rely on the part's casters to help him deal with alignment DR. A wizard who pays for CL enhancements only has to pay once, and his class features let him bypass DR entirely by targeting different weaknesses. The Fighter simply can't. |
| Bob Loblaw02-17-07, 03:49 PM | Nobody has said that the words before Game Rule Information weren't important, but they are all ambience stuff, it changes from player to player, from DM to DM, from game to game, we cannot discuss that cause it's futile in this topic, the guy next to me thinks his fighter is the town's protector's son who was trained by his father until he passed away, i see my fighter as the veteran dwarven soldier who has fought two great wars against the drows... but we both know that our character has a bonus feat from a restricted list at second class level. Actually, this thread has changed from it's original question which is: Is there any point in playing a fighter? If you and I don't play the same style of game, then it is perfectly reasonable to say that style is as important as mechanics. Pal, again, we cannot discuss DM bias. Not all of us has "nanny DMs", heck i'm not one myself, if the haunted castle is fill with shadows and the party don't have magical weapons nor prepared elemental damage spells, they are screwed and that's it. I certainly hope you use some DM bias when you write your adventures. I hope you are throwing creatures of an appropriate challenge at your party. The DM needs to keep in mind the capabilities of the party when writing the adventures. The challenges and rewards I present to the party match the characters and players' styles. This isn't being a nanny DM. This is how many of us feel the DM should be. My players know that every encounter could be their character's last. |
| Kratch02-17-07, 04:04 PM | Sure the other classes shore up their weak points. But lets take a quick look at what that means. (Note ability increases are ingnored. That's universal to all classes, though really +1 save DC is far batter then +1 to hit and damage) That really depends on how you deal with encounters, but generally your right, +1DC is better then +1 hit/damage. it's also more necessary. the fact you say that makes me think your in the melee vs caster camp (just noting for personal clarification). Mage boosts HP, Fort and AC Results: Mage has higher AC (with miss chance) then the fighter and only slightly lower HP and Fort saves while having full spellcasting. well, i hadn't mentioned ac (except as a relation to boosting stats) since a fighter also needs to boost his AC through items. A fighter also needs to boost his HP's and his will save (rather then the wizards fort). So far they're spending about equal, but then the fighter needs to shore up things like mobility and other areas. But in your comparison, you still ignored CL items, that are required to protect your buffs from dispells (you know, the ones that are getting your AC higher then a fighters, cause otherwise, the fighter is just getting the same (or similar) items as you). you also ignord the fact that there is quite a bit of money going into spellbooks, just to keep up. or the sorcerers own lack of versatility compared to a wizard. again, you can ignore these things if you want, but your only fooling yourself (and i suppose some others who follow people with similar views blindly) Cleric boosts AC, HP and To Hit. Results: The Cleric has more hp, higher AC and equal to hit while dealing similar damage in melee and has full spellcasting. Anything the cleric buys to boost AC, HP's and to hit, the fighter is also buying, and since those are very much the same things he's buying in the wizard comparison of expenditure (other then to hit rather then saves), he's not adding much to his budget here. But again you choose to ignore the CL issue, which is even more essential. Because without a high enough CL, your cleric is gonna lose those DMM persisted buffs he's using, and once those are all gone, he's AC drops to even (or lower if he's realying on vestment spells), he loses that (supposedly) higher HP's and he loses the (debatable) similar to hit and damage. Additionlly, a cleric shares many of a fighters in combat weaknes's, such as mobility and detection. Fighter gets magic items he needs to bypass DR, attack flying opponents, attack incorporeal opponents and shore up their complete lack of skills. With luck he has cash left over to buy damage enhancements. Results: Fighter is better at melee combat (but not survivability) then the wizard, tied with the cleric (if he's buffed), and has no spells. Lets take these point by point... bypass DR... cleric shares this, but generally, with the right selection of weapon enhancments on your main weapon (adamantine/cold iron good +other stuff)), this is a rare problem thats easily solved with some appropriate backup weapons (cold iron/adamantine good and silver good, other enhancments are optional if funds allow). Also, casters have SR to bypass, another reason for needing the CL items you ignored earlier. attack flying opponents... A weakness clerics share. sure they can get wind walking, but thats a rather slow method of flight, no better then the fighters absence of flight against anything with a fly speed over 20 (which is pretty much everything with flight). the cleric can target with spells, but then he's ether using a tactic he's not optimized for (if he was built as a melee cleric, he likely doesn't have the DC to be effective) or he wasn't performing up the the fighters standards beforehand (which you claimed he was with your higher AC and damage). ether way, the fighter can also switch to ranged, a tactic he unlikely is optimized for, but may still be effective in. As for casters, they don't need flight to attack they're opponents, but now they don't have flight as a defence ether, and need to have gear (or spells prepared, available and so not being used for other stuff) to compensate for that. or did you forget that part. attack incorporeal opponents...This is a problem, more for casters then melee. %50 miss chance (and if he doesn't have a magic weapon at the levels we're talking about, then he is being screwed by the DM, not by the nature of his class). Almost all incorporeal creatures are undead, making them very resistant/immune to most Save or die and enchant spells. additionally, only force effects and specially metamagiced spells effect the incorproeal. A sword is a sword, at will hit any target it's swung at (though not as accuratly in this case), no preparation is required, and no additional gear outside his typical norm is needed. casters on the other hand have to be prepared for such an encounter. Clerics have a bit of an advantage in that they have turn undead, but if it's not undead, then they have no advantage over the fighter unless they happened to know they would needed the spell ethireal jaunt that day (how convinient). druids are even more screwed here then fighters (though i don't want to talk about druids, as they are a very unstable class, thus hard to argue with/against). and shore up their complete lack of skills... Well, nether wizards or clerics have a great deal of skills ether, though a wizard does get a nice bunch of bonus ones due to int being a main stat. sorcerers don't however, and though both sorcerer and cleric do have better skill lists, they also have skill demands. without concentraition they are usless spellwise when threatened. that leaves them 1 skill point behind and concentraition doesn't help them anyway outside casting they're spells in combat. with spellcraft, knowledge arcana/reliegion often being needed as well, they are likely to have even less skills that are usful then the fighter. Sorcerers do have there spells to help shore up the lack of skills, but will rarely actually take those spells as ones known due to they're limited supply on spells known. Clerics have very few spells that emulate skills, and thus can't really shore up their skills that way. This means they (sorcerer and cleric) are in the exact same boat as the fighter, needing to purchase gear to help shore up those lack of skills. So, the way i see it, needing gear simply to function is not a weakness inherent in the fighter alone, contrary to what you may have convinced yourself. Edit: I'd also like to point out this is all strictly melee vs caster issues. if your saying this is a problem soley of the fighter (and i don't believe you are, but some people might), and that barbarians, paladins and such don't also share the exact same issues, then your being rediculous. As this thread is about fighters specifically, not melee in general, i feel the need to point this out. It is far to often that the fighter alone is blamed for all the percieved problems of melee class's. |
| navar10002-17-07, 04:39 PM | If the fighter has to spend a majority of their financial resources to keep from being grotesquely vulnerable while other classes can use those same resources to push themselves up further it means that the fighter as a class was poorly designed and implimented in the context of the rules system. But the fighter doesn't have to because he's not grotesquely vulnerable. |
| navar10002-17-07, 05:12 PM | It's not silly to simply not like a class, i don't like the bard, the druid and the monk, for fluff reasons, but if a player wants to use one of them is fine by me. But there's one thing you're not seeing here, and it's about class niches: What's supposed to do the Fighter? correct, fight. What's supposed to do every other class? correct, fight and other bunch of stuff. Exactly, every single class it's supposed to fight, but every other class has other things to offer, things that they do better than the rest of the classes... everyone except the fighter. It's no surprise that 90% of feats, spells and class features ever created have a use during combat, it's the main issue in the rules, so if a class can only "fight", better be good at it... and that's clearly not the case. I accept that, at the moment the fighter class design was introduced as we know it now (from 3.0), it didn't look so bad, but now with all the options around, specially with the enforcement of Prestige Multiclassing, the fighter has become an excuse of a class... a mere 2 level dip, and that's not ok to me. And the bard is a very powerful class, and incredibly useful in many instances. We're not going there, that's just silly. I haven't said that the Fighter is the weakest PC... the Samurai and the Healer are in a tie for the spot, i'm just saying that the fighter, being one of the most important and basic classes offered by the game, it's boring and lame at higher levels and enforces multiclassing in such a way that annoys me. I was using the colloquial "you", not you in particular. There is a difference between you finding the fighter class boring and no worth having a fighter at all. Personal taste will be a factor in how much fun you have with a character. I'll never play a bard because I won't have fun playing a bard no matter how much other people say how wonderful and "balanced" they are. I actually don't play fighters, myself. My aesthetic fun wants me to be able to do magic of some kind. It is why I often play clerics - I get the fun of spellcasting while still being able to be a competent warrior. I know full well the fighter gets to be the competent warrior but without the spellcasting. Should I feel the need to concentrate on being the competent warrior, I'll play a paladin because I still need that spellcasting fix. (Crusader makes for a good placebo.) Just as you say there are now all these classes that would make the fighter obsolete, so too are there all these classes that blur the line of character niches. 3.0 already started that between barbarian/ranger/fighter and giving bards Cure Wounds spells to be cast spontaneously vs the cleric. With 3.5, the rogue competes with the scout and ninja. There are prestige classes galore that seem to make 20 levels of sorcerer or wizard just not worth it. If this is a problem it's not a problem of fighters. It's the problem that the plethora of prestige classes make multiclassing too attractive. It goes back to why individual campaigns do matter. Given a campaign where everything ever published is available, for which you would want me only to discuss to compare classes, you are overwhelemed with options. Before I finally decided on playing a warlock for my group's new campaign, I was going crazy trying to decide between warlock, druid, psionicist, and prestige paladin. They all offered game mechanics I would enjoy playing. I finally decided on warlock because I found while thinking of the other classes only led me to the fun of the game mechanics, when thinking of the warlock I was also think of the fun of playing him as a character; hence I finally knew I really wanted to play a warlock. In this context, I can see how a fighter seems boring. However, most campaigns aren't going to have everything ever published. By obviousness the DM will set what is and what is not available and what challenges the party will face. The challenges will be partly dictated by what classes the players choose to play. The fighter will have his room to shine. Yes, I know even just with core no 9th level fighter will have a feat that compares to the 9th level party member wizard's Teleport. It doesn't matter because the fighter isn't competing with the wizard. When it comes to the 11th level bad guy wizard having Teleport, it pretty much comes to who wins intiative in a one-on-one fight given everyone equally optimized in spells, feats, equipment, and placement when battle starts, but fortunately a PC doesn't usually face a bad guy by himself. Let the party wizard cast Dimensional Anchor on the bad guy wizard, the cleric Silence him, the fighter power attacks him, and the rogue flanks for sneak attack. Whether that figther is a fighter or a ranger or a barbarian or a paladin or a wild shaped druid or a fighter/prestige class, not necessarily anyone even with Power Attack, only matters for the player's personal desire. That you won't choose to be the fighter is your desire. |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 11:46 AM | There are several nations in which English is commonly spoken. I assume you meant, "Perhaps my native language is not English." Then open your textbook and learn that English sentences begin with a capital letter. Learn that the contraction of I and am is I'm. Learn that language names are capitalized. Plunty? PLUNTY? There is no such word. This is indisputable evidence that you did not use a spell checker, as you were asked to do. This is evidence that you have no respect for your fellow posters. The fact that you do not even make the effort is why people are ignoring you. "However, I will grant that that is a great excuse not to answer questions." Learn English or at least show some respect for your fellow human beings' bleeding eyes and use a spellchecker. One does not "blunt things off." People are not true in the sense that you use the word. The other word is spelled speaking. The other other word is spelled don't. THOSE. PERIOD. If your argueing about i and I or im and I'm or i'm or any other effect is basicly the same word or caping the first word of a line/sentence then your just acting like a child There isnt any real differnce you understood what i meant i see you do have braincells to figure out that i and I is the same thing it did not take any real brainpower yes i relize this can be reported but so can your arguements on other effects there is a good point being able to just Talk about something and asking questions (If you have any) Should just be ask no need to be rude or childish and argue agest anyone who use's i inreplace for I whats the worst that can happin? there the same damn thing you knew what i meant and you acted on it I possibly think that by argueing on this means your ignoreing the questions put before you and thats just childish if you dount know the answer or was wrong just say so or if you have a question about something then just ask |
| Lotus Crane02-19-07, 12:00 PM | There isnt any real differnce you understood what i meant i see you do have braincells to figure out that i and I is the same thing it did not take any real brainpower Yes, but it's still considered impolite, or at least unprofessional. Even if it only takes us a little more effort to read broken English, it should likewise only take you a little more effort to type proper English, and etiquette suggests that it would be more appropriate for you to put in that extra effort, not us. It is more reasonable for us to expect you to type correctly, than for you to expect us to bother reading your posts or respect your opinions when they're typed incorrectly. You need to make the extra effort, because it's selfish to expect others to make that effort for you. |
| Archangel6202-19-07, 12:28 PM | But the fighter doesn't have to because he's not grotesquely vulnerable. Really? Care to explain that. Assuming average 25pb in order to be a proper contender in melee the fighter needs their phsyical stats to be above average, add in that wisdom is only useful for a handful of feats (Combat focus notwithstanding) and that they also need int for Combat Expertise if they want to be able to trip or disarm and their stats are either astonishingly underwhelming or frankly one sided. Spells that dominate or the ever popular Save or Die can also target will saves. Not to mention common abilities used by the fighters foes. Let's also remember that assuming you follow the CR system the bigger foes have greater physcial power as well as spellcasting capabilities. Combine that with special innate powers and the fighter is already looking at weaknesses in terms of AC, being able to properly damage a foe, or surviving the spells. To be able to function in multiple encounter types the fighter must spread their feat selection widely, becoming a mediocre warrior at best or they can focus on one particular style that is either easily blocked or obsolete at high levels because of multiple opponent types. Assuming the traditional frontline fighter we need a high AC, good damage and the ability to withstand all but the most epic strikes. But even then the fighter will likely need some ranged options to deal with the ever present flying enemies, enemies that can't be tripped, can't even be reached many times. Or do we make the cleric the tank and turn the fighter into an Archer, I can accept that, but then the problem becomes that this fighter will be poor in melee on average because most of their focus is necessarily on their dexterity and since they won't be on the front lines in general they take lower AC armor with higher Max Dex. You can argue all day that the fighter can be fixed because of allies buffing him and boosting him, the problem is that it tells us VERY little about the capabilities of the fighter itself as a class. If the fighter needs all the boosts of a party member to properly contribute in a fight of the fighters CR rating then the fighter class is not a valued team member, it's a damn leech. |
| Kratch02-19-07, 12:34 PM | Yes, but it's still considered impolite, or at least unprofessional. Even if it only takes us a little more effort to read broken English, it should likewise only take you a little more effort to type proper English, and etiquette suggests that it would be more appropriate for you to put in that extra effort, not us. It is more reasonable for us to expect you to type correctly, than for you to expect us to bother reading your posts or respect your opinions when they're typed incorrectly. You need to make the extra effort, because it's selfish to expect others to make that effort for you. yout talking about I over i here. at this point it is simply a matter of avoiding the valid points in favour of attack his character. his typing improved considerably after one of the recent mentions (may have been the first), to expect anyone to type flawlessly on these boards, especially since it doesn't have a spell check feature (that i can find anyways), is unreasonable. close enough is good enough. if he had continued with the broken english, i might agree (too a point, much of it involved a lot of guesswork), but he made a significant effort to improve in his last few posts, and is getting nitpicked on I vs i and I'm vs I am (which, technically, ether can be used, to say otherwise is wrong. I am is just more formal/rigid and is rarely actually used, it's not wrong). Perhaps instead of attacking his character, you can address his points (or mine if your so inclined). Or do you have nothing to rebutt his points, so the only way to remain right is to invalidate him (personal note: i don't entirely agree with all his points, but the general idea i do agree with, But i'm not willing to stand by and watch someone be attacked for not capatalizing his I's.) PS, Do you really find it that much more strenuous reading a lowercase i over a capital I? |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 12:38 PM | The fighter and other class's all have its own way to fight a Fighter Feats give it an overall better To Hit then most other creatures/character you can be so if your agest an Armored foe useoly the fighter has the better chance of hitting that type of creature allso if you have a fighter that has the same weapon as you do normol the fighter can do more damage with his Version of it then you can Sure you can sit hear and say a Differnet class can do more damage or have more to hit but this is the example A Fighter agest a Barbian the barbian has more life and can rage giveing it a +2-4 to hit and damage the feat type of fighter in melee combat can out do the barbian on To Hit then the barbian can the same BaB Correct give them the same Str as well for an example the Barbian has nice effects he can use while rageing but this is at a cost of his defence the Fighter and Barbian can get the same to hit/damage potantiol even when the barbian rageing but the barbian has other abilitys which is nice the Fighter dose not have thouse special ability but has more feats to help him in other reguards but intill then he has more Defence then the barbian meaning the fighter is getting hit/hurt less offtin then the barbian its just an example a fighter if he wanted could play the part of a rouge and do better then him in some ways in my idea the Fighter is a good class becouse it can take on the roles of other class's and be better in some reguards and worse in other reguards ... the reason why this is good is becouse perhaps you do not care about what your worse at A Fighter may not care that he dose not have DR or other things what he cares about is that his defence and AC is higher/better then the barbians and that is what the player could be looking for If you realy want to compare the fighter agest other class's then pick 1 other class to compare the fighter agest and have the fighter make his character like that class you'll find the fighter can be better in many reguards then that class is at them now you could say hear that the fighter isnt as good as another class! but thats only becouse the fighter didnt want to be better then that class role in the group or w/e reason he has the fighter can be better then many of the Front Line Battle person the fighter is for thouse who want that mobility or that ability to change so you can best fit into the combat role something eveyday army is consently wanting to be better at We want to be able to change our way/tastic as Quickly as possible to help us better agest some way in combat to help us out a fighter is able to do this he is much better at being able to change into a situation quicker then other class's Yes there are class's that could be better then that one way then the fighter but they cant Change there form of play style if a problem comes up the Rouge finds himself not very powerfull in combat when fighting Undead Contructs or other things right? Well the fighter just has to make minor (If any) Changes to be able to fight the undead/contructs or you could have a cleric come in ... but you have to have 2 class's to fill in the role of the 1 fighter sure thouse 2 class's are doing things better then the 1 fighter was but you dount have all these options open to you in the middle of combat in other words you dount have more party members in your group you only have X Amount of party members in your group and the fighter is a great choice to pick/have in order to change around in the party formation makeing it act like you have X+2 sure its not as good as 2X+2 but thats more rescourses being used at doing the same job there are other ways of playing the fighter (And other class's) Then what was just mentioned above |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 12:48 PM | Yes, but it's still considered impolite, or at least unprofessional. Even if it only takes us a little more effort to read broken English, it should likewise only take you a little more effort to type proper English, and etiquette suggests that it would be more appropriate for you to put in that extra effort, not us. It is more reasonable for us to expect you to type correctly, than for you to expect us to bother reading your posts or respect your opinions when they're typed incorrectly. You need to make the extra effort, because it's selfish to expect others to make that effort for you. so its not impolite to attack and argue agest someone just becouse they type i over I is that it? Yes i try my best to Spell things correctly but when you start argueing over the letter i over I or other such things it just shows that you are impolite and beleve that YOU have the right to do such things and so on so forth long story short your arguement makes it sound like your better then other people are which can be reported if i remeber the CoC And other sayings (By Wizo) Correctly but the reason why i do not choose to be a ***** about it (By reporting) Is becouse i dount beleve it will solve the arguement No in order to solve the arguement you first must relize why your argueing in the first place yes you could report me possibly but that would only create more problems then it would solve in the long run so am i right in my first arguement? or are you realy "Above" Other people? |
| Lotus Crane02-19-07, 12:52 PM | at this point it is simply a matter of avoiding the valid points in favour of attack his character. I'm not sure what others' motives have been, but my own post was meant to be helpful. Sometimes the only way to make a point that others will consider valid, is not merely to offer a point with logical content, but to present a well-crafted point that sounds intelligent and convincing, whether or not there's any actual substance to it. to expect anyone to type flawlessly on these boards, especially since it doesn't have a spell check feature (that i can find anyways), is unreasonable. This was actually the subject of an online course I once took, where part of the grades came from regularly posting to an online discussion forum that also lacked automatic spell-check features. Improper spelling and capitalization still incurred penalties, because as the professor pointed out, you can always have your word processor open while you're online, and if you're not sure of your typing or English skills, write all of your posts in your word processor first, spell-check there, then copy-paste your post into your internet browser. Unless you lack a word processor (which can easily be remedied for free by going to openoffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/)), it is very reasonable to expect flawless typing. PS, Do you really find it that much more strenuous reading a lowercase i over a capital I? Perhaps not strenuous, but certainly annoying and distracting. Just because I possess a strong command of pragmatics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics), does not mean that others should be allowed to get away with a weak command of semantics. |
| navar10002-19-07, 04:32 PM | Pal, again, we cannot discuss DM bias. Not all of us has "nanny DMs", heck i'm not one myself, if the haunted castle is fill with shadows and the party don't have magical weapons nor prepared elemental damage spells, they are screwed and that's it. I DM players my age (23 ~ 27), and it's practically an insult to them to make the world adjust their exact abilities. I do adjust the story of the campaign to fit their own personal background, cause that gives the characters a reason to act and the players motivation to play, but i'm not gonna take out the locked door nor the magical trap if there's no rogue in the party: Say no to artifact swords. . Why is the party in that haunted castle? A DM who constantly sets the party against monsters they cannot overcome is a bad DM. Why doesn't the party have magic weapons to fight the shadwos? Are you that stingy with magic items? For one particular adventure a party that is underequipped makes for a challenging adventure, a greater risk bringing greater reward. If this happens all the time, then the problem is the DM being a jerk and has nothing to do with classes. If I'm playing a rogue and all the bad guys we fight are undead, plants, constructs, oozes, and elementals, I have every right to be ****** off. If I'm playing a beguiler and all the bad guys we fight are undead, plants, constructs, oozes, and elementals, I have every right to be ****** off. If I'm playing a fighter never having anything more than a masterwork long sword, if that, and all the bad guys we fight have DR/something, I have every right to be ****** off. "Nanny DM" :noway: |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 04:48 PM | first off a Fighter is going to have a High AC even compared to a wizard whos useing Mage Armor not only that but you have to consider how many spells the wizard or other spell casters are useing on just self buffs if they use to many then they lose the ability to be that powerfull force in combat that there known for Second off Great so you where in a class where you could flunk the class by not typeing 100% clearly online? well thats you not many (if any others) Have done that or been in that field or reguard And when attacking people who only use i over I Is very rude and unpolite especouly when he makes it into a big deal like its the end of the world your professer i bet has a hard time understanding people in citys out on the street or any other Reguard considering most people in the world do not speek/spell clearly in fact many people use slang in many differnt forms it just sounds however again that you seem to put your self higher then other people "Well i do it so should eveyone eles" if this was true not only would people lose there Freedom and a part of whats them but it would show that you can now control people to do just about anything you want now Not going to happin and it seems much more on the verge of childish in my view i could state my own class's and how it argues agest your class but im not why? Becouse that would only bring more arguements up (Possibly) |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 05:01 PM | Why is the party in that haunted castle? A DM who constantly sets the party against monsters they cannot overcome is a bad DM. Why doesn't the party have magic weapons to fight the shadwos? Are you that stingy with magic items? For one particular adventure a party that is underequipped makes for a challenging adventure, a greater risk bringing greater reward. If this happens all the time, then the problem is the DM being a jerk and has nothing to do with classes. If I'm playing a rogue and all the bad guys we fight are undead, plants, constructs, oozes, and elementals, I have every right to be ****** off. If I'm playing a beguiler and all the bad guys we fight are undead, plants, constructs, oozes, and elementals, I have every right to be ****** off. If I'm playing a fighter never having anything more than a masterwork long sword, if that, and all the bad guys we fight have DR/something, I have every right to be ****** off. "Nanny DM" :noway: a DM Makes the world and people and character have to deal with crap After all if you want to venture into the Dragons lair then go ahead just know that the Dragon is not going to find you to be honored guest and will perhaps fight (And Kill) You off the World of anything dosnt circle around your Characters Now if the DM Was makeing things come at you just becouse he dosnt like you or other reguards to that then yes the player should be ****** off The Fact is the Game might be in a Undead Setting where some necromancer is raiseing the dead and sending them after citys Just becouse your a Rouge isnt going to stop the Necromancer he is after all Evil Allso SA Kinda sucks agest monsters becouse a good 2/3 of the monsters are immune or can deal with it in some way so if your ****** off that 2/3 of the monsters are immune to what your doing then perhaps you should think of something eles to do Yes SA Is deadly ... agest the players or some commener or some other form of creature that you can hit with it eveything eles looks at you and dose not care If you think its purely the DM's Fault then your in for a surprize DM Have the full right to stick with there dungion sometimes they can be nice to players (Like i am) But im not allways going to be nice and sometimes the players dount relize that im being nice For Example in one game my players find it very hard becouse they ran across a Party of monsters that want the players to turn agest the town but they cant and are surounded by monsters they dount beleve im being nice to them even tho in the campaine it wasnt my fault that the players stormed into a dungion that was known to be filled with these creatures yes it wasnt known there looking for people to turn agest the town but hey w/e plus im allso being nice by not haveing the goblins raid into the small village even tho the Goblins are long overdue on that reguard in the game/setting Sometimes it may feel the game circles around the players becouse of what DM's (Like me sometimes) Will do to the players (Tho in this case the players forgot about the Goblins so dount relize that the horde is going to invade the town but they went off on a quest insteed so im waiting intill they get back becouse i want them in the battle as it is part of the main quest tho normoly they should come back to a burned down village/small city) DM Have the right to do many things becouse players forget about a lot of things that end up being bothersome later on in the game and have evey right to give Class levels to monsters Hey Kobolts can be barbians (Or other things) and have class levels in it so dount complain to me that your level 8 character is fighting Kobolts that have more then 3 hp |
| Eyeless Blond02-19-07, 05:20 PM | PS, Do you really find it that much more strenuous reading a lowercase i over a capital I? so its not impolite to attack and argue agest someone just becouse they type i over I is that it? Both of you are missing the point. When you are writing something for others to read, especially on a public forum like this one, you are attempting to persuade them to consider your point of view in a fair or even favorable light. As such, it is incumbent on you to make your argument understandable to others. Keep in mind that, until and unless you can convince someone else to actually listen to you, your words are completely worthless to the rest of the world. There is no entitlement here, on a public forum. Your ability to create a username and password do not give you an intrinsic right to force others to listen to you; they only give you the right to post. You are not special here; whatever rank or accolades you accumulate while on this forum must be earned; they are not granted by birth or privilege. It is your responsibility to make your posts meaningful to others, not the other way around. One of the biggest value-subtracters from a post is when that post is impossible to read, due to spelling problems, grammar problems, or even silly formatting errors like weird colors. This is bad for two reasons: first, it requires more effort on the part of the reader to understand you, and second, you sound like a child or an uneducated fool, and thus not worth listening to. A post that is difficult to read lessens the value of the words. Many won't even bother putting in the extra processing power to bother with such posts. I am one of them; after about a sentence or two I simply skim or skip entirely a post that I have to put too much effort into reading, because my time is better spent reading well-written posts. I can read more that way, digest more arguments that way, and generally I don't find that I miss much of the thrust of the thread by skipping posts that read like they were written by disrespectful five-year-olds. Those who even bother to read the mess in the first place are immediately put off by the writing, and what attitude that writing implies. They think to themselves, consciously or not: "Are you really so arrogant as to think it is incumbent on everyone else to translate your gibberish into real words? Why is it my job to deal with your inability to use a spellchecker?" Because this attitude is going to be present in every reader's mind while reading your messy post, they're going to be concentrating at least some of their effort on how your argument is worded, and less on the argument itself, making it less likely that they will care about what you are saying. So not only are you sounding uneducated by not using complete sentences and correct spelling, but your insistence that your readers translate for you is actively harmful to your argument. How do you fix this? I'll make it easy for you, at least the spelling part. Here is a browser with a spellchecker already built into it. (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) Use it. Even better, write your posts in a real word processor with a spelling and grammar checker; I like OpenOffice because it is free. Do this and I promise you people will take you more seriously. So, to flippantly counter your flippant argument: "Who do you think you are? Why should I take time out of my day translating your gibberish into real words? Isn't that YOUR job?" |
| NineInchNall02-19-07, 05:30 PM | A-frickin'-men! |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 05:38 PM | Both of you are missing the point. When you are writing something for others to read, especially on a public forum like this one, you are attempting to persuade them to consider your point of view in a fair or even favorable light. As such, it is incumbent on you to make your argument understandable to others. Keep in mind that, until and unless you can convince someone else to actually listen to you, your words are completely worthless to the rest of the world. There is no entitlement here, on a public forum. Your ability to create a username and password do not give you an intrinsic right to force others to listen to you; they only give you the right to post. You are not special here; whatever rank or accolades you accumulate while on this forum are entirely based on your ability, not any right by birth or privilege. It is your responsibility to make your posts meaningful to others, not the other way around. One of the biggest value-subtracters from a post is when that post is impossible to read, due to spelling problems, grammar problems, or even silly formatting errors like weird colors. This is bad for two reasons: first, it requires more effort on the part of the reader to understand you, and second, you sound like a child or an uneducated fool, and thus not worth listening to. A post that is difficult to read lessens the value of the words. Many won't even bother putting in the extra processing power to bother with such posts. I am one of them; after about a sentence or two I simply skim or skip entirely a post that I have to put too much effort into reading, because my time is better spent reading well-written posts. I can read more that way, digest more arguments that way, and generally I don't find that I miss much of the thrust of the thread by skipping posts that read like they were written by disrespectful five-year-olds. Those who even bother to read the mess in the first place are immediately put off by the writing, and what attitude that writing implies. They think to themselves, consciously or not: "Are you really so arrogant as to think it is incumbent on everyone else to translate your gibberish into real words? Why is it my job to deal with your inability to use a spellchecker?" Because this attitude is going to be present in every reader's mind while reading your messy post, they're going to be concentrating at least some of their effort on how your argument is worded, and less on the argument itself, making it less likely that they will care about what you are saying. So not only are you sounding uneducated by not using complete sentences and correct spelling, but your insistence that your readers translate for you is actively harmful to your argument. How do you fix this? I'll make it easy for you, at least the spelling part. Here is a browser with a spellchecker already built into it. (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) Use it. Even better, write your posts in a real word processor with a spelling and grammar checker; I like OpenOffice because it is free. Do this and I promise you people will take you more seriously. So, to flippantly counter your flippant argument: "Who do you think you are? Why should I take time out of my day translating your gibberish into real words? Isn't that YOUR job?" Your stateing that if someone cant speek your lang you should allways ignore them and not care what they do and even ignore there line of work? if someone was speeking a lang i didnt know but new the cure to cancer i would get a translater or just sit down and try my best to understand the guy becouse after all he knows something you dount and that no one eles knows to just ignore him and shove him off is worthless many people speek and write in a broken form of english and just becouse they dount speek / write the same as you is just a form of being Racist or sexxest hey the guy isnt white or the guy is black lets ignore him becouse hes not apart of our culture its not like that but it is a form of just being racist in a small way You do relize that in normol forms you should be polite to the person as well? you shouldnt just start argueing and pointing out negitive things about the other person when you first see them sure they may start off small but they will just get bigger i get the point that it helps to be able to talk to each other but when the person spells something like kool vs cool or u over you and your argueing over it is just childish after all you do know what the person means sometimes you may not know what they mean and thats why you ask them to repeat them selfs or explane it one point im trying to make is this This isnt a Job or the Workplace no one works hear but the Wizo people we shouldnt have to act professinol hear and dress up if i want to go out for a cup of coffe or something eles like that im probly going to go in just relaxing cloathing that fit not in my Buisness suit and act professinol about it true the person shouldnt be wearing nothing or just there underwear or something eles like that (Or very racist/sexxist comments) you shouldnt complan that the guy hair style is in a disco style with baggie pants and is wearing a gold chain and starts talking in a disco slang the guy is being relaxed and he is being polite by not argueing over your own costume / mannor of speeking at least not intill you start makeing fun of him sure he may look weird looking like a disco freek in the middle of a coffe shop but you know what? The guy is just relax and trying to injoy himself If you want to talk to him then talk and dount expect him to be super well behaved or anything eles if he truly bothers you theres no need to be rude about it and then storm off or anything eles like that just get up and leave you dount have to shove the pizza or pie in his face and then walk off thats just rude |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 05:41 PM | if the person is speeking in weird colors then that to me says one of these things A) The guy is being relaxed and thats fine he still probly knows what hes talking about B) Maybe the guy is color blind or cant see the normol color easyly so he changes the color to help him see what he is writeing C) Maybe the guy is just giveing an example or forgot to change the color font he shouldnt just be ignored now becouse of that he shouldnt be yelled at eather Yes no one is special Neather are you and your demands after all i allready stated i know i cant speek perfectly or as clearly as you can that dosnt give you the right to start argueing and complaning |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 05:48 PM | and last but not least No your wrong on your last bit My job is to just relax and state my mind and option and be able to ask questions if i have any and when i talk/speek i shouldnt be rude or sexxest or racist or something eles to the other person i should be respectful and understanding of the other people and be willing to understand that if they have a question that i should try and answer it your job is to just sit back relax and not be rude to other people and to be understanding and willing to answer questions and ask your own questions and do basicly the same thing as what im doing There is no point to just point at someone and say "You cant type your horrible you should shut up and let the smart intellgent people speek so go back to the rock you came from" thats just showing that your childish and spoild and want things done in YOUR Way meaning you dount even want to give in or be understanding to the other people around you and will only talk to thouse that see your point of view and do as you demand if the person is being racist or sexxest or rude then by all means let that person know and ask them to stop or change it perhaps the person dosnt relize it or anything eles to that reguard So in the answer to your question No Its not my job to bend over to your demands its Our job to be understanding and polite to each other not to start being rude or demanding of the other people its like saying ... just becouse your rich dosnt mean you know more then the other person |
| Seerow02-19-07, 05:48 PM | Your problem isn't knowing english. Don't try to pull the "I'm a minority, I have an excuse!" card. The problems you display are NOT the problems that come of speaking a language you're unfamiliar with. They're problems that come from laziness inherent in the lowest tier of those currently existing on the internet. You even PROVE THIS by going on to talk about how you don't want to have to 'dress up' for the internet. And by all means, nobody is going to hunt you down and kill you for not speaking properly. However, you MUST realize that people can and will ignore everything you say if you don't say it in a manner coherent enough for them to understand easily. People will NOT go out of their way to attempt to decipher your posts, so you should not be surprised that the end result of your insistence to be lazy is other people being lazy and not reading any post you make, and not taking any argument made by you seriously. |
| Eyeless Blond02-19-07, 06:00 PM | to just ignore him and shove him off is worthless many people speek and write in a broken form of english and just becouse they dount speek / write the same as you is just a form of being Racist or sexxest hey the guy isnt white or the guy is black lets ignore him becouse hes not apart of our culture its not like that but it is a form of just being racist in a small way This is total BS. I'm not ignoring you because I'm an English racist. I'm ignoring you because I don't care enough to put the post-processing into your writing that you could just as easily have put in yourself. Obviously you didn't care enough to write in an intelligible way; why should I bother putting in the effort to read it? This isn't the street and we're not talking. If we were I probably would put in the effort because I know it's not possible for people to comb over their speech to remove speech impediments, accents and grammar inconsistencies on-the-fly. I certainly put in the effort to understand my grandmother's thick Chinese accent, and my co-worker's heavy Ethiopian accent. But this isn't the street and we're not talking. We are typing, and not in the IRC or Instant Messaging way either. These are posts, written on the Internet in long form. You have plenty of time to revise and edit your writing into something that is understandable on a universal level. The fact that you refuse to, that you believe somehow that you are special and that it's everyone else's job to do your editing for you, is the height of arrogance and rudeness, like people who litter because they can't be bothered to walk ten feet to the nearest trash can. By the way, after the point I quoted I didn't bother reading the rest of your post, because my eyes got tired while I was reading it. I don't have this moniker for my health, btw. I have albinism (http://albinism.org/), which means that my eyes don't function too well. It's especially draining for me to read things that are poorly written, because I have to sit there and pick over each word several times to figure out what's being said. I don't intend on reading anything else you write until you learn to write in a way that I can read without as much effort, because frankly I don't have time to sit back and rest my eyes for twenty minutes after trying in vain to read another block of your childish prattle. So long as we're talking about disabilities and people not being accommodating of them. |
| Ghenesh02-19-07, 06:01 PM | Why is the party in that haunted castle? A DM who constantly sets the party against monsters they cannot overcome is a bad DM. Why doesn't the party have magic weapons to fight the shadwos? Are you that stingy with magic items? For one particular adventure a party that is underequipped makes for a challenging adventure, a greater risk bringing greater reward. If this happens all the time, then the problem is the DM being a jerk and has nothing to do with classes. If I'm playing a rogue and all the bad guys we fight are undead, plants, constructs, oozes, and elementals, I have every right to be ****** off. If I'm playing a beguiler and all the bad guys we fight are undead, plants, constructs, oozes, and elementals, I have every right to be ****** off. If I'm playing a fighter never having anything more than a masterwork long sword, if that, and all the bad guys we fight have DR/something, I have every right to be ****** off. "Nanny DM" :noway: Don't be childish, you're not reading between lines, you're just reading what you want to read. If you want to derail the discussion to a sort of diminishing gaming styles, then i'll asume you're off arguments on the main discussion. The castle example is just an exageration, in fact i'm quite generous with treasure as a DM and always create challenges with an alternate solution (not based on spells or other class features), i was trying to explain that not all DMs railroad the players as badly as to set the whole world to their abilities, a good DM can perfectly create a challenge beyond the capabilities of the party, a bad DM will create that challenge and lead the players into it without a chance of avoiding it or giving an optional way to deal with it. You say that personal settings are important to the game, yes, i completely agree, but that's not the point here, we're trying to prove if it's worth, system-wise, to have a fighter in a party. * If a player wants to play a fighter that supersedes any game mechanics and it's completely out of the question. * If a DM has a houserule that makes every feat increase the character's HP in 10, then the Fighter has an edge in that game, but again that's completely out of the question cause if you're discussing in these forums is to be read in order to achieve consensus or gain/offer insight in a subject, a consensus based on the general rules, not specific campaign settings. |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 06:06 PM | Your problem isn't knowing english. Don't try to pull the "I'm a minority, I have an excuse!" card. The problems you display are NOT the problems that come of speaking a language you're unfamiliar with. They're problems that come from laziness inherent in the lowest tier of those currently existing on the internet. You even PROVE THIS by going on to talk about how you don't want to have to 'dress up' for the internet. And by all means, nobody is going to hunt you down and kill you for not speaking properly. However, you MUST realize that people can and will ignore everything you say if you don't say it in a manner coherent enough for them to understand easily. People will NOT go out of their way to attempt to decipher your posts, so you should not be surprised that the end result of your insistence to be lazy is other people being lazy and not reading any post you make, and not taking any argument made by you seriously. i am not playing any Cards or Excuses im just stateing the facts and giveing examples No one should be perfectly well dressed all the time yes i should be speeking English hear sense it is what eveyone eles is speeking but that dosnt mean i should be doing A+ Work and working my butt off just to make a few people happy yes i relize i cant spell prefect english i didnt relize i was in school mom and yes i relize im being hostile in my defence but you should relize that when people are argueing just becouse you dount spell i over I or other means like that it tends to make people ****** off allso parden me i didnt relize i should be able to speek perfect english in a mannor of a few days i would like to see you go over to russia or china or someplace eles where they do not speek english natrualy and speek it perfectly in a short amount of time no at most i would expect you to learn the basics and be able to talk to the people around you ... sure it may be broken but at least people understand you yes i relize im mad and angry but i beleve you would be 2 if people started argueing at the fact that your not speeking perfectly as well and thus should be completly ignored i never remeber saying anything about someone trying to kill me so the last paragraph kinda confusing (The first part) but the last half i get so if im missing something there tell me but in reguards to that all im stateing is that you (And others) Seem to be hostile and very rude to thouse around you who do not share your ideas all i want is to just be able to talk and state my mind and ask questions without people argueing and start makeing rude points and posts Look for all you know i could be dressed up in PJ's right now or i could be in a Buisness suit it shouldnt realy matter becouse A) You dount see me hear so who cares and that is just me saying hey im trying to injoy life i dount need you or others coming along pointing out rude remarks out of the blue and expect me to bow to your ideas or remarks Parden me for not being able to speek perfect english i didnt know i was in school where i should dot evey i and cross evey t |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 06:17 PM | i beleve the fighter has a reason to be played but its mostly player option if you like casting magic then a fighter (Or most other Tank Roles) Probly look horrible to you if you like Tanks and Tank type people then fighters may or may not push your botton why? Becouse maybe to you having more HP is better then haveing AC I useoly like a Sword and Magic type combination so im not the greatest example of having a Fighter seem uber powerfull a DM However has all the rights to make the enviroment how they want For example if you go into the underdark at level 3 then expect to fight underdark creatures the DM wount just say "Well your only level 3 so no drow or anything eles in the underdark will come after you" The DM Should perhaps normoly roll random encounters of the location you are in the underdark if you ecpect to have an easy time going into the underdark at level 3 then be prepared to have your mind be changed a Fighter in my option is worthwhile becouse most of all the Fighter is a great person to have to prevent creatures from getting into the Back Line sure he cant stop the 500 goblins from getting into the back line but he can help in that reguards a fighter has a very good reason to be played and thats being able to buy other characters time time they need wizards druids clerics may not be prepared for the monster thats attacking them the fighter can quickly get him self into battle and use one of his many differnt abilitys to help him out best in that reguard intill the cleric/wizard/druids (Or anything eles) Can get ready after all a wizard who is only having spells that where delt to deal with nme spell casters may not be ready for some other battle and will need to quickly come up with a way how to deal with it intill the wizard is ready however the fighter is a great way to buy that wizard the time he needs if you want a tank who just charges into the middle of battle and not worrie about the protection of his allies then a fighter could do that job as well if thats whats needed |
| Seerow02-19-07, 06:18 PM | You're writing a lot, and nobody's reading a word you're saying. Just so you know. |
| Ghenesh02-19-07, 06:30 PM | You're writing a lot, and nobody's reading a word you're saying. Just so you know. What's your objective Seerow? what do you want to pull of by posting this? You're just being rude. By the way, i read his post... it was hard but did it anyway, and realized that we share some visions on how DMing should be handled. |
| megageek1202-19-07, 06:32 PM | you sound like a child or an uneducated fool, and thus not worth listening to. I'm a child. I'm worth listening to!:) :P |
| Seerow02-19-07, 06:36 PM | What's your objective Seerow? what do you want to pull of by posting this? You're just being rude. Eh. Maybe I'm tired of being one of the patient voices among the board. Maybe I'm just tired of reading posts like that. Especially multiple posts (which iirc are against the CoC anyway) all written like that. Or maybe I just shouldn't be posting while doing discrete math. Formal logic seems to make me cranky. |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 07:02 PM | i agree im hard to understand which is why im more then willing to answer questions to the best that i can yes i relize now that i was breaking the CoC (I thought it was worded differntly but now i relize that you have a point on that and see it in a differnt way) even the kid guy is worth listening to hey kids normoly see things and hear things more then we are willing to give them credit the only problem is he may not get what where trying to say after all he is just a kid allso all im asking is that people do not act as rude as they have been its childish and makes you look bad but even tho its dumb its still worth reading/trying to understand ie be underingstanding ps Seerow your still being rude but considering your probly having a bad day or something it can be understanding just learn that what you shovol will useoly come back at you |
| itwasntme02-19-07, 07:38 PM | Really? Care to explain that. Assuming average 25pb in order to be a proper contender in melee the fighter needs their phsyical stats to be above average, add in that wisdom is only useful for a handful of feats (Combat focus notwithstanding) and that they also need int for Combat Expertise if they want to be able to trip or disarm and their stats are either astonishingly underwhelming or frankly one sided. Spells that dominate or the ever popular Save or Die can also target will saves. Not to mention common abilities used by the fighters foes. Let's also remember that assuming you follow the CR system the bigger foes have greater physcial power as well as spellcasting capabilities. Combine that with special innate powers and the fighter is already looking at weaknesses in terms of AC, being able to properly damage a foe, or surviving the spells. To be able to function in multiple encounter types the fighter must spread their feat selection widely, becoming a mediocre warrior at best or they can focus on one particular style that is either easily blocked or obsolete at high levels because of multiple opponent types. Assuming the traditional frontline fighter we need a high AC, good damage and the ability to withstand all but the most epic strikes. But even then the fighter will likely need some ranged options to deal with the ever present flying enemies, enemies that can't be tripped, can't even be reached many times. Or do we make the cleric the tank and turn the fighter into an Archer, I can accept that, but then the problem becomes that this fighter will be poor in melee on average because most of their focus is necessarily on their dexterity and since they won't be on the front lines in general they take lower AC armor with higher Max Dex. You can argue all day that the fighter can be fixed because of allies buffing him and boosting him, the problem is that it tells us VERY little about the capabilities of the fighter itself as a class. If the fighter needs all the boosts of a party member to properly contribute in a fight of the fighters CR rating then the fighter class is not a valued team member, it's a damn leech. most people i know dount even like combat Expertise so dount even bother having an INT Score or other such things if your talking about a fighter that can have many doors open to you then do it pre character not post Allso the adverage point buy (In DMG it is 25 points) Is normoly 30 or 32 point buy considering 4d6 top 3 is on adverage around that and thats the normol way of playing a game so people consider that adverage point buy The Fighter dose not need all the boost of other team members the fighter only probly needs Healing and sense thats the job of the Cleric/Druid/Healer of the group its not to much to ask for now right? if it is then your just being dumb in not doing your own class role which is to heal people who need healing Now if the fighter is hurting him self and demanding you to heal him then thats allright if you dount want to heal him But if your healing other tank roles over the fighter then your not doing your job which is to heal eveyone who gets hurt WF sucks i agree but that path tree is pretty good (Tho it is a Req for many feats so its worth takeing in my option) you can in a way take 1 feat to solve or help in many of the early levels and use the rest of the feats to help you higher up in the game or if you realy messed up you can just do the Retraining option in PHB2 |
| navar10002-19-07, 08:11 PM | a DM Makes the world and people and character have to deal with crap After all if you want to venture into the Dragons lair then go ahead just know that the Dragon is not going to find you to be honored guest and will perhaps fight (And Kill) You off the World of anything dosnt circle around your Characters Now if the DM Was makeing things come at you just becouse he dosnt like you or other reguards to that then yes the player should be ****** off The Fact is the Game might be in a Undead Setting where some necromancer is raiseing the dead and sending them after citys Just becouse your a Rouge isnt going to stop the Necromancer he is after all Evil Allso SA Kinda sucks agest monsters becouse a good 2/3 of the monsters are immune or can deal with it in some way so if your ****** off that 2/3 of the monsters are immune to what your doing then perhaps you should think of something eles to do Yes SA Is deadly ... agest the players or some commener or some other form of creature that you can hit with it eveything eles looks at you and dose not care If you think its purely the DM's Fault then your in for a surprize DM Have the full right to stick with there dungion sometimes they can be nice to players (Like i am) But im not allways going to be nice and sometimes the players dount relize that im being nice For Example in one game my players find it very hard becouse they ran across a Party of monsters that want the players to turn agest the town but they cant and are surounded by monsters they dount beleve im being nice to them even tho in the campaine it wasnt my fault that the players stormed into a dungion that was known to be filled with these creatures yes it wasnt known there looking for people to turn agest the town but hey w/e plus im allso being nice by not haveing the goblins raid into the small village even tho the Goblins are long overdue on that reguard in the game/setting Sometimes it may feel the game circles around the players becouse of what DM's (Like me sometimes) Will do to the players (Tho in this case the players forgot about the Goblins so dount relize that the horde is going to invade the town but they went off on a quest insteed so im waiting intill they get back becouse i want them in the battle as it is part of the main quest tho normoly they should come back to a burned down village/small city) DM Have the right to do many things becouse players forget about a lot of things that end up being bothersome later on in the game and have evey right to give Class levels to monsters Hey Kobolts can be barbians (Or other things) and have class levels in it so dount complain to me that your level 8 character is fighting Kobolts that have more then 3 hp If a necromancer keeps raising an army of DR/magic undead for which the party has to face, for the first two combats or so the party doesn't have the proper weapons can make sense because they are just learning what's going on. However, if after 10 combats or so the party still does not have the proper weapons, then the DM is being the jerk. Also, the rogue player better be able to do something in combat than twiddle his thumbs. He should be getting a wand or two for Use Magic Device. As for the wizard player who decided to play an Enchanter and took Necromancy as an opposed school, was he told up front the campaign was about undead or did the DM just let the player create whatever he wants but his campaign/world is set so tough noogies on the player his character is very suboptimal? It is the DM's job to make sure the party can handle what's coming at them. Certainly some encounters can be tougher, especially the Big Battle at the end of an adventure. They will add spice, but too much spice ruins the meal. But now we're getting too off topic. |
| NineInchNall02-19-07, 09:06 PM | Or maybe I just shouldn't be posting while doing discrete math. Formal logic seems to make me cranky. Formal logic tends to remove one's patience, especially with those who are irrational. |
| scienceman4702-19-07, 11:50 PM | Even an enchanter in a undead heavy campaign need not sit on the sidelines. Here's what you do. 1. Go to a mercenary camp, and charm/dominate/hypnotize or otherwise control a fighter. They have **** for will saves, the worst in the game so it'll be easy. Professional fighters risk their very lives everyday fighting deadly monsters, so charm person is not out of the question. 2. Memorize different spells. Bam, now your an enchanter with a fighter minion, who will defend you to the near death. If your a sorceror, and you have nothing but enchantments, you deserve to die like some sort of punk. So even if the fighter is worthless, for ***** and giggles you could keep one around until they get boring. And combat expertise is essential for the tactical feats that it provides. You can't claim the fighter has tactical options unless you take combat expertise. |
| Kratch02-20-07, 02:40 AM | I'm not sure what others' motives have been, but my own post was meant to be helpful. Sometimes the only way to make a point that others will consider valid, is not merely to offer a point with logical content, but to present a well-crafted point that sounds intelligent and convincing, whether or not there's any actual substance to it. I must appologize, but with reguards to topics in the vien of spelling naziism, i get pretty upset and tend not to distinguish the source of each post, but rather, just address the messege.... The original post concerning ITwasntme's typing, though possibly harsh, was well within his right to comment (if that was you, fine by me). Itwasntme's typing was beyond halfassed and was very difficult to read. After a few initial comments on it, i saw a distinct improvment (still far from perfect, but an obvious effort was being made). At this point, more comments could have been made politly, offering suggestions such as you make bellow (using word or the WP you link to). However, people continued to attack him (harshly), that i could not stand by and watch. This was actually the subject of an online course I once took, where part of the grades came from regularly posting to an online discussion forum that also lacked automatic spell-check features. Improper spelling and capitalization still incurred penalties, because as the professor pointed out, you can always have your word processor open while you're online, and if you're not sure of your typing or English skills, write all of your posts in your word processor first, spell-check there, then copy-paste your post into your internet browser. I was graded on my long division as well, doesn't mean i do it, let alone insist other do as well. Now, i realize they are different things, but this is not a professional forum, it is a gaming forum. It is not a place that should ostrisize people for not crossing they're T's and dotting they're I's (so to speak). To hold others up to your own personal standards of perfection is unreasonable and will likely lead to disappointment for you (Though there are some standards you can and should expect, innitially itwasn't me was bellow those standards, he may still be, but effort made should not be rewarded with assult (please note, i'm not accusing you specifically. As i stated above, I'm reffereing to the issue, not the individual posters)). Unless you lack a word processor (which can easily be remedied for free by going to openoffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/)), it is very reasonable to expect flawless typing. Myself, personally. It's not that i don't have a proccessor, but rather that i don't have room for one to be open so i can double check a sidethought. I typically have Maya (3D software)(sometimes 2 copies open), photoshop, 3-5 webbrowsers, 4-5 files browser windows, and possibly a picture or movie viewer (such as media player or FCheck) open at any point in time. I don't need another program eating my ram (reguardless how little it use), filling up my toolbar, and, to be quite frank, wasting my time for a temporary diversion between bouts of actual work. As i said above, this is a hobby forum, spelling is importent, but perfection is not. Perhaps not strenuous, but certainly annoying and distracting. Just because I possess a strong command of pragmatics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics), does not mean that others should be allowed to get away with a weak command of semantics. There is a letter i read once (i'll try and find it to post later, need to ask my friend if he has it). It details how the human mind works when reading. It states that humans read the letters in a words, but not necessarily the order. So long as the first and last letter are in the right place, and all the rest of the letters are there, the mind will still be able to read (reletivly easily) what is being writen. To prove this, not one word in the entire letter is spelled in the right order, and it is quite easy to read. And the bad spelling doesn't in any way invalidate the point. I'll try to find the letter and post it later |
| Eyeless Blond02-20-07, 02:56 AM | Not to mention that Combat Expertise + Power Attack, all by themselves, serve to keep the Fighter from becoming weak and non-versatile until nearly level 5-6. They're excellent: with those feats a Fighter can tank fairly effectively with a sword and board, Expertise for max, then drop the shield and two-hand Power when the enemy has shown a weakness (failed a saving throw, for instance). The Big Four: Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Improved Grapple, and Improved Bullrush/Overrun, can tide you over into level 6-7, maybe even 8-9 if you picked up a couple of tactical feats as well and really know what you're doing. Getting four of the Improved feats and enough of a golfbag-o-weapons to effectively use all of 'em makes the Fighter wonderfully versatile in these levels, even without any magic or real class abilities, because each of these combat options can be effective against different enemies. It's like how smart spellcasters take spells to target all three saves: you're effectively playing rock-paper-scissors with your enemies, but you're the only one who can use all three. You may not be king of the hill as much as you were in the first four levels, back when simply having martial weapons and medium armor were enough to strike fear into your enemies, but you're still around, and even a threat on occasion. After that you're sunk, though. By level 8-9 all the built-in combat options that you've spent your feats on--Grapple, Sunder, Disarm, Trip, Bullrush, etc--fall prey to a single insurmountable flaw: they don't work well against something bigger than you, and don't work at all against something MUCH bigger than you. Enemies that aren't much bigger than you by level 8-9 have other options for negating these options: flight, not having weapons, being incorporeal, access to magic, etc. With those gone you're left being a meatshield, waiting for the wizard and cleric to do all the real work. But even as a piece of meat you're not that good, because by now everything moves faster than you do, and even if there were feats to increase your mobility, your feat progression has actually SLOWED DOWN from what it was in your first four levels. Let me repeat that last point: SLOWED DOWN! You got five feats over your first four levels; you won't see beyond the next five for seven levels to come! This is why Fighter4 is considered the classic breakpoint for fighter builds; after that the progression is practically running on fumes until level 12, and again on fumes until level 18, but by the time you've hit either of those two oases it's too late. By level 12 the wizards are teleporting around, the clerics are Flame Striking everything that doesn't get shot down by arrows, the rogue has disappeared, and you're left trying to fend off a hydra or giant purple worm or elder black pudding by beating on it with a stick. |
| Kratch02-20-07, 02:57 AM | I'm not sure what others' motives have been, but my own post was meant to be helpful. Sometimes the only way to make a point that others will consider valid, is not merely to offer a point with logical content, but to present a well-crafted point that sounds intelligent and convincing, whether or not there's any actual substance to it. I must appologize, but with reguards to topics in the vien of spelling naziism, i get pretty upset and tend not to distinguish the source of each post, but rather, just address the messege.... The original post concerning ITwasntme's typing, though possibly harsh, was well within his right to comment (if that was you, fine by me). Itwasntme's typing was beyond halfassed and was very difficult to read. After a few initial comments on it, i saw a distinct improvment (still far from perfect, but an obvious effort was being made). At this point, more comments could have been made politly, offering suggestions such as you make bellow (using word or the WP you link to). However, people continued to attack him (harshly), that i could not stand by and watch. This was actually the subject of an online course I once took, where part of the grades came from regularly posting to an online discussion forum that also lacked automatic spell-check features. Improper spelling and capitalization still incurred penalties, because as the professor pointed out, you can always have your word processor open while you're online, and if you're not sure of your typing or English skills, write all of your posts in your word processor first, spell-check there, then copy-paste your post into your internet browser. I was graded on my long division as well, doesn't mean i do it, let alone insist other do as well. Now, i realize they are different things, but this is not a professional forum, it is a gaming forum. It is not a place that should ostrisize people for not crossing they're T's and dotting they're I's (so to speak). To hold others up to your own personal standards of perfection is unreasonable and will likely lead to disappointment for you (Though there are some standards you can and should expect, innitially itwasn't me was bellow those standards, he may still be, but effort made should not be rewarded with assult (please note, i'm not accusing you specifically. As i stated above, I'm reffereing to the issue, not the individual posters)). Unless you lack a word processor (which can easily be remedied for free by going to openoffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/)), it is very reasonable to expect flawless typing. Myself, personally. It's not that i don't have a proccessor, but rather that i don't have room for one to be open so i can double check a sidethought. I typically have Maya (3D software)(sometimes 2 copies open), photoshop, 3-5 webbrowsers, 4-5 files browser windows, and possibly a picture or movie viewer (such as media player or FCheck) open at any point in time. I don't need another program eating my ram (reguardless how little it use), filling up my toolbar, and, to be quite frank, wasting my time for a temporary diversion between bouts of actual work. As i said above, this is a hobby forum, spelling is importent, but perfection is not. Perhaps not strenuous, but certainly annoying and distracting. Just because I possess a strong command of pragmatics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics), does not mean that others should be allowed to get away with a weak command of semantics. There is a letter i read once (i'll try and find it to post later, need to ask my friend if he has it). It details how the human mind works when reading. It states that humans read the letters in a words, but not necessarily the order. So long as the first and last letter are in the right place, and all the rest of the letters are there, the mind will still be able to read (reletivly easily) what is being writen. To prove this, not one word in the entire letter is spelled in the right order, and it is quite easy to read. And the bad spelling doesn't in any way invalidate the point. I'll try to find the letter and post it later Those who even bother to read the mess in the first place are immediately put off by the writing, and what attitude that writing implies. They think to themselves, consciously or not: "Are you really so arrogant as to think it is incumbent on everyone else to translate your gibberish into real words? Why is it my job to deal with your inability to use a spellchecker?" Because this attitude is going to be present in every reader's mind while reading your messy post, they're going to be concentrating at least some of their effort on how your argument is worded, and less on the argument itself, making it less likely that they will care about what you are saying. Generally, i do agree with what you said, but only to a point. And i would like to note, i only got involved in this portion of the discussion when remarks were made about capitalizing ones I's. That is well beyound ****. I rebutt to you "Are you really so arrogent to believe you are above me and thus my point is of no value (to anyone) simple because i didn't capitalize my I's?" There is a point were expectation for decency cross's the line into a disturbing metal disorder (i can't think off hand which one and i got to go. perhaps i'll edit it in later) |
| Kratch02-20-07, 04:31 AM | Not to mention that Combat Expertise + Power Attack, all by themselves, serve to keep the Fighter from becoming weak and non-versatile until nearly level 5-6. They're excellent: with those feats a Fighter can tank fairly effectively with a sword and board, Expertise for max, then drop the shield and two-hand Power when the enemy has shown a weakness (failed a saving throw, for instance). The Big Four: Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Improved Grapple, and Improved Bullrush/Overrun, can tide you over into level 6-7, maybe even 8-9 if you picked up a couple of tactical feats as well and really know what you're doing. Getting four of the Improved feats and enough of a golfbag-o-weapons to effectively use all of 'em makes the Fighter wonderfully versatile in these levels, even without any magic or real class abilities, because each of these combat options can be effective against different enemies. It's like how smart spellcasters take spells to target all three saves: you're effectively playing rock-paper-scissors with your enemies, but you're the only one who can use all three. You may not be king of the hill as much as you were in the first four levels, back when simply having martial weapons and medium armor were enough to strike fear into your enemies, but you're still around, and even a threat on occasion. After that you're sunk, though. By level 8-9 all the built-in combat options that you've spent your feats on--Grapple, Sunder, Disarm, Trip, Bullrush, etc--fall prey to a single insurmountable flaw: they don't work well against something bigger than you, and don't work at all against something MUCH bigger than you. Enemies that aren't much bigger than you by level 8-9 have other options for negating these options: flight, not having weapons, being incorporeal, access to magic, etc. I'm sorry, but is this where your opinion of the fighter stems from? The fact that you burn your early feats on things you know will become near obsolete in the upper levels? Cause that seems rather short sighted to me. Considering how many pro-caster tout foreknowledge, preparedness and planning as reasons why the wizard can never be beat, your showing very little of any of those in this build progression breakdown. The same kind of thinking needs to go into planning out a fighter build as creating a spell list for the day, except you need to think even longer term, consider for even more contingencies, and know the type of campaign your playing in and the particulars of whats expected of you (based on party make-up) (these are the kind of things you learn in the first few levels). Take a look around for fighter builds through the boards, i'm sure you'll find very few builds using more then one of those feats, and almost none using them all. |
| navar10002-20-07, 04:44 AM | Who says all your enemies at the upper levels are going to be large or larger sized creatures with very high strength? One-on-one a fighter will have difficulty with various monsters in the monster manual. Mathematically speaking the fighter is in trouble. But ... The fighter is in a party. He's not fighting them one-on-one. Just because a monster is in the monster manual does not mean the figther will face it in the game, maybe just once or twice. Heck, I've played a cleric for 5 real world years in two campaigns with the same DM and only encountered undead to turn 4 times, twice each campaign and even then were real world years apart. It is easy to contrive situations where the fighter won't win. Actual game play makes them irrelevant. But I guess the DM is just coddling. |
| itwasntme02-20-07, 06:11 AM | If a necromancer keeps raising an army of DR/magic undead for which the party has to face, for the first two combats or so the party doesn't have the proper weapons can make sense because they are just learning what's going on. However, if after 10 combats or so the party still does not have the proper weapons, then the DM is being the jerk. Also, the rogue player better be able to do something in combat than twiddle his thumbs. He should be getting a wand or two for Use Magic Device. As for the wizard player who decided to play an Enchanter and took Necromancy as an opposed school, was he told up front the campaign was about undead or did the DM just let the player create whatever he wants but his campaign/world is set so tough noogies on the player his character is very suboptimal? It is the DM's job to make sure the party can handle what's coming at them. Certainly some encounters can be tougher, especially the Big Battle at the end of an adventure. They will add spice, but too much spice ruins the meal. But now we're getting too off topic. right and the first combat day could be the players are stuck in a hunted house fillded with ghosts The thins is you where complaning over 1 issue there and the Rouge SA Would be pointless in that type of game anyways sometimes in games characters are going to be worthless After all if you made a Cleric or a Wizard and it was going to be the start of the time of trobols or no / little magic game or something eles like that then guess what you just lost your magic powers your going to have to deal with it in one way or another Time Of Tobols where clerics and magic powers went crazy where only Helm kept his powers and his servents but they where commanded to not help people get there powers back coz they where commanded by Lord O And Helm respected Lord O Wishes sure Helm became hated after that But if the game was so pos to take place just before that then the players wouldnt know that there characters are going to become messed up now are they? |
| itwasntme02-20-07, 06:29 AM | First off quit being childish and rude to people Next off most players i know tend to do Just fine without even needing Combat Expertise or other things like that Monkey grip can solve many things for you and you have more feats open to you later on The Fighter can boost his Will Saves by just 2 feats drasticly A LOT Of people have a low will save But then they have a good chance of saveing agest a Spell considering the Spell DC of spells after a while are useoly LOW end for example if your level 18 and can cast level 9 spells and your Ablity score is that of +10 your DC is only 29 maybe more maybe less Hell +10 is big most players will have at least a +13/+14 to there lowest save by then one way or another meaning there save on your highest DC alittle less then 50% of the time Fighters and other characters can just waste 2 feats (Or Get Items that allow them to become immune to charm and other such effects granted some of the better ones arnt intill later on in the game) to make there Will Save not half bad its not there Best Save but its better then it was before Not Only That but still Charming only means they like you it isnt Dominate Which i find most smart players tend to make them selfs realy hard to effect them in mind effecting ways/effects one way or another later on in the game Monkey Grip 1 feat can help the fighter live past the first few Levels he dosnt need anything more coz monkey grip kinda makes it over kill in the first place on many week creatures theres no need to have anything eles sure you can still die but oh well eveyone can die from 1-4th level The fighter now can start working on what type of build he wants later on in the game considering Monkey Grip made him able to smash thouse little guys earlyer in the games take powerattack to solve the middle game standerds now you only have to worrie about later in the game and a few other things like AC and stuff but you dount need Feats for that for example eveyone i know who takes dodge isnt takeing it for the +1AC (Tho they will use it) There taking it becouse of the Reqs that are needed for other feats later on Combat Expertise is just saying your to hit is good enough now just upgrade your armor Well at level 1 your AC is useoly just high enough in my idea or at least above adverage (Rangeing AC I find for level 1 is 10-22 the 10 is mostly for spell casters without dex) considering u have 1 attack and its at best a +5 maybe +7 (race gives bonus to str+rage+weapon focus) tho let me remind you that your not fighting the characters your fighting monsters who only have probly a +2 to hit maybe a +3 that means they have to get a higher number on that D20 to hit you half the times the creatures have to get a nat 19/20 on there roll giveing you self +4 ac wouldnt do much considering now the creature only can hit on a Nat 20 you only lowerd it from 10% down to 5% on his hitting you plus having a Negitive on your to hit at lower levels is useoly a not so great thing becouse if you where fighting monsters/creatures that you need the extra AC agest chances are you just took away your ability to hit them No Combat expertise isnt needed early in the games inless its for Reqs but as allready stated it all depends on the type of fighter you want to play Your stateing that the fighter is going Int/Dex/Str/Con/Cha/Wisdom based? Sure the fighter could do any one of thouse type of builds but it be silly to go with all of them at the same time So if you want just an Int/Cha Build fighter then go ahead Most fighters are not like that tho just to point out hell allmost all the tanks ignore Cha and Int and use them as dump stats and at times there only make it where Wisdom is at a bare min that they need the question is what type of a fighter build are you trying to make? and if the fighter is going to be on a 1on1 fight then yes he could win it like any other character come on now there are monsters that have a very good chance agest certain class's like the antimagic field golem of wizard slaying of doomhammer is well probly going to win agest a Wizard or other spellcaster dosnt mean the spellcaster is pointless Yes Size matters but the same can be true for a smaller creature Hell quit thinking that just becouse its Godzilla eveything smaller then it will lose even tho in the godzilla movies it was rampageing but this isnt the movies its a game a game with its own rules where anyone im sure can take on godzilla granted your around its proper CR |
| Kresalak02-20-07, 07:52 AM | Who says all your enemies at the upper levels are going to be large or larger sized creatures with very high strength? The Monster Manual. |
| Archangel6202-20-07, 08:31 AM | As a side note navar, I would like to see your comments on what I posted before because it seems that you either don't have a way to argue it or ignored it. Anyhow, if you want to know why it is assumed that most foes will be larger and stronger at higher levels it's that it's better for us to use the CR system as a standard guideline for what can show up rather than try to cobble togehter race and class combinations because, as I mentioned in my CR article, they are notoriously difficult to balance correctly because of multiple external factors. |
| itwasntme02-20-07, 09:00 AM | As a side note navar, I would like to see your comments on what I posted before because it seems that you either don't have a way to argue it or ignored it. Anyhow, if you want to know why it is assumed that most foes will be larger and stronger at higher levels it's that it's better for us to use the CR system as a standard guideline for what can show up rather than try to cobble togehter race and class combinations because, as I mentioned in my CR article, they are notoriously difficult to balance correctly because of multiple external factors. Just becouse monsters become Large size or bigger dose not mean you cant win Triping land based monsters seem like a good idea or even sundering there more powerfull weapons That or being able to make the monster Provoke AoO On many differnt things he dose seem to be a good idea (Im talking about some of the feats fighters or other characters can take in PHB2 and Complete warrior and so on) not only this but most monsters later on can be taken 1on1 to all class's true it might be differcult but its not impossible after all i like to see some monster CR be fighting a Fighter or a Wizard 1on1 true there are some monsters eather side wouldnt be good agest (Wizard vs Golem classic example) but overall the fighter/wizard can in some ways win 1on1 battles with monsters allso note that most monsters CR are if a classic 4 party team comes after it |
| Archangel6202-20-07, 09:04 AM | Just becouse monsters become Large size or bigger dose not mean you cant win Triping land based monsters seem like a good idea or even sundering there more powerfull weapons That or being able to make the monster Provoke AoO On many differnt things he dose seem to be a good idea (Im talking about some of the feats fighters or other characters can take in PHB2 and Complete warrior and so on) not only this but most monsters later on can be taken 1on1 to all class's true it might be differcult but its not impossible after all i like to see some monster CR be fighting a Fighter or a Wizard 1on1 true there are some monsters eather side wouldnt be good agest (Wizard vs Golem classic example) but overall the fighter/wizard can in some ways win 1on1 battles with monsters allso note that most monsters CR are if a classic 4 party team comes after it A fighter, even using the chaingun tripper build, can't trip things more than 1 size category larger than they are. Sundering is an issue of opportunity cost, since sundering destroys valuable treasure and if you want to look at the sundering rules the PCs, fighter especially, are more vulnerable to sundering than monsters are, especially since most high level monsters use natural weapons. |
| Clawhound02-20-07, 09:14 AM | So, why are the fighter's options so tough at higher level? Well, let's start with disarm and trip. Both are extremely effective tactics. They are so effective that any fighter will use these tactics ALL THE TIME if they are successful. You don't want trip to be too easy, so let's make it so that a fighter can only trip 1/3 to 1/4 of the time. Sound good? Yep, but that means that a fighter will trip almost anything by round 2. So, let's give the creatures a counterattack if you fail. Sound good? Now, the fighter will trigger a counterattack 2/3-3/4 of the time for each attempt. You have now stopped the spamming of trips and disarms, but you have also made these options so unattractive that even with an additional melee attack, these options are not worthwhile. |
| Archangel6202-20-07, 09:19 AM | So, why are the fighter's options so tough at higher level? Well, let's start with disarm and trip. Both are extremely effective tactics. They are so effective that any fighter will use these tactics ALL THE TIME if they are successful. You don't want trip to be too easy, so let's make it so that a fighter can only trip 1/3 to 1/4 of the time. Sound good? Yep, but that means that a fighter will trip almost anything by round 2. So, let's give the creatures a counterattack if you fail. Sound good? Now, the fighter will trigger a counterattack 2/3-3/4 of the time for each attempt. You have now stopped the spamming of trips and disarms, but you have also made these options so unattractive that even with an additional melee attack, these options are not worthwhile. I never said that tripping was bad, please do not put words in my mouth. I pointed out that tripping becomes unsuccessful at higher levels due to the plethora of huge opponents and flying opponents and opponents that are for some reason untrippable. Also, combine that with enemies that cannot be disarmed for whatever reason and you see my point. |
| Bob Loblaw02-20-07, 09:38 AM | As a side note navar, I would like to see your comments on what I posted before because it seems that you either don't have a way to argue it or ignored it. Anyhow, if you want to know why it is assumed that most foes will be larger and stronger at higher levels it's that it's better for us to use the CR system as a standard guideline for what can show up rather than try to cobble togehter race and class combinations because, as I mentioned in my CR article, they are notoriously difficult to balance correctly because of multiple external factors. While I'm in the fighter's don't suck camp, I have to agree here (which is one reason I have never taken Improved Trip). In the Monster Manual, the highest medium sized creature that is Neutral is only a CR 12. For Evil creatures, the highest one is CR 15. The highest one for Good creatures is CR 16. I didn't go through the rest of the monster sources, but I suspect that it will be very similar. So, short of using templates (which aren't always that much of an improvement), this is a very true statement. As both player and DM, I would get rather bored quickly if I only fought the same creature over and over. |
| Bob Loblaw02-20-07, 10:32 AM | In the responses to the Improved Trip, Grapple, Overrun, and any other Size-adjusted feats, I just did a comparison from only the SRD. Not advancing any creatures, here is a breakdown of what anyone using the feats has to contend with. I can't seem to get my tables to work right so I'll just give the basics. Large creatures (+4 to their attempts): CR 10: 10 CR 11: 11 CR 12: 4 CR 13: 5 CR 14: 1 CR 15: 1 CR 16: 2 CR 17: 3 CR 18: 0 CR 19: 0 CR 20: 2 Total: 38 Huge Creatures (+8 to their attempts): CR 10: 4 CR 11: 11 CR 12: 4 CR 13: 6 CR 14: 5 CR 15: 5 CR 16: 7 CR 17: 4 CR 18: 6 CR 19: 7 CR 20: 4 Total: 61 Gargantuan creatures (+12 to their attempts): CR 10: 1 CR 11: 0 CR 12: 3 CR 13: 0 CR 14: 0 CR 15: 0 CR 16: 0 CR 17: 0 CR 18: 1 CR 19: 1 CR 20: 2 Total: 8 Colossal creatures (+16 to their attempts): CR 10: 1 CR 11: 1 CR 12: 1 CR 13: 0 CR 14: 0 CR 15: 0 CR 16: 0 CR 17: 0 CR 18: 0 CR 19: 0 CR 20: 1 Total: 4 I didn't account for things like their Base Attack Bonus or any special abilities. Looking at this, I think that things are definately more difficult as you progress in levels, but not insurmountable. I do feel that you will have to find a way to either improve your attempt or decrease their chances (doing both would be the best). The only ways I can see this are increase your size, decrease their size, drain some of their levels (-1 to their BAB will help you). Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other way (I'm sure there are some). Just wanted to show how these types of feats definately need a bit more of a boost. |
| magmer202-20-07, 10:36 AM | A fighter, even using the chaingun tripper build, can't trip things more than 1 size category larger than they are. . Their is a feat that makes a character count as a size larger for tripping, and acts as Expertise for qualifying for Imp Trip. So he can't due more than 2 sizes larger. |
| Archangel6202-20-07, 10:42 AM | Their is a feat that makes a character count as a size larger for tripping, and acts as Expertise for qualifying for Imp Trip. So he can't due more than 2 sizes larger. What is the feat and where can it be found? |
| Seerow02-20-07, 10:52 AM | What is the feat and where can it be found? Jotunbrund, a Forgotten Realms region specific feat that must be taken at first level, which all pro-fighters assume every fighter planning on tripping has. In other words, to trip people properly, you must come from that specific region. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-20-07, 11:18 AM | While I'm in the fighter's don't suck camp, I have to agree here (which is one reason I have never taken Improved Trip). In the Monster Manual, the highest medium sized creature that is Neutral is only a CR 12. For Evil creatures, the highest one is CR 15. The highest one for Good creatures is CR 16. I didn't go through the rest of the monster sources, but I suspect that it will be very similar. So, short of using templates (which aren't always that much of an improvement), this is a very true statement. As both player and DM, I would get rather bored quickly if I only fought the same creature over and over. True, my fighters don't tend to use gimicky tactics like trip, disarm or sunder, on a regular basis. I just like to deal oodles of damage :ayyyy!: As a DM, I would have to say that many of the major baddies in many of my games are PC races so such tactics would always be viable I suppose. |
| Archangel6202-20-07, 11:22 AM | True, my fighters don't tend to use gimicky tactics like trip, disarm or sunder, on a regular basis. I just like to deal oodles of damage :ayyyy!: As a DM, I would have to say that many of the major baddies in many of my games are PC races so such tactics would always be viable I suppose. But that's sort of the point a lot of us are making, if the DM has to rewrite the whole setup to make sure that everyone gets a chance to contribute then there is an issue with the fighter class. |
| Clawhound02-20-07, 12:43 PM | But that's sort of the point a lot of us are making, if the DM has to rewrite the whole setup to make sure that everyone gets a chance to contribute then there is an issue with the fighter class. He never said that he was rewriting anything. He was just saying what he prefers to do as a DM. Humanoid villains are a staple of D&D, beginning with A1->D3, if not before. That's the genre. No one is changing anything. When looking at prepublished adventures, you can solidly rely on there being at least one humanoid type encounter. Humanoids = Normal D&D |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-20-07, 12:55 PM | He never said that he was rewriting anything. He was just saying what he prefers to do as a DM. Humanoid villains are a staple of D&D, beginning with A1->D3, if not before. That's the genre. No one is changing anything. When looking at prepublished adventures, you can solidly rely on there being at least one humanoid type encounter. Humanoids = Normal D&D Exactly! |
| Argaud02-20-07, 01:24 PM | In the responses to the Improved Trip, Grapple, Overrun, and any other Size-adjusted feats, I just did a comparison from only the SRD. Not advancing any creatures, here is a breakdown of what anyone using the feats has to contend with. I can't seem to get my tables to work right so I'll just give the basics. Large creatures (+4 to their attempts): CR 10: 10 CR 11: 11 CR 12: 4 CR 13: 5 CR 14: 1 CR 15: 1 CR 16: 2 CR 17: 3 CR 18: 0 CR 19: 0 CR 20: 2 Total: 38 <snip!> Very interesting, indeed (no sarcasm here - this is solid work, not the too-common pointless rant). However, for these statistics, it might be better to use the encounter tables in the DMG (pages 179 to 181) and see what % of encounters have enemies that are impossible or nearly impossible to trip/grapple/smack for a fighter of that level. |
| Bob Loblaw02-20-07, 02:15 PM | Very interesting, indeed (no sarcasm here - this is solid work, not the too-common pointless rant). However, for these statistics, it might be better to use the encounter tables in the DMG (pages 179 to 181) and see what % of encounters have enemies that are impossible or nearly impossible to trip/grapple/smack for a fighter of that level. The only reason I didn't use those tables is because they are suggestions for the DM. Just using the raw numbers shows the actual quantity. In the games I run, I like to add class levels to the creatures. This changes things quite a bit since I prefer mostly medium sized creatures with a few large. I don't use creatures much larger than that on a regular basis. This could be why my groups don't think fighters suck. Their abilities remain useful because of my preferences. |
| Argaud02-20-07, 03:16 PM | The only reason I didn't use those tables is because they are suggestions for the DM. Just using the raw numbers shows the actual quantity. In the games I run, I like to add class levels to the creatures. This changes things quite a bit since I prefer mostly medium sized creatures with a few large. I don't use creatures much larger than that on a regular basis. This could be why my groups don't think fighters suck. Their abilities remain useful because of my preferences. You are going to be accused of house-ruling and wet-nursing the fighters any second now :D On the other hand, after finishing the City of the Spider Queen super-module, were most of the enemies are drow (with their SR and cleric hordes) and the battles often take place in cramped caves and rooms, I assure you the party found the meleers damn useful! |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-20-07, 03:31 PM | You are going to be accused of house-ruling and wet-nursing the fighters any second now :D On the other hand, after finishing the City of the Spider Queen super-module, were most of the enemies are drow (with their SR and cleric hordes) and the battles often take place in cramped caves and rooms, I assure you the party found the meleers damn useful! As do my groups. We are playing shackled city and without the fighter we would have gotten powned in our last fight. Fighters are a dungeon crawler's friend. |
| Bob Loblaw02-20-07, 03:34 PM | It's all just different styles of play. My players sure don't feel like I pull much in the way of punches. I tailor the adventure to the players as much as they tailor their characters to the campaign. It works for us. |
| Archangel6202-20-07, 03:59 PM | The only reason I didn't use those tables is because they are suggestions for the DM. Just using the raw numbers shows the actual quantity. In the games I run, I like to add class levels to the creatures. This changes things quite a bit since I prefer mostly medium sized creatures with a few large. I don't use creatures much larger than that on a regular basis. This could be why my groups don't think fighters suck. Their abilities remain useful because of my preferences. That way can work, in fact it is a good way to help keep the fighter viable and keep certain combat methods workable. The only reason why I don't like using them as a test for class comparison is because certain classes/templates can make certain monsters far more dangerous than their CR lists. (See my CR article for the example of Tree breaker) |
| itwasntme02-21-07, 01:43 AM | a fighter can get him self to be of larger size (Most people dount know this and consider it dumb but you can and i think if your going to be triping people you would be doing that) so +2 size larger then Medium (Huge i beleve?) And if you have powerfull build i think that can improve as well But your talking about the first 3-5 feats (All of these can be taken at level 1-3 by the fighter) Being used later in the game what about all of the other feats the fighter has? theres plunty of other feats he has or is he just useing something eles with them? True a triping/grapple/sunder fighter can be nice but i never see these fighters high in level they useoly convert to something eles more effective and do useolbly well to at higher levels most of the time i only see level 1-4 fighters become tripers then start advanceing in some other form to make them effective at higher levels you got to put into account that even if the fighter wanted to be a tripper (Tho most players who play has fighters useoly never do play them or go the combat expertise way) and thus when they became level 12 they had 8 other levels to do something (Anything realy its up to them) with there extra feats Again where talking about a very Rare Version of the Fighter (The Trip build) i beleve that if we want better results on the fighter we should go more on lines of something more commen tho that can be hard considering there are so many differnt fighter builds my point is your taking the build the fighter made for himself at level 1-4 into level 12+ that build is ment for low levels the fighter knows this and thats why hes going to start changeing his tastic after all if a wizard is casting Finger of death and its doing no effect then maybe the wizard going to start casting a differnt Spell not keep useing Finger of death intill it works! (Perhaps its undead or immune to death type spells) no a smarter player is going to change his tastics thats it a SMARTER player if that SMARTER player is playing a fighter wouldnt he 2 start changeing his build play if he was worried about such a thing to something differnt? i sure as hell would after all i have all my other level of feats i think i should try and do something eles hear tho useoly at low levels i only take 1 feat (Monkey Grip) And it solves most (if not all) Of my early level fighting and i have all my other feats to use to help me out at later levels (Tho i useoly spend a Feat on Powerattack as well) I dount play fighters the only front line role person i play are Clerics/Paladins/Cursader the reason why i dount play a fighter (That much i have played all class's at least 1) is becouse of my play style i useoly dount like to be the Main Tank i rather be the support guy you know ill cover your back (Something the Cleric can do by healing/buffing the paladin has support front liner or as RP character and Cursader ... coz i think there cool) all of the players and DM ive seen/played with all agree having a Fighter is worthwhile to have around and help out at any level for one reason or another i should suggest i do at times play Fighter/Wizard(Or Scor or something eles on that line) that combine both magic and the sword but thats multy tasking ... but thats my style i rather do that then stick with a druid/fighter/wizard or any other role on that i just like to play something that can be a support its my play style we all have a differnt play style So Lets talk about a play style thats more commenly used or at least one who isnt only useing his first 4 levels of experience to help him out at level 12 where did the other 8 levels go to is my thought |
| itwasntme02-21-07, 01:47 AM | That way can work, in fact it is a good way to help keep the fighter viable and keep certain combat methods workable. The only reason why I don't like using them as a test for class comparison is because certain classes/templates can make certain monsters far more dangerous than their CR lists. (See my CR article for the example of Tree breaker) thats a nice play style my own is normoly a swarm tastic of weeker creatures with very few creatures who are powerfull i make it feel special when the players finaly face that powerfull creature ... its normoly a Boss or some other important type creature (Maybe the guardian of the boss or something like that) And each time during thouse battles no class/character can go 1on1 with them they all have to work as a team But yes i useoly find it dumb how orcs seem to disapear after a certain spot of the game so i just add a few class levels to keep them around longer (So players dount ask "Wait where is all the orcs?") |
| navar10002-21-07, 01:55 AM | The Monster Manual. My games are with one DM and the players. Yours is with a book and players? |
| navar10002-21-07, 02:45 AM | Really? Care to explain that. Assuming average 25pb in order to be a proper contender in melee the fighter needs their phsyical stats to be above average, add in that wisdom is only useful for a handful of feats (Combat focus notwithstanding) and that they also need int for Combat Expertise if they want to be able to trip or disarm and their stats are either astonishingly underwhelming or frankly one sided. Spells that dominate or the ever popular Save or Die can also target will saves. Not to mention common abilities used by the fighters foes. Let's also remember that assuming you follow the CR system the bigger foes have greater physcial power as well as spellcasting capabilities. Combine that with special innate powers and the fighter is already looking at weaknesses in terms of AC, being able to properly damage a foe, or surviving the spells. To be able to function in multiple encounter types the fighter must spread their feat selection widely, becoming a mediocre warrior at best or they can focus on one particular style that is either easily blocked or obsolete at high levels because of multiple opponent types. Assuming the traditional frontline fighter we need a high AC, good damage and the ability to withstand all but the most epic strikes. But even then the fighter will likely need some ranged options to deal with the ever present flying enemies, enemies that can't be tripped, can't even be reached many times. Or do we make the cleric the tank and turn the fighter into an Archer, I can accept that, but then the problem becomes that this fighter will be poor in melee on average because most of their focus is necessarily on their dexterity and since they won't be on the front lines in general they take lower AC armor with higher Max Dex. You can argue all day that the fighter can be fixed because of allies buffing him and boosting him, the problem is that it tells us VERY little about the capabilities of the fighter itself as a class. If the fighter needs all the boosts of a party member to properly contribute in a fight of the fighters CR rating then the fighter class is not a valued team member, it's a damn leech. Not all campaigns use 25 point buy. Some use higher totals. Some use dice rolling. By obviousness the higher the average ability score a character will be better off in game mechanics. Personally I don't like point buy. Even if I have to use it, I think 25 points is too low. If I take at face value a 25 point buy fighter is so horribly weak compared to a 25 point buy wizard he might as well just die before being created, I place the fault that it's a 25 point buy, not that it's a fighter. In any case, I think you are also demanding a too high requirement. You are demanding that the fighter be able to go one on one against every single foe possible and win. Maybe or maybe not a wizard could do it or a cleric could do it. If given the wizard can do it, why is the question not "Is the wizard too powerful"? Or instead, why is the question not: "Are the monsters too powerful"? The answer is there's no need for the question. By design the fighter is not going to be one-on-one with every monster. If you are playing a solo campaign without ever having an NPC tag along, and you say you should be playing a wizard, cleric, or druid, that's all fine and dandy. However, the standard is one DM and some players in a party. You say a fighter is a leech. Why? The spellcaster is going to be using up that spell slot anyway. What difference does it make whether he buffs himself or the fighter? Each combat is unique. The best course of action will be unique. The whole point of the party is that working together is stronger than working individually. If the fighter has the equipment and feats to machete the bad guy but all he lack is the ability to fly to reach him, it's not a negative on the fighter that he can't fly. The wizard casting Fly on him would be a smart thing to do. It doesn't matter a druid could wildshape to a flying creature. It doesn't matter a cleric can cast his range spells. The wizard casting Fly on the fighter is a feature of the game, not a bug. You might respond: "But if the fighter were another wizard or a druid or a cleric or a foo class, the wizard wouldn't have to cast Fly." No kidding! So the wizard casts something else. Big deal. It's a different unique combat calling for a different unique tactic. Similarly, the fighter cannot Trip every combat, cannot Disarm every combat, cannot Sunder every sombat, and so forth. Maybe for a particular combat most of his feats are useless. That's an interesting challenge he has to overcome. Is this happening every combat since level 10? If so, is the problem really with the fighter or is the DM being a jerk? I vote the latter. By design the game is for different types of characters. It may well be through accident that all of one class parties, such as all clerics or all druids, can do well while others, such as all fighters or all paladins, would not. If that's a bug, it's not a bug against fighters. It's a quirk of the game that doesn't necessarily need fixing because the iconic fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party does just fine. Should their exist one particular campaign where everyone is a fighter, then naturally the campaign will have a different feel than one with the iconic make up or all clerics. It is the responsibility of the DM to be fair, and perhaps the all fighter campaign will be of a "lower magic power" than the iconic. It doesn't support the pro-fighter arguement for the iconic campaign, but it doesn't support the anti-fighter arguement either. The fact that it is an unusual party make-up changes the parameters. Going back for the moment to the fighter's weak Will. Yes, it's a weakness. Rogues fall prey to that. Wizards meanwhile hate the fortitude save or die and especially the Power Word spells since they don't often have the hit points to withstand them at full health. Your point in this manner seems to ask for too much. You are demanding that the fighter be able to become immune, so to speak, to his weaknesses. He cannot and that shouldn't be held against him. No character can become immune to everything. Maybe or maybe not spellcasters have an easier time of compensating for their weaknesses as best they can. The fighter will do what he can to compensate for his. To demand he be perfect at it is unfair. |
| navar10002-21-07, 02:53 AM | While I'm in the fighter's don't suck camp, I have to agree here (which is one reason I have never taken Improved Trip). In the Monster Manual, the highest medium sized creature that is Neutral is only a CR 12. For Evil creatures, the highest one is CR 15. The highest one for Good creatures is CR 16. I didn't go through the rest of the monster sources, but I suspect that it will be very similar. So, short of using templates (which aren't always that much of an improvement), this is a very true statement. As both player and DM, I would get rather bored quickly if I only fought the same creature over and over. Point. Given a fighter who uses Improved Trip does not mean a DM should never or only just once or twice use bad guys who cannot be tripped. I just argue against the other extreme, the assumption that the number of such bad guys is so high the Feat becomes useless for the rest of the campaign. It's the same line of reasoning in the DMG that advises the DM not to have the party continually face fire resistant creatures just because the wizard learned Fireball. I've said similarly before, it doesn't matter how many fire resistant/immune creatures exist in the Monster Manual. What only matters is how many of those exist in the campaign. Meaning, how often the party has to fight them, not the literal game world population number. |
| navar10002-21-07, 02:58 AM | But that's sort of the point a lot of us are making, if the DM has to rewrite the whole setup to make sure that everyone gets a chance to contribute then there is an issue with the fighter class. But I'm arguing the opposite that it's not. The DM is not rewriting anything. Each campaign by obviousness is unique. A campaign where a fighter exists in the party is different than a campaign where there is a druid instead of the fighter. Neither is superior. |
| navar10002-21-07, 03:02 AM | The only reason I didn't use those tables is because they are suggestions for the DM. Just using the raw numbers shows the actual quantity. In the games I run, I like to add class levels to the creatures. This changes things quite a bit since I prefer mostly medium sized creatures with a few large. I don't use creatures much larger than that on a regular basis. This could be why my groups don't think fighters suck. Their abilities remain useful because of my preferences. But those monsters exist in the Monster Manual! You have to use them. That's why fighters suck. They can't trip or grapple those monsters you aren't using. Bad DM, you're coddling. :rolleyes: ;) |
| Thomas_Covenant02-21-07, 03:14 AM | But those monsters exist in the Monster Manual! You have to use them. That's why fighters suck. They can't trip or grapple those monsters you aren't using. Bad DM, you're coddling. :rolleyes: ;)Good DM's should *TRY* to do this, your point is valid. It won't work perfectly, and it will often fail miserably, and some DM's won't bother. In RPGA events this is simply not possible, many "Good" Dm's won't be willing to adjust published modules they want to use extensively because a PC has a very narrow focus. In addition, your argument is getting dangerously close to the Oberoni fallacy. Yeesh...I don't want to sound this harsh, but 5 consecutive posts is overkill, even responding to three different people. |
| Archangel6202-21-07, 07:31 AM | Not all campaigns use 25 point buy. Some use higher totals. Some use dice rolling. By obviousness the higher the average ability score a character will be better off in game mechanics. Personally [QUOTE=navar100;11543483]I don't like point buy. Even if I have to use it, I think 25 points is too low. If I take at face value a 25 point buy fighter is so horribly weak compared to a 25 point buy wizard he might as well just die before being created, I place the fault that it's a 25 point buy, not that it's a fighter. Yes, but people on the board frequently point out that the game is built on a 25pb balance. You can use other methods to generate stats but if we work off of what the balance is 'supposed' to be then we have a fighter who either cannot do many combat styles or is going to be rather one sided tactically. It also works better for comparison since you can argue a fighter with 18s in every stat versus a wizard with a 16, a 14, and 4 8s. In any case, I think you are also demanding a too high requirement. You are demanding that the fighter be able to go one on one against every single foe possible and win. Maybe or maybe not a wizard could do it or a cleric could do it. If given the wizard can do it, why is the question not "Is the wizard too powerful"? Or instead, why is the question not: "Are the monsters too powerful"? No, I'm demanding that the fighter not have to sit out entire encounters because they can't do a damn thing in them. I never said the fighter had to solo the encounter, and you'll notice here, I have never once said solo an encounter, I just said that the fighter should have to contribute. The answer is there's no need for the question. By design the fighter is not going to be one-on-one with every monster. If you are playing a solo campaign without ever having an NPC tag along, and you say you should be playing a wizard, cleric, or druid, that's all fine and dandy. However, the standard is one DM and some players in a party. Again, please stop putting words in my mouth, my point is that the fighter has entire encounters or forms of enemy that can render their combat style useless, unless they try to learn a few of each and then you end up with rather abysmal stats. And even then it will be difficult because they will need to sink a lot of money into weapons and gear for many combat styles, and if we follow the wealth by level guidelines properly the fighter can't afford to keep each style properly 'fed' in terms of gear, hell the fighter can barely afford to have multiple weapons for multiple DRs and keep them enchanted etc. You say a fighter is a leech. Why? The spellcaster is going to be using up that spell slot anyway. What difference does it make whether he buffs himself or the fighter? Each combat is unique. The best course of action will be unique. The whole point of the party is that working together is stronger than working individually. If the fighter has the equipment and feats to machete the bad guy but all he lack is the ability to fly to reach him, it's not a negative on the fighter that he can't fly. The wizard casting Fly on him would be a smart thing to do. It doesn't matter a druid could wildshape to a flying creature. It doesn't matter a cleric can cast his range spells. The wizard casting Fly on the fighter is a feature of the game, not a bug. It's an issue of resource consumption and opportunity cost. The wizard is spending a spell slot now that could be better saved for later, and it isn't some kind of 'emergency' encounter like something that is a save or die monster or anything like that. It's a group of harpies or something like that. Now, since we use slots that also means that said wizard/cleric had to prep this spell as well, so either the spell was planned for something later in the day (maybe the big throwdown fight expected) or they had to prep it because the fighter whined about it. Fine, but that spell took up the space of other options, debuffs, damage, battlefield control options that could be used. For the cleric that's one less chance of healing. And like I said, if the fighter NEEDs these buffs to contribute to the group in a meaningful fashion then that fighter is being a leech because if the rest of the group can contribute properly to an encounter without the rest of the party needing to hold their hand then I'd say the issue is on the fighters end. You might respond: "But if the fighter were another wizard or a druid or a cleric or a foo class, the wizard wouldn't have to cast Fly." No kidding! So the wizard casts something else. Big deal. It's a different unique combat calling for a different unique tactic. Similarly, the fighter cannot Trip every combat, cannot Disarm every combat, cannot Sunder every sombat, and so forth. Maybe for a particular combat most of his feats are useless. That's an interesting challenge he has to overcome. Is this happening every combat since level 10? If so, is the problem really with the fighter or is the DM being a jerk? I vote the latter. Alright, so is the DM then supposed to specifically tailor encounters to make sure that the fighter can participate in properly? If so then again this smacks of the fighter not being up to par if the DM has to do so with this class but no others. I mean if the DM made a gameworld called Balloon World and made a class called the pinmaster and only the pinmaster could reliably kill balloon beasts then in that context the pinmaster might look fine, even overpowered, but the pinmaster likely wouldn't work in a standard generic game. That's the point that the pro-logic people are trying to make here. By design the game is for different types of characters. It may well be through accident that all of one class parties, such as all clerics or all druids, can do well while others, such as all fighters or all paladins, would not. If that's a bug, it's not a bug against fighters. It's a quirk of the game that doesn't necessarily need fixing because the iconic fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party does just fine. It only does 'fine' if the casters basically become a support team for the fighter. This is not only rather poor logic but also grotesquely unfair to the casters. In effect they are being told that because they had the nerve to choose effective classes they now have to devote most of their resources to boosting up the sub-par team member to a semi-acceptable level. And yes, the game is made for other character types, the paladin has many issues, I do agree, but it can fulfill the tanks and mounted combatant role far better than the fighter can. It also has access to some healing and with certain substitution options it can do more to help the group. Should their exist one particular campaign where everyone is a fighter, then naturally the campaign will have a different feel than one with the iconic make up or all clerics. It is the responsibility of the DM to be fair, and perhaps the all fighter campaign will be of a "lower magic power" than the iconic. It doesn't support the pro-fighter arguement for the iconic campaign, but it doesn't support the anti-fighter arguement either. The fact that it is an unusual party make-up changes the parameters. Welcome to the game of ever moving goalposts. By your own admission now the fact that a party of all fighters needs drastic changes to make it work is a sign that the fighter has issues. The DM has to start adding class levels to monsters instead of using the standard encounter tables, has to probably heavily alter the wealth by level charts as well. If a class needs a large amount of DM intervention to succeed, or not be outshone in it's field by other classes that aren't in that field, then there is a problem with that class. Going back for the moment to the fighter's weak Will. Yes, it's a weakness. Rogues fall prey to that. Wizards meanwhile hate the fortitude save or die and especially the Power Word spells since they don't often have the hit points to withstand them at full health. Your point in this manner seems to ask for too much. You are demanding that the fighter be able to become immune, so to speak, to his weaknesses. He cannot and that shouldn't be held against him. No character can become immune to everything. Maybe or maybe not spellcasters have an easier time of compensating for their weaknesses as best they can. The fighter will do what he can to compensate for his. To demand he be perfect at it is unfair. I never said that the fighter needs to be immune to their weaknesses, but I do point out that there are plenty of will based Save or Die spells. In addition, there are many spell combinations (Stone to mud, then mud to stone) that create a great CDG situation. The problem I'm seeing is that the fighter has no innate defenses against this stuff and if they want to use items to shore up those weaknesses, cool, but they still have the same wealth restrictions as everyone else. But those monsters exist in the Monster Manual! You have to use them. That's why fighters suck. They can't trip or grapple those monsters you aren't using. Bad DM, you're coddling. To be honest, he technically is coddling. I can understand the argument that a DM might change things to make it easier for a group, but the reason why we use random encounter foes rather than classed ones is that, as mentioned here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=705076) adding class levels can do a lot to screw with the CR of a monster because of unforseen combinations. Plenty of the pro-fighter crowd cite monsters with high SR, Golems, and other creatures that magic cannot effect or cannot effect easily and say that DMs who don't use them are coddling the spellcasters. These same people also reccomend 'Only-want-spellbooks-components-and-foci' kleptomaniacs that sneak into the parties camp unnoticed and make off with the casters gear to render them useless for a while. |
| Bard-of-all-trades02-21-07, 01:05 PM | Yes, but people on the board frequently point out that the game is built on a 25pb balance. You can use other methods to generate stats but if we work off of what the balance is 'supposed' to be then we have a fighter who either cannot do many combat styles or is going to be rather one sided tactically. It also works better for comparison since you can argue a fighter with 18s in every stat versus a wizard with a 16, a 14, and 4 8s. /Snip for space/ Even though it has been brought up, multiple times, that every game is different as well as every style, DM, party, etc. I was just wondering, where does it say that the game is built on the 25 point buy? If it doesn't say, is it not then an assumption "people on the board" make? Then, where does it say that the classes have to be balanced? Why should they be balanced? Just wondering what the logic of this might me. Did anyone happen to catch the article on the D&D page for Wizards about the make-up of a party? I have been posting on the forums for quite some time now about what I call the "Power 4": cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard. These four base classes are the fore-fathers of every other class in the game. This is what the game is built around. This is what every module was and still is built around. So with that in mind, if Wizards does this, why shouldn't everyone else? I'd like to reiterate that this is a role-playing game as well as a team effort. If one person is consuming too many resources in a particular adventure, the group probably picked the wrong venture. And this doesn't mean that the DM should coddle the party, it means that the party shouldn't over-step their own resources and limitations. It's making and living with choices for the player, party, and DM in order to keep a dynamic that is fun and enjoyable for everyone. After all, this isn't Accountants and Audits. (Little joke for the old players out there with a 1st Edition PHB. :D ) |
| NineInchNall02-21-07, 01:53 PM | Jotunbrund, a Forgotten Realms region specific feat that must be taken at first level, which all pro-fighters assume every fighter planning on tripping has. In other words, to trip people properly, you must come from that specific region. Not only that, it makes you count as large. Not one size larger - Large. Soooooo ... Yeah. |
| AllisterH02-21-07, 02:01 PM | Did anyone happen to catch the article on the D&D page for Wizards about the make-up of a party? I have been posting on the forums for quite some time now about what I call the "Power 4": cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard. These four base classes are the fore-fathers of every other class in the game. This is what the game is built around. This is what every module was and still is built around. So with that in mind, if Wizards does this, why shouldn't everyone else? I agree with this somewhat. Every adventure publsihed by WOTC assumes that the party uses the 4 iconic classes. Wizard, Rogue, Cleric and Fighter. Here's where it gets interesting though. As yet, I haven't found ANY adventure published that can't be done by 4 druids or 4 clerics. Hell, any adventure that is rated level 7 or above, any 4 wizard team should have no problems with unless it specifically targets them (namely nti-Maigc Field in a certain room). The same can't be said for any of the melee classes. Anything over level 8 and any pure melee classes just can't do the adventure as it assumes you have magic. That's why there is a balance problem. |
| Clawhound02-21-07, 02:01 PM | My philosophy has always been to create encounters appropriate to the creatures at hand based on their creature descriptions. I then let my players work it out. They usually figure something out. A group of all fighters may not do great in the beginning, but by 5th level, will have a system worked out, and by 10th level, know exactly how to bypass which common problem. They'll do this because they have to. By then, they will have a shorthand for their solutions. By then, they will have spent resources necessary to their needs. I think the difference is old school/new school. In old school, you were just expected to work out your problems. A problem may also be unsolvable and the party needed to recognize that. In that respect, the fighter is old school. In new school, the class must contain solutions to its problems. If it's not in the class, it can't be done. In my mind, that turns role-playing on its head. (Maybe I'm wrong here. Maybe I'm mis-characterizing this.) |
| Bob Loblaw02-21-07, 02:39 PM | To be honest, he technically is coddling. I can understand the argument that a DM might change things to make it easier for a group, but the reason why we use random encounter foes rather than classed ones is that, as mentioned here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=705076) adding class levels can do a lot to screw with the CR of a monster because of unforseen combinations. Plenty of the pro-fighter crowd cite monsters with high SR, Golems, and other creatures that magic cannot effect or cannot effect easily and say that DMs who don't use them are coddling the spellcasters. These same people also reccomend 'Only-want-spellbooks-components-and-foci' kleptomaniacs that sneak into the parties camp unnoticed and make off with the casters gear to render them useless for a while. Let's be fair here. I am not coddling. My DMing preferences just happen to be to use medium-sized or large creatures. I enjoy adding class levels or templates to the creatures. It just happens that my style is a boon to fighters. I did not choose this style because of the fighter (or any other class). I chose this style because I enjoy it. I've used this style for almost 30 years. |
| Bob Loblaw02-21-07, 02:46 PM | I agree with this somewhat. Every adventure publsihed by WOTC assumes that the party uses the 4 iconic classes. Wizard, Rogue, Cleric and Fighter. Here's where it gets interesting though. As yet, I haven't found ANY adventure published that can't be done by 4 druids or 4 clerics. Hell, any adventure that is rated level 7 or above, any 4 wizard team should have no problems with unless it specifically targets them (namely nti-Maigc Field in a certain room). The same can't be said for any of the melee classes. Anything over level 8 and any pure melee classes just can't do the adventure as it assumes you have magic. That's why there is a balance problem. I have to disagree here. My players prefer melee characters. We have had two clerics in 5 years of playing. There is usually only 1 wizard. No one ever plays a druid. My players have managed to handle every module I throw at them. Some may have been more challenging than others, but not a single one was impossible. |
| Arcane Guyver02-21-07, 03:50 PM | Let's be fair here. I am not coddling. My DMing preferences just happen to be to use medium-sized or large creatures. I enjoy adding class levels or templates to the creatures. It just happens that my style is a boon to fighters. I did not choose this style because of the fighter (or any other class). I chose this style because I enjoy it. I've used this style for almost 30 years. I tend to do this as well, mainly because it makes the great big bastards in the MM that much more impressive. This might also be because I don't use random encounters...nothing but a meaningless timesink that does nothing to drive the plot forward. And I can guarantee my players would not agree that using mostly intelligent enemies is "coddling." |
| AllisterH02-21-07, 04:09 PM | I have to disagree here. My players prefer melee characters. We have had two clerics in 5 years of playing. There is usually only 1 wizard. No one ever plays a druid. My players have managed to handle every module I throw at them. Some may have been more challenging than others, but not a single one was impossible. Not to be rude but HOW :confused: How do you deal with the usual tactics of the enemy without Fly, Dispel Magic, Dimensional Anchor, See Invisibility etc? If the fighters are charmed, how exactly do you get rid of the spell? Bypass the wall of force? Climb the ice cavern wall when the DC is something like 30+? Make a quick retreat if the battle turns suddenly? That's just combat. What about information gathering or even just spying on the enemy fortifications? Sneaking into a stronghold? Convincing the NPC to trust your party without even the hybrid caster like the Bard? |
| Archangel6202-21-07, 04:13 PM | Let's be fair here. I am not coddling. My DMing preferences just happen to be to use medium-sized or large creatures. I enjoy adding class levels or templates to the creatures. It just happens that my style is a boon to fighters. I did not choose this style because of the fighter (or any other class). I chose this style because I enjoy it. I've used this style for almost 30 years. I should have clarified. Plenty of the pro-fighters had argued that if the DM never threw golems or creatures that spat disjunction at mages that the DM was coddling them. For gameplay purposes, your method works, for testing balance it is somewhat less so. |
| Archangel6202-21-07, 04:15 PM | Even though it has been brought up, multiple times, that every game is different as well as every style, DM, party, etc. I was just wondering, where does it say that the game is built on the 25 point buy? If it doesn't say, is it not then an assumption "people on the board" make? Then, where does it say that the classes have to be balanced? Why should they be balanced? Just wondering what the logic of this might me. Did anyone happen to catch the article on the D&D page for Wizards about the make-up of a party? I have been posting on the forums for quite some time now about what I call the "Power 4": cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard. These four base classes are the fore-fathers of every other class in the game. This is what the game is built around. This is what every module was and still is built around. So with that in mind, if Wizards does this, why shouldn't everyone else? I'd like to reiterate that this is a role-playing game as well as a team effort. If one person is consuming too many resources in a particular adventure, the group probably picked the wrong venture. And this doesn't mean that the DM should coddle the party, it means that the party shouldn't over-step their own resources and limitations. It's making and living with choices for the player, party, and DM in order to keep a dynamic that is fun and enjoyable for everyone. After all, this isn't Accountants and Audits. (Little joke for the old players out there with a 1st Edition PHB. :D ) The 25pb thing is based off of the DMG listing 25pb as the system for a 'standard' game. This would mean that they probably used that as a method for testing the classes and challenges etc. As for balance, as my sig states, balance isn't the classes being equal but it is all the classes being able to contribute meaningfully. If a class needs the others to wet nurse them for over half the game then there is an issue with that class. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-21-07, 04:18 PM | As for balance, as my sig states, balance isn't the classes being equal but it is all the classes being able to contribute meaningfully. If a class needs the others to wet nurse them for over half the game then there is an issue with that class. I sure am glad no one has ever had to wet nurse fighters in my games (as player or DM). :) Fighters, IME, function great all the way to level 15. I can't speak much past that as I don't think I have played a game in 3.5 higher than that for more than 1 session. |
| Argaud02-21-07, 04:57 PM | Here's where it gets interesting though. As yet, I haven't found ANY adventure published that can't be done by 4 druids or 4 clerics. Hell, any adventure that is rated level 7 or above, any 4 wizard team should have no problems with unless it specifically targets them (namely nti-Maigc Field in a certain room). The same can't be said for any of the melee classes. Try Citi of the Spider Queen with 4 wizards, please. Unless the DM is very, very forgiving the PCs won't survive beyond the second session. |
| Grave_Accomplice02-21-07, 05:42 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. We have a gestalted party of about 6 members. The original 5 were all casters or some non-fighter specialist. No full bab or extra feats in the bunch. Couldn't hit a thing, and spells still gain saves to lower the damage. The groups effectiveness changes exponentially when the fighter/sorcerer arrived. In an IK campaign I'm playing a cavalier (mount based fighter with a MUCH decreased bonus feat list). About the only one that's done more damage than me so far is the Tharn monk. |
| AllisterH02-21-07, 06:54 PM | Try Citi of the Spider Queen with 4 wizards, please. Unless the DM is very, very forgiving the PCs won't survive beyond the second session. Been there, done that. Please note, I used the "optimized" single class builds from the Optimization board and it was just CORE. No splatbooks or anything else. 4 clerics? Pretty much not even a problem. All those self-buff spells are freaking fantastic. Similarly, the 4 druid party rolled through it without a beat. 4 Bards - Yeah, they're screwed without calling backup via their high-cha and related abilities through the use of followers. 4 wizards - 2nd easiest group since they KNEW they were going into the Underdark, they had all the "right" spells. 4 Sorcerors - Yeah, they were boned moreso than ANY other class. The fact is, unless you allow for "replace" old spell with new spell, the "generalist" sorceror pretty much NEEDS a party IMO. 4 Rogues - Damn near impossible but doable. 4 fighters - Did ok but not as well as monks IMO. 4 Monks - the best of the non-pure spells casting classes. |
| NineInchNall02-21-07, 06:58 PM | We have a gestalted party of about 6 members. The original 5 were all casters or some non-fighter specialist. No full bab or extra feats in the bunch. Couldn't hit a thing, and spells still gain saves to lower the damage. Ya see, right there we know why your Fighter gestalt seemed good: direct damage is a mage's worst option. These are (some of) the spells you cast to kill people and own combats: There are lots of spells in D&D. In the PHB alone it goes on for one hundred and five pages of pure descriptions, and there's an entire 285 page book called the Spell Compendium that is just spells. Finding a spell you want can be very difficult. So by request, here's a list of spells that will actually remove your opponents from combat from levels one through nine for Wizards and Sorcerers. If you keep a few of these on hand at each level, you'll probably have something level appropriate to do against your enemies. There are also a crap tonne of other spells that serve functions as utility spells (knock, daylight), completely abusive utility spells (scry, shrink item), mobility spells (teleport, fly), buff spells (magic circle against evil, mindblank), and situational spells (shatter, slide). There will be times when you need to use these spells to complete adventures or crush your enemies super hard. But this is just a list of spells that you can use to remove enemies from play. Level 1 color spray grease powerword pain (RotD) seething eyebain (BoVD) silent image sleep wall of smoke (SpC) Level 2 blindness cloud of bewilderment (SpC) ghoul touch glitterdust lam's finger darts (BoVD) phantasmal assailants (SpC) shadowspray (SpC) web Level 3 deep slumber flashburst (SpC) great thunderclap (SpC) major image mesmerizing glare (SpC) nauseating breath (SpC) shadow binding (SpC) shivering touch (Cold Outside) stinking cloud vertigo field (PHB2) Level 4 call of stone charm monster evard's black tentacles fear finger of agony (Complete Mage) iceweb (Cold Outside) phantasmal killer solid fog greater rebuke (SpC) wall of good (SpC) wings of flurry (RotD) Level 5 baleful polymorph call forth the beast (HoH) cloudkill flesh to ice (Cold Outside) friend to foe (PHB2) hold monster illusory feast (SpC) magic jar touch of vecna (complete mage) wall of force wall of stone wrack (SpC) Level 6 acid fog endless slumber (Complete Mage) entomb (Cold Outside) eyebite flesh to stone freezing fog (SpC) freezing glance (Cold Outside) heartfreeze (Cold Outside) mudslide (Wet Outside) programmed image Level 7 forcecage hiss of sleep (SpC) evil glare (SpC) finger of death prismatic spray final rebuke (SpC) Level 8 mass charm flensing (SpC) maze Otto's irresistable dance polymorph any object power word stun trap the soul wrathful castigation (SpC) Level 9 detonate (PHB2) dominate monster frostfell imprisonment mass hold monster mindrape (BoVD) reality maelstrom (SpC) shapechange temporal stasis wail of the banshee weird Ugh. So much crap that you have to wade through to find this stuff. Edit: Added stuff from It's Cold Outside. -Frank SpC = Spell Compendium Wet Outside = Stormwrack Hot Outside = Sandstorm Cold Outside = Frostburn RotD = Races of the Dragon BoVD = Book of Vile Darkness |
| Argaud02-21-07, 07:37 PM | Been there, done that. Please note, I used the "optimized" single class builds from the Optimization board and it was just CORE. No splatbooks or anything else. 4 clerics? Pretty much not even a problem. All those self-buff spells are freaking fantastic. Similarly, the 4 druid party rolled through it without a beat. 4 Bards - Yeah, they're screwed without calling backup via their high-cha and related abilities through the use of followers. 4 wizards - 2nd easiest group since they KNEW they were going into the Underdark, they had all the "right" spells. 4 Sorcerors - Yeah, they were boned moreso than ANY other class. The fact is, unless you allow for "replace" old spell with new spell, the "generalist" sorceror pretty much NEEDS a party IMO. 4 Rogues - Damn near impossible but doable. 4 fighters - Did ok but not as well as monks IMO. 4 Monks - the best of the non-pure spells casting classes. Uh... well. You run a super-module that takes 4 character from level 10 to 17... 8 times? As a test? Let me roll disbelief. No, I don't think so. Druids suck in this module, by the way. Not space for large critters or summons too many times. Environment all against them. Almost all the enemies undead or with high SR. The druid in my party hated it. Except for the part where she could summon several T-Rex dinos on the fire giant army. Good times. 4 clerics could work, though. 4 clerics could work for almost anything. And there are so many undead... hehe. And... 4 fighters managed to do it too? Are you sure? Are we talking about the same City of the Spider Queen module? |
| Archangel6202-21-07, 07:41 PM | Uh... well. You run a super-module that takes 4 character from level 10 to 17... 8 times? As a test? Let me roll disbelief. No, I don't think so. Druids suck in this module, by the way. Not space for large critters or summons too many times. Environment all against them. Almost all the enemies undead or with high SR. The druid in my party hated it. Except for the part where she could summon several T-Rex dinos on the fire giant army. Good times. 4 clerics could work, though. 4 clerics could work for almost anything. And there are so many undead... hehe. And... 4 fighters managed to do it too? Are you sure? Are we talking about the same City of the Spider Queen module? Actually it might work, but also note that these were run back to back. Each successive design would be better because they would know what to look for and what to fear. It's not a proper scientific study simply because the players retain experience and knowledge gained from each previous run through. |
| itwasntme02-21-07, 09:59 PM | one point to make (And most eveyone hear ended up agreeing on) is that people first use the triping build when it was useoly usefull ie back in the earlyer parts in the game there going to start useing other things with there feats and characters by the time they get to be higher level there isnt realy any partys that have 4 people of the same class/level in it ... ever the clousest you tend to get is something like that 1 scor 1 cleric 1 druid 1 wizard there all spell casters but they each have there own strengths and weekness the Cleric and Druid in this group would probly take over the roll of Tank in there part it dosnt mean there better then other class's tho at the roles it just means they took that spot over becouse no one eles is there to do it for them there could be a group like this 1 Paladin 1 Ranger 1 Dragon Shamen 1 DuskBlade they all can fight in the front lines but they all can cast spells in other reguards in this party the duskblade will probly take the roll of spell caster it dosnt mean hes the best person to do the job it just means hes the only person in the party to can help fill in that gap and useoly more offtin then not i tend to see people useing groups like the paladin/ranger/dragon shamen/duskblade then i do see people playing the spell casting group im not saying i havnt seen them im saying ive seen more people play tank types/front liners play more then the other group if i was to take that this math ment spellcaster groups are useoly pointless then i would be an idiot for wanting spellcasters to go away why ? becouse i know that you should have magic and swords mixed in together to do the best type of rolls |
| AllisterH02-21-07, 10:21 PM | Uh... well. You run a super-module that takes 4 character from level 10 to 17... 8 times? As a test? Let me roll disbelief. No, I don't think so. Druids suck in this module, by the way. Not space for large critters or summons too many times. Environment all against them. Almost all the enemies undead or with high SR. The druid in my party hated it. Except for the part where she could summon several T-Rex dinos on the fire giant army. Good times. 4 clerics could work, though. 4 clerics could work for almost anything. And there are so many undead... hehe. And... 4 fighters managed to do it too? Are you sure? Are we talking about the same City of the Spider Queen module? What can I say, 2005 was the year we min-maxed. The one released in 2002? Yeah, that one. It is easy enough to "run" this adventure if all you do is focus on the crunchy stuff (namely encounters) and not anything else. As well, we told my friends what the name of the adventure was and it is relatively easy for Fighters to buy those undead hating weapons. Same goes for druids as those self-buff spells using JUST the PHB do go a long way. Make no mistake about it though, sorcerors were screwed since pretty much the optimized 11th level sorceror only has a couple of actual combat spells at that level. Ok, you know what, in a post tomorrow, I actually kept notes about said adventure and I'll post it which should mention how effective each class was. |
| itwasntme02-21-07, 10:32 PM | plz note that the spell list (From the spells i new i dount have 3 of the books you used) contained Fort Save things or Save and Die Most Fort Save and Save or Die are useoly crapy for wizards to use has most people can save agest it one way or another and we can all agree Fort is probly the Tanks best save right? The Gen Scor useoly never excist nad as such is useoly never there and yes you can retrain the old spells of a scor list it just takes a while and some money but one of the lesser ways of retraining came in PHB2 there are alot of Anti Fighters out there which means more people are going to auto vote the fighter/tanks out of the game the point is there are reasons to have fighters and there are reasons to not have them just like evey other class out there Just becouse the wizards new they where in the underdark wouldnt of made much sense im in the desert its probly good to have ice attacks/cold damage besides this i may need to bring water and food besides that the wizards wouldnt know what to bring the underdark me and my friends all made fun of the underdark by taking the 3 tanks and running around in there smashing things the only thing was we avoided the main mind flyer/beholder/drow camps/citys if we could even with the spell casters we avoided thouse places to a point All you woulda known was Daylight will probly be a good idea there are going to be nme casters and anti magic fields probly there are allso going to be golems around perhaps besides that a lot of week creatures inless they formed camps/towns/kingdoms Granted Mind Flyers are not so pos to act like this *Mind Blast* Its Not Working Charge and do it again 50 more times! Ah Its still not working! Well Keep chargeing and do it again! the other 500 times musta done something by now Keep chargeing! no thouse are the worlds biggest idiot mind flyers or they just had a death wish and yes in some Tolken books mind flyers did this along with some of Wizards games I dount know why they all think mind flyers are that dumb of monsters it states on tastics that if it isnt working they will run away and try and find out why to some degree or another Beholders are going to be scary as well but thats mostly becouse there scary creatures Drow are scary becouse there orgainized and tend to use any means to stop the characters if they know the characters can kill off week undead then the drow are going to stop useing week undead ... the same for allmost all the other races your first time pass the underdark probly ended as being dead keep playing it in the same day and yes you'll do better but mostly becouse youve done it before you allso kinda metagamed a little bit (Not much but a little bit) useoly in games like these i useoly change the monsters tastics or layout a bit just to prevent metagame thinking and plus there not allways going to do the same damn thing For Example again the mind flyers shouldnt be chargeing out useing an attack 500 times over and over again and each time its not working ... perhaps they shoulda stoped and go "Oh wait amin i dount think this is going to work ... lets try something eles" sorry but after reading another tread about this and was wizard backed up i thought it was dumb to read how it was kinda easy to get past the Drow/Mindflyers/Beholders becouse of just the knowlege of "We know where going to fight them!" |
| itwasntme02-21-07, 10:35 PM | What can I say, 2005 was the year we min-maxed. The one released in 2002? Yeah, that one. It is easy enough to "run" this adventure if all you do is focus on the crunchy stuff (namely encounters) and not anything else. As well, we told my friends what the name of the adventure was and it is relatively easy for Fighters to buy those undead hating weapons. Same goes for druids as those self-buff spells using JUST the PHB do go a long way. Make no mistake about it though, sorcerors were screwed since pretty much the optimized 11th level sorceror only has a couple of actual combat spells at that level. Ok, you know what, in a post tomorrow, I actually kept notes about said adventure and I'll post it which should mention how effective each class was. i know im being rude but that motion kinda sucks just becouse you know your going somewhere dosnt mean you can be all high and mighty to now be able to beat it thats just my thought tho and i know its probly wrong |
| Bob Loblaw02-22-07, 12:37 AM | Not to be rude but HOW :confused: How do you deal with the usual tactics of the enemy without Fly, Dispel Magic, Dimensional Anchor, See Invisibility etc? If the fighters are charmed, how exactly do you get rid of the spell? Bypass the wall of force? Climb the ice cavern wall when the DC is something like 30+? Make a quick retreat if the battle turns suddenly? That's just combat. What about information gathering or even just spying on the enemy fortifications? Sneaking into a stronghold? Convincing the NPC to trust your party without even the hybrid caster like the Bard? Let's see, ranged attacks can handle fliers. Blindfight deals with invisibility as does some creativity (water on the floor can show locations). Not every creature dimension hops and those that do just require readying actions. Dispel magic really isn't necessary most of the time. Creatures that charm aren't really all that common. You seem to be under the impression that the fighter can't bring rope for climbing, or pitons and a hammer. Retreat isn't all that hard. Walls of force are not as common as you might think. For the social skills, there is no need to roll for every encounter. We roll for many, but not all. Some of the fighters can intimidate. Note that the party isn't 100% fighters. It just isn't all casters either. My players know how to compensate for their weakness with mundane solutions. It takes creativity on their parts, but it can be done. |
| navar10002-22-07, 01:28 AM | Good DM's should *TRY* to do this, your point is valid. It won't work perfectly, and it will often fail miserably, and some DM's won't bother. In RPGA events this is simply not possible, many "Good" Dm's won't be willing to adjust published modules they want to use extensively because a PC has a very narrow focus. In addition, your argument is getting dangerously close to the Oberoni fallacy. Yeesh...I don't want to sound this harsh, but 5 consecutive posts is overkill, even responding to three different people. RPGA is fine and dandy, but I don't hold it as the be all end all of of D&D. By necessity it has to keep things a bit rigid. I've played in it and have it just not my cup of tea for various reasons not appropriate for this thread or even forum. I only get on the internet at specific times due to real life interference. I pretty much have to respond all at once. Not that I play World of Warcraft, but if I really did have such free time to play D&D and surf the net, I promise I would not be out there getting so uberpowerful just to kill off everyone's characters. :) |
| navar10002-22-07, 02:34 AM | Yes, but people on the board frequently point out that the game is built on a 25pb balance. You can use other methods to generate stats but if we work off of what the balance is 'supposed' to be then we have a fighter who either cannot do many combat styles or is going to be rather one sided tactically. It also works better for comparison since you can argue a fighter with 18s in every stat versus a wizard with a 16, a 14, and 4 8s. No, I'm demanding that the fighter not have to sit out entire encounters because they can't do a damn thing in them. I never said the fighter had to solo the encounter, and you'll notice here, I have never once said solo an encounter, I just said that the fighter should have to contribute. Again, please stop putting words in my mouth, my point is that the fighter has entire encounters or forms of enemy that can render their combat style useless, unless they try to learn a few of each and then you end up with rather abysmal stats. And even then it will be difficult because they will need to sink a lot of money into weapons and gear for many combat styles, and if we follow the wealth by level guidelines properly the fighter can't afford to keep each style properly 'fed' in terms of gear, hell the fighter can barely afford to have multiple weapons for multiple DRs and keep them enchanted etc. It's an issue of resource consumption and opportunity cost. The wizard is spending a spell slot now that could be better saved for later, and it isn't some kind of 'emergency' encounter like something that is a save or die monster or anything like that. It's a group of harpies or something like that. Now, since we use slots that also means that said wizard/cleric had to prep this spell as well, so either the spell was planned for something later in the day (maybe the big throwdown fight expected) or they had to prep it because the fighter whined about it. Fine, but that spell took up the space of other options, debuffs, damage, battlefield control options that could be used. For the cleric that's one less chance of healing. And like I said, if the fighter NEEDs these buffs to contribute to the group in a meaningful fashion then that fighter is being a leech because if the rest of the group can contribute properly to an encounter without the rest of the party needing to hold their hand then I'd say the issue is on the fighters end. Alright, so is the DM then supposed to specifically tailor encounters to make sure that the fighter can participate in properly? If so then again this smacks of the fighter not being up to par if the DM has to do so with this class but no others. I mean if the DM made a gameworld called Balloon World and made a class called the pinmaster and only the pinmaster could reliably kill balloon beasts then in that context the pinmaster might look fine, even overpowered, but the pinmaster likely wouldn't work in a standard generic game. That's the point that the pro-logic people are trying to make here. It only does 'fine' if the casters basically become a support team for the fighter. This is not only rather poor logic but also grotesquely unfair to the casters. In effect they are being told that because they had the nerve to choose effective classes they now have to devote most of their resources to boosting up the sub-par team member to a semi-acceptable level. And yes, the game is made for other character types, the paladin has many issues, I do agree, but it can fulfill the tanks and mounted combatant role far better than the fighter can. It also has access to some healing and with certain substitution options it can do more to help the group. Welcome to the game of ever moving goalposts. By your own admission now the fact that a party of all fighters needs drastic changes to make it work is a sign that the fighter has issues. The DM has to start adding class levels to monsters instead of using the standard encounter tables, has to probably heavily alter the wealth by level charts as well. If a class needs a large amount of DM intervention to succeed, or not be outshone in it's field by other classes that aren't in that field, then there is a problem with that class. I never said that the fighter needs to be immune to their weaknesses, but I do point out that there are plenty of will based Save or Die spells. In addition, there are many spell combinations (Stone to mud, then mud to stone) that create a great CDG situation. The problem I'm seeing is that the fighter has no innate defenses against this stuff and if they want to use items to shore up those weaknesses, cool, but they still have the same wealth restrictions as everyone else. To be honest, he technically is coddling. I can understand the argument that a DM might change things to make it easier for a group, but the reason why we use random encounter foes rather than classed ones is that, as mentioned here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=705076) adding class levels can do a lot to screw with the CR of a monster because of unforseen combinations. Plenty of the pro-fighter crowd cite monsters with high SR, Golems, and other creatures that magic cannot effect or cannot effect easily and say that DMs who don't use them are coddling the spellcasters. These same people also reccomend 'Only-want-spellbooks-components-and-foci' kleptomaniacs that sneak into the parties camp unnoticed and make off with the casters gear to render them useless for a while. Darn it, even when I click the + I can't get multiple quoting right :headexplo I'm not demanding that spellcasters buff fighters. It is simply an option that does not require doing it with an attitude of "Gee, if only he wasn't a fighter I could cast a different spell." Sure, the wizard could fireball the harpies. Casting fly on the fighter so he could take care of the harpies is just a different tactic. A cleric "wasting" a buff spell that could have gone into healing? Why bother casting any spell then, because every spell could become a healing spell? In any event, it doesn't or shouldn't matter who gets the killing blow. What should matter is that the killing blow gets delivered. Whether it was because the wizard casting disintegrate or polymorphing the fighter into a war troll is irrelevant. I did not bring up the idea of using a party of 4 of the same class (all fighters, all clerics etc.) as a measure of balance. What I'm saying is that I disagree such an idea matters. It ties in with your assumption that fighters have to sit out entire encounters. They don't. What you call "coddling" is how the game works. Just because a monster exists in the monster manual does not mean it will be used. I don't care how hard it is for a fighter to combat some of the monsters in there. The individual campaign will matter. You don't like people throwing golems and high SR monsters at your wizards willy nilly, then don't do the same with the fighters. A monster that is tough against the fighter only proves the monster is tough against the fighter. It doesn't prove the fighter might as well die before a campaign begins and play a wizard instead. What if the wizard didn't cast fly on the fighter? If the fighter doesn't have bow and arrows, he'll learn from this and get some. How are the harpies attacking? Let's take it as a given we have a bard in the party using countersong or else everyone is in trouble, since having a good will save is not immunity. If they come down to attack, the fighter could get a strike in there. If they use arrows as well, maybe at best this combat the fighter can only Aid Another for AC. Maybe they are all magic users. Yes, the fighter is in trouble. What does this prove? The fighter is just in trouble in this scenario. Let's take our dreaded golem guarding some ancient throne room. Let's take our dreaded anti-magic field and have that cover the room. Yes, it's contrived. Now the wizard is in trouble. That only proved the wizard is in trouble in that situation. Now let's look at the campaign as a whole. In how many combats is the fighter in trouble? In how many combats is the wizard in trouble? We don't know. We can't know unless you analyze an entire campaign that's done, but you can't compare one campaign to another because there is no One Right Way to play a campaign. You want to say I'm committing "Oberani fallacy"? Maybe I'm starting to disagree it is a fallacy. Maybe it's not really applying because I don't think 3E is perfect. There are, in my opinion, feats, spells, classes that are "too strong" or "too weak". I just disagree fighter is "too weak". I can't really say what would prove to me a class is too weak. Truenamer I find too weak because as written the DC to accomplish what it's supposed to do becomes nearly impossible to do on a consistent basis as the levels increase just for being who he is regardless of what the DM puts out there. The Healer I find too weak because it is too much of a reactive class. It can only do things after something bad happens, for the most part. Healing and removing afflictions is important, but it is also boring to play for that's the only thing it does. The fighter is an active class. It does not become harder to fight as the levels progressed. No, it cannot fight everything at utmost efficiency at any given time. He doesn't have to. I don't need the fighter to be the most powerful class in order for it to be acceptable to me. For a little backtrack, from a player perspective, regardless of what class I play, any player who resents helping my character is a jerk and not someone I want to play with. I've quit a game for just that reason, and I was playing a rogue. I don't demand to be helped. I can understand and accept that I won't always be helped if asked because their character is not in a position to do so or just has other priorities at the moment. However, if I'm never helped then why are we a party? Why are we playing together Being "helped" doesn't necessarly mean a buff spell. I help my party members when I can. If I'm asked I purposely try to do so. If they need a spell from me, I gladly prepare it as a standard operating procedure. It's what friends do. The game is more than just the numbers and letters. If someone else really, really likes Truenamer or Healer and decides to play one, then hooray for them. The campaign will be as it is, and there's no DM "coddling". I will never, ever "resent" having to use up one of my resources to help them if need be. They are never "leeches". |
| Archangel6202-22-07, 08:29 AM | Darn it, even when I click the + I can't get multiple quoting right :headexplo The other way of doing it is just copy-paste the quote and endquote stuff, it takes longer but it is reliable. I'm not demanding that spellcasters buff fighters. It is simply an option that does not require doing it with an attitude of "Gee, if only he wasn't a fighter I could cast a different spell." Sure, the wizard could fireball the harpies. Casting fly on the fighter so he could take care of the harpies is just a different tactic. A cleric "wasting" a buff spell that could have gone into healing? Why bother casting any spell then, because every spell could become a healing spell? In any event, it doesn't or shouldn't matter who gets the killing blow. What should matter is that the killing blow gets delivered. Whether it was because the wizard casting disintegrate or polymorphing the fighter into a war troll is irrelevant. What I was trying to point out is that spells are a limited resource. Many of the best buffs are self only, the point I was trying to make was that if most other classes can handle the situation without needing the rest of the group to buff them out the wazoo then there is an issue of what the person is actually contributing to the party. Also, talk about hyperbole, my point was that some spells and tactics work better than boost the fighter. I mean hell, net of shadows or other types of entangle/debuff would have worked far better against the harpies than fireball. I did not bring up the idea of using a party of 4 of the same class (all fighters, all clerics etc.) as a measure of balance. What I'm saying is that I disagree such an idea matters. It ties in with your assumption that fighters have to sit out entire encounters. They don't. What you call "coddling" is how the game works. Just because a monster exists in the monster manual does not mean it will be used. I don't care how hard it is for a fighter to combat some of the monsters in there. The individual campaign will matter. You don't like people throwing golems and high SR monsters at your wizards willy nilly, then don't do the same with the fighters. A monster that is tough against the fighter only proves the monster is tough against the fighter. It doesn't prove the fighter might as well die before a campaign begins and play a wizard instead. But you'll notice that there are far more monsters that will pose an issue to the fighter than to the caster. And I'd also like to point out, even in those encounters where the high SR opponent exists, the wizard can summon, can use spells that aren't affected by SR, can use spells to affect the battlefield so that the party will have an easier time. The cleric can buff himself up and storm in like a holy terror. The point is that if I see a lot of high SR opponents there are still spells of mine that work, the fighter doesn't have that sort of luxury if they face things that their combat style of choice doesn't work on. What if the wizard didn't cast fly on the fighter? If the fighter doesn't have bow and arrows, he'll learn from this and get some. How are the harpies attacking? Let's take it as a given we have a bard in the party using countersong or else everyone is in trouble, since having a good will save is not immunity. If they come down to attack, the fighter could get a strike in there. If they use arrows as well, maybe at best this combat the fighter can only Aid Another for AC. Maybe they are all magic users. Yes, the fighter is in trouble. What does this prove? The fighter is just in trouble in this scenario. Let's take our dreaded golem guarding some ancient throne room. Let's take our dreaded anti-magic field and have that cover the room. Yes, it's contrived. Now the wizard is in trouble. That only proved the wizard is in trouble in that situation. This is an apples to oranges comparison. If the party is wandering through an area and ye olde random encounter table pops up and gives them varying monsters, that can give a much better account for how a class works than a pre-planned module. A DM can alter the module to fit their needs as much as they want, and even in an anti-magic field a wizard wait outside and summon, or can use a few different battlefield control tactics. Antimagic also hurts the fighter quite a bit too because of their item dependance, somewhere on the boards I listed a full set of antimagic traps I'd use and I pointed out why they would generally lead to a TPK. However I do give you credit, this is the first time I've seen someone on your side not try to do the 'wandering antimagic/dysjunction field' Now let's look at the campaign as a whole. In how many combats is the fighter in trouble? In how many combats is the wizard in trouble? We don't know. We can't know unless you analyze an entire campaign that's done, but you can't compare one campaign to another because there is no One Right Way to play a campaign. You're right, but that isn;t the point of the argument now is it. In a particular campaign ANY class can be good or bad depending on houserules and the way the encounters are run. Like I said, the pinmaster and balloon world. You want to say I'm committing "Oberani fallacy"? Maybe I'm starting to disagree it is a fallacy. Maybe it's not really applying because I don't think 3E is perfect. There are, in my opinion, feats, spells, classes that are "too strong" or "too weak". I just disagree fighter is "too weak". I can't really say what would prove to me a class is too weak. Truenamer I find too weak because as written the DC to accomplish what it's supposed to do becomes nearly impossible to do on a consistent basis as the levels increase just for being who he is regardless of what the DM puts out there. The Healer I find too weak because it is too much of a reactive class. It can only do things after something bad happens, for the most part. Healing and removing afflictions is important, but it is also boring to play for that's the only thing it does. The fighter is an active class. It does not become harder to fight as the levels progressed. No, it cannot fight everything at utmost efficiency at any given time. He doesn't have to. I don't need the fighter to be the most powerful class in order for it to be acceptable to me. The fighter doesn't NEED to be the most powerful class to me either. My point was that the fighter does need some way to 1) Shift easily between combat styles 2) Deal with a wider array of foes 3) be able to function independant of the rest of the group buffing him out the wazoo. For a little backtrack, from a player perspective, regardless of what class I play, any player who resents helping my character is a jerk and not someone I want to play with. I've quit a game for just that reason, and I was playing a rogue. I don't demand to be helped. I can understand and accept that I won't always be helped if asked because their character is not in a position to do so or just has other priorities at the moment. However, if I'm never helped then why are we a party? Why are we playing together Being "helped" doesn't necessarly mean a buff spell. I help my party members when I can. If I'm asked I purposely try to do so. If they need a spell from me, I gladly prepare it as a standard operating procedure. It's what friends do. You're right, a party can 'help' a person many ways, but what I, and others I believe, are trying to say is that the fighter is basically codependant. If it isn't getting buffed heavily then it tends to need the DM to either ignore teh wealth by level charts in their favor and/or tailor multiple encounters to them and their abilities. The game is more than just the numbers and letters. If someone else really, really likes Truenamer or Healer and decides to play one, then hooray for them. The campaign will be as it is, and there's no DM "coddling". I will never, ever "resent" having to use up one of my resources to help them if need be. They are never "leeches". Also, perhaps I should define 'help' if a member of the party can handle something but needs a boost to ensure a victory, or we're at what is likely going to be the big battle of the day, then yeah, no biggie. My problem comes in when someone needs those buffs to perform at the AVERAGE for that level. |
| Kratch02-22-07, 11:05 AM | Yes, but people on the board frequently point out that the game is built on a 25pb balance. You can use other methods to generate stats but if we work off of what the balance is 'supposed' to be then we have a fighter who either cannot do many combat styles or is going to be rather one sided tactically. It also works better for comparison since you can argue a fighter with 18s in every stat versus a wizard with a 16, a 14, and 4 8s. Isn't that what your doing though? the fighter is expected to work on a 25 point buy while the cleric is assumed to have all the stats he needs to match the fighter and remain a competent caster? and after first level, he only needs to maintain str, con and likely dex increases. A fighter needs a high str and con, likely a reasonable dex (depending on build) and a 13 in ether int or wis, maybe both. A cleric on the other hand needs those same high str and con, possibly Dex(if he wants combat reflex's, it is a significant combat ability), he needs a reasonable wis to ensure he gets full casting and a high charisma to ensure he can DMM persist all those buffs needed. Can a cleric really obsolete a fighter with a 25 point buy? if not, most of the arguments against the fighter, to this point, fall by the wayside. No, I'm demanding that the fighter not have to sit out entire encounters because they can't do a damn thing in them. I never said the fighter had to solo the encounter, and you'll notice here, I have never once said solo an encounter, I just said that the fighter should have to contribute. of the creatures that can fly, very few of them also use ranged attacks. therefor, a fighter won't be sitting out. He won't be as effective, true, getting only readied actions to attack if the opponent flys past him (or tripping the attacker, trip works on flyers who require wings/limbs to fly) and AoO, but considering the flyers generally are only getting one attack each round as well, or are remaining within reach so the fighter can full attack the next round, the fighters contribution isn't as poor in comparison as your saying it is. (positioning yourself to ensure you get and AoO if they attack you or your wizard is not difficult in most cases, especially if he's using a weapon with reach or large size). Now, if you want to point out dragons, go right ahead, i'll assume the party was prepared for it and the fighter has flight (claim it's wasting combat options all you want, but i think a fighter in melee is a better 3rd level spell investment combat wise then anything else against a dragon, and if your saying the party is encountering dragons by accedent, without any way of preparing, well, then i'll expect never again to hear the argument of a wizard always being prepared cause he knows whats coming again). If you want to point out gryphons and sphynx's, i reply with the ever so common "if the world is populated by golems and beholders, well, then your DM is being an ass, it's not the wizard" opps, i mean sphynx and gryphon and the fighter class. PS, how does a paladin or barbarian fair better against these foes? If it's solely the fighter that sucks, these class's should be able to clearly outperform in this situation. It's an issue of resource consumption and opportunity cost. The wizard is spending a spell slot now that could be better saved for later, and it isn't some kind of 'emergency' encounter like something that is a save or die monster or anything like that. It's a group of harpies or something like that. Now, since we use slots that also means that said wizard/cleric had to prep this spell as well, so either the spell was planned for something later in the day (maybe the big throwdown fight expected) or they had to prep it because the fighter whined about it. Fine, but that spell took up the space of other options, debuffs, damage, battlefield control options that could be used. For the cleric that's one less chance of healing. And like I said, if the fighter NEEDs these buffs to contribute to the group in a meaningful fashion then that fighter is being a leech because if the rest of the group can contribute properly to an encounter without the rest of the party needing to hold their hand then I'd say the issue is on the fighters end. What else is he casting? because, in all honesty, there are fery few low level spells that can grant the kind of return that a fully funtional fighter offers. Tell me 1 3rd level spell that does what a figther (or barbarian, paladin, etc) can do over the 20+ rounds it can manuver with flight? or a first level spell that can offer the protection of a large melee standing over you? You see them as wasting buffs, most wizards see them as using low level spells for high returns. I'll take GMW on the fighters back-up DR weapon (when it's needed that day) over a magic missle anyday. It only does 'fine' if the casters basically become a support team for the fighter. This is not only rather poor logic but also grotesquely unfair to the casters. In effect they are being told that because they had the nerve to choose effective classes they now have to devote most of their resources to boosting up the sub-par team member to a semi-acceptable level. And yes, the game is made for other character types, the paladin has many issues, I do agree, but it can fulfill the tanks and mounted combatant role far better than the fighter can. It also has access to some healing and with certain substitution options it can do more to help the group. You keep saying how there are situations that can neuter the fighter, then offer a paladins mounted combat to replace a fighter. We are playing "dungeons" and dragons, not " flat open fields and dragons", no offence. The paladin fills the defensive tank role fine, if he chooses mounted combat, he can offer some decent offence, but then is made ineffective in his main tactic by the very envirounment in which he's often adventuring, ruins, dungeons and most caves negate mounted combat. without mounted combat, the paladin doesn't really offer the same kind of offensive tanking. Welcome to the game of ever moving goalposts. By your own admission now the fact that a party of all fighters needs drastic changes to make it work is a sign that the fighter has issues. I know, the goalpost has moved a couple times, just in the paragraphs i've replied to above. I never said that the fighter needs to be immune to their weaknesses, but I do point out that there are plenty of will based Save or Die spells. In addition, there are many spell combinations (Stone to mud, then mud to stone) that create a great CDG situation. The problem I'm seeing is that the fighter has no innate defenses against this stuff and if they want to use items to shore up those weaknesses, cool, but they still have the same wealth restrictions as everyone else. No, you never said the fighter has to be immune to their weakness's, you just say they suck because they can't deal with they're weakness without help from allies or items. Plenty of the pro-fighter crowd cite monsters with high SR, Golems, and other creatures that magic cannot effect or cannot effect easily and say that DMs who don't use them are coddling the spellcasters. These same people also reccomend 'Only-want-spellbooks-components-and-foci' kleptomaniacs that sneak into the parties camp unnoticed and make off with the casters gear to render them useless for a while. Not true, i do say DM's who don't (occasionally) use High SR, golems and beholders (or similar magic killing monsters). I don't recommened "'Only-want-spellbooks-components-and-foci' kleptomaniacs", though i do recomend, should the tactic actualy be viable, that the DM sunder foci/components, but i admit thats rare, about as rare (perhaps even moreso) as targeting a fighters flight magic item with dispel. But then, if your claiming that pro-fighters who site these anti-caster creatures are unreasonable, would not that mean that citing flying creatures that used ranged attacks to keep away from the fighters, or rare DR's that aren't easily accounted for, are also being unreasonable? |
| Kratch02-22-07, 11:15 AM | I agree with this somewhat. Every adventure publsihed by WOTC assumes that the party uses the 4 iconic classes. Wizard, Rogue, Cleric and Fighter. Here's where it gets interesting though. As yet, I haven't found ANY adventure published that can't be done by 4 druids or 4 clerics. Hell, any adventure that is rated level 7 or above, any 4 wizard team should have no problems with unless it specifically targets them (namely nti-Maigc Field in a certain room). The same can't be said for any of the melee classes. Anything over level 8 and any pure melee classes just can't do the adventure as it assumes you have magic. That's why there is a balance problem. The thats not a fighter issue, it's an issue with melee in general (i realize you've stated this, but considering how many people dump this all on the fighter alone, thought i'd point it out. after all, this is a thread specifically beating on the fighter). |
| Argaud02-22-07, 11:29 AM | You keep saying how there are situations that can neuter the fighter, then offer a paladins mounted combat to replace a fighter. We are playing "dungeons" and dragons, not " flat open fields and dragons", no offence. A little thing here: Paladin mounted combat is not limited to 'open fields'. Dire wolves have no problem in dungeons and are valid mounts at level 6. Hippogriffs are also valid mounts at level 6 and can handle dungeons -and- aereal combat (IIRC pegasus come at level 7, for superior speed; and griffons at 8th, for total land/air pounce-badassness). |
| Kratch02-22-07, 11:56 AM | How do you deal with the usual tactics of the enemy without Fly (ranged attacks, readied actions, items (note they came last so as not to imply it's the only option, but it is available), you know, buy adapting to the opponent the same way a cleric would), Dispel Magic (not entirely sure what you mean here? the need for it or defence against it? cause they have little need to defend against it, and there are always solutions other then dispeling, they just sometimes take some creativity, or even gold), Dimensional Anchor (for preventing retreat? i think 4 fighters can take down an opponent fast enough if they work together (which they'd have to learn to do anyways), to prevent the opponent from having enough time to retreat. For preventing dimensional hoppers? they're even more rare then golems.), See Invisibility (blind fighting, or better yet, combat awarness. one guy with that and a tanglefoot bag or other alchemical item can reveal the invis guy for the rest) etc? If the fighters are charmed, how exactly do you get rid of the spell (killing the charmer, then likely ether letting it wear off or buying a dispell)? Bypass the wall of force (same way a group of all wizards survives a AMF trap, they don't, but exceptionally rare event in ether case)? Climb the ice cavern wall when the DC is something like 30+ (climb is a fighter skill, in a group of 4 of them, one WILL have climb, and rope, and pitons and likely climbing gear, are all 4 clerics gonna burn a 5th level spell each on wind walk to get up there? hope they don't encounter any fliers once the spell expires, cause i highly doubt they'll have 2 prepared)? Make a quick retreat if the battle turns suddenly? That's just combat. What about information gathering or even just spying on the enemy fortifications well, (intimidate can get info, basic roleplaying can provide info as well (not social skill requires training to use, thus can be used untrained. As for scount, a little info gather can get them what they need as far as item prparation, otherwise, fighters don't really benifit from scounting since they're abilities are static and don't need to be tailored for each encounter)? Sneaking into a stronghold (not they're style, obviously. thats like asking how a rogue will strongarm a giant, not they're style, they will play to their strengths)? Convincing the NPC to trust your party without even the hybrid caster like the Bard (offer to perform a task for them in exchange for they're favour, sidequests are fun)? I placed my replies in bold. |
| Archangel6202-22-07, 12:41 PM | Isn't that what your doing though? the fighter is expected to work on a 25 point buy while the cleric is assumed to have all the stats he needs to match the fighter and remain a competent caster? and after first level, he only needs to maintain str, con and likely dex increases. The cleric can get huge buffs to strength and con with a couple of spells, as can the druid+wildshape. They can have average scores until combat, and with a bit of persistance...well yeah. Combine that with the spells that give both armor and weapons a boost and they can easily kick the fighter to the curb. A fighter needs a high str and con, likely a reasonable dex (depending on build) and a 13 in ether int or wis, maybe both. A cleric on the other hand needs those same high str and con, possibly Dex(if he wants combat reflex's, it is a significant combat ability), he needs a reasonable wis to ensure he gets full casting and a high charisma to ensure he can DMM persist all those buffs needed. Can a cleric really obsolete a fighter with a 25 point buy? if not, most of the arguments against the fighter, to this point, fall by the wayside. Str and dex are iffy, combat reflexes isn't as useful unless you plan to be trip-o-matic which is rather moot after level 12. Moderate dex is nice, but unneeded. Con is a good score but more for Concentration checks, strength can be 10 and still be fine with all the buff options. of the creatures that can fly, very few of them also use ranged attacks. therefor, a fighter won't be sitting out. He won't be as effective, true, getting only readied actions to attack if the opponent flys past him (or tripping the attacker, trip works on flyers who require wings/limbs to fly) and AoO, but considering the flyers generally are only getting one attack each round as well, or are remaining within reach so the fighter can full attack the next round, the fighters contribution isn't as poor in comparison as your saying it is. (positioning yourself to ensure you get and AoO if they attack you or your wizard is not difficult in most cases, especially if he's using a weapon with reach or large size). Now, if you want to point out dragons, go right ahead, i'll assume the party was prepared for it and the fighter has flight (claim it's wasting combat options all you want, but i think a fighter in melee is a better 3rd level spell investment combat wise then anything else against a dragon, and if your saying the party is encountering dragons by accedent, without any way of preparing, well, then i'll expect never again to hear the argument of a wizard always being prepared cause he knows whats coming again). If you want to point out gryphons and sphynx's, i reply with the ever so common "if the world is populated by golems and beholders, well, then your DM is being an ass, it's not the wizard" opps, i mean sphynx and gryphon and the fighter class. PS, how does a paladin or barbarian fair better against these foes? If it's solely the fighter that sucks, these class's should be able to clearly outperform in this situation. Except: 1) The creatures like the beholder and golems are rare/created by someone. Golems are generally made to guard something so are rather unlikely to be found anywhere except the ancient tombs and the entire world isn't ancient tombs. Beholders are rare, but can still be encountered but nonmanufactured creatures like them are quite rare, the flyers and other such creatures are far more common and found in more biomes. 2) To answer your question, the paladin could use a flying mount to go up and battle. The barbarian would be in a bit of a tighter spot, since they are designed almost purely for melee, however a few javelins with their enraged strength bonus might do the trick. The problem is that the fighter is supposed to be able to deal with multiple combat encounter types, instead it is unable to do so because of how the system works. 3) I realize that neither the paladin nor barbarian are great in these scenarios either, but they have class abilities that help them focus on an aspect of combat, the fighter is built with the idea of being able to handle multiple encounter types competantly. What else is he casting? because, in all honesty, there are fery few low level spells that can grant the kind of return that a fully funtional fighter offers. Tell me 1 3rd level spell that does what a figther (or barbarian, paladin, etc) can do over the 20+ rounds it can manuver with flight? or a first level spell that can offer the protection of a large melee standing over you? You see them as wasting buffs, most wizards see them as using low level spells for high returns. I'll take GMW on the fighters back-up DR weapon (when it's needed that day) over a magic missle anyday. Net of shadows would catch a group of them and bring them to the ground where the party can pummel them. Maybe a nice Incite Riot which would cause them to turn on one another and leave us more or less alone. You keep saying how there are situations that can neuter the fighter, then offer a paladins mounted combat to replace a fighter. We are playing "dungeons" and dragons, not " flat open fields and dragons", no offence. The paladin fills the defensive tank role fine, if he chooses mounted combat, he can offer some decent offence, but then is made ineffective in his main tactic by the very envirounment in which he's often adventuring, ruins, dungeons and most caves negate mounted combat. without mounted combat, the paladin doesn't really offer the same kind of offensive tanking. As mentioned earlier, flying mounts or different types of mounts can mitigate this. The point I was making was that these classes can do things outside of combat, provide additional aid to the party, AND be superior to the fighter in combat styles. I know, the goalpost has moved a couple times, just in the paragraphs i've replied to above. :rolleyes: cute, very cute, care to explain that? No, you never said the fighter has to be immune to their weakness's, you just say they suck because they can't deal with they're weakness without help from allies or items. it's their first of all, anyway the problem is that most other classes have boosters to help them. The rogue has abilities like slippery mind and evasion, and likely has a high wisdom to boot. The barbarian gets a will save bonus when they rage. The Ranger has a fairly good dex and wis most likely as well as their spells. The paladin has their divine grace, decent wisdom, and spells. The Cleric and druid have good fort and will saves as well as having good relevant stats. The wizard will usually have a decent con and can protect themselves from fort based SoDs with fairly low level spells. The fighter has no built in defense mechanisms, they need to spend money for items that take up a slot or they need to have other people in the party deal with the issue for them. Not true, i do say DM's who don't (occasionally) use High SR, golems and beholders (or similar magic killing monsters). I don't recommened "'Only-want-spellbooks-components-and-foci' kleptomaniacs", though i do recomend, should the tactic actualy be viable, that the DM sunder foci/components, but i admit thats rare, about as rare (perhaps even moreso) as targeting a fighters flight magic item with dispel. But then, if your claiming that pro-fighters who site these anti-caster creatures are unreasonable, would not that mean that citing flying creatures that used ranged attacks to keep away from the fighters, or rare DR's that aren't easily accounted for, are also being unreasonable? Never said that they were unreasonable (with the exception of said kleptomaniac but I think we could agree that THAT is at least somewhat unreasonable) Also, as mentioned earlier, the creatures that screw casters are rarer and tend to be manufactured foes (as in the golem). The things that can screw a fighter are naturally occurring, hell bad weather alone can screw a ranged character. Large and bigger foes, as well as flyers are a lot more common and in more biomes than the anti-magic creatures. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-22-07, 12:58 PM | So a flying mount is all my fighter needs to remain viable? Nice. I am going to see if my DM will let me buy an advanced griffon mount. Thanks guys! :) |
| Ghenesh02-22-07, 01:10 PM | So a flying mount is all my fighter needs to remain viable? Nice. I am going to see if my DM will let me buy an advanced griffon mount. Thanks guys! :) Power Attack, Improved Bullrush and Shock Trooper might be useful too... ... for you to notice every character can do this, since you only need to succeed a Ride check (DC 5) to charge two weapon handedly, so you don't even need to have it as a class skill. So yeah, fighters wield magic too! |
| Argaud02-22-07, 01:26 PM | So a flying mount is all my fighter needs to remain viable? Nice. I am going to see if my DM will let me buy an advanced griffon mount. Thanks guys! :) Not good: -Very expensive. -Dumb (hope your handle animal is very good). -Needs to be taken care for. -Will die. If the fighter pays a fortune to raise it, it will die again a few encounters later. -Won't grow stronger as the figher levels. The paladin's mount keeps getting more powerful as the paladin levels (and it is already more powerful than anything a character can get using leadership for a mount cohort). Can be called at will. It is intelligent. Comes back a month after being killed. And it is free. If you need flying and the wizard in the party is a jerk, get some boots of flying. Or even better, find a better wizard. |
| navar10002-22-07, 01:40 PM | The other way of doing it is just copy-paste the quote and endquote stuff, it takes longer but it is reliable. What I was trying to point out is that spells are a limited resource. Many of the best buffs are self only, the point I was trying to make was that if most other classes can handle the situation without needing the rest of the group to buff them out the wazoo then there is an issue of what the person is actually contributing to the party. Also, talk about hyperbole, my point was that some spells and tactics work better than boost the fighter. I mean hell, net of shadows or other types of entangle/debuff would have worked far better against the harpies than fireball. (Snippage) Also, perhaps I should define 'help' if a member of the party can handle something but needs a boost to ensure a victory, or we're at what is likely going to be the big battle of the day, then yeah, no biggie. My problem comes in when someone needs those buffs to perform at the AVERAGE for that level. No particular response other than to me it now seems like a varying mileage on how much dependent the fighter is on the other party members. My main focus here is that after I posted last night, I began to feel this was my weakest argument in the sense that it was leading away from a rational discussion, however strong the disagreement. Thanks for not feeding the flame you might not have foreseen I imagined. |
| itwasntme02-22-07, 02:00 PM | or the fighter could have Winged boots if he wanted to spend the extra gold on flying! 25 point buy? I hardly EVER see that being used i useoly see 4d6 top 3 or 30/32 point buy i hardly EVER see 25 point buy so whos saying the fighter MUST work on a 25 point buy game? the fighter if he realy wanted to could buff himself with his own Items and on random treasure drop at the level hes useing it hes acouly Gaining money insteed of loseing it Hears a few items and the price note you dount have to have all of them ... hears just 4 examples Divine Favor (Caster Level 18th) 13,500 Stoneskin 33,500 Silence 4,500 Dimension Door 21,000 Hell sense the Fighter dosnt have ANY good skills ... might as well put them into a CrossClass skill that will help out right? In this case UMD and sense you have a ton of feats ... able learner and/or skill focus could be helpful maybe not hell How long are thouse buffs again you say? The fighter could have plunty of time to do it on himself if he REALY wanted to the problem hear is that most players auto hate Fighters or dount like fighters coz there useoly what eveyone is to start with |
| Bob Loblaw02-22-07, 02:27 PM | The cleric can get huge buffs to strength and con with a couple of spells, as can the druid+wildshape. They can have average scores until combat, and with a bit of persistance...well yeah. Combine that with the spells that give both armor and weapons a boost and they can easily kick the fighter to the curb. Each buff is using resources that may be needed later as well. I'm not disputing the effectiveness of the buff. To me it seems that the anti-fighter crowd forgets that the spells must be prepared. There are a limited number of times this can be pulled off. 1) The creatures like the beholder and golems are rare/created by someone. Golems are generally made to guard something so are rather unlikely to be found anywhere except the ancient tombs and the entire world isn't ancient tombs. Beholders are rare, but can still be encountered but nonmanufactured creatures like them are quite rare, the flyers and other such creatures are far more common and found in more biomes. What about other casters who can do the same thing? Change beholder to wizard with anti-magic ray. Does this change anything? 2) To answer your question, the paladin could use a flying mount to go up and battle. The barbarian would be in a bit of a tighter spot, since they are designed almost purely for melee, however a few javelins with their enraged strength bonus might do the trick. The problem is that the fighter is supposed to be able to deal with multiple combat encounter types, instead it is unable to do so because of how the system works. The barbarian is in a worse spot than the fighter since the figher has enough feats to be able to specialize in more than one weapon. He won't be flashy, but he could theoretically be good with melee and ranged weapons (I don't think I would build him this way, but it can be done). Also, why can't the fighter find some way to fly? Why can't a caster help him with it? I know that I would rather have the grunt taking the hits rather than me. I would throw him into the combat while I stay back. As mentioned earlier, flying mounts or different types of mounts can mitigate this. The point I was making was that these classes can do things outside of combat, provide additional aid to the party, AND be superior to the fighter in combat styles. This is the only real problem that I can see with the fighter. However, not everything needs to be resolved with a die roll. The only time I use die rolls is for significant events. If the fighter wants some information, he can head out and talk to people. He may not get all the information, but he should get something. it's their first of all, anyway the problem is that most other classes have boosters to help them. The rogue has abilities like slippery mind and evasion, and likely has a high wisdom to boot. The barbarian gets a will save bonus when they rage. The Ranger has a fairly good dex and wis most likely as well as their spells. The paladin has their divine grace, decent wisdom, and spells. The Cleric and druid have good fort and will saves as well as having good relevant stats. The wizard will usually have a decent con and can protect themselves from fort based SoDs with fairly low level spells. The fighter has no built in defense mechanisms, they need to spend money for items that take up a slot or they need to have other people in the party deal with the issue for them. I think that the designers may have assumed that the fighter would take Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes with all the feats they have. Reading various articles and books seems to confirm this. I don't agree with it, but that's what I get from the articles. Also, if we can assume the rogue has a good Wisdom, why not the Fighter? I think that was an unfair assessment. The fighter can have higher stats as well. My wizards don't generally have high Constitution scores. I focus on not needing hit points rather than having more. I do agree that the fighter's only way to improve his saves is taking feats (won't give him much overall) and magic items. Personally, I don't think the rogue should have Slippery Mind. The things that can screw a fighter are naturally occurring, hell bad weather alone can screw a ranged character. Large and bigger foes, as well as flyers are a lot more common and in more biomes than the anti-magic creatures. The size difference is only up to two size categories. While this is a +8 bonus on special attacks from those creatures, the fighter should be able to find some way of dealing with it. A ring of freedom of movement eliminates grapples. A cloak of resistance grants a bonus on all saves (up to +5). A figurine of wondrous power can help him fly or flank. A spear readied against a charge can make someone think twice about bull rushing. The same spear can be used 2-handed so it becomes harder to disarm. Overrunning isn't a issue since the fighter can simply step to the side. There really aren't that many issues the fighter can't deal with if the DM allows him to shop like the rest of the party and the player knows what he wants from the character. I have not seen any fighter be useless in any game I have been in unless the player had no idea what he was doing. That doesn't mean that the fighter is uber, it just means that the same problems others see are only for those campaigns where it can be a problem. Each group and campaign is different (not to mention the players themselves). In some games he probably sucks. In some games, he's just fine. The fact that this argument comes up daily on the boards and lasts hundreds of posts supports this. |
| Seerow02-22-07, 02:30 PM | Each buff is using resources that may be needed later as well. I'm not disputing the effectiveness of the buff. To me it seems that the anti-fighter crowd forgets that the spells must be prepared. There are a limited number of times this can be pulled off. This is why I actually prefer the Favored Soul to the Cleric for the Fighter-replacement builds. Really, just avoid savable spells like the plague, pump Cha, and go to town. (Though it would be MUCH more effective as a versatile character if its primary were Wisdom and DCs were set by Cha. Then he could beat the Fighter at Archery as well as at everything else. But alas) |
| FrostHammer02-22-07, 03:36 PM | Even if the Fighter can't be effectively replaced by the Cleric, do you really need one since there are other classes that replace them well? Why have a Fighter when you can have a Warblade, for example? A Warblade is eveyrthing a Fighter aspires to be! Or hell, go with a Druid, and you'll have another full caster that can tank! |
| navar10002-22-07, 04:19 PM | Even if the Fighter can't be effectively replaced by the Cleric, do you really need one since there are other classes that replace them well? Why have a Fighter when you can have a Warblade, for example? A Warblade is eveyrthing a Fighter aspires to be! Or hell, go with a Druid, and you'll have another full caster that can tank! And if your fellow player decides to play a Fighter anyway because he just wants to, what are you going to do about it? |
| FrostHammer02-22-07, 04:29 PM | And that's fine, rp-wise. But mechanically, there's not many good reason to play a fighter. If he wanted to, he could create a warblade, and just rp his character as if he were a fighter. Simple. |
| TheCobra02-22-07, 04:30 PM | 25 point buy? I hardly EVER see that being used That's what my group started out with, though for our second campaign we used 27 points. By the way, beholders and golems don't own casters. Golem are stupid and rather easily beaten by anyone. An arcane caster can go invisible and chuck orbs at them. Or use grease or glitterdust. Heck, a lone 5th-level wizard could wear down even an iron golem in a few days, if not in a single encounter. Golems are only a threat if you can't hide or run away. Beholders are more annoying, but they're as hindered by their antimagic cone as the target is. |
| Squirrelloid02-22-07, 04:56 PM | This is a discussion desperately in need of data. I've already proposed the Party Balance Experiment in another thread (See my sig) - contribute some builds and/or some adventures, and lets make this that much closer to a reality. In my mind the only issue is does the party benefit from replacing the fighter with some other class. If yes, the fighter is the problem. (Alternately, does the party benefit from replacing a meleer with a spellcaster, and so forth). Actual data will mean we can actually arrive at an answer rather than this repeated and pointless bickering. I'm done with these threads until I have data. Unless people want only me to make the builds that get used (and frankly that would make me less than happy as well), I suggest you contribute. |
| Bob Loblaw02-22-07, 05:30 PM | Even if the Fighter can't be effectively replaced by the Cleric, do you really need one since there are other classes that replace them well? Why have a Fighter when you can have a Warblade, for example? A Warblade is eveyrthing a Fighter aspires to be! Or hell, go with a Druid, and you'll have another full caster that can tank! So, why have any classes other than CoDzilla? Since only clerics and druids are the greatest thing ever, there is no need for any other class. What if the player's don't own Tome of Battle? What if they just don't like the classes? I know that no one in my group likes the druid or cleric. Since those options aren't being exercised, can we still play? Only one or two of us wants to play a wizard. Do we have any chance at all? An arcane caster can go invisible and chuck orbs at them. Or use grease or glitterdust. Heck, a lone 5th-level wizard could wear down even an iron golem in a few days, if not in a single encounter. Golems are only a threat if you can't hide or run away. Can the fighter do this also? A few swings with the sword, withdraw and get ready to do it all again. Can the fighter find some way to trip up the golem? Tanglefoot bag (50gp) Clay Golem: Ref +2, Str +7. Held for 1-2 rounds giving the fighter time to set up his next move. Flesh Golem: Ref +2, Str +5. Held for 1-3 rounds giving the fighter time to set up his next move. Iron Golem: Ref +5 Str +11. Held for 1 round giving the fighter a round to set up his next move. Stone Golem: Ref +3 Str +9. Held for 1-2 rounds giving the fighter time to set up his next move. The fighter can place a portable hole under the golem putting the fighter on higher ground granting a +1 bonus on attack rolls (this can be a +2 bonus to damage). The golem will have a total of a -4 penalty to it's AC from the tanglefoot bag that the fighter can exploit with Power Attack. The two-handed fighter has now given himself +10 additional damage without any penalty to his attack roll. If he is invisible as well (a ring or potion can do this), then he gets +2 more to hit (meaning +4 more damage). This should deal with any DR with few problems. A bag of tricks can give him a flanker giving him +4 more damage. Note that this isn't perfect. But it shows that the fighter needs to use tactics. He can't just sit there and trade blows. That would be suicidal. This is a discussion desperately in need of data. I've already proposed the Party Balance Experiment in another thread (See my sig) - contribute some builds and/or some adventures, and lets make this that much closer to a reality. Unfortunately, you will never have enough data. For every encounter someone builds that fighters will be slaughtered, another can be built that will dominate casters. There is no such thing as the perfect party, only the perfect situation for that party. |
| FrostHammer02-22-07, 05:57 PM | II can't account for people not having options. It's like arguing about Warmages when you don't have the Complete series. As for people using all CoD parties...it's been done before, and in generla, they work just fine. That's not to say they can't benefit from having some Arcane casters, but I don't see much that can be done with Fighters that some other class can't fill. In my opinion the one of the most powerful parties is Beguiler, Cleric, Druid, Wizard. Notice all 4 are full casters? WoTC screwed melee classes over before Tome of Battle, and the Fighter is at the bottom compared even to the rest of the melee characters, except when compared to the Samurai, which is also complete crap. We're not discussion what someone would have fun roleplaying. We're discussion efficacy, and whether or not there's a good reason for a party to want a fighter over another class with the assumption of maximizing chances of survival on adventurers and chances of completing their objectives. |
| Kresalak02-22-07, 05:59 PM | If you need flying and the wizard in the party is a jerk, get some boots of flying. Or even better, find a better wizard. So remind me, again, why the Wizard is obligated to use his class features on the Fighter when the Fighter has no class features to use on him? |
| Regularguy02-22-07, 06:12 PM | So remind me, again, why the Wizard is obligated to use his class features on the Fighter when the Fighter has no class features to use on him? Would it help if the Fighter had class features that made him a better wielder of stuff made by the Wizard? If there was a mystical equivalent of 'fighter pilots and the guys who build jets for those fighter pilots', or something? |
| NineInchNall02-22-07, 06:18 PM | So remind me, again, why the Wizard is obligated to use his class features on the Fighter when the Fighter has no class features to use on him? Here you are, with run-ons included: "Because this is a team game and I'm on the team and you should help me out because that's what you're supposed to do and I'll help you out by hitting something in combat. Oh, and it doesn't matter that I can't do anything useful without your help and can't help you out myself because we're all on a team and you have to pick up the slack for me --- but this doesn't mean that I'm not any good, even though I can't pick up your slack since you don't have any and even if you did I don't have any ability to do so without making myself completely one-dimensional via Allied Defense and Improved Combat Expertise or something." :rolleyes: |
| Bob Loblaw02-22-07, 06:42 PM | We're not discussion what someone would have fun roleplaying. We're discussion efficacy, and whether or not there's a good reason for a party to want a fighter over another class with the assumption of maximizing chances of survival on adventurers and chances of completing their objectives. We should be discussing more than just pure numbers. The title of the thread is "Any reason to have a fighter?" If I say roleplaying, then I have given a reason. If I say becuase I don't want to play a cleric. Then I have given a reason. |
| FrostHammer02-22-07, 06:55 PM | And I'm the creator of this thread, and I'm telling you I'm not looking for RP reasons, so your answer has no relevance in my thread. |
| Argaud02-22-07, 07:19 PM | So remind me, again, why the Wizard is obligated to use his class features on the Fighter when the Fighter has no class features to use on him? The fighter class features make him the best target for buffs that affect others (as a matter of fact he would also be far better than any cleric as target of Divine Power or Righteous Might, too: but the geniuses at WotC decided to make those spells personal, or we wouldn’t even have arguments about who is the better meleer). A flying fighter is likely able to cause much more damage to the flying enemies of the wizard that -any- two spells the wizard can use. And I say any two because I can hear the argument than two wizards would be better than a fighter + wizard pair. At the level a flying spell is the best option for a fighter (around levels 5-10, afterwards flying-by-items is very cheap) wizards are hardly able to gate solars. Their summon spells suck ass, and their spell selection isn’t large enough to guarantee they have the right spells to kill the flying enemy, which can be anything, from a flock of hungry hipogriffs (pity I didn’t memorized a couple fireballs this morning) to a vrock (jeez, I should have saved my hold monster instead of wasting it on that troll). |
| Kresalak02-22-07, 07:41 PM | Would it help if the Fighter had class features that made him a better wielder of stuff made by the Wizard? If there was a mystical equivalent of 'fighter pilots and the guys who build jets for those fighter pilots', or something? It would help if the Fighter had actual class features with which he could help his party. (http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewthread?forum=1&thread=723) |
| navar10002-22-07, 07:52 PM | And that's fine, rp-wise. But mechanically, there's not many good reason to play a fighter. If he wanted to, he could create a warblade, and just rp his character as if he were a fighter. Simple. Actually, I would agree on a good day given Tome of Battle were available, you are better off playing any of those martial adept than any PHB dedicated warrior. The maneuvers are that good and fun to play, even for a pro-fighter like me. :D (Just delay Crusader stance progression by one level at level 2.) You would only use the oter classes if you wanted to play a prestige class that's not a martial adept prestige class. Still, I would like to hear from people from the same game where one player played a martial adept and another played a PHB dedicated warrior (doesn't have to be fighter). Campaign preferred, but one-shots ok. How did the PHB class measure up to the martial adept in game mechanics? Was the PHB class still fun to play comparatively speaking? If the martial adepts consistently outshine the PHB dedicated warriors, I'll get off the fence and agree the martial adepts are strictly "better". (I'll still maintain fighters don't suck. :P ) If, as I hope, one is just as fine as the other even if one or the other excelled more in a couple of circumstances, then that would be great too. I want to read about real life gaming situations, hopefully even of different games with different DMs, not hypothetical mathematics of contrived combats. |
| navar10002-22-07, 08:16 PM | So remind me, again, why the Wizard is obligated to use his class features on the Fighter when the Fighter has no class features to use on him? 1) It's not an obligation. 2) It's a feature of the game for spellcasters to cast spells on other player characters as a tactical option in which depending upon the combat could be the best option or an equal in value choice as just casting an attack spell or a buff on himself. You can choose not to cast spells on other party members. Results of that decision will vary depending upon the campaign. 3) It is not a requirement of the game for every class in game mechanics "to give something" to another class. Some classes, like bards, are built around the idea of giving to others. Some classes, like warlocks, are all about their class abilities are only for themselves. Some classes, like clerics, are built around a combination of the two 4) The intent of the game is for everyone to work together, not keep score of who contributes the most and placing different values of different types of contributions. |
| Bob Loblaw02-22-07, 09:34 PM | And I'm the creator of this thread, and I'm telling you I'm not looking for RP reasons, so your answer has no relevance in my thread. We have also provided plenty of other reasons why. If you wanted a different answer then you should have asked a different question. Honestly, there are tons of reasons to play every class out there. I have said numerous times that the dynamics of the gaming group have a huge amount of impact on the effectiveness of the fighter (or any class for that matter). I don't see the weaknesses of the class to be any worse than the weaknesses of any other class. Perhaps people should try a different play style and see what happens with the fighter. |
| NineInchNall02-22-07, 09:40 PM | Still, I would like to hear from people from the same game where one player played a martial adept and another played a PHB dedicated warrior (doesn't have to be fighter). Campaign preferred, but one-shots ok. How did the PHB class measure up to the martial adept in game mechanics? Was the PHB class still fun to play comparatively speaking? I can only speak for a 3rd-5th level game in which I was playing a martial adept. My character outshone no one. Well, I take that back. When he actually contributed, he was a lot flashier and more, well, impressive than the standard characters were. Oh, they generally did more damage (as I wasn't really playing a damage intensive build) but the way my character delivered his damage was just so much cooler that it seemed like he did more damage. You know what? I actually had fun with a melee character for the first time in like (GAWD!) five years. The book was shortly thereafter banned. Why? Oh, you know, the typical ... Actually, let me quote the email I got. I picked up the Book of Nine Swords and have been flipping through it. [DM2] and I both discussed it a bit and we both agree that the classes and abilites in the book are overbalanced for our games. The classes are not in line with the existing melee classes and the abilities are nigh unlimited. That they have to be used in combat is not enough of a limiting factor considering the nature of the game and make them superior to spells of the same level. In other words, people still just look at the whole unlimited uses per day thing and freak out. |
| Squirrelloid02-22-07, 10:46 PM | I can only speak for a 3rd-5th level game in which I was playing a martial adept. My character outshone no one. Well, I take that back. When he actually contributed, he was a lot flashier and more, well, impressive than the standard characters were. Oh, they generally did more damage (as I wasn't really playing a damage intensive build) but the way my character delivered his damage was just so much cooler that it seemed like he did more damage. You know what? I actually had fun with a melee character for the first time in like (GAWD!) five years. The book was shortly thereafter banned. Why? Oh, you know, the typical ... Actually, let me quote the email I got. In other words, people still just look at the whole unlimited uses per day thing and freak out. Wow... your DMs wouldn't know balance if it bit them... Let me guess, they are both fine with Druids, right? |
| malisteen02-22-07, 11:06 PM | In other words, people still just look at the whole unlimited uses per day thing and freak out. People still freak out over Warlock, of all things. Just not as much, because warlock is 'arcane' in theme, and people have been conditioned to think "arcane characters can do cool things, martial characters can't." There's not much you can do, though, if the DM decides not to allow it. You can still play a cool martial character, though: The standard melee arcane gish (How'd it go? Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight/SpellSword, maybe Battle Sorcerer instead of Wizard? CharOp boards can help with the details). Unlike Cleric or Druid, their pre-established notions won't have them insisting you heal people every other round (even though they already have a dedicated healer), and you'll be able to do 'cool tricks' as much as you want without anyone throwing a fit (of course he can do cool things, he's a wizard), and they'll accept that you're a melee character because you'll have one level of fighter. In terms of concept and game play you'll be similar to an initiator or Duskblade (they probably won't let you play that, either), and in all honesty from mid levels on you'll be more powerful (though levels 2 - 6 can be somewhat painful, iirc). Sadly, you won't have much to speak of in terms of skills, but arcane spells can grant some ooc utility. |
| FrostHammer02-22-07, 11:17 PM | For a Gish, never leave home with Abjurant Champion! You raise your Caster Level to your BAB thanks to AC's fifth level ability. D10 hit dice, full BAB, full spell casting, extra abilities, what's not to love about that class? Go Fighter/Sorc or Wiz/Spellsword/Abjurant champion/Eldritch Knight. People still freak out over Warlock, of all things What the heck? I thought most everyone knew that Warlocks are underpowered? |
| Bard-of-all-trades02-23-07, 03:34 AM | Originally Posted by FrostHammer And I'm the creator of this thread, and I'm telling you I'm not looking for RP reasons, so your answer has no relevance in my thread. We have also provided plenty of other reasons why. If you wanted a different answer then you should have asked a different question. Honestly, there are tons of reasons to play every class out there. I have said numerous times that the dynamics of the gaming group have a huge amount of impact on the effectiveness of the fighter (or any class for that matter). I don't see the weaknesses of the class to be any worse than the weaknesses of any other class. Perhaps people should try a different play style and see what happens with the fighter. This is where I'd like to step in and mention a great interview with Monte Cook in Dead Gentlemen Presents; 3.5 Trimmings (http://boards1.wizards.com/leaving.php?destination=http://www.deadgentlemenpresents.com/archive/episode-35-trimmings/) He makes a very valid point to take into consideration that is ultimately relevant in this discussion. By the way, I'm pulling for you all the way Bob Loblaw. :cheer: |
| malisteen02-23-07, 11:55 AM | I listened that interview, and I do keep in mind what's fun. I've played many fighters, because I like the idea of fighters. But they aren't fun. With nothing to do out of combat at all, and with nothing significant to do in combat past mid levels, a straight fighter in a by-the-rules (and by this I mean social interactions include skill checks) campaign inevitably fades into the background. In practice this doesn't mean much, since everyone in their right mind jumps ship to PrC. Of course, I used to think fighter was fine on it's own, and wanted to prove it to myself, so I didn't always. I had one fighter built for a fun gimmickk - two bastard swords. It's not optimised, but it's fun, and I had the new PHBII on my side. As usual, I was great in a fight for several levels, but useless out of one. By mid levels I sucked everywhere, so I grabbed leadership to have a cleric follow me around and spend his life buffing me (the party healer spent most of his time healing). Then I was ok again for a while. After the party healer started seeing how good buffing could be, he started buffing himself and meleeing some. He completely outshone me, with mostly the same buffs. "but you built for fluff, not effectiveness!" Well, sure. But so did the party cleric. So did everyone else in the party. And while they weren't optimized for it, they didn't need the most broken feat in the game just so they could almost (but not even!) keep up with the rest of the party. Worse, this game actually had some encounters that weren't combat (gasp?), and my shiite skill list and no skill points and no relevant class abilities meant I was useless in all of them. Another fighter (this one pre-PHBII) was one of the chain-trip variety, this one a hobgoblin (DM used LA buyoff, so I was caught up with the rest of the party by level 5 or so). This guy was awesome early on. Totally dominated fights early on. By mid levels it was getting tougher, though, as we mostly fought stuff out of the monster manual, and I was regularly coming up against untrippable opponants (Don't even mention Jotun-whatever. This was an Eberron game, and the Jotun-feat says right in it that you can't take it unless you come from a specific area of Faerun), and I started realizing that three of my feats (a six level investment!) were useless. Occasionally we would fight nPC villians, and I could try and trip them, but by later in the game, even these would often be flying, or they'd be attacking from a distance, and when I wasn't gat-tripping, I was worse off then the two bastard sword guy. And this DM also for some reason thought that there should be a balance between combat and non-combat encounters, leaving me completely useless three quarters of the time and not even up to party standards in the remaining 25%. I've played other fighters as well, though only those two to high levels without multiclassing, and all in all the story is always the same. You just don't compete on a level playing field past low levels in combat, and no matter what you can't contribute out of combat. Now, the fighter is fine for what it is - a 2 to 4 level springboard into a martial PrC with feat prereqs. But don't be angry at me for wanting it to be a class. Not like a Wizard or Cleric, but like Barbarian or Ranger or Rogue or Monk even. I'm not asking for increadible power, just the ability to contribute something unique and significant to combat, and the ability to contribute anything at all outside of a fight. Until then, I just can't play my favorite class as a class. |
| FrostHammer02-23-07, 12:19 PM | Ask your DM to let you change your feats every morning or something, and also ask him to bump your skills up to 4 + Int, and add Bluff and one knowledge skill of your choice to your class list. Then, find a magic sword that dispels upon hitting to try to dispel enemy flight if it's magical, then go back to tripping :D |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-23-07, 12:34 PM | The number one reason I play fighters, and I frequently do, I can never have enough feats. |
| Ghenesh02-23-07, 02:58 PM | I listened that interview, and I do keep in mind what's fun. I've played many fighters, because I like the idea of fighters. But they aren't fun. ... ... Now, the fighter is fine for what it is - a 2 to 4 level springboard into a martial PrC with feat prereqs. But don't be angry at me for wanting it to be a class. Not like a Wizard or Cleric, but like Barbarian or Ranger or Rogue or Monk even. I'm not asking for incredible power, just the ability to contribute something unique and significant to combat, and the ability to contribute anything at all outside of a fight. Until then, I just can't play my favorite class as a class. :weep: I feel the exact same way! Best post in this thread so far. |
| NineInchNall02-23-07, 03:11 PM | Wow... your DMs wouldn't know balance if it bit them... Let me guess, they are both fine with Druids, right? Wanna know what I replaced the ToB character with? Huh? Do ya? A Druid with frickin' Rashemi Elemental Summoning. GAR! I mean, yeah, I'm orders of magnitude more powerful with the Druid, but I kind of wanted to play a swordmaster for once. I haven't for a long time because I know what happens to characters like that. ToB was a way to make a melee character that actually, I don't know, scaled and had options beyond attack, fail-to-trip, fail-to-bull-rush, or GAH! So much for that idea. Here comes my Druid. He hasn't picked up Natural Spell yet, 'cause I wanted to acclimate the DM to my using Rashemi Elemental Summoning. It's really, really, REALLY infuriating to have to handle one's DMs with kid gloves. I mean really frickin' irritating. Now 8th level, my Druid spends most of the day in wild shape. Probably in polar bear or dire lion form, and will have day-long buffs making him more than the equivalent of the party Fighter. Should he ever need to do some utility casting, he'll switch wild shape off. Whoopee. |
| itwasntme02-23-07, 03:21 PM | That's what my group started out with, though for our second campaign we used 27 points. By the way, beholders and golems don't own casters. Golem are stupid and rather easily beaten by anyone. An arcane caster can go invisible and chuck orbs at them. Or use grease or glitterdust. Heck, a lone 5th-level wizard could wear down even an iron golem in a few days, if not in a single encounter. Golems are only a threat if you can't hide or run away. Beholders are more annoying, but they're as hindered by their antimagic cone as the target is. with your games on having 27 point buy is your game most games i see (Not my own) Are 30 or 32 point buy if there buying points Most games i see/hear about useoly have it where the Golem/Beholders end up hurting the spell casters ALOT but thats you game again fine then your useing hit and run tastics then i dount want to see people argueing about the monk or anything eles doing the same damn thing To someone eles: a warblade vs a fighter ... the warblade has nice things yes but with your arguements even the warblade is dumb your argueing about the AC/HP/Saves of the class's so to you it seems no matter how much damage you can do means dick to you so i was argueing on your terms a Fighter has all the feats in the world to allow him to do w/e the heck he wants as long as the fight knows what hes doing hes fine Note Druids+Wildshape dosnt change Druids HP and has earlyer argued on it dosnt change there AC alot eather |
| itwasntme02-23-07, 03:25 PM | Most people who play tanks type class's dount care about Skill points that much in fact the reason why many people play them is becouse they rather have the feats then the skill points alot of feats r juicy and powerfull yes someone eles can take them but the whole point of the fighter is to have tons of feats meaning he can have more feats then other people more ways to be juicy in other reguards There are differnt ways how to play spell casters and differnt ways how to play Tanks and differnt ways how to play support class's |
| itwasntme02-23-07, 03:33 PM | Wanna know what I replaced the ToB character with? Huh? Do ya? A Druid with frickin' Rashemi Elemental Summoning. GAR! I mean, yeah, I'm orders of magnitude more powerful with the Druid, but I kind of wanted to play a swordmaster for once. I haven't for a long time because I know what happens to characters like that. ToB was a way to make a melee character that actually, I don't know, scaled and had options beyond attack, fail-to-trip, fail-to-bull-rush, or GAH! So much for that idea. Here comes my Druid. He hasn't picked up Natural Spell yet, 'cause I wanted to acclimate the DM to my using Rashemi Elemental Summoning. It's really, really, REALLY infuriating to have to handle one's DMs with kid gloves. I mean really frickin' irritating. you beleve in heart and soul that druids should be number 1 on eveything dount you? lets not get into that arguement again it was stated how the druid was good as a tank and bad at being a tank lets just drop the whole druid thing and not repeat that arguement |
| ZocckCastlestorm02-23-07, 04:03 PM | Fighter are NOT weak! 5) Proficient with ALL Armour & ALL Shields-including Tower! 4) Proficient with ALL Simple and ALL Martial Weapons 3) Best BAB 2) Good HD (d10) 1) FEATS!!! Ye Gods! Look at what a simple 6th level Human Fighter can have for Feats; Base: Improved Toughness (+1 HP/Level),Fighter1: Power Attack and Human: Iron Will (It's a good idea to beef-up any weak saves), Fighter2: Cleave, Level3: Weapon Focus(Any), Fighter4: Weapon Special(Any) and Level6: Lightning Reflexes(See Iron Will) and Fighter6: Great Cleave('Nuff Said!) At higher levels this can get REALLY ugly for anything in reach. Don't forget that Melee Weapon Mastery(Any) DOES Stack with Weapon Specialization/Greater of the same Damage Type! A Fighter can afford to take Feats that are off his/her beaten path-A few from Point Blank and a few from Mounted Combat added to the Fighter above can make this a really nasty combatant on land, on horseback or at range. |
| itwasntme02-23-07, 04:25 PM | Fighter are NOT weak! 5) Proficient with ALL Armour & ALL Shields-including Tower! 4) Proficient with ALL Simple and ALL Martial Weapons 3) Best BAB 2) Good HD (d10) 1) FEATS!!! Ye Gods! Look at what a simple 6th level Human Fighter can have for Feats; Base: Improved Toughness (+1 HP/Level),Fighter1: Power Attack and Human: Iron Will (It's a good idea to beef-up any weak saves), Fighter2: Cleave, Level3: Weapon Focus(Any), Fighter4: Weapon Special(Any) and Level6: Lightning Reflexes(See Iron Will) and Fighter6: Great Cleave('Nuff Said!) At higher levels this can get REALLY ugly for anything in reach. Don't forget that Melee Weapon Mastery(Any) DOES Stack with Weapon Specialization/Greater of the same Damage Type! A Fighter can afford to take Feats that are off his/her beaten path-A few from Point Blank and a few from Mounted Combat added to the Fighter above can make this a really nasty combatant on land, on horseback or at range. thats just one build but yes your point is made having feats are good things and the fighter is the guy whos able to get feats many people i beleve will argue on the fact that they rather not have feats and rather do other things point is eveyone has a differnt playing style tho i useoly rather take Monkey Grip at first level Improve Toughtness and Weapon Focus (All at first level) thats just me tho off the bat Cleave and great cleave are good for mulitbol monster slaying the anti fighters are argueing on the fact that other people can be better then them in all reguards which is silly and dumb to think that on any class but you should try and say it in a polite way |
| FrostHammer02-23-07, 04:48 PM | Fighter are NOT weak! 5) Proficient with ALL Armour & ALL Shields-including Tower! 4) Proficient with ALL Simple and ALL Martial Weapons 3) Best BAB 2) Good HD (d10) 1) FEATS!!! Barbarians get *Proficient with All Simple and Martial Weapons *Proficient with all shield except Tower and all armor except heavy. Guess what? Tower shields suck, and so do heavy armor, thanks to crappy max Dex bonus. NOBODY uses heavy armor. Mithril Fullplate is Medium armor. *Best BAB *BEST HD (d112) * Has ACTUAL CLASS ABILITIES in addition to feats! OH NOEZ! BABA IS BROKEN NOW! Paladins get all of that, and they get MOUNTs and SAVING THROWS and SPELLS TOO! OMG THEY ARE TOO STRONG! And furthermore, if you wanted all of those, you can just take ONE level of fighter, and get all the proficiencies. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow02-23-07, 04:52 PM | Oh, I got one. I want to playa warrior that doesn't cast spells, is bound to a moral code, rages, uses mauneuvers or has a bound companion and that still has nearly unlimited combat styles he could use. Oh that would be a fighter, no strings and lots of feats for whatever combat style you want. :D |
| FrostHammer02-23-07, 04:58 PM | No, you get ONE style. you specialize in one style to make it work, and then cry when your spiked chain tripper can't cut it anymore in the higher levels because too many things are immune. Chargers are kind of ok with Shock Trooper I guess, but it's still a one-trick pony. The thing the Fighter lacks the MOST is versatality. Clerics and Wizards and prepare different spells each day. Warblades can change some of their feats around once a day, and can prepare different manuevers on the fly. Even specialies mages like Beguilers still has OPTIONS thanks to spells like Shadow Evocation. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-23-07, 05:01 PM | Oh, I got one. I want to playa warrior that doesn't cast spells, is bound to a moral code, rages, uses mauneuvers or has a bound companion and that still has nearly unlimited combat styles he could use. Oh that would be a fighter, no strings and lots of feats for whatever combat style you want. :D Now if only he was actually any good at those combat styles other then charging damage dealing.... Seriously +4 to trip and bullrush? Great, you now have a 50% chance of tripping the Dwarf. I want my combat techniques to work more then half the time against equally weak characters (warriors). Oh and Fighter Feats are not comparable to class abilities past level 6 or so. Unless we're counting non core stuff like PHBII, in which case you really only have 5 bonus feats after you take the weapon mastery chain. And it still doesn't hold up. Your also not really a versitile fighter anymore so much as a weapon specialist.... |
| DragonRg602-23-07, 05:24 PM | Frankly, I like the fighter, and I consider that reason enough to have one. It nicely falls into a slot I feel other classes neglect - the no-nonsense monster masher. None of this messing about with maneuvers and stances, nor flamboyant rages and styles for the fighter. The only possible change I'd make would be to give the fighter Improved Unarmed Strike free at 1st level; And that just because I like the idea of my fighter being able to beat the living snot out of that jerk in the bar without being hammered with attacks of opportunity. All very well the monk being a whirling storm of punches and kicks - what about the poor fighter, who if anything has the best excuse for a bar-room brawl? |
| FrostHammer02-23-07, 05:28 PM | Flavor wise, Warblades are pretty much no-nonsense when it comes to fighting. They train all their lives for it. Swordsages are the ones with anime-ish flashy moves.but agreed, Improved Unarmed Strike should be a bonus Fighters get. |
| Rulebook02-23-07, 05:34 PM | as i say in EVERY one of these kinds of threads... play a game where you have to wade through 17+ encounters per day, with no feasable way to get 8 hours of rest. (like the Worlds Largest Dungeon) you will never EVER doubt the fighter again. After a barbarians rages are gone, all he is is a higher HP fighter with less armor and options. Paladins fare slightly better than barbarians (and sligtly worse than fighters) because they keep armor and saves/immunities. Monks are mighty in these situations too, but they dont have the staying power of a Fighter (or even a barbarian) Rangers are about equal power with the paladin. the fighters though usually have a feat combo for every situation, dont need to rest to recover thier powers, and have them all day long. while it is true that most of you will never play that dungoen, or challenge yourselves with that kind of play regardless, the long haul is where the fighter shines. (and to be fair, we tackled the dungeon with 2 fighters, a paladin, a cleric, and a warlock... as our SECOND party) |
| DragonRg602-23-07, 05:39 PM | Of course, the Warblade isn't the worst offender, but it does use some fairly flashy maneuvers (not to scream "Mountain Hammer!"). Actually, now that "Rulebook" mentions it, the fighter has got staying power - no limited-use abilities. Granted, the ToB classes have use-by-encounter abilities, and the Warblade does regain these by making the most blunt and straightforward of actions - an attack. Makes for cleaner, more readable character sheets, too. No class betters the fighter in this, save perhaps the NPC classes. |
| FrostHammer02-23-07, 05:49 PM | The Tome of Battle classes have just as much staying power as the Fighter, and so do Persistent DMM Clerics. to a Lesser Extent, Druid too because Wildshape lasts a LONG time, and the Druid has multiple uses of it. The spells will run out, of course, but even without Spells a Druid still contribtes a whole bunch. Wildhsape is THAT good. Again, as OOTS succinctly proclaims, "I have special abilities that are more powerful than your entire class!" |
| malisteen02-23-07, 05:56 PM | Fighters are restricted per day like everybody else- by hit points. When a wizard runs out of spells, he can rope trick and sleep. When the fighter runs out of hit points he better run away. Hit points are just as limited as anything else. A standard fighter can't face 17+ encounters in a day any better then anyone else (especially when you consider that the fighter needs the spellcasters to use their limited resources to buff him in order to keep up with equivalent CR challenges). About the only character who can do that is a DMM persistant cleric, with powerful offensive and defensive buffs that last all day and a healing wand to get back his HP between battles. That and maybe a Crusader who can heal up every couple rounds during a fight. Also, reccomended encounters/day is 4. Even if the fighter could shine in a 17 encounter paradigm (which he can't), that's four times the reccomended encounters per day, making it so far out of the games assumptions that such a campaign can hardly be called D&D anymore. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-23-07, 06:04 PM | If your party is facing 17 encounters a day at any level past 9 you've failed to properly handle the situation in some manner. This becomes more and more true as your level increases. Divination spells exist for a reason. Sometimes scry and fry is the answer. Besides anything that a fighter can survive 17 waves of should be bypassed by invisibility sphere or something similar. |
| Rulebook02-23-07, 06:49 PM | yeah, nevermind guys. y'all wont see past "this is how they balance the game... so i have to unbalance for the win!" so you gripe when somebody says "lets unbalance the forces against us, and what we can do" its useless posing scenerios, so i guess im done with these threads. i guess if its not uber cheese, its underpowered and sucks. |
| Razefire02-23-07, 06:56 PM | Man, these posts make me laugh. Fighters are for melee, thats it. If you cant handle that, play something good like a rogue or mage, lol. |
| FrostHammer02-23-07, 07:03 PM | The point that many people try to make is that if they want melee, thre are better options than fighter. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-23-07, 07:09 PM | The point that many people try to make is that if they want melee, thre are better options than fighter. Or at the very least options that are just as good, but can do something out of melee too. |
| NineInchNall02-23-07, 07:14 PM | yeah, nevermind guys. y'all wont see past "this is how they balance the game... so i have to unbalance for the win!" so you gripe when somebody says "lets unbalance the forces against us, and what we can do" its useless posing scenerios, so i guess im done with these threads. i guess if its not uber cheese, its underpowered and sucks. Straw man. Specifically, mischaracterization of the opposition's argument as a dichotomy, which would be in this case a false dichotomy. |
| Kratch02-23-07, 07:44 PM | The point that many people try to make is that if they want melee, thre are better options than fighter. like what? |
| NineInchNall02-23-07, 07:45 PM | :eek: :eek: :eek: |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-23-07, 07:45 PM | like what? Well Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and sometimes Rogue using core. Edit: Out of core there's anything from ToB, Duskblade, Knight.... |
| Kratch02-23-07, 09:31 PM | Well Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and sometimes Rogue using core. Edit: Out of core there's anything from ToB, Duskblade, Knight.... Well, he said better options for melee Barbarians: I honestly didn't think someone would even mention barbarian to me, let alone list it first. I have on a number of threads posted my comparison of fighter vs barbarian (i'm sure i've even posted it here on this thread too, but not sure what page), which i think shows quite well the barbarian has no real advantage over the fighter. Here's a link to my comparison (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11499481&postcount=69) on another thread. The fact that you put barbarian first makes me wonder if your just jumping on the "hate fighters" band-wagon. Cleric and druid. Sure, they can perform melee roles, but they are not melee characters. Both require a lot of continual bookkeeping with the spells, and some people just want to swing a sword without keeping track of 8-9 pages of spell lists (i think emma's spell lists easily reach 11 pages long, depending on how many books you use). Paladin i haven't done a comparison of yet (i keep meaning to), but wether it's better or not is still questionable (different sure, not better), plus is limited to good campaigns. I've seen evil spells and tactics used far to often against the use of fighters in this debate(aniimate dead being a big example) to dismiss the paladins code completely. Rogue is not a better melee option then a fighter, it is a very different option, and takes a completely different mindset to play. |
| NineInchNall02-23-07, 09:33 PM | Well, he said better options for melee ... Cleric and druid. Sure, they can perform melee roles, but they are not melee characters. Both require a lot of continual bookkeeping with the spells, and some people just want to swing a sword without keeping track of 8-9 pages of spell lists (i think emma's spell lists easily reach 11 pages long, depending on how many books you use). Um, they can perform in the melee role, but they aren't limited to melee, so they're not a valid comparison? wtf? |
| Thomas_Covenant02-23-07, 09:36 PM | Makes for cleaner, more readable character sheets, too. No class betters the fighter in this, save perhaps the NPC classes.Well, that's true, but that's a penalty for the Fighter, not a bonus. "Lack of class features" isn't a criteria I want to be "Best in show" at. |
| NineInchNall02-23-07, 09:40 PM | Makes for cleaner, more readable character sheets, too. No class betters the fighter in this, save perhaps the NPC classes. Wait. What? That's freakin' hilarious. :rofl: You just made my rhetorical day. :cookie: |
| malisteen02-23-07, 09:43 PM | Barbarians: I honestly didn't think someone would even mention barbarian to me, let alone list it first. I have on a number of threads posted my comparison of fighter vs barbarian (i'm sure i've even posted it here on this thread too, but not sure what page), which i think shows quite well the barbarian has no real advantage over the fighter. Other people will respond to the rest, but Barbarian is a better class then fighter because it can actually respond to more then one situation (combat with creatures vulnerable to attack rolls). The barbarian has better skill points and a better skill list, allowing it to, say, take a watch shift at night, or have a chance to act in the surprise round. Add in class features of use when avoiding traps and that's already three potential encounters or situations that a barbarian can respond to. Two more then a fighter has open to him. To be honest, if you just give fighter a decent skill list and four skill points/level many of my complaints vanish. With expansion feats he's no longer the dregs of the bottom of the barrel. He's still bad, but it's then more of a caster/non-caster issue. |
| Argaud02-23-07, 10:12 PM | Well, he said better options for melee Barbarians: I honestly didn't think someone would even mention barbarian to me, let alone list it first. I have on a number of threads posted my comparison of fighter vs barbarian (i'm sure i've even posted it here on this thread too, but not sure what page), which i think shows quite well the barbarian has no real advantage over the fighter. Here's a link to my comparison (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11499481&postcount=69) on another thread. The fact that you put barbarian first makes me wonder if your just jumping on the "hate fighters" band-wagon. But that is at level 18+. A barbarian is better than a fighter at low level because simply there is not a single feat that can match a +4 to str and con, and with a single feat (Extra Rage) the barbarian has that in most battles. At high level I lean to believe the fighter is better, though. Paladin i haven't done a comparison of yet (i keep meaning to), but wether it's better or not is still questionable (different sure, not better), plus is limited to good campaigns. I've seen evil spells and tactics used far to often against the use of fighters in this debate(aniimate dead being a big example) to dismiss the paladins code completely. You will find the paladin a very tough warrior. After about level 6 the mount bestows to him an almost constant +4 to AC, for instance. His saves are excellent even at low level, and he can heal himself fairly without provoking AoOs. Once he has the mount, I think a paladin is better than the fighter for almost everything. Against non-evil opponents he lacks some punch, but his mount can attack too, and his lance charges are quite devastating. He only fails at ranged combat, and again the mount is a big help, since it can be used to fly as soon as level 6 (I prefer the dire wolf to the hippogriff, but YMMV). |
| Kratch02-23-07, 10:18 PM | To be honest, if you just give fighter a decent skill list and four skill points/level many of my complaints vanish. With expansion feats he's no longer the dregs of the bottom of the barrel. He's still bad, but it's then more of a caster/non-caster issue. This i don't disagree with. Fighters do need work, but they aren't so bad off as to be getting the reputation it's getting. The debate between melee (in general) and casters is a valid one, one that is very difficult to decide one way or another, for many different reasons (but i've gone over that a few times before). The debate of wether or not the fighter needs to be improved is a non debate, almost ever pro-fighter i've seen (including myself) agree the fighters skills list needs to be improved. the debate on wether the fighter sucks/is obsolete/etc. however should not be taking place. it is more typical that people don't know how to deal with the lack of resources to spend (not to say they don't have options, just that they don't have expendable options), they have nothing but they're HP's to keep track of and start to think they're not contributing anything. Ether that, or they become disillusioned that maxed survival and listen skills, the choice to expend a limited quantity of rages and the ability to avoid traps the rogue missed can make a class go from suck to good. |
| megageek1202-23-07, 10:32 PM | yeah, nevermind guys. y'all wont see past "this is how they balance the game... so i have to unbalance for the win!" so you gripe when somebody says "lets unbalance the forces against us, and what we can do" its useless posing scenerios, so i guess im done with these threads. i guess if its not uber cheese, its underpowered and sucks. People don't think the rogue sucks. Or the Warblade. Or the Psion. Or the Psychic Warrior. Don't make baseless assumptions abput other people. We just don't like classes that can do one thing, and can't even do that well... |
| Bhaal00602-23-07, 10:57 PM | in DnD "Fighter" vs Caster is pointless, ive seen this fight happen a thousand times, the only factor that seems to change the outcome is who wins initiative, which the fighter has over most casters |
| scienceman4702-23-07, 11:07 PM | Whats your fighters dex? Does he have improved initiative? How in the hell is a fighter beating a wizard in initiative? |
| Bhaal00602-23-07, 11:15 PM | Now, form what ive seen you guys are all focusing on a couple of feats, now check this out Exotic Weapon Prof Bas. Sword Two-Weapon Fighting Oversized Two-Weapon fighting Impoved Buckler Defense Two-Weapon Defense Weapon Focus (Bas.Sw) If you're a human, your, basically a cannon by 4th level fighting with these feats in this manner, applies -3/-3 penalty on attack rolls with an average Str your looking at a +3/+3 to +4/+4 |
| Kratch02-23-07, 11:17 PM | But that is at level 18+. A barbarian is better than a fighter at low level because simply there is not a single feat that can match a +4 to str and con, and with a single feat (Extra Rage) the barbarian has that in most battles. Well, at first level, your rage does hold an advantage as far to hit and damage. Unfortunatly, you also are likely on par with AC due to the costs of the heavy armours. by 4th level the gap closes a fair bit, weapon focus, spec and combat focus gets the fighter almost back to the same level rage offers, and offers it at all times, not just while raging, but the barbarian has other minor features as well, so he still continues to maintain a lead. By 8th level, the fighter has added combat stability and weapon mastery, gaining a +1/+2 advantage in combat, and a +1 overal advantage on opposed str rolls. at this point the barbarian has DR/-1, improved uncanny dodge and an HP advantage still, but the fighter likely has his good armour, giving him a slight AC advantage to offset some of the HP difference. at level 10 the fighter gets combat vigor, now he has a significant advantage, with +5 more on opposed str rolls, +2 more on will saves, and fast healing4 to more then offset the HP advantage the barbarian holds, especially with the slight AC advantage, considering he still has only +4 on con and str (though when combined with his DR, they are pretty much balanced out at this point). At level 11 the barbarian closes the gap a little as far as damage/to hit, leaving the fighter with only +1 damage over him. after level 12 the fighter is starting to pick up the blindfighting to somewhat offset uncanny dodge (not improved) plus his other feats that will put him a fair bit above the barbarian in combat till the barbaian gets mighty rage at level 20. But all this is assuming you get extra rage, the problem is, extra rage and/or a bonus feat to take it is not a class feature. And without that extra rage, the barbarian only holds that advantage in a limited number of encounters, and falls behind in those that remain. i propose, while your spending your feat on extra rage, just so you can funtion consistantly in the low levels, the fighter is taking something like power attack to cleave or combat reflex's, granting extra attacks with his level feat. I think bonus attacks per round offsets the advantage or having enough rages to last the day, and thus the bonus's they provide. and from here it can start getting into other feats the barbarian can take with his level feats, which is the whole reason i compared class features only. I have no desire to account for every feat combination for every level of barbarian, thats just not gonna happen. I suppose your right, the barbarian holds an advantage (not huge, but definatly there) in the mid-low levels. At high level I lean to believe the fighter is better, though. And yet it's the high levels everyone is complaining about, often using the barbarian as an example of a superior class. I'm just trying to differentiate the fighters suck vs the melee's suck. 2 different arguments that some people can't seem to seperate. You will find the paladin a very tough warrior. After about level 6 the mount bestows to him an almost constant +4 to AC, for instance. His saves are excellent even at low level, and he can heal himself fairly without provoking AoOs. Once he has the mount, I think a paladin is better than the fighter for almost everything. Against non-evil opponents he lacks some punch, but his mount can attack too, and his lance charges are quite devastating. He only fails at ranged combat, and again the mount is a big help, since it can be used to fly as soon as level 6 (I prefer the dire wolf to the hippogriff, but YMMV). I know it will be difficult, which is part of the reason i keep putting it off. The variable nature of the spellcasting alone (and the fact i don't own all the books) is something i'm having troubles figuring how to compare/account for. |
| Bhaal00602-23-07, 11:18 PM | assuming lvl 10, quick recconoiter, improved init, and mage slayer, ho! plus called shot Str:16 Con:15 Dex:16 Int:6 Wis:6 Cha:6 |
| Flan02-23-07, 11:19 PM | Other people will respond to the rest, but Barbarian is a better class then fighter because it can actually respond to more then one situation (combat with creatures vulnerable to attack rolls). The barbarian has better skill points and a better skill list, allowing it to, say, take a watch shift at night, or have a chance to act in the surprise round. Add in class features of use when avoiding traps and that's already three potential encounters or situations that a barbarian can respond to. Two more then a fighter has open to him. If it's just skills thats the problem it's a very simple fix. A 1 level dip to factotum and a feat give fighters full access to every skill in the game. Heck you're comparing to barbarian, a 1 level dip to barbarian and fighters get everything important the barbarian class ever gets, and can still get weapon supremecy, and with Able Learner get all their skills too. If the fighter feels skills are really essential they get a feat every 2 levels they can convert to 5 skill points. But it's obviously a straw man. Skills are totally pointless in DnD aside from use magic device. Why sneak when you can silence, why hide when you can invisibility, why climb walls when you can spider climb or fly, why swim when you can breath underwater, walk on water etc. why use the heal skill when you can simply cast cure or drink a potion? Why track or find traps when you can find the path? As for clerics being better fighters than fighters I have to laugh. Blind Fighting? Improved Grapple? Improved Trip? Power Attack? Improved Critical? Leap Attack? Shock Trooper? Weapon Supremecy? Spring Attack? A cleric trying to melee is a simply laughable idea. It's frankly absurd thought. Why waste several rounds prepping spells to make them half a fighter that can't deal with being grappled, DR, cover, being tripped, reach etc. when they can hold the charge on a harm, walk up, make combat casting and tag someone with 150-300 damage from a pair of harms? Sure fighters are laughably underpowered compared to pure casters, but as a meleer? No. |
| Bhaal00602-23-07, 11:20 PM | If you really wanna kill a fighter, play a monk, sunder grapple game over |
| Kratch02-23-07, 11:23 PM | We just don't like classes that can do one thing, Isn't this more a matter of personal oppinion then an issue of balance? and can't even do that well... This has yet to be proven, only repeated claimed. in fact, i think i've done quite well proving they are at least as good as babarians as a class, and a s;ight bit superior to a barbarian in combat, which i believe many of the anti-melee (not just anti-fighter, but all melee) will agree with, at least argaud and i think seerow, at the very least. |
| scienceman4702-23-07, 11:39 PM | Fair enough kratch. Fighters are the best of the PHB full BABzers. Melee still tanks, and their ain't no tanking in DnD like in WoW, so they might as well go get a tankard while the wizards creates a tank golem and lights the enemies up like the gas tank of a pinto. Oh and Bhaal, Monks are not weak, but they are skirmishers, and will need to really catch the fighter off-guard to win in a fight. |
| FrostHammer02-24-07, 12:03 AM | I think Stunning Fist just might win them the fight here. That and Quivering Palm. |
| megageek1202-24-07, 12:06 AM | yeah, nevermind guys. y'all wont see past "this is how they balance the game... so i have to unbalance for the win!" so you gripe when somebody says "lets unbalance the forces against us, and what we can do" its useless posing scenerios, so i guess im done with these threads. i guess if its not uber cheese, its underpowered and sucks. Isn't this more a matter of personal oppinion then an issue of balance? This has yet to be proven, only repeated claimed. in fact, i think i've done quite well proving they are at least as good as babarians as a class, and a s;ight bit superior to a barbarian in combat, which i believe many of the anti-melee (not just anti-fighter, but all melee) will agree with, at least argaud and i think seerow, at the very least. No, because the fighter has a worse skill list than the frikkin commoner, so I do not think he is even moderately useful in anything but combat. Anyway, what is anything but opinion;) ? To Rulebook: How can 17 encounters per day be considered a viable scenario? |
| Bob Loblaw02-24-07, 12:39 AM | I think Stunning Fist just might win them the fight here. That and Quivering Palm. That's assuming the monk has taken Stunning Fist (my monks generally don't). That's also forgetting one of the few strengths of the fighter...Fortitdue saves. Both are based on that and the fighter has an excellent chance of success. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 12:58 AM | Fair enough kratch. Fighters are the best of the PHB full BABzers. Melee still tanks, and their ain't no tanking in DnD like in WoW, so they might as well go get a tankard while the wizards creates a tank golem and lights the enemies up like the gas tank of a pinto. Oh and Bhaal, Monks are not weak, but they are skirmishers, and will need to really catch the fighter off-guard to win in a fight. Monk more likely will win a initiative roll because he is more dependent on dex than your average fighter, take improved sunder, when your ki strike hits adamantine, you can sunder, fairly easily, plus eagle claw strike adds your wis mod to dmg vs objects, sunder a warriors weapon and whats he got, a 1d4 gauntlet, initiate grapple, earths embrace for extra 1d12, dead fighter to be fair however, my monk is a half-giant i only use stunning fist for fist of iron and weakening touch |
| Bob Loblaw02-24-07, 01:16 AM | I don't know if I mentioned it here or in another thread, but I think one of the things the designers were hoping for was that the fighter would spend his bonus feats on fighting and his character feats on improving his character. I think they saw people taking Alertness, Acrobatic, etc. for the +2/+2 to skills. I think they wanted these bonus feats to make up for the lack of skill points. I think it was a bad idea if that was their plan. The fighter should have a better skill list. He should have more skill points. With so many archtypes of fighters, I don't know which skills should be class skills. I do know that they can't do enough outside of combat. All that being said, what if the player is perfectly happy with what he gets from the fighter? What if he finds that he doesn't need his skill maxed out so he can cross class them. Let's see what he has to work with, skill wise. He will have 46 skill points assuming he is not human and has an Intelligence of 10. Humans will have 69 and an Intelligence of 13 (so he can take Combat Expertise) will give him 69 or 92 depending on his race. Let's assume 22 Strength, 13 Intelligence, 13 Charisma. None are unreasonable at level 20. He is in full plate with a heavy steel shield (non masterworked). Climb: DC 30 is the highest. If he can get up to a +20 bonus to climb, he doesn't need any more skill points in there. (He can take 10.) Besides, if he can find other ways around the problem (pitons and rope should make for easier climbing realisitically bringing it to DC 15). 0 Points needed Craft: DC 20 for masterwork items. He only needs +10 on his check to take 10. 7 points (if he buys the right tools) per Craft (he may only need or want 2 or 3) Handle Animal: DC 30 is the highest (unless he wants to rear a wild animal). He needs a +10 to be able to Take 20. Level 7, not accounting for Charisma or feats. This is assuming that he is working with an animal of Intelligence 1 or 2. If the creature has an Intellegence any higher, the DC is down to 25 (level 2 now). Not too bad. 4 points needed. Intimidate: This is an opposed check so every point should go here if he wants this skill. While not necessary, it really should be maxed if he chooses it at all. 23 points needed. Jump: The more points here the better. Taking the Run feat will grant a +4 bonus. Honestly though, if you need to be jumping more than 20 feet, it may be time to ask that wizard for a fly spell. However, he needs +20 to be able to jump 30 feet. There are some feats and skill synergies that make this possible. With the Acrobatic feat and Run feat, he gets +6. With a Strength bonus of +6, he's at +12. He can hit that +20 by level 5. If he wears full plate, he needs to wait until level 11. Still not that bad. Skipping the feats, he needs 17 points. Ride: DC 20 is the highest he will have to worry about. DC 10 or 15 is more likely. While he won't be able to Take 10 on most of these checks, 5 ranks in Handle Animal and a military saddle grant him a +4 bonus. Rolling a 6 or 11 isn't that bad at 2nd level. It only gets easier as he goes on. By 8th level, he probably won't be making any of those checks. 16 points needed. Swim: DC 20 is the worst one. With Full Plate, he's at a -12 and if he has a shield, he suffers another -4. Not a good idea to be swimming in a storm in full plate. He will need to dump a lot into this skill to make it viable at that point. However, DC 10 Calm Water and DC 15 Rough Water are more common. He would have to hit (essentially) DC 26 for calm waters and 31 for rough waters. With a Strength of 22, he's got a 50% chance in calm water. Add in some skill points and that improves by 5% each point. At 7th level, he's at the point where he may be able to Take 10 on the swim check in calm water. I don't think I'd let him Take 10 in rough water. 10 points for Calm Water, 15 for Rough, 20 for Stormy. Total Skill Points needed: 94 (that's 2 craft skills). That's 2 more than the Human fighter would have. Still workable since I gave him crap stats and gear. Give him Masterwork Armor and Shield, you save him 4 points. He now has 2 more to play with. Give him a higher Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma and you save him more points. Those are all of his skills. Once he has managed to be able to hit those DCs without rolling (and he doesn't have to be very high level for any one individually), he can focus on other skills. Note that taking magic items that enhance his attributes will make things better. He can still get items that improve the skills as well. While I don't think this is necessarily the best way to spend his money. It is still an option. Ring of Climbing: 2,500gp. Will save him 5 levels of skill points. Masterwork tools: 50gp. Saves him 2 levels of skill points. Ring of Jumping: 2,500gp. Saves him 5 levels of skill points. Military Saddle: 60gp. Already mentioned above. Ring of Swimming: 2,500gp. Saves him 5 levels. With 3 rings, he'll need or want a Hand of Glory (8,000gp). Of course, he could just change rings as he needs saving him the money. This would make it so that the nonhuman fighter only has to find 5 points. Increasing stats should fix that real fast (what 20th level fighter won't have a higher than 22 Strength?). Of course, one feat can also give 5 bonus skill points addressing the problem as well. Don't get me wrong, I still think he could use some more skill points. I just don't think things are as bad as people make them out to be. |
| Bob Loblaw02-24-07, 01:54 AM | Monk more likely will win a initiative roll because he is more dependent on dex than your average fighter, take improved sunder, when your ki strike hits adamantine, you can sunder, fairly easily, plus eagle claw strike adds your wis mod to dmg vs objects, sunder a warriors weapon and whats he got, a 1d4 gauntlet, initiate grapple, earths embrace for extra 1d12, dead fighter to be fair however, my monk is a half-giant i only use stunning fist for fist of iron and weakening touch This is a really unfair assessment. You left the poor fighter with nothing to begin with. You are what level, 17? Sorry, but I really don't think you've given the fighter a fair chance here at all. Let's make me a half-giant too. With a simple net and trident, I have a decent chance of screwing up your plans. I need a Dex of 15+ (I may have more since I want to throw the net). I would probably have Improved Initiatve (+6 or more to my Initiative) so I may be on par with you. Take Net and Trident from Complete Warrior (this has cost me 5 feats of my 15 feats). As a fighter, I probably have focused on Strength (it's the norm). I will probably beat you in an opposed strength check. Now, you are entangled (-4 to Dex, -2 on attack rolls). I can immediately make a full attack with my trident (2d6 + Strength + Weapon Spec + Greater Weapon Spec + Melee Mastery). That's 2d6 + 6 + Strength for 4 attacks coming at you. Your average hit points is 4.5 per level and my average damage is 13 per hit. This is not the best place for you to be. I still have 5 more feats to choose. I would probably take Weapon Focus (net) for the +1 and Greater Focus (net) for another +1. That leaves me with 3 more feats. I could take Monkey Grip, increasing my weapon damage to 2d8 (that would improve my total damage by 2 per attack) but Power Attack would probably be better since I can be more flexible with it. That still leaves me with 2 feats. Close Quarters Fighting is a good choice for anyone who has to deal with grapplers. A gladiator probably would consider this feat. If I hit you, you might not grapple me. Combat Reflexes for 3 or more attacks of opportunity a round and there you go. Note that I am just trying to show you that for every build you throw out there, I can do the same thing. The character I built was specifically meant to deal with your character, just like your character was specifically meant to deal with fighter X. |
| Bob Loblaw02-24-07, 01:56 AM | If the fighter feels skills are really essential they get a feat every 2 levels they can convert to 5 skill points. Just want to make a slight correction here. He can only do this every 3 levels. The feat in question is not a Fighter Bonus feat. The point still stands, just wanted to make it a bit more accurate. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-24-07, 02:06 AM | The problem isn't just the lack of skill points. It's how worthless those skills are. Climb: Replaced by items/casters at level 7 max Craft: Replaced by casters at level 9 max. Handle Animal: Actually might be useful. Maybe he can get a mount that will survive... Intimidate: Occationally useful, but your better off with diplomacy, so they don't start planing your death afterwards. Jump: Can be used with feats and techs to deal good damage, but those DCs can skyrocket, so if you want to save on items you need to max this out. Ride: Only useful if you can get a mount that will survive an AoE, but at least you don't actually need points in it, since a skill item will meet most DCs. Swim: Replaced by casting at 9th level (?) certainly by 11th. So most of his skills are worthless. But that's good, because he can focus on cross class skills right? Except that basically means he gets half of the skill points then everyone else, and has lower limits on those skills. Seriously the class has worse skills then a commoner, that's just unacceptable. I refuse to believe a farmer who's only point is to die to orcs is more skilled in more areas then a trained man at arms. |
| Bob Loblaw02-24-07, 02:34 AM | So if the skills are all worthless (and every skill can be replaced by magic), then why the discussion on what the fighter can spend his skill points on? Sorry, but it looks to me like people just want to hate the fighter. Personally, I think it's kinda cool to be able to swim in storm tossed sea in full plate without the aid of magic. That's just me though. I also mentioned that I think his list and number of skill points should be improved (it was my last line). I just wanted to show that he's not as bad off as everyone makes him out to be. |
| navar10002-24-07, 02:59 AM | I can only speak for a 3rd-5th level game in which I was playing a martial adept. My character outshone no one. Well, I take that back. When he actually contributed, he was a lot flashier and more, well, impressive than the standard characters were. Oh, they generally did more damage (as I wasn't really playing a damage intensive build) but the way my character delivered his damage was just so much cooler that it seemed like he did more damage. You know what? I actually had fun with a melee character for the first time in like (GAWD!) five years. The book was shortly thereafter banned. Why? Oh, you know, the typical ... Actually, let me quote the email I got. In other words, people still just look at the whole unlimited uses per day thing and freak out. Yes, I am ready to agree the martial adepts can be more fun to play for the sake of funness. Devil's advocate in me is saying that's only because it's still relatively new and I haven't even played one yet plus there's my distate for how crusaders get their stances, but right now I have him muffled. :P Not doing extra damage, ay? I think at 7th level is where you start to get the strikes that deal multiple extra damage dice, though I recall even low level ones give an extra one or twice of damage. Not all maeuvers are about extra damage, though. Some are defensive in nature such as DR, healing, and saving throw effects. Some are tactics for moving and where you happen to be standing. I suppose it is difficult to get out of a battle of attrition mindset, where if each round you are not lowering your opponent's hit points in some way is a bad thing. I could be projecting here, though. Still, for a first response to my request, it is encouraging that the PHB dedicated warriors did alright in comparison. I would like the idea that the choice between them would be a player's sense of funness. Your group hates the martial adepts because of their "unlimited" nature. I wonder what they think of warlocks. ;) If you play a spellcaster in a one-shot or otherwise short campaign, pick a spell you find "devastating" and have multiple preparations of it (or be a Sorcerer). Keep casting that spell over and over. You are following core rules. If they're ok with it, you can ask how is it different than the martial adepts being "unlimited". If they're not, you can say "but I'm following the rules we normally play with" so the martial classes aren't really any different. |
| navar10002-24-07, 03:23 AM | I listened that interview, and I do keep in mind what's fun. I've played many fighters, because I like the idea of fighters. But they aren't fun. With nothing to do out of combat at all, and with nothing significant to do in combat past mid levels, a straight fighter in a by-the-rules (and by this I mean social interactions include skill checks) campaign inevitably fades into the background. In practice this doesn't mean much, since everyone in their right mind jumps ship to PrC. Of course, I used to think fighter was fine on it's own, and wanted to prove it to myself, so I didn't always. I had one fighter built for a fun gimmickk - two bastard swords. It's not optimised, but it's fun, and I had the new PHBII on my side. As usual, I was great in a fight for several levels, but useless out of one. By mid levels I sucked everywhere, so I grabbed leadership to have a cleric follow me around and spend his life buffing me (the party healer spent most of his time healing). Then I was ok again for a while. After the party healer started seeing how good buffing could be, he started buffing himself and meleeing some. He completely outshone me, with mostly the same buffs. "but you built for fluff, not effectiveness!" Well, sure. But so did the party cleric. So did everyone else in the party. And while they weren't optimized for it, they didn't need the most broken feat in the game just so they could almost (but not even!) keep up with the rest of the party. Worse, this game actually had some encounters that weren't combat (gasp?), and my shiite skill list and no skill points and no relevant class abilities meant I was useless in all of them. Another fighter (this one pre-PHBII) was one of the chain-trip variety, this one a hobgoblin (DM used LA buyoff, so I was caught up with the rest of the party by level 5 or so). This guy was awesome early on. Totally dominated fights early on. By mid levels it was getting tougher, though, as we mostly fought stuff out of the monster manual, and I was regularly coming up against untrippable opponants (Don't even mention Jotun-whatever. This was an Eberron game, and the Jotun-feat says right in it that you can't take it unless you come from a specific area of Faerun), and I started realizing that three of my feats (a six level investment!) were useless. Occasionally we would fight nPC villians, and I could try and trip them, but by later in the game, even these would often be flying, or they'd be attacking from a distance, and when I wasn't gat-tripping, I was worse off then the two bastard sword guy. And this DM also for some reason thought that there should be a balance between combat and non-combat encounters, leaving me completely useless three quarters of the time and not even up to party standards in the remaining 25%. I've played other fighters as well, though only those two to high levels without multiclassing, and all in all the story is always the same. You just don't compete on a level playing field past low levels in combat, and no matter what you can't contribute out of combat. Now, the fighter is fine for what it is - a 2 to 4 level springboard into a martial PrC with feat prereqs. But don't be angry at me for wanting it to be a class. Not like a Wizard or Cleric, but like Barbarian or Ranger or Rogue or Monk even. I'm not asking for increadible power, just the ability to contribute something unique and significant to combat, and the ability to contribute anything at all outside of a fight. Until then, I just can't play my favorite class as a class. I'm sorry you weren't having fun. For your two bastard sword fighter, I have no particular response. You are not saying why you felt less effective needing to take Leadership. What was happening? For your tripper, not that the DM should have "coddled" for you, but was every monster flying or otherwise untrippable? Conjecture, not accusation: You were a very effective tripper at the low levels. The DM wanted to lower your power a bit so he puts in bad guys who can't be tripped. He keeps doing it because you are not killing off the bad guys so easily anymore so he thinks it's a fair fight. Analogy: Party sorcerer learns fireball. He's fireballing all the mooks and some of the bosses all over the place. The DM starts using fire resistant and fire immune creatures more. The sorcerer isn't fireballing anymore. Now such creatures are commonplace. Problem "solved". The DM may not have realized what he was doing. You might have tried talking to him that he's making all your feats worthless in every battle. As for out of combat, it is true rogues and bards, for example, can make diplomacy checks and bluff checks, etc., and succeed at a lot of stuff. However, you are allowed to talk to NPCs too. Even if the DM insists you roll Diplomacy everytime you ask for something or Gather Information everytime you look for something, why should everything be so hard you need 10 ranks even to have a 25% chance of success, picking numbers at random for illustration? If there are opposed rolls, everyone has high ranks in those skills or any ranks at all? Every NPC has rogue or bard skills and skill points? You can also look stuff up at the libary just as a wizard would. You don't have to be a cleric to be a worshipper of a deity and have npc clerics of your faith help you in time of need or convenience. You have Leadership. You have followers. Even if you don't have a particular skill, a follower might. You can talk to them. You can "order" them to do stuff. You're their "boss". The game is (or should be) more than just the numbers and words on your character sheet. You don't always have to roll a die to accomplish something outside of combat. It just takes imagination. |
| navar10002-24-07, 03:26 AM | :schemes: Wanna know what I replaced the ToB character with? Huh? Do ya? A Druid with frickin' Rashemi Elemental Summoning. GAR! I mean, yeah, I'm orders of magnitude more powerful with the Druid, but I kind of wanted to play a swordmaster for once. I haven't for a long time because I know what happens to characters like that. ToB was a way to make a melee character that actually, I don't know, scaled and had options beyond attack, fail-to-trip, fail-to-bull-rush, or GAH! So much for that idea. Here comes my Druid. He hasn't picked up Natural Spell yet, 'cause I wanted to acclimate the DM to my using Rashemi Elemental Summoning. It's really, really, REALLY infuriating to have to handle one's DMs with kid gloves. I mean really frickin' irritating. Now 8th level, my Druid spends most of the day in wild shape. Probably in polar bear or dire lion form, and will have day-long buffs making him more than the equivalent of the party Fighter. Should he ever need to do some utility casting, he'll switch wild shape off. Whoopee. Teehee. I'm pro-fighter, but I'm not anti-wizard, cleric, druic either. Go get them. :schemes: |
| navar10002-24-07, 03:39 AM | [QUOTE=FrostHammer;11569730]Barbarians get *Proficient with All Simple and Martial Weapons *Proficient with all shield except Tower and all armor except heavy. Guess what? Tower shields suck, and so do heavy armor, thanks to crappy max Dex bonus. NOBODY uses heavy armor. Mithril Fullplate is Medium armor. QUOTE] I use heavy armor all the time, and I never* had mithral. Why? Because it was never made available in the campaign. I couldn't just buy it. It was never in treasure. Amazing how individual campaigns with individual DMs actually matters. I'm actually glad to use heavy armor. I'm actually glad I don't have to worry too much about DX. It's one less ability score to worry about with any particular MAD class I'm playing. As a dedicated warrior (or cleric), I don't feel the need to go first and don't take Improved Initiative. I sometimes like to know what everyone else did before my turn. Plus, sometimes I will even go before the party's rogue with his high DX and Improved Initiative. I've even gone first out of everyone in the combat from time to time. Since my reflex saving throw is the poor progression anyway, an extra +1 or +2 isn't going to make much of a difference. I'll have the hit points to withstand the save for half spells for a bit, and if I'm not the cleric myself, I'm grateful for the party cleric to heal me like he would any party member. * For the first time ever since I started playing 2E to today does my character have mithral armor. We got it as treasure two sessions ago and for this coming Sunday session my armor is ready. I happen to be playing a warlock instead of a dedicated warrior (or cleric) who could really, really have used mithral armor, but I'm happy with my mithral breastplate and intend for it to be my armor for the rest of the campaign and get various enchantments on it as I can. Don't tell me "everyone" uses mithral armor. |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 03:39 AM | Barbarians get *Proficient with All Simple and Martial Weapons *Proficient with all shield except Tower and all armor except heavy. Guess what? Tower shields suck, and so do heavy armor, thanks to crappy max Dex bonus. NOBODY uses heavy armor. Mithril Fullplate is Medium armor. *Best BAB *BEST HD (d112) * Has ACTUAL CLASS ABILITIES in addition to feats! OH NOEZ! BABA IS BROKEN NOW! Paladins get all of that, and they get MOUNTs and SAVING THROWS and SPELLS TOO! OMG THEY ARE TOO STRONG! And furthermore, if you wanted all of those, you can just take ONE level of fighter, and get all the proficiencies. The Guy was talking about FEATS Not his BAB ... The Barbian gets a less amount of FEATS then the Fighter the point was that Feats a powerfull and the fighter is the only one who can take the most amount of them! meaning the higher level you are the more feats you have which means you get something eles thats juciy while the other characters dount continue to get juicy things They both have the Same BaB And other things Big deal many people like there feats and many feats are powerfull and the fighter is the guy who can take more feats over any other class in the game thats why people like to level dip in them so they can get some nice feats added onto there character Why becouse no other class will give them that benefit Fighter=higher level=more feats=feats are good=more juciy things for the fighter Hes not broken but hes not week eather |
| Seerow02-24-07, 03:41 AM | ^would be true if feats were significantly powerful. But they're not. |
| FrostHammer02-24-07, 03:48 AM | Feats...powerful...BWAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAAHAHAHAHA....aahaha...ha...ha... :rofl: Ok, I'm done laughing for now. I might have to go back to it though if you think those Feats are actually worth as much as class abilities. Almost no amount of feat is worth something like Wildshape. And full-caster progression is probably worth like 20 feats at least. Why? Because spells are just that daned versatile. Whenever new spells come out, casters get more options. Just ONE of the Druid's class abilities is worth more than your entire class. On top of wildshape he also gets Animal Companion, spellcasting, and all the nifty nature-related stuff. D8 isn't a bad hitdice either, on average 1 HP less than the Fighter per level. Druids also get more skillpoints, have a bigger skill list, and basically do almost everything better. Feats are NOT worth class abilities. They're just not that powerful in general, mostly because they DON'T SCALE! |
| navar10002-24-07, 04:00 AM | The problem isn't just the lack of skill points. It's how worthless those skills are. Climb: Replaced by items/casters at level 7 max Craft: Replaced by casters at level 9 max. Handle Animal: Actually might be useful. Maybe he can get a mount that will survive... Intimidate: Occationally useful, but your better off with diplomacy, so they don't start planing your death afterwards. Jump: Can be used with feats and techs to deal good damage, but those DCs can skyrocket, so if you want to save on items you need to max this out. Ride: Only useful if you can get a mount that will survive an AoE, but at least you don't actually need points in it, since a skill item will meet most DCs. Swim: Replaced by casting at 9th level (?) certainly by 11th. So most of his skills are worthless. But that's good, because he can focus on cross class skills right? Except that basically means he gets half of the skill points then everyone else, and has lower limits on those skills. Seriously the class has worse skills then a commoner, that's just unacceptable. I refuse to believe a farmer who's only point is to die to orcs is more skilled in more areas then a trained man at arms. But a major complaint has been fighters leeching spells off the spellcasters. Now you're complaining the fighter can take care of himself in these situations without bothering the spellcaster because a spell would make them obsolete? |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 04:02 AM | Strangly I Have to say Bob has some Very good ideas and makes very good points that and considering his name is bob i have to give him a Thumbs up But he makes a good point hear along with other people People dount care about there Skill points that much Even if the fighter skill point is useless then the fighter will spend it somewhere eles if he wants Feats are powerfull and can turn the tide of battle like stated earlyer the reason why people like fighters is becouse they get the biggest amount of Feats that they can pick When i picture a fighter in combat i picture a Warrior whos useing his brain to the point of useing His Tastics/Speciltise more then the other class's the fighter has many differnt ways to go he could eather do A B C D .... P he has the most options open to you sure he cant cast Fireball (Q lets say) But he could have a Ammy of Fireballs if he realy wanted it so in truth the fighter could go A-Z With his build it just is up to the player on what he wants to do Some players (Like my self) See no reason why skills cant be over comed in other Ways hints my Sig on a Dwarven Fighter Thife Skills (Which are only examples) So in a way you can look at the fighter and say "Its the class that defied Wizards and Skills and other tastics that are commenly used" |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 04:18 AM | Not one feat is powerfull but the combined amount of Feats is enough to give the fighter is victory Its allready been stated how Wildshape isnt as powerfull as people beleve yes its nice but not that Powerfull its allready been shown how the Animol campion is not that Powerfull eather Its Allready been shown how a fighter can use his combined number of feats to give him the edge that he needs to win the day A Feat is not powerfull but the combined force of differnt Feats (Or many other things like spells) Are Powerfull you would do well to know that combineing your efforts and being able to out class your oppenint in one way or another can give you the edge you need Kinda like dogfighting with Planes force the oppenite to fight on your Terms if Fighting on the other guys Terms and battle field then start deploying trick after trick A Fighter can mimic this effect of Combat Very well he has many Tricks in his hold its only a matter of how well he knows on how to use thouse Feats in combat Like Casting spells sep you need more Brain power to use it effectivly go Ahead and be rude all it shows is that you lack the full ability to things around you to your Edge Kinda shows that you just charge blindly in For example a Smart Stragiest Leader could have his footmen "Fall back in retreat" Have you charge at him ... only then his knights charge down at you and his "Reatreating" Footmen come at you from the Rear boxing you in which is a deadly mistake on the nme leader to have his army get boxed in like that the Person with his "Retreating" Army used his brain in battle to gain the upper hand this is something the Fighter dose to a higher degree then other class's do |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 04:29 AM | But a major complaint has been fighters leeching spells off the spellcasters. Now you're complaining the fighter can take care of himself in these situations without bothering the spellcaster because a spell would make them obsolete? the problem is the fighter dosnt have to have a person Leech if he wants to fly badly and people dount want to help him he could take winged boots or use a Bow to his advantage besides the other characters in the party cant fly so if they want to fly there Leeching off the wizard in there own way If the wizard is hurt the wizard needs healing The same gouse with the Fighter if he needs healing he should get it after all thats the job of the Healer its to HEAL the people who are getting hurt so you dount have to get hurt your self People dount cinsider it a major Leech but they still Leech as you say Tho yes all class's could prevent leeching but if differnt people in the party dount do there job then expect the other members of the group to leave you and expect not to get replacements after all people will end up knowing that your not doing your "Job" So why should they join people who dount care about em? Besides theres not an army of people willing to join you the best you have is Commeners (Which has been pointed out that Cats can rape) yes you have commeners on your side ... there not going to do much help inless you your self is level 1 |
| Archangel6202-24-07, 10:49 AM | I use heavy armor all the time, and I never* had mithral. Why? Because it was never made available in the campaign. I couldn't just buy it. It was never in treasure. Amazing how individual campaigns with individual DMs actually matters. For comparing experiences, yes it does. For working out class balance, no it does not. A DM could make it so that there are seasonal antimagic blossoms in the game or that there is an artifact in some town that gives all inhabitants DR30/- In either case you're screwing with a class and you aren't making it work. And yes, the gear amounts aren't perfect but for the purposes of the experiment it's better we assume complete equality. Since casters can make themselves items we feel that we might as well throw the fighter a bone and allow him to have the items necessary for a design. And it proves the point all the more, the fighter depends so heavily on DM fiat in terms of what treasure is around and what they can purchase. This feeds into another comment, a fighter has a lot of feats, yes, but unless they focus almost exclusively on one style they will need to take feats to make them good at multiple forms of combat and, more importantly, they will need to buy enough gear to synergize with their combat style. Work out the wealth by level charts, weapons for DR, weapons in case of sundering, weapons for melee and ranged. Assuming standard wealth by level/how much weapons cost that is a significant investment. |
| Flan02-24-07, 11:49 AM | Almost no amount of feat is worth something like Wildshape. And full-caster progression is probably worth like 20 feats at least. Why? Because spells are just that daned versatile. Whenever new spells come out, casters get more options. Wildshape is worse than useless at low levels and only good at high levels with several feats tacked on to it. And hey, polymorph. It also isn't nearly as good when the DM isn't a silly git and won't let you take the form of something your character has never even seen before let alone actually familiar with, which, surprise, is actually part of the rule. But yes, full spell progression is worth more than 20 feats, the DnD magic system is completely and totally broken. Worse, having many hundreds of pages of spells, each with their own unique set of rules, ranges, modifiers, durations etc. is grossly obnoxious. |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 12:46 PM | as stated before people dount like the fighter becouse hes not all powerfully broken like PunPun well guess what no one is going to allow you to play punpun or anyone eles like him so shut up and start getting use to it its somewhat pointless to talk about how good a fighter or tanks are in the game most people will just diss on you and start flinging random things into the arguement without thinking about it Sometimes overkill is pointless if the monster only has 5 hp then theres no point to make your 1d6+4 (5-11)better sense your min damage is 5 damage To start complaning that your better at fighting the 5 hp monster coz you can do 3d4+3 damage (6-15) is dumb you both can kill the 5hp monster a player can take on 17 waves of monsters If you had the time to Scry on the monsters and study them then why didnt the fighter get the time to do something while your doing this? If the monsters are all week then anyone can take them on hell if there all goblins with 5 hp and your level 20 it dosnt matter how many goblins there are inless they have a fat to hit or a fat damage then eveyone can take the goblins on Quit stating that Fort things have a Great chance of killing fighters remeber there best Save is Fort ... remeber that? Or was that another random flung thing at the fighter? |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 12:52 PM | Wildshape is worse than useless at low levels and only good at high levels with several feats tacked on to it. And hey, polymorph. It also isn't nearly as good when the DM isn't a silly git and won't let you take the form of something your character has never even seen before let alone actually familiar with, which, surprise, is actually part of the rule. But yes, full spell progression is worth more than 20 feats, the DnD magic system is completely and totally broken. Worse, having many hundreds of pages of spells, each with their own unique set of rules, ranges, modifiers, durations etc. is grossly obnoxious. yes spells are nice but the damage and hp totol of character up there become high It allso depends on the Spell Progression I Rather not see a wizard in the front lines smacking things with his Cane thats just a wizard begging to die or hes the epic level punpun/wizard fighting goblins |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 01:04 PM | For comparing experiences, yes it does. For working out class balance, no it does not. A DM could make it so that there are seasonal antimagic blossoms in the game or that there is an artifact in some town that gives all inhabitants DR30/- In either case you're screwing with a class and you aren't making it work. And yes, the gear amounts aren't perfect but for the purposes of the experiment it's better we assume complete equality. Since casters can make themselves items we feel that we might as well throw the fighter a bone and allow him to have the items necessary for a design. And it proves the point all the more, the fighter depends so heavily on DM fiat in terms of what treasure is around and what they can purchase. This feeds into another comment, a fighter has a lot of feats, yes, but unless they focus almost exclusively on one style they will need to take feats to make them good at multiple forms of combat and, more importantly, they will need to buy enough gear to synergize with their combat style. Work out the wealth by level charts, weapons for DR, weapons in case of sundering, weapons for melee and ranged. Assuming standard wealth by level/how much weapons cost that is a significant investment. and the arguement is that if wizards are makeing magicol items theres bound to be someone selling another type of magicol item if there isnt any magic being sold that useoly means its a Low Magic game A Fighter dosnt need to Focus purely in 1 style of Weapons (Inless Core only or something clouse to that) In the more advance books they more things help the fighter off or are you talking about a certain way the fighter is useing it? Like the fighter wants all Slashing weapons well he can help out in that Reguard where all Slashing weapons are helpfull to him sure it may not be better if he focused purely in one thing but with my example of the 5hp goblin you dount need to be decked out in purely 1 type of thing |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 01:08 PM | This is a really unfair assessment. You left the poor fighter with nothing to begin with. You are what level, 17? Sorry, but I really don't think you've given the fighter a fair chance here at all. Let's make me a half-giant too. With a simple net and trident, I have a decent chance of screwing up your plans. I need a Dex of 15+ (I may have more since I want to throw the net). I would probably have Improved Initiatve (+6 or more to my Initiative) so I may be on par with you. Take Net and Trident from Complete Warrior (this has cost me 5 feats of my 15 feats). As a fighter, I probably have focused on Strength (it's the norm). I will probably beat you in an opposed strength check. Now, you are entangled (-4 to Dex, -2 on attack rolls). I can immediately make a full attack with my trident (2d6 + Strength + Weapon Spec + Greater Weapon Spec + Melee Mastery). That's 2d6 + 6 + Strength for 4 attacks coming at you. Your average hit points is 4.5 per level and my average damage is 13 per hit. This is not the best place for you to be. I still have 5 more feats to choose. I would probably take Weapon Focus (net) for the +1 and Greater Focus (net) for another +1. That leaves me with 3 more feats. I could take Monkey Grip, increasing my weapon damage to 2d8 (that would improve my total damage by 2 per attack) but Power Attack would probably be better since I can be more flexible with it. That still leaves me with 2 feats. Close Quarters Fighting is a good choice for anyone who has to deal with grapplers. A gladiator probably would consider this feat. If I hit you, you might not grapple me. Combat Reflexes for 3 or more attacks of opportunity a round and there you go. Note that I am just trying to show you that for every build you throw out there, I can do the same thing. The character I built was specifically meant to deal with your character, just like your character was specifically meant to deal with fighter X. actually, i use that particular build for fighting casters, the only nod i made toward fighter was improved sunder, plus at 16, 19 ranks of escape artist would make your net a joke, but as i said whe i first posted, the only thing that really matters here is initiative, who ever wis that 1 roll has the entire fight in the bag grats though on the net and trident, thats the first time anyones brought that up, i honestly didnt think of it. |
| Seerow02-24-07, 01:27 PM | How do you have 19 ranks of a crossclass skill at level 16? |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 01:35 PM | im talking about a monk, escape artist is a class skill |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 01:42 PM | item crafting is broken though, if you've a wizard with craft magical arms and armor, or woderous items he can make a an item that will allow a rouge/ninja/assassin to sneak attack at any distance, slap that on a dwarven long rifle (3d6/rng 300/x3 crit) and you can pretty much kill anything before it sees you (assuming of course you have that option) |
| Thomas_Covenant02-24-07, 01:52 PM | item crafting is broken though, if you've a wizard with craft magical arms and armor, or woderous items he can make a an item that will allow a rouge/ninja/assassin to sneak attack at any distance, slap that on a dwarven long rifle (3d6/rng 300/x3 crit) and you can pretty much kill anything before it sees you (assuming of course you have that option)I personally detest the word "broken", it's a real issue with me. Item crafting is fundamental to 3.X, many have serious issues with the rules for them, I empathize, but that life. Your post isn't making a lot of sense at all, but it sounds like a problem of allowing guidelines for pricing on new items without DM oversight, which is not the Item crafting rules' fault, but the DM's. Not that we've been able to stay on topic much lately, but this one is seriously getting off it.... |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 02:03 PM | Item crafting was mentioned in an above Post, i thought I'd say something about it, since its apparent to me that the point of this thread, ist to prove a fighter has absolutely no worth no matter how good the argument to the contrary is, I thought I'd show how much a rouge can out damage them with a very few semi-inexpensive items Sniper's shot 1st lvl Sorc/Wiz 1 x 1 x 2000 x 4 because of duration = 8000gp/2 = 4000gp then a little latter slap on grave strike and golem strike |
| malisteen02-24-07, 02:53 PM | I'm sorry you weren't having fun. For your two bastard sword fighter, I have no particular response. You are not saying why you felt less effective needing to take Leadership. What was happening? It's been a while... I seem to recall Damage Reduction, high AC's, and having to split my funds between two swords being a bit hampering (I certainly couldn't afford as much defensive gear as in the chain game). All in all, I just missed too often, and when I hit I didn't do as much damage as I needed to. There was a multi-templated hydra at level 14 that was just the bane of my existance, as, between DR and Fast Healing, I was dealing next to no damage every round, and it was dealing significant damage to me and to my cohort and the party cleric. I died. The party had to flee. Later we came back and the wizard and cleric prepared a bunch of save-or-die spells. Overall this fighter was more enjoyable then the other one, and continued to contribute to melee damage later on (though only about as much as the self-buffing cleric), though without the enlarge person and bulls strength and healing and death ward and other buffs from my cohort it would have been much tougher (The party cleric could have buffed me in that case, but we still would have been working with one less meleeist at that point). For your tripper, not that the DM should have "coddled" for you, but was every monster flying or otherwise untrippable? The DM actually tried to make at least half of the battles include trippable foes, even at higher levels, although because he used some random battle charts that mostly refered to the Monster Manual this wasn't always the case. He also tried to keep about an even split between combat and non combat encounters (non combat encounters usually involved traps or social situations). I was pretty much useless in non-combat situations (I had intimidate so I wasn't completely , but my team-good party tended to frown upon it. Fights, on the other hand, frequently began with spot or listen checks, which I simply couldn't pass by higher levels, and there were several search checks for secret passages and the like. I mostly stood around and did nothing when that was going on. So about 1/2 the encounters were non-combat (I was mostly useless) of the remaining half, about 1/2 involved big/flying foes (I was mostly useless) the remaining 1/4 involved trip-able foes (I was somewhat useful, but no more so then anyone else in the party). As for out of combat, it is true rogues and bards, for example, can make diplomacy checks and bluff checks, etc., and succeed at a lot of stuff. However, you are allowed to talk to NPCs too. Even if the DM insists you roll Diplomacy everytime you ask for something or Gather Information everytime you look for something, why should everything be so hard you need 10 ranks even to have a 25% chance of success, picking numbers at random for illustration? If there are opposed rolls, everyone has high ranks in those skills or any ranks at all? Every NPC has rogue or bard skills and skill points? You can also look stuff up at the libary just as a wizard would. You don't have to be a cleric to be a worshipper of a deity and have npc clerics of your faith help you in time of need or convenience. True, but in cases where the rogue could succeed on a dip or search check on anything but a one, or the ranger could succeed on a spot or listen check or the wizard could succeed on a knowledge check equally easy, the DM rightly just assumed success and moved on. Only potentially difficult situations were run as encounters. Yes, my Fighter got to talk or interact or role-play out of combat when it wasn't important or difficult, but if a roll was required I faded into the background like I wasn't even there, after foolishly opening my mouth to argue at one point and having it actually work against my party on a bad diplomacy roll, even with a +2 circumstance modifier for a 'good arguement'. You have Leadership. You have followers. Even if you don't have a particular skill, a follower might. You can talk to them. You can "order" them to do stuff. You're their "boss". I didn't do much with my followers, admittedly. I could have done more there. I have a lot more fun with my Warblade. He's got a lot of fun skills to work with out of combat (know: history is fast becoming a favorite), and a lot more unique possibilities within combat. I have enough fun ways to contribute that I'm able to enjoy the occasional bungle due to my Wisdom 5. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 03:09 PM | i found a feat in the complete warrior, called hammers edge, if you hit a creature with your hammer and your sword in the same round it has to make a fort save (DC 10 +1/2 your char level + str mod) your opponents str, size or number of legs has nothing to do with the mobs ability to resist, in effect tripping at higher lvl |
| Archangel6202-24-07, 03:22 PM | i found a feat in the complete warrior, called hammers edge, if you hit a creature with your hammer and your sword in the same round it has to make a fort save (DC 10 +1/2 your char level + str mod) your opponents str or number of legs has nothing to do with the mobs ability to resist, in effect tripping at higher lvl And most things that you'll be fighting at that level that are martial could make that save in their sleep. |
| Argaud02-24-07, 03:58 PM | And most things that you'll be fighting at that level that are martial could make that save in their sleep. In that case they are also making the save to the casters spells in their sleep, so the party is in real trouble. That is DC 30+ at level 20. It is pretty much the same than the save vs. the casters magic (10 + spell level + primary ability ~ 10 + 1/2 char level + primary ability). |
| FrostHammer02-24-07, 04:55 PM | Wildshape is worse than useless at low levels and only good at high levels with several feats. You are strange, sir...very strange. The only feat you MUST have to augment Wild Shape is Natural Spell. Exalted Wildshape is nice and all, but it's hardly necessary. Go to the CharOp boards and look up Druid handbook. Lots of great creatures to wildshape into at all levels. |
| Archangel6202-24-07, 05:16 PM | In that case they are also making the save to the casters spells in their sleep, so the party is in real trouble. That is DC 30+ at level 20. It is pretty much the same than the save vs. the casters magic (10 + spell level + primary ability ~ 10 + 1/2 char level + primary ability). Fort based ones, yes, but not the will based ones. The point is that the martial oriented foes have high base fortitude saves as well as high con scores, and that's if the being isn't of the 'If it's a fort save I ignore it' camp that is rather large at those levels. In addition, I can get the save DC of a spell much higher than that. But let's look at the maximum fort save for this shall we Human, base 18str, +5 from levels +5 book, +6 enhancement: 34= +12 modifier. Save DC: 32. That looks nice, but at 20th level most things are either going to be out of the fighters reach, or will have a high enough fortitude save that they can shrug it off. Now it will still work on the lower creatures but they aren't the ones that you'd really need this feat for, and you can only do this knockdown trick on your turn, so it's a one at a time deal rather than the theoretical masses you can get with a spiked chain tripmaster. Combine that with the fact that TWF is generally suboptimal, stat and feat hungry, and this feat becomes far less appealing. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 05:30 PM | most mage spells that are "save or die" are fort saves as well |
| Archangel6202-24-07, 05:33 PM | most mage spells that are "save or die" are fort saves as well There are some, yes, but there are also will based Save-or-Die spells. Not to mention spells like shapechange and gate that can bring in dozens, if not hundreds of new variables. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 05:48 PM | ive been looking at this TWF sucks vs 2h power attack but im comming up with a mean damage 54.5 TWF vs 53 with 2h power attack, lvl 20 assuming a 20 str, TWF take a -4 to geta plus 4 power attack, and im subtracting 10 on the 2h for plus 20, if i missed something, please tell me Bastard sw. max 109 Great Sw. max 106 |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 05:54 PM | There are some, yes, but there are also will based Save-or-Die spells. Not to mention spells like shapechange and gate that can bring in dozens, if not hundreds of new variables. i was just saying a fighter can "trip" at higher lvl also if you max out TWF thats 7 attacks per round, thats a possible 3 knock downs |
| Archangel6202-24-07, 05:57 PM | ive been looking at this TWF sucks vs 2h power attack but im comming up with a mean damage 54.5 TWF vs 53 with 2h power attack, lvl 20 assuming a 20 str, TWF take a -4 to geta plus 4 power attack, and im subtracting 10 on the 2h for plus 20, if i missed something, please tell me Bastard sw. max 109 Great Sw. max 106 well, lets look at this, how many feats did it take you to gain this damage? Compare that to 1 feat. Add in that the costs of the item, the necessary stat levels, and it becomes quite clear that 2h is more efficient. |
| Eyeless Blond02-24-07, 06:03 PM | Hammer's Edge is indeed an interesting ability. It has a few problems, however: -It isn't usable as part of an attack of opportunity or readied action*. At the levels we're talking this is kinda important, as by now everything moves faster than the Fighter can -It requires dual-wielding, which is massively feat-intensive itself. Even as a Fighter you are forced to invest 6 or 7 of your 18 total character and level-based feats just to gain access to this ability, along with another 2 just to allow TWF to keep up with two-handed fighting. That's half your feats just for this one ability, which still does not work against flying creatures, creatures that can't be tripped, creatures that don't particularly *care* if they're tripped (oozes, IIRC, don't particularly mind), things that don't come into melee range... -It requires two very specific weapons, limiting the only kind of versatility the Fighter has: the ability to pick up just about any weapon and use it well. It also prevents you from using Reach weapons, making it difficult to control any significant area. -It targets Fort. This is a problem, because the kinds of people that tripping would negatively effect--melee attackers--nearly always have a high Fort save. The reason Wizards do well is because they have an array of spells that target different saves, not just Fort. -There are better weapon style feats, like Three Mountains, that have fewer prereqs and better results (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#nauseated). That said, it is a particularly good feat, especially as it scales with level and ties to Str, typically the highest stat for a Fighter (though TWF Fighters generally have a hard time with stats). *-Okay, so if you have Dual Strike you might be able to ready a standard action to hit with both weapons, thus triggering this ability, but you must hit both times. Not impossible, but you're still using your full round action in the hopes that someone will be attempting to pass you so you can interrupt them. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 06:04 PM | except for the fact that most fighters have more feats than any other class, what would you spend your other feats on, plus if i use a maul in my off hand i can still knock people down, and with another feat, nauseate them as well fighters have feats for a reason, use them to optimize your combat abulities also, i dont have to declare im using the hammers edge action it happens evry time i hit the same mob with both weapons which can happen about 3 times, the odds are in my favor |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 06:07 PM | alright your problem is flying, no one ever said fighter had to melee, what about whipping out a short bow and taking a called shot, unless i remember incorrectly thats a 1d4 round stun |
| Flan02-24-07, 06:09 PM | Go to the CharOp boards and look up Druid handbook. Lots of great creatures to wildshape into at all levels. And every single one of them a druid has NO CHANCE to be "familiar" with. If your GM lets you take a wildshape of some obscure dinosaur from MM XXII which doesn't even exist in their world, thats fine, but it's called a house rule, and IMHO a very silly one. Also the vast majority of those animals, particulairly at low level, have bad AC and a GM who isn't playing patticake with you would have your opponent power attack and splatter the druid into wet chunks in one round. Obviously you can fart around buffing yourself for a while so your wildshape doesn't suck, but why bother when you can just hurl spells from several hundred feet away for more damage? |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 06:14 PM | heres the thing guys i use these feats, i play a fighter, sure it doesnt knock 'em down every time, and as a fighter you should increase your str score. at lvl 20 you should have a plus 7 or more modifier to str, hell your str should be at the LEAST 20 by lvl 10, if its not give up, your not a good fighter, and what, you expect every fighter to wear full plate, i wear a mithral chain shirt, my movement speed isnt that low, quick draw will let you whip the bow out in short order so even if they are flying you can still hit them, you can dual weild and still used ranged you have enough feats to cover that |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 06:22 PM | another thing with this "flying problem", say you and your party are toolin around the abyss, all of a sudden some flying demon decides you got a nice watch, so hes gonna kill you, but thats not your only problem a Marilith comes out from behind a rock, where do you want your fighter, the mage is obviously gonna start shooting his lazers at the demon so your fighter should be on the marilith, the the cleric healing/curing to kee p those stat effects of you. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 06:28 PM | or to compete in the flying arena you could get a flying mount, its not unheard of |
| Archangel6202-24-07, 06:43 PM | alright your problem is flying, no one ever said fighter had to melee, what about whipping out a short bow and taking a called shot, unless i remember incorrectly thats a 1d4 round stun First off, called shot rules disappeared in 3.5. Also, to your ideas of a flying mount, unless you have the paladin ability of making the mount better and hardier as you level your mount is going to die...a lot. the mounts are not as tough as their riders in most cases and smart foes will target the mounts over the rider, so the rider comes crashing to the earth and then has to deal with whatever is down there. Feats are generally not that great, but if the fighter is to be effective the feats chosen have to be able to either feed together or they have to be able to allow the fighter to shift gears fast. A fighter who wants to be the penultimate tank goes one route, Jack Be Quick goes another, the weapon master goes another route. The problem is simply that the fighter tends to need to specialize to remain a contender and their dependence on equipment makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the fighter to function well without DM intervention. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 06:52 PM | Thanks for the update on called shot i didnt know if it still existed or wasnt in any of the books i owned. unless the opponent is targeting you mount with spells, mounted combat allows you to use your ride check as the mounts new AC at higher lvls that can get pretty high. Also if your fighter is generalized you suck, no way around it, it goes against everything else that was built into the game, you have to specialize, although you do have enough feats to specialize in at least two modes of combat |
| FrostHammer02-24-07, 07:35 PM | And every single one of them a druid has NO CHANCE to be "familiar" with. If your GM lets you take a wildshape of some obscure dinosaur from MM XXII which doesn't even exist in their world, thats fine, but it's called a house rule, and IMHO a very silly one. Also the vast majority of those animals, particulairly at low level, have bad AC and a GM who isn't playing patticake with you would have your opponent power attack and splatter the druid into wet chunks in one round. Obviously you can fart around buffing yourself for a while so your wildshape doesn't suck, but why bother when you can just hurl spells from several hundred feet away for more damage? ACs don't matter that much when I'm grappling them to death. If there's more than one enemy, then my party members will be there to help me too. I can also Wildshape into flying creatures and hurl spells from above. I suggest you take a look at some of the dinosaurs from MM3. They're extremely potent for the lower levels. I can't help it if your DM gimps your animal choices. If the animal exists in the world, and I have enough Knowledge (nature), then I know the animal. |
| Isomer02-24-07, 07:45 PM | 2 things about fighters, 1) They are like all classes in that if you want them to be really good at high levels you need to plan/map out your character wisely. Any core class with proper planning can be powerful or with poor forsight weak and useless. 2)Their power level is closely linked to what books you have. If you have only the PHB they quickly run out of feat trees that would be worth advancing in. But you add another book like the players handbook 2 or one of the complete books, suddenly they actually have a number of choices of what to spend their feats on. Using the PHB, PHB 2, and gear from the DMG and made a fighter build that had a +9 intiative mod, AC of 42, touch AC 29, 6 attacks per turn with 1d8 +25 damage(times 3 crit), and the potential to gain another 5 via the feat Robilar's Gambit (but then again this only comes up in the odd situation where something attacks you). Combine that with the fact that He can actually take a blow and he actually comes off as powerful. But take the PHB 2 out of the picture and those stats fall off considerably. |
| Clawhound02-24-07, 08:08 PM | I can't help it if your DM gimps your animal choices. If the animal exists in the world, and I have enough Knowledge (nature), then I know the animal. That's an interpretation of the rules. I'm glad if you game that way, but that interpretation is not guaranteed in other games. |
| navar10002-24-07, 08:35 PM | It's been a while... I seem to recall Damage Reduction, high AC's, and having to split my funds between two swords being a bit hampering (I certainly couldn't afford as much defensive gear as in the chain game). All in all, I just missed too often, and when I hit I didn't do as much damage as I needed to. There was a multi-templated hydra at level 14 that was just the bane of my existance, as, between DR and Fast Healing, I was dealing next to no damage every round, and it was dealing significant damage to me and to my cohort and the party cleric. I died. The party had to flee. Later we came back and the wizard and cleric prepared a bunch of save-or-die spells. Overall this fighter was more enjoyable then the other one, and continued to contribute to melee damage later on (though only about as much as the self-buffing cleric), though without the enlarge person and bulls strength and healing and death ward and other buffs from my cohort it would have been much tougher (The party cleric could have buffed me in that case, but we still would have been working with one less meleeist at that point). The DM actually tried to make at least half of the battles include trippable foes, even at higher levels, although because he used some random battle charts that mostly refered to the Monster Manual this wasn't always the case. He also tried to keep about an even split between combat and non combat encounters (non combat encounters usually involved traps or social situations). I was pretty much useless in non-combat situations (I had intimidate so I wasn't completely , but my team-good party tended to frown upon it. Fights, on the other hand, frequently began with spot or listen checks, which I simply couldn't pass by higher levels, and there were several search checks for secret passages and the like. I mostly stood around and did nothing when that was going on. So about 1/2 the encounters were non-combat (I was mostly useless) of the remaining half, about 1/2 involved big/flying foes (I was mostly useless) the remaining 1/4 involved trip-able foes (I was somewhat useful, but no more so then anyone else in the party). True, but in cases where the rogue could succeed on a dip or search check on anything but a one, or the ranger could succeed on a spot or listen check or the wizard could succeed on a knowledge check equally easy, the DM rightly just assumed success and moved on. Only potentially difficult situations were run as encounters. Yes, my Fighter got to talk or interact or role-play out of combat when it wasn't important or difficult, but if a roll was required I faded into the background like I wasn't even there, after foolishly opening my mouth to argue at one point and having it actually work against my party on a bad diplomacy roll, even with a +2 circumstance modifier for a 'good arguement'. I didn't do much with my followers, admittedly. I could have done more there. I have a lot more fun with my Warblade. He's got a lot of fun skills to work with out of combat (know: history is fast becoming a favorite), and a lot more unique possibilities within combat. I have enough fun ways to contribute that I'm able to enjoy the occasional bungle due to my Wisdom 5. You'll always remember the battle your character died. Using two bastard swords is a -4 penalty. That is steep. Since this was awhile ago the feat that would lower this to -2 wasn't available. In a change of perspective, maybe instead of you being a fighter being the problem, the problem was using two bastard swords. I like two-weapon fighting, but not all two weapon combos work ideally. I remember playing a fighter/cleric once where I quickly learned that two weapon fighting and power attack, while individually were ok, together they had bad symmetry. Fortunately, as it was 3.0 and it just came out, the DM allowed us to change our characters a bit once we became more familiar with the system. Anyway, since in your game you had to spend money on improving your gear, as opposed to acquiring a better weapon in treasure, I can see how your resources became tight. You say your cohort buffing you was a big help. For purposes of argument, I just see it as a feature that a spellcaster chooses to buff the fighter. Still, it is your actual experience. The fighter did not pass with flying colors for you. That you were "somewhat useful but no more so than anyone else in the party" is a good thing. For my argument, I don't need the fighter to be the most useful. In the other case you have the DM just assuming the wizard, rogue, ranger, succeeded in their tasks. That's the problem there. That was a house rule that worked to your detriment. Did the DM ever give you an assumption of success? How many ranks does a character need in a skill for the DM to say "don't bother rolling"? Why did you have roll for diplomacy where as if it was the rogue he would not? I find that an application of unfair DM arbitrariness. I would not argue against a Warblade being lots of fun to play. :) |
| Flan02-24-07, 08:37 PM | ACs don't matter that much when I'm grappling them to death. If there's more than one enemy, then my party members will be there to help me too. Unlikely you'd be grappling them to death unless they're a fairly weak monster. I can't help it if your DM gimps your animal choices. If the animal exists in the world, and I have enough Knowledge (nature), then I know the animal. Thats an extremely silly interpretation of the rules, and against the example given by the rules themselves. Any player that tried to convince me they were intimitly familiar with an animal they've never even seen, and doesn't even exist in any area they've ever been, would get laughed at. The very fact that you consider wildshape so powerful should be telling you that you aren't using it correctly. |
| Kratch02-24-07, 08:49 PM | Feats...powerful...BWAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAAHAHAHAHA....aahaha...ha...ha... :rofl: There are some powerful feats out there, the biggest that comes to mind if weapon supremacy. it grants +5 on a single attack per round (somewhat significant, especially considering it can be done all day.), allows you to take 10 on a single attack per round, all day (can't think of a spell that grants that). Allows you to full attack while grappled. very similar to freedom of movement, worst in some respects (doesn't help against hold person, fighting underwater), but better when grappling (a creature your grappling with doesn't threaten surrounding area, and needs to make a grapple check (which it may be able to make, possibly even easily) to attack you. I think that puts it on par with a fith level spell, maybe even 6th, now consider it's persisted all day long, 24/7, can't be dispelled, functions in an AMF and forgot, it also adds +1 AC. Pretty powerful. So laugh it up Ok, I'm done laughing for now. I might have to go back to it though if you think those Feats are actually worth as much as class abilities. How many times do i need to say it? If i can match the barbarians legitamate class features (since you just finished claiming the barbarian was better then the fighter on pg 18) with the fighters, then the fighters feats are class features. here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11499481&postcount=69) It's not a difficult concept. Almost no amount of feat is worth something like Wildshape. And full-caster progression is probably worth like 20 feats at least. Why? Because spells are just that daned versatile. Whenever new spells come out, casters get more options. no, spells are not, generally, spells are very limited in the scope of what they can do, however, the variation one can attain with they're spell list offers them versatility, but only so long as the right spell for the cituation has been prepared, and is still available. Fighters don't have this versatility, but they also don't have the limits of requiring foreknowledge (or guesing) or limited times per day on that versatility. additionally, how often have any of your side accounted for useless spells (to an extent, you can say yes, by suggesting clerics and healing, but unless thats at the end of the day, you may be using a spell you needed later). In ether this thread or the other one going, someone offered up a comparison of a 10th level cleric against a bebalith, using align weapon and delay poison. What if you never encountered a creature that poisoned? then that delay poison was wasted and the slot used (it was cast before the encounter even started, presumably). If no alignment DR is encounter? People arguing for the cleric always seem to assume the bestm but in a real game, if you didn't use a spell you prepared, you don't get to pretend you memed a different one. Just ONE of the Druid's class abilities is worth more than your entire class. On top of wildshape he also gets Animal Companion, spellcasting, and all the nifty nature-related stuff. D8 isn't a bad hitdice either, on average 1 HP less than the Fighter per level. Druids also get more skillpoints, have a bigger skill list, and basically do almost everything better. Wildshape has been through so many errata's and variations, and is still loaded with grey area's and inconsistancies. I really don't like debating druids, so i'm not going to. Feats are NOT worth class abilities. They're just not that powerful in general, mostly because they DON'T SCALE! see above. |
| navar10002-24-07, 08:51 PM | ACs don't matter that much when I'm grappling them to death. If there's more than one enemy, then my party members will be there to help me too. I can also Wildshape into flying creatures and hurl spells from above. I suggest you take a look at some of the dinosaurs from MM3. They're extremely potent for the lower levels. I can't help it if your DM gimps your animal choices. If the animal exists in the world, and I have enough Knowledge (nature), then I know the animal. If fighters are leeches or otherwise suck for needing buff spells from spellcasters, then you cannot use the argument of "If there's more than one enemy, then my party members will be there to help me too." I'm well aware that druids do have crowd control spells, such as Entangle and even Creeping Doom in its way, so they are able to handle multiple opponents. I never denied the power of druids. If I'm the druid, I would be glad I have party members to help me when needed, just like I'm glad to have party members to help me if I'm the fighter. However, if one demands (colloquial one, not you specifically) the fighter be the most uber take care of himself in every situation one on one with no help from party members or else he sucks, then druids and everyone must be held to that same standard, even though I disagree it's a valid standard or it's necessary for the fighter to meet it. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 09:02 PM | I may have been asleep, or maybe its just that not very many of the people i play with play druid, but could someone explain when druid became the "best" class in D&D |
| Thomas_Covenant02-24-07, 09:23 PM | If I'm the druid, I would be glad I have party members to help me when needed, just like I'm glad to have party members to help me if I'm the fighter. However, if one demands (colloquial one, not you specifically) the fighter be the most uber take care of himself in every situation one on one with no help from party members or else he sucks, then druids and everyone must be held to that same standard, even though I disagree it's a valid standard or it's necessary for the fighter to meet it.If I'm a Druid fighting 3-4 difficult melee-capable opponents, I'd be happy to have Warrior of my level to stand in the way of one, so I only have to deal with 2-3. That does not mean I'd want a Warrior in the party taking an equal share of exp and treasure. There are many niches a party ideally wants filled, more niches than the average party size, so compromise has to be made. This is an adventuring party, they are struggling for their lives against dozens of varied challenges, you seriously do not want single class Warriors or Commoners in the party. The Fighter is poor at filling multiple niches, in several areas the worst Core PC class. So yeah, if the Fighter wants to be considered "good enough" for any kind of optimized adventuring party, he'd better be quite good at his sole schtick. The Cleric will, over the course of the campaign, keep my (hypothetical) Druid alive several times, and has tricks the Druid has trouble matching. The Wizard exceeds even the Druids respectable list for battlefield control and save-or-dies, and has own list of miscellaneous spells that come in handy. A dedicated spellslinger isn't a bad idea with a 4 man party, Wizards excel at this. The Rogue, Ranger, and Bard are trickier, but a significant portion of their value/class features are their skills. If they can't use their skills to benefit the party, they will be mediocre. Fortunately, they *Can* use their skills, and will in any standard campaign where the DM mostly tries to follow the rules, that's a major part of their schtick. The other classes can be held to an objective standard;they must if any definition of "balance" is to exist. The Barbarian has real trouble at high levels, but the Fighter stands apart as "Worst in Show" in so many areas, it is easy to look at the remaining ones, and see a problem. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 09:23 PM | However, i Digress, there is a reason to have a fighter, what ever he chooses, he can do all the time, anytime, without notice, preparation, or forethought, plain and simple, a fighters is always at all times at full power (exactly how powerful is debateable) but that is not the issue in this instance. |
| Isomer02-24-07, 09:29 PM | They are argued to be powerful (and rightly so) because of their wide range of abilities. The cast spells, have good saves, good hit dice (d8 isn't as good as d10 or d12 but beats the arcane casters), good base attack bonus, wildshape class feature(which is a flexible and open ended ability), an animal companion to help out in combat, and a solid skill set. Their high wisdom for casting combined with spot and listen as class skills makes them very perceptive, which is always useful to adventurers. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 09:31 PM | Ok Mr. Druid, who gaurds your back when you spells are gone, the barbarian, hes got hit points probably not full health, seeing as how the cleric ran out of spells 2 encounters ago, and mobility but thats not what you look for in a defender, hes the same as a monk in that respect, the ranger i wouldnt count on him in toe-to-toe, the paladin, maybe i can see the pally being capable, but certainly no the rogue, so at the end of the day all of your spell power and expenable abilities are gone, you've got jack, all because you told the fighter to take a hike, tsk tsk spell man yous ded "D E D" ded |
| Jo_Pistachio02-24-07, 09:50 PM | Animal companion guards my back when I run out of spells. I also can generally wildshape. I also always have a hard time running out of spells. It rarely seems to happen to me to the point where I can't contribute a lot more than most other classes. |
| Isomer02-24-07, 09:55 PM | :) :) Ok Mr. Druid, who gaurds your back when you spells are gone, the barbarian, hes got hit points probably not full health, seeing as how the cleric ran out of spells 2 encounters ago, and mobility but thats not what you look for in a defender, hes the same as a monk in that respect, the ranger i wouldnt count on him in toe-to-toe, the paladin, maybe i can see the pally being capable, but certainly no the rogue, so at the end of the day all of your spell power and expenable abilities are gone, you've got jack, all because you told the fighter to take a hike, tsk tsk spell man yous ded "D E D" ded druids are powerful, but i didn't claim they were the best/most powerful. The fact of the matter is each of the classes have strengths and weaknesses and roles to fill in any adventuring group. But to try and argue oh well class XYZ is most supremest of all and the rest are sucksors1111! gets plain silly. You asked why people thought they were the best, i tried to answer you as best i could. But at the end of the day.... hmm... it seems i've lost whereever i was going... Looking at this thread title it says Any reason to have a fighter? now i'm wondering how i even got here.:embarrass this whole tangent is a little off... so in closing druids are cool, fighters are cool and every other core and none core class is cool because WOTC makes a mighty fun rpg :) peace |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 09:56 PM | Ok your animal companion is pretty cool and a valuble asset, but against a suprise attack by 3-man Drow raiding party, or 2 ogres (depending on lvl) your jacked son, and you cant honestly tell me you've NEVER run out of spells plus i would think wild shape would be your default tactic from the way you keep talking about it, enough encounters and thats all spent |
| Flan02-24-07, 10:19 PM | no, spells are not, generally, spells are very limited in the scope of what they can do, however, the variation one can attain with they're spell list offers them versatility, but only so long as the right spell for the cituation has been prepared, and is still available. Fighters don't have this versatility, but they also don't have the limits of requiring foreknowledge (or guesing) or limited times per day on that versatility. You can say that and say that but it really doesn't make it true. By 10th level most casters have "enough" spells to cast all day long, and you don't need "versatility" to compete with a fighter. You can load up every spell slot with assay and with damage and be more versatile than the fighter since all the fighter does is damage and unlike the caster isn't doing it in huge bursts at extreme range while ignoring damage reduction and while hitting many targets at once with AE. By level 20 a cleric is looking at OVER 30 save-or-die spells PER DAY and STILL have ANOTHER 30 "low level" versatility spells including "oh crap, we're losing, plane shift." And animal companions and mounts aren't an argument, they only live past the first combat because the DM is nice enough to carefully avoid slaughtering them and "forgets" about having them make appropriate saving throws on AE damage. |
| Jo_Pistachio02-24-07, 10:34 PM | Ok your animal companion is pretty cool and a valuble asset, but against a suprise attack by 3-man Drow raiding party, or 2 ogres (depending on lvl) your jacked son, and you cant honestly tell me you've NEVER run out of spells plus i would think wild shape would be your default tactic from the way you keep talking about it, enough encounters and thats all spent Many situations, and many levels, wildshape lasts all day, so no, I did not run out. And in either case, a barbarian or a riding dog animal companion, I'm not the best off when ambushed. That's the point of ambushing. And no, I'm not jacked. I can run away, hit them with gorilla tactics for a while, or even stand and fight. Druids have armour and weapon proficiencies, a decent BAB and hit die. They are certainly not pushovers. And I never run out of spells. I make sure to use the exact minimum amount of spellcasting that would be required to get through an encounter. I also tend to play martial arcanists with low casting stats, so preserving my spell slots becomes important. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 10:44 PM | you never run out of spells, and you never run out wild shape, i am just not capable of believing it. However, it matters not, everybody(but you apparently)will run out of spells. Martial Caster, hmm, OxyMoron, hide armor and spears dont make you "Martial", decent BAB, ok, AC, not so much, HD ok. Your a cleric with inferior armor an a dog whatever you say you cannot deny the usefulness of a fighter(more useful than your dog) in this situation |
| Vamroc02-24-07, 11:09 PM | Unless you have a Duskblade in your party you are going to need a front line tank. A fighter is just about the most roubust nonmagic class there is. Do I go ranged, grappler, or frontline each type has it's own charm. I like the frontline type because there is nothing better than using Great Cleave on a patrol of goblins. However the Duskblade makes the fighter an also ran just in terms of effectiveness. A fifth level Duskblade has a ton of dirty tricks like Arcane Channel Dimension Hop. I love it the instant after you do damage in an attack you can teleport a subject five feet every two caster levels. So a sixth level Duskblade has a range of fifteen feet and the spell says " any unoccupied space that you can see within that range". So heres what you do teleport your enemy fifteen feet in to the air and laugh as he takes 1D6 and falls prone. Which could be considered a move action that would give you a A.O.O. and a second chance to do the attack again. |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 11:26 PM | Just thought id mention something, its a little off topic, but a Fighter is not helpless against flying, especially if it has wings, one word, Bolas. Never says what you can target, also flying mages, Net, but even better, a net gun, or bow rather. |
| FrostHammer02-24-07, 11:46 PM | Wildshape effectively lasts all day. One hour per Druid level. Think about this. And that's for ONE use of Wildshape. |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 11:49 PM | First off with the options of PHB2 i beleve you cant cast silent spells in WildShape so that dosnt work Allso WildShape is pointless in early levels or hardly even worth it Allso the fighter could just have a Ring of Freedom of movement or that nice little Feat that grants them that at high levels to become immune to your grappling monk just 1 (It allso has a lot of nicer bonus's) Animol Compan has allready been pointed out how most creatures can kill it quickly At Higher levels WildShape has allready been pointed out how its nice but not all that powerfull If Saveing agest something like that is Easy to do in there sleep then saveing agest a Spell is easy as well sense there the same DC inless your fighters dount have a Str Score or w/e but thats your games Most of your arguements are just starting to go back to the near start and it ended up where people left wildshaping alone and didnt care about it as they saw we where right but i guess the tastic is to wait a while then re bring something back up |
| itwasntme02-24-07, 11:51 PM | Wild Shape isnt that powerfull go ahead and keep useing it YOUR going to run out of spells though inless you never use them ... but if you never use them your just a dumb druid/spell caster becouse the spells are what people fear out of the class |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 11:54 PM | Heres, the thing, i posted that there's a reason to have a fighter and only got a response from 1 druid and his dog |
| Bhaal00602-24-07, 11:55 PM | Plus, Net Bow |
| navar10002-25-07, 12:11 AM | If I'm a Druid fighting 3-4 difficult melee-capable opponents, I'd be happy to have Warrior of my level to stand in the way of one, so I only have to deal with 2-3. That does not mean I'd want a Warrior in the party taking an equal share of exp and treasure. There are many niches a party ideally wants filled, more niches than the average party size, so compromise has to be made. This is an adventuring party, they are struggling for their lives against dozens of varied challenges, you seriously do not want single class Warriors or Commoners in the party. The Fighter is poor at filling multiple niches, in several areas the worst Core PC class. So yeah, if the Fighter wants to be considered "good enough" for any kind of optimized adventuring party, he'd better be quite good at his sole schtick. The Cleric will, over the course of the campaign, keep my (hypothetical) Druid alive several times, and has tricks the Druid has trouble matching. The Wizard exceeds even the Druids respectable list for battlefield control and save-or-dies, and has own list of miscellaneous spells that come in handy. A dedicated spellslinger isn't a bad idea with a 4 man party, Wizards excel at this. The Rogue, Ranger, and Bard are trickier, but a significant portion of their value/class features are their skills. If they can't use their skills to benefit the party, they will be mediocre. Fortunately, they *Can* use their skills, and will in any standard campaign where the DM mostly tries to follow the rules, that's a major part of their schtick. The other classes can be held to an objective standard;they must if any definition of "balance" is to exist. The Barbarian has real trouble at high levels, but the Fighter stands apart as "Worst in Show" in so many areas, it is easy to look at the remaining ones, and see a problem. In other words, it is now agreed upon that the concept of a spellcaster buffing a fighter in and of itself is ok. Forget for the moment what, if anything, the fighter does for the spellcaster. You have no problem as a spellcaster casting a spell on another character so that other character can do something. Since that's the case, any argument that a fighter sucks because he needs a buff spell to fight a pit fiend or whatever is no longer valid. You agree that party members working together is a good thing. It now becomes a question of what exactly does the fighter give the spellcaster. Before that is to be answered, it must be shown the fighter must give something to the spellcaster. I ask this: what does the warlock give to the spellcaster? All of a warlock's abilities are about him. His invocations are all attacks of some kind or buffing himself. His invocations do not buff others. His other class abilities like DR and energy resistance do not buff others. The closest is Take 10 for Use Magic Device for which the warlock could, if he was so inclined, easily use a wand of buff spell. A fighter too could Use Magic Device. Obviously not as well as a warlock, but the potential is there, just like there is a potential a warlock could use a wand of buff spell on the spellcaster. Some argue warlocks are underpowered. Even if I accept that as a given, which I don't, but say I do, there is no "consensus" that warlocks suck. They can deal decent damage from a safe distance, can see in the dark to be on watch, can fly, and can even have some means of crowd control with tentacles or hands from the ground. They may not be as "powerful" as a wizard or a druid or a cleric, but they can hold their own if not perfect at it just as you are saying a fighter can hold his own, if not perfect. You are also saying it is ok for a spellcaster to help other party members. If you are hating the fighter because he can't give a class ability buff of some kind to the spellcaster, do you hate the warlock for the same reason? If instead you like the warlock because he can hold his own and are willing to help him out even though he's not giving anything directly back in return, then the fighter is the same thing. |
| navar10002-25-07, 12:17 AM | You can say that and say that but it really doesn't make it true. By 10th level most casters have "enough" spells to cast all day long, and you don't need "versatility" to compete with a fighter. You can load up every spell slot with assay and with damage and be more versatile than the fighter since all the fighter does is damage and unlike the caster isn't doing it in huge bursts at extreme range while ignoring damage reduction and while hitting many targets at once with AE. By level 20 a cleric is looking at OVER 30 save-or-die spells PER DAY and STILL have ANOTHER 30 "low level" versatility spells including "oh crap, we're losing, plane shift." And animal companions and mounts aren't an argument, they only live past the first combat because the DM is nice enough to carefully avoid slaughtering them and "forgets" about having them make appropriate saving throws on AE damage. All this proves is that spellcasters are powerful, which no one denies. Just because a spellcaster is powerful in his own way does not mean a fighter cannot be powerful in his own way. It is also not a requirement of the fighter to be more powerful than the spellcaster nor even equal to in power. Some are arguing a fighter can be equivalent in power, I root for them :cheer: , but they don't have to be. |
| MeklorIlavator02-25-07, 12:17 AM | In other words, it is now agreed upon that the concept of a spellcaster buffing a fighter in and of itself is ok. Forget for the moment what, if anything, the fighter does for the spellcaster. You have no problem as a spellcaster casting a spell on another character so that other character can do something. Since that's the case, any argument that a fighter sucks because he needs a buff spell to fight a pit fiend or whatever is no longer valid. You agree that party members working together is a good thing. If you are hating the fighter because he can't give a class ability buff of some kind to the spellcaster, do you hate the warlock for the same reason? If instead you like the warlock because he can hold his own and are willing to help him out even though he's not giving anything directly back in return, then the fighter is the same thing. Well, the difference is that a warlock can hold his own, while a fighter can't(and can't use magical device) later on. And how does a fighter fight a Balor? He can't hit him. So being a 1 or 2 round distraction? |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 12:21 AM | I just posted a build on anoyher forum for fighter, ill post it here so you dont have go look at it. a human fighter gets 19 feats this a build that makes a fighter good at more than just one combat style Power Attack Oversize TWF TWF ITWF Close Quarters fighting Improved Shield Bash Mage Slayer Dodge Mobility Spring Attack Quick Draw Improved Initiative Point Blank Shot Precise Shot Manyshot Rapid Shot Improved Rapid Shot Mounted Combat Ride By Attack |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 12:21 AM | In other words, it is now agreed upon that the concept of a spellcaster buffing a fighter in and of itself is ok. Forget for the moment what, if anything, the fighter does for the spellcaster. You have no problem as a spellcaster casting a spell on another character so that other character can do something. Since that's the case, any argument that a fighter sucks because he needs a buff spell to fight a pit fiend or whatever is no longer valid. You agree that party members working together is a good thing. It now becomes a question of what exactly does the fighter give the spellcaster. Before that is to be answered, it must be shown the fighter must give something to the spellcaster. I ask this: what does the warlock give to the spellcaster? All of a warlock's abilities are about him. His invocations are all attacks of some kind or buffing himself. His invocations do not buff others. His other class abilities like DR and energy resistance do not buff others. The closest is Take 10 for Use Magic Device for which the warlock could, if he was so inclined, easily use a wand of buff spell. A fighter too could Use Magic Device. Obviously not as well as a warlock, but the potential is there, just like there is a potential a warlock could use a wand of buff spell on the spellcaster. Some argue warlocks are underpowered. Even if I accept that as a given, which I don't, but say I do, there is no "consensus" that warlocks suck. They can deal decent damage from a safe distance, can see in the dark to be on watch, can fly, and can even have some means of crowd control with tentacles or hands from the ground. They may not be as "powerful" as a wizard or a druid or a cleric, but they can hold their own if not perfect at it just as you are saying a fighter can hold his own, if not perfect. You are also saying it is ok for a spellcaster to help other party members. If you are hating the fighter because he can't give a class ability buff of some kind to the spellcaster, do you hate the warlock for the same reason? If instead you like the warlock because he can hold his own and are willing to help him out even though he's not giving anything directly back in return, then the fighter is the same thing. As for the warlock, they don't need the party buffing them to remain at par. They can scout, they can also get the hell out of dodge if things get bad. The fighter is limited by their gear and their physical attributes. |
| navar10002-25-07, 12:27 AM | Well, the difference is that a warlock can hold his own, while a fighter can't(and can't use magical device) later on. And how does a fighter fight a Balor? He can't hit him. So being a 1 or 2 round distraction? A fighter can so Use Magic device if he so chooses. By Core he can put ranks in it if he really wants to; they're cross-class, but he can do it. He can even take Skill Focus (Use Magic Device) if he wants. He can have a nice Charisma score if he wants. He can have a ncie Intelligence score if he wants for extra skill points. Yes, using point buy makes this difficult, but the default in Core is roll 4d6 drop lowest, so it is not impossible. If we allow every book in existance, there are ways to make Use Magic Device a class skill. Why can't a fighter fight a Balor? Are you denying him his equipment again? |
| itwasntme02-25-07, 12:31 AM | WildShapeing: Target keeps it Own HP Target keeps its Own HD (For all purpose's) Target Keeps its Own BaB Target Keeps its Own Base Save Target Loses all class/natrual/special ablitys that he had in his natrual form (Meaning Feats and other such things) Any Gear Worn or carryed meld into the target and become Nonfunctional when the target reverts any items loss this way come back Any gear put on after the transformation is droped to the characters Feet 5th Level wild shape 1/day Small or medium animals 1 hour per druid level must be familiar with in a well way (Example if they never saw a WinterWolf /or dount know much about WinterWolf they cannot become one) Large Animol at level 8 12th level plant Creature 15th level Huge Creature 16th level small/medium/large elementol The Creature cant take on a form of a higher HD Then the Druids level (Example a DireBear which allways has a HD of at least 12 is large and the druid cannot become it intill at least level 12) Most of the creatures the Druid can become they fought when they where at least 5 levels lower im sure by this time sense you lost your ability to cast Spells (You need silent spell which is a feat which is lost when you wildshape) You Do relize that the fighter was taking on the form your now in 5 levels lower right? and was probly doing a good job of it sense your now higher level? You Can speek but are restricted to the animol type of speeking (Such like a Plant cant speek sep to other plants perhaps) but as you note all other class/natrual/supernatrual/special ablitys are lost in wild shape meaning Spells (Class Ablity) only items that can stay with you is things that have WILD Ablity (Note Armor Only) +3 Bonus so your armor and shield are the only things that stay with you when you wildshape (By stay i mean stay benefiting you) and there both a +3 bonus that means any other class has another +3 bonus on there things as well and its not allways the same this is just a few examples of why wildshpe isnt the greatest thing in the world there are more reasons to it but i got to get lost in about 10 mins |
| itwasntme02-25-07, 12:37 AM | thing is the Anti Fighters hear only Hear what they want to hear ... A Fighter isnt leeching off of anyone At Least not more then any other class is If the Fighter is leeching explane to me why the rouge/barbian/Wizard isnt leeching off of one of the other spellcasters If Someones hurt heal them that isnt leeching thats just the job your so pos to do the Wizards job is to cast spells i would like to see the wizard do his job same with evey other class job |
| itwasntme02-25-07, 12:39 AM | A fighter can so Use Magic device if he so chooses. By Core he can put ranks in it if he really wants to; they're cross-class, but he can do it. He can even take Skill Focus (Use Magic Device) if he wants. He can have a nice Charisma score if he wants. He can have a ncie Intelligence score if he wants for extra skill points. Yes, using point buy makes this difficult, but the default in Core is roll 4d6 drop lowest, so it is not impossible. If we allow every book in existance, there are ways to make Use Magic Device a class skill. Why can't a fighter fight a Balor? Are you denying him his equipment again? thing is they do that alot they forget allmost eveything the fighter is going to have |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 12:39 AM | WildShapeing: Target keeps it Own HP Target keeps its Own HD (For all purpose's) Target Keeps its Own BaB Target Keeps its Own Base Save Target Loses all class/natrual/special ablitys that he had in his natrual form (Meaning Feats and other such things) Any Gear Worn or carryed meld into the target and become Nonfunctional when the target reverts any items loss this way come back Any gear put on after the transformation is droped to the characters Feet 5th Level wild shape 1/day Small or medium animals 1 hour per druid level must be familiar with in a well way (Example if they never saw a WinterWolf /or dount know much about WinterWolf they cannot become one) Large Animol at level 8 12th level plant Creature 15th level Huge Creature 16th level small/medium/large elementol The Creature cant take on a form of a higher HD Then the Druids level (Example a DireBear which allways has a HD of at least 12 is large and the druid cannot become it intill at least level 12) Most of the creatures the Druid can become they fought when they where at least 5 levels lower im sure by this time sense you lost your ability to cast Spells (You need silent spell which is a feat which is lost when you wildshape) You Do relize that the fighter was taking on the form your now in 5 levels lower right? and was probly doing a good job of it sense your now higher level? You Can speek but are restricted to the animol type of speeking (Such like a Plant cant speek sep to other plants perhaps) but as you note all other class/natrual/supernatrual/special ablitys are lost in wild shape meaning Spells (Class Ablity) only items that can stay with you is things that have WILD Ablity (Note Armor Only) +3 Bonus so your armor and shield are the only things that stay with you when you wildshape (By stay i mean stay benefiting you) and there both a +3 bonus that means any other class has another +3 bonus on there things as well and its not allways the same this is just a few examples of why wildshpe isnt the greatest thing in the world there are more reasons to it but i got to get lost in about 10 mins ONE FEAT, NATURAL SPELL |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 12:53 AM | Dudes, it's even a commandment: Doubt not the power of the Druid, for he is mighty. |
| Thomas_Covenant02-25-07, 12:55 AM | **BIG SNIP*** If you are hating the fighter because he can't give a class ability buff of some kind to the spellcaster, do you hate the warlock for the same reason? If instead you like the warlock because he can hold his own and are willing to help him out even though he's not giving anything directly back in return, then the fighter is the same thing.Ok...is there any sane reason you didn't use a Core class to bash? I realize you weren't able to actually show the Fighter doing *anything*, and empathize. I mentioned most of classes in Core in my post, they all fill various niches with varied success. Some scout, some full-party buff, some are "faces". But the Warlock?...yeah, I think he's mildly underpowered, but I haven't seen the class in play, so I reserve judgement a bit here. He can be an effective scout and ranged combatant. Scouts can often be made even more effective by buffs (Rogues love Wizards, in my experience) that the buffing caster can't utilize as well as someone who put skill ranks and class features into scouting talents, which lends to teamwork. He has battlefield control and other options, he has tricks that aren't wealth-by-level, DM fiat, or 2 + Int skill put into cross-class skills. Seriously, if the Warlock doesn't work, what class are you bashing next? Complete Warrior's Samurai, Warrior or Commoner? Your basic argument/assertion that I have to prove the need for any class to show basic competency is a bit ridiculous. Again, "adventuring" party, primarily concerned with overcoming "challenges", many of which are directed at ending the PC's existence. Everyone needs to contribute, I find that self-evident. |
| Bard-of-all-trades02-25-07, 01:00 AM | You can say that and say that but it really doesn't make it true. By 10th level most casters have "enough" spells to cast all day long, and you don't need "versatility" to compete with a fighter. You can load up every spell slot with assay and with damage and be more versatile than the fighter since all the fighter does is damage and unlike the caster isn't doing it in huge bursts at extreme range while ignoring damage reduction and while hitting many targets at once with AE. By level 20 a cleric is looking at OVER 30 save-or-die spells PER DAY and STILL have ANOTHER 30 "low level" versatility spells including "oh crap, we're losing, plane shift." And animal companions and mounts aren't an argument, they only live past the first combat because the DM is nice enough to carefully avoid slaughtering them and "forgets" about having them make appropriate saving throws on AE damage. Cast all day long at 10th level?! How does this work exactly? A sorcerer gets to cast 32 spells per day without any bonuses for high attributes. Clerics and druids get 27 and 22 respectively. Wizards come in at 20 per day. This statement of casting all day long seems a very long stretch, even with high attribues. Over 30 save-or-die spells?! There may be that many in the books, but that doesn't mean they get to cast all of them. Clerics only get to cast 4+1 spells per day of 6th level or higher, so that only constitutes 20 possible spells in the save-or-die range and that's only if they have save-or-die spells in their domains. And as far as your position on animal companions and mounts, this sounds like your on the side of DM coddling. I haven't seen it. There is an arcane hierophant and paladin in our party. The AH has a companion familiar that is 10 HD wolf and the paladin's special mount is a 11 HD celestial griffon. Both are by the books and almost as tough as the characters they are allied with. Both of them have lived long and contributing lives well past the first adventure in our party. Another case of situational arguments. Remember folks, not all games, DM's, settings, etc. are the same. |
| navar10002-25-07, 01:13 AM | As for the warlock, they don't need the party buffing them to remain at par. They can scout, they can also get the hell out of dodge if things get bad. The fighter is limited by their gear and their physical attributes. That's just a matter of personal taste of whether or not you like your gear. In a Superheroes genre game, the gadgeteer is a legitimate choice, a la Batman. In D&D let it be a given a fighter is a gadgeteer. (Rogues like gadgets too.) A warlock uses an invocation to fly a way. The fighter uses magical boots. It doesn't matter the warlock could fly a way and also have boots of speed. The point is the fighter can "get the hell out of dodge if things get bad" that you like so much about the warlock. If he finds that his lack of scouting is causing him real trouble, he'll find a way to compensate. There are magic items that improve search and spot and give low light vision or dark vision. The person I was responding to didn't want to cast a spell on the fighter because the fighter can't give a buff of some kind to his spellcaster. Neither can the warlock. If the warlock "deserves" a spell, so too does the fighter. Your requirement is: My spellcaster will only bother himself to cast a spell on another if he doesn't really need it. The fighter has his own ways not to really need it. He meets the requirement. The fighter gets your spell. Of course, now I must counter myself. Here I'm just willy nilly giving the fighter magic items that conveniently help him out. However, I've been saying with individual DMs there's no guarantee. That is true in this case too. There is no guarantee the fighter can get boots of flying or an item to improve his eyesight. It works both ways. Just as it is said not everything automatically goes the spellcaster's way, so too will not everything go the fighter's way. However, the point I mean when I bring up that individual DMs' campaigns matter is that everyone by assumption stacks the deck against the fighter: There will always be a monster his feats can't work against. The spellcaster will always have the right spells prepared. The fighter can never have a particular magic item that would help him in the situation used as an example of why they suck. However, we are still at the point that the warlock can do fine on his own. The fighter can do fine on his own. Yes, the fighter needs equipment, but that's not a problem that only the fighter has to bear. If he needs it more than others, it's a matter of personal taste of whether that's a feature or a bug. Since the game presumes you are not playing a solo game (even though can) such that it is expected everyone works together, I vote it's a feature. That's still begging the question, how does the fighter help the spellcaster. However, it's still not answered of how the warlock is helping the spellcaster. All we've agreed upon is that the warlock can hold his own. The fighter can also hold his own. They both do it in different ways. Again, it's just personal taste if you don't like how the fighter does it. The result is the same; he can hold his own. If your spellcaster will directly help the warlock because he can hold his own even though the warlock does not directly help the spellcaster, then you must also be willing to help the fighter given the assumption (since it's not proven yet and for the moment no reason to) he does not directly help the spellcaster. Since it has been accepted that the fighter can deal lots of damage and as part of holding his own deal with adverse situations, he is a competent warrior. If it's accepted that even with all of this he can't handle everything by himself thus he sucks, then you have to say everyone sucks because no one can handle everything by himself. Since no one says spellcasters suck despite situations they can't handle by themselves, then fighters can't suck based on the reason they can't handle everything by themselves. Since a spellcaster will help the "leech" warlock, he must also be willing to help the "leech" fighter or else he's being a jerk. The fighter is a competent warrior. A fighter with the help of spells from spellcasters is even better. Spellcasters will help fighters. Fighters don't suck. The fact that spellcasters are awesome does not change this. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:30 AM | *Tear* that was beautiful, thankyou |
| navar10002-25-07, 01:35 AM | Ok...is there any sane reason you didn't use a Core class to bash? I realize you weren't able to actually show the Fighter doing *anything*, and empathize. I mentioned most of classes in Core in my post, they all fill various niches with varied success. Some scout, some full-party buff, some are "faces". But the Warlock?...yeah, I think he's mildly underpowered, but I haven't seen the class in play, so I reserve judgement a bit here. He can be an effective scout and ranged combatant. Scouts can often be made even more effective by buffs (Rogues love Wizards, in my experience) that the buffing caster can't utilize as well as someone who put skill ranks and class features into scouting talents, which lends to teamwork. He has battlefield control and other options, he has tricks that aren't wealth-by-level, DM fiat, or 2 + Int skill put into cross-class skills. Seriously, if the Warlock doesn't work, what class are you bashing next? Complete Warrior's Samurai, Warrior or Commoner? Your basic argument/assertion that I have to prove the need for any class to show basic competency is a bit ridiculous. Again, "adventuring" party, primarily concerned with overcoming "challenges", many of which are directed at ending the PC's existence. Everyone needs to contribute, I find that self-evident. First it was said a spellcaster shouldn't buff a fighter because buffing himself is so much better. I said that a spellcaster buffing a fighter could be the better option in some situations and in others an equivalent option as to casting an attack spell or buffing himself. That was accepted but then it was said the fighter is just useless because he's not an effective fighter. Others have shown the fighter is effective and it was agreed by the anti-fighter crowd (some at least) that the fighter can deal lots and lots of damage and acknowledged having magic items can help the fighter, at least agreeing it is unfair to deny him the idea of having magic items, though a few still do that. Then it was said the spellcaster should not buff the fighter because the fighter couldn't give anything back. I said it's irrelevant because you're playing in a party and everyone is supposed to work together. It shouldn't matter who contributed the most. That was accepted but it was still maintained a spellcaster shouldn't buff the fighter because the fighter can't buff the spellcaster. Now I'm asking for proof why that is necessary. I'm not picking on the warlock. I love the warlock. I'm playing one now. I agree the warlock does not suck. However, the warlock by its design is a class that does not buff or otherwise directly help anyone else. Since it is accepted that the warlock does not suck, I aim to show that if a spellcaster is willing to cast a buff spell on a warlock despite the warlock not directly helping the spellcaster in return, then it is illogical for the spellcaster to deny a buff spell to the fighter for that reason. With no reason not to buff the fighter, then I've shown that there's nothing wrong with the idea of a spellcaster buffing the fighter should a spellcaster use that option nor is it an unreasonable request for the fighter to ask for one. Since it was accepted the fighter was a competent warrior, accepted that a fighter with a buff spell is even better, and accepted that it can be a good idea for a spellcaster to buff the fighter, the fighter does not suck with a side benefit of the fighter not needing to help the spellcaster directly for the buff should he be given one. I've shown that it's not a bad thing to have a fighter in the party. I've shown there's no special reason not to have a fighter in the party. I've shown the fighter does not suck. |
| Bob Loblaw02-25-07, 03:21 AM | Well, the difference is that a warlock can hold his own, while a fighter can't(and can't use magical device) later on. And how does a fighter fight a Balor? He can't hit him. So being a 1 or 2 round distraction? The Balor's AC is only 35. If the 20th level fighter can't find more than +15 to his attack roll, then he deserves to die. Weapon Focus +1, Greater Focus +1, Melee Weapon Mastery +2, +5 Weapon, Strength (30) bonus +10, Flank +2, Charge +2, Higher Ground +1, Grappled (monk?, net?, etc?) +7, he's only Large so he can be tripped +4, and on and on. There is no reason why the fighter can't hit. Even without the situational modifiers, I'm at +39 to hit. That's 4/9/14/19 for my rolls. Bring in the situational mods and things get much better. If I'm a Druid fighting 3-4 difficult melee-capable opponents, I'd be happy to have Warrior of my level to stand in the way of one, so I only have to deal with 2-3. That does not mean I'd want a Warrior in the party taking an equal share of exp and treasure. So I want to make sure I understand you: By keeping the enemy off of you the fighter is not contributing to your survival? I am very glad you aren't in my games. Personally I feel that if the fighter kept someone from killing your character, he's contributed. I don't see how it can be any other way. |
| itwasntme02-25-07, 03:23 AM | ONE FEAT, NATURAL SPELL my point is made your agreeing that feats can be powerfull and change the corise of an action your allso agreeing with me that wildshaping isnt the greatest thing around your allso pointing out that druids lose all super natrual/class ablitys/natrual things when wildshaping the druid cant use armor/weapons effectively while wildshape so your druid isnt going to have the best AC or HP or To Hit Eather with the creature as you acouly give the creature a Negitive on to hit with your BAB (Creatures gain better BAB then druids) Your allso pointing out that your items are lost in combat along with your weapons point being made WildShape isnt all that powerfull even at higher levels its nice but not all that powerfull and the ability to not speek is useoly a point where you need Nat Spell and Silent casting feats Again main point your agreeing that feats can be powerfull when combined with other things |
| FrostHammer02-25-07, 03:48 AM | Of course Druids can use armor while wildshaping. There's an enchantment specifically for that. It's in the DMG. Druids retain spell-casting ability while wildshaping. Thatis the most important thing. And besides, you got it WRONG. The creature retains the type and subtype of its original form. It gains the size of its new form. If the new form has the aquatic subtype, the creature gains that subtype as well. The creature loses the natural weapons, natural armor, and movement modes of its original form, as well as any extraordinary special attacks of its original form not derived from class levels (such as the barbarian’s rage class feature). The creature gains the natural weapons, natural armor, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its new form. The creature retains the special qualities of its original form. It does not gain any special qualities of its new form. The creature retains the spell-like abilities and supernatural attacks of its old form (except for breath weapons and gaze attacks). It does not gain the spell-like abilities or attacks of its new form. Apply any changed physical ability score modifiers in all appropriate areas with one exception: the creature retains the hit points of its original form despite any change to its Constitution. The creature gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con) of its new form. It retains the mental ability scores (Int, Wis, Cha) of its original form. The creature retains its hit points and save bonuses, although its save modifiers may change due to a change in ability scores. Except as described elsewhere, the creature retains all other game statistics of its original form, including (but not necessarily limited to) HD, hit points, skill ranks, feats, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses. Wildshape is godly because you get the atack forms of your new shape. You don't NEED weapons when you have the attacks of a T-REX and swallow your opponents whole. I can guarantee you that a Druid will DESTROY a Fighter almost all the time at the higher levels, and that a Druid will have a much better chance against a CR 20 creature than the fighter. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 09:51 AM | So, from everything im hearing, tou just change into a dinosaur, thats cool, i can beat a dinosaur, no big deal, so, plus this natural, i cant seem to find what book thats in, could you please tell me(no sarcasm intended) ill let you in on a littile secret though, every night before game we do a duel bwtween 2 classes, and although personally ive never seen one between a fighter and a druid, ive seen enough to know it usually comes down to initiative, if you win that, you usually win the whole thing. |
| Clawhound02-25-07, 10:26 AM | Swallow opponents whole? Isn't the whole problem up high level the fact that opponents are large+? Just exactly WHAT is your T-Rex swallowing? A high level fighter is optimized to stand in melee range against a CR 20 creature. How are a druid's melee combat options such that he can suddenly bypass those same defenses in a melee attack? If the druid uses an animal companion, you admit that the druid is not able to stand alone against the fighter. (If the druid gets an animal companion, the wise fighter will have Leadership and a druid companion.) If the druid summons, you admit that he needs extra magic against the fighter in melee, as his wildshape form is not sufficient to beat the fighter. He can either beat the fighter in pure one-on-one melee (demonstrating that he is better), or he falls back on spells or companions and that demonstrates that the fighter is the stronger melee contender. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 10:57 AM | (If the druid gets an animal companion, the wise fighter will have Leadership and a druid companion.) The animal companion is druid class feature. Leadership is an optional feat. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 10:59 AM | The animal companion is druid class feature. Leadership is an optional feat. Feats are fighter class features |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 11:09 AM | Swallow opponents whole? Isn't the whole problem up high level the fact that opponents are large+? Just exactly WHAT is your T-Rex swallowing? A high level fighter is optimized to stand in melee range against a CR 20 creature. How are a druid's melee combat options such that he can suddenly bypass those same defenses in a melee attack? If the druid uses an animal companion, you admit that the druid is not able to stand alone against the fighter. (If the druid gets an animal companion, the wise fighter will have Leadership and a druid companion.) If the druid summons, you admit that he needs extra magic against the fighter in melee, as his wildshape form is not sufficient to beat the fighter. He can either beat the fighter in pure one-on-one melee (demonstrating that he is better), or he falls back on spells or companions and that demonstrates that the fighter is the stronger melee contender. The thing is that the druid is using their class features and abilities. If the fighter chugs 50 potions before the fight, I can deal with that too, mind you the fighter will have a very short period before he has to enter the fight and a very full bladder but that's a different issue. The fact is that the class abilities alone can murder the fighter, the fighter needs the leadership feat (which is DM approval) and even THAT might not work. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 11:32 AM | Feats are fighter class features Leadership is not a fighter bonus feat. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 11:33 AM | You just like to nit pick dont you. heres the thing, casters pretty much kill non-casters(i think this post belong on the OTHER fighter forum) thats not the issue, the issue is Wild Shape < best thing ever. |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 11:36 AM | You just like to nit pick dont you. heres the thing, casters pretty much kill non-casters(i think this post belong on the OTHER fighter forum) thats not the issue, the issue is Wild Shape < best thing ever. maybe not, but it's damn close. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 11:37 AM | You just like to nit pick dont you. No, I just hate it when people suggest that Leadership balances the fighter. Anyone can take Leadership. Fighters don't use Leadership better than other classes. It's a flawed argument. Might as well say (as people often do) the fighters brings a candle of invocation to the fight. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 11:38 AM | Its cool, ill grant you that, its good,maybe even darn good, ill even give you that, but nigh on the best thing ever, im not so sure about. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 11:42 AM | I list it because a fighter can take it with out sacrificing any of his combat potency, more feats for fighting means he can use more feats that get overlooked by other classes because they cant get a combat feat, a metamagic feat, an item creation feat, or a skill enhancement feat. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 11:51 AM | That's silly. Druids need exactly one feat: Natural Spell. They can take Leadership with ease. In a game only concerned with power, everyone will have Leadership. Period. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 11:52 AM | Ignore what i said before this edit, it was supposed to be a post attached to another thread |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 11:58 AM | You keep saying natural spell, explain. |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 12:08 PM | You keep saying natural spell, explain. :rolleyes: core only feat, with this feat the druid can cast any spell while wildshaped. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 12:09 PM | That's silly. Druids need exactly one feat: Natural Spell. They can take Leadership with ease. In a game only concerned with power, everyone will have Leadership. Period. Actually you would think in a game concerned with power, everyone would take skils and feats associated with improving their combat effectiveness, such as metamagic and the like, more spells, more damage, etc. not with gaining some followers, and some guy that follows you around. in most every game i play no one takes leadership, its just over looked in most situations. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 12:12 PM | I see, now your a magic bear(or whatever) that still doesnt make you so completely awesome that no living being could stand against your Semiphenominal nearly cosmic power. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 12:24 PM | Actually you would think in a game concerned with power, everyone would take skils and feats associated with improving their combat effectiveness, such as metamagic and the like, more spells, more damage, etc. Let's see, I could take Quicken Spell and use my own precious spell slots to cast an extra spell four levels below my max, or I could take Leadership and get my cohort to cast a spell one level below my max. Option number two doesn't cost me any spell slots. Leadership is the most powerful feat in the game. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 12:25 PM | Ill fix your druid, its called a gun, it deals 4d6 points of damage per shot it also loads six rounds, all chambers can be fired in the same round, at a cumulative -2 penalty, to a maximum of -12, dealing 24d6 points of damage, at a range of 300ft it takes a move acton to reload with a x3 critical multiplier Craft (fire arms) DC35 Exotic Weapon prficiency (fire arms) if you roll 6 or lower on an attack roll, it explodes dealing 6d6 points of fire damag there i beat you only using class features, druid, meet the big game hunter. |
| JLaurHughes02-25-07, 12:57 PM | A fighter with a 13 and a 15 can be really effective in combat depending on where you place those two scores. The rest of those scores can be 12 or less and you can still make a combat effective/range effective fighter. Fighters can be tacticians, which is what they were initially intended to be, because they have so many options available to them even with a single 15 to their ability scores. Fighters, as with any other class, have the option to cross slass one or more skills without picking up another class by simply Buying ranks(1=1/2) in those skills. Able learner can help out with this too(Feat from Races of Destiny). Druids are specialized more to nature than anything(urban druids work within cities, but are still druids) Natural Spell: Yes! I can now cast while wildshaped, but dang verbal & Somatic only, that means I can't cast "Freedom of Movement" because I can't bind something around my allies arm to free him while I'm wildshaped, oh well, I can still buff myself with spells and attack the offender. I know bad example of a spell that can't be used while wildshaped but it is still an example of a spell that can't be used none the less even with the Feat mentioned. Anyone can become immobilized by a spell that essentially freezes them in place, or slows them to half movement or less. |
| Bob Loblaw02-25-07, 01:00 PM | Ill fix your druid, its called a gun, it deals 4d6 points of damage per shot it also loads six rounds, all chambers can be fired in the same round, at a cumulative -2 penalty, to a maximum of -12, dealing 24d6 points of damage, at a range of 300ft it takes a move acton to reload with a x3 critical multiplier Craft (fire arms) DC35 Exotic Weapon prficiency (fire arms) if you roll 6 or lower on an attack roll, it explodes dealing 6d6 points of fire damag there i beat you only using class features, druid, meet the big game hunter. This really isn't helping our cause. |
| Flan02-25-07, 01:04 PM | Wildshape is godly because you get the atack forms of your new shape. You don't NEED weapons when you have the attacks of a T-REX and swallow your opponents whole. I can guarantee you that a Druid will DESTROY a Fighter almost all the time at the higher levels, and that a Druid will have a much better chance against a CR 20 creature than the fighter. Um. You ARE jokeing, right? A t-rex is 28 str, at 20 a fighter is probably stronger and with any of multiple ways to get enlarge a fighter will be able to grapple the t-rex to death. The 3d6+13 damage a t-rex does is PITIFUL for level 20 where a druid should be tossing maxmized spells for over 100 damage, not to mention at 3d6+13/round (assuming you hit once every round, very unlikely) it will take you over 12 rounds to kill the fighter while the fighter will be doing MUCH higher amounts of damage every swing and be hitting more often. If the fighter has robliar's gambit, then attacking the fighter at all is just plain dumb. If you're actually stupid enough to swallow the fighter, the druid will instantly die from weapon supremecy and the fighter doing a full round attack with power attack for over 300 damage. Thats assuming of course the druid didn't lose initiative and the fighter didn't leap attack shock trooper and kill you in one swing. :rolleyes: |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:06 PM | I know, its just sometimes i get so frustrated i cant help but pulling the "gun" card. ill try to restrain myself in the future |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 01:17 PM | I can now cast while wildshaped, but dang verbal & Somatic only, that means I can't cast "Freedom of Movement" because I can't bind something around my allies arm to free him while I'm wildshaped Natural Spell says: You can also use any material components or focuses you possess, even if such items are melded within your current form. |
| Seerow02-25-07, 01:20 PM | Um. You ARE jokeing, right? A t-rex is 28 str, at 20 a fighter is probably stronger and with any of multiple ways to get enlarge a fighter will be able to grapple the t-rex to death. The 3d6+13 damage a t-rex does is PITIFUL for level 20 where a druid should be tossing maxmized spells for over 100 damage, not to mention at 3d6+13/round (assuming you hit once every round, very unlikely) it will take you over 12 rounds to kill the fighter while the fighter will be doing MUCH higher amounts of damage every swing and be hitting more often. If you're actually stupid enough to swallow the fighter, the druid will instantly die from weapon supremecy and the fighter doing a full round attack with power attack for over 300 damage. Thats assuming of course the druid didn't lose initiative and the fighter didn't leap attack shock trooper and kill you in one swing. :rolleyes: So the fighter gets to buff his strength, but not the Druid? Bite of the Wereboar alone is going to get you up to 44 strength. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:21 PM | Still cant bind it around his arm, No opposable thumbs, lets you tie a knot withou them |
| Flan02-25-07, 01:31 PM | So the fighter gets to buff his strength, but not the Druid? A level 20 fighter will have +6 str magic item and may have +5 innate strength from wishes or tomes. No buffing required. Bite of the Wereboar alone is going to get you up to 44 strength. 28 + 4 = 32. Where are you getting the extra 12? I can't even think how much wereboar hair must cost either and for a 1 round/level spell. |
| JLaurHughes02-25-07, 01:35 PM | I know you can use material components while in wild shaped form, however Bhaal006 has the point here, no opposable thumbs on the creature makes the tying of the necessary components around the allies arm. Which is my point here: Though you can use the material components of the spell with Natural Spell Feat, certain spells are still unavailable, unless of course your wild shaped form is that of a monkey or other sapient like animal that has opposable digits. Can you tie a knot without your thumbs to help with the loop(without of course practicing a thousand times beforehand)? I know people who can, but they practiced a lot. And here I mean if you're using the spell that I had earlier mentioned to free your fighter or another character who has become stuck in place due to a spell or effect that denies that other character's movement. Yes you can still cast Freedom of Movement, but the spell effectively becomes self only when used while wildshaped. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 01:35 PM | Still cant bind it around his arm, No opposable thumbs, lets you tie a knot withou them There's no actual leather thong to tie, as it's melded away, so this doesn't matter. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:36 PM | Yor not just limited to enhancemen, and inherent bonuses, there's luck, profane, and divine as well. |
| Jo_Pistachio02-25-07, 01:38 PM | Yor not just limited to enhancemen, and inherent bonuses, there's luck, profane, and divine as well. Then the druid gets them too. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:39 PM | the spell secifically says that it has to be tied on the creature arm or other appendage, you can cast it on your self because the material component is part of you, how ever you cant tie it on anothe creatures arm without oppoasable thumbs. |
| Otto the Bugbear02-25-07, 01:41 PM | Still cant bind it around his arm, No opposable thumbs, lets you tie a knot withou them NATURAL SPELL [GENERAL] Prerequisites: Wis 13, wild shape ability. Benefit: You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape. You substitute various noises and gestures for the normal verbal and somatic components of a spell. You can also use any material components or focuses you possess, even if such items are melded within your current form. This feat does not permit the use of magic items while you are in a form that could not ordinarily use them, and you do not gain the ability to speak while in a wild shape. Somatic (S): A somatic component is a measured and precise movement of the hand Your going to make people ignore the pro-fighter argument you're trying to support instead of addressing it if you don't even follow the rules, or if you are unable to comprehend what the rules are telling you. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:42 PM | But why would the druid spend the extra money on these bonuses, imsure there are other things he should be buying, whether or not the druid can have them is not the point, will you average druid get the(one not specifically trying to out do the fighter) no. |
| Seerow02-25-07, 01:44 PM | Sacred, Divine, Insight, Profane, etc bonuses are also all Rule 0 territory, as it's rare to find those things in items. In fact, the ONLY place I can think of to find most of them is in spells. Which the fighter doesn't get. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:45 PM | you Cant Tie Knots Without Thumbs Im Sorry You Ar Incapable Of Understanding What The Rules Are Telling, You Can Use It If Your Paticular Form Has Thumbs, Logic, Its One Freakin Spell Its Not The End Of The World. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:46 PM | ever read the item creation blocks in the back of the DMG |
| Seerow02-25-07, 01:47 PM | Sorry, the rules are explicit in that natural spell allows you to complete somatic components, whether it makes sense or not. Logic has no place in game rules. It's not the end of the world |
| Seerow02-25-07, 01:49 PM | ever read the item creation blocks in the back of the DMG Yep. Nothing says the DM HAS to allow these different bonus types though. And if you want to start bringing in custom items, you're really going to open a bad possition for yourself as casters start demanding the same things. Besides the Fighter has enough other stuff to buy that more strength boosters is going to start bleeding him dry. This might not matter to you, since you're used to having so much more wealth than normal. But for average people that's a significant drawback even if it IS allowed. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:50 PM | your brain is broken, quiet about freakin druid, they die like the dogs the become |
| Seerow02-25-07, 01:50 PM | You're just trolling at this point. Shut up and go away. Let the intelligent people talk please. |
| willpower02-25-07, 01:55 PM | Regardless of what some people with way too much time on their hands think, there are definitely reasons to have fighters in a party. Bug thing is a well rounded out group will typically beat the snott out of one trick ponies, which is what any group made up of all one class type would be. And yes, even at the higher levels. The fighter is the one class that is really the most consistent. That comes from them getting the exact same thing over and over again. Though that one same thing (the Feat) can be stacked with other Feats, or play off others and skills to make them seem better than any one particular Feat, since you can have some really good feats with many others as prerequisites. Also, the Fighter helps build Feats to help qualify for good PRCs. Since most characters will eventually want to go into a PRC. Though I haven't actually played in any 20 level games, I have played into the high teens, and everyonce in a while, I will see someone who sticks with a pure fighter. No PRC, or multiclassing. I am not going to say all the time, but a lot of the time they are still some of the most devastating characters in the game. Maybe they can't hit al creatures in a 30 foot readius with 10d6 damage, or a bit more, but when built right I have seen fighters regularly hit for damages in the high 30s or more, EVERY round, and multiple times a round. Sometimes, as with a Scythe fighter I saw once, hith for over 100 points in one hit. (X4 crit is awesome) Look at it this way. Say you had a group of 4 rogues, and a well rounded group. There would be times, as there are in all games, that a rogue will shine, and then the 4 rogue group will be better. And then there are other times, again as there are in all games, that the rogue will bite, (undead, constructs, etc.) then the 4 rogue group might actually get wiped, where the rounded group will win the day. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:57 PM | You know what, that is one game, one. not "i have so much money in every gam i play" i was asked for a gear list, i showed, now everything i say is dicredited because a couple of house rules, apparently you dont play D&D, you play a game where you stop gaining wealth after 20, thats it, top of the ladder no one can EVER gain more than 760,000gp. that character wasnt always rich, he started at lvl 1 with normal gear, its taken me 2 1/2 years to reach this point in my characters career, but you dont PLAY D&D, maybe you did once, but obviously not anymore cause all you can do is quote the books. I'd like to say something rude but CoC and all that rot. |
| Seerow02-25-07, 01:58 PM | You just described a very minorly optimized group. 30 damage a hit is nothing really to brag about (I've seen 22 as an average damage at level 1-2), and 10d6 in a 30ft radius is the stupidest thing a Wizard can do. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 01:59 PM | I suppose you think you one of the "intelligent" people |
| Seerow02-25-07, 02:00 PM | You know what, that is one game, one. not "i have so much money in every gam i play" i was asked for a gear list, i showed, now everything i say is dicredited because a couple of house rules, apparently you dont play D&D, you play a game where you stop gaining wealth after 20, thats it, top of the ladder no one can EVER gain more than 760,000gp. that character wasnt always rich, he started at lvl 1 with normal gear, its taken me 2 1/2 years to reach this point in my characters career, but you dont PLAY D&D, maybe you did once, but obviously not anymore cause all you can do is quote the books. I'd like to say something rude but CoC and all that rot. Actually, I do play. I could talk about my games, but I KNOW they're not the standard D&D game, so they're not a point for debate. On the forums, the only common ground we have is the rules as written, so that's what we use to argue. Period. |
| Seerow02-25-07, 02:00 PM | I suppose you think you one of the "intelligent" people Relative to you? I think the moss on the side of a rock would qualify at this point. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:07 PM | You're just trolling at this point. Shut up and go away. Let the intelligent people talk please. So i look back at the this thread for the past couple days and , uh yeah, you rarely make statements mor than about 2 lines, and all substance of just about everyone consists of you saying "fighter sucks" but without any qualification. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:08 PM | I see, so im stupid because i dont agree with you, that makes alot of sense. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:10 PM | I posted it because i was asked to show my gear, that is the only reason, then i told evrybody that this was not standard, that means that everything i say is based soely around that character? if no one requested i post it you would have never seen it |
| Otto the Bugbear02-25-07, 02:10 PM | you Cant Tie Knots Without Thumbs Im Sorry You Ar Incapable Of Understanding What The Rules Are Telling, You Can Use It If Your Paticular Form Has Thumbs, Logic, Its One Freakin Spell Its Not The End Of The World. According to this argument, the feat Still Spell is quite useless then. It does exactly the same thing for spellcasters that use it as Natural Spell does for druids; allows them to complete the somatic component of the spell in question without actually completing it. Still Spell lightning bolt? out of the question. Can't rub a piece of fur on an amber rod without rubbing a piece of fur on an amber rod. Still Spell fireball? no hurling a little ball of sulfur and bat poo at the target. Still Spell detect invisibility? Can't blow talcum powder all over the area to reveal those invisible opponents. Honestly, you've just shown how you have a very limited understanding of the rules. |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 02:14 PM | I'm glad there's a troll (or someone who can't follow the rules) on the thread again. It makes for VASTLY more entertaining reading. :D Keep the classics comin', Bhaal. It's great fun reading Seerow's and Otto's responses. :clap: :clap: :clap: |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:16 PM | Still Spell "A stilled spel can be cast with no somatic components"PHB Natural Spel "You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape"PHB "Can" not "May" |
| Seerow02-25-07, 02:17 PM | So i look back at the this thread for the past couple days and , uh yeah, you rarely make statements mor than about 2 lines, and all substance of just about everyone consists of you saying "fighter sucks" but without any qualification. Yep, because I don't have hours of time like some people. I generally have enough time to read stuff, but not make the sort of responses I'd like. Many threads I place in higher priority than this have been neglected because of this. I have enough time to make short posts, but not so much to make longer elaborate responses. However, do note you're judging based on just the last couple of days. I am well respected among the community, and that respect is hard earned. Any argument I present dismissively here, you can be certain I've backed up at length in the past. If you want to go through the last 6 months and more of Fighter debates for more elaborate proof, by all means do so. You'll find all my arguments spread out through many topics. If you want me to make a justification for everything I put forth every time, then you'll have to wait on such time that I have more time available to me. Which may not be for months. So deal with it. Fact is I HAVE spent more time on this particular subject than just about anyone else. Fact is I HAVE put the effort into my arguments in the past. I come in now to read what new people have to say, and will dismiss what I find absurd. But for now, I don't have the time to contribute as I used to, if you have a problem with that, too bad. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:18 PM | Seerow, cant even come up with a valid argument Otto is better at least he explains himself in detail |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:24 PM | I'm sorry guys, ive had about 6 DM's and all of them, without exception have interpreted This rule in the exact same matter |
| Otto the Bugbear02-25-07, 02:34 PM | Still Spell "A stilled spel can be cast with no somatic components"PHB Natural Spel "You can complete the verbal and somatic components of spells while in a wild shape"PHB "Can" not "May" So, your stance is that "can" in this case means "cannot because it doesn't say may"? Your stance is that both are just useless page filler that fulfills no actual mechanical function? What purpose does Still Spell fulfill, in your view? |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:37 PM | "Can" meaning if you are capable you "May". "May" grant that you are already capable. i dont recall detractin from the usefulness of still spell at all |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 02:42 PM | Hey, the guy argues by pointing out Im not making extended arguments. All of my extended arguments have already been made. As I said, I simply don't have time to argue every point in depth like I used to. I didn't accuse him of trolling until he comes in posting stuff like this "your brain is broken, quiet about freakin druid, they die like the dogs the become" Between that and gun stuff earlier, I can't honestly believe he's being serious. He has to be doing this to annoy us. And that's trolling. so your "fighter is stupid thing doesnt count" dont forget "calling other people stupid"(im not saying that was you, im just noticing you dont care about people who take your side) its not my fault nobody uses a gun, they're in the DMG(albeit as an alternative thing) as well as in the Faerun campaign setting, they're just commonly overlooked |
| Otto the Bugbear02-25-07, 02:44 PM | Still Spell "A stilled spel can be cast with no somatic components"PHB Natural Spel "You can complete the ... somatic components of spells while in a wild shape"PHB "Can" not "May" "Can" meaning if you are capable you "May". "May" grant that you are already capable. i dont recall detractin from the usefulness of still spell at all So, your stance really is that these two quotes, one for Still Spell and the other for Natural Spell, don't function the exact same way regarding somatic components, regardless of the fact that they actually say the same thing? |
| Seerow02-25-07, 02:44 PM | its not my fault nobody uses a gun, they're in the DMG(albeit as an alternative thing) as well as in the Faerun campaign setting, they're just commonly overlooked Except guns in D&D are far mor ebalanced than the BS you posted earlier. And saying "Hey look the big game hunter uses a gun and kills the druid lol" is stupid trolling and you know it. And yes, some of my 'quips' could be considered trolling. I'm well aware. Do note that one of my favorite alternative names is "Idealistic Hypocrite" and that name isn't idly chosen =P |
| JLaurHughes02-25-07, 02:51 PM | This is addressing Otto. RaW Somatic = Arcane/Divine gestures. Yes I know what this means. It means complex arcane/divine symbols that you have to "draw" with your hands or fingers or other similar finger like digit. Eschew Materials, another Feat from the PHB is the one that deals with material components. Material components are not necessary(at least to a certain extent) with the use of this particular feat, which means that leather thong that you have to tie around the other player's arm to free him/her from the little or no movement of a spell is no longer necessary. And that's using Rules as Written. Now this argument is over. For whoever mentioned power gaming and the leadership feat. Leadership is only useful when the party needs that extra person, or the party is organizing an army. THAT'S what it's for!! And for everyone else As far as Seerow is concerned, I do respect him/her(I have yet to figure out people's genders based on their id). In most cases, when he/she has time to make the response it's a valid point backed by many examples and rule based factoids. As far as why the fighter should be used? It has been mentioned before, and I will say it in this thread -- A fighter has so many options that it's sometimes ridiculous, combat styles for ranged, Melee, combination of R&M, or even tactical. I wish some of the other classes can get so specialized with feats sometimes. Fighters can literally be any type of character within limitations of skills and feats. Other classes can only be that type of character within the general archetypes. The fighter on the other hand can be grouped into the Master of Weapons, Tactician, Artillery master, Combatant, Brawler(Unarmored, Light Armored, Medium Armored), Street Fighter, Hunter&Tracker, Mercenary, Trader. Not all classes are as versatile. While some classes will be able to fit into some of these archetypes not all classes can. Fighter don't have the ability to cast spells, but can cross class some skills to be able to use scrolls and wands in the trained only "Use Magic Device." So you Can have that fighter with a Wand of Fireball using the skill to activate it, albeit not as well as the rogue or sorcerer/wizard that has the spell on his/her spell list. That's what "Buying" ranks in the skill allows you to do. |
| Otto the Bugbear02-25-07, 03:03 PM | Otto, your being an ass, but ill admit defeat, and wil carry your remarks to my DM's so they can decide if they want to do it that way Except I'm not. I've made sure of two things for this thread. 1. Remain polite and neutral. 2. Don't state what side of the fence I reside on in the whole "Any reason to have a fighter" bit. This is addressing Otto. RaW Somatic = Arcane/Divine gestures. Yes I know what this means. It means complex arcane/divine symbols that you have to "draw" with your hands or fingers or other similar finger like digit. Eschew Materials, another Feat from the PHB is the one that deals with material components. Material components are not necessary(at least to a certain extent) with the use of this particular feat, which means that leather thong that you have to tie around the other player's arm to free him/her from the little or no movement of a spell is no longer necessary. And that's using Rules as Written. This is all true, and I can't fathom what this is supposed to show. The question wasn't about whether he still had to possess or expend material components, it was about the action described in the spell being required even when a character has Still Spell or Natural Spell. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 03:11 PM | Leadership is only useful when the party needs that extra person, or the party is organizing an army. THAT'S what it's for!! That's what it is for, yes, but that's not the only time it is useful. Far from it. |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 03:12 PM | Anyone else sense a thread lock comin'? *sniff* I can smell 'er on the wind. Anytime things devolve into argumentum ad hominem, you know something's amiss. The problem is that there are many of us on these boards who have been through these discussions many, many, many times before, so we've become a little less than patient when responding to things like, "Druids can't cast freedom of movement while wild shaped because they can't tie a knot." We also are accustomed to following a certain set of assumptions that new posters may not share. Additionally, we long-time posters are often drawing from an abundance of previous discussions, so when we say, "thousands of damage," we mean thousands of damage, yet new posters will likely think that we're totally pulling numbers out of a hat. Furthermore, the longer these threads get, the likelihood increases that we will see posters join threads late, rehashing or repeating points that have already been made, which tends to exacerbate things and incite the type of behaviour mentioned above. In short, a moratorium on Fighter threads might be the best policy. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 03:16 PM | So, Fighters |
| JLaurHughes02-25-07, 03:28 PM | I admit this isn't the only time it's useful, but it's still more accurate than saying "I'm going to powergame with Leadership." It does state in the PHB that this should be discussed with your DM before taking the feat. The DM Can allow it, but has the option of not allowing more than one player to take it and has the option of allowing only a certain limitation. Which means the DM might just say "Yes you can take it, but you can only have one follower with you at any given time." Or the DM might say "Yes you can have it and bring your own army to the table, but you have to take your turn to make all the actions of your army known, even if the army you've brought has a different initiative than you." See the thread on the Leadership Feat itself which I have yet to find again. Back to the thread at hand, leaving all other arguments aside, NineInchNall has a point, this thread has an increasing possibility of being locked and essentially destroyed with each passing post, especially if there are posts that are falling off topic. The main fact is that Fighters can be specialized, WotC has even posted the Character Class: Dead Levels (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) information because of some of the threads that have been posted in the past. The Link I've mentioned actually helps the fighter out quite a bit without changing the various customization's of the class. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 03:31 PM | So based on everything presented throughout the enitrety of the thread, is there a reason to have a fighter? |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 03:33 PM | Either way, Leadership doesn't help fighter more than other characters, unless the DM really likes the fighter for some reason. If Leadership is allowed for one character, other characters will start wanting to as well. This is actually happening in my campaigns right now. I probably shouldn't have allowed Leadership at all. |
| JLaurHughes02-25-07, 03:56 PM | A number of reasons have been presented throughout this thread, but no specific reason has been really given. The only question I can ask is this. Is there any reason not to have a fighter? A fighter can be the party guard, the guy who protects his spell casting allies, but then so can other full BaB classes. Hmm, but can these other full BaB classes gain the feats needed early on to provide a defensive bonus to another player? Maybe. What about if the Fighter uses his abilities, gained through feats, to keep that wizard or other spell caster free of obstructions so that the wizard is able to cast spells without chance of failure. Well yes that's something a fighter is good for. This doesn't mean that fighters have to be within 10 feet of that wizard or other spell caster at all times, just that the fighter is able to keep his spell casting allies out of harm long enough for them to get their defenses up to the right point. Early on fighters always are better in a few ways than a barbarian who can get killed faster while raging(-2 AC, blindly attacking anyone within range that he considers an enemy) than that fighter with an AC of up to 19 in Full plate, 23 with Full plate and tower shield at 1st level(that mithril full plate and shield is not available due to cost ya know unless of course your fighter is a dwarf from a mining community that presents all its defenders with mithril full plate at their first fighter level). A fighter with Full-plate and tower shield can protect that caster with no armor proficiencies providing at least partial cover to the caster with the use of that tower shield. Clerics and Paladins can use full-plate too in order to protect themselves, not being able to use a tower shield though without using a feat to gain proficiency in its use. Fighters have the potential to have the Highest AC of any class, making them hardest of all to hit. Wizards and Sorcerers come in second with spells that bump up the AC early on, or can provide additional protection to other characters that have the lower AC like that barbarian who wears breastplate armor and has +4 Dex modifier and -2 when raged. |
| TheCobra02-25-07, 04:13 PM | Crusaders also have the ability to use tower shields. If that's really what you're looking for, go crusader over fighter. |
| Argaud02-25-07, 04:21 PM | So, your stance really is that these two quotes, one for Still Spell and the other for Natural Spell, don't function the exact same way regarding somatic components, regardless of the fact that they actually say the same thing? Do you believe Natural Spell automatically makes all the druid spells have Still Spell? Because I'd say that a feat doing that would make a mention about it in the description. Something like 'all spells cast with Natural Spell are to be considered as cast with the Still Spell feat' too, of something. |
| Flan02-25-07, 04:39 PM | Do you believe Natural Spell automatically makes all the druid spells have Still Spell? Because I'd say that a feat doing that would make a mention about it in the description. Something like 'all spells cast with Natural Spell are to be considered as cast with the Still Spell feat' too, of something. It's not still spell, it converts the somatic components into something the animal can do. If your converting to a monkey you obviously don't even need the feat, but converting into a wolf or parrot where it's impossible to make hand gestures because you don't even have a hand allows flapping of wings or whatever to duplicate the finger waggling. While yes it's impossible to wrap part A over limb B like is argued above, but it's also equally impossible to perform the hand gestures of ANY spell in most animal forms. Clearly the intent of Nature Spell is to get you around all of that, not just the finger waggling, but the component fiddling as well (it even allows you to use components that are part of you), but at the same time not give you still spell. If you're grappled, held etc. where you couldn't cast without Nature Spell, you still can't with it. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 04:53 PM | OK, we were talking about fighters here, stop with these ambiguous answers, yes or no, do you need a fighter, give an explanation, if you want to talk about druids go to a druid thread, fighters are the issue |
| Jo_Pistachio02-25-07, 05:50 PM | No, you don't need a fighter. There is also no need for any class except perhaps a rogue and a cleric (from core). Any job that one class can do, some other class can do to some adequite degree. You do however need certain categories of classes, such as tank, healer, arcanist (for the utility) and a skill monkey. Fighter can only ever fit in one category, and is not the best in the category. Therefore he may be sufficient, but is not necessary. For having a reason for a fighter, yes, there are reasons to have a fighter in the party. However, these reasons are overshadowed by certain deficiencies, such as a lack in class abilities, skills and overreliance on party wealth. There is also no reason to take a fighter over another melee style character, such as a warblade or cleric or druid. These classes may melee as well as a fighter and overpower him in various other arenas of play, making the fighter a weak class. Weak enough for me to consider him as useless within a party dynamic, since he adds less than comparable builds. Therefore, there are reasons to take a fighter. There also is no reason not to take something better. |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 06:06 PM | Just to remind people, the original question is whether there is any reason to have a Fighter rather than something else. In this case it isn't a question of whether the Fighter is underpowered, but instead whether there are more effective options -- not necessarily more fun, more flavorful, more user-friendly, or anything else. Ostensibly the topic is referring to characters with mostly Fighter levels. It's reduced to one (serial) question: Does a Fighter in the party add something a Bard, Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard, Duskblade, Psychic Warrior, Psion, Crusader, Swordsage, Warblade, or Favored Soul would not that is actually worth not having that other class? |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 06:09 PM | I think a fighter is necessary, i think I've proved sufficiently that a fighter is the only melee class capable of doing well in any situation, Barbarians, and Pallys are one trick ponies, where a fighter is useful in any situation, ranged, offense, Mounted combat, as well as defense. This is my opinion, I've shown the build(albeit with some modifications) and you'll never change my mind. |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 06:10 PM | This is my opinion, I've shown the build(albeit with some modifications) and you'll never change my mind. The sign of someone not discussing things in good faith. How about providing a modified version of that build that conforms to the standard average wealth by level guidelines and does not have any custom items. Once you do that we can actually analyze numerically what impact that build has relative to others. |
| Leo02-25-07, 06:24 PM | OK, we were talking about fighters here, stop with these ambiguous answers, yes or no, do you need a fighter, give an explanation, if you want to talk about druids go to a druid thread, fighters are the issue If you want lots of feats quickly, go fighter, geez, there is no other class that does it as well. All martial classes can use some feats, especially when you want to multiclass. So, the fighter has a purpose. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 06:30 PM | Heres the thing, i post a list feats, so far all but like 2 people thought that list was great, the fighter IS a master of martial combat, i think i proved that nicely, it seems to me that your mad because the fighter doesnt work the way YOU want it, and thats fine, some classes dont work the way I want them to, that doesnt mean they suck, it means i dont play them, dont keep telling me the fighter is broken cause you "..cant get it to do right."(spacecataz) |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 06:32 PM | TWF /Power Attack Oversize TWF / Cleave Improved Shield Bash /Great Cleave Dodge Mobility Spring Attack whirlwind Attack Close Quarters Combat Quick Draw Improved Initiative Point Blank Shot Precise Shot Rapid Shot Combat Expertise Defensive Strike Mage Slayer Ride By Attack Mounted Combat Mounted Archery the "/" after the first 3 feats means that you should retrain at later lvls, seeing as how they lose their effectiveness after you gain Whirlwind attack As for the Wealth thing "SHUT UP!" do it your self you lazy Jerk |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 06:38 PM | So you wanna try and convince me A Barbarina can do better in Toe-to-Toe, Mounted and ranged combat, Can you do it for a Paladin |
| Nathreet02-25-07, 07:00 PM | Any reason to have a fighter? Yes. Next question. :P Fighters are for many varied encounters per day when things like rage, sneak attack, favored enemy, etc. won't always work. They are the best for general purpose combat, which is what makes them so hard to argue for. Often with specific circumstances you are better off with another class. |
| Nathreet02-25-07, 07:43 PM | Hmmmm, the real issue is not the answer, but the question. As in: Do you really think anyone is reading 25 pages of replies? If you read every reply, shouldn't you be doing something else instead? Rage depends on it not running out. Anyone playing a campaign with multiple encounters per day obviously has a DM unfairly biased towards a fighter. Sneak attack depends on denying dex bonus and vulnerability to crits. Anyone in a campaign with lots of undead in it obviously has a DM unfairly biased towards a fighter. Favored enemy depends on opponents. Any campaign with more than one enemy type obviously has a DM unfairly biased towards a fighter. |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 07:49 PM | Hmmmm, the real issue is not the answer, but the question. As in: Do you really think anyone is reading 25 pages of replies? If you read every reply, shouldn't you be doing something else instead? Rage depends on it not running out. Anyone playing a campaign with multiple encounters per day obviously has a DM unfairly biased towards a fighter. Sneak attack depends on denying dex bonus and vulnerability to crits. Anyone in a campaign with lots of undead in it obviously has a DM unfairly biased towards a fighter. Favored enemy depends on opponents. Any campaign with more than one enemy type obviously has a DM unfairly biased towards a fighter. :rolleyes: The rogue has uses outside of combat, and can do other things in combat than sneak attack. A ranger can fight fine normally, and gets even more out of facing a favored enemy (which can be chosen as the campaign progesses based on the scope of the campaign) The barbarian can rage up to 7 times a day base at high levels, that is far more than the standard for encounters in a day, then add in the extra rage feat. |
| FrostHammer02-25-07, 07:58 PM | A Rogue can do stuff even when not sneak attacking. Go look at the PHB2 options for Rogue. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 07:58 PM | Who dies more at low lvl do you think, the fighter or the Barbarina. most often in the games ive played, the barbarina gives up at about lv 6, after realizing that you are frequently still in combat when the rage ends, and in attacks by multiple opponents, takes to many hits for the cleric to do anything but heal in any encounter, and after. |
| Nathreet02-25-07, 07:59 PM | A bard has uses outside of combat. A wizard with a crossbow can fight fine. All fighter-types become less important at high levels. So some people actually play them at lower levels. |
| Flan02-25-07, 07:59 PM | TWF /Power Attack Oversize TWF / Cleave Improved Shield Bash /Great Cleave Cleave is very nice at low levels, at high levels it's rarely useful. Defensive Sweep, Robliar's Gambit or Slashing Fury give you more options with similiar benefits. Dodge Mobility Spring Attack whirlwind Attack Whirlwind Attack is nice at low levels and pointless at high levels. Spring attack is pretty questionable at high levels as you can just take lighter/mithril armour and tumble if you really want to fight that way. This whole tree isn't very useful overall, and things like Leap Attack and Shock Trooper will serve you better offensivly and Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Improved Toughness are better defensively. Close Quarters Combat Quick Draw Improved Initiative Improved Initiative is okay, but the others are pointless. Improved Trip and Improved Grapple are useful even if just to help defend yourself against them. Point Blank Shot Precise Shot Rapid Shot Combat Expertise Defensive Strike Mage Slayer Defensive Strike isn't useful. Why take something you'll use infrequently over specialization and focus which you'll use every single attack? Also Combat Expertise is nice, but only as a pre-req for Improved Expertise. Ride By Attack Mounted Combat Mounted Archery Dependant on campaign, although in any campaign Mounted Archery will be rare to be useful, better to take Spirited Charge. Just trading cleave, great cleave, whirlwind attack, quick draw, dodge and close quarters combat for focus, spec, mastery and supremecy you lose: Extra attack when you take down a foe +4 to hit when missed fighting defensively :rolleyes: draw weapons as a free action instead of as a free action when taking a move action you gain: +4 to hit with all attacks with a weapon (+2 with a weapon type) +6 damage to all attacks with a weapon (+2 with a weapon type) +4 against being disarmed with a weapon An additional +5 to hit with an attack when you full attack Ability to use weapon while grappled Which is much better, particularly against single tough opponents. The +4 to hit on all attacks and the +4+5 to hit on one attack are practically like 2 extra attacks per round unless you're somehow fighting something you're never missing. So much better than cleave. Even if you are hitting every swing the extra bonus to hit can be turned into extra power attack damage. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 08:00 PM | The Question Is Fighter, Not Rogues, Not Druids, Not Clerics, Not Anything Else!! |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 08:01 PM | I'm only working with the feats i have access to |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 08:05 PM | Heres the problem with you suggestions, it only makes the fighter effective in one, or a few particular types of situation, not at all what happens at higher levels, or at any level for that matter, see your actually trying to make a broken fighter to prove your point |
| Flan02-25-07, 08:09 PM | Who dies more at low lvl do you think, the fighter or the Barbarina. most often in the games ive played, the barbarina gives up at about lv 6, after realizing that you are frequently still in combat when the rage ends, and in attacks by multiple opponents, takes to many hits for the cleric to do anything but heal in any encounter, and after. Um. Being fatigued is a very minor penalty. Why would a barbarian even care? Think of it like this, if your PC isn't half-orc, it's like you're permanently fatigued since you're down 2 STR. Yeah... huge penalty. :rolleyes: Heres the problem with you suggestions, it only makes the fighter effective in one, or a few particular types of situation, not at all what happens at higher levels, or at any level for that matter, see your actually trying to make a broken fighter to prove your point No, my suggestions make the fighter MORE flexible, not less as I pointed out several times. You've chosen super-specialized feats that LIMIT the fighter, and on top of that are overly weak. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 08:23 PM | Defensive Sweep, Robliar's Gambit or Slashing Fury give you more options with similiar benefits. what books are these feats from half the problems i hear from fighter relate to the "Improved" feats You're the only person I've ever heard say that Iron Will, Great Fortitude, and and Toughness are even worth looking at How many Pre-req's does Shocktrooper take, quick draw is definitely a must, it allows you to switch between weapons more quickly, power attack is for use with a 2h weapon vs mages, keeps a standard attack effective enough to bump concentration higher, also allows you to take a 5-foot step to keep the mag threatened |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 08:26 PM | Who dies more at low lvl do you think, the fighter or the Barbarina. most often in the games ive played, the barbarina gives up at about lv 6, after realizing that you are frequently still in combat when the rage ends, and in attacks by multiple opponents, takes to many hits for the cleric to do anything but heal in any encounter, and after. So either the barbarian is playing stupid, has a really low con score, or encounters are lasting over a minute (10 rounds) at low levels that is rather odd. |
| FrostHammer02-25-07, 08:36 PM | Maybe Bhaal just needs to improve his Int score before he understands how to play other classes efficiently. |
| Bob Loblaw02-25-07, 08:36 PM | Fighters are for campaigns with DMs who tend to run Mont Haul style campaigns or when things like rage, sneak attack, favored enemy, etc. are arbitrarily nerfed by the DM or made unusable to make sure the fighter can do something. They are the best for specific situations, which is what makes them so hard to argue for. Often with more general encounter types and intelligent foes you are better off with another class. Altered to reflect accuracy. That's a bit unfair. I have never been accused of running a Monte Haul campaign. My players tend to run at about 80%-90% of the appropriate wealth for their level. There is always at least one fighter in the group who has a wonderful time. Everyone sees this character as a great contributer. He is never flashy. The fighter just doesn't pull off flashy very well. I tend to run things RAW with very few houserules (none affect any class significantly more than any other). I'll bet in a standard game, I could play a fighter that would keep me more than happy and be a great contributor to the group. Because each group is different, everyone is looking for something different from the class. I think that the fighter only appeals to certain types of players. The ones who want to be in the spot-light need not apply. The fighter will rarely be there. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 08:39 PM | Maybe Bhaal just needs to improve his Int score before he understands how to play other classes efficiently. you cant come up with a valid point so you resort to insults. tsk tsk |
| Flan02-25-07, 08:42 PM | Defensive Sweep, Robliar's Gambit or Slashing Fury give you more options with similiar benefits. what books are these feats from http://www.devinweb.com/featlisting.htm You're the only person I've ever heard say that Iron Will, Great Fortitude, and and Toughness are even worth looking at Higher will save probably won't save you, even with a +5 resistance item and a luck item, but it can help. The 20 extra HP from improved toughness is pretty nice. How many Pre-req's does Shocktrooper take, quick draw is definitely a must, it allows you to switch between weapons more quickly, The only advantage quick draw gives you is that you can do a full attack on the round you switch weapons. Not useful since you won't be switching weapons often and when you do you probably will do it on a charge, not in combat. power attack is for use with a 2h weapon vs mages, keeps a standard attack effective enough to bump concentration higher, also allows you to take a 5-foot step to keep the mag threatened Power Attack is for everything. |
| FrostHammer02-25-07, 08:45 PM | you cant come up with a valid point so you resort to insults. tsk tsk That's because I don't respect you enough. You don't know how to play other classes effectively, and that's why you don't think the Fighter falls behind them. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 09:01 PM | I dont give a fly crap about you respect, people post her to gain insight and expres an opinion we dont need a bunch jerk offs making stupid quips, fine a barbarinas not fatigued in combat, what ever, in dire straits maybe we need to run, barbarinas fatigued, need to climb, fatigued, i play other classes, i actually love to play wizards, monks, warlocks, clerics. you assume way to much if you cant contribute, shut the hell up. i dont like doing this, i dont like insulting people, i dont like being rude. but i didnt start this one. for all i care you can take your "respect" and shove it in all manner of unpleasant places. |
| JLaurHughes02-25-07, 09:06 PM | Cobra Crusader is a good choice in lieu of fighter, however if you only have access to a limited amount of sources like just the three core books, fighter is essential, Yes at higher levels other classes can cover for the fighter, but until then fighter can be the guardian of the spellcasters. Fighters ARE usefull outside combat. No one has figured out how yet though. So what Can a fighter do outside of combat? I don't know, but I'm sure that the fighter can do something outside of combatn that doesn't involve skills. For example a fighter can earn his money showing off his weapon skills. |
| Bhaal00602-25-07, 09:08 PM | Higher will save probably won't save you, even with a +5 resistance item and a luck item, but it can help. The 20 extra HP from improved toughness is pretty nice. I dont see this as being worth it The only advantage quick draw gives you is that you can do a full attack on the round you switch weapons. Not useful since you won't be switching weapons often and when you do you probably will do it on a charge, not in combat. Power Attack is for everything. Power atack is great but i was showing the specific reason i took it |
| Argaud02-25-07, 09:21 PM | You're the only person I've ever heard say that Iron Will, Great Fortitude, and and Toughness are even worth looking at :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :banghead: |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 09:50 PM | The Question Is Fighter, Not Rogues, Not Druids, Not Clerics, Not Anything Else!! Actually, it is about everything else, as the question is is there any reason to have a Fighter instead of one of the others. |
| Yadot02-25-07, 10:13 PM | Actually, it is about everything else, as the question is is there any reason to have a Fighter instead of one of the others. No.:D |
| navar10002-25-07, 10:33 PM | The thing is that the druid is using their class features and abilities. If the fighter chugs 50 potions before the fight, I can deal with that too, mind you the fighter will have a very short period before he has to enter the fight and a very full bladder but that's a different issue. The fact is that the class abilities alone can murder the fighter, the fighter needs the leadership feat (which is DM approval) and even THAT might not work. What's it to your druid how the fighter chooses to dedicate his feats? If he gets a cleric cohort whose only purpose is to heal and buff the fighter, then said fighter is not even leeching off your druid's oh so important to himself resources. However, I've already shown that it's ok for spellcasters to cast spells on their fellow fighter party members, should they choose that option. That you wouldn't do so is just your playing style. |
| Flan02-25-07, 10:37 PM | Fighters ARE usefull outside combat. No one has figured out how yet though. What the heck do you mean? That beer won't drink itself and that wench won't... *cough* |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 10:39 PM | What the heck do you mean? That beer won't drink itself and that wench won't... *cough* wave at the fighter as she goes over to the bard? |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 10:41 PM | What's it to your druid how the fighter chooses to dedicate his feats? If he gets a cleric cohort whose only purpose is to heal and buff the fighter, then said fighter is not even leeching off your druid's oh so important to himself resources. However, I've already shown that it's ok for spellcasters to cast spells on their fellow fighter party members, should they choose that option. That you wouldn't do so is just your playing style. Yes, and then the fighter has an army at his disposal, as does anyone with the leadership feat. Almost any class gets more out of it than the fighter does in terms of usefulness for self and group. Not to mention that leadership is not a class ability and it is subject to DM approval, I usually say no to it unless the player can make a compelling case as to why it is needed and how they justify taking it. |
| navar10002-25-07, 10:53 PM | Yes, and then the fighter has an army at his disposal, as does anyone with the leadership feat. Almost any class gets more out of it than the fighter does in terms of usefulness for self and group. Not to mention that leadership is not a class ability and it is subject to DM approval, I usually say no to it unless the player can make a compelling case as to why it is needed and how they justify taking it. So now you are accepting that individual DMs for individual campaigns do matter? Then perhaps your druid can't just wildshape into a dinosaur because he's not "familiar" enough with it as the DM defines "familiar". Then perhaps your wizard can't just Gate in a Solar every combat because the Solars start getting mad being your whipping boy. Maybe every bad guy has their lairs Dimensional Locked and Scry proof with the very important rooms guarded by golems in an anti-magic field because of all the uberspellcasters ruining their plans. Actually, I do not need a fighter to have Leadership to be useful. I've already given my proof that figthers don't suck. I don't need fighters to be uberoptimal in every situation. Wanting to play a warblade over a fighter is simply a matter of taste. |
| Thomas_Covenant02-25-07, 10:55 PM | Yes, and then the fighter has an army at his disposal, as does anyone with the leadership feat. Almost any class gets more out of it than the fighter does in terms of usefulness for self and group. Not to mention that leadership is not a class ability and it is subject to DM approval, I usually say no to it unless the player can make a compelling case as to why it is needed and how they justify taking it.Actually it's much worse than this on the Leadership feat. The DM has veto rights and full control, and that's without invoking "Rule 0". Note 3.0 didn't even put text for the feat in the PHB, it said just look in the DMG, there's a reason for that. The SRD sadly does not mention these restrictions, most of which are in the DMG, and not open content. Here's a snippet that shouldn't upset the WizO's, I think...Special: Check with your DM before taking this feat, and work with your DM to determine an appropriate cohort and followers for your character (the Dungeon Master's Guide has more information on cohorts and followers).Want Power Attack or Improved Initiative? Unless "Rule 0", go for it. Want a Cleric Cohort? Ask your DM. Then look through the DMG, and hope your character concept/build doesn't require it, because you have no guarantee, and no argument if the DM doesn't like it, for one of several reasons listed, or no reason at all. |
| Archangel6202-25-07, 11:14 PM | So now you are accepting that individual DMs for individual campaigns do matter? Then perhaps your druid can't just wildshape into a dinosaur because he's not "familiar" enough with it as the DM defines "familiar". Then perhaps your wizard can't just Gate in a Solar every combat because the Solars start getting mad being your whipping boy. Maybe every bad guy has their lairs Dimensional Locked and Scry proof with the very important rooms guarded by golems in an anti-magic field because of all the uberspellcasters ruining their plans. Actually, I do not need a fighter to have Leadership to be useful. I've already given my proof that figthers don't suck. I don't need fighters to be uberoptimal in every situation. Wanting to play a warblade over a fighter is simply a matter of taste. Maybe they do, but my point is that when a feat says specifically "DM approval" that is a sign. Also, that feat is of use to ANYONE. Individual DMs don't determine balance, but there is no class ability that says DM approval required. |
| Greendevilman02-25-07, 11:15 PM | What's it to your druid how the fighter chooses to dedicate his feats? If he gets a cleric cohort whose only purpose is to heal and buff the fighter, then said fighter is not even leeching off your druid's oh so important to himself resources. However, I've already shown that it's ok for spellcasters to cast spells on their fellow fighter party members, should they choose that option. That you wouldn't do so is just your playing style. And the Druid can also get a cleric and/or wizard cohort whose only purpose is buffing himself. Hell, he can have a Sorcerer whose job is just to cast regular and/or extended heroics on him and do the fighter's job in a manner that is almost strictly better. Leadership is equally available to everyone, it isn't even a fighter bonus feat, and if you're using explicitly optional non-class resources to have a personal buff bot follow you around in order to make yourself a viable group member that hardly speaks well for your classes overall functionality. The core point that you seem to keep missing is that it doesn't matter if a fighter *can* be buffed by his groupmates, the point is that a fighter has no way of ensuring that he *will* be buffed and does nothing so uniquely beneficial or reciprocal with those buffs that he even has a natural right to expect they'll be granted to him in preference to anyone else. You cannot rely on the assumption that you can use another classes' abilities or gear as an argument for viability unless you really do something so exceptionally synergystic with them that it cannot be otherwise duplicated and/or its clearly the best possible use of those resources. Frankly, the fighter doesn't, doesn't contribute any resources to the party total, has no way of manufacturing or aquiring additional resources and requires other party members to expend their own resources to keep him remotely viable. I believe your original point was that it isn't necessary for a class to be entirely self sufficient in the context of a D&D adventure because it is a cooperative exercise, which is certainly true. But you go wrong in assuming that because total self sufficiency isn't necessary it excuses blatant inability to cope with routine circumstances without leaning heavily on the aid of others that may not be there or may not be able to be/best be devoted to rendering you functional. Don't use resources that are universally available through non-class feats or financial purchase to argue for a class' balance unless your class synergizes with those resources in a vastly superior way or your class has much easier access to them. A fighter very clearly has neither of these things going for him, except insofar as he can make slightly better use of a specialized magical weapon type that he has no special access to or way of guaranteeing aquisition of. Hooray! :rolleyes: |
| NineInchNall02-25-07, 11:21 PM | To everybody else, remember that he wants to see a Barb that does better than his build. :D So you wanna try and convince me A Barbarina can do better in Toe-to-Toe, Mounted and ranged combat, Can you do it for a Paladin I'm going to assume the elite array here for both the Fighter and the Barb. Hell, you can even give your guy that equipment list you gave earlier. Okay. Barbarian 20 Abilities: Str 30, Dex 20, Con 20, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14 Abilities (raging): Str 38, Dex 20, Con 28, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14 Feats: Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Point Blank Shot, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Precise Shot, Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit Some of His Equipment: Seeking, splitting composite longbow +5 (+14 Str bonus); Valorous, ghost touch, speed ranseur +3; Boots of striding and springing; cloak of resistance +5; belt of magnificence +6; ring of freedom of movement; mithral chain shirt +4 of heavy fortification; ring of protection +1; amulet of natural armor +1; wings of flying. Base Attack/Grapple: +20/+30 Base Attack/Grapple (raging): +20/+34, charging bull rush +20, trip +14, sunder +18 Saves: Fort +22, Ref +16, Will +16 Saves (raging): Fort +26, Ref +16, Will +20 <-------------------------> So. How does he stack up in ranged (raging) combat? He can fire into melee, so that's always good. His shots do 20-81 damage (including critical hits.) His ranged attack bonus is +30. He gets off eight arrows per round, so his full attack has a damage capacity of 160-648. How about (raging) melee? This guy charges into combat. His charge attack has an attack bonus of +39 and does 216-456 damage. If this does not kill his enemy, the enemy may decide to fight back, which provokes attacks of opportunity each time. He uses a reach weapon, so things provoke attacks of oportunity when moving around. His subsequent full attack will be made at an attack bonus ONE lower than your Fighter's, and each hit will do 88-188 damage. He gets five of these (440-940 damage). He can't be grappled. He has a +14 trip which activates when he bull rushes an enemy into another enemy. How about mounted ... Why would this guy care about mounted combat? He moves as fast as most horses. Mounted combat is therefore irrelevant. In addition, he has damage reduction and more HP than the Fighter you suggest, has a higher Str score so does more damage normally, has more skill points and a better skill list so can contribute outside of combat, gets a free attack against someone after sundering, has various other special abilities. Want me to do it with a Cleric? It'll be even dumber, I assure you. This is far from a well-optimized build, btw. I just threw this together in a few minutes, and I have no idea what I'm doing when I don't have spells. The lack of spellcasting confuses the crap out of me. :oops: And please note that I think Barbs in general suck - even worse than Fighters - except for their skill set. |
| Flan02-26-07, 12:35 AM | To everybody else, remember that he wants to see a Barb that does better than his build. :D You can take that exact same character, remove the rage and add 10 feats because it's a fighter and it will be better. Same HP thanks to improved toughness. More attacks and higher overall damage with the bow thanks to feats. Higher average damage thanks to improved critical (although there are better feats). Better to-hit and higher damage even without rage thanks to feats. An extra attack per round or the equivalent thanks to slashing fury or weapon supremecy's +5 to hit or both. On top of that the fighter can dip 1 level into barbarian and get rage. At least no one is dragging out the Champion of Gwynharwyf. |
| NineInchNall02-26-07, 12:36 AM | Remember, better than his build. And I think Barbs are pretty much worse off than Fighters to begin with. And I was definitely trying to stay away from multiclassing, as I didn't think it would be an honest response to his challenge if I hadn't. |
| Seerow02-26-07, 12:38 AM | If we want to bring up multiclassing and prestiging, we can always just pull out the Chameleon and win, every time. Really. |
| NineInchNall02-26-07, 12:44 AM | No, no, no. Multiclassing brings out the Dweomerkeeper (XP/GP dumb), Vermin Lord (spellcasting dumb), Thrallherd (GP dumb), and Planar Shepherd (dumb). Blarg. |
| Seerow02-26-07, 12:57 AM | Well the Chameleon is slightly more tactful, because it doesn't recieve -as- much attention over on CharOp... I don't think I've seen it really discussed there much at all, really. The only time I ever saw it was during the Gish competition. But I don't really go there all that much. |
| NineInchNall02-26-07, 01:09 AM | If we want to be tactful, then we might as well just compare said Fighter to a Diplomonster and be done with combat entirely. |
| Archangel6202-26-07, 02:39 AM | I will say this, the fighter class is a good springboard to something else, possibly a chosen design feature. |
| Kresalak02-26-07, 09:31 AM | Well the Chameleon is slightly more tactful, because it doesn't recieve -as- much attention over on CharOp... I don't think I've seen it really discussed there much at all, really. The only time I ever saw it was during the Gish competition. But I don't really go there all that much. I don't think they even realize the game breaking WTFness of the Chameleon. |
| AllisterH02-26-07, 11:11 AM | Someone said it best. You have a mundane person in a very non-mundane world. With how D&D is setup, at higher and higher levels, a fighter becomes more and more dependant on his equipment than on himself (namely his feats). Take a simple example, namely some of the epic feats. Why is Infinite Deflection or Reflect arrow an epic level feat? How many times in fantasy fiction do we read/see/hear about the fighter that is so fast he can deflect arrows? Hell, Gourry from Slayers is fast enough that he can reflect Ray attacks from spellcasters back towards them and has reflexes and speed that he literally can blitz any spellcaster in his world (Gourry vs. 3 spellcasters = win for Gourry). How come D&D fighters pull this off? Push some of those feats into the lower end of the chain or make it fighter-only feats and you'll have much less complaining. |
| Bhaal00602-26-07, 11:42 AM | To everybody else, remember that he wants to see a Barb that does better than his build. :D I'm going to assume the elite array here for both the Fighter and the Barb. Hell, you can even give your guy that equipment list you gave earlier. Okay. Barbarian 20 Abilities: Str 30, Dex 20, Con 20, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14 Abilities (raging): Str 38, Dex 20, Con 28, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14 Feats: Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Point Blank Shot, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack, Precise Shot, Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit Some of His Equipment: Seeking, splitting composite longbow +5 (+14 Str bonus); Valorous, ghost touch, speed ranseur +3; Boots of striding and springing; cloak of resistance +5; belt of magnificence +6; ring of freedom of movement; mithral chain shirt +4 of heavy fortification; ring of protection +1; amulet of natural armor +1; wings of flying. Base Attack/Grapple: +20/+30 Base Attack/Grapple (raging): +20/+34, charging bull rush +20, trip +14, sunder +18 Saves: Fort +22, Ref +16, Will +16 Saves (raging): Fort +26, Ref +16, Will +20 <-------------------------> So. How does he stack up in ranged (raging) combat? He can fire into melee, so that's always good. His shots do 20-81 damage (including critical hits.) His ranged attack bonus is +30. He gets off eight arrows per round, so his full attack has a damage capacity of 160-648. How about (raging) melee? This guy charges into combat. His charge attack has an attack bonus of +39 and does 216-456 damage. If this does not kill his enemy, the enemy may decide to fight back, which provokes attacks of opportunity each time. He uses a reach weapon, so things provoke attacks of oportunity when moving around. His subsequent full attack will be made at an attack bonus ONE lower than your Fighter's, and each hit will do 88-188 damage. He gets five of these (440-940 damage). He can't be grappled. He has a +14 trip which activates when he bull rushes an enemy into another enemy. How about mounted ... Why would this guy care about mounted combat? He moves as fast as most horses. Mounted combat is therefore irrelevant. In addition, he has damage reduction and more HP than the Fighter you suggest, has a higher Str score so does more damage normally, has more skill points and a better skill list so can contribute outside of combat, gets a free attack against someone after sundering, has various other special abilities. Want me to do it with a Cleric? It'll be even dumber, I assure you. This is far from a well-optimized build, btw. I just threw this together in a few minutes, and I have no idea what I'm doing when I don't have spells. The lack of spellcasting confuses the crap out of me. :oops: And please note that I think Barbs in general suck - even worse than Fighters - except for their skill set. Ok NIN, ill admit when im wrong, but if a fighter can do the same thing, with feats left over, what makes the fighter suck so hard |
| NineInchNall02-26-07, 11:56 AM | Well, the point was to do better than your build. ;) I'm not fond of the Barbarian, myself, as it's even more limited than the Fighter in combat. Oh, a Barbarian can do his schtick pretty well, and a well-made one will be able to use that schtick in most combat situations.* The thing about the Barbarian that makes it a slightly more well-rounded class than the Fighter, however, is its out-of-combat ability. By actually having some skills and skill points, the Barbarian can contribute in combat (with his big trick) and out of combat (with skills). In general, though, a well-made Fighter should do more in combat than a Barbarian. So there we have an answer to the question of whether there is any reason to have a Fighter 20 rather than a Barb 20. :w00t: Now we just have to do the same for more representative cases, methinks. I know for sure that a well-optimized melee/archery build would do a lot better than Fighter 20. *This is one of the important things about building characters: getting a big trick going and making that big trick applicable in as many circumstances as possible. I think I suggested it to you before, but you should really head over to the Character Optimization forum and immerse yourself in it for a while. I'm sure you'd find the experience entertaining. In fact, let me see if I can come up with some threads that are especially entertaining. I'll PM you with links, should I find some. :) |
| itwasntme02-26-07, 12:32 PM | The Balor's AC is only 35. If the 20th level fighter can't find more than +15 to his attack roll, then he deserves to die. Weapon Focus +1, Greater Focus +1, Melee Weapon Mastery +2, +5 Weapon, Strength (30) bonus +10, Flank +2, Charge +2, Higher Ground +1, Grappled (monk?, net?, etc?) +7, he's only Large so he can be tripped +4, and on and on. There is no reason why the fighter can't hit. Even without the situational modifiers, I'm at +39 to hit. That's 4/9/14/19 for my rolls. Bring in the situational mods and things get much better. So I want to make sure I understand you: By keeping the enemy off of you the fighter is not contributing to your survival? I am very glad you aren't in my games. Personally I feel that if the fighter kept someone from killing your character, he's contributed. I don't see how it can be any other way. Note you have +39 to hit his AC is 35 i count him needing a 2/2/7/12 sense 1's are crit misses a 39+2(Roll)=41 34+2(Roll)=36 the fighter has a very good chance of hitting that Balor |
| itwasntme02-26-07, 12:53 PM | Both sides right now are Trolling stop it Point has been made though Fighters are usefull to have just no one realy wants to play them or no one realy knows how to play them Most fighters i know have higher then +39 to hit at level 20 but +39 is fair enough for a level 20 character with the top BaB (Barbian/Fighter eta/eta) Point was allso made that feats are Usefull and come in handy IF you know how to use them a Fighter is a great class IF you know how to use the feats with your game play the problem is most people dount so they choose for a differnt class thats a smart move on them only becouse they didnt know how to play a Fighter i dount know how to play a Bard i dount ... i would be a horrible example to start talking about Bards all i know is that Bards run around playing music helping ppl out and there kinda cool if you wanted details i wouldnt realy know A Fighter is a good class to have becouse he can use all his feats to his advantage one way or another People allso see the strength in Fighter with his Feats otherwise they wouldnt level dip in it 1 or 2 levels they do it mostly in fighter of all the other class's yes i know there taking it only for thouse few feats but again thats pointing out how Feats can be powerfull (In Combination not alone) and thats the whole point of the fighter to have more feats then eveyone eles so use them wisely a Wizard at high levels with a Cross bow cant hit to much with it he can however hit ppl at lower levels at higher levels he can distract ppl with that crossbow or get a lucky blow in (Lucky i mean more then 14 on the attack Roll aka 15-20) As i stated above the fighter that Bob Listed was better then he thought a wizard who cant cast 7th level or higher spells at level 20 isnt the greatest wizard ... Druids arnt Super powerfull but they are nice class's again but i see no point on why ppl get so excited over there damn druid and treat it like its a Great Powerfull gift No i rather Treat the Wizard / Fighter / Cleric as a nice mighty gift (There are other things on this list like WarBlade Crusader and others out there) if argueing about multy classing then fighters are still usefull becouse ppl more offtin or not take a few levels into fighter for there builds Allso i like to ask is my Spelling better then what it use to be to eveyone or what? |
| aelryinth02-26-07, 01:07 PM | Sigh. That Balor you are beating on is a naked balor taken by suprise. Even the basest of tactics should have that balor with Unholy Aura on. +4 Deflection and saves. You the Fighter will be Intimidated at a glance. +41 due to size differences...you will fail the level check. -2 th, dmg, saves. Check every round if you like. If you are immune to fear, make sure to mark that off your feat choices. The balor can wear armor! amazing, no? +2 or 3 Mithril Chain or something so it can keep its Dex bonus for another +7 AC. A +1 Animated Tower Shield is another +5 Shield AC. Or maybe it just trades off its whip for a large shield +4 or something. So now you have to hit an AC of what, 51? And that's not even with real optimizing. And do you realize that one of the weapon options instead of their Vorpal sword is a Sword of Brilliance? Yes, that's right, all your armor and shield stuff is now worthless. Or maybe you just want to have it wear bracers and a Monk's Belt. Better touch AC. Every round, it can spam blashphemy, stun you, and move away. Then, it can attempt endless dominates and insanity until you succumb. If you have mind blank, it can attempt endless dispels until it gets rid of the spell. It can wear charisma boosters to up the save DC of its spells. It can stun you with blasphemy, walk up next to you, sit on you, and let you fry in its burning aura. It can summon another balor or marilith to relieve you of your life while you are stunned. If you put any thought into running a general of the pits, which is what the Balor is, and actually equip it as something with an Int and Wis of 24, you will suddenly realize just how dead you are going to be trying to fight a balor as a fighter. You better have every one of them situational modifiers. And as for tripping the thing...first, you have to hit it with your favorite weapon, which just got telekinesised away from you. Role your str vs his +20 caster level. Yeah, you are gonna lose your weapon, too. And if the balor is smart, you aren't ever going to be able to stay close enough to kill him. ===Aelryinth |
| Kresalak02-26-07, 01:14 PM | Balors have standard goods for a CR 20 encounter, which means 80,000 gp of treasure. This affords them easy access to the items mentioned by aelryinth, before anyone comments on that. |
| Khan the Destroyer02-26-07, 01:17 PM | Balors have standard goods for a CR 20 encounter, which means 80,000 gp of treasure. This affords them easy access to the items mentioned by aelryinth, before anyone comments on that. Coming from neither a pro-fighter or anti-fighter perspective, is this common practice? No DM I've played under has used a monster's treasure for equipment. It seems to make some sweet, sadistic sense though. But I think it might affect the CR, if even just a little. EDIT: After rereading Aelryinth's post, I have to disagree with his assessment. You are concluding the fighter is underpowered by 'optimizing' an encounter. The MM presents the Balor as is at CR 20. You are altering its statistics significantly to prove a point. There is no requirement to optimize monsters. It should be understood that if you change around their stats (like taking away standard treasure to increase their AC by 12) then a PC's performance will be different. I would bet that the character classes, wealth by level charts, and spells were derived on the assumption of a non-'optimized' Balor. |
| Argaud02-26-07, 01:21 PM | Sigh. That Balor you are beating on is a naked balor taken by suprise. Even the basest of tactics should have that balor with Unholy Aura on. +4 Deflection and saves. You the Fighter will be Intimidated at a glance. +41 due to size differences...you will fail the level check. -2 th, dmg, saves. Check every round if you like. If you are immune to fear, make sure to mark that off your feat choices. Is he wasting a standard action doing that? Dumb balor. The balor can wear armor! amazing, no? +2 or 3 Mithril Chain or something so it can keep its Dex bonus for another +7 AC. A +1 Animated Tower Shield is another +5 Shield AC. Or maybe it just trades off its whip for a large shield +4 or something. Incorrect. The balor has no gear. The balor has no wealth either. The balor has treasure. He might have some defensive item in the treasure of a CR20 creature (besides his flaming whip and vorpal sword) but that is not a given. Most balors (and most fiends) do fight naked for some weird reason. Don't ask me why they are so dumb, but that is what the MM says. If the balor has good extra gear (I am not saying he shouldn't!) the CR goes up. You want to give the balor some gear? Start with a cloak of resistance and a rod of absorption instead of the whip. Wow, now casters are completely screwed, aren't they? The balor has all his saves at around 30 and absorbs all direct attack spells! Nifty. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-26-07, 01:36 PM | While the equipment is bad, I'm willing to accept that a Balor can use all that gear in echange for it not deciding to spam it's at will 20 CL Blaphsemy. That's the real kicker. Everything within 40' of the Balor that isn't evil gets to sit and cry until it decides it wants to play a different game or until the dretches he summoned roll enough natural 20s to kill the party. Admittedly I'm not sure if that's really a weakness of the fighter though..... |
| AllisterH02-26-07, 01:40 PM | You know, as an aside, this is an interesting question. When the MM says a creature has the appropriate wealth level for its CR, what exactly does it mean? Is this gems/gold (what the hell does a Balor need with gold and gems?) or equipment (if equipment/gear, why the hell isn't the Balor wearing it and thus reflected in the MM write-up?) So which one is it? |
| Flan02-26-07, 01:43 PM | Coming from neither a pro-fighter or anti-fighter perspective, is this common practice? No DM I've played under has used a monster's treasure for equipment. It seems to make some sweet, sadistic sense though. But I think it might affect the CR, if even just a little. Yes and no. Aelryinth's example is a little over the top, their treasure will likely include SOME magic items and those will likely be used by a smart monster, but at the same time they will also have gems, gold, artwork etc. on hand to spend, use as bribes etc. For a good example see Fiendish Codex I's description of the Molydeus. This doesn't raise their CR. If they were to chose magic items though, top of MY list would be, as Argaurd said, something along the lines of a resistance item, a variety of potions, and some other form of magic defence like a way to get spell turning or a way to strip enemies of their defence like disjunction. A GM should keep in mind the most likely opponent of a devil or demon will be another devil or demon and they will probably have items meant to beat them... like cold iron holy weapons, lol. Truely sadistic GMs would give them luck blades... |
| Argaud02-26-07, 01:55 PM | Admittedly I'm not sure if that's really a weakness of the fighter though..... It is not. Chain Blasphemy scews everyone equally. Unless someone has the Quick Recovery feat, and can recover from being stunned using a move action. If someone has it, it is probably the fighter, though, since he has more feats. |
| Jethren02-26-07, 02:46 PM | There are plenty of reasons to play fighters. Concensus on the boards is meaningless in most games. Whether or not those who feel the fighter is underpowered, or sucks, or whatever are correct is meaningless. Not every game conforms to the standards that they use. If you want to play a fighter, and have fun doing it, then play the fighter. Ignore the nay-sayers and have fun. It's your character not theirs. I am reaching back to the first reply to show what a reasonable opinon should look like. The reason to play a Fighter is that you might happen to enjoy doing so. Beleive it or not, there are a number of people playing D&D to have fun. It isn't always about having the best or most useful character. Somtimes a near-useless oddball is the most satisfying character to play, and somtimes even the classes most universally regarded as powerful can wind up being dead weight. |
| Greendevilman02-26-07, 03:10 PM | I am reaching back to the first reply to show what a reasonable opinon should look like. The reason to play a Fighter is that you might happen to enjoy doing so. Beleive it or not, there are a number of people playing D&D to have fun. It isn't always about having the best or most useful character. Somtimes a near-useless oddball is the most satisfying character to play, and somtimes even the classes most universally regarded as powerful can wind up being dead weight. Cool. That still says nothing about the internal balance of the class. We're talking fairly gamist power balance issues here, not the roleplaying satisfaction derived from playing a very well realized blind beggar without arms. Because that armless blind beggar class may be the most fun you ever did have roleplaying but when he gets totally obviated mechanically by a commoner then you have issues. Its supposed to be heroic fantasy roleplaying and fighter types are an important staple that are usually portrayed as a good deal more competent and useful than they turn out to be in play. And there is nothing wrong with thinking this is an important issue because this is a game that is set up to best run combat as a tactically intensive affair using a battlegrid/map. Given D&D's current implementation and history purely gamist concerns are definitely up for debate. This ain't Nobilis we're talking about here. |
| Bhaal00602-26-07, 03:27 PM | ive posted a revamped fighter for any one who's interested |
| Thomas_Covenant02-26-07, 07:35 PM | You know, as an aside, this is an interesting question. When the MM says a creature has the appropriate wealth level for its CR, what exactly does it mean?It is an interesting question, and there's no clear answer. The Draconomicon is the only reference I know that discusses this in print. It does have a mention that fully optimizing a Dragon with ideal items should increase the computed CR by at least one. *Why* this is so is not outright stated; keep in mind Dragons get triple standard wealth, which is an issue over the Balor or most intelligent, items using monsters. Plus, Dragons seem to have the unofficial *awesome* subtype, so it may simply be a question of items added to *too powerful for listed CR* just becomes too much, as well. I don't know where they are, but I know randomly/arbitrarily assigned items that intelligent, tool-using monsters can wear, are expected to be worn. Again, not much of an answer, much less than true conclusion or ruling, but I feel ideally optimized magic items for monsters isn't wise from a balance perspective, and the CR should often increase. NPC's are considered adventurers, and should be logically optimized towards whatever their focus is, which is often purely to kill PC's, but a good chunk of their equipment will be focused on doing just that, and staying alive. |
| Argaud02-26-07, 08:24 PM | It is an interesting question, and there's no clear answer. The Draconomicon is the only reference I know that discusses this in print. It does have a mention that fully optimizing a Dragon with ideal items should increase the computed CR by at least one. *Why* this is so is not outright stated; keep in mind Dragons get triple standard wealth, which is an issue over the Balor or most intelligent, items using monsters. Plus, Dragons seem to have the unoffocial *awesome* subtype, so it may simply be a question of items added to *too powerful for listed CR* just becomes too much, as well. I don't know where they are, but I know randomly/arbitrarily assigned items that intelligent, tool-using monsters can wear, are expected to be worn. Again, not much of an answer, much less than true conclusion or ruling, but I feel ideally optimized magic items for monsters isn't wise from a balance perspective, and the CR should often increase. NPC's are considered adventurers, and should be logically optimized towards whatever their focus is, which is often purely to kill PC's, but a good chunk of their equipment will be focused on doing just that, and staying alive. I strongly suspect the idea is to keep the PCs from getting too much loot. By logic a balor should have at least as many items as a level 20 classed NPC. Instead he has a couple items most parties can't use and some random treasure (easily controlled by the DM). Instead of powerful items he has crazy high abilities, awesome skills and deadly slas. Which at the end means the balor roughly matches the abilities/skills/spells of any level 20 character. So the party can have a big fight without getting an huge loot (isn't it like 220k for the gear of level 20 NPC? CR20 dragons rarely get to that even with triple treasure!). If you think about it for 5 seconds, the system is pretty stupid. Why would a level 20 adventurer have more gear than a thousands years-old fiend that probably rules a large city in Hell and has several thousands of super-powerful servants? It is also damn hard to fix it. |
| aelryinth02-26-07, 08:27 PM | A balor has standard coins; double the normal amount of goods; and standard items for a creature of its level. It can not only afford more treasure then I posted, it probably should! Remember that coins, gems and 'treasure' don't mean much to a fiend except as tools to advance its cause...which is generally destruction or the acquisition of souls. Either mission would mean that 'standard items' are likely to be things usable by the balor, or he'd swap/acquire them. He has a 24 Int and Wis...if your PC can get the 'right stuff', I'd think an immortal creature supergenius could! A Rod of Absorption is 50k and would probably violate % limits of treasure. I didn't post anything even near that expensive...I went light on people. ===Aelryinth |
| Argaud02-26-07, 08:36 PM | A Rod of Absorption is 50k and would probably violate % limits of treasure. I didn't post anything even near that expensive...I went light on people. No, you didn't. You went straight to screw warriors as much as you could, to prove your point about how much they suck. Which makes no sense, because by your logic, warriors are not a threat, only casters are a danger to a balor. So cloak of Resistance +5 (25k gold) and Rod of Absortion with 20 charges (just 20k gold) make much more sense. As someone else commented, a balor usually spends most of his time fighting Pit Fiends, not human fighters. Now his saves are +32, +28, +28. And he ignores most magic. Good luck with those save-or-die spells. |
| WizO_Shadow02-26-07, 08:42 PM | Ok. wow. 41 pages. Wow. Lots of trolling and other behaviours that are considered dramatically against the CoC. So, after 41 pages, are we keeping this thread open because this is going to the be "Fighter thread" for all of those wonderful, "Fihterz r de suxxorz!!!!!111!! one!!!" threads? Shadow... with the flu and no mercy. |
| Seerow02-26-07, 08:45 PM | Ok. wow. 41 pages. Wow. Didn't you see the one that was at 140 pages on 30 posts per page? (AKA just short of 4000 posts) I don't think you were the one who closed it, but surely you saw it at least. |
| WizO_Shadow02-26-07, 09:08 PM | I wasn't the one who closed it as I had my own monsters to take care of in the high post count threads but wow... just wow. Not a condescending wow just one of those that make your eyes go big for a second and then you nod and walk away. Renee Shadow |
| Flan02-26-07, 09:17 PM | If you think about it for 5 seconds, the system is pretty stupid. Why would a level 20 adventurer have less gear than a thousands years-old fiend that probably rules a large city in Hell and has several thousands of super-powerful servants? It is also damn hard to fix it. A fiend which the PCs would never ever ever ever see or get close to either. Yes, it's stupid, but so is the thought of a general of hell even engaging a PC. In fact the entire class system is stupid and levels are ridiculous and the concept of HP are just ludicrous. It's called fantasy. |
| Seerow02-26-07, 09:24 PM | I wasn't the one who closed it as I had my own monsters to take care of in the high post count threads but wow... just wow. Not a condescending wow just one of those that make your eyes go big for a second and then you nod and walk away. Renee Shadow Such are the achievements of the Fighter. New Fighter Class Feature: Questionable Balance(Ex): The Fighter's lack of distinct class features leads to a questionable balance for the Fighter class. This ability causes people full of hot air from all around the world to debate whether he can compete or not, creating hundreds of discussions monthly, with no conclusion. Special: A straight Fighter with 12 or more ranks in Balance loses this ability. |
| AllisterH02-26-07, 09:27 PM | A fiend which the PCs would never ever ever ever see or get close to either. Yes, it's stupid, but so is the thought of a general of hell even engaging a PC. In fact the entire class system is stupid and levels are ridiculous and the concept of HP are just ludicrous. It's called fantasy. Not true exactly. What a system should be is "internally consistent". It might not make sense from our perspective but it should be consistent with itself. As others have pointed out, a balor's main enemies should be pit fiends et al and thus its gears be suited to stopping such a creature. |
| Kratch02-27-07, 01:38 AM | Wildshape is godly because you get the atack forms of your new shape. You don't NEED weapons when you have the attacks of a T-REX and swallow your opponents whole. I can guarantee you that a Druid will DESTROY a Fighter almost all the time at the higher levels, and that a Druid will have a much better chance against a CR 20 creature than the fighter. Sorry for the delay in my responce. been busy. Well, since the fighter will likely beat your +1int, the fighter would start by charging (or double moving if he needs to get around your companion) so he can get within 5ft of you, this will provoke an AoO, but his robilars gambit will get him one as well. by the end of his move he's landed a nice hit on you and you've bitten him and got him in your mouth. come your turn you swallow him whole, and to your surprise, he slids right down without any resistance, taking his paultry bit of gizzard and acid damage. On his turn he procceeds to convert 15 BAB into power attack and full attacks (3 hits on anything but a 1 and the forth is auto hit) your armourless insides for 58-64 damage per hit (thats 240-270 damage, not including the AoO he got from your initial bite attack.). And the whle time he's safe from your companion, andything you may have summoned, he's out of LoS, got a nice fleshy full cover from AoE's, all thanks to you swallowing him. The following round he'll cut himself out of your corpse and toss an intimidating smile at your companion. All in all he took 34-63, thanks for the easy kill, and that was just using 10 feats that are applicable in all fights (of which combat reflex's and robilars gambit weren't even really needed, nether was the spiked chain, so i could have done it just as easily with 7 feats.). Or should i asume you just don't know how to play the class? You can't just assume that because you can do something, that that makes you better then your opponent. in other words, don't underestimate what a fighter can do. |
| navar10002-27-07, 02:04 AM | Actually, it is about everything else, as the question is is there any reason to have a Fighter instead of one of the others. Then the answer is simply: because the player wants to play one. It is not your place to determine what class another player wants to play unless everyone by agreement at character creation help each other to decide what to play, feats to take, spells to have, etc. |
| Archangel6202-27-07, 02:25 AM | Then the answer is simply: because the player wants to play one. It is not your place to determine what class another player wants to play unless everyone by agreement at character creation help each other to decide what to play, feats to take, spells to have, etc. Yes, but the question has to do with mechanics. And mechanically, no there is no reason. |
| navar10002-27-07, 02:26 AM | And the Druid can also get a cleric and/or wizard cohort whose only purpose is buffing himself. Hell, he can have a Sorcerer whose job is just to cast regular and/or extended heroics on him and do the fighter's job in a manner that is almost strictly better. Leadership is equally available to everyone, it isn't even a fighter bonus feat, and if you're using explicitly optional non-class resources to have a personal buff bot follow you around in order to make yourself a viable group member that hardly speaks well for your classes overall functionality. The core point that you seem to keep missing is that it doesn't matter if a fighter *can* be buffed by his groupmates, the point is that a fighter has no way of ensuring that he *will* be buffed and does nothing so uniquely beneficial or reciprocal with those buffs that he even has a natural right to expect they'll be granted to him in preference to anyone else. You cannot rely on the assumption that you can use another classes' abilities or gear as an argument for viability unless you really do something so exceptionally synergystic with them that it cannot be otherwise duplicated and/or its clearly the best possible use of those resources. Frankly, the fighter doesn't, doesn't contribute any resources to the party total, has no way of manufacturing or aquiring additional resources and requires other party members to expend their own resources to keep him remotely viable. I believe your original point was that it isn't necessary for a class to be entirely self sufficient in the context of a D&D adventure because it is a cooperative exercise, which is certainly true. But you go wrong in assuming that because total self sufficiency isn't necessary it excuses blatant inability to cope with routine circumstances without leaning heavily on the aid of others that may not be there or may not be able to be/best be devoted to rendering you functional. Don't use resources that are universally available through non-class feats or financial purchase to argue for a class' balance unless your class synergizes with those resources in a vastly superior way or your class has much easier access to them. A fighter very clearly has neither of these things going for him, except insofar as he can make slightly better use of a specialized magical weapon type that he has no special access to or way of guaranteeing aquisition of. Hooray! :rolleyes: Actually, I don't use Leadership as a defense for fighters as a whole. It is simply one particular way for a fighter to do alright by himself. In any case, I don't dismiss self-reliance. I just don't require a class to be self-reliant in every situation imaginable because no class can ever be. That a spellcaster might have an easier time of it doesn't take away from the fighter. If anything, that becomes a spellcaster/nonspellcaster comparison and not fighters specifically. I also don't need the fighter to be "vastly superior" to any particular class. All I need is for the class to function well at what it can do. Whatever any other class can do is irrelevant. If a player will always want to play a warblade instead of a fighter, hooray for him. That's only a matter of personal taste. I'd probably choose a warblade over the fighter as well but mostly because it's new and I haven't as yet played a martial adept. I don't choose to play a class because it's the most uber powerful over everything. I choose a class because I think it will be fun to play and then make it the most uber powerful I can make it within the parameters the DM sets because I know I min/max. That I can't be the most uber powerful in every situation is irrelevant. That another player character could be most uber powerful in a situation I'm not is irrelevant. What's only relevant is that character treating me like a buddy we're supposed to be. That's what's going on with the anti-fighters. They don't like he can't be most uber powerful in everything and hold that against him, and they won't treat him like a buddy if their particular most uber power character in their mind finds himself in the same party as one. The first case I could just chalk it up as I just have to live with their particular taste different from mine, but they apply it so eagerly against the second where it no longer becomes just a matter of taste. |
| navar10002-27-07, 02:29 AM | This is far from a well-optimized build, btw. I just threw this together in a few minutes, and I have no idea what I'm doing when I don't have spells. The lack of spellcasting confuses the crap out of me. :oops: And please note that I think Barbs in general suck - even worse than Fighters - except for their skill set. Case in evidence. You will only ever play spellcasters. Fine, personal choice of taste. Therefore all nonspellcasters must suck. :rolleyes: |
| FrostHammer02-27-07, 02:59 AM | Sorry for the delay in my responce. been busy. Well, since the fighter will likely beat your +1int, the fighter would start by charging (or double moving if he needs to get around your companion) so he can get within 5ft of you, this will provoke an AoO, but his robilars gambit will get him one as well. by the end of his move he's landed a nice hit on you and you've bitten him and got him in your mouth. come your turn you swallow him whole, and to your surprise, he slids right down without any resistance, taking his paultry bit of gizzard and acid damage. On his turn he procceeds to convert 15 BAB into power attack and full attacks (3 hits on anything but a 1 and the forth is auto hit) your armourless insides for 58-64 damage per hit (thats 240-270 damage, not including the AoO he got from your initial bite attack.). And the whle time he's safe from your companion, andything you may have summoned, he's out of LoS, got a nice fleshy full cover from AoE's, all thanks to you swallowing him. The following round he'll cut himself out of your corpse and toss an intimidating smile at your companion. All in all he took 34-63, thanks for the easy kill, and that was just using 10 feats that are applicable in all fights (of which combat reflex's and robilars gambit weren't even really needed, nether was the spiked chain, so i could have done it just as easily with 7 feats.). Or should i asume you just don't know how to play the class? You can't just assume that because you can do something, that that makes you better then your opponent. in other words, don't underestimate what a fighter can do. You can't power attack with a Light weapon. Next. No really though. I dare you to make a Fighter that can kill a Druid and out-perform the Druid realistically in the CharOp board. If you can do it, I'd be really happy even though I'm wrong. I would LOVE to see a Fighter that is uber. |
| Greendevilman02-27-07, 03:38 AM | Actually, I don't use Leadership as a defense for fighters as a whole. It is simply one particular way for a fighter to do alright by himself. In any case, I don't dismiss self-reliance. I just don't require a class to be self-reliant in every situation imaginable because no class can ever be. That a spellcaster might have an easier time of it doesn't take away from the fighter. If anything, that becomes a spellcaster/nonspellcaster comparison and not fighters specifically. I also don't need the fighter to be "vastly superior" to any particular class. All I need is for the class to function well at what it can do. Whatever any other class can do is irrelevant. If a player will always want to play a warblade instead of a fighter, hooray for him. That's only a matter of personal taste. I'd probably choose a warblade over the fighter as well but mostly because it's new and I haven't as yet played a martial adept. I don't choose to play a class because it's the most uber powerful over everything. I choose a class because I think it will be fun to play and then make it the most uber powerful I can make it within the parameters the DM sets because I know I min/max. That I can't be the most uber powerful in every situation is irrelevant. That another player character could be most uber powerful in a situation I'm not is irrelevant. What's only relevant is that character treating me like a buddy we're supposed to be. That's what's going on with the anti-fighters. They don't like he can't be most uber powerful in everything and hold that against him, and they won't treat him like a buddy if their particular most uber power character in their mind finds himself in the same party as one. The first case I could just chalk it up as I just have to live with their particular taste different from mine, but they apply it so eagerly against the second where it no longer becomes just a matter of taste. So you're saying that people who are arguing that the Fighter is bad class because its mechanically weak in gamist terms think that the Fighter is a bad class becasue its mechanically weak? Yes... yes they are. D&D is a very gamist RPG, it has very tactical combat and cannot be considered rules light by any strech of the imagination. It grew out of wargames. For many people this is a major part of the attraction of the system. I and I don't think any of the other "anti-fighter" people really care about what character concept you want to play, and if you're a gaming buddy with a plausible reason to be in the party I doubt anyone would kick you to the curb if you were roleplaying a blind one-armed beggar in an enjoyable fashion. Its not a matter of characters being "uber-powerful," its a matter of the game system having something resembling either balance or enjoyably interesting imbalance. Either way the system should let you play the kind of heroic fantasy characters you want (within limits) and with the assumption that you can make them reasonably competent at whatever their concept calls for. The fighter archetype is a long and storied one, but the current implementation of the class means that it really *DOESN'T* do what most people want it to very well at all. You say you need the class to "function well at what it can do" but what doing "well" is isn't defined. By definition a class does whatever it actually *does* well. A commoner makes a perfectly fine commoner, so it succeeds on its own terms. But does a fighter *really* do what it sets out to do? Unless your concept is the narrow "fighty guy with no social skills beyond yelling at people and maybe he likes animals or making weapons" the fighter really doesn't. He doesn't have the skills to fufill the archetypical skilled warrior role. He can't really "tank" effectively. He really lacks the ability to get out on the front lines and fight his little heart out and take down the big bosses without extensive support from nearly every other party member to a degree that hardly seems in keeping with his imagined archetypical role. Basically, you can roleplay whatever you like but gamist concerns matter for a system like D&D and they especially matter when they prevent a class from fufilling its intended function adequately. Adventurers are supposed to be reasonably competent at what they do, and as a matter of system the Fighter fails to mechanically fufill his role as a competent and effective combatant at the higher levels of play and as a competent and effective party member outside of combat at all levels of play. If he was intended to trade out of combat effectiveness for in-combat power he also fails on that score since he isn't notably more effective than several other classes that can do his job and more in other situations (and this really has to be a comparative thing). Understand, I like roleplaying melee types. I've played fighters extensively. I've enjoyed them. I've contributed to my groups to the best of my ability as a fighter. And I still feel the fighter is much more mechanically weak than he should be as one of the most archetypal of classes. You can roleplay weakness or intentionally weaken yourself for roleplaying purposes pretty easily. You can't effectively roleplay competence that you don't have mechanically represented in the system if you intend to actually use that system. The fighter doesn't have a whole lot of competence to roleplay. This is a very sad and wrong thing and most of the "anti-fighters" want it fixed not because they hate fighters or because they care what other people play but because they want their archetypal warrior hero to be capable of standing on his own two feet as an equally contributing member of a party. If 20th level wizards (and other spellcasters) were still only capable of casting a few level two spells while fighters were running around manhandling everything with thousands of damage per blow then we'd have equally valid complaints in the other direction, because the archetypal powerful fantasy spellcaster would be an unrealized goal and the class design would be a mechanical failure on its own terms. Mechanics matter, and mechanics matter most in rules heavy systems. TLDR Version- Lol stormwind fallacy, nobody cares what you play, wouldn't it be nice to have the option of having a fighter class that mechanically supports the roles many people envision for it? Also I probably write more coherently when I've had more sleep. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 06:58 AM | You can't power attack with a Light weapon. Next. Two words: Weapon Supremacy. Next. |
| Clawhound02-27-07, 10:36 AM | You can't power attack with a Light weapon. Next. No really though. I dare you to make a Fighter that can kill a Druid and out-perform the Druid realistically in the CharOp board. If you can do it, I'd be really happy even though I'm wrong. I would LOVE to see a Fighter that is uber. I dare you to make any non-spellcaster, or even partial-spellcaster, who can outperform a Druid. I doubt that you can. Comparing a fighter to a druid is disingenuous. It achieves nothing. The druid blatantly outperforms 75% of the classes in the game. |
| Ghenesh02-27-07, 10:49 AM | Two words: Weapon Supremacy. Next. two words: 18th levels. This is fun. No seriously, if i were the Druid at 18th level i would cast Summon Natural Ally IX and that's it. |
| Kratch02-27-07, 11:47 AM | You can't power attack with a Light weapon. Next. Spiked chain isn't a light weapon. next. two words: 18th levels. This is fun. No seriously, if i were the Druid at 18th level i would cast Summon Natural Ally IX and that's it. The person i replied to specifically said he'd use the swallow whole feature of a T-Rex form (note T-Rex's are 18 HD, so minimum 18th level, so don't get onto us, he set the scenario). and a fighter with weapon sup would be very eager to get inside to the soft chewy insides of anything that could swallow whole, even if he had to take an AoO to get in it's mouth. once inside, all those summons are useless, since the fighter has you as a fleshy full cover from all their attacks. I even mentioned that it may be the person didn't know how to play the class. But The fact is, they were so confident that they'd win simply by using swallow whole that i felt the need to show them otherwise. And i'm currious, was it some special divination that gave you the foreknowledge that swallowing was a bad idea and thus you should use summons (and what creature would you summon? something particularly gear towards this fighter thanks to your special divinations i'm betting.)? or was it simply the use of time travel and/or meta-gaming? |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 11:59 AM | Case in evidence. You will only ever play spellcasters. Fine, personal choice of taste. Therefore all nonspellcasters must suck. :rolleyes: What the ...? Talk about a non sequitur. That I prefer spellcasters has no bearing on the validity of my arguments or the veracity of my premises. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 12:07 PM | two words: 18th levels. This is fun. No seriously, if i were the Druid at 18th level i would cast Summon Natural Ally IX and that's it. To summon a CR11 critter? Why do you want to waste your time like that at level 18? |
| Flan02-27-07, 12:19 PM | No really though. I dare you to make a Fighter that can kill a Druid and out-perform the Druid realistically in the CharOp board. If you can do it, I'd be really happy even though I'm wrong. I would LOVE to see a Fighter that is uber. Hello, broken record? A fighter has NO PROBLEM slaughtering a druid like a stuck pig in one round of combat, hell in ONE SWING. By the time you can T-Rex Fighters can dish out hundreds or thousands of points of damage every combat round, killing a druid who is stupid enough to go into melee with wildshape IS NOT A PROBLEM. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 01:33 PM | Generally that requires a charge. Additionally, it usually requires Shock Trooper to keep the attack bonus respectable. Charging against a large or huge creature is generally not such a great idea when your AC is down by 20. That being the case, Large and in Charge is a feat that should not be underestimated. |
| Khan the Destroyer02-27-07, 01:44 PM | A balor has standard coins; double the normal amount of goods; and standard items for a creature of its level. It can not only afford more treasure then I posted, it probably should! But it doesn't. And the chances that a party has against a balor rest on the assumption that it doesn't use its wealth to equip itself. Remember that coins, gems and 'treasure' don't mean much to a fiend except as tools to advance its cause...which is generally destruction or the acquisition of souls. Remember that without that stuff, he is CR 20. With a +12 to AC, and effective touch attacks against the fighter with a brilliant weapon, the balor cannot be CR 20. Either mission would mean that 'standard items' are likely to be things usable by the balor, or he'd swap/acquire them. He has a 24 Int and Wis...if your PC can get the 'right stuff', I'd think an immortal creature supergenius could! You're right. And it makes perfect sense that a general of the abyss would have the Leadership feat. So we'll just swap one of those base feats out for leadersip, and give the Balor a 17th level wizard cohort. And he'll Gate in some really powerful nasty monster with up to 34 HD like a Phane (Epic Level Handbook) to fight the PC's as well. Yeah, the 20th level fighter is so underpowered because he can't take on a balor, a 17th level spell-slinging wizard, and his pet Phane. And this is a perfectly reasonable CR 20 encounter, because it makes sense :rolleyes:. It's strange that common sense applies to a balor using his wealth for magical equipment, but it doesn't apply to a druid summoning animals apprpriate to his region. (By the way, Eberron lists animal companions for a druid by region, meaning that although common sense doesn't apply for some people, the game apprently doesn't mind it sometimes.) And for the record, Blasphemy would daze the fighter, not stun him, just like everyone else in the party. A wildshaped druid, a polymorphed wizard, and a buffed up cleric would all be dazed as well. A Rod of Absorption is 50k and would probably violate % limits of treasure. I didn't post anything even near that expensive...I went light on people. No... you didn't. Going light would be taking away some of the balor's assets. Being fair would be keeping the balor as is. What you are doing is stacking the fight against the PC's. Wildshape is godly because you get the atack forms of your new shape. You don't NEED weapons when you have the attacks of a T-REX and swallow your opponents whole. Frosthammer, an 18th level Druid in T-Rex form has a +30 to grapple (+13 from his own BAB, +8 from huge size, and +9 from strength). The fighter's BAB is +18. Shield Ward can add another +5-7. The Combat Stability feat with other Combat Focus feats adds another +8. If the fighter had Enlarge Person made permanent on him 9 levels ago, that's another +4. The fighter's strength is adding another +7 at least. So let's see... Shield Ward plus Strength plus BAB = +30. Strength plus Combat Focus feats plus BAB = +33. Size plus Strength = +30 (enlarge adds another +2 strength) Doesn't seem like getting Swallowed Whole is a guaranteed tactic for the druid. More like 50/50, or even less with all of those combined, leaving the fighter with a +42 to resist grapples. Then there's Clever Wrestling, adding another +4 against a huge opponent. And I haven't even touched Close-Quarters Fighting, which adds the damage you deal on the AoO to your grapple check. So, even if the fighter doesn't negate your Swallow Whole just by virtue of being large, he has numerous feats to make this tactic a suboptimal choice. I can guarantee you that a Druid will DESTROY a Fighter almost all the time at the higher levels, and that a Druid will have a much better chance against a CR 20 creature than the fighter. Well, if you guarantee it, no reason not to take the offer. Show me. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 01:51 PM | Generally that requires a charge. Additionally, it usually requires Shock Trooper to keep the attack bonus respectable. Charging against a large or huge creature is generally not such a great idea when your AC is down by 20. That being the case, Large and in Charge is a feat that should not be underestimated. You are right. Although I don't know how that applies to the druid. Dire bear? 5' reach. T-rex? 10' reach. Animals tend to be 'long' and have limited reach, charging them is easy. Elusive Target, often combined with Robilar's Gambit (or Karmic Strike) takes care of the AC problem when someone tries to smack back the devoted charger (for a fighter I mean, barbarian chargers can't take so many feats. Even warblades have problems at being good uber-chargers). Except for the big dragons adn the big T, creatures die when the uber-charger manages to do his trick. Druids are no exception. Even dragons (and the big T) die if Leap Attack becomes a possibility. |
| Archangel6202-27-07, 02:08 PM | You are right. Although I don't know how that applies to the druid. Dire bear? 5' reach. T-rex? 10' reach. Animals tend to be 'long' and have limited reach, charging them is easy. Elusive Target, often combined with Robilar's Gambit (or Karmic Strike) takes care of the AC problem when someone tries to smack back the devoted charger (for a fighter I mean, barbarian chargers can't take so many feats. Even warblades have problems at being good uber-chargers). Except for the big dragons adn the big T, creatures die when the uber-charger manages to do his trick. Druids are no exception. Even dragons (and the big T) die if Leap Attack becomes a possibility. Well, T-rex can bit and grapple, ending the charge as well as putting a fair hurt on. But also, with a feat from Lords of MAdness I can become an aberration with wildshape and several of those give me some rather horrific abilities, to say nothing of reach. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 02:46 PM | Well, T-rex can bit and grapple, ending the charge as well as putting a fair hurt on. But also, with a feat from Lords of MAdness I can become an aberration with wildshape and several of those give me some rather horrific abilities, to say nothing of reach. In the Book of Madness there is also a feat that gives a medium-sized humanoid reach. 20' reach spiked chain, sure! T-rex won't bite and grapple if the charge is with a long spear, or if the fighter is wearing a ring of freedom of movement (almost mandatory for a charger at level 18). There is also a stance in the ToB that a fighter can take as a fighter feat that gives him cover all the time. Cover: no AoOs. |
| Kratch02-27-07, 02:51 PM | Well, T-rex can bit and grapple, ending the charge as well as putting a fair hurt on. But also, with a feat from Lords of MAdness I can become an aberration with wildshape and several of those give me some rather horrific abilities, to say nothing of reach. Except, with robilar's gambit, which he has already mentioned, you simply attacking him allows him to attack you, granting all the damage modifiers he was gonna get from charge, and if you fail to grapple him, he gets to finish his charge attack and do all that damage a second time as well. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 03:12 PM | Well, that's actually not a given. Should the initial AoO push the charger out of range, then there's no worry for the big critter, because remember, Robilar's Gambit and Karmic Strike resolve after the provoking hit. It's relatively easy to negate silliness like chargers should the Druid feel the need to assert his superiority in melee. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 03:14 PM | It's relatively easy to negate silliness like chargers should the Druid feel the need to assert his superiority in melee. Really? Explain us how, please. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 03:16 PM | Okay. I suppose we aren't capriciously preventing the Druid from having his long duration buffs up, are we? EDIT: I further supoose that this is not to be an arena-style duel, but instead a standard campaign situation? |
| Mnky02-27-07, 03:22 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Yes. They absorb damage like nothing else. And, a party of rouges would be hopeless against undead, and a party of casters would be useless in antimagic fields, and also dead meat if they ran out of spells but couldn't rest. Sorry, I haven't read the other 28 pages. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 03:29 PM | Okay. I suppose we aren't capriciously preventing the Druid from having his long duration buffs up, are we? EDIT: I further supoose that this is not to be an arena-style duel, but instead a standard campaign situation? Yeah, sure. Assume the druid is exploring the Abyssal Plane of Charging-Dire-Fiendish rhinos. And some of them fly. How would he protect himself? :) |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 03:40 PM | Wow. Now that would be an entertaining place to go! STAMPEDE! Be right back with actual response. |
| Kratch02-27-07, 03:41 PM | Okay. I suppose we aren't capriciously preventing the Druid from having his long duration buffs up, are we? EDIT: I further supoose that this is not to be an arena-style duel, but instead a standard campaign situation? I was just responding to an assumtion that a druid would win out of hand simply by swallowing whole as a T-rex. I simply was showing that to assume you can beat a fighter simply because you have wildshape is going to result in your death, Fighters don't roll over that easily. The ability to wildshape alone does not gaurentee a win for the druid, it still takes smart playing, planning and is still highly dependent on other factors such as terrain and who else is there. If you want to dispute this, dispute it, if you want to argue there are other ways for a druid to win, offer up a fully fleshed out scenario, but then it is an arena style duel. If you have a problem with the scenario as i argued it, talk to the one who started it. |
| Big_Mac02-27-07, 04:17 PM | I am going to wade in here a little. I am currently player a fighter 8/Dervish 3. I went the CE/WW feat route with close quarters feat. I do not fear grappling creatures anymore. With my base to hit with my +4 greatsword at +20, I do not miss very often. In most 1 v 1 battles I'll come out on top mainly because of the ability to hit consistently The only issues is the fact that damage for fighters does not keep increasing in the same fashion as Spell caster's dice. Distance can be an issue but then you just hide and wait for the SC to come into range. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 04:19 PM | I was just responding to an assumtion that a druid would win out of hand simply by swallowing whole as a T-rex. I simply was showing that to assume you can beat a fighter simply because you have wildshape is going to result in your death, Fighters don't roll over that easily. The ability to wildshape alone does not gaurentee a win for the druid, it still takes smart playing, planning and is still highly dependent on other factors such as terrain and who else is there. If you want to dispute this, dispute it, if you want to argue there are other ways for a druid to win, offer up a fully fleshed out scenario, but then it is an arena style duel. If you have a problem with the scenario as i argued it, talk to the one who started it. Oh, no. Nothing is guaranteed in D&D. We often state things like, "then the Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard/Wu Jen/Archivist gets shapechange and Just Wins. The language used is inaccurate, as all it really means is that the Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard/Wu Jen/Archivist gets a huge* statistical advantage, due to being able to pull all sorts of tricks; e.g., bypassing wealth-by-level limits. *HUGE |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 05:09 PM | Yeah, sure. Assume the druid is exploring the Abyssal Plane of Charging-Dire-Fiendish rhinos. And some of them fly. How would he protect himself? :) So we assume they have Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Fun, fun, fun. Okay, he would likely be invisible, so no one even knows he's there, since rhinos don't have scent. Whoopee. Okay, okay, I hear you crying foul on that one. :) So, bearing in mind my response to Kratch about the lack of guarantees ... I'll admit that it's the flying that's irritating there, so let's just say that the Druid casts long duration summon spells (extended elemental swarm comes to mind). Why? Because he now has bodies blocking charges, and the charge threat is moot. Or he stays in dire tortoise form all day, getting a surprise round in every combat. It's pretty easy to negate someone's charge when you go first. Or he stays in an incorporeal form all day. Or he keeps an extended, widened antilife shell active. Basically, he just wants to get into melee range before the enemy can successfully charge. Barring that, he can simply attempt to keep the enemy from charging via entange or binding winds, thereafter moving into melee range on his own (perhaps even charging). Once he gets into melee range, all the comparisons mentioned earlier in the thread come into play. Keep in mind, however, that I'm not claiming that this is a guaranteed victory for the Druid. It's that the Druid has the luxury of tactical options to which the Fighter simply does not have access. Guaranteed victory? No. Likely victory? Yup. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 05:12 PM | Okay. I suppose we aren't capriciously preventing the Druid from having his long duration buffs up, are we? EDIT: I further supoose that this is not to be an arena-style duel, but instead a standard campaign situation? See that says "Buffs" specifically not "Long Duration Whatever I feel like" (im not saying you dont have a good chance of winning, im just saying it was Buffs that were mentioned) |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 05:14 PM | Well, obviously he'd only have relevant spells active. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 05:29 PM | So we assume they have Shock Trooper and Leap Attack. Fun, fun, fun. Okay, he would likely be invisible, so no one even knows he's there, since rhinos don't have scent. Whoopee. Okay, okay, I hear you crying foul on that one. :) So, bearing in mind my response to Kratch about the lack of guarantees ... I'll admit that it's the flying that's irritating there, so let's just say that the Druid casts long duration summon spells (extended elemental swarm comes to mind). Why? Because he now has bodies blocking charges, and the charge threat is moot. Or he stays in dire tortoise form all day, getting a surprise round in every combat. It's pretty easy to negate someone's charge when you go first. Or he stays in an incorporeal form all day. Or he keeps an extended, widened antilife shell active. Basically, he just wants to get into melee range before the enemy can successfully charge. Barring that, he can simply attempt to keep the enemy from charging via entange or binding winds, thereafter moving into melee range on his own (perhaps even charging). Once he gets into melee range, all the comparisons mentioned earlier in the thread come into play. Keep in mind, however, that I'm not claiming that this is a guaranteed victory for the Druid. It's that the Druid has the luxury of tactical options to which the Fighter simply does not have access. Guaranteed victory? No. Likely victory? Yup. Hmm, invisibility and summons are too short. But the Anti-life Shell is a good idea, it will last many hours at high level. Mind you, it is a good idea against normal fighters. Those rhinos are outsiders and not affected! :D |
| Seerow02-27-07, 05:34 PM | Yeah, sure. Assume the druid is exploring the Abyssal Plane of Charging-Dire-Fiendish rhinos. And some of them fly. How would he protect himself? :) Just want to jump in and say it's posts like this that make these threads really worthwhile. All the rehashed arguments, question dodging on both sides, and whatever else is all worth it just for these gems. ...my PCs are totally going to go to this place now. Just so you all know. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 06:59 PM | Hmm, invisibility and summons are too short. But the Anti-life Shell is a good idea, it will last many hours at high level. Mind you, it is a good idea against normal fighters. Those rhinos are outsiders and not affected! :D Fiendish? Magical beasts. The extended elemental swarm lasts 6 hours. Doesn't seem too short to me. ;) Invisibility can be had via a ring. (I'm currently playing a Druid with a ring of invisibility we picked up off the corpse of a troll. Summoning while invisibile is, um, awesome!) |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:02 PM | I've got it, the reason for a fighter. You know how all these bad guys usually have there fortress teeming with lower level minions, well the fighter can wipe 'em all out no sweat letting the caster keep vrtually all their spells for the main boss. |
| Regularguy02-27-07, 07:23 PM | I've got it, the reason for a fighter. You know how all these bad guys usually have there fortress teeming with lower level minions, well the fighter can wipe 'em all out no sweat letting the caster keep vrtually all their spells for the main boss. Well, yeah, but -- look, say you're a caster who wants to keep virtually all of your spells for the main boss. And then say you want a guy to wipe out the lower-level minions along the way before then. You've got your pick of guys for that role; do you pick a fighter, or do you pick a second caster? A fighter could do it, sure. And so could a cleric who puts on multiple buffs right before the two of you head over to the fortress. Which one do you want? |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:30 PM | whats my party already look like? |
| Kratch02-27-07, 07:33 PM | The extended elemental swarm lasts 6 hours. Doesn't seem too short to me. ;) Not denying the power of elemental swarm, but how are you extending it? isn't it a ninth level spell? extend raises it by one level. |
| Regularguy02-27-07, 07:35 PM | whats my party already look like? Uh -- you tell me. Let me know what other guys you've got: maybe it's nobody else, maybe it's two Bards and a Paladin, maybe it's a Rogue and a Fighter and a Wizard, maybe it's three Clerics. Whatever. Take your pick, and then tell me what you'd choose if you wanted one additional guy for minion patrol. |
| Kratch02-27-07, 07:36 PM | Well, yeah, but -- look, say you're a caster who wants to keep virtually all of your spells for the main boss. And then say you want a guy to wipe out the lower-level minions along the way before then. You've got your pick of guys for that role; do you pick a fighter, or do you pick a second caster? A fighter could do it, sure. And so could a cleric who puts on multiple buffs right before the two of you head over to the fortress. Which one do you want? That really depends. are there so many of those low levels that the second cleric would burn through all his spells getting to the BBEG so you could save your spells. Cause if so, i'd rather the fighter who's still good to go after clearing the way for you and saving you spells over a cleric that exhausted all his spells saving you yours and is of little use come the BBEG. But ether way, it's an unlikely scenario. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:38 PM | Ok party looks like this Rogue Wizard Cleric Bard Fighter |
| Seerow02-27-07, 07:39 PM | That really depends. are there so many of those low levels that the second cleric would burn through all his spells getting to the BBEG so you could save your spells. Cause if so, i'd rather the fighter who's still good to go after clearing the way for you and saving you spells over a cleric that exhausted all his spells saving you yours and is of little use come the BBEG. But ether way, it's an unlikely scenario. If there's that many spells needed it would wear out the Cleric's entire reportoir casting buffs, it's enough that it would also wipe out your other Cleric's healing potential. So now the Fighter's trotting around at half hitpoints, the Wizard must also be out of spells... and it's just a bad situation for everyone. Seriously, that's a LOT of encounters. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:40 PM | i mean wouldnt be silly to have a party wizard wizard wizard rogue cleric youd get Owned so fast at level one it wouldnt even be funny |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:43 PM | or Druid Druid Druid Druid Druid I'd say were looking at atleast 1 dead animal companion, perhaps even 2 per an encounter EDIT: looking at this again its probably not such a bad idea. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 07:43 PM | Not denying the power of elemental swarm, but how are you extending it? isn't it a ninth level spell? extend raises it by one level. I guess with a rod. Yeah, several hours, so it works. Antilife seems more elegant (cheaper in spellpower, too) to me that walking in the middle of a formation of elementals, though :) Invisibility through a ring would work also against the rhinos, although a high level fighter would probably see through the invisibility thanks to his own items. A ring of invisibility is not a specific druid tactic either. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 07:47 PM | Not denying the power of elemental swarm, but how are you extending it? isn't it a ninth level spell? extend raises it by one level. Metamagic rod of extend spell for the win. |
| Regularguy02-27-07, 07:49 PM | Ok party looks like this Rogue Wizard Cleric Bard Fighter Well, then, now you tell me: do you want a second Fighter or do you want a second Cleric? |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 07:50 PM | i mean wouldnt be silly to have a party wizard wizard wizard rogue cleric youd get Owned so fast at level one it wouldnt even be funny I disagree. The Cleric would provide tanking. The Wizards would spam color spray, sleep, charm person, etc. Any one of those spells could easily end an encounter, make an encounter trivial, or gain an ally. The Rogue does his thing. or Druid Druid Druid Druid Druid I'd say were looking at atleast 1 dead animal companion, perhaps even 2 per an encounter Really? At level 1? At level 1 the animal companion (as already established) is more than a match for a Fighter. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:52 PM | I filled the fighter in, i.e. i made my choice it was fighter (this is the group i actually play in, guess who the fighter is) |
| PoorHobo02-27-07, 07:52 PM | i mean wouldnt be silly to have a party wizard wizard wizard rogue cleric youd get Owned so fast at level one it wouldnt even be funny You know, that brings to mind, Is there any reason to have a wizard? Sure we can look at High level adventurers and bemuse why would any group pick up a a generic fighter, But where are all these high level wizards coming from. What group is going to pick up a guy who is as fragile as a commoner, can cast two spells and can't defend himself? So that they can serve as his bodyguads and camp guards later on? Why don't they pick up another barbarian, cleric or anything else that doesn't suck for the first 5 levels. Who is coddling these guys? Fighters of the world need to unite and stop picking up low level wizars. let Darwin work its course and wizards will die of when theres no one to stick up for them at low levels. Fighters need a union. And a sub-forum |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 07:53 PM | Invisibility through a ring would work also against the rhinos, although a high level fighter would probably see through the invisibility thanks to his own items. A ring of invisibility is not a specific druid tactic either. Very true. Neither is making a full attack, though. ;) |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:54 PM | a wolf/dog/badger/cammel/horse. yeah im sure the fighters at lvl 1 is worse than a dog, i dont think so. |
| Seerow02-27-07, 07:55 PM | Have you looked at the stats for a riding dog before? |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:56 PM | Seriously, Fighter vs Dog, this is a joke right, c'mon, ITS A DOG. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-27-07, 07:58 PM | Seriously, Fighter vs Dog, this is a joke right, c'mon, ITS A DOG. So no you haven't looked up the stats. Besides it's not 1 dog, it's 5 dogs backed up by druids (Edit: 5 druids). That's way better then 5 fighters. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 07:58 PM | Great bow 1 shot=half dead Glaive=all-dead Feats involved: Ex Wep G. Bow Quick Draw Improved Initiative |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 08:01 PM | i didnt hear myself say a druid was involved in this particular encounter. |
| DaidojiTaidoru02-27-07, 08:02 PM | You ever hear of a great bow before. Ever hear of Obscuring Mist? Or Entangle? And go look up the riding dogs stats. They have better speed and comprable AC damage and HP to the fighter. They also get the free trips like wolves (which is devestating at low levels). Edit: I'm assuming your comments were directed towards the rebuke of your statement that an all druid party would survive at low levels, as that's the only way I can trace a conversation path that makes sense. |
| Eela602-27-07, 08:05 PM | i didnt hear myself say a druid was involved in this particular encounter. That's true. It was implied. That's called context. For example, you didn't say that the dog in your particular encounter wasn't a Paragon Half-Troll Half-Dragon Nessian Warhound (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hellHound.htm) - but we both got that from the context of the thread. Nu? |
| Kratch02-27-07, 08:05 PM | Metamagic rod of extend spell for the win. Didn't think you could use metamagic rods while wildshaped. But I guess you could have cast it first then wildshaped. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 08:07 PM | Actually i meant to edit the all druid party thing as i was looking at it i ralized it might not be such a bad idea, however, at first lvl a fighter can get a normal riding dog. |
| Flan02-27-07, 08:09 PM | Seriously, Fighter vs Dog, this is a joke right, c'mon, ITS A DOG. The fight can go either way. The fighter does slightly more damage, hits slightly more often, has slightly better AC and may have slightly better HP. But slightly doesn't mean much when you're tossing a d20 around. Better hope you picked decent feats. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 08:11 PM | Every 1v1 fight is 90% dependent on initiative(or what ever your Contingency happens to be). |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 08:33 PM | Hence the inherent superiority of the 2 on 1. Druids win at the numbers game. And look at the stats for a riding dog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dogRiding.htm). Now add some armor, say studded leather (50gp). The riding dog now has 19 AC. At level 1. It gets an attack and a free trip attempt. The first level Druid's class feature is about as good as a first level Fighter. This riding dog can then be buffed up further by the Druid. Wheeeeee. |
| Otto the Bugbear02-27-07, 08:36 PM | Don't forget Share Spell, barkskin |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 08:37 PM | Well, I was going for first level, but yeah. That's a great option. For first level options, enrage animal doesn't hurt. Babau slime is also good. Beast claws (shared) can be interesting if you want to give the dog two attacks. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 08:46 PM | I'd look at riding dog stats except my MM is MIA, but i recinded my argument agains the druid party anyway, (by-the-by have you seen some of the fighter adjustments people have been posting [shameless Plug] , some of these guys would give a druid a run for his money) |
| FrostHammer02-27-07, 08:46 PM | I wonder if we should tone down animal companions for Druids a bit. A Riding Dog or Crocodile really makes that Fighter look not attractive. Look for DnD 4.0 to majorly nerf divine casters! :evillaugh |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 08:48 PM | I'd look at riding dog stats except my MM is MIA, but i recinded my argument agains the druid party anyway, I provided a link to the stats. Here it is again: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dogRiding.htm |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 08:55 PM | Thats pretty cool, except with the feats i posted and a 14 Dex the fighter would have an initiative bonus of +6, I figured they could trip like a wolf, which is why i described opening up with a shot from a great bow and using a polearm. Statistically the fighter has a better chance of winning, however im not accounting for the fact that there is also a Druid. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 08:58 PM | I wonder if we should tone down animal companions for Druids a bit. A Riding Dog or Crocodile really makes that Fighter look not attractive. Look for DnD 4.0 to majorly nerf divine casters! :evillaugh I cretainly hope they do nerf divine caster, that way we can start asking if there's any reason to have a Druid lol |
| FrostHammer02-27-07, 09:00 PM | Refresh my memory. Does the Animal companion go on your Initiative or doe sit roll its own Initiative? And yes, a fighter IS better than the dog...but the SAD part is, not by too much. :nonono: Fighters seriously need d12 HP and better BAB. Like let them have 25 BAB by level 20 or something. And give them 4 or 6 skill points a level. |
| Bhaal00602-27-07, 09:03 PM | Actually if you check out the thread i posted you might think there's a need to have a fighter. |
| NineInchNall02-27-07, 09:12 PM | Thats pretty cool, except with the feats i posted and a 14 Dex the fighter would have an initiative bonus of +6, I figured they could trip like a wolf, which is why i described opening up with a shot from a great bow and using a polearm. Statistically the fighter has a better chance of winning, however im not accounting for the fact that there is also a Druid. It's not a duel between a Fighter and a Druid. It's saying that a Druid contributes as much (and more) to the party at level one as a Fighter. Specifically, it was a rebuttal to your claim that a party that has a crap-ton of Druids would be losing animal companions left and right. |
| Argaud02-27-07, 09:42 PM | I wonder if we should tone down animal companions for Druids a bit. A Riding Dog or Crocodile really makes that Fighter look not attractive. Crocodile is now level 4 (check the SRD). Riding dog and wolf are pretty decent at level 1, though. Not just against a fighter, everybody is quite fragile at level 1. A cleric has it worse than a fighter if a riding dog decides to have him for lunch. |
| Kratch02-27-07, 10:24 PM | And look at the stats for a riding dog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dogRiding.htm). Now add some armor, say studded leather (50gp). The riding dog now has 19 AC. At level 1. It gets an attack and a free trip attempt. The first level Druid's class feature is about as good as a first level Fighter. This riding dog can then be buffed up further by the Druid. Wheeeeee. Aside from the fact a druid's average starting wealth is 50gp and thus they can very possibly have even less, i think people forget that animal companions are animals, and should not be using tactics like they were a PC. and are riding dogs found naturally in the wild? or would you be required to purchase one? (or assumed to have stolen it?) As to whomever asked about who's init the companion goes on, thats really DM dependant, but even if you roll init seperately, you need to command the animal in order for it to do anything, so generally if it wins, it will be delaying till your turn anyways. At least, thats my interpretation (so, in my games, i just say the companions turn follows the masters, and so don't bother rolling init). |
| megageek1202-27-07, 11:20 PM | You know, that brings to mind, Is there any reason to have a wizard? Sure we can look at High level adventurers and bemuse why would any group pick up a a generic fighter, But where are all these high level wizards coming from. What group is going to pick up a guy who is as fragile as a commoner, can cast two spells and can't defend himself? So that they can serve as his bodyguads and camp guards later on? Why don't they pick up another barbarian, cleric or anything else that doesn't suck for the first 5 levels. Who is coddling these guys? Fighters of the world need to unite and stop picking up low level wizars. let Darwin work its course and wizards will die of when theres no one to stick up for them at low levels. Fighters need a union. And a sub-forum Yah but color spray and sleep will end most encounters in a round...:rolleyes: |
| scienceman4702-27-07, 11:45 PM | You must be really starting to stretch now. First, a riding dog's tactic is to trip. Thats what they do. Thats the natural inclination. Dogs do that when they attack, knock you down and proceed to maul you to death. Heres the SRD ------------------------------------- Animal Companion (Ex): A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list: badger, camel, dire rat, dog, riding dog, eagle, hawk, horse (light or heavy), owl, pony, snake (Small or Medium viper), or wolf. If the campaign takes place wholly or partly in an aquatic environment, the following creatures are also available: crocodile, porpoise, Medium shark, and squid. This animal is a loyal companion that accompanies the druid on her adventures as appropriate for its kind. A 1st-level druid’s companion is completely typical for its kind except as noted below. As a druid advances in level, the animal’s power increases as shown on the table. If a druid releases her companion from service, she may gain a new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer. This ceremony can also replace an animal companion that has perished. ------------------------------------- So, you begin play with a riding dog (no cost), and you can replace one with 24 hours of uninterrupted prayer(also no cost). The only thing your right about is the barding cost. And I agree with you about the init thing. |
| Kratch02-28-07, 12:19 AM | First, a riding dog's tactic is to trip. Thats what they do. Thats the natural inclination. Dogs do that when they attack, knock you down and proceed to maul you to death. Wasn't talking about tripping. of course they do that, i mean risking themselves to position themselves to help others flank, positioning to block an area so the group can get through to better position themselves for combat or the many other tactical manuvering or risk vs reward options (like accepting an AoO to disarm or grapple.). A dog will only act like a dog (animal companions get no int bonus), meaning they'll take advantage of only the obvious flanks, will attack when attacking is the best option, will attack when another option is better, it will attack when you want it to manuver your opponent, and so on. Heres the SRD ------------------------------------- Animal Companion (Ex): A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list: badger, camel, dire rat, dog, riding dog, eagle, hawk, horse (light or heavy), owl, pony, snake (Small or Medium viper), or wolf. If the campaign takes place wholly or partly in an aquatic environment, the following creatures are also available: crocodile, porpoise, Medium shark, and squid. This animal is a loyal companion that accompanies the druid on her adventures as appropriate for its kind. I guess they are found in the wild. |
| megageek1202-28-07, 12:23 AM | The rules simply give them that, assuming they were aqquired while gaining the experience necessary for first level. |
| FrostHammer02-28-07, 01:34 AM | I guess the key words are "Anima Companion" instead of "WILD Animal companion" Animal Empathy works with non-wild animals too. |
| navar10002-28-07, 01:54 AM | You can't power attack with a Light weapon. Next. No really though. I dare you to make a Fighter that can kill a Druid and out-perform the Druid realistically in the CharOp board. If you can do it, I'd be really happy even though I'm wrong. I would LOVE to see a Fighter that is uber. Even if no fighter can't, he doesn't have to. |
| Kratch02-28-07, 01:58 AM | A fighter already killed his druid, although that had as much to do with his sad choice in tactics as the fighters ability. |
| navar10002-28-07, 02:05 AM | Understand, I like roleplaying melee types. I've played fighters extensively. I've enjoyed them. I've contributed to my groups to the best of my ability as a fighter. And I still feel the fighter is much more mechanically weak than he should be as one of the most archetypal of classes. You can roleplay weakness or intentionally weaken yourself for roleplaying purposes pretty easily. You can't effectively roleplay competence that you don't have mechanically represented in the system if you intend to actually use that system. The fighter doesn't have a whole lot of competence to roleplay. This is a very sad and wrong thing and most of the "anti-fighters" want it fixed not because they hate fighters or because they care what other people play but because they want their archetypal warrior hero to be capable of standing on his own two feet as an equally contributing member of a party. If 20th level wizards (and other spellcasters) were still only capable of casting a few level two spells while fighters were running around manhandling everything with thousands of damage per blow then we'd have equally valid complaints in the other direction, because the archetypal powerful fantasy spellcaster would be an unrealized goal and the class design would be a mechanical failure on its own terms. Mechanics matter, and mechanics matter most in rules heavy systems. <snippage for brevity, and I'm only making a summarization comment> . I just simply disagree in the idea a fighter cannot stand on his own and contribute equally. That if a druid and a figther were stranded on an island without their gear and the druid would fare much better doesn't change that. That a wizard could charm a hydra but the fighter cannot doesn't chagne that. The fighter has his own way of doing things and does so competently enough. That he needs equipment is parcel. What equipment he has, and how he uses it is what he does. While I can't assume he has everything he needs conveniently, you also can't assume he never has what he needs, which is what a lot of anti-fighters are doing, especially when they say he must have a buff spell from a spellcaster. That you might not like he needs to use equipment is a matter of taste. As I've said before, it's the results that matter, not how one achieves the results. The results determine playability. The how it is achieved is personal taste. |
| navar10002-28-07, 02:22 AM | Fiendish? Magical beasts. The extended elemental swarm lasts 6 hours. Doesn't seem too short to me. ;) Invisibility can be had via a ring. (I'm currently playing a Druid with a ring of invisibility we picked up off the corpse of a troll. Summoning while invisibile is, um, awesome!) A ring? A ring?! A druid is daring to humiliate himself by relying on a magic item like some common fighter? Oh no. If fighters suck because they have to rely on magic items, then your druid is not allowed any. Ability boosts, such as from the magic books, and yes, even from magic items are ok because the anti-fighters have accepted that among fighters who boost their strength, dexterity, and/or constitution. Anything other than that is verboten. Of course, I didn't issue the challenge so perhaps you are permitted by the challenger to use a ring. However, thank you for admitting it's now ok to rely on magic items. Fighters move up a notch. |
| navar10002-28-07, 02:26 AM | Metamagic rod of extend spell for the win. Ooh, a second magic item to go with the ring. How many magic items must one rely on before it becomes "Ah, you rely on too many. You suck?" |
| FrostHammer02-28-07, 02:44 AM | "My" Druid isn't optimized either, and I was udner the assumption that when you cut someone's stomach, the creature doesn't take damage. That's what my last DM said when I cut my way out. My challenge still stands. Go find an optimized druid and beat him in effectiveness. Then post the build and let the world rejoice as a truly heroic fighter has emerged, and eveyrone (myself included) will fly to use that build. |
| KurenaiYami02-28-07, 02:55 AM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Well, if you don't want to waste money on barding for your packmules, the Fighter does nicely. It can normally carry a smaller amount but isn't as easily killed in battle. |
| Archangel6202-28-07, 02:56 AM | Ooh, a second magic item to go with the ring. How many magic items must one rely on before it becomes "Ah, you rely on too many. You suck?" How much of the wealth is each individual item at that level. I have said repeatedly that every class needs gear, but the fighter loses the ability to use many of their tricks without their gear. |
| scienceman4702-28-07, 03:50 AM | Wasn't talking about tripping. of course they do that, i mean risking themselves to position themselves to help others flank, positioning to block an area so the group can get through to better position themselves for combat or the many other tactical manuvering or risk vs reward options (like accepting an AoO to disarm or grapple.). A dog will only act like a dog (animal companions get no int bonus), meaning they'll take advantage of only the obvious flanks, will attack when attacking is the best option, will attack when another option is better, it will attack when you want it to manuver your opponent, and so on. I guess they are found in the wild. You are correct about that. A lot of people treat the animal companion as a personal chesspiece, which is not what they are supposed to act like. Some things of note. 1. Animals need to be given commands. Basically, you can only point at a creature to have it attack, not tell it to zoom to the left and begin flanking. No strategic movement unless incidental. 2. It takes two skill tricks to teach an animal to attack certain monsters, like constructs or magical beasts. So no zombie killing at level one, unless you halt the game for a week or two for teh training. 3.You can have a pet guard a person, at which point it will go on the offensive as soon as someone attacks. This is one of the few times a pet gains their own initiative. A animal companion can be a defender. 4. A pet can be taught to guard a space, so a riding dog can be a blocker. And if the opponent gets past, just yell attack and blam, attack from behind. I would like to point out that most of the maneuvers are obsolete after a certain level (size bonuses and all that rot). By then the animal companion has become a bit obsolete, but then again he comes with a free druid. |
| Leo02-28-07, 06:43 AM | "My" Druid isn't optimized either, and I was udner the assumption that when you cut someone's stomach, the creature doesn't take damage. That's what my last DM said when I cut my way out. My challenge still stands. Go find an optimized druid and beat him in effectiveness. Then post the build and let the world rejoice as a truly heroic fighter has emerged, and eveyrone (myself included) will fly to use that build. Not all creatures work like that. Some are immune to stomach damage, normally the really big nasty ones, but regular creatures like bears and dinossaurs, will take damage when attacked from inside. |
| Bob Loblaw02-28-07, 10:18 AM | "My" Druid isn't optimized either, and I was udner the assumption that when you cut someone's stomach, the creature doesn't take damage. That's what my last DM said when I cut my way out. Your DM made a bad call. My challenge still stands. Go find an optimized druid and beat him in effectiveness. Then post the build and let the world rejoice as a truly heroic fighter has emerged, and eveyrone (myself included) will fly to use that build. Why can't the characters simply be fun to play? Why does every character have to be optimized? I'm all for effectiveness, but not everyone wants uber. Some of us want concept. While that concept may include premium optimization, it doesn't have to. I doubt that any of the anti-fighters would accept any build. They will punch holes through it, not even considering campaign style (as you already pointed out in how your DM ruled differently than most that I know). Spell selection is never considered with spellcasters. By that I mean, which spells are actually prepared for the day. Rather, every single argument stems from what a single person thinks that all casters would have readied. Not everyone plays their characters the same way. It is entirely possible (and probable based on many responses on this thread alone) that not every game will see the same creatures in play so many of the "issues" do not actually exist in all games. Did you know that I have thrown only 1 balor at my party since 3rd edition came out? I am not a fan of using many demons or devils. I do not use outsiders very often. When I do, there is a significant reason for doing so. My players know that something big is coming when it happens. I also do not use a lot of undead. I do not like dealing with level loss as it can create a very unbalanced party very quickly. I don't use many abberations simply because I find many of them silly or knock-offs of other, better used creatures. Golems only tend to exist in appropriate areas. The party will never find one simply wandering around. Everything I do is based on ecology/economy. Not every monster exists in every location. Some DMs actually keep the party balanced by determining what is available in the game and how available it is. I don't allow the party to hit the local Magic Mart to beef themselves up. My players let me know what they want and they quest for it. Sometimes they get something similar, sometimes they get something completely different. Sometimes they get exactly what they want. And before my DMing style is completely torn apart, this is RAW (chapter 1 of the DMG). The DM is supposed to do this. It's his job. |
| PoorHobo02-28-07, 10:27 AM | Yah but color spray and sleep will end most encounters in a round...:rolleyes: Do you really play with a DM that groups non-undead into a tight 15ft cone for every encounter? Same for sleep, are all the enemies piled into one 10ft square for your enjoyment? I have heard that crap line before, that wizards have amazing 1 round enders at level 1....but it never happens. |
| Flan02-28-07, 11:11 AM | I also do not use a lot of undead. I do not like dealing with level loss as it can create a very unbalanced party very quickly. Everything I do is based on ecology/economy. Level drains are rarely permanent, actually we've gone through a few almost exclusivly undead adventures and never had a permanent one yet. We've lost a few levels to raise dead though. Ouch. "Ecology/economy" wise demons are the most common enemy in existence. |
| NineInchNall02-28-07, 01:03 PM | Ooh, a second magic item to go with the ring. How many magic items must one rely on before it becomes "Ah, you rely on too many. You suck?" Um, I believe the key word here is rely. Any of these things could have been done without items. Items just made it easier. 1. The Fighter relies on equipment to contribute at a respectable level. 2. The Druid uses equipment to make contributing at a respectable (or more than respectable) level easier. I really have to ask: Are you incapable of seeing the structural difference between the two statements? |
| NineInchNall02-28-07, 01:10 PM | 1. Animals need to be given commands. Basically, you can only point at a creature to have it attack, not tell it to zoom to the left and begin flanking. No strategic movement unless incidental. Or unless the animal has a natural tendency to fight in a certain way. Like, I dunno, how canines tend to flank and hamstring? 2. It takes two skill tricks to teach an animal to attack certain monsters, like constructs or magical beasts. So no zombie killing at level one, unless you halt the game for a week or two for teh training. Right. Because there's no way that the Druid can start off having trained his pet dog to manage the normal allotment of six tricks (plus one bonus trick) prior to the beginning of the game. 'Cause, you know, that'd be like assuming that the Fighter had had time to go and buy himself some weapons and armor prior to the beginning of the game. Or that the Wizard had had time to learn all those spells. Or that the Cleric had gone through seminary. Or that the Bard had attended that college. Right. :rolleyes: |
| Kratch02-28-07, 01:13 PM | Or unless the animal has a natural tendency to fight in a certain way. Like, I dunno, how canines tend to flank and hamstring? The point was, an animal will not set up for a flank, it will only take advantage of an obvious flank opportunity opening. |
| Bhaal00602-28-07, 01:22 PM | I have to agree with what bob said, its the DM's job to make sure eveyo ne is having fun, Most of the encounters my DM puts us up against are evil Humanoids with class levels, and this actually hurts the casters more, its called counter-spelling. Granted their are times when we have fought some larger monsters too and the fighter couldnt use all his tricks, but there are times when the caster lost a good deal of his spells to being Counter-spelled. |
| Flan02-28-07, 01:30 PM | 1. The Fighter relies on equipment to contribute at a respectable level. 2. The Druid uses equipment to make contributing at a respectable (or more than respectable) level easier. I really have to ask: Are you incapable of seeing the structural difference between the two statements? It's easy to see the structural difference, they're just not true. It's also a meaningless arguement since characters tend not to be stripped of their equipment very often. Much less often in fact than druids run out of all their spells and wildshapes for the day. It would be a far more realistic comparison if you were to compare a fully equipped fighter and druid but the druid is out of spells and wildshapes. Obviously you're going to cry foul even though it is a better comparison than your own. |
| Bhaal00602-28-07, 01:38 PM | A Druid without wild-shape, i dont know, ive been told that can absolutely never happen, that its not even within the realm of possibility |
| FrostHammer02-28-07, 02:04 PM | And you know, fun IS the most important consideration. And having high level evil enemies with class levels to fight is totally great! It offers up a wide variety of options for the melee types, and spellcasters dominate a bit less. What I wish is that some sort of adjustment can be made so that the DM doesn't have to consciously leave out high CR monsters to make the fighter contribute more. Perhaps adjusting the monsters themselves might be a solution? |
| Bob Loblaw03-01-07, 12:47 AM | Level drains are rarely permanent, actually we've gone through a few almost exclusivly undead adventures and never had a permanent one yet. We've lost a few levels to raise dead though. Ouch. "Ecology/economy" wise demons are the most common enemy in existence. We've had it happen a few times. Every temporary level drain grants a -1 penalty to the Fortitude save. While the save DC may not be high initially, some creatures (e.g. vampires) drain 2 levels at a time. If he hits any character twice, that's a -4 penatly to the save. I know that there are ways to fix the problem (the cleric should have restoration handy if he knows he's going up against undead) but it doesn't always work. we've had a character fail every save and lose more than 5 levels (there were vampire spawn as well). It sucked. No one was happy. While in some games demons may be common, in mine they tend to stay out of the Prime Material Plane simply because they don't have a lot of reason to be here. There are some, but they are the exception rather than the rule. |
| Bob Loblaw03-01-07, 12:54 AM | And you know, fun IS the most important consideration. And having high level evil enemies with class levels to fight is totally great! It offers up a wide variety of options for the melee types, and spellcasters dominate a bit less. What I wish is that some sort of adjustment can be made so that the DM doesn't have to consciously leave out high CR monsters to make the fighter contribute more. Perhaps adjusting the monsters themselves might be a solution? I still have high CR creatures without class levels or advancing hit dice. I use dragons, giants. etc. Every creature has a reason for being in the location I place it. There are no creatures there simply for the party to defeat. I also go through modules I read and make adjustments based on what I feel would be most appropriate for my party. This makes things more interesting to them and also allows them to go through the same adventure again (often without even realizing it) with little to no effort on my part. I also think the party should be going on appropriate adventures for their make up. They should have to deal with the unexpected at times, but if they are going to be hired by someone, hopefully that someone has done some research and made sure that the party he hired was capable of handling the situation. For a stealthy mission, I would probably not ask the sword and board fighters. Being the DM can be a difficult job. It takes more work sometimes than it should, but in the end, if everyone was happy then it was worth the effort. |
| navar10003-01-07, 01:25 AM | How much of the wealth is each individual item at that level. I have said repeatedly that every class needs gear, but the fighter loses the ability to use many of their tricks without their gear. But they're not the only one. |
| navar10003-01-07, 01:32 AM | Um, I believe the key word here is rely. Any of these things could have been done without items. Items just made it easier. 1. The Fighter relies on equipment to contribute at a respectable level. 2. The Druid uses equipment to make contributing at a respectable (or more than respectable) level easier. I really have to ask: Are you incapable of seeing the structural difference between the two statements? Ergo proving my point the difference is just a matter of personal taste. You've just admitted that fighters contribute at a respectable level. You therefore admit fighters do not suck. You only object to how they contribute at a respectable level. That is only personal playing taste. Pro-fighters win! :D :cool: |
| navar10003-01-07, 01:34 AM | And you know, fun IS the most important consideration. And having high level evil enemies with class levels to fight is totally great! It offers up a wide variety of options for the melee types, and spellcasters dominate a bit less. What I wish is that some sort of adjustment can be made so that the DM doesn't have to consciously leave out high CR monsters to make the fighter contribute more. Perhaps adjusting the monsters themselves might be a solution? Why? Why does every DM have to set up their encounters how you want to? Why must every DM use a balor or a pitfiend, as out stereotypical examples are using? |
| Bhaal00603-01-07, 01:44 AM | Because these Balor/Pit Fiend examples are Self-Seveing statements. |
| FrostHammer03-01-07, 02:06 AM | Because there are like 3 CR 20 creatrues in the MM, and Pit Fiend/Balor is two of them. |
| Bhaal00603-01-07, 02:09 AM | there are also 11 in the PHB |
| Bob Loblaw03-01-07, 03:33 AM | Because there are like 3 CR 20 creatrues in the MM, and Pit Fiend/Balor is two of them. Not an entirely true statement. With over 200 monsters that can be advanced, templates added to, or class levels added to, there are tons (the number of options is staggering). With options like Half-Fiend Medusa Ranger 6/ Barbarian 4 (Total CR 20) to the Advanced Aboleth Mage (12HD + level 10) (Total CR 20) the options are incredible. Also, there are 9 CR 20 creatures in the Monster Manual (SRD): Black Dragon, Wyrm Brass Dragon, Ancient Bronze Dragon, Very old Copper Dragon, Very old Demon, Balor Devil, Pit Fiend Red Dragon, Old Silver Dragon, Old Tarrasque Consider also that it is probably fair to assume that EL 20 should be reasonable. This opens up tons of options (using just the SRD). Note that this is pretty much just taken from the DMG. 1 CR 19 (8 of them) 2 CR 18s (7 of them) 3 CR 17s (7 of them) 4 CR 16s (10 of them) 5-6 CR 15s (7 of them) 7-9 CR 14s (9 of them) 10-12 CR 13s (12 of them) A CR 19 & 17 (15 of them) Each of these should be about equal to a CR 20 creature in difficulty. Now I have a ton of ways to challenge my party without having to rely on a single creature. Can the 20th level fighter handle these appropriate challenges? Can other classes as well? Note that this isn't a question of which can do a better job, the characters just need to put a tick in the "Win" column. |
| itwasntme03-05-07, 10:47 AM | The Fighter can do things sure at times he has problems but evey class has problems a Druid useing Wildshape isnt the greatest thing in my mind i rather have the druid sit back and use his spells and only use wildshape as a means of defence a Druid has to use 1-2 feats to do some of his normol class ablitys while wildshapeing this is a good example of how your character combineing feats can be worthwhile on your character its the same to the fighter but he has more feats to combine with I Have to say in my experence of Character vs Character i find that Ini Counts who ever gets the highest will most likely win that battle allso a Character VS Character is a much differnt playing style then Character vs Monster After all you can Sneak attack allmost all characters (At Least a much higher % of characters then monsters) Most monsters dount even worrie about the Sneak Attack Rouge while Characters useoly have to worrie about it In Character vs Character combat you have to worrie about differnt things while in Character vs Monster differnt tastics are Required If your going to start talking about Character vs Character builds then i like to see thoughs characters fight monsters and do just as well becouse the odds are your probly not going to do as good as you where (Inless low level at low levels basicly anything can die by allmost anything) A Druid in my mind and the minds of many others useing WildShape isnt the greatest thing i allready said the list of things that happin to a Druid and the only way to fix SOME of them is by useing Feats (Like Natrual Spell Silent Spell eta eta) The other things are still being used agest you however A Druid wildshaping into a Monster useoly ends up getting a LOWER to hit then that monster (Due to the rules) Lower HP as well and sometimes even a Lower AC the reason why your useing it is for the special effects of the monster or to better suit your needs in a situation for example wildshaping into a fire elementol is a good idea when your about to fall into hot lava the monsters/creatures you can turn into with a druid are all 5 levels or lower then you currently are that means the fighter barbian or w/e was able to beat the monster 5 leveles lower hes going to have a much better chance at winning now sense you only gave that creature some benefits (But lost other benefits) The Fighter is a class that can do just fine if not better then your class in situations after all the antimagic field golem is useoly a nightmare to a wizard or spellcaster while it isnt for the fighter but the fighter useoly has a nightmare with other creatures (Depending on the fighter build) they both have a weekness its just differnt and they both have a strength its just used differntly If you dount ever like to be up in the front lines or ever taking damage then a tank of some short isnt your class and you probly think they all suck or isnt worth your time becouse you dount like it thats your option but to start yelling at eveyone eles becouse they happin to like it is just rude i thing im finding on this tread however is that most of the people acusing other people of being "Trolls" dount seem to understand the fact that they wernt being the Troll in fact the person being the troll at that time is the person saying it if someone asked something or said something you shouldnt just diss on them right away you should just state your option and mind about it and move on you should barge in and start acusing of people trolling becouse they have a differnt idea then you its simple a fighter can be usefull if your play style happins to fit in that roll i dount like playing Wizard mostly becouse i dount like having low HP becouse useoly im allways going to be delt some amount of damage and a wizard useoly cant take hits like other class's can thats fine thats MY Option on wizards im not going to sit hear and say that just becouse your playing a wizard you suck and you dount know what your doing no thanks that is trolling the guy asking questions or saying his idea is not the guy trolling its the guy who says hes trolling so plz understand that your not helping anything when you start blaming other people of trolling becouse that just makes things worse im tempted not to read anything that some people post in becouse of the pure fact that they allways start argueing and start complaning when ever someone eles has a differnt option if they think otherthings thats fine and they have the right to state there mind but if they start argueing and *****ing over other people and there minds then there just trolling and being jerks if the person has a question let them ask it and do your best to answer it you may not know eveything about it as well hell in fact one reason why i read things that ask for help on something is becouse sometimes i dount know eveything about it as well and i wounder if that question will be solved and i fell like trying my best to help the other person out at the same time like you may not know the best 7th level spells to pick but you know what to do with that class oh no you dount know what to do on something 100% of the time oh no the world is doomed ... the whole point of learning is asking questions and stating your mind about differnt subjects and ideas and reading other people ideas and see if they make a point on something that you agree with |
| itwasntme03-05-07, 10:53 AM | Ergo proving my point the difference is just a matter of personal taste. You've just admitted that fighters contribute at a respectable level. You therefore admit fighters do not suck. You only object to how they contribute at a respectable level. That is only personal playing taste. Pro-fighters win! :D :cool: this reminds me of the arguement thats commeners would be just as good as a fighter thats not true on many facts a fighter useoly knows how to use his gear better then other class's can use that same pieace of item besides items are there for a reason people are going to use it if your siegeing a keep i think catapults are going to be used in a normol siege or something eles that can bring down the walls and deal damage |
| itwasntme03-05-07, 10:58 AM | Not an entirely true statement. With over 200 monsters that can be advanced, templates added to, or class levels added to, there are tons (the number of options is staggering). With options like Half-Fiend Medusa Ranger 6/ Barbarian 4 (Total CR 20) to the Advanced Aboleth Mage (12HD + level 10) (Total CR 20) the options are incredible. Also, there are 9 CR 20 creatures in the Monster Manual (SRD): Black Dragon, Wyrm Brass Dragon, Ancient Bronze Dragon, Very old Copper Dragon, Very old Demon, Balor Devil, Pit Fiend Red Dragon, Old Silver Dragon, Old Tarrasque Consider also that it is probably fair to assume that EL 20 should be reasonable. This opens up tons of options (using just the SRD). Note that this is pretty much just taken from the DMG. 1 CR 19 (8 of them) 2 CR 18s (7 of them) 3 CR 17s (7 of them) 4 CR 16s (10 of them) 5-6 CR 15s (7 of them) 7-9 CR 14s (9 of them) 10-12 CR 13s (12 of them) A CR 19 & 17 (15 of them) Each of these should be about equal to a CR 20 creature in difficulty. Now I have a ton of ways to challenge my party without having to rely on a single creature. Can the 20th level fighter handle these appropriate challenges? Can other classes as well? Note that this isn't a question of which can do a better job, the characters just need to put a tick in the "Win" column. ive seen fighters along with just about evey other class being able to take on the balor or pitfiend i see evey class being able to deal with the Big T but on a rare scale i have seen people be able to take on the differnt dragons but allso on uncommen scale (I see it more offtin then people fighting mr Big T) |
| wonlee7603-05-07, 11:16 AM | A group needs a tank in general. Whether this is a fighter, paladin or barbarian, a tank seems to be a necessity in most games. Each primary melee class has their own pros and cons (Barbarians are more on damage, less on AC; Paladin's got a code of conduct to deal with; Fighters get feats which unfortunately don't scale up as you level). Reasons: Spellcasters need time to pull off their wonderful bag of tricks. The tanks buy them that time. Even the all mighty Cleric and Druid needs time to pull off their bag of tricks barring other feat tricks like DMM Persistent but even then a simple dispel magic/disjunction could ruin that tactic. Rogue's need a flanking buddy to get some consistent sneak attack damage rolling for them. A fighter fills a certain role that in my opinion is necessary. The only problem is other classes could also fill that role to some degree. Druids with Wildshape + Animal Companion could fill this role. Clerics with DMM Persistent could fill the role. Barbarians and Paladins could fill the role. Rangers or Monks could to a lesser degree. The ToB classes fill this role. Shoot, even the Duskblade could fill this role given time to get the class feature to cast in medium armor. And that is probably why most players don't like the fighter class. The role he is supposed to fill could be filled by a bunch of other classes and in some cases to better effect. Ultimately, its a matter of taste. For a "tank" role, I prefer the fighter in general. Not having to worry about dispel magic/antimagic is one reason why I like it (Yes, I play games where dispels come out left and right very often making persistent DMM a poor tactic for the feat investment involved). PHB II has taken one step towards making a high level fighter more appealing but I wish future supplements take bigger steps. More "fighter exclusive" feats that gives a player a reason to stick it out as a fighter. Otherwise, jumping into a feat heavy prestige class is about the only thing the fighter class will be good for. As a DM, I prefer giving the baddies fighter levels. Its an easy way to give them additional tactics above and beyond what the baddie might normally be capable of. Spiked Chain Trippers; Disarming Guisarme Fighters, Lord Sunder and his Sunderlings, the simple TWF, Grappling Reaping Mauler with potions of Enlarge Person, etc. etc. Keeps players on their toes and even the Druid with Wildshape is sometimes hard pressed depending on how things pan out. |
| Archangel6203-05-07, 10:39 PM | A group needs a tank in general. Whether this is a fighter, paladin or barbarian, a tank seems to be a necessity in most games. Each primary melee class has their own pros and cons (Barbarians are more on damage, less on AC; Paladin's got a code of conduct to deal with; Fighters get feats which unfortunately don't scale up as you level). Reasons: Spellcasters need time to pull off their wonderful bag of tricks. The tanks buy them that time. Even the all mighty Cleric and Druid needs time to pull off their bag of tricks barring other feat tricks like DMM Persistent but even then a simple dispel magic/disjunction could ruin that tactic. Rogue's need a flanking buddy to get some consistent sneak attack damage rolling for them. A fighter fills a certain role that in my opinion is necessary. The only problem is other classes could also fill that role to some degree. Druids with Wildshape + Animal Companion could fill this role. Clerics with DMM Persistent could fill the role. Barbarians and Paladins could fill the role. Rangers or Monks could to a lesser degree. The ToB classes fill this role. Shoot, even the Duskblade could fill this role given time to get the class feature to cast in medium armor. And that is probably why most players don't like the fighter class. The role he is supposed to fill could be filled by a bunch of other classes and in some cases to better effect. Ultimately, its a matter of taste. For a "tank" role, I prefer the fighter in general. Not having to worry about dispel magic/antimagic is one reason why I like it (Yes, I play games where dispels come out left and right very often making persistent DMM a poor tactic for the feat investment involved). PHB II has taken one step towards making a high level fighter more appealing but I wish future supplements take bigger steps. More "fighter exclusive" feats that gives a player a reason to stick it out as a fighter. Otherwise, jumping into a feat heavy prestige class is about the only thing the fighter class will be good for. As a DM, I prefer giving the baddies fighter levels. Its an easy way to give them additional tactics above and beyond what the baddie might normally be capable of. Spiked Chain Trippers; Disarming Guisarme Fighters, Lord Sunder and his Sunderlings, the simple TWF, Grappling Reaping Mauler with potions of Enlarge Person, etc. etc. Keeps players on their toes and even the Druid with Wildshape is sometimes hard pressed depending on how things pan out. Yes but in general fighter works better as an NPC class, especially for monsters. The reason is that they don't need to last through many adventures so they can be one trick ponies with some success, as well as having their base monstrous abilities to back them up. |
| megageek1203-05-07, 11:09 PM | Do you really play with a DM that groups non-undead into a tight 15ft cone for every encounter? Same for sleep, are all the enemies piled into one 10ft square for your enjoyment? I have heard that crap line before, that wizards have amazing 1 round enders at level 1....but it never happens. You will not always be fighting multiple opponents. And there are quite a few times I have seen non-undead packed into a 15ft. cone. |
| Eyeless Blond03-06-07, 04:22 AM | You will not always be fighting multiple opponents. And there are quite a few times I have seen non-undead packed into a 15ft. cone.In particular, all those times the pro-Fighter group packed the enemy into a 10x10 room, narrow corridor, or other unfeasibly cramped small area to prevent them from flying away from their Fighter. :P |
| Leo03-06-07, 02:20 PM | Well, the game is Called Dungeons and dragons, right?:P Half the game time you will probably be in closed spaces whitout much mobility, and whitout doubt the reason wotc doesn't consider gate or the druid too much overpowered:they both demand lots of free space to do their best. Wildshape into dire bear! Too tight Dire Tiger, attack! Gets stuck in the door Gate Solar! No space Primsatic spray! Half of it gets stuck in the door. Yeah, the fighter may be only moving 20 feets per turn, but the enemy isn't going anywhere, so it really doesn't matter a lot. |
| NineInchNall03-06-07, 02:33 PM | What the crap are they fighting, then? There's not enough space for a Large creature, so any enemy would be Medium or smaller. At that point, um, you're pretty much limited to things that are easily dealt with by anyone. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-06-07, 02:41 PM | What the crap are they fighting, then? Cabin fever. |
| Archangel6203-06-07, 02:43 PM | Well, the game is Called Dungeons and dragons, right?:P Half the game time you will probably be in closed spaces whitout much mobility, and whitout doubt the reason wotc doesn't consider gate or the druid too much overpowered:they both demand lots of free space to do their best. Wildshape into dire bear! Too tight Dire Tiger, attack! Gets stuck in the door Gate Solar! No space Primsatic spray! Half of it gets stuck in the door. Yeah, the fighter may be only moving 20 feets per turn, but the enemy isn't going anywhere, so it really doesn't matter a lot. And in this same dungeon there is an eldritch machine giving all the monsters DR15/- |
| Scion of Coldshard03-06-07, 02:49 PM | What the crap are they fighting, then? There's not enough space for a Large creature, so any enemy would be Medium or smaller. At that point, um, you're pretty much limited to things that are easily dealt with by anyone. Giant snakes, possibly gelatenous. They are immune to the squeezing rules. This dungeon is actually an ancient crashed flying machine where these large creatures have moved in and shifted the odd looking chairs around to make paths just the right size for them to crawl through. |
| Archangel6203-06-07, 03:19 PM | Giant snakes, possibly gelatenous. They are immune to the squeezing rules. This dungeon is actually an ancient crashed flying machine where these large creatures have moved in and shifted the odd looking chairs around to make paths just the right size for them to crawl through. Ah, good old Barrier Peaks, come for the monsters, stay for the lazers. |
| wonlee7603-06-07, 03:38 PM | Yes but in general fighter works better as an NPC class, especially for monsters. The reason is that they don't need to last through many adventures so they can be one trick ponies with some success, as well as having their base monstrous abilities to back them up. Well, the topic of the thread is any reason to have a fighter. It works well for a DM tacking on class levels to baddies. And it works as a tank PC class for the PCs (though as I mentioned in my post, other classes could easily fill this role in varying degrees or better degrees depending on builds, stats, etc.). |
| Archangel6203-06-07, 03:43 PM | Well, the topic of the thread is any reason to have a fighter. It works well for a DM tacking on class levels to baddies. And it works as a tank PC class for the PCs (though as I mentioned in my post, other classes could easily fill this role in varying degrees or better degrees depending on builds, stats, etc.). The question meant as a party member however. The problem I see is just that if you compare the fighter to martial monsters of a similar level you begin to realize the problem mechanically. |
| Daydreamer03-06-07, 03:45 PM | This is a roundabout answer, but fighters are one of the best classes to multi class out of, or to move onto a prestige class. |
| Archangel6203-06-07, 03:50 PM | This is a roundabout answer, but fighters are one of the best classes to multi class out of, or to move onto a prestige class. I do agree, however that also sorta proves my point. The biggest strength of the fighter is letting you get to a better class easily. |
| NineInchNall03-06-07, 05:08 PM | Not that that makes it a bad class. It just means that the class isn't best suited to 20-level builds. I love the class as a tool in my character building toolkit. |
| Archangel6203-06-07, 08:36 PM | But they're not the only one. Define gear. A caster that loses components and a pouch or a divine caster lacking a focus has problems, yes. But I mean if the fighters gear was all suddenly stripped of magic then I'd argue that the fighter has become almost useless. Whereas if a casters gear was stripped of magic, they can still function and prove viable, hell so could a rogue, bard, the other martial classes could even do SOMETHING. The problem is that the fighter needs their gear not to do new tricks, but to be able to use existing ones on foes of an equal CR. |
| Kratch03-07-07, 12:11 AM | Define gear. A caster that loses components and a pouch or a divine caster lacking a focus has problems, yes. But I mean if the fighters gear was all suddenly stripped of magic then I'd argue that the fighter has become almost useless. Whereas if a casters gear was stripped of magic, they can still function and prove viable, hell so could a rogue, bard, the other martial classes could even do SOMETHING. The problem is that the fighter needs their gear not to do new tricks, but to be able to use existing ones on foes of an equal CR. I think khan has proven, with his gearless variations of his character, that a fighter without gear is far from useless. not peak perhaps, but then, thats no different from any class. His gearless variants still had some pretty impressive numbers for the tricks he chose. |
| Flan03-07-07, 12:55 AM | The question meant as a party member however. The problem I see is just that if you compare the fighter to martial monsters of a similar level you begin to realize the problem mechanically. Yes, mechanically the problem is the fighter is too good when allowed access to splatbooks. Combats last one round as the poor monster gets annhilated. |
| navar10003-07-07, 01:41 AM | Define gear. A caster that loses components and a pouch or a divine caster lacking a focus has problems, yes. But I mean if the fighters gear was all suddenly stripped of magic then I'd argue that the fighter has become almost useless. Whereas if a casters gear was stripped of magic, they can still function and prove viable, hell so could a rogue, bard, the other martial classes could even do SOMETHING. The problem is that the fighter needs their gear not to do new tricks, but to be able to use existing ones on foes of an equal CR. If depending on gear is a problem, again I say that's just a personal preference, then why is it only the fighter that gets blamed for it? Barbarians, rangers, rogues, paladins, heck any non-caster will also be greatly hindered without gear. Fighters can also do something without gear. They can climb, jump, swim, initimidate. They might even spend a feat on Improved Unarmed Strike. Fighters can also think, just like any player of any class. The only character class who twiddles his thumbs without gear is a player who can't think outside the box. |
| scienceman4703-07-07, 03:26 AM | "Oh ****! Who is that guy running wild over our fair anachronistic medieval european country with crazy game breaking magic skillz?" "Tis a naked sorceror with the eschew materials feat. They do not lose their leetness in the absense of clothing. Nay, they may turn their very nudity into a weapon!" "Woe is us! We have no answer to this grave threat, and I am but an uneducated commoner." "Did you not just use "anachronistic" in a sentence?" :thinks: |
| Clawhound03-07-07, 07:38 AM | If depending on gear is a problem, again I say that's just a personal preference, then why is it only the fighter that gets blamed for it? Barbarians, rangers, rogues, paladins, heck any non-caster will also be greatly hindered without gear. Fighters can also do something without gear. They can climb, jump, swim, initimidate. They might even spend a feat on Improved Unarmed Strike. Fighters can also think, just like any player of any class. The only character class who twiddles his thumbs without gear is a player who can't think outside the box. May I add that a fighter can still *fight* without gear? He may lose hitpoints like a sieve, but he can still fight, and he still has lots of hitpoint. He may have limited options, but he can still *fight*. That BAB doesn't go away. That strength bonus doesn't go away. With only a common stick or a pick-axe handle, he now has a club. *Gasp* He might even grapple. Let me also note this: weapons are so easy to get that 1st level characters start with them. Do you think it is a significant challenge for a fighter to acquire replacement gear? |
| Khan the Destroyer03-07-07, 11:52 AM | I think khan has proven, with his gearless variations of his character, that a fighter without gear is far from useless. not peak perhaps, but then, thats no different from any class. His gearless variants still had some pretty impressive numbers for the tricks he chose. You'll note that the thread is now on the sixth page. It seems that after my fighter builds went up, and actual statistical information was presented, the anti-fighters lost interest in that thread. And gear is not a problem. It is a last resort for those that want to hold on to the idea that fighters suck. In light of evidence to the contrary, they fall back on gear, pretending that the game doesn't assume specific gear will be needed to overcome obstacles. Don't let them make you think otherwise. |
| Argaud03-07-07, 01:17 PM | And gear is not a problem. It is a last resort for those that want to hold on to the idea that fighters suck. In light of evidence to the contrary, they fall back on gear, pretending that the game doesn't assume specific gear will be needed to overcome obstacles. Don't let them make you think otherwise. I disagree, gear is a problem if there is any intention to fight the monsters at the CR they give xp. However, it is not a problem unique of the fighter. All classes do poorly without gear. Yes, even the sorcerer and the monk. What I can't understand is why are we even pretending the PCs might not have the wealth they should have at their level. That level of wealth is not an optional rule, that is how the game is designed to play. Good design or bad design, that is how it is supposed to be done. Now, I have the impression many members of the anti-fighter faction play in games where magical items are rare and merchants dealing with magical items are non-existent. That is all fine and good, but the DM in those games is houseruling and nerfing some classes. By the same principle I could claim that a level 17 wizard does not have Gate and Time Stop because maybe those spells do not exist in the game. Going to the extreme I could claim only a 10% of the spells in the official books exist, and they are the crappiest, most useless ones. How good is the wizard then? Yes. Pretty useless. I have nerfed him good, uh? And who cares? That is not the way the game is played. Neither is forcing the fighters to be gearless. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-07-07, 01:22 PM | You'll note that the thread is now on the sixth page. Page 6? Did we have multiple threads combined at some point or do you have your settings at way more posts per page than mine? I see 32 pages currently. It seems that after my fighter builds went up, and actual statistical information was presented, the anti-fighters lost interest in that thread. Do you mean post 826 by yourself? I just dug through the whole thread and that is the only one that I think you might be refering to. And gear is not a problem. It is a last resort for those that want to hold on to the idea that fighters suck. In light of evidence to the contrary, they fall back on gear, pretending that the game doesn't assume specific gear will be needed to overcome obstacles. Don't let them make you think otherwise. I can see the gear arguement going against the fighter but just being the fighter and assuming gear is of equal importance still means that he is behind. He does not get much of anything for skills and he gets a few feats with the fighter tag, the vast majority of which do not really stack well with one another. Sure, he is likely the best, or tied for the best, for a melee guy who is able to deal with many situations but a generalist in this game is typically not as powerful as a specialist who shores up his weaknesses. In games I have been in and run the fighter is sometimes ok for a couple of levels of dipping to fill out a character concept. In my eyes that does not a good class make. Especially since even doing that tended to hurt many concepts in other ways. With powerful enough feat chains and a lot of planning the fighter basically gets up to doing all right in combat in a decent amount of situations but simply cannot do anything else. He cannot scout, he cannot search, he cannot spot, he cannot deal with people that he wants to be friendly with... he can only fight, and really pretty much every class has that ability. More feats, more skills, and more skill points each level. These things would help them out without stepping on anyones toes in a bad way. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-07-07, 01:32 PM | Page 6? Did we have multiple threads combined at some point or do you have your settings at way more posts per page than mine? I see 32 pages currently. I'm referring to another fighter thread currently on page 6 of the Classes forum :). Sorry for the confusion. Do you mean post 826 by yourself? I just dug through the whole thread and that is the only one that I think you might be refering to. No. I think the very original one is on page 16 of the other thread I'm referring to. I added a few other builds on the last page. (The original one on page 16 had a few kinks in it.) I can see the gear arguement going against the fighter but just being the fighter and assuming gear is of equal importance still means that he is behind. He does not get much of anything for skills and he gets a few feats with the fighter tag, the vast majority of which do not really stack well with one another. I agree. this doesn't mean he can't tank. Which isn't the scope of this thread, hence my limited participation. If you are arguing efficiency, I can see why someone would say a cleric over the fighter. EDIT: Arguad, I agree with what you said. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-07-07, 01:40 PM | With powerful enough feat chains and a lot of planning the fighter basically gets up to doing all right in combat in a decent amount of situations but simply cannot do anything else. What he can do well is fight. Is that why he is called the fighter? I know my fighters do gobs of damage to the enemy. Yay sword swingers! He cannot scout, he cannot search, he cannot spot, he cannot deal with people that he wants to be friendly with... he can only fight, and really pretty much every class has that ability. More feats, more skills, and more skill points each level. These things would help them out without stepping on anyones toes in a bad way. The fighter can scout, not as well as classes that are supposed to scout but he certainly can, plus he has the option of spending feats to help him with that. He can also search, as well as a cleric can even. He can spot things too as well as most other classes. INTIMIDATE (CHA) Check: You can change another’s behavior with a successful check. Your Intimidate check is opposed by the target’s modified level check (1d20 + character level or Hit Dice + target’s Wisdom bonus [if any] + target’s modifiers on saves against fear). If you beat your target’s check result, you may treat the target as friendly, but only for the purpose of actions taken while it remains intimidated. (That is, the target retains its normal attitude, but will chat, advise, offer limited help, or advocate on your behalf while intimidated. See the Diplomacy skill, above, for additional details.) The effect lasts as long as the target remains in your presence, and for 1d6×10 minutes afterward. After this time, the target’s default attitude toward you shifts to unfriendly (or, if normally unfriendly, to hostile). He can make people friendly, for a while. While I don't see expanding his skill list or points per level as a problem, and potentially a way to swing the fence sitters, I also don't see it as absolutely necessary. |
| Archangel6203-07-07, 01:43 PM | Yes, mechanically the problem is the fighter is too good when allowed access to splatbooks. Combats last one round as the poor monster gets annhilated. :rolleyes: well, you're certainly being obtuse. The problem is that the fighter gets creamed by melee monsters of the apporpriate CR at mid to high levels. The main reason being what those monsters have. The issue, as I showed with my sample CR monster fight, if WOTC feels that the monster needs all these boosters to keep up what are we to assume about the fighter. |
| AllisterH03-07-07, 01:50 PM | Er, I think we might have a problem with different threads merging. In another thread, I answered why so many people detest the fact that at high levels, a fighter is almost as much about his gear as he is about his feats. While this is true for all the classes except the monk (and I guess the sorceror), the fighter suffers the most. Take away a wizard's Headband of Intellect +5 and said wizard will probably still be able to cast Gate for the win. Basically speaking, many people coming to D&D have read fantasy before. In fantasy flicks/books/comics, the swordslinger at most has only 1 magic item. Their sword but everything else is normal. It is kind of strange to come to a system of fantasy where gear plays such a high factor. Then again, it could be argued that D&D has changed what people expectations of a fantasy fighter are since in both asian console RPGs (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior/Quest), western PC RPGs (the goldbox games, Elder scrolls etc) and the MMORPG, it is straight up impossible to complete the latter half of the games without the best gear available. All of the above basically derive their version of fantasy from D&D so a kid coming from WoW probably wouldn't even notice how gear heavy/dependant the classes are. |
| DEMONisbest03-07-07, 01:52 PM | The fighter can scout, not as well as classes that are supposed to scout but he certainly can, plus he has the option of spending feats to help him with that. He can also search, as well as a cleric can even. He can spot things too as well as most other classes. He can attempt to scout, but mostly every1 can spot him and he probably can not see them soon enough. He can search poorly and spot even more poorly, considering neither of those is his class skill and his wisdom/inteligence would probably be lower than those of wizard/ranger/scout/cleric/druid... (or at least one of those abilities is most likely going to be lower) |
| Scion of Coldshard03-07-07, 01:53 PM | What he can do well is fight. Is that why he is called the fighter? I know my fighters do gobs of damage to the enemy. Yay sword swingers! You arent actually trying to make this arguement are you? The name defines all that it is? If that is what is bugging you perhaps a name change is in order. I am actually looking at the mechanics and deem them to be needing of an upgrade. The fighter can scout, not as well as classes that are supposed to scout but he certainly can, plus he has the option of spending feats to help him with that. He can also search, as well as a cleric can even. He can spot things too as well as most other classes. He would have to put ranks into these cross classed and he only has 2 per level plus whatever he gets from int, which is likely either 0 or negative. Not much help there. Skill ranks actually matter, oddly enough. If you are level 10 the fighter with his +1 to move silently (round figure, there are some dex fighters out there, probably) and +0 spot does not a scout make. Sure, he could put ranks into them, spend feats on skill focus, and have a somewhat decent chance at one or both but that is seriously impacting his abilities along with not getting anywhere near enough to work vs threats around his CR. He just does not scout. If you want to scout you pick a different class. The same goes for the other options. Generally speaking it even goes for people who wish to fight. If you want to be a melee grunt with some ranged ability barbarian or ranger work core. It does not take many feats to do both reasonably well at the same time. Those sort of builds might even take two levels of fighter to get the feats out of the way faster, and then go back to their primary class. He can make people friendly, for a while. I am guessing you mean intimidate which is a pretty poor way to go, especially if you have a low charisma. While I don't see expanding his skill list or points per level as a problem, and potentially a way to swing the fence sitters, I also don't see it as absolutely necessary. Definately necissary. Give them something to do! Knowledge (history), Knowledge (local) make for great abilities for roleplaying and enhancing a character. Giving them spot allows for them to be able to actually be a watchman, plus it is a very important skill for archers. Giving them some others can make them able to fullfill whichever type of combat they are after as well. Plus more feats allow them to get through more chains or have the latitude to branch out more. You can even limit them in some way. But they need more than what they have now! ;/ Poor guys. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-07-07, 01:54 PM | I'm referring to another fighter thread currently on page 6 of the Classes forum :). Sorry for the confusion. No. I think the very original one is on page 16 of the other thread I'm referring to. I added a few other builds on the last page. (The original one on page 16 had a few kinks in it.) Ahh.. other thread references. Links perhaps? |
| Khan the Destroyer03-07-07, 02:28 PM | Ahh.. other thread references. Links perhaps? Apologies. Here is a link to the thread. My first build is on page 16, though with a few mistakes. I have a few revised builds on the last page, which followed talk about the Leadership feat. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=791914 He would have to put ranks into these cross classed and he only has 2 per level plus whatever he gets from int, which is likely either 0 or negative. Not much help there. Alternatively, a human fighter with combat expertise will have 4 skill points per level ;). He just does not scout. If you want to scout you pick a different class. Maybe at higher levels. But a fighter can train animals with his Handle Animal skill. A hawk has a +14 spot check. That's like an 11th level rogue with a maxed out spot (even if the rogue has a positive wisdom modifier, it won't be much). An owl has +17 Move Silently, +14 Listen, +11 Hide, and +14 Spot in shadowy illumination. You can train teach these animals the seek trick, among others. Dog's have scent. Rat's have Scent as well as +14 Hide and +10 Move Silently. At low levels, this is pretty freaking good. Am I saying that a fighter makes a superb scout? No. A rogue is more intelligent. The animals will be able to tell you they saw something, not what it is or where it is. But the dog can sniff it out. The point is the fighter does have options to contribute to scouting. I am guessing you mean intimidate which is a pretty poor way to go, especially if you have a low charisma. But if you max Intimidate, it isn't a poor option. Chances are the people you are intimidating don't have many HD or levels, and don't have bonuses against fear, and don't have a big wisdom modifier. This is an option for a fighter to contribute in a social setting if he wants to. I agree about certain Knowledge skills though. I woudn't mind seeing the fighter's class skill list expanded. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-07-07, 03:15 PM | He can attempt to scout, but mostly every1 can spot him and he probably can not see them soon enough. He can search poorly and spot even more poorly, considering neither of those is his class skill and his wisdom/inteligence would probably be lower than those of wizard/ranger/scout/cleric/druid... (or at least one of those abilities is most likely going to be lower) I was simply saying he can do it as well as any class that does not have it as a class skill. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-07-07, 03:27 PM | You arent actually trying to make this arguement are you? The name defines all that it is? No, I am not making that argument. I was saying that fighters fight well enough, even very well at times. He just does not scout. If you want to scout you pick a different class. The same goes for the other options. OH! So if you want to scout you take a class designed for it. Who'd of thunk it. Again, the fighter scouts (uses any non class skill) as well as any other class that isn't made for it. Generally speaking it even goes for people who wish to fight. If you want to be a melee grunt with some ranged ability barbarian or ranger work core. It does not take many feats to do both reasonably well at the same time. Those sort of builds might even take two levels of fighter to get the feats out of the way faster, and then go back to their primary class. And fighters do it just fine as well, I don't see your point here. I am guessing you mean intimidate which is a pretty poor way to go, especially if you have a low charisma. Except it is exactly what you said they couldn't do. It is a class skill that allows them to make people friendly. I guess what it boils down to is that some need to make die rolls to feel like they are contributing, is that it? The "they need more to do" crowd seems (and I could be wrong here) to feel that if you don't use a skill that you are not doing anything. I don't see that. |
| BoDiddilly03-07-07, 03:31 PM | To adress the question, " any reason to have a fighter? " YES And that is because there is a need for melee characters in function parties. Other classes maybe able to fill the roll just as well or even better, but the roll needs to be filled just the same. And I dont realy care who you say is better or who can pull this and that at of hat, beause this is a game of seeming endless sorce material where character are simply as powerfull as you want them to be. Or as powerful as your fellow gamers alow. It doenst matter if you have fighters, barbarians, or even a battle mage to fill that slot. but dont be fooled in to thinking the a team of specialized wizards or diverse spell casters is in no need of a few meat shields. As I see it even battle statted mages, in their rolls are meat sheilds and not casters, because they sacrifice most of, if not all of there spell capacity for buffing spells which alow them to do just what the fighter is already doing. leveling them with only a few trick spell that might match the arcanan powers of a palidin or ranger. One role the battle hardy casters will never fill is that of a truely stabble combatant. While the stats and therories behind many of the combat casters that have been raved about on these forums, seem sound and favorfull youll find they play out differently. A they most of them only work for high lvl caster who can expend high end spell regularly. which is why this who fight thing came out of the pure fighter thread anyways. Also most of them require 2 or 3 rounds of buffing. But anyways consider this, suprize attacks , anti-magic feilds, disspells, long battles, and other unseen barrier can shatter these characters. Ex. A druid may find one perticular or a pair of spells that he find optimal to use in his wild forms, lets say bite of the weretiger and bull str for lesser battles. He may there for prepare these spells in abundance rely ing soly on them and heal spell to make a harty battle beast but if winds up in a tight spot where he can shape into a effective form or use summing effectively he may be unable to buff himself to the disided level be cause he can not stack the bonus from werebite spells with many others including bull str. And there for will only receive a max of 1 bufff in stead of the 2 he was relying on this example is rather specific I know but it demenstrates how one trip ponies topple in unexsected ways here is a more reasonable example. A party is jumped by a group of rouges unlike to take part in the surpize round or win the initiative, the wizard takes two attacks from one rouge with out any of his defense up. The fighter is just as likely to take those attacks but at lest hes armored and in full health. And most importantly ready to counter with his own asault right away, A wizard would most like be going defence at this point but even a hardier caster is in a bad situtation here as now has to start buff for 1-3 rnd amist the combat drawing AoO in the prossess or prehap even worse delibritely disrutive attacks. So all said i think the fight is not nessissary but not unreasonable eighter. I wouldnt bash a barbarain from opting out of a elite class like frenzee bezerker or bear worrior i wouldnt demand an arcanan caster to that an PrC just because I feel they make full base caster obsulite have the same casting abilities plus extras so why would I throw out fighters |
| Kratch03-07-07, 05:37 PM | I can see the gear arguement going against the fighter but just being the fighter and assuming gear is of equal importance still means that he is behind. He does not get much of anything for skills and he gets a few feats with the fighter tag, the vast majority of which do not really stack well with one another. many feats stack well with each other. There have been many builds offered on the various threads that make use of feat synergy to do some impresive things. Is it not more likely that the feat synergies are not blatently obvious and anti-fighters think so poorly of them that they can't be bothered to look? Over half the feats available (that aren't metamagic anyways) are tagged fighter feats, well more then "just a few" I agree they don't get much in the way of skills, and they should get a boost as far as they're skills list and number of points go. But they are not so far behind that without those skills they suck. Adding 2-4 skills to they're list and 2 more points per level would likely resolve the hesitance of a lot of people. I don't think that is so much of a difference that it brings a class from suck to good. Sure, he is likely the best, or tied for the best, for a melee guy who is able to deal with many situations but a generalist in this game is typically not as powerful as a specialist who shores up his weaknesses. So your saying a generalist build like what Khan provided is to weak and that a fighter should build as a specialist and shore up they're weakness's (presumably with gear), but when someone provides a specialist fighter who shores up his weakness's with gear, people throw tailored encounters designed to capatalize on those weakness's and claim a dependancy on gear as a weakness solely of the fighter. In games I have been in and run the fighter is sometimes ok for a couple of levels of dipping to fill out a character concept. In my eyes that does not a good class make. Especially since even doing that tended to hurt many concepts in other ways. in the games you have played in, has anyone stayed fighter for more then a couple levels to compare? or do they all jump out because they believe the hype that fighters can't compete? ... He cannot scout, nether can the barbarian or cleric (the 2 often heralded as the example of other class's that replace the fighter). nether can the paladin for that matter. And as he may likely have a higher dex (if he's going the combat reflex's or TWF route) then the melee cleric (due to a melee clerics Different MAD then a fighters), will likely have a higher untrained skill. he cannot search, Again, nether can the barbarian or cleric. Again, the paladin can't ether. And again, due to a clerics differing MAD (usually int and Dex are a melee clerics dump stats), a fighter going the combat expertise route will likely have a higher untrained skill he cannot spot, Again, though the cleric is going to have a higher wis, so will be able to by default spot better, he will have far more demands on his skill points and won't be able to afford cross class, unlike the fighter. he cannot deal with people that he wants to be friendly with... Nether can the barbarian. The cleric has diplomacy on his list, but as a combat cleric, will generally have less int (due to MAD then a fighter he's replacing) and will dedicate points to maxing out his concentration. So even if he does also max his diplomacy, the fighters gonna have 2-4 other skills over the cleric. Perhaps you don't think climbs a big deal, but thats something a fighter can do over a melee cleric without expending a 4-5th level spell slot. Generally all i'm seeing here is someone saying the fighter sucks because he can't buff or heal like a cleric, can't rage like a barbarian, can't scout like a rogue and can't cast offensive spells like a sorcerer with spell access like a wizard. but, I don't think any class fills all of those criteria. Some people expect too much. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-07-07, 08:19 PM | This looks to be a long reply, sorry all ;/ Apologies. Here is a link to the thread. My first build is on page 16, though with a few mistakes. I have a few revised builds on the last page, which followed talk about the Leadership feat. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=791914 I will try to look through it later. Alternatively, a human fighter with combat expertise will have 4 skill points per level ;). True of course ;) But if the fighter has put a 13 into intelligence just to get combat expertise where is he taking the hit at? I also would not use racial choices to say whether or not a class is balanced though. He could indeed hit 4 with a 13 int and being human though. It looks like from what you are saying next he'll be putting a point into handle animal and a point into intimidage. With those choices maybe he has a charisma of 10 or higher as well? I want to see this guys stat distribution! Standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 I believe ;) Maybe at higher levels. But a fighter can train animals with his Handle Animal skill. A hawk has a +14 spot check. Handle animal is a nice little skill. Unfortunately animals tend to be pretty easy fodder plus they have animal intelligence so what is that hawk going to be doing? Assuming that hawks can see color I guess you could teach him that whenever hes sees a certain color to lift his left claw, or deliver messages for you. The same goes for many animals. You get a few simple tricks plus a purpose for int 2 animals but how much you can do is severly limited. I like the option and think it can definately work for having some limited virtual feats sometimes early on. At least if you have the time, can make the checks, and have the money. Am I saying that a fighter makes a superb scout? No. A rogue is more intelligent. The animals will be able to tell you they saw something, not what it is or where it is. But the dog can sniff it out. The point is the fighter does have options to contribute to scouting. I usually see scouting as being able to go ahead, get useful intel, and report back. None of these really do that. Plus the dog can only track if the DC is 10 or lower and maybe not even then. The wording I found says that if you have track and scent then you can track by scent but it does not talk about if you only have scent. Some of the text of the various abilities is a little contradictory. But if you max Intimidate, it isn't a poor option. I am not really worried about it succeeding, just the after effects. You have a chance of a brief bonus (ok, I'll add back in the chance of failure), might get something useful, and then afterwards you can be in a very poor situation indeed. It can make the overall situation much worse for himself and sometimes even the rest of the party. Plus it still takes a long period of time. With the drawbacks that it has they could have at least made it a shorter process. Generally in a party I would rather have someone attempt diplomacy or other channels well before intimidate is resorted to. It is a fairly unacceptable mode of social discourse ;) I agree about certain Knowledge skills though. I woudn't mind seeing the fighter's class skill list expanded. I doubt adding in some things like that would cause a problem, nor upping their skill points to 4. I also like the idea of a feat every level for them. They are supposed to be the feat guy right? I doubt the extra feats will break them. Level 3 is so very, very empty right now :( OH! So if you want to scout you take a class designed for it. Not 'designed for it' but instead, 'has the ability to do so with a reasonable chance of success'. Although designed for it certainly helps too. As far as I am concerned several classes (most? all? pc ones of course) already fight as well as the fighter does but also have other options. The fighter could potentially have more options of which mode of combat to do but he is not ahead in any particular mode. Being basically tied in the mode of preference and slightly ahead in the off preference is not really a big class feature. So your saying a generalist build like what Khan provided is to weak and that a fighter should build as a specialist and shore up they're weakness's Most of what you said in your post does not really apply to what I said so I will try to go through and pick out a few parts to talk about instead of going piece by piece. Generalist or specialist either way I do not much care for it. I have seen both and the results are not as impressive as I feel that a pc should be especially when compared with other pc's. Khans guy is ok for the first couple of levels, runs out of feats to choose that will really do much, and then gets another few ok ones later on. I do not know what his stat distribution is so I cannot really compare any numbers. And at level 20 he picks up iron will I guess because there just arent any feats to choose ;/ Now, take that same guy that he made, add on some skills such as a few knowledges, give him 2 more skill points a level, and tack on 9 more feats and he will likely fill in a few more gaps and be able to be well rounded in fighting plus have an area of emphasis. If these extra feats were of an extra sublist of around 15 feats which were nondirectly offensive but that helped shore him up that would work fine too. He would have iron will earlier, which is pretty much a must, perhaps improved toughness, and make skill focus in a couple of skills. Oh, and I have seen a character take 4 levels of fighter once for weapon specialization.. a couple of levels later he was asking the dm how he could go about changing earlier levels out for something more useful. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-07-07, 08:58 PM | True of course ;) But if the fighter has put a 13 into intelligence just to get combat expertise where is he taking the hit at? The stats I ended up going with were: Strength 14, Dexterity, 14, Consitution 14, Intelligence 13, Wisdom 10, Charisma 8 25 point buy. Because my build was using Power Attack, plus Combat Expertise feats, plus Archery, I decided on a 'wider' spread. Consitution is well... constitution :). Wisdom isn't needed (no Combat Form feats), and his saves are pretty good at the later levels without items. Charisma is a crap stat for fighters, hence the 8. I also would not use racial choices to say whether or not a class is balanced though. Agreed. He could indeed hit 4 with a 13 int and being human though. It looks like from what you are saying next he'll be putting a point into handle animal and a point into intimidage. With those choices maybe he has a charisma of 10 or higher as well? I want to see this guys stat distribution! Standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 I believe ;) Both Intimidate and Handle Animal use set DC's. Once you can hit them, it's ok. A -1 from charisma shouldn't make the DC's unhittable. As I said before, I don't think the people you are generally trying to intimidate will have huge bonuses from HD, wisdom, or save vs. fear. Unfortunately animals tend to be pretty easy fodder plus they have animal intelligence so what is that hawk going to be doing? Assuming that hawks can see color I guess you could teach him that whenever hes sees a certain color to lift his left claw, or deliver messages for you. The same goes for many animals. You get a few simple tricks plus a purpose for int 2 animals but how much you can do is severly limited. The hawk or owl flies ahead of the group and uses the Seek trick. It searches for stuff. It can squak or hoot or whatever when it sees another living being. This will put the party on alert. The Warn trick in Complete Adventurer is perfect for this. The animal alerts you when creatures are coming near. The animal goes ahead, and if it detects anything, it signals. And you can train it to ignore certain creatures (like normally harmless animals). Combined with the Scent Seeking trick in Races of Stone, a rat would make a decent scout (though limited by intelligence). The rat's Hide and Move Silently modifier are pretty beefy, and with the Improved Scent feat, the rat can use his Scent ability at 60 feet while using the Seek trick. You could teach and owl the Defend or Guard tricks. At night, in the low-light of a campfire, the owl's spot check is really good. All you need is a hoot for the fighter on watch to rouse everyone, or send his Rat or Dog to sniff it out (using the Stalk trick). I'm not saying the system perfectly replaces the rogue, but it is a way for the fighter to contribute outside of combat. Plus the dog can only track if the DC is 10 or lower and maybe not even then. The wording I found says that if you have track and scent then you can track by scent but it does not talk about if you only have scent. Some of the text of the various abilities is a little contradictory. I am mostly speaking of detection. You are right that an animal cannot report back, but it can warn you. And the Races of Stone book adds to the Seek trick that an animal with Scent can use that to Seek (they are not tracking, merely detecting). And the Improved Scent feat increases the range to 60 feet. Also, if you have a druid in the party, he could perhaps speak with the animal to gain better insight as to what it detected. I am not really worried about it succeeding, just the after effects. You have a chance of a brief bonus (ok, I'll add back in the chance of failure), might get something useful, and then afterwards you can be in a very poor situation indeed. It can make the overall situation much worse for himself and sometimes even the rest of the party. Plus it still takes a long period of time. With the drawbacks that it has they could have at least made it a shorter process. Generally in a party I would rather have someone attempt diplomacy or other channels well before intimidate is resorted to. It is a fairly unacceptable mode of social discourse ;) I'm not claiming this tactic replaces your typical bard or paladin. But it's there for the fighter to use outside of combat. Even the demoralize option is useful for reducing the enemy's modifiers on rolls. I doubt adding in some things like that would cause a problem, nor upping their skill points to 4. I also like the idea of a feat every level for them. They are supposed to be the feat guy right? I doubt the extra feats will break them. Level 3 is so very, very empty right now :( I totally agree! I would love a fighter with a feat every level. Truth is, levelling a fighter is very difficult. You never know what feats to put off. And waiting for a feat is a matter of two levels! And at level 20 he picks up iron will I guess because there just arent any feats to choose ;/ Gosh that original build has so many holes in it. I just realized that Iron Will is not a fighter bonus feat. Whups. Now, take that same guy that he made, add on some skills such as a few knowledges, give him 2 more skill points a level, and tack on 9 more feats and he will likely fill in a few more gaps and be able to be well rounded in fighting plus have an area of emphasis. I think he's pretty well-rounded now. But nine more feats would be awesome! Or kickass. Or maybe both. |
| Bob Loblaw03-07-07, 09:53 PM | Kahn, you could also consider adding flaws. He would get two at first and then he can get an additional one every 5 levels. This would give him 7 feats. Taking traits the same way (total of 7) would give him some boosts to his skills. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-07-07, 10:17 PM | To be honest, I don't like flaws :). I don't like the idea of giving my character a penalty. Even for a feat. That 8 charisma is like a thorn in my paw. And I don't tend to use flaws for optimization purposes because not everyone allows them. (Though my DM's have allowed them, and usually a couple of people eat them up. It works for some :).) |
| Scion of Coldshard03-07-07, 10:45 PM | I think he's pretty well-rounded now. But nine more feats would be awesome! Or kickass. Or maybe both. Which brings up an interesting question. Do you feel that 9 extra fighter feats over the course of his carear would break the character? If the answer is yes, then why? If the answer is no then how many do you think it would take to break it? |
| itwasntme03-07-07, 11:07 PM | first most games are not 25 point buy there useoly 30 or 4d6 but thats fine 25 point buy it is below adverage though in normol condistions on how players play To the Barlor Thing the simple fighter Bob had up had to have a nat 1 on his first and second (And possibly 3rd) attack to miss the barlor in other words the fighter is hitting allmost all the time and i say allmost becouse im taking into account that the fighter is going to roll a nat 1 just becouse im trying to make the balor seem more powerfull (Perhaps the guy is unlucky) though of course useing feats form Complete Scoundrol that dosnt become a problem for the fighter ... But anyways give the Barlor Gear and his CR ups first off and not only that but it wount make much of a change the fighter Bob posted was a Fighter that had feats left over along with other things in fact allmost all the fighters that where put up had feats and other things left over to have improvement on w/e the fighter (Player) wanted to do with the character as you can see the Fighter is doing just great with feats left over to help in in other reguards (Up to player) a -2 to hit/damage isnt that big of a deal to me (Or anyone) In late games its horrible early game and deadly to the players (Or whoever is effected by it) But considering where talking about a CR 20 (Basicly level 20 character) Getting a -2 to hit/damage isnt realy a big treat allso the fighter can have an easyer time on makeing the Check and remeber if a -2 to hit/damage is makeing the fighter suck then it should make all other tanks suck as well A Fighter only needs a few skills maybe more depending on the fighter your makeing again i have to say in my experience i know how to deal with things out side of Skill checks (Check Sig) But thats my own personol experience so you can count that agest me i dount see realy any real arguement or debat on the fighter hear all i see is little nothings Cha isnt important for Fighters and Wisdom isnt that Big Eather Will saves can be increased with other things (Items/feats/ w/e) my Main question is this what book is the Penities/flaws in? what are they and what do they do for your character? both negitively and positively ive heard about em but never seen them thank you |
| itwasntme03-07-07, 11:13 PM | Which brings up an interesting question. Do you feel that 9 extra fighter feats over the course of his carear would break the character? If the answer is yes, then why? If the answer is no then how many do you think it would take to break it? depending that most other character class's are useoly being Broken in many areas i dount see to much of a debat on a Break Fighter but thats just my mind on the topic could you Reask your question in a differnt way so i can better understand what your asking? |
| Flan03-07-07, 11:17 PM | Kahn, you could also consider adding flaws. He would get two at first and then he can get an additional one every 5 levels. This would give him 7 feats. Taking traits the same way (total of 7) would give him some boosts to his skills. I tend to dislike flaws because DnD has no overrideing sense of balance. Where hero system has the guideline that a flaw that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth anything, there is no similar restraint on DnD characters, and many of the flaws have payoffs with no real penalty. |
| itwasntme03-07-07, 11:27 PM | A Fighter can move ... In fact moveing 20 ft per round isnt that bad considering you can run there or charge there or use alot of other type of movement enchantment isnt much of a problem in fact ... not realy much of a porblem at all there are tons of ways how to change your character movement speed (Increase/Decrease) |
| itwasntme03-07-07, 11:31 PM | I tend to dislike flaws because DnD has no overrideing sense of balance. Where hero system has the guideline that a flaw that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth anything, there is no similar restraint on DnD characters, and many of the flaws have payoffs with no real penalty. again where are Flaws located? |
| Seerow03-07-07, 11:37 PM | Flaws are in Unearthed Arcana. Also under variant rules in the SRD. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-11-07, 11:54 PM | Which brings up an interesting question. Do you feel that 9 extra fighter feats over the course of his carear would break the character? If the answer is yes, then why? If the answer is no then how many do you think it would take to break it? Don't mean to bump this thread, but I didn't see this question directed at me before. No, I don't think another 9 feats would break the fighter. And I'm not sure how many would 'break' the fighter. In all honesty, I don't think if we gave the fighter every fighter feat in existence he would be broken. But, give me some time to go over those feats ;). Maybe my mind will change. |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 12:07 AM | Given what Khan mentioned I think I do need to clarify my stance, I do believe that the fighter as a class is poorly designed, biggest reason is simply that the combat system in D&D cannot work in its favor. A pure fighter has a lot of feats, with suppliments this fighter can be very effective at one thing or decent at several. Khan showed a few builds that could work well, they wouldn't be stellar but they could get the job done, something that I will admit and I give him a tip of the hat for. The problem that I see though is that between the wealth levels, the styles of monsters faced, and the lack of true class features the fighter as a total class fails it's intended purpose. But then, like I mentioned in another thread, the fighter isn't relaly a class so much as it is a template. |
| Argaud03-12-07, 01:52 AM | Don't mean to bump this thread, but I didn't see this question directed at me before. No, I don't think another 9 feats would break the fighter. And I'm not sure how many would 'break' the fighter. In all honesty, I don't think if we gave the fighter every fighter feat in existence he would be broken. But, give me some time to go over those feats ;). Maybe my mind will change. I don't think 9 more feats would break the fighter either. This is because although the more focused a fighter becomes the better at fighting with one style of fighting, there are only so many feats a fighter can apply to that one style. The one-trick pony fighters are very efficient at the one-trick, and often can manage for the trick to work even under difficult circumstances. But once they have all the feats revolving around the trick, they can't get any better. In general more feats allow the fighter master more tricks, giving him more versatility and usefulness. However, there is also the limitation of how much specialized gear the fighter can afford, forcing even a 100-feats fighter to narrow his focus to the kinds of fighting his gear optimizes. Much of the fighter potential would never be used. He would still be extremely tough, since he could take numerous defensive feats that individually help only a little, but that stack almost endlessly. And also all those ToB stances (only 3 strikes, but no limit of stances!). |
| Bob Loblaw03-12-07, 02:22 AM | I would like to point out that the problem brought up about fighters is a lack of actual class features, but the same problem occurs with the cleric, sorcerer, and wizard, yet those are not considered problems. Honestly, I think there are a few major problems: 1) Many DMs and players honestly do not understand the skill system and use it improperly. While the fighter can obviously use more skill points (I feel the cleric and wizard can too), too often people forget how to actually use the skills they do have. 2) People want an archtypical fighter from fantasy literature, but have no problems with non-archtypical casters from fantasy literature. People don't talk about making some of the spellcasting weaker. While this doesn't actually solve the problem, it can help. Removing all spells that duplicate class abilities would be a great start. 3) Many people assume that all games are run the same way. Even if we use no houserules, there are as many styles of gaming than there are groups. 4) The fighter is boring. I won't deny that. His progession is non-flexible. Once he has chosen his feats, that's it. Even the sorcerer can change his selection of spells at times. |
| crimsonwolf03-12-07, 03:24 AM | okay I normally and yes have taken a pledge to do so. But I refuse to go over 33 pages of responces and therefore by My pledge will not make a post in this thread. Have a good night all. (dammit I posted) |
| AllisterH03-12-07, 10:00 AM | I 2) People want an archtypical fighter from fantasy literature, but have no problems with non-archtypical casters from fantasy literature. People don't talk about making some of the spellcasting weaker. While this doesn't actually solve the problem, it can help. Removing all spells that duplicate class abilities would be a great start. . QFT. I honestly don't know of many fantasy worlds where there is a magic system as powerful as D&D where it is expected that high level fighters would be a serious player. The only one I know is Slayers and even there, magic is limited (sure, Lina Inverse can smash mountains, but in that magic system you pretty much cant have two spells running at a time a.k.a no defense magic for casters) and the fighters themselves are blatantly superhuman. |
| Ghenesh03-12-07, 10:36 AM | One main difference between melee classes progression and caster's progressions is that the spellcasting system is a class feature, and the most powerful class feature in the entire game. As long as you're ganing caster levels you're getting class features, on the other hand gaining BAB is not considered a class feature because it's something you can gain with many classes. I acknowledge that the Sorcerer is the worst designed class of all, system-wise there is NO single reason to stay in the class if you can prestige out, but when you take PrCs out of the scope and compare a bonus fighter feat every two levels and a new caster level every level, it sorta even out. I don't know about the 20 feats fighter, i think it's a bit over the top, the only strenght of the class is its customization, granting a bonus feat every level will certainly give the fighter an edge on specialization that maybe it's not meant to be reached with a pre-epic character. Although i certainly support the 14 feats fighter... and filling the 6 dead levels with some fluff features like the ones proposed in the dead levels article. |
| malisteen03-12-07, 11:10 AM | 2) People want an archtypical fighter from fantasy literature, but have no problems with non-archtypical casters from fantasy literature. People don't talk about making some of the spellcasting weaker. While this doesn't actually solve the problem, it can help. Removing all spells that duplicate class abilities would be a great start. Actually, we do talk about that. A lot. But fixing the magic system would require scrapping it and starting over at this point. Uses per day is not a functional restriction for magic at high levels under the current system. The power of spells ramps rediculously high at the later spell levels. Spells allow you to imitate any other class's abilities, only better. It would be hard to fix magic, especially since there has not been any viable alternative to divine magic introduced. There are several alternatives to arcane magic out there, and a few sources of healing, but none of it significant, and almost nothing in the way of non-divine magic answers to ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, disease, or death. As for fighter, it's a simple matter to give him (and the paladin, etc) the appropriate skill points per level, and it's nearly as easy to give him an appropriate skill list (add balance, spot, a couple knowledge skills, maybe a few others). It's nearly as easy to give him some scaling class features. As for clerics and sorcerers not gaining any class features: while feats do not class features make, spells do. Advancing spells known, and spells per day, granting access to higher level spells, that is advancing significant class features. And every spellcasting PrC out there that grants full spellcasting advancement plus extra stuff is like a martial prc that grants a fighter bonus feat every two levels and extra abilities. Only more so, because spells are much more impressive then fighter bonus feats, and spellcasters get them every level while fighters only get stuff every other level. My own home rules would give fighter better skills and actual class features, but would also limit spells that imitate the features of other classes, limit or eliminate self buffs, and take away the first level of caster advancement from any full caster PrC. |
| AllisterH03-12-07, 11:53 AM | I don't think the actual spellcasting system is broken just parts of it, namely 9th level and the polymorph school. Furthermore, the dread necromancer, beguiler and the warmage while more powerful than a melee class aren't nearwhere as versatile as the divine casters and show the system itself isn't broken. Many people consider the vanilla sorceror balanced with respect to the fighter before 9th level due to the fact that sorcerors don't have that versatility. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-12-07, 12:03 PM | Actually, we do talk about that. A lot. But fixing the magic system would require scrapping it and starting over at this point. I don't agree. I think scrapping some problematic spells would work just fine. As for fighter, it's a simple matter to give him (and the paladin, etc) the appropriate skill points per level, and it's nearly as easy to give him an appropriate skill list (add balance, spot, a couple knowledge skills, maybe a few others). It's nearly as easy to give him some scaling class features. These fixes wouldn't do anything to alleviate the notion that a fighter is a worse tank than a caster though. As for clerics and sorcerers not gaining any class features: while feats do not class features make, spells do. That is just an opinion. Feats are indeed the class feature of the fighter. An easy way to tell is because it is listed under the 'Class Features' heading in the fighter class ;). |
| Flan03-12-07, 01:08 PM | I would like to point out that the problem brought up about fighters is a lack of actual class features, but the same problem occurs with the cleric, sorcerer, and wizard, yet those are not considered problems. Those classes have the back half of the main book they can select from every game day as well as good chunks of almost every expansion book and an entire book of just spells. Having sevaral pages of spells for a character that can change every day from a monster list of spells is a bit different than having a stat block of a couple dozen feats. And speaking of feats, it's not like weapon focus and weapon spec effectivly double the power of all the fighter's other abilities like maximize and divine metamagic do for a cleric, the "lack of class features" isn't exactly crippling when the description of those features is "you win, collect 200$ on your victory lap of the board and take all the property cards from the other players." |
| Bob Loblaw03-12-07, 01:10 PM | Actually, we do talk about that. A lot. But fixing the magic system would require scrapping it and starting over at this point. I am refering to removing or changing the spells that overshadow other classes. I have no problems with wish or gate. I do have problems with spells like Divine Power. As for fighter, it's a simple matter to give him (and the paladin, etc) the appropriate skill points per level, and it's nearly as easy to give him an appropriate skill list (add balance, spot, a couple knowledge skills, maybe a few others). It's nearly as easy to give him some scaling class features. I read this all the time, but then the argument shifts to the fact that fighters can't tank. Skill points will not address this "problem." I also don't see balance, spot, or knowledge as archtypical fighter skills. I think a big way to address the skill problem would be to have the Affinity feats (+2/+2) not only grant bonuses to the skills but also to make those skills become class skills. This would allow someone to make the fighter they want. Of course the fighter would need more skill points (maybe 1 per level per Affinity feat). Depending on how you view feats, one can argue that they do scale. The feat chains scale with level. You choose how much you want out of the chain. I would like to see some better feats, especially at higher levels, but in my campaigns fighters do just fine with the options they have. As for clerics and sorcerers not gaining any class features: while feats do not class features make, spells do. Advancing spells known, and spells per day, granting access to higher level spells, that is advancing significant class features. That's a matter of opinion. Spellcasting is not listed under the "Special" column. While I may agree with you in principle, spellcasting is not really a class feature if rapidly gaining feats are also not class features. And every spellcasting PrC out there that grants full spellcasting advancement plus extra stuff is like a martial prc that grants a fighter bonus feat every two levels and extra abilities. Only more so, because spells are much more impressive then fighter bonus feats, and spellcasters get them every level while fighters only get stuff every other level. I intentionally didn't want to bring Prestige Classes in. There are very few reasons not to take a spellcasting prestige class since you not only keep the spellcasting, but you gain actual class features. Personally, I feel that if spellcasters can do this, then fighters should have the same option. Especially if spellcasting is so much more powerful. My own home rules would give fighter better skills and actual class features, but would also limit spells that imitate the features of other classes, limit or eliminate self buffs, and take away the first level of caster advancement from any full caster PrC. This is a start, but will it actually make fighters more appealing in your games? Every fighter thread brings up feats versus Wish, Gate, and Miracle. Can your fighters compare to casters now? I don't think they have to, but it seems that many assume that you can either cast wish or you are pathetic. I feel that there is so much more than that. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-12-07, 02:00 PM | Why does everything have to be balanced off the top tier anyway? "Meleers can't compete with gate or timestop." Wizards can only do that for a few levels at the end of the normal career track. Do many people play regularly at these levels? I know that really isn't the point but it certainly isn't an end all be all to have top tier abilities dwarf yours. |
| AllisterH03-12-07, 02:10 PM | Why does everything have to be balanced off the top tier anyway? "Meleers can't compete with gate or timestop." Wizards can only do that for a few levels at the end of the normal career track. Do many people play regularly at these levels? I know that really isn't the point but it certainly isn't an end all be all to have top tier abilities dwarf yours. I kind of agree with this. 9th level spells simply put, are just plain broken. While there are "powerful" 8th level spells, it pretty much agreed that there is a significant jump in capabillity of the 9th level spells when compared to their lower level counterpart. Personally, I think the distance between the caster and martial classes HAS closed lately. I think a 16th level swordsage/crusader/warblade compares relatively well with say your 16th level warmage/beguiler/dread necromancer. Hell, I would even argue that a plain vanilla high level melee class using (PHB II and Tome of Battle) will compare favourably well with a _CORE_ only sorceror at any level below 18th. We just have to wait until 2009 at the earliest before we see PHB II/ToB and the various nerfs of spells in 4th edition (WOTC has said 4th edition is definitely NOT on the table for 2008). |
| Mnky03-12-07, 02:19 PM | Isn't it a bit of an issue that a mage with no preparation time will go down very, very quickly in a fight? |
| malisteen03-12-07, 02:19 PM | Skills go a long way towards making a fighter less boring. They don't make him a better tank. But you'll note I also called for scaling class features, which would. I don't start with fighter vs. wish, gate and miracle, although that is a common starting point for some, and I agree it's a little silly. I start with fighter vs. ranger, which I consider to be one of the better designed classes out there. I try not to compare the (in my opinion) sub optimal fighter to the (again, my opinion) over optimal spell casters. As for ditching many of the broken spells, or spells that let a caster surpass another class in that classes specialty (even temporarily!), or spells that eliminate a caster's weaknesses (not that divine casters really have enough of those to start with), would, in my mind, go a long way towards making not only the fighter but all the core martial classes better tanks, because they would help make the tank still necessary at higher levels (you don't need somebody to protect the mage if the mage is more then capable of protecting himself). Easier counterspell mechanics might also go a long way towards helping things, allowing casters to neutralize other casters, making non-caster physical types much more important. Of course, you still don't have any way for tanks to force high level enemies to target them instead of the mage anyway, so that would have to be fixed, accross the tank board. That's also not a problem unique to fighter's in my mind. To me, the primary problem of fighters is boringness due to too few skills and too many dead levels, and the lack of unique, properly scaling abilities. Some of the new feats have helped adress that, but not enough of them are fighter only. I still feel that rather then fighter only feats, the right answer to this is simply a few level-appropriate, generic but useful class abilities in some of the empty levels. Not nigh-unto-useless class abilities, something actually useful and appropriate to the level. Also, something big and impressive at 20th level would be nice, too. The kind of pipe-dream incentive to 'stick with it' that most other well designed classes have. A lesser problem with the fighter is how easily it gets stuck with poor choices. Retraining fixes that, but I would prefer something written into the class, such as the ability to swap out a feat for another fighter feat every few levels, the way sorcerer's can swap out spells, or even the ability to swap out some of your fighter feats each day (a la the wild card feats of Iron Heroes's 'Man at Arms' class), which would also add some welcome versatility to the class. I have one more problem with fighter, in which I feel the fighter class is too powerful. I think it's 'too good' a two level dip, and I would trade the first level fighter bonus feat for some useful but less dippable class feature. After that, any problem I see with fighter is one I consider to be a problem with Tanks in general in D&D, and not something that I feel changing the Fighter class would fix. |
| AllisterH03-12-07, 02:32 PM | Isn't it a bit of an issue that a mage with no preparation time will go down very, very quickly in a fight? True, but when does that happen after 10th level? |
| Flan03-12-07, 02:37 PM | True, but when does that happen after 10th level? Whenever the DM wants. |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 03:48 PM | Whenever the DM wants. which tells us nothing. If the DM is neutral the casters will dominate, if only because the game system works in their favor. I readily admit I'm not sure how to 'fix' the fighter. The problem, in my opinion, isn't the fighter, the casters, or the feat setup, it's that the D&D combat system is set against the fighter. |
| Flan03-12-07, 05:15 PM | The problem, in my opinion, isn't the fighter, the casters, or the feat setup, it's that the D&D combat system is set against the fighter. The only part of the combat system I can think of off the top of my head that is really against the fighter is the sunder rules. The main problem is that the game is horribly balanced to begin with and then after core they didn't even try. I can't even begin to describe how ****ed up the magic system is. Save or die, who the heck thought that randomly flopping over dead could be balanced let alone fun to play? d4 hp a level so lets give spells that do 6 or 12 damage/level with no save! What brain surgeon thought of that one? Why don't we add spell resistance mechanic then... make it completely irrelevant! :confused: |
| Narvakhan03-12-07, 05:18 PM | You know this isn't an MMORPG. A class, ANY class is only as good as its player. Understanding how any class works or even more important how YOUR character works in whatever campaign you are in, is what is important. Now with that base tidbit out of the way, let me address the elitists; Every class (without exception) fits within a person's personality / demeanor or even attitude for that time. D&D has never been about who is the best (aka member measuring) as it has been about the experience. To the fighters out there: If you are there to play, you are needed. That is how it works. Find your place and give it all you got. |
| TheSeventhStooge03-12-07, 05:59 PM | You know this isn't an MMORPG. A class, ANY class is only as good as its player. Understanding how any class works or even more important how YOUR character works in whatever campaign you are in, is what is important. Now with that base tidbit out of the way, let me address the elitists; Every class (without exception) fits within a person's personality / demeanor or even attitude for that time. D&D has never been about who is the best (aka member measuring) as it has been about the experience. To the fighters out there: If you are there to play, you are needed. That is how it works. Find your place and give it all you got. Of all the posts I have read on this subject (albeit not too many of them), this one tops all of them. Currently I am playing D&D 3.5 for the first time in my life (I am a veteran of 1st edition but stopped just before 2nd came out), and I have ALWAYS had a natural affinity for fighters. So far, our DM has had situations set up where all of our characters have had their needs and uses, and that has made our game extremely fun (he is running the Savage Tide game but I think he has added a few elements to it). Another thing to consider when it comes to the usefulness of fighters is the roleplaying element. My character (right now) is at 8th level who uses a heavy flail and Power Attacks quite a bit, so he has been able to deal out a lot of damage pretty consistently. However, he is a mute; he had his tongue cut out when he was young, and therefore he cannot speak. So from a RPG point of view, spellcasting is not really an option, unless I decide I want to invest several levels and pick up a silent casting feat (not sure if I want to do that, since our wizard is considering picking up the "craft wondrous item" feat when he hits 9th and I plan on paying him what is necessary to get a ring/amulet of spell-storing with a few "True Strike" spells in it...). Plus, I am NG in alignment, so there are a few classes that are not available; I thought about taking up the Kensai prestige class but I believe you have to be lawful to take that one. It's all a matter of what kind of interesting quirks or storylines you decide you want your character to have, and going with it. Anyway, enough of my character's history. The point is, I have read many of the books and studied the feats closely, and at the very least will remain as a fighter until 12th level, with all my feats mapped out and ready to take at the appropriate levels. If I decide to go to 20th as a straight fighter, I have those mapped out, too (since there are eight of us our DM has been pretty liberal in handing out XPs, but believe me, this adventure has NOT been a cakewalk and will not be). And the most important element is, I am having a blast playing this game. It has been 15 years since I have picked up a D&D manual (my game of preference has been Star Wars D6), and I have been overall very impressed with the 3.5 system. To be sure, there are problems with it but no game system is ever going to be perfect. But I am having fun, even if the only thing I am able to do is swing a heavy flail for 20+ HP of damage every time. There is a time for that, however, and in our group the combination of my heavy hits with the wizard's spells and our rogue's backstabbing has been pretty devastating. My nephew, on the other hand, would be the kind of guy who enjoys spellcasting characters and as such I know if he were to play he would study the books and build a character that would be suited for that. As was written on many occasions, it is just a matter of what your preference is. Just go and have fun with the game. Pick a path for your character and stick with it. If your DM is wise he will devise encounters that will make your character essential. If not you can improvise and make your character essential. Stooge... |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 06:28 PM | Of all the posts I have read on this subject (albeit not too many of them), this one tops all of them. Currently I am playing D&D 3.5 for the first time in my life (I am a veteran of 1st edition but stopped just before 2nd came out), and I have ALWAYS had a natural affinity for fighters. So far, our DM has had situations set up where all of our characters have had their needs and uses, and that has made our game extremely fun (he is running the Savage Tide game but I think he has added a few elements to it). Another thing to consider when it comes to the usefulness of fighters is the roleplaying element. My character (right now) is at 8th level who uses a heavy flail and Power Attacks quite a bit, so he has been able to deal out a lot of damage pretty consistently. However, he is a mute; he had his tongue cut out when he was young, and therefore he cannot speak. So from a RPG point of view, spellcasting is not really an option, unless I decide I want to invest several levels and pick up a silent casting feat (not sure if I want to do that, since our wizard is considering picking up the "craft wondrous item" feat when he hits 9th and I plan on paying him what is necessary to get a ring/amulet of spell-storing with a few "True Strike" spells in it...). Plus, I am NG in alignment, so there are a few classes that are not available; I thought about taking up the Kensai prestige class but I believe you have to be lawful to take that one. It's all a matter of what kind of interesting quirks or storylines you decide you want your character to have, and going with it. Stooge... The bold part is a point that needs to be made. Any class can work if the DM actively works to make sure that it functions in the game. But the fact is that if a class needs the DM to tailor or alter encounters to ensure that said class functions properly then said class could have some major issues. I've been playing quite a while too, not as long as you have, and I have to say that one of the biggest problems is that if a class needs the DM to either hold its hand or nerf it to hell then the class is not properly designed. As for fun, that's good for any class but the problem is that it says nothing about how the class is balanced. I might have fun playing a one armed leprous beggar, that doesn't mean that said beggar is a good idea for a contributing member of a group. I might have fun playing a demigod among a group of level 4 regulars but that would also be be problematic. Player fun is relative, but mechanical balance can be measured and understood. And yes, a class is only as good as its player, but if the class needs a rules master to make it effective while other classes can be equally or more effective with middling rules skill or even beginners, well then we have a problem. |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 06:33 PM | You know this isn't an MMORPG. A class, ANY class is only as good as its player. Understanding how any class works or even more important how YOUR character works in whatever campaign you are in, is what is important. Now with that base tidbit out of the way, let me address the elitists; Every class (without exception) fits within a person's personality / demeanor or even attitude for that time. D&D has never been about who is the best (aka member measuring) as it has been about the experience. To the fighters out there: If you are there to play, you are needed. That is how it works. Find your place and give it all you got. :rolleyes: in other words ignore the fact that a member of the group is contributing almost nothing, requires the rest of the group to spend resources to keep them functioning at mid to high levels, has no way to help or augment the group, and has no unique thing to offer the team. Got it, the elephant isn't in the room so long as we pretend he isn't. |
| Narvakhan03-12-07, 06:39 PM | The bold part is a point that needs to be made. Any class can work if the DM actively works to make sure that it functions in the game. But the fact is that if a class needs the DM to tailor or alter encounters to ensure that said class functions properly then said class could have some major issues. I've been playing quite a while too, not as long as you have, and I have to say that one of the biggest problems is that if a class needs the DM to either hold its hand or nerf it to hell then the class is not properly designed. As for fun, that's good for any class but the problem is that it says nothing about how the class is balanced. I might have fun playing a one armed leprous beggar, that doesn't mean that said beggar is a good idea for a contributing member of a group. I might have fun playing a demigod among a group of level 4 regulars but that would also be be problematic. Player fun is relative, but mechanical balance can be measured and understood. And yes, a class is only as good as its player, but if the class needs a rules master to make it effective while other classes can be equally or more effective with middling rules skill or even beginners, well then we have a problem. Being a warrior is not about rules being adjusted or tailored to you. In 25 years of playing, its still about understanding how/what to do with your class. It was never to be assumed in my post DM hand holding was required or necessary, simply because as a DM I have never had to do it for a class (a person yes, a class no) and as a Player I have never seen it (again a person yes, a class no). I have played a warrior post 9 (and with the exception of "exotic" classes, I have played each of them. No character I started at lvl 1 have I ever regretted or didn't find my niche in a group. |
| WayneTheGame03-12-07, 06:41 PM | One thing I'd like to add to this whole debate. If the party already has a fighter.. why on earth would the druid or wizard or cleric or whoever spend the spells to "buff up" and make the fighter useless? I was under the assumption that option existed only in the event you didn't HAVE a warrior, so your group didn't get chewed up and spat out by high-power creatures. If the group already has a fighter, the Druid doesn't HAVE to wildshape into a Dire bear or whatever the "l33t combo" is nowadays. The Wizard doesn't HAVE to use Polymorph or that other spell and "become" the Fighter for a few rounds. It's about teamwork and complimenting each other's abilities, not trying to outshine someone else. |
| Narvakhan03-12-07, 06:43 PM | :rolleyes: in other words ignore the fact that a member of the group is contributing almost nothing, requires the rest of the group to spend resources to keep them functioning at mid to high levels, has no way to help or augment the group, and has no unique thing to offer the team. Got it, the elephant isn't in the room so long as we pretend he isn't. How is a member of the group contributing nothing? Furthermore how is it required of the rest of the group to spend resources to keep them functioning at mid to high levels. Sounds situational when you paint it so broad. If you are willing to share the situation, I would be happy to address it. However if you would rather insult, then it will not matter what anyone says. |
| TheSeventhStooge03-12-07, 06:56 PM | The bold part is a point that needs to be made. Any class can work if the DM actively works to make sure that it functions in the game. But the fact is that if a class needs the DM to tailor or alter encounters to ensure that said class functions properly then said class could have some major issues. I've been playing quite a while too, not as long as you have, and I have to say that one of the biggest problems is that if a class needs the DM to either hold its hand or nerf it to hell then the class is not properly designed. As for fun, that's good for any class but the problem is that it says nothing about how the class is balanced. I might have fun playing a one armed leprous beggar, that doesn't mean that said beggar is a good idea for a contributing member of a group. I might have fun playing a demigod among a group of level 4 regulars but that would also be be problematic. Player fun is relative, but mechanical balance can be measured and understood. And yes, a class is only as good as its player, but if the class needs a rules master to make it effective while other classes can be equally or more effective with middling rules skill or even beginners, well then we have a problem. Interesting points. And the central thrust of the argument on this post seems to be the mechanics of the fighter, not the enjoyment of the player. That is a fair argument, in my opinion. Truth be told, I don't know enough about the intricacies of the 3.5 that I feel like I can contribute a ton to the argument. The fighter class seems to be a generic class compared to the others, though, and I can see why there is discussion on whether it should be tweaked or redone or perhaps even done away with. All I know is that I have been having a good time with it. But that is a subjective thing to say, and there is a difference between being subjective and objective. I would say, however, that some of the anti-fighter posters have been just as emotionally charged as the pro-fighter camp and that is not a good thing. Keeping the lightning away and trying to have a reasonable discussion is difficult, since we are emotional beings... Stooge... |
| TheSeventhStooge03-12-07, 07:00 PM | :rolleyes: in other words ignore the fact that a member of the group is contributing almost nothing, requires the rest of the group to spend resources to keep them functioning at mid to high levels, has no way to help or augment the group, and has no unique thing to offer the team. Got it, the elephant isn't in the room so long as we pretend he isn't. I strongly resent the implication that you believe that in the game that I am playing that I am contributing nothing to it. You don't have a clue about us, or who we are, or what kind of a DM we have, or anything else. If you wish to make objective arguments about the fighter, fine. If you want to talk about the ineffectiveness of the fighter in your campaign, fine. That is the purpose of the thread. But don't go telling me that I am being a deadweight in my game. It is insulting. The players there enjoy me being there and I enjoy being there. And my character has been making strong contributions due to skill selctions that I have chosen. Don't bother responding to this post, as I won't bother responding to your response. Thank you. Stooge... |
| Flan03-12-07, 08:24 PM | Any class can work if the DM actively works to make sure that it functions in the game. But the fact is that if a class needs the DM to tailor or alter encounters to ensure that said class functions properly then said class could have some major issues. That describes every class. Pretty boring for the rogue if theres a dungeon with no skill checks. Wizard's eyes start to glaze if they're stripped naked and dropped in a maze with no components or spell book. Druids get *****y if the DM actually follows the rules and makes them have to be familiar with the animals they try to wildshape into. When we did Shackled City the one encounter certainly should have been tweaked a bit considering our party had a wizard and a sorcerer in it. Cone of Cold and they both flopped over dead in the surprise round because they had 10d4 hp and it does 15d6. A better assessment would be how much do you have to tailor your encounter for broken classes that can teleport, speak every language, open any door, find the path, have perfect silence, go ethereal, quicken maximize twin enough damage to annihilate a demon 20 CRs above themselves in one round... solo, and gate in a solar. Seriously, you'd think the fact that they get a spell called "miracle" or "wish" would have tipped the devs off that something was up? |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 08:26 PM | How is a member of the group contributing nothing? Furthermore how is it required of the rest of the group to spend resources to keep them functioning at mid to high levels. Sounds situational when you paint it so broad. If you are willing to share the situation, I would be happy to address it. However if you would rather insult, then it will not matter what anyone says. :teach: Very simply it's this. It has to do with the combat setup of the game, at low levels the fighter does well because the enemies are generally physically weak, poor AC, and low hp. The fighters bonuses to said things increase incrementally and steadily, as it would with any classed martial character. However, the monsters of the game grow in power in wild swings. Superhuman strength, natural poisons and weakening agents, high natural armor and build in deflection bonuses, damage reduction, spell like abilities, speed, regeneration, fast healing, immunity to entire styles of combat based on type, size, or means of locomotion. I have had to explain this over and over and over again in countless threads, threads which the new group of pro-fighters haven't heard or haven't seen. The fighter doesn't contribute because it has no class features that allow it to. It cannot boost allies, it cannot weaken foes, it can't tank well as it has no way to force an enemy to stick to it, the fighters damage pales against save or die spells. In order to keep up with the enemy the casters need to spend time and resources buffing the fighter to an acceptable level, when they could use equal or less time, and usually fewer resources, to buff themselves to something stronger than even the buffed fighter could be. Hence my consternation and frustration from people who don't get it. |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 08:36 PM | That describes every class. Pretty boring for the rogue if theres a dungeon with no skill checks. Wizard's eyes start to glaze if they're stripped naked and dropped in a maze with no components or spell book. Druids get *****y if the DM actually follows the rules and makes them have to be familiar with the animals they try to wildshape into. When we did Shackled City the one encounter certainly should have been tweaked a bit considering our party had a wizard and a sorcerer in it. Cone of Cold and they both flopped over dead in the surprise round because they had 10d4 hp and it does 15d6. A better assessment would be how much do you have to tailor your encounter for broken classes that can teleport, speak every language, open any door, find the path, have perfect silence, go ethereal, quicken maximize twin enough damage to annihilate a demon 20 CRs above themselves in one round... solo, and gate in a solar. Seriously, you'd think the fact that they get a spell called "miracle" or "wish" would have tipped the devs off that something was up? Except 1) Your casters were improperly prepared considering the level, most casters I've seen do have protection spells up and running at those levels, however it's been a while since I've done shackled city so I'll admit that it might have been inevitable. 2) If a DM actively works to screw a class then that class has no chance. Giving the class the stuff in the books that it says they're supposed to have isn't coddling them or altering the game to their state. However, ignoring most of the monsters above cr12 base and instead slapping class levels and/or templates on lower level monsters to make sure that the fighter or other martial character isn't turned into goo by the encounter is an example of the DM altering the game to ensure that the class can function. A rogue can be built for combat and still contribute meaningfully. A good DM can make up for poor mechanics, I'm saying that they shouldn't have to alter the game so that one class can actually be a contributing member. 3) Language barrier spells are a good way for RP encounters and sometimes necessary. Teleport only works if you are familiar with the area mentioned so there are issues there. If you don't know how to deal with casters then that's your problem area, I have yet to have a major issue with any casters in my games and I've been running for quite some time. |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 08:38 PM | I strongly resent the implication that you believe that in the game that I am playing that I am contributing nothing to it. You don't have a clue about us, or who we are, or what kind of a DM we have, or anything else. If you wish to make objective arguments about the fighter, fine. If you want to talk about the ineffectiveness of the fighter in your campaign, fine. That is the purpose of the thread. But don't go telling me that I am being a deadweight in my game. It is insulting. The players there enjoy me being there and I enjoy being there. And my character has been making strong contributions due to skill selctions that I have chosen. Don't bother responding to this post, as I won't bother responding to your response. Thank you. Stooge... Please understand my point is about the fighter class. Your character can contribute quite a bit, my point is that the class itself is poorly designed. The point is to work out if there is even a reason to have a fighter in a group, and since they can be easily replaced with the wizard, cleric, druid, or any other martial class the question is a compelling one. I didn't say that you can't play fighters, or that you can't have fun with them, I did say however that they are mechanically inferior to other PC classes (with the exception of the Complete Warrior Samurai) and that trying to whitewash the problem by saying that D&D is a team game and therefore the fighters weakness is irrelevant is foolish and shortsighted. |
| Nephlite03-12-07, 09:47 PM | I kind of agree with this. 9th level spells simply put, are just plain broken. While there are "powerful" 8th level spells, it pretty much agreed that there is a significant jump in capabillity of the 9th level spells when compared to their lower level counterpart. Personally, I think the distance between the caster and martial classes HAS closed lately. I think a 16th level swordsage/crusader/warblade compares relatively well with say your 16th level warmage/beguiler/dread necromancer. Hell, I would even argue that a plain vanilla high level melee class using (PHB II and Tome of Battle) will compare favourably well with a _CORE_ only sorceror at any level below 18th. We just have to wait until 2009 at the earliest before we see PHB II/ToB and the various nerfs of spells in 4th edition (WOTC has said 4th edition is definitely NOT on the table for 2008). Is it that sad that you need splatbooks for melee to reach the power of Core casters? |
| Flan03-12-07, 10:28 PM | I have had to explain this over and over and over again in countless threads, threads which the new group of pro-fighters haven't heard or haven't seen. Explain it all you want, it ignores the fact that the fighter as well gains all of that. By level 20 you're EXPECTED to have three quarters of a million gold in magic items. And yes, monsters get some very nice abilities, but they just don't compare to huge volumes of magic items on top of the fighter's also nice abilities. You can say it until you're blue in the face, but thank you very much, most fighters at high levels thanks to splat books have more abilities, higher AC, more hp, better attacks and can generally destroy monsters of around their level. People keep flogging the balor, but guess what, fighters have luck blades, mine sure as hell do. If the fighter is in a bad situation, like one on one with a balor, and gets a wish off before the balor gets blasphemy off, the fighter is going to rip the balor's head off and crap down it's throat and probably make a profit from the balor's treasure horde in the process. 40k gold for an "I win" when an encounter averages MORE than 40k gold is a no-brainer. Teleport only works if you are familiar with the area mentioned so there are issues there. If you don't know how to deal with casters then that's your problem area, I have yet to have a major issue with any casters in my games and I've been running for quite some time. Scry Location, casters can teleport wherever they want. If broken spells aren't causeing you a headache then your casters just are not trying. 1) Your casters were improperly prepared considering the level, most casters I've seen do have protection spells up and running at those levels, however it's been a while since I've done shackled city so I'll admit that it might have been inevitable. What protection spells do 10th level casters have that would make them immune to everything? I guess casters are even more broken than I could have dreamed. |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 10:59 PM | Explain it all you want, it ignores the fact that the fighter as well gains all of that. By level 20 you're EXPECTED to have three quarters of a million gold in magic items. And yes, monsters get some very nice abilities, but they just don't compare to huge volumes of magic items on top of the fighter's also nice abilities. You can say it until you're blue in the face, but thank you very much, most fighters at high levels thanks to splat books have more abilities, higher AC, more hp, better attacks and can generally destroy monsters of around their level. The problem is how much of the fighters needed gear eats. The fighter needs a good weapon and good armor, assuming max enchant on both, that's a little less than half their gold at 20th. HALF. Then, if they use a shield, that's another 100 grand, backup weapons, or maybe a TW fighter, that's a few grand more. Then we get into booster items needed, and things to buff saving throws... unless the fighter is exceeding the wealth by level charts or has a fairly static set of enemies they need the most expensive of gear and can do less with it than a caster can with a few, far less expensive might I add, metamagic rods. People keep flogging the balor, but guess what, fighters have luck blades, mine sure as hell do. If the fighter is in a bad situation, like one on one with a balor, and gets a wish off before the balor gets blasphemy off, the fighter is going to rip the balor's head off and crap down it's throat and probably make a profit from the balor's treasure horde in the process. I show more than the balor, I gave a full list of encounters from CR1 to 20, each one a different unmodified monster. I heard a complaint that my list was too difficult, but not one person tried gauntleting a fighter, with the same build plan and incrimental gear increases through the gauntlet. Scry Location, casters can teleport wherever they want. If broken spells aren't causeing you a headache then your casters just are not trying. And if the enemy doesn't know about scrying and hasn't made the appropriate plans and protections then you're playing the villians dumb. What protection spells do 10th level casters have that would make them immune to everything? I guess casters are even more broken than I could have dreamed. extended energy resistance spells, not broken or obscene, but the duration is pretty good. It also depends on the scenario, if that blast had hit a fighter or a martial character, hell a rogue, it might have been enough to bring them down as well depending on the rolls. |
| Kratch03-12-07, 11:00 PM | Very simply it's this. It has to do with the combat setup of the game, at low levels the fighter does well because the enemies are generally physically weak, poor AC, and low hp. The fighters bonuses to said things increase incrementally and steadily, as it would with any classed martial character. However, the monsters of the game grow in power in wild swings. Superhuman strength, natural poisons and weakening agents, high natural armor and build in deflection bonuses, damage reduction, spell like abilities, speed, regeneration, fast healing, immunity to entire styles of combat based on type, size, or means of locomotion. I have had to explain this over and over and over again in countless threads, threads which the new group of pro-fighters haven't heard or haven't seen. At the same time the creatures are getting all those things against melee's, they're also getting Superhuman saves, natural poisons and weakening agents, Spell resistance and build in save bonuses, energy resistance, spell like abilities, speed, regeneration, fast healing, immunity to entire schools of magic, size, or means of locomotion. A fighter deals with these issues in 2 manors; 1: gear, which is often then cried foul upon, claiming a dependancy on gear is a weakness, or 2: just powering through with what always works, if to varying degrees, AKA good tactics and old fashion physical damage and some tactical feats. Casters also deal with the issues above in 2 manors; 1: gear (to raise DC's and caster levels), which for some reason is not only acceptable, but assumed, or 2: preparing an assortment of spells, so that when one spell doesn't work, the next might. This is often accompanied on these debates with an assumption the caster knows what he's facing and thus knows the right spells to cast (this is probable with a wizard, but highly unlikely under a large number of encounters for clerics, sorcerers and druids, but again, it's another thing that gets ignored in these debates in the casters favour) The fighter doesn't contribute because it has no class features that allow it to. It cannot boost allies, it cannot weaken foes, For a class with no class features, i think i did a pretty good job showing it to be equal to all of a barbarian's Class features. You keep making this same claim they have no class features, but they do. You simply don't want to accept that. You seem so blinded by your dislike of the fighter, your unwilling to see what a fighter is, rather then what it isn't. Even when i asked you to make a fighter build, you made a concerted effort to use as many feats that used other class's mechanics as you could. You were unable to make a fighter, you simply tried to make a not-quite-a-martialAdept. As far as boosting allies, i offered a fair number of feat alternatives to your own build that boosted allies, and so i feal in this regaurd, a fighter not only offers something, but they can offer more then a barbarian, likely more then a ranger or rogue too. As for weakening foes, i can only assume you don't consider (or somehow forgot) being able to consistantly reduce they're HP's a form of weakening (but if thats the case, there is little point debating with you, as your unwilling to even acknowledge that depleating what combat is based off of (draining HP's to "0") is a means of contributing AKA "doing what everyone else is doing, but differently then some, is not contributing"). But even putting aside damage, there are a few feats based off intimidate that apply the shaken modifier on a particularly nasty attack (can't find it to quote it, but i'm sure someone knows it). When trip works, thats weakening the foes AC to help the rogue, druid and cleric (should s/he also be in melee) hit. Disarming (and might i note, khans build was quite capable of disarming, even without gear) reduces the damage that foe can cause. Granted, many of these are not limitd to the fighter, but it does show a fighter can contribute to weakening the foe (beyond damage). it can't tank well as it has no way to force an enemy to stick to it, Well, goad is a crap feat, but it is an option, then of course there is stand still. Sure, it doesn't force the opponent to attack you, but it can prevent him from attacking others (depends on party make-up and builds) the fighters damage pales against save or die spells. Yah, in a one hit vs one casting comparison, assuming your cleric or sorcerer was able to guess what the creatures weak save was (if it even has any), get through it's spell resistance and it fails it's save. What about the next round, the fighter can still try and damage (and most high level fighters are capable of hitting with at least 2 of his attacks and, even if it can't bypass the DR, it can almost always still deal damage, the caster can't recast that same save or die. He may have another one available, but then he'll use that one up for the day (again hoping, as a cleric, druid or sorcerer, that they picked the right save and can get past it's SR and resists.), and as i said above, it is a variety of spells that allows a caster to addapt to the monsters increasing defences, if all of one type of option gets used up, variations won't help if that option is needed again. (enter "wizards have those knowledge skills") In order to keep up with the enemy the casters need to spend time and resources buffing the fighter to an acceptable level, Most encounters don't require the fighter to be buffed at all (though this is not always the case, some builds do require buffs to work, but often a permancied version purchased, can/will be used). There are buffs that make life a lot easier for the fighter, and allow him to do even more with his "Class Features" then he could do without those buffs. Most of those buffs even offer a better return for the wizard (note i didn't say cleric) then other spells of it's level, depending on the encounter. What 1st level spell offers a greater offensive and deffensive return then enlarge person on a Spiked chain wielding, stand stilling combat reflexing, robilar's gambit, driving assulting fighter? when they could use equal or less time, and usually fewer resources, to buff themselves to something stronger than even the buffed fighter could be. Hence my consternation and frustration from people who don't get it. Since when is 2-3 spells per day and most/all the clerics turns (as well as at least 3 feats) count as using less resources? or worst yet, 2-4 spells per encounter, often up to 4 levels higher then they would normally be due to quickening, using less resources AND time? and note you require 1-2 spells just to match the warrior, not even the fighter. |
| Kratch03-12-07, 11:08 PM | Please understand my point is about the fighter class. Your character can contribute quite a bit, my point is that the class itself is poorly designed. Actually, your point often revolves around the claim fighters can't contribute anything to a group, but here your acknowledging that his character can contribute. The point is to work out if there is even a reason to have a fighter in a group, and since they can be easily replaced with the wizard, cleric, druid, or any other martial class the question is a compelling one. I didn't say that you can't play fighters, or that you can't have fun with them, I did say however that they are mechanically inferior to other PC classes (with the exception of the Complete Warrior Samurai) and that trying to whitewash the problem by saying that D&D is a team game and therefore the fighters weakness is irrelevant is foolish and shortsighted. The Barbarian can just as easily be "replaced by wizard, cleric, druid, or any other martial class" The Paladin can just as easily be "replaced by wizard, cleric, druid, or any other martial class" hell, even the rogue can just as easily be "replaced by wizard, cleric, druid, or any other scouting class" The wizard can be replaced by a sorcerer, cleric, druid or any other arcane class. So i really don't see how this is specific to the fighter? The only class's that aren't easily replaceable are the cleric and druid, which can easily replace any other class. Hmm. maybe it's them thats the problem? |
| Archangel6203-12-07, 11:31 PM | At the same time the creatures are getting all those things against melee's, they're also getting Superhuman saves, natural poisons and weakening agents, Spell resistance and build in save bonuses, energy resistance, spell like abilities, speed, regeneration, fast healing, immunity to entire schools of magic, size, or means of locomotion. A fighter deals with these issues in 2 manors; 1: gear, which is often then cried foul upon, claiming a dependancy on gear is a weakness, or 2: just powering through with what always works, if to varying degrees, AKA good tactics and old fashion physical damage and some tactical feats. Never heard of means of locomotion or size somehow denying the power of a spell. Only a few monsters are immune to entire schools of magic and they are outsiders. Energy resistance is useful but easily circumvented. Speed means squat for dodging spells. Spell resistance is fairly easy to overcome, between feats and cheap items, not to mention all the spell options available. Save bonuses are nice but there are plenty of crippler spells that don't need saving throws. I dislike using gear as an argument for balance because each and every other class gets gear. We look at the classes ungeared and we can get a rough idea, added gear makes all the classes stronger. The fighter doesn't have some special ability that gives them better gear then the rest of the party or artifact items. In fact the fighter has worse gear utilization because they need items to not only do their job but protect from lockdown, the items are needed to ensure that they can still use their tricks, their feats aren't scaling with them the way that a casters spells do. They also get less for their gold than a caster does for several reasons. [QUOTE=Kratch;11748661]Casters also deal with the issues above in 2 manors; 1: gear (to raise DC's and caster levels), which for some reason is not only acceptable, but assumed, or 2: preparing an assortment of spells, so that when one spell doesn't work, the next might. This is often accompanied on these debates with an assumption the caster knows what he's facing and thus knows the right spells to cast (this is probable with a wizard, but highly unlikely under a large number of encounters for clerics, sorcerers and druids, but again, it's another thing that gets ignored in these debates in the casters favour) I can also have spells in the ready through scrolls, wands, and staves. A fighter cannot have a feat scroll that they can suddenly pull out and gain that feat or feat chain for the encounter. They can't suddenly pull out a scroll and make a weapon a new material or damage type to deal with DR. A caster can use scrolls, wands, and staves to overcome their few innate weaknesses, nto to mention that most spells used are handy general utility spells. For a class with no class features, i think i did a pretty good job showing it to be equal to all of a barbarian's Class features. You keep making this same claim they have no class features, but they do. You simply don't want to accept that. You seem so blinded by your dislike of the fighter, your unwilling to see what a fighter is, rather then what it isn't. Even when i asked you to make a fighter build, you made a concerted effort to use as many feats that used other class's mechanics as you could. You were unable to make a fighter, you simply tried to make a not-quite-a-martialAdept. No, I made the fighter that can deal with encounters as I felt that he should be able to. You're the one who said that he wasn't to your standards. However, Khan even pointed out that my decision to use vestiges to help make up for the lack of fighter versatility was an intelligent idea. I don't dislike the fighter, I dislike the fact that the class is designed in such a way that the system is constantly against it because of how the game works and how monsters advance. As far as boosting allies, i offered a fair number of feat alternatives to your own build that boosted allies, and so i feal in this regaurd, a fighter not only offers something, but they can offer more then a barbarian, likely more then a ranger or rogue too. I saw no good examples in your designs. The aid another trick restricts mobility and requires significant investment for very little return. You didn't impress me. As for weakening foes, i can only assume you don't consider (or somehow forgot) being able to consistantly reduce they're HP's a form of weakening (but if thats the case, there is little point debating with you, as your unwilling to even acknowledge that depleating what combat is based off of (draining HP's to "0") is a means of contributing AKA "doing what everyone else is doing, but differently then some, is not contributing"). But even putting aside damage, there are a few feats based off intimidate that apply the shaken modifier on a particularly nasty attack (can't find it to quote it, but i'm sure someone knows it). When trip works, thats weakening the foes AC to help the rogue, druid and cleric (should s/he also be in melee) hit. Disarming (and might i note, khans build was quite capable of disarming, even without gear) reduces the damage that foe can cause. Granted, many of these are not limitd to the fighter, but it does show a fighter can contribute to weakening the foe (beyond damage). Damage is piddling at high levels, and even if it does matter rogues can deal far more of it on a more regular basis. The fighter has no feats that they can use to debuff foes with a hit, no ability to temporarily stun or disable them. The fighter cannot cause a foe to take damage to a direct stat, force them into one positition, lock them in place with no way of getting out without doing the same to themselves. Well, goad is a crap feat, but it is an option, then of course there is stand still. Sure, it doesn't force the opponent to attack you, but it can prevent him from attacking others (depends on party make-up and builds) Which is the other problem, the only reason why I find Khans builds workable is that his don't depend entirely on the rest of his group being built a certain way as well. Too many fighter builds, and pro-fighters, seem to assume that the role of the rest of the party is to boost the fighter to make him better and better. Yah, in a one hit vs one casting comparison, assuming your cleric or sorcerer was able to guess what the creatures weak save was (if it even has any), get through it's spell resistance and it fails it's save. What about the next round, the fighter can still try and damage (and most high level fighters are capable of hitting with at least 2 of his attacks and, even if it can't bypass the DR, it can almost always still deal damage, the caster can't recast that same save or die. He may have another one available, but then he'll use that one up for the day (again hoping, as a cleric, druid or sorcerer, that they picked the right save and can get past it's SR and resists.), and as i said above, it is a variety of spells that allows a caster to addapt to the monsters increasing defences, if all of one type of option gets used up, variations won't help if that option is needed again. (enter "wizards have those knowledge skills") Except the caster can have multiple scrolls of the save or die spell, staves of it, the fighter, on the other hand, usually needs to buy and enchant an entirely new weapon. Either the same type as they wield to get their bonuses from the weapon supremacy tree. Or a different weapon type to overcome a different type of damage based DR. DR is also a lot more common than SR and easier to deal with. There are many spells that don't have to fear spell resistance and there are no feats that I know of that let the fighter ignore DR while there are some that can let the fighter ignore SR far more readily. Not to mention tactical feats that increase the DC each time the creature makes the save. Most encounters don't require the fighter to be buffed at all (though this is not always the case, some builds do require buffs to work, but often a permancied version purchased, can/will be used). There are buffs that make life a lot easier for the fighter, and allow him to do even more with his "Class Features" then he could do without those buffs. Most of those buffs even offer a better return for the wizard (note i didn't say cleric) then other spells of it's level, depending on the encounter. What 1st level spell offers a greater offensive and deffensive return then enlarge person on a Spiked chain wielding, stand stilling combat reflexing, robilar's gambit, driving assulting fighter? Depends on scenario. If individual opponent, ray of enfeeblement or ray of clumsiness would be good options. If multiple foes, a wall of smoke, nauseating masses of them as they come through works quite well. Since when is 2-3 spells per day and most/all the clerics turns (as well as at least 3 feats) count as using less resources? or worst yet, 2-4 spells per encounter, often up to 4 levels higher then they would normally be due to quickening, using less resources AND time? and note you require 1-2 spells just to match the warrior, not even the fighter. Nightsticks. And they exceed the fighter, no matter how much you want to ignore it. |
| Kratch03-13-07, 01:04 AM | Never heard of means of locomotion or size somehow denying the power of a spell. Locomotion (and the speed as well, mentioned bellow) and size can allow a creature to get into threatnening range (and by vitue of reach, keep you there baring use of spells), forcing concentraition rolls for casting defensivly and threatening a full round attack (or AoE) that will hurt an arcane casters far more limited HP pool. Ability to cast spells are not the only thing casters need to think about. Only a few monsters are immune to entire schools of magic and they are outsiders. Undead are also immune to all enchantments. Also most necromancy and illusions. Vermin, again, are immune to enchantments. A plethora of spells and items provide protection against enchantments and necromancy or death effects. Then there are spell turing spells and items. Most creatures are immune to "person" spells. Energy resistance is useful but easily circumvented. I acknowledged that, but it still requires preparation and/or knowledge of what your facing (sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not). Spell resistance is fairly easy to overcome, between feats and cheap items, And this is what i was talking about. Items are acceptable for casters, but disallowed for fighters. As for the feats, I'm sure wizards can afford them, but most other class's need the feats for other more importent things. not to mention all the spell options available. {/quote] That would be the preparing an assortment of spells to deal with the issues that i was talking about. [QUOTE=Archangel62;11748925] Save bonuses are nice but there are plenty of crippler spells that don't need saving throws. And again, the preparation i've already acknowledged. Also note, while your casting spells so you can cast your spells, the fighters been closing the gap and/or beating on the opponent. I dislike using gear as an argument for balance because each and every other class gets gear. Every class gets gear, so why must the fighter be denied it. You seem fully eager to use gear to shore up your casters weakness's. I've Bolded all the instances you use gear in the casters defence in the post that i've quoted, for ease of spotting how often your willing to use it while denying the fighters. ...We look at the classes ungeared and we can get a rough idea, added gear makes all the classes stronger. The fighter doesn't have some special ability that gives them better gear then the rest of the party or artifact items. In fact the fighter has worse gear utilization because they need items to not only do their job but protect from lockdown, the items are needed to ensure that they can still use their tricks, their feats aren't scaling with them the way that a casters spells do. They also get less for their gold than a caster does for several reasons. The items allow them to use their tricks better. With the exception of weapon spec chain and a few other feats, most feats are usable with or without gear. A fighters gear that shores up his weakness's also strengthens his offense, most items ar an all in one benifit, because everything he does is based on the same or similar tactics (IE being in combat with their opponent). A caster has less in the way of expensive required gear and can get a larger variety of gear, but all that variety can't be used simultaniously (much like most of a fighters gear) and the required gear is just as required. I can also have spells in the ready through scrolls, wands, and staves. A fighter cannot have a feat scroll that they can suddenly pull out and gain that feat or feat chain for the encounter. They can't suddenly pull out a scroll and make a weapon a new material or damage type to deal with DR. A caster can use scrolls, wands, and staves to overcome their few innate weaknesses, nto to mention that most spells used are handy general utility spells. True, a fighter can't have a scroll of feats ready, but then again, the feats he has without the use of gear never get used up. A fighter could also have scrolls, wands and staves if he chose to build himself that way, and the fact others can do it easier and better doesn't negate that fact. And although a fighter can't pull out a spell trigger/activation item to overcome an opponents DR, they can switch weapons to a back-up, weaker most likely (but then, generally wands and scrolls are also weaker too, and staves are often as, if not more expensive then a fighters main weapon), or he can simply accept the DR and try and power through it (it will slow him down, but won't generally stop him from dealing damage. DR's just aren't that high anymore) I particularly like that last bolded sentance. No, I made the fighter that can deal with encounters as I felt that he should be able to. You're the one who said that he wasn't to your standards. However, Khan even pointed out that my decision to use vestiges to help make up for the lack of fighter versatility was an intelligent idea. I don't dislike the fighter, I dislike the fact that the class is designed in such a way that the system is constantly against it because of how the game works and how monsters advance. Actually, i just took your complaint that his use of vestige's and manuvers made it less of a fighter and more of something else better off being made with a different class. I then offered some fighter feat options that, although you weren't particularly receptive to, you didn't outright say they were bad choices untill now. From the thread question:is the fighter really that underpowered However... as I also mentioned I might have been further off multi-classing a few times and gotten some synergizing class abilities here. Also, to be honest I'm not entirely sure that this character is a fighter anymore anyhow. Most of the cabability comes from some martial manuevers and vestiges, while that is good and I'm happy about it I honestly have to wonder is this is what the fighter is gonna be reduced to. My design, the one that I felt was the most theoretically optimal uses almost all supplimental material, one unique system of magic, the ToB, and if I had a few more feats that I could spend to get damage we'd be seeing psionics in there too. If that is what's needed to make the fighter an efficient character I think we might still have some issues. I'm glad you think my design can work, (you are the great Khan after all), but I'm not sure if this is quite what the designers had in mind. I saw no good examples in your designs. The aid another trick restricts mobility and requires significant investment for very little return. You didn't impress me. You seemed intrigued by a few of my ideas at the time. Damage is piddling at high levels, and even if it does matter rogues can deal far more of it on a more regular basis. The fighter has no feats that they can use to debuff foes with a hit, no ability to temporarily stun or disable them. The fighter cannot cause a foe to take damage to a direct stat, force them into one positition, lock them in place with no way of getting out without doing the same to themselves. Again we see another class can do it better. Your ignoring the package to adress the individual issues. A rogue can deal more damage (assuming it's against a foe that is critable), he also has more skills and some nice abilities, but he doesn't have near the HP's to survive in a fighters place, nor the feats to offer anything in combat besides damage and a trick or 2. And when combined with a fighter, the two together can do a lot of damage. There are feats that allow a fighter to daze and debuff they're foes. They aren't all optimal, but they exsist. All those things are ways casters deal with foes. So all i see you saying is fighters can't defeat foes the way casters can, so fighters suck. And again, a barbarian, ranger and paladin also can't do these things any better then a fighter, why is it only the fighter getting greaf? Which is the other problem, the only reason why I find Khans builds workable is that his don't depend entirely on the rest of his group being built a certain way as well. Too many fighter builds, and pro-fighters, seem to assume that the role of the rest of the party is to boost the fighter to make him better and better. I never said the group had to be built a certain way, but a groups (and more specifically, a melee's) tactics are going to differ based on the make-up and builds of his team-mates. Thats even the case for casters, the only difference is they can more easily addapt to new members. But then we come to the question, would an adventureing group hire a new member who's tactics vary wildly, even going so far as to devalue, the tactics already in place to the point the groups would boot the original member who's tactics are being devalued, or would they hire someone who will fit into they're style of combat? Except the caster can have multiple scrolls of the save or die spell, staves of it, the fighter, on the other hand, usually needs to buy and enchant an entirely new weapon. Either the same type as they wield to get their bonuses from the weapon supremacy tree. Or a different weapon type to overcome a different type of damage based DR. DR is also a lot more common than SR and easier to deal with. There are many spells that don't have to fear spell resistance and there are no feats that I know of that let the fighter ignore DR while there are some that can let the fighter ignore SR far more readily. Not to mention tactical feats that increase the DC each time the creature makes the save. Well, ignoring your use of gear as a defence, and the gobs of money spent on "staves" (note the plurel). Fortunatly, almost all DR's faced by good or neutral characters can be overcome with 3 simple weapons (assuming your not using any of the enhancments available that bypass DR reguardless of what type it is.), adamantine good, silver good and cold iron good will deal with almost all DR's you'll face in the MM, except against some of the more powerful celestials. and the odd other creature. And even when DR can't simply be bypassed, the fighter can still damage his opponent, just not as well. As for the many spells that don't fear SR, they are generally less powerfull. And again, i've ackowledged that preparation is used to overcome these kinds of things (along with gear). Depends on scenario. If individual opponent, ray of enfeeblement or ray of clumsiness would be good options. If multiple foes, a wall of smoke, nauseating masses of them as they come through works quite well. your serious? you think a ray of enfeeblement is as effective a 1st level spell choice (and i'm talking high levels here, not at 1st-4th) then casting enlarge on a fighter? perhaps one like this guy: Feats (17): - Spiked Chain: EWP, WFocus, WSpec, MWMastery (PHBII), GWFocus, GWSpec, WSupremacy (PHBII) - Driving Attack (PHBII) - Combat Reflexes - Robilar's Gambit (PHBII) - Endurance/Steadfast Determination - Power Attack/Cleave - Mage Slayer (CArcane) - Stand Still (XPH) - Deft Opportunist (CAdven) Class Features: - Overwhelming Attack (PHBII) (originally posted by CDB) Nightsticks. And they exceed the fighter, no matter how much you want to ignore it. With nightsticks, the cleric exceeds everyone. Show me any other class that can outperform a cleric when it can produce 3-6 gates and 28-156 save or dies from a single round of casting (quantities depend on how you allow metamagic casting), and who can do that 6-7+ times per day and still have all they're 7th and lower spells (which they can also metamagic like crazy). and thats without any investments other then wisdom and nightsticks, with his str, dex and cha tanked to allow for a high starting wisdom, con and high int for skills. He also hasn't chosen his domains yet, so has his domain slot to metamagic like crazy too. your right! wizards do suck, cause a cleric does it better, and more. |
| Flan03-13-07, 01:32 AM | The problem is how much of the fighters needed gear eats. No, it's not. Staying within expected wealth a fighter will outclass a monster of equal level. I show more than the balor, I gave a full list of encounters from CR1 to 20, each one a different unmodified monster. Very artificial and as was pointed out by people, flawed in many ways. And if the enemy doesn't know about scrying and hasn't made the appropriate plans and protections then you're playing the villians dumb. So you concede that one spell has forced every villian (and DM) to take pretty demanding precautions. One spell... it's too bad mages get dozens. extended energy resistance spells, not broken or obscene, but the duration is pretty good. It also depends on the scenario, if that blast had hit a fighter or a martial character, hell a rogue, it might have been enough to bring them down as well depending on the rolls. An extended protection from energy lasts 200 minutes, which is pretty worthless as we'd been well over 3 hours of game time since breaking camp at that point. It takes up a 4rth level slot, which is a fairly hefty price tag for a 10th level wizard, and not a spell the sorcerer even has, nor is extend a feat either of them have. Also it only protects against 1 of the 5 forms of energy. For a 10th level caster to protect themselves from all 5 forms of energy for 9 hours of adventuring in a day it would take 15 4rth level spells, or a lot of metamagic rods and some combination of 15 3rd and 4rth level spells. Not likely. Even with it they still don't have freedom of movement up which means something grapples them and they die, and some dimension doors. They need mage armor still for some AC. They should probably have mirror image or shield at least... Um... any spells left? Resist Energy is one level lower, unfortunatly it wouldn't have kept them alive even if they had guessed cold as the 1st round of combat after surprise round they would have sucked another cone of cold and died even with it. |
| navar10003-13-07, 01:46 AM | The bold part is a point that needs to be made. Any class can work if the DM actively works to make sure that it functions in the game. But the fact is that if a class needs the DM to tailor or alter encounters to ensure that said class functions properly then said class could have some major issues. I've been playing quite a while too, not as long as you have, and I have to say that one of the biggest problems is that if a class needs the DM to either hold its hand or nerf it to hell then the class is not properly designed. As for fun, that's good for any class but the problem is that it says nothing about how the class is balanced. I might have fun playing a one armed leprous beggar, that doesn't mean that said beggar is a good idea for a contributing member of a group. I might have fun playing a demigod among a group of level 4 regulars but that would also be be problematic. Player fun is relative, but mechanical balance can be measured and understood. And yes, a class is only as good as its player, but if the class needs a rules master to make it effective while other classes can be equally or more effective with middling rules skill or even beginners, well then we have a problem. And this is where it's just a matter of player preference mixing in with individual DMs individual games. Any good, fair DM will have combat encounters that the party can handle, with the occasional cakewalk just for the fun of it and the occasional challenging one to spice things up and/or conclude an adventure. For an individual character, putting him in a suboptimal situation once in awhile can be fun and the victory so much sweeter because of it but constantly putting him in a suboptimal situation is frustration and leads to no fun. A DM who never or once in a blue moon have the party fight the ranger's favored enemy is not the fault of the ranger such that he sucks. The paladin who likes Spirited Charge to use with his mount yet continually adventures take place in heavily wooded forests, rocky mountains, or dungeons with narrow corridors is not the fault of the paladin such that he sucks. The fighter who likes to trip but all the bad guys are flying is not the fault of the figther such that he sucks. The numbers and words and tables in the Monster Manual are irrelevant. By necessity the DM tailors the world and chooses what bad guys to use. It is his job to ensure every party member can do stuff. It can very well be by the numbers, words, and tables in the Monster Manual some particular monsters are going to be difficult for a fighter to defeat in battle. If a DM decides never, ever to use them or uses them sparingly for when it's the fighter's turn to be in a suboptimal situation to spice things up, that's just his choice. Just because a monster exists in some book does not mean the party has to face it or else the DM is babysitting the fighter. |
| navar10003-13-07, 01:47 AM | :rolleyes: in other words ignore the fact that a member of the group is contributing almost nothing, requires the rest of the group to spend resources to keep them functioning at mid to high levels, has no way to help or augment the group, and has no unique thing to offer the team. Got it, the elephant isn't in the room so long as we pretend he isn't. We've been through this already and have proven this does not describe the fighter. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-13-07, 01:49 AM | I show more than the balor, I gave a full list of encounters from CR1 to 20, each one a different unmodified monster. I heard a complaint that my list was too difficult, but not one person tried gauntleting a fighter, with the same build plan and incrimental gear increases through the gauntlet. I'm still planning on running this gauntlet. I just have difficulty with gear. I'm not experienced much with it. When I have more time, I'll sit down with the DMG. Here's another fighter build in the mean time... Dwarf Fighter 20 1. Axe Focus (Substitution Level), Mounted Combat 2. Shield Specialization 3. Ride-By Attack 4. Weapon Specialization 6. Spirited Charge, Shield Ward 8. Greater Weapon Focus 9. Rapid Reload 10. Point Blank Shot 12. Greater Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery 14. Precise Shot 15. Power Attack 16. Heavy Armor Optimization 18. Greater Heavy Armor Optimization, Armor Specialization 20. Improved Toughness This build is supposed to embody some of that dwarven spirit. To that end, the build has a bit of tanking, specializes in the Dwarven Waraxe, and uses a light crossbow rather than a longbow. Also, his mount is a Deep Hound (Races of Stone). He can fight while mounted, and deal powerful charges. He can tank with his axe and shield (an Extreme shield, using the rules to swap out Tower Shield Proficiency in Races of Stone), armor feats, and Improved Toughness. Power Attack comes in at mid levels, but I don't think it's that a great a feat anyways, and its better to get it when you have those bonuses to your attack roll. I am considering swapping out Power Attack for something else since he most likely won't use his waraxe two-handed due to his extreme shield. I'm not sure what to put in its place though. Maybe Rapid Shot. For ranged, he uses a light crossbow, which he reloads as a free action. Yes, Precise Shot is in there precisely for the Splitting enhancement. I'm not sure if it can work on a crossbow, but if it can... All in all, this guy is supposed to be tough, and mobile on his Deep Hound (moves at 40 ft.). When going blow for blow, he is specialized in his Dwarve Waraxe. When using other types of axes though, he still gets a +3 to attack and +2 to damage thanks to his Axe Focus and Melee Weapon Mastery feats. At range, he unloads with his Light Crossbow. Also note that the Deep Hound can be trained. Meaning, he can scout using Scent, and stay up with the dwarf during his watch to make use of his Scent then as well. Further, for those that like a more knowledgeable fighter, the Dwarf has access to the Ancestral Knowledge racial feat. This allows the dwarf to make all knowledge checks untrained (even for DC's beyond 10) and use his Wisdom instead of Intelligence for those checks. I'll optimize this a bit more. It's just something I threw together with no books while I was at work. The feats progression may even be wrong on account of prerequisites for all I know :). I'd like to make a fighter build for each race, staying in line with the culture while being an effective member of the party. |
| navar10003-13-07, 01:54 AM | :teach: Very simply it's this. It has to do with the combat setup of the game, at low levels the fighter does well because the enemies are generally physically weak, poor AC, and low hp. The fighters bonuses to said things increase incrementally and steadily, as it would with any classed martial character. However, the monsters of the game grow in power in wild swings. Superhuman strength, natural poisons and weakening agents, high natural armor and build in deflection bonuses, damage reduction, spell like abilities, speed, regeneration, fast healing, immunity to entire styles of combat based on type, size, or means of locomotion. I have had to explain this over and over and over again in countless threads, threads which the new group of pro-fighters haven't heard or haven't seen. The fighter doesn't contribute because it has no class features that allow it to. It cannot boost allies, it cannot weaken foes, it can't tank well as it has no way to force an enemy to stick to it, the fighters damage pales against save or die spells. In order to keep up with the enemy the casters need to spend time and resources buffing the fighter to an acceptable level, when they could use equal or less time, and usually fewer resources, to buff themselves to something stronger than even the buffed fighter could be. Hence my consternation and frustration from people who don't get it. And yet neither does the warlock have any class abilities it can use to buff others in return yet no one claims they don't contribute so as not deserving of anyone else's oh so precious resources. Really, I'm starting think you are just a selfish player. You will never, ever help a party member just for the sake of helping them. You will always demand a quid pro quo of resource exchange. The fighter doesn't suck. You just have different "philosophy" on how the game should be played. |
| Flan03-13-07, 02:07 AM | Here's another fighter build in the mean time... Dwarf Fighter 20 1. Axe Focus (Substitution Level), Mounted Combat 2. Shield Specialization 3. Ride-By Attack 4. Weapon Specialization 6. Spirited Charge, Shield Ward 8. Greater Weapon Focus 9. Rapid Reload 10. Point Blank Shot 12. Greater Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery 14. Precise Shot 15. Power Attack 16. Heavy Armor Optimization 18. Greater Heavy Armor Optimization, Armor Specialization 20. Improved Toughness At low levels I like cleave a lot, but not good for the gauntlet obviously. Power attack is pretty high level in your list, it's good for getting past traps even if just by digging a tunnel through a rock wall in a couple minutes flat, although there is only one challenge like that which is trivialy beaten anyway. Roll With It is good at low levels, but I would retrain it like I would Cleave at higher levels. I'm guessing you don't want to use the retraining rules. Pain Mastery is good at high levels, although it looks like you're going crossbow??? Martial Scrolls are cheap and give you some good advantages. 50 GP for +4 cover AC all day, or healing 2 HP every time you hit all day is pretty nice at mid levels. |
| navar10003-13-07, 02:08 AM | Never heard of means of locomotion or size somehow denying the power of a spell. Only a few monsters are immune to entire schools of magic and they are outsiders. Energy resistance is useful but easily circumvented. Speed means squat for dodging spells. Spell resistance is fairly easy to overcome, between feats and cheap items, not to mention all the spell options available. Save bonuses are nice but there are plenty of crippler spells that don't need saving throws. I dislike using gear as an argument for balance because each and every other class gets gear. We look at the classes ungeared and we can get a rough idea, added gear makes all the classes stronger. The fighter doesn't have some special ability that gives them better gear then the rest of the party or artifact items. In fact the fighter has worse gear utilization because they need items to not only do their job but protect from lockdown, the items are needed to ensure that they can still use their tricks, their feats aren't scaling with them the way that a casters spells do. They also get less for their gold than a caster does for several reasons. I can also have spells in the ready through scrolls, wands, and staves. A fighter cannot have a feat scroll that they can suddenly pull out and gain that feat or feat chain for the encounter. They can't suddenly pull out a scroll and make a weapon a new material or damage type to deal with DR. A caster can use scrolls, wands, and staves to overcome their few innate weaknesses, nto to mention that most spells used are handy general utility spells. No, I made the fighter that can deal with encounters as I felt that he should be able to. You're the one who said that he wasn't to your standards. However, Khan even pointed out that my decision to use vestiges to help make up for the lack of fighter versatility was an intelligent idea. I don't dislike the fighter, I dislike the fact that the class is designed in such a way that the system is constantly against it because of how the game works and how monsters advance. I saw no good examples in your designs. The aid another trick restricts mobility and requires significant investment for very little return. You didn't impress me. Damage is piddling at high levels, and even if it does matter rogues can deal far more of it on a more regular basis. The fighter has no feats that they can use to debuff foes with a hit, no ability to temporarily stun or disable them. The fighter cannot cause a foe to take damage to a direct stat, force them into one positition, lock them in place with no way of getting out without doing the same to themselves. Which is the other problem, the only reason why I find Khans builds workable is that his don't depend entirely on the rest of his group being built a certain way as well. Too many fighter builds, and pro-fighters, seem to assume that the role of the rest of the party is to boost the fighter to make him better and better. Except the caster can have multiple scrolls of the save or die spell, staves of it, the fighter, on the other hand, usually needs to buy and enchant an entirely new weapon. Either the same type as they wield to get their bonuses from the weapon supremacy tree. Or a different weapon type to overcome a different type of damage based DR. DR is also a lot more common than SR and easier to deal with. There are many spells that don't have to fear spell resistance and there are no feats that I know of that let the fighter ignore DR while there are some that can let the fighter ignore SR far more readily. Not to mention tactical feats that increase the DC each time the creature makes the save. Depends on scenario. If individual opponent, ray of enfeeblement or ray of clumsiness would be good options. If multiple foes, a wall of smoke, nauseating masses of them as they come through works quite well. Nightsticks. And they exceed the fighter, no matter how much you want to ignore it. :uh-huh: First you say "I dislike using gear as an argument for balance because each and every other class gets gear." Then you say "I can also have spells in the ready through scrolls, wands, and staves." And you say "Except the caster can have multiple scrolls of the save or die spell, staves of it, the fighter, on the other hand, usually needs to buy and enchant an entirely new weapon." And you say "Nightsticks. And they exceed the fighter, no matter how much you want to ignore it." :ahem: Scrolls, wands, staves, nightsticks. Guess what? That's gear too! :eek: You defend spellcasters using their gear but condemn fighters for using theirs. I guess in your world "All gear dependence is terrible, but some gear dependence is less terrible than others." :nonono: |
| scienceman4703-13-07, 02:10 AM | A warlock is a pretty independant character. They cast fly on themself, they have DR, energy resistance, and their a pretty reliable source of ranged damage. They can imbue items, UMD as a class skill, and their eldricht blasts can inflict status effects. I would say the warlock contributes fine. All day, every day. |
| Flan03-13-07, 02:19 AM | A warlock is a pretty independant character. They cast fly on themself, they have DR, energy resistance, and their a pretty reliable source of ranged damage. They can imbue items, UMD as a class skill, and their eldricht blasts can inflict status effects. I would say the warlock contributes fine. All day, every day. The EXACT same statement could be said about fighters except for imbueing and UMD. But unlike a warlock, fighters don't fall over dead in a stiff breeze and can't be grappled to death by a level 1 kobold. Of course if a fighter specialized in ranged weapons, you'd **** on him. If a fighter had a wounding weapon, you'd claim everything is immune to ability drain anyway. If they had boots that let them fly you'd say it's unfair that they had any gear at all. If they had DR you'd claim it's some wacky feat from a non-core book so shouldn't be valid. If they had energy resistance you'd complain that your DM would never allow those in the game. |
| Kratch03-13-07, 02:23 AM | Dwarf Fighter 20 1. Axe Focus (Substitution Level), Mounted Combat 2. Shield Specialization 3. Ride-By Attack 4. Weapon Specialization 6. Spirited Charge, Shield Ward 8. Greater Weapon Focus 9. Rapid Reload 10. Point Blank Shot 12. Greater Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery 14. Precise Shot 15. Power Attack 16. Heavy Armor Optimization 18. Greater Heavy Armor Optimization, Armor Specialization 20. Improved Toughness Have you considered a riders shield as well? being able to grant your mount the benifits of your shield (presumably including enchantments, such as spell turning or fortification) may be an idea. I know there are a few feats for fighting while squeezed, including one that lets you fight mounted with no ill effects while in a tight spot. tunnel fighting and it's offshoots. may want to consider those over the power attack feat. Or alternatively, depending on how the MWM feat works, you could go with quickdraw and use throwing axes with your axe focus and melee weapon mastery, though i'm not sure the axes will get the benifit due to being thrown. Even still, you get your str and can full attack and move due to the mount. |
| FrostHammer03-13-07, 02:24 AM | Aren't Warlocks considered underpowered after the mid-levels anyways? But that's not the point. I still wish Fighter's get more skillpoints, class skills, and are allowed to re-select their fighter-only feats after 8 hours of rest. |
| Kratch03-13-07, 02:27 AM | Aren't Warlocks considered underpowered after the mid-levels anyways? But that's not the point. I still wish Fighter's get more skillpoints, class skills, and are allowed to re-select their fighter-only feats after 8 hours of rest. I agree with the skill points and class skills. as for the feat, perhaps switching every time he gets a new feat would be a decent compromise, much like a sorcerer can switch when it gets a new spell level. |
| navar10003-13-07, 02:29 AM | Aren't Warlocks considered underpowered after the mid-levels anyways? But that's not the point. I still wish Fighter's get more skillpoints, class skills, and are allowed to re-select their fighter-only feats after 8 hours of rest. Underpowered compared to spellcasters, which the theory holds everyone is, so the point is moot. Also, even with the underpoweredness, no one is saying the warlock sucks so bad he should die before the character is created as the fighter is. |
| Faithkeep03-13-07, 02:29 AM | Here's another fighter build in the mean time... Dwarf Fighter 20 1. Axe Focus (Substitution Level), Mounted Combat 2. Shield Specialization 3. Ride-By Attack 4. Weapon Specialization 6. Spirited Charge, Shield Ward 8. Greater Weapon Focus 9. Rapid Reload 10. Point Blank Shot 12. Greater Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery 14. Precise Shot 15. Power Attack 16. Heavy Armor Optimization 18. Greater Heavy Armor Optimization, Armor Specialization 20. Improved Toughness I'll optimize this a bit more. It's just something I threw together with no books while I was at work. The feats progression may even be wrong on account of prerequisites for all I know :). I'd like to make a fighter build for each race, staying in line with the culture while being an effective member of the party. :) I'd like to see the optimized build of this one. :) Thanks. And do you have a build for a dwarf fighter who uses a greataxe? |
| Flan03-13-07, 02:30 AM | Oh, for the gauntlet, forget the rules, but once you get above 70k money you can just use your luck sword to wish that you were able to properly use your gate scroll and bring in the solar to win the battles for you. :D |
| scienceman4703-13-07, 02:47 AM | The people harping on the gear bit are missing the point. If a fighter needs to spend 600,000 to be effective, and a wizard only needs 300,000-400,000 to be effective, then the wizard is at an advantage, because he has an extra 300,000+ to use on other very useful things. The fighter's playing catch up with his gear. Everyone else is getting ahead. |
| Kratch03-13-07, 02:49 AM | The people harping on the gear bit are missing the point. If a fighter needs to spend 600,000 to be effective, and a wizard only needs 300,000-400,000 to be effective, then the wizard is at an advantage, because he has an extra 300,000+ to use on other very useful things. The fighter's playing catch up with his gear. Everyone else is getting ahead. That 300,000-400,000 include his spellbook and backups? and does he use all 300k-400k as often as the fighter does his 600k? or is the fighter getting more use out of his 600k then your wizard out of his 400k? Oh, and how is a barbarian ahead? or a ranger? or a paladin? or are you just picking on the fighter cause he looks like an easier mark then the other class's? |
| Bob Loblaw03-13-07, 02:53 AM | 2) ...However, ignoring most of the monsters above cr12 base and instead slapping class levels and/or templates on lower level monsters to make sure that the fighter or other martial character isn't turned into goo by the encounter is an example of the DM altering the game to ensure that the class can function. A rogue can be built for combat and still contribute meaningfully. A good DM can make up for poor mechanics, I'm saying that they shouldn't have to alter the game so that one class can actually be a contributing member. How is using the rules as written to make for more memorable encounters altering the game? These rules exist to be used. If they are ignored by some groups, that's fine. If I choose to use them because my group prefers a different style of play, that is not wrong. While you and your group may not like it, we do. It isn't coddling, as you are implying. A warlock is a pretty independant character. They cast fly on themself, they have DR, energy resistance, and their a pretty reliable source of ranged damage. They can imbue items, UMD as a class skill, and their eldricht blasts can inflict status effects. I would say the warlock contributes fine. All day, every day. How is someone who can only affect himself contributing? That sounds like the opposite of contribution. To me a team player can help others as well. The party is supposed to be synergistic. Each addition should be more than they could do alone. |
| FrostHammer03-13-07, 02:54 AM | I believe all of the core melee classes are fairly underpowered, but at least the Ranger has lots of skill points and is very useful in a wilnerness setting. Paladins can cast some spells, and spells always provide options. Barbarians...are just bad as the fighter in terms of options, to be honest, which is why I wouldn't play one. |
| navar10003-13-07, 02:55 AM | The people harping on the gear bit are missing the point. If a fighter needs to spend 600,000 to be effective, and a wizard only needs 300,000-400,000 to be effective, then the wizard is at an advantage, because he has an extra 300,000+ to use on other very useful things. The fighter's playing catch up with his gear. Everyone else is getting ahead. And you're missing the point that it doesn't matter how the wizard is using his gear because we're not trying to prove the fighter is more powerful than the wizard. We've acceded many, many times already that no feat from any splat book can compare to Gate, Wish, Prismatic Spray, or what have you in core alone, so adding gear to the mix won't change that. The whole point is to show that with the expected gear value the fighter can hold his own. The fighter is contributing. The fighter is doing his job. If you don't want to play a fighter, that's just your preference. The fighter can still do what he does well. He doesn't suck. |
| FrostHammer03-13-07, 02:58 AM | I think we all need to agree on what's a fighter's job. I personally think one of the fighter's primary jobs is to protect the squishier party members. I just wish he has some kind of ability like the Knight does to make enemies attack the fighter instead of others. |
| navar10003-13-07, 02:59 AM | I believe all of the core melee classes are fairly underpowered, but at least the Ranger has lots of skill points and is very useful in a wilnerness setting. Paladins can cast some spells, and spells always provide options. Barbarians...are just bad as the fighter in terms of options, to be honest, which is why I wouldn't play one. Right, "which is why I wouldn't play one." Player preference. I don't care for bards because I don't care for their spellcasting compared to a wizard, their buff ability compared to a cleric, and their fighting ability compared to a rogue. I would never play one. Same difference. |
| Archangel6203-13-07, 03:55 AM | :uh-huh: First you say "I dislike using gear as an argument for balance because each and every other class gets gear." Then you say "I can also have spells in the ready through scrolls, wands, and staves." And you say "Except the caster can have multiple scrolls of the save or die spell, staves of it, the fighter, on the other hand, usually needs to buy and enchant an entirely new weapon." And you say "Nightsticks. And they exceed the fighter, no matter how much you want to ignore it." :ahem: Scrolls, wands, staves, nightsticks. Guess what? That's gear too! :eek: You defend spellcasters using their gear but condemn fighters for using theirs. I guess in your world "All gear dependence is terrible, but some gear dependence is less terrible than others." :nonono: Gear cannot be used to claim that a weak class is balanced to a strong one. As One Winged Angel pointed out, gear cannot be used as a method of claiming balance for a fighter because a fighter has no abilities to make the gear for them work better, they have no advantages with itemization. A fighter cannot use items to replace feats, or grant new feat chains. And the stuff that the fighter does get the most mileage out of eats up, by itself, a huge portion of their wealth by level. A caster with an item creation feat can make the item on the cheap. Scrolls are notoriously cheap and the lost level of XP actually results with them gaining more because of the CR system setup combined with them being able to get more and more useful items that can benefit both themselves and the group. I don't like someone saying "Well, the fighter lacks class features but he can make up for it with his magic items." When all those magic items do is help the fighter tread water while for other classes those items are a motor and a boat. |
| Argaud03-13-07, 07:23 AM | Gear cannot be used to claim that a weak class is balanced to a strong one. As One Winged Angel pointed out, gear cannot be used as a method of claiming balance for a fighter because a fighter has no abilities to make the gear for them work better, they have no advantages with itemization. I don’t think anyone has claimed the fighter is “balanced” thanks to the gear. The claim is that the gear allows the fighter to keep doing his job, just like for every other class. No class can contribute well to the party without gear and the fighter is no different. The fighter certainly has the ability to make better use of certain gear than other classes. The proof of this is obvious: 75% of the fighter gear is different to the wizard’s gear. The fighter uses weapons and armors, which he uses far better than the wizard, the wizard uses rods of metamagic and scrolls, which the fighter has no use for. The only items they have in common are some basic defensive items such as rings of protection and cloaks of resistance. The so called “advantage of itemization” is a purely bogus concept invented by OneWingedAngel that seems to be based around the bogus idea that casters will craft all their gear and therefore have much more gear than non-crafters. As always the comparison was with the fighter alone, forgetting that all non-casters are affected, and forgetting also that some magical items can also be crafted by certain classes: only clerics can make rings of protection, only druids can make amulets of natural armor, etc, etc. But no caster crafts all the gear because the xp loss is too great (and time consuming). That they craft a small part of their gear is advantageous, but also means they are one or two sessions behind the rest of the party when leveleling (and therefore –gasp- contributing less than they should to the party!) and that they have taken those feats instead of more combat-oriented feats. |
| Clawhound03-13-07, 08:29 AM | Gear cannot be used to claim that a weak class is balanced to a strong one. As One Winged Angel pointed out, gear cannot be used as a method of claiming balance for a fighter because a fighter has no abilities to make the gear for them work better, they have no advantages with itemization. A fighter cannot use items to replace feats, or grant new feat chains. And the stuff that the fighter does get the most mileage out of eats up, by itself, a huge portion of their wealth by level. A caster with an item creation feat can make the item on the cheap. Scrolls are notoriously cheap and the lost level of XP actually results with them gaining more because of the CR system setup combined with them being able to get more and more useful items that can benefit both themselves and the group. A fighter doesn't get BAB which allows them to use their weapons more effectively????????????? Do you mean to say that fighter don't start with higher Con and Fort saves, which allows them to have more raw HP (on average) and survive in front better than any Caster????? Fighters don't get the ability to use all types of armor including tower shields??????? BAB, HP, and good Fort saves are the primary abilities of a fighter along with his feats. They are right there in the class. |
| AllisterH03-13-07, 08:32 AM | Is it that sad that you need splatbooks for melee to reach the power of Core casters? Well, if you look at this exact thread, the pro-fighters have statted some nice looking fighters but pretty much everyone of them needs the PHB II. Still, I think the last few years HAVE been good for fighters. The only problem is that it _IS_ spread out in a few books (PHB II and Tome of Battle are what I'd consider "ESSENTIAL NON-CORE" for the melee classes. ) |
| Clawhound03-13-07, 08:45 AM | The people harping on the gear bit are missing the point. If a fighter needs to spend 600,000 to be effective, and a wizard only needs 300,000-400,000 to be effective, then the wizard is at an advantage, because he has an extra 300,000+ to use on other very useful things. The fighter's playing catch up with his gear. Everyone else is getting ahead. That's ... silly. Just, wow. Let me ask: if a fighter only has 300k, is he half as effective? I doubt that. Ask a fighter to dump half his wealth, and he'll start dropping his redundant equipment. Due to the way that wealth compounds, he can also drop a +1 from each weapon and armor piece to pick up a large chunk of this. Considering that a fighter hits for about +35 at 20th level, a 20th level fighter would drop 1/35th or 2/35th his total ability. |
| Archangel6203-13-07, 08:51 AM | I don’t think anyone has claimed the fighter is “balanced” thanks to the gear. The claim is that the gear allows the fighter to keep doing his job, just like for every other class. No class can contribute well to the party without gear and the fighter is no different. The fighter certainly has the ability to make better use of certain gear than other classes. The proof of this is obvious: 75% of the fighter gear is different to the wizard’s gear. The fighter uses weapons and armors, which he uses far better than the wizard, the wizard uses rods of metamagic and scrolls, which the fighter has no use for. The only items they have in common are some basic defensive items such as rings of protection and cloaks of resistance. The so called “advantage of itemization” is a purely bogus concept invented by OneWingedAngel that seems to be based around the bogus idea that casters will craft all their gear and therefore have much more gear than non-crafters. As always the comparison was with the fighter alone, forgetting that all non-casters are affected, and forgetting also that some magical items can also be crafted by certain classes: only clerics can make rings of protection, only druids can make amulets of natural armor, etc, etc. But no caster crafts all the gear because the xp loss is too great (and time consuming). That they craft a small part of their gear is advantageous, but also means they are one or two sessions behind the rest of the party when leveleling (and therefore –gasp- contributing less than they should to the party!) and that they have taken those feats instead of more combat-oriented feats. The actual problem has to do with resource allocation, the problem exists for most martial classes but it is the most obvious with fighters. The amount of total resource expenditure on an aspect of the character should be able to show its power. Except here's the problem, a magic weapon or suit of armor eats up a huge chunk of resources, that chunk is worth a few metamagic rods, a few dozen scrolls, a few wands, and maybe even a staff. The problem is simply that the way that items work in terms of cost and what they offer the martial classes get a kick in the teeth. But, even there the other classes can get extra things from one item, a cloak of charisma also raises saves for a paladin. A barbarian has built in strength and speed boosters, as well as damage reduction so anything to help them further on that path works well. The fighter, however, has to use that gear to be able to keep their combat tricks reliable at high levels. The items that a fighter pays so much more for do a lot less than the far cheaper metamagic rods and scrolls. The latter items punch up a casters power quite a bit, but the fighter desperately needs the weapons and armor to put a dent in the enemy, sometimes to even touch them. The fighter cannot use their gear any better than, say, a barbarian or paladin or ranger. They cannot use their armor better, or use their shields better. They can take feats to make a certain weapon work a little better in their hands but those feats also marry them to that weapon and also locks down a fair portion of their tactical options because that must become the focus of their feats. |
| ninjarabbit03-13-07, 08:58 AM | I don’t think anyone has claimed the fighter is “balanced” thanks to the gear. The claim is that the gear allows the fighter to keep doing his job, just like for every other class. No class can contribute well to the party without gear and the fighter is no different. The fighter certainly has the ability to make better use of certain gear than other classes. The proof of this is obvious: 75% of the fighter gear is different to the wizard’s gear. The fighter uses weapons and armors, which he uses far better than the wizard, the wizard uses rods of metamagic and scrolls, which the fighter has no use for. The only items they have in common are some basic defensive items such as rings of protection and cloaks of resistance. The so called “advantage of itemization” is a purely bogus concept invented by OneWingedAngel that seems to be based around the bogus idea that casters will craft all their gear and therefore have much more gear than non-crafters. As always the comparison was with the fighter alone, forgetting that all non-casters are affected, and forgetting also that some magical items can also be crafted by certain classes: only clerics can make rings of protection, only druids can make amulets of natural armor, etc, etc. But no caster crafts all the gear because the xp loss is too great (and time consuming). That they craft a small part of their gear is advantageous, but also means they are one or two sessions behind the rest of the party when leveleling (and therefore –gasp- contributing less than they should to the party!) and that they have taken those feats instead of more combat-oriented feats. Classes like the cleric, paladin, ranger, duskblade, and hexblade can use wands and scrolls from their spell lists and any other class specific items in addition to the normal magical weapons, armor, and etc that the fighter (or any other martial class) will use so those classes a definate advantage the fighter due to the greater number of options they have in choosing and using magic items. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-13-07, 11:33 AM | At low levels I like cleave a lot, but not good for the gauntlet obviously. Power attack is pretty high level in your list, it's good for getting past traps even if just by digging a tunnel through a rock wall in a couple minutes flat, although there is only one challenge like that which is trivialy beaten anyway. This build isn't designed specifically for the gauntlet, sorry if I gave that impression. Roll With It is good at low levels, but I would retrain it like I would Cleave at higher levels. I'm guessing you don't want to use the retraining rules. I like Roll With It as well, but I think aiming for a 20 constitution at lower levels may be strainging yourself, and grabbing Toughness for the feat seems subpar. I built this without the retraining rules in mind. Good idea though. Pain Mastery is good at high levels, although it looks like you're going crossbow??? Yeppers. A light crossbow. Martial Scrolls are cheap and give you some good advantages. 50 GP for +4 cover AC all day, or healing 2 HP every time you hit all day is pretty nice at mid levels. I'll look these over if I go into more detail with the gear. Thanks. Have you considered a riders shield as well? being able to grant your mount the benifits of your shield (presumably including enchantments, such as spell turning or fortification) may be an idea. I have not. Is that in the PHB? Is it an exotic shield? (If so, I'll just replace the Extreme Shield Proficiency with it.) I know there are a few feats for fighting while squeezed, including one that lets you fight mounted with no ill effects while in a tight spot. tunnel fighting and it's offshoots. may want to consider those over the power attack feat. Actually, the Deep Hound already comes prepackaged with the Tunnel Fighting feat :). Or alternatively, depending on how the MWM feat works, you could go with quickdraw and use throwing axes with your axe focus and melee weapon mastery, though i'm not sure the axes will get the benifit due to being thrown. Even still, you get your str and can full attack and move due to the mount. Good call. I'll check this out. I wouldn't want to replace the crossbow aspect with it though because of the small range. I'd like to see the optimized build of this one. Thanks. And do you have a build for a dwarf fighter who uses a greataxe? I can have a build for a dwarf wielding a greataxe. Let me see what I can do. Gear cannot be used to claim that a weak class is balanced to a strong one. As One Winged Angel pointed out, gear cannot be used as a method of claiming balance for a fighter because a fighter has no abilities to make the gear for them work better, they have no advantages with itemization. A fighter doesn't need to 'make gear work better for him'. He just needs to use the gear. Period. End of story. He isn't putting the gear on and then peaking over at the wizard to see how the wizard uses his gear. Because the fighter doesn't care. Once he has his belt, armor, and sword on, he starts scrapping it with the monsters. People are drawing so many comparisons to show a point that just severely doesn't matter in the end. If the fighter can tank, he can tank. It doesn't matter if his items are more expensive. It doesn't matter if the wizard can do it better. It doesn't matter if he can't do it the same way for every encounter. All lame arguments to dodge the simple fact that the fighter isn't as bad as some people are trying to make him out to be. Wizard: You know fighter, for all of the gold that you spent on that armor and sword, you could have got all of this... *wizards points to pile of staves, rods, scrolls, and wands* Wizard: These items greatly increase my spellcasting potential, and I got more of them for the same amount of money that you spent on your stuff. Fighter: *scratches head* Really? Would those items make me stronger in combat? Wizard: No fool. You can't cast spells. Meaning, you can't activate any of these items of power. Fighter: *scratches head again* So... what the hell do I care how many I could have bought instead of my sword and armor? I use these to fight. You use those. Wizard: You don't get it naive. I spent less money than you. Fighter: And? Wizard: For more items. And they are better for me than your stuff is for you! You're underpowered. Fighter: That's spurious logic. Have you been boosting your intelligence like a good wizard? Wizard: Insult me all you'd like brute. The fact is, these items plus my innate ability to manipulate arcane forces makes me a power you could never understand. I can do things in combat you could never dream of. Watch! I'm going to cast a quickened Haste and an extended Polymorph and go slug it out with a monster. Fighter: :confused: |
| gullas03-13-07, 11:52 AM | well I like fighters.... maybe the reason why many(not everyone) thinks fighters suck is because they have been playin the "UBER"-spelcasters alot...... well the fighters maybe underpowerd but its a good class if you want to learn how to play the game:) ..... fighters are can be good deal good for the roleplayin (like puttin a lil bit more in cha or int;)) also I like to hit stuff , maybe not hurting it alot:) but to hit it and be sure I allways get over the AC of the openets I don't want to be a wizzard who relies his magic on that the target dosen't get the will save or what ever.... I want to be a char who hits stuff with his greatsword or what ever:) and almost allways hits :D |
| malisteen03-13-07, 12:03 PM | I would not at all reccomend taking the Fighter class to a new player, at least, not in a game that doesn't use retraining. It's way to easy for a player who doesn't know what all the feats do to take the fighter from sub-optimal to pure-terrible with bad feat choices, and without retraining he can't ever fix it. No, Ranger is the best class for new players who want to learn the game. In the beginning you start with some skills for out of combat and pre-selected bonus feats for in combat, ensuring that your new player starts with something to do in most situations, and letting them get a feel for skills, feats, and the basic mechanics of the game. Once you have that down, the Ranger introduces a sidekick and magic, letting you learn how to martial additional helpers and select and use appropriate spells for the day. There's relatively few opportunities for major mistakes, you almost always have something to do in almost any situation, you have unique abilities that will let you stand out and shine, and by the time you've played through a campaign as a ranger you'll have gained a basic understanding of all the core mechanics of the game, preparing you to play any other class you'd like afterwords. Yes, Ranger is definitally the class to reccomend to a player who wants to learn the game. Fighter? Considering how hard you have to work, how specific you have to be in your long term build planning, how much of the game you have to already know, and how much extra material you have to have to make it all come together, I would not reccomend the current fighter class to anyone who wasn't already quite familiar with the game, it's combat mechanics, and all the individual feats. |
| Flan03-13-07, 12:20 PM | The actual problem has to do with resource allocation, the problem exists for most martial classes but it is the most obvious with fighters. The amount of total resource expenditure on an aspect of the character should be able to show its power. Except here's the problem, a magic weapon or suit of armor eats up a huge chunk of resources, that chunk is worth a few metamagic rods, a few dozen scrolls, a few wands, and maybe even a staff. This is only true if you a) have infinite spells per day so can magically buff your party at no cost and not count spells wasted doing so as a resource, and b) don't count burning feats for otherwise useless extend and persistant feats which just save you from spending gold on magic items instead of actually making the character more powerful with more useful feats... maybe eschew material component for when the fighter sunders your spell pouch or the rogue slight of hands it? As for magic armour... Wizards should be spending MORE on armour than fighters if you're going to be even vaguely fair here. Wizards won't have the feats to boost AC, they don't have the HP a fighter does to survive a hit, so wizards need AC more than a fighter does, thus to be fair fighters REQUIRE less resources spent on armour than wizards do. Most fighters will spend MORE though because guess what... the fighter is getting hit more often because... now here's a surprise... they're doing their job and stopping the wizard from dying on round one. For similar reasons wizards are in greater need of permanent freedom of movement otherwise they'll get pinned and slaughtered. They're in greater need of a con items and innate con bonus because their HP are crap and they'll get ganked if they don't, and they'll want at least a 14 for massive damage rolls anyway. |
| Flan03-13-07, 12:24 PM | Yes, Ranger is definitally the class to reccomend to a player who wants to learn the game. Fighter? Considering how hard you have to work, how specific you have to be in your long term build planning, how much of the game you have to already know, and how much extra material you have to have to make it all come together, I would not reccomend the current fighter class to anyone who wasn't already quite familiar with the game, it's combat mechanics, and all the individual feats. Even a bad fighter is better than your average ranger. I won't argue that ranger will give you a better overall introduction to all the rules though. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-13-07, 01:00 PM | The actual problem has to do with resource allocation, the problem exists for most martial classes but it is the most obvious with fighters. The amount of total resource expenditure on an aspect of the character should be able to show its power. Except here's the problem, a magic weapon or suit of armor eats up a huge chunk of resources, that chunk is worth a few metamagic rods, a few dozen scrolls, a few wands, and maybe even a staff. I'm not so sure about this. A fighter may have his armor from a lower level, and pay to boost its power as he gains more money through the levels. In other words, I'm not sure how much all of those items you listed cost the wizard, but he will not have that large lump sum like you may be assuming. He may be able to buy one or two of those items, and use it up. And as he gains more money, he buys another. And so on and so forth. In the end, the wizard has used the same amount of wealth as the fighter, but has nothing in the way of wands, staves, and scrolls to show for it. The fighter still has his powerful armor. Does this prove anything? Yeah right, get real. The point is that the fighter won't spend 200,000 to buy a brand new +10 suit of armor in one lump sum. Rather, he pays to improve his armor as he levels. How would this affect the caster comparison (I don't even know why I'm asking since this whole topic is seriously irrelevant). |
| malisteen03-13-07, 01:24 PM | As a semi-spellcaster, it's not hard to improve the overall power of a ranger, just toss in a few extra spells from the spell compendium or such. I'm not arguing that a Ranger is better then a fighter in combat (although an archer ranger with some of those extra spells can certainly hold his own next to the archer fighter), but a ranger has skills and abilities that encourage participation out of combat. Yes, even a int 3 fighter can be role played amazingly, but a new player role plays better, ime, when he actually has abilities to try out in the process. In this case, roll-play facilitates role-play. Plus, it is harder to mess up a ranger (the only real opportunity to do so is when choosing combat style), and I would argue that a bad fighter is worse then an average [archery! not TWF!] ranger in combat, even if a good fighter is better. |
| Nephlite03-13-07, 03:46 PM | This build isn't designed specifically for the gauntlet, sorry if I gave that impression. I like Roll With It as well, but I think aiming for a 20 constitution at lower levels may be strainging yourself, and grabbing Toughness for the feat seems subpar. I built this without the retraining rules in mind. Good idea though. Yeppers. A light crossbow. I'll look these over if I go into more detail with the gear. Thanks. I have not. Is that in the PHB? Is it an exotic shield? (If so, I'll just replace the Extreme Shield Proficiency with it.) Actually, the Deep Hound already comes prepackaged with the Tunnel Fighting feat :). Good call. I'll check this out. I wouldn't want to replace the crossbow aspect with it though because of the small range. I can have a build for a dwarf wielding a greataxe. Let me see what I can do. A fighter doesn't need to 'make gear work better for him'. He just needs to use the gear. Period. End of story. He isn't putting the gear on and then peaking over at the wizard to see how the wizard uses his gear. Because the fighter doesn't care. Once he has his belt, armor, and sword on, he starts scrapping it with the monsters. People are drawing so many comparisons to show a point that just severely doesn't matter in the end. If the fighter can tank, he can tank. It doesn't matter if his items are more expensive. It doesn't matter if the wizard can do it better. It doesn't matter if he can't do it the same way for every encounter. All lame arguments to dodge the simple fact that the fighter isn't as bad as some people are trying to make him out to be. Wizard: You know fighter, for all of the gold that you spent on that armor and sword, you could have got all of this... *wizards points to pile of staves, rods, scrolls, and wands* Wizard: These items greatly increase my spellcasting potential, and I got more of them for the same amount of money that you spent on your stuff. Fighter: *scratches head* Really? Would those items make me stronger in combat? Wizard: No fool. You can't cast spells. Meaning, you can't activate any of these items of power. Fighter: *scratches head again* So... what the hell do I care how many I could have bought instead of my sword and armor? I use these to fight. You use those. Wizard: You don't get it naive. I spent less money than you. Fighter: And? Wizard: For more items. And they are better for me than your stuff is for you! You're underpowered. Fighter: That's spurious logic. Have you been boosting your intelligence like a good wizard? Wizard: Insult me all you'd like brute. The fact is, these items plus my innate ability to manipulate arcane forces makes me a power you could never understand. I can do things in combat you could never dream of. Watch! I'm going to cast a quickened Haste and an extended Polymorph and go slug it out with a monster. Fighter: :confused: Wizard: Heck, I could gate something in that is double both our HDs. Fighter: Okay, I give up. Gate when all else fails Nike (means victory)... Just Gate it. |
| Bhaal00603-13-07, 03:55 PM | Yeah Gate, all you did was summmon a fighter, whoo seriously you wasted 1000xp to summon a creature thats going to fulfillthe roll of the fighter you already had. also, it has been proven that fighters are capable of contribuing to the party. on this thread... Nrealy a dozen times. |
| Kratch03-13-07, 03:59 PM | Wizard: Heck, I could gate something in that is double both our HDs. Fighter: Okay, I give up. Gate when all else fails Nike (means victory)... Just Gate it. And how does this prove the fighter alone is weak? all it's showing is that gate and the ability to cast it is powerful. So that includes only 4 out of 11 class's. After them and the fighter, there are 6 more class's unaccounted for. You seem to ignore them untill it's convenient to remember, such as when someone points out a cleric likely has less skills avaiable then the fighter, at which point you look at the rogue. Khan. The riders shield is in races of stone i think, and you'll still need the mounted tunnel fighting feat yourself not to suffer from the effects of fighting mounted while squished. As for the throwing axe's, i was thinking of replaceing PA with quickdraw, and that should do it (if the MWM will work, otherwise, there are better options.) |
| Kratch03-13-07, 04:30 PM | Gear cannot be used to claim that a weak class is balanced to a strong one. As One Winged Angel pointed out, gear cannot be used as a method of claiming balance for a fighter because a fighter has no abilities to make the gear for them work better, they have no advantages with itemization. How is a wizard using a wand better then a sorcerer or bard? or rogue with strong UMD? How is he using a metamagic rod better then any other caster? Sure the wizard is using these better then the fighter could, but in turn, the fighter is using his weapon better then the wizard could. The only items i can think of the grant any kind of class itemization bonus are nightsticks, and i don't much like those. I don't like someone saying "Well, the fighter lacks class features but he can make up for it with his magic items." When all those magic items do is help the fighter tread water while for other classes those items are a motor and a boat. Firstly, the only ones saying fighters lack class features are the anti-fighters, and i've shown many times how this supposed "lack of class features" holds up against the class features of the barbarian. you've simply ignored it. many, many time. Secondly, We are not attempting to make up a lack of features with items, we are simply shoreing up limitations, such as saves and movemnt, much like your wizard example was shoring up his limitation of limited spells per day with the inclusion of scrolls. Difference is, scrolls are cheaper, but they're also one shot items, a resist cloak last as long as it doesn't get destroyed (same can be said for scrolls). A metamagic rod is often used to empower a caster, much like haste or flight items are used to empower a melee. Both are about the same cost (metamagic rods for low level are cheaper, but those for high level spells can way outprice the melee's items) and both useable a limited number of times per day. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-13-07, 05:58 PM | also, it has been proven that fighters are capable of contribuing to the party. Even the flagbearer/torchbearer/off-the-shelf-mount contributes somehow. |
| Kratch03-13-07, 06:17 PM | Even the flagbearer/torchbearer/off-the-shelf-mount contributes somehow. It has been proven repeatably that the fighter contributes as much as the barbarian. and certainly proven he contributes more then a mount. The claim has been made many times a fighter does not contribute anything to the party, we have proven otherwise but only get, "a commoner (or as you used, an off the shelf mount) can contribute too, but that doesn't make a commoner good", and certainly doesn't mean the fighter is contributing, let alone that he isn't contributing a fair share. he isn't contrubuting in the same manner a rogue, cleric or wizard are, but he's not supposed to be, he's a melee. He's contributing in his own way. If you would like to give a quantifiable level of contribution, i'm sure we can show how a fighter can reach that level (or perhaps how not just the fighter, but most/all melee's fall short, if your standards are set to a level only casters can achieve, but then, thats not an issue with fighters.) |
| Scion of Coldshard03-13-07, 07:06 PM | It has been proven repeatably that the fighter contributes as much as the barbarian. To you perhaps, but certainly not to me. I feel that the 'proofs' given are lacking a certain amount of.. proof. I did not say that the fighter cannot contribute at all. I am not even sure that anyone you could quote who actually did say that word for word actually meant it that way either instead of basically trying to say that they would rather have just about any other pc class in that slot instead. At least the mount does not suck up exp nor take up much gear value ;) |
| FrostHammer03-13-07, 07:10 PM | I've come to think that the barbarian actually is even less flexible than the Fighter. He may hit harder, but he's not as flexible imo. |
| Kresalak03-13-07, 07:38 PM | I've come to think that the barbarian actually is even less flexible than the Fighter. He may hit harder, but he's not as flexible imo. Well, he's actually more flexible, but that doesn't matter since he also sucks. |
| ArcTan03-13-07, 08:02 PM | Wizard: You know fighter, for all of the gold that you spent on that armor and sword, you could have got all of this... *wizards points to pile of staves, rods, scrolls, and wands* Wizard: These items greatly increase my spellcasting potential, and I got more of them for the same amount of money that you spent on your stuff. Fighter: *scratches head* Really? Would those items make me stronger in combat? You act like "spellcasting" and "combat" are different things, when, if you really want to, spellcasting *is* combat, and lets you do combat better. Look at a Cleric using righteous might. Wizard: No fool. You can't cast spells. Meaning, you can't activate any of these items of power. Fighter: *scratches head again* So... what the hell do I care how many I could have bought instead of my sword and armor? I use these to fight. You use those. He probably cares, and in most games gets upset and begins to complain, because this means he does some minor damage to the BBEG with a full attack, and then the Wizard gets initiative and kills the BBEG in one swoop. And proceeds to do this with every other encounter. Wizard: You don't get it naive. I spent less money than you. Fighter: And? Wizard: For more items. And they are better for me than your stuff is for you! You're underpowered. Fighter: That's spurious logic. Have you been boosting your intelligence like a good wizard? I don't see what's spurious about it. The fact remains that pure Fighters -- regardless of how you feel about "power" arguments -- get *bored* in challenging games, because there's nothing, really, that they can do. Everything they start to do the spellcasters will finish for them lickety-split. Wizard: Insult me all you'd like brute. The fact is, these items plus my innate ability to manipulate arcane forces makes me a power you could never understand. I can do things in combat you could never dream of. Watch! I'm going to cast a quickened Haste and an extended Polymorph and go slug it out with a monster. Fighter: :confused: You talk like it's somehow an uncommon attitude to get upset in a D&D game when your party wins an encounter without your character ever having gotten a chance to really act. |
| ArcTan03-13-07, 08:04 PM | And yet neither does the warlock have any class abilities it can use to buff others in return yet no one claims they don't contribute so as not deserving of anyone else's oh so precious resources. Really, I'm starting think you are just a selfish player. You will never, ever help a party member just for the sake of helping them. You will always demand a quid pro quo of resource exchange. The fighter doesn't suck. You just have different "philosophy" on how the game should be played. Again, my philosophy is that people who play the game have the reasonable expectation that they should all get to be in the spotlight an equal amount of time. If you really want to just be the "helper" in the campaign and to have most of your role be standing in the way of monsters who want to hurt the spellcasters, okay. Most people find that a little frustrating after a while. |
| Flan03-13-07, 08:09 PM | I've come to think that the barbarian actually is even less flexible than the Fighter. He may hit harder, but he's not as flexible imo. The barbarian hits harder? News to me. The only thing the barbarian has on the fighter is the ability to go to the exalted barbarian. The barbarian gets a couple nice class features, but as more splat books come out those things are less and less appealing. Although there are some decent variants out there slowing the total obsolecence of the barbarian. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-13-07, 08:31 PM | The barbarian hits harder? News to me. Well, knowledge is power, so feel empowered! |
| Khan the Destroyer03-13-07, 08:45 PM | You act like "spellcasting" and "combat" are different things, when, if you really want to, spellcasting *is* combat, and lets you do combat better. Look at a Cleric using righteous might. I don't know where you got that from. Obviously spellcasting contributes to combat. My point is the fighter doesn't care how the wizard uses his gold to augment his spellcasting abilities. He probably cares, and in most games gets upset and begins to complain, because this means he does some minor damage to the BBEG with a full attack, and then the Wizard gets initiative and kills the BBEG in one swoop. And proceeds to do this with every other encounter. If you have an ass playing the wizard I suppose. As I have said before, some arguments are simply unrealistic. This is one of them. A game where the wizard one-shots every encounter is a game that won't last long. And the fighter doesn't *have* to do minor damage on a full attack to perform the role of the fighter. Tripping the opponent, knocking him around, stripping him of his weapon, and stopping him from advancing are legitimate options for a fighter. I don't see what's spurious about it. The fact remains that pure Fighters -- regardless of how you feel about "power" arguments -- get *bored* in challenging games, because there's nothing, really, that they can do. Which is a completely different point than what I was referring to. The idea was that fighters+gear equals a bad argument because wizards apparently use their money better. This of course has nothing to do with whether the class is boring or not, which is what you're talking about. It's strange that you would say 'regardless of power arguments' when that's all we've been discussing. You talk like it's somehow an uncommon attitude to get upset in a D&D game when your party wins an encounter without your character ever having gotten a chance to really act. That's because I don't play with glory hogs. |
| AllisterH03-13-07, 08:57 PM | re: Gear This is where I tent to side with the anti-fighters. Why is it that the most mundane class is so savaged by the loss of gear at high levels when compared to the magic using classes? Give a 20th level fighter his gear from 1st level and I don't think he could even defeat a CR 15 opponent (Hell, a CR 10 might be pushing it as well). Give a 20th level cleric his gear at 1st level and he's still kicking the butt of any CR 15 opponent. That, IMO, is a problem. Sure, the system is balanced on everyone having the appropriate gear but aesthetically, that just bites. re: Fun The fact is, spellcasters have been flashy whereas fighters seem so ho-hum. Nowadays, we expect fighters to be as flashy as spellcasters thanks to MMORPGs and Anime and pre-ToB, fighters were boring. One of the reasons ToB gets so much love IS the fact that your regular fighter can be as flashy and as cool as the spellcaster. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-13-07, 09:05 PM | re: Gear This is where I tent to side with the anti-fighters. Why is it that the most mundane class is so savaged by the loss of gear at high levels when compared to the magic using classes? Give a 20th level fighter his gear from 1st level and I don't think he could even defeat a CR 15 opponent (Hell, a CR 10 might be pushing it as well). Give a 20th level cleric his gear at 1st level and he's still kicking the butt of any CR 15 opponent. That, IMO, is a problem. Sure, the system is balanced on everyone having the appropriate gear but aesthetically, that just bites. Well, that's all good and dandy. But you can't talk about a class in a game that makes certain assumptions and then throw those rules assumptions out the window and make meaningful judgements on that class's power in the same game. So, while I may agree that a fighter kicking ass without items would be cool, I simply can't use that as an argument against the fighter. Fault the game for that, not the class. re: Fun The fact is, spellcasters have been flashy whereas fighters seem so ho-hum. Nowadays, we expect fighters to be as flashy as spellcasters thanks to MMORPGs and Anime and pre-ToB, fighters were boring. One of the reasons ToB gets so much love IS the fact that your regular fighter can be as flashy and as cool as the spellcaster. I don't agree with this. I don't see what's not flashy about tripping a giant, sundering his weapon, or charging on the back of a pegasus. In all honesty, the maneuvers that ToB classes pull off are really not so different than what a fighter can do except that it describes the visual for you. |
| OneWinged4ngel03-13-07, 09:10 PM | How is a wizard using a wand better then a sorcerer or bard? or rogue with strong UMD? How is he using a metamagic rod better then any other caster? Sure the wizard is using these better then the fighter could, but in turn, the fighter is using his weapon better then the wizard could. The only items i can think of the grant any kind of class itemization bonus are nightsticks, and i don't much like those. ...I don't think you quite understand the point. It's generally class features that give an itemization advantage. And I don't see where someone claimed a Wizard used a wand better than a Sorceror (though a Wizard *does* have an itemization advantage over the Sorceror, that's not the reason why.) |
| Archangel6203-13-07, 11:01 PM | How is a wizard using a wand better then a sorcerer or bard? or rogue with strong UMD? How is he using a metamagic rod better then any other caster? Sure the wizard is using these better then the fighter could, but in turn, the fighter is using his weapon better then the wizard could. The only items i can think of the grant any kind of class itemization bonus are nightsticks, and i don't much like those. The high UMD rogue has only those items to fall back on, and also is likely to focus on certain types of items, debuff, self buff, or a few damage. It depends heavily on the rogue but the items are there as an additional feature, and like you said, high UMD, the caster needs to make no roll. The wizard can use them to make up for the possibilities of prepping the wrong spell or running out of spell slots. Certain spells have a logical scaling limit, thus it is more efficient to use wands or scrolls than the spell slot. The sorcerer uses the items differently than the wizard, not necessarily better or worse, but differently. The items aren't there to help make up for possible lost spell slots but instead are there to give the sorcerer new spells, spells that they do not possess on their current design list. The spells are there in case they run into something that needs a spell that they do not know. |
| Archangel6203-13-07, 11:14 PM | Firstly, the only ones saying fighters lack class features are the anti-fighters, and i've shown many times how this supposed "lack of class features" holds up against the class features of the barbarian. you've simply ignored it. many, many time. Secondly, We are not attempting to make up a lack of features with items, we are simply shoreing up limitations, such as saves and movemnt, much like your wizard example was shoring up his limitation of limited spells per day with the inclusion of scrolls. Difference is, scrolls are cheaper, but they're also one shot items, a resist cloak last as long as it doesn't get destroyed (same can be said for scrolls). A metamagic rod is often used to empower a caster, much like haste or flight items are used to empower a melee. Both are about the same cost (metamagic rods for low level are cheaper, but those for high level spells can way outprice the melee's items) and both useable a limited number of times per day. You've proven squat. I've seen what you said and most of it doesn't work well because either A you become incredibly limited by whatever gains you make, or B your abilities are highly situational. As for the scrolls versus standard items, the fighter can have many scenarios where their design doesn't work against the foes in question. The fighter can't whip out a scroll or other item and suddenly have the right feat and equipment combos to deal with this new problem. The casters, however, can. The problem is one shared by many martial classes, the casters can remove major obstacles with a couple low level feats, the martial classes need to bum buffs off of casters to do the same. I'll be the first to say that it is unfair to the martial characters but I'd rather try to boost the most problematic classes (fighter) than try to nerf all the others. |
| Argaud03-13-07, 11:44 PM | The fighter can't whip out a scroll or other item and suddenly have the right feat and equipment combos to deal with this new problem. The casters, however, can. The problem is one shared by many martial classes, the casters can remove major obstacles with a couple low level feats, the martial classes need to bum buffs off of casters to do the same. Actually they can. Fighters can use potions, martial scripts and countless one-shot items. Scrolls and wands aren't that great. They have very low DCs, they are built assuming minimum spellcaster level for the spell (and the costs skyrocket if it is written at higher level) and scrolls are very expensive for the high level spells. |
| Flan03-13-07, 11:59 PM | Actually they can. Fighters can use potions, martial scripts and countless one-shot items. There is even a martial script to cast heal. It's about 7.5k though. But for a mere 50GP the fighter can heal 2 points to any ally every single time he lands a melee attack, and that lasts all day. ToB... LOL. Funny book. |
| FrostHammer03-14-07, 12:08 AM | Don't you need to pump martial lore or something? hope you've got good intelligence... |
| Kratch03-14-07, 01:52 AM | To you perhaps, but certainly not to me. I feel that the 'proofs' given are lacking a certain amount of.. proof. I did not say that the fighter cannot contribute at all. I am not even sure that anyone you could quote who actually did say that word for word actually meant it that way either instead of basically trying to say that they would rather have just about any other pc class in that slot instead. At least the mount does not suck up exp nor take up much gear value ;) Lvl1: Weapon Focus. Barbarian has +1/+3 (assuming a 2handed weapon), +2 on opposed rolls and fast movment over the fighter for a single encounter per day. You can take extra rage, but thats not a class feature, it is a feat that augments a class feature. In that case, the fighter takes blindfighting (well, more likely he takes combat focus and blindfighting at 2nd level), which allows a fighter to keep his dex against invis foes (an advantage untill 2nd level). The Higher HP's of the barb are offset by the lower AC (especially if it's a dwarf fighter using a waraxe and shield or waraxe 2 handed depending on what he's facing). Assuming the barbarian is allowed to use his non-class feature feat to enhance himself, advantage barb, otherwise, about even. Lvl2 Combat Focus: Barb has an advantage on hit and damage (again only for a single encounter unless your looking outside class features), nether loses dex against hiden foes, Barb doesn't lose dex when flat footed, barb still has +2 on opposed str rolls. Fighter has AC advantage. Lvl4. Weapon Spec.: Barb is now only +1/+1 ahead, (assuming he used the feat) with +2 on str rolls. Fighter still has an easier time fighting hiden foes and AC advantage. lvl6. Combat stability: Barbs still +1/+1 and 10ft move on the fighter. but opposed str roll advantage is gone. Fighter still has easier time fighting hiden foes (which is becomeing more common at this point) and an AC advantage unless in a flanked position (though the barbs increasing HP' advantage is starting to gain ground). Barb still holds an advantage her, but not by much. Lvl8. MWM. barb is now down -1/-1 from the fighter, but still has +10 move, a larger HP pool and now has DR/1, Fighter has an easier time fighting hiden foes and an AC advantage unless in a flanked position. Lvl10 Combat Vigor. Not only does the fighter have a +1/+1 advantage on the Barbarian, he has +2wil, +6 on opposed rolls and an easier time fighting hiden foes. Additionally, he heals 52 HP's from his first round on in any fight which more then offsets any HP advantage the barb had. That leaves the Barb 10ft of move and DR/2 (which is offset by the fighters AC advantage unless flanked) over the fighter. The fighter is now well ahead of the barb. Lvl11. barb gets greater rage, reducing the fighters advantages to +1 will save and +5 on opposed str rolls. vs the barbs 10ft move and DR2 (AC...flanked...etc.). lvl12: improved weapon focus. +1 to hit advantage again, otherwise, little change from lvl 11. At this point, the barb would have 4 rages per day if he didn't take improved rage earlier. lvl14:Greater spec: Fighter jumps to +1/+3 , hiden foes and opposed str rolls over the barb, but the barb now has +3 on will saves over the fighter as well as Barbs DR/3 (AC...unless flanked...blah blah blah), and 10ft move. lvl16. we can go several routes here. Armour spec to offset the barbs DR advantage or endurance, granting an AC advantage at night and leading into steadfast endurance at 20 to match up the +will difference. Lvl 18: Weapon Sup: just gives the fighter all kinds of advantage over the barb. that barb at this point is way behind. lvl20: (steadfast determination if endurance was taken, otherwise iron will to reduce the barbds will advantage to only +2.) Note, in order for the barb to surpass the fighter in the low levels, he required a non class feature. after lvl 8 the fighter is easily contributing what the babrbian is, if not more. at level 18, the fighter pulls well ahead. I think this is quite compelling "proof" that a fighter contributes as much as a babrbarian (less or more depending on level) I know people are going to say "the fighter is limited to a single weapon", but last i checked, the barbarian is also only going to have a single main weapon too. He's not restricted to what that can be, but any more then 1 highly enchanted weapon and the barb is risking not having the utility items both he and the fighter desire. Why is it that the most mundane class is so savaged by the loss of gear at high levels when compared to the magic using classes? Give a 20th level fighter his gear from 1st level and I don't think he could even defeat a CR 15 opponent (Hell, a CR 10 might be pushing it as well). Give a 20th level cleric his gear at 1st level and he's still kicking the butt of any CR 15 opponent. 1: a 20th level fighter with his 1st level gear (at least the one i showed abouve in comparison to the barbarian) still has a +24/+19/+14/+9. not including str (likely 19-22 for a +4-+6 hit bonus, assuming your taking away the advantages of a book as well) or weapon sup bonus's and deals weapon damage + str bonus (2handed=+6-+9) +6 (for a total of +13-25 per hit, not including crits). granted, not a lot, certainly not gonna make for an easy fight or quick DR penitration, but certainly it's something. 2: did the cleric have time to sudenly prepare his spell selection to accomidate his recent loss of gear? or are all his spell save's and hopes of SR penetraition gone now? 3: and most importently, how is a barbarian, ranger or paladin fairing any better under these conditions. If only the cleric is capable of "showing" how weak a fighter is, then it is not an issue with the fighter. your not proving the fighter is weaker then everyone, just the cleric. if you can't show the fighter is worst off then other melee class's, then your also showing they are inferior to the cleric, or more probably, that the cleric is possibly overpowered. If you want to reply to anything in my post, reply to this. this fact from the last 4-6 posts i've made has been ignored by everyone who's applyed. That, IMO, is a problem. Sure, the system is balanced on everyone having the appropriate gear but aesthetically, that just bites. re: Fun The fact is, spellcasters have been flashy whereas fighters seem so ho-hum. Nowadays, we expect fighters to be as flashy as spellcasters thanks to MMORPGs and Anime and pre-ToB, fighters were boring. One of the reasons ToB gets so much love IS the fact that your regular fighter can be as flashy and as cool as the spellcaster. Wether a fighter is boring or not isn't a matter of the class's power, just a matter of your preference of play style. I too find the fighter very boring to play. I am always greatful for one in my groups. You've proven squat. I've seen what you said and most of it doesn't work well because either A you become incredibly limited by whatever gains you make, or B your abilities are highly situational. see above. Please take note of my comment about complaints of the spec chain. As for the scrolls versus standard items, the fighter can have many scenarios where their design doesn't work against the foes in question. The fighter can't whip out a scroll or other item and suddenly have the right feat and equipment combos to deal with this new problem. The casters, however, can. The casters need to be able to pull out a variety of options though, cause unlike melee, any particular spell doesn't always work, a weapon always does. The problem is one shared by many martial classes, the casters can remove major obstacles with a couple low level feats, the martial classes need to bum buffs off of casters to do the same. or obtain common, highly useful items that not only remove those obsticles, but offer new advantages. And as you said, it's not limited to just fighters. I'll be the first to say that it is unfair to the martial characters but I'd rather try to boost the most problematic classes (fighter) than try to nerf all the others. But unless the fighter really is the most problematic (and on this i'm a little more hessitant to debate with you, the fighter has a lot of room for improvment, and i have never denied that, but i don't think it deserves the "is totally useless" reputation it has recieved.), then ether all martial class's need to be boosted, or the true problem between melee vs caster needs to be addressed, and that can't be done when people focus solely on the fighter, rather then all melee. |
| navar10003-14-07, 02:03 AM | Gear cannot be used to claim that a weak class is balanced to a strong one. As One Winged Angel pointed out, gear cannot be used as a method of claiming balance for a fighter because a fighter has no abilities to make the gear for them work better, they have no advantages with itemization. A fighter cannot use items to replace feats, or grant new feat chains. And the stuff that the fighter does get the most mileage out of eats up, by itself, a huge portion of their wealth by level. A caster with an item creation feat can make the item on the cheap. Scrolls are notoriously cheap and the lost level of XP actually results with them gaining more because of the CR system setup combined with them being able to get more and more useful items that can benefit both themselves and the group. I don't like someone saying "Well, the fighter lacks class features but he can make up for it with his magic items." When all those magic items do is help the fighter tread water while for other classes those items are a motor and a boat. We are not saying gear balances the fighter. We are saying the fighter can use his gear well. There's also refuting your hypocrisy. We say: A monster could be immune or resistant to your prepared spell. You respond: The wizard will have a scroll or wand or staff with a different spell to overcome that problem. We say: Ok You say: A monster could be flying such that your melee womping is irrelevant. We respond: The fighter will have boots of flying or use Leadership for a pegasus. You respond: No way! You are not allowed to use gear to overcome an obstacle. Fighters suck, deal with it. |
| Clawhound03-14-07, 09:24 AM | I don't see what's spurious about it. The fact remains that pure Fighters -- regardless of how you feel about "power" arguments -- get *bored* in challenging games, because there's nothing, really, that they can do. Everything they start to do the spellcasters will finish for them lickety-split. That a game is "challenging" (by this I assume that you mean "harder than the designers recommend) is no fault of the fighter class. That is a different style of play than what the designers designed. In my experience, "challening" games bias themselves towards classes that nova well, and pretty much make 80% of the classes out there undesirable. Again, this is not a problem with the fighter, it is a problem vis-a-vis melee and caster, and the circumstances of the game punishing the player for choosing anything that is non-optimal. If you want to say, "Fighters are a poor class choice in highly challenging games," I would agree. You just need to recognize that "highly challenging game" represents the upper end of the power curve where game balance breaks in weird ways. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 09:32 AM | Don't you need to pump martial lore or something? hope you've got good intelligence... No, Martial Lore is only needed if the martial script is written in a language the reader does not know. Anyone can read a martial script written in common. |
| Faithkeep03-14-07, 09:34 AM | I can have a build for a dwarf wielding a greataxe. Let me see what I can do. Kewl. :D Just post it somewhere. :) |
| AllisterH03-14-07, 09:58 AM | So, the pro-fighters admit the only way to get a viable fighter is to use PHB II and ToB? Something which I have agreed to since the beginning? Anyone want to try and build a viable fighter using just CORE now otherwise the anti-fighter quite rightly can argue they should get access to splatbooks for their barbarian PCs. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 10:03 AM | So, the pro-fighters admit the only way to get a viable fighter is to use PHB II and ToB? Something which I have agreed to since the beginning? Anyone want to try and build a viable fighter using just CORE now otherwise the anti-fighter quite rightly can argue they should get access to splatbooks for their barbarian PCs. When has been access to splatbooks denied, again? I have always assumed the first feat a barbarian grabs is Extra Rage. Otherwise any pretense of superiority over the fighter ends at first level, instead of eighth. |
| Archangel6203-14-07, 10:38 AM | We are not saying gear balances the fighter. We are saying the fighter can use his gear well. There's also refuting your hypocrisy. We say: A monster could be immune or resistant to your prepared spell. You respond: The wizard will have a scroll or wand or staff with a different spell to overcome that problem. We say: Ok You say: A monster could be flying such that your melee womping is irrelevant. We respond: The fighter will have boots of flying or use Leadership for a pegasus. You respond: No way! You are not allowed to use gear to overcome an obstacle. Fighters suck, deal with it. I find leadership to get the mount a bit shaky, leadership is a feat that is DM choice for a reason. I have said as much many times because any class can use it, a wizard can have an army of wizard followers to share spells with and help in research which can get bad pretty fast. While I understand wanting to use it to get a mount that isn't fragile as glass (I might make the exception for something like that in one of my games) I have some issues with it and likely will for a while. I never said that they can't use gear. What I have been trying to say, and have been either accidentally or willfully misinterpreted on, is that the fighter is reliant on their gear to a point of extreme dependency. A caster can create scrolls, wands or staves, a fighter cannot make boots of flying. It also has to do with cost totals, a fighter, hell any martial class, gets less bang for their buck because of the extreme cost of weapons and armor compared to wands, scrolls, staves, and metamagic rods versus the end results of what the items can do. The other problem is that the fighter cannot have an infinite number of items, the boots of flight aren't very fast and can be outpaced by most flyer foes. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-14-07, 10:40 AM | ... So you wrote out that whole post just to say that I was correct? You are a weird guy/gal/internet-blob ;) |
| malisteen03-14-07, 10:46 AM | We say: A monster could be immune or resistant to your prepared spell. You respond: The wizard will have a scroll or wand or staff with a different spell to overcome that problem. We say: Ok Remember that many people are argueing on both sides. You may say 'ok', but others don't. You say: A monster could be flying such that your melee womping is irrelevant. We respond: The fighter will have boots of flying or use Leadership for a pegasus. You respond: No way! You are not allowed to use gear to overcome an obstacle. Fighters suck, deal with it. No, we say a monster could be flying such that all the feats you dedicated to tripping are irrelevant. Or it could be a monster so the feats you dedicated to disarming could be irelevant. Or it could be big, so the feats you dedicated to grappling could be irelevant. The sad thing is that, if your DM likes to pull things from the Monster Manual, at high levels theres a good likelihood that your opponants will be all of these things at once, and there's nothing boots of flying can do to help that. And the gear arguement for the fighter tends to go like this: We Say: Spells are better then feats. You Say: But fighters can use better items! We Say: No, items unique to spellcasters (metamagic rods, etc) are just as good, if not better then, the magic weapons and armor available to martial types, and a wizard is guaranteed access to his ideal items thanks to item creation feats, while the martial types have to rely on DM generosity. Items aren't just used to counter fighter weaknesses (which is fine, and I agree with it. Of course a high level fighter can melee a flying monster, so long as his fly speed can catch it), they're also treated by some as though they're some kind of strength of the fighter, like they're an advantage counted in the fighter's favor over other classes, which they aren't. As for leadership, I wouldn't bring it up. It's very, very broken. Sure, a fighter could get a flying mount out of it. Or he could use it to be a better arcane/divine spellcaster then a mystic theurge. But a dread necromancer could use it to control several thousand hit dice of undead, and I'm sure there are other more broken aspects out there. Plus it's specifically tagged as optional and possibly inappropriate in the DMG. As for characters never being without their level-appropriate gear: Disjunction, rust monsters, and certain oozes exist in D&D specifically to introduce this as a potential occurance. The DM would be remiss in not returning the PCs to their proper item amounts afterwords, but facing encounters without your regular item set happens. This doesn't hurt a cleric too much, doesn't hurt a wizard too much at high levels, since he doesn't actually travel with his spell books, although the loss of his thinking cap, boomsticks, sticky-notes, and blunt stick will hurt. Just not nearly as much as the fighters loss of his own bigger, pointer stick and the forceful removal of all the skin off his body. But that shouldn't happen much, and should be quickly remedied, and those monsters are supposed to hurt fighters more then wizards and clerics, so I don't think it's a problem, and am not pointing it out as a weakness of the fighter. I'm just saying sometimes it happens, is all. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-14-07, 10:48 AM | The only thing I could see them must having is a magic weapon for both melee and ranged. No biggie really. Just like every other class, hmmmm. |
| Archangel6203-14-07, 11:10 AM | The only thing I could see them must having is a magic weapon for both melee and ranged. No biggie really. Just like every other class, hmmmm. Actually if they enchant both of them equally that does eat up a huge chunk of gold. Add in that their secondary weapon, whatever it is, is likely to be less workable because they probably didn't invest enough, in some cases any, feats in the use of said weapon. |
| Bob Loblaw03-14-07, 11:42 AM | Something I've noticed is that casters not only have access to item creation feats, but they also have metamagic feats. It feels like every caster will always have all of the feats. Example after example is brought up with little regard to actual play. Casters have 6 or 7 feats by level 20. The wizard can add 4 to that list. There is no way that they will be able to use every item creation and metamagic feat just from the PHB. I won't deny the fact that casters can create magic items. I wonder why the fighter doesn't employ the caster to help make cheaper items for himself. Our fighters think it's a good investment. The casters don't seem to mind. Having a well equipped fighter is always a welcome addition to the group. We do use one of the optional rules from the Epic Level Handbook where the fighter can invest his XP to help the caster. Even before that houserule was implemented, our casters happily made magic items for the group. Our crafting casters tend to take the feats that reduce the cost of crafting so that they can make more items. It is one way that they can ensure the whole group gets exactly what they need. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-14-07, 12:02 PM | Really a fighter only needs something akin to an admantine +1 weapon to be effective. To be optimized he would need more but to be able to hurt things that would be about it, maybe add in holy just to be safe at higher levels. Really it is not so big an investment as people make it out to be. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 12:05 PM | Something I've noticed is that casters not only have access to item creation feats, but they also have metamagic feats. It feels like every caster will always have all of the feats. The retraining option of the PH2 helps the crafter immensely. As much as the fighter, really. Level 3... pick craft wondrous and make some stuff. Level 6... switch to craft weapons and armor for a couple levels, then back to wondrous. Level 12... lets craft some rings. Level 17 craft rod, yes, craft rod, the one that nobody took before. Then back to wondrous. All the items for one feat. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-14-07, 12:09 PM | The retraining option of the PH2 helps the crafter immensely. As much as the fighter, really. Level 3... pick craft wondrous and make some stuff. Level 6... switch to craft weapons and armor for a couple levels, then back to wondrous. Level 12... lets craft some rings. Level 17 craft rod, yes, craft rod, the one that nobody took before. Then back to wondrous. All the items for one feat. Ah, exactly why we don't use the retraining rules. |
| Bob Loblaw03-14-07, 12:32 PM | The retraining option of the PH2 helps the crafter immensely. As much as the fighter, really. Level 3... pick craft wondrous and make some stuff. Level 6... switch to craft weapons and armor for a couple levels, then back to wondrous. Level 12... lets craft some rings. Level 17 craft rod, yes, craft rod, the one that nobody took before. Then back to wondrous. All the items for one feat. While that works, that was not really the intent behind the rules. They were not meant to give you free access to every option. There is supposed to be roleplaying reasons for changing things. The "I want everything" reasoning isn't really roleplaying. I have used the retraining rules when a player made some uber choices and he was too dominating. He asked to modify his character so that he would no longer be so powerful. I know that it's the opposite of what usually happens. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-14-07, 01:52 PM | So, the pro-fighters admit the only way to get a viable fighter is to use PHB II and ToB? Something which I have agreed to since the beginning? I haven't admitted that. I have used several books in my builds, but I haven't said that a balanced Core fighter is underpowered. I don't think it will be as strong as a fighter not restricted to core. The other issue I see here is that some people just have radically different ideas of how encounters should be run. How difficult/tedious you make each and every encounter will determine how well each class does. Even in a core game, I wouldn't really use some of the options I have seen here, such as adding magic items to the monsters from their wealth, or gating in help. These things dramatically alter how hard these monsters will be to defeat. And some people take advantage of the CR system this way to demonstrate that a class is weak. Anyone want to try and build a viable fighter using just CORE now otherwise the anti-fighter quite rightly can argue they should get access to splatbooks for their barbarian PCs. Use whatever you want for the barbarian. I at least am not interested in a fighter/barbarian comparison. Further, I don't think anyone claiming the fighter is underpowered can request fighter builds when not a single caster build has been offered up, only blanket statements claiming how casters have every spell and magic item and feat that can assist them. No, we say a monster could be flying such that all the feats you dedicated to tripping are irrelevant. And those would be Improved Trip and maybe Knockdown. So the fighter instead uses Archery, and his Mounted Combat chain if he has a flying mount. Or his regular combat feats if he has any source of flight. Not to mention that WoTC ruled somewhere that flying creatures can be tripped, calling the effect 'stalled' or some such. Or it could be a monster so the feats you dedicated to disarming could be irelevant. The one feat, Improved Disarm. And then the fighter trips, bull rushes, charges, shoots with arrows, etc. Or it could be big, so the feats you dedicated to grappling could be irelevant. Unless you use your wealth by level to keep you competitive with monsters. Not to mention that your other feats are not useless. The sad thing is that, if your DM likes to pull things from the Monster Manual, at high levels theres a good likelihood that your opponants will be all of these things at once, and there's nothing boots of flying can do to help that. No, but an Earthbind spell from your wizard helps bring the flying creatures to you. And magic items allow you to compete with big monsters. There is no way around this. The fighter can keep up. And if the point isn't that a fighter cannot keep up (since some have tried to pull this) then what is the point? And the gear arguement for the fighter tends to go like this: We Say: Spells are better then feats. You Say: But fighters can use better items! We Say: No, items unique to spellcasters (metamagic rods, etc) are just as good, if not better then, the magic weapons and armor available to martial types, and a wizard is guaranteed access to his ideal items thanks to item creation feats, while the martial types have to rely on DM generosity. Not 'fighters can use better items'. Fighter can use items. Period. Them: 'A fighter can't fight huge monsters.' Us: 'Yes he can, with items that increase his strength or bonuses on strength checks.' Them: 'Wizards can use better items, cheaper items. Wizards can make their own items. Therefore, fighters can't use items.' Us: :confused: That's really how the argument goes. |
| Druid_of_the_storm03-14-07, 03:32 PM | to lighten up the thread a little... three words- Drunk Bar Fight |
| Zilvar03-14-07, 03:53 PM | Not 'fighters can use better items'. Fighter can use items. Period. Them: 'A fighter can't fight huge monsters.' Us: 'Yes he can, with items that increase his strength or bonuses on strength checks.' Them: 'Wizards can use better items, cheaper items. Wizards can make their own items. Therefore, fighters can't use items.' Us: :confused: That's really how the argument goes.I hesitate to join in this train wreck, but I believe this (and the originally quoted text) to be a pretty nasty misrepresentation of the original anti-item commentary. I suppose that the argument has devolved and evolved, but originally the contention was that if any other class could perform to the same, or near-same, degree as the fighter with the same gear, then the only thing that having gear shows is that gear kicks posterior. Give a fighter his 18 feats and 720k of gear, and if a warrior can perform nearly as well with just the same 720k of gear then there is a valid argument that (existing) feats are a poor substitute for class abilities. Whether or not that's a valid, viable, or true argument is basis for a discussion, but watching this whole gear argument get distorted into something that really doesn't make any sense at all is getting old. |
| Mnky03-14-07, 04:05 PM | to lighten up the thread a little... three words- Drunk Bar Fight Wizards are great in drunk bar fights. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 04:14 PM | I haven't admitted that. I have used several books in my builds, but I haven't said that a balanced Core fighter is underpowered. I don't think it will be as strong as a fighter not restricted to core. Eh.. honestly, most of the good high-level feats are non-core. Actually -all- the good high-level feats are non-core. With core only there is no uber-charging, the archer can't have supremacy or split and the highest level feat is Greater Specialization. I don't see the point of taking more fighter levels after 12. Just not enough good feats or feat chains. Mind you, now I can't see anything to do after level 18. All the best feats can be taken by level 18, including the level 5 martial maneuvers. Levels 19-20 give the fighter just one feat, so he is better off taking a couple barbarian levels for the extra move and daily rage. Or maybe ranger for some good skills. Or some PrC. |
| aelryinth03-14-07, 04:23 PM | The retraining option of the PH2 helps the crafter immensely. As much as the fighter, really. Level 3... pick craft wondrous and make some stuff. Level 6... switch to craft weapons and armor for a couple levels, then back to wondrous. Level 12... lets craft some rings. Level 17 craft rod, yes, craft rod, the one that nobody took before. Then back to wondrous. All the items for one feat. This is also completely impossible. The retraining rules only allow you to modify a feat back to the level you took it at. At level 3 you aren't eligible for craft ring or wand or any of the higher level Creation feats. So, not only are you using Retraining, you are abusing, twisting and distorting it. On the flip side, a mage can indeed get all the metamagic feats he wants, with some minor limits...he can make metamagic rods, or purchase them. In essence, the wizard can convert gold into a fairly broad array of extra feats as he likes...something very much not an option for fighters. ==Aelryinth |
| Renegade_Paladin03-14-07, 04:35 PM | Which is why metamagic rods should be banned from the outset. And hi, Aelryinth. Fancy meetin' you here. :D |
| Argaud03-14-07, 05:17 PM | This is also completely impossible. The retraining rules only allow you to modify a feat back to the level you took it at. At level 3 you aren't eligible for craft ring or wand or any of the higher level Creation feats. So, not only are you using Retraining, you are abusing, twisting and distorting it. No, but he can retrain the level 3 feat into something, and then take a higher level feat to get craft wand, or ring. Effectively retraining the lower level crafting feats into metamagic feats that have no minimum level (or whatever feats). The PHB2 makes retraining very easy and quick, and I can see some DMs having trouble accepting a lot of feat swapping. But if the adventures take place every few years it makes sense for the characters to be able to master new fields of knowledge while forgetting so much from others, out of disuse, that they become useless. |
| malisteen03-14-07, 05:18 PM | Wizards are great in drunk bar fights. The wizard or druid excels in drunk bar fighting, which should be the fighter's realm of expertise. And with Divine Metamagic: Persist, a cleric can be drunk all day! It really isn't fair. Fighter should be the drunkest, fightinist, drunken bar fighters of them all, he shouldn't have to rely on other classes to boost his drinking abilities. If somebody sunders his mug, what's he going to do then? And don't even say someone might steal the wizard's little black book. Everyone knows that one's just a fake anyway. |
| Kratch03-14-07, 06:18 PM | Actually if they enchant both of them equally that does eat up a huge chunk of gold. Add in that their secondary weapon, whatever it is, is likely to be less workable because they probably didn't invest enough, in some cases any, feats in the use of said weapon. I agree with you on this one. Which is why i often think the claim that a barbarians ability to use different weapons over a weapon specs fighters focus on a single weapon is not a significant advantage. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-14-07, 06:26 PM | I hesitate to join in this train wreck, but I believe this (and the originally quoted text) to be a pretty nasty misrepresentation of the original anti-item commentary. I suppose that the argument has devolved and evolved, but originally the contention was that if any other class could perform to the same, or near-same, degree as the fighter with the same gear, then the only thing that having gear shows is that gear kicks posterior. Give a fighter his 18 feats and 720k of gear, and if a warrior can perform nearly as well with just the same 720k of gear then there is a valid argument that (existing) feats are a poor substitute for class abilities. Whether or not that's a valid, viable, or true argument is basis for a discussion, but watching this whole gear argument get distorted into something that really doesn't make any sense at all is getting old. I know where the argument began because it came up in response to my builds. The argument is that using gear in an example fighter build to show his effectiveness is essentially a cop-out because everyone recieves gear. I pointed out that that argument is nonsensical because the game takes gear into account when determining power levels. It is also inconsistent to use some of the rules to determine how strong a fighter is while completely ignoring a whole other set of rules. Then someone came in and said that we can't use gears to demonstrate anything about the fighter because other classes (namely casters) use items better than the fighter. Yeah, that was the argument. It's so silly, I don't even know how to counter it. (Note, it may have been said in a different thread and carried over here.) EDIT: What's really getting old is all of these claims that the warrior can do everything the fighter can through items alone... without an example warrior build. Heck, the anti-fighters haven't even provided a fighter build that fails. Eh.. honestly, most of the good high-level feats are non-core. Actually -all- the good high-level feats are non-core. With core only there is no uber-charging, the archer can't have supremacy or split and the highest level feat is Greater Specialization. I don't see the point of taking more fighter levels after 12. Just not enough good feats or feat chains. Mind you, now I can't see anything to do after level 18. All the best feats can be taken by level 18, including the level 5 martial maneuvers. Levels 19-20 give the fighter just one feat, so he is better off taking a couple barbarian levels for the extra move and daily rage. Or maybe ranger for some good skills. Or some PrC. Well, like I said, I haven't said its underpowered, but I haven't said a core fighter will work either. I haven't seen a core fighter, nor have I seen one pitted againt various CR's. So I don't know. But I won't accept un unsupported opinion as fact. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-14-07, 06:42 PM | Just drop the fighters first level bonus feat, drop its hd to d8, get rid of the warrior, and declare the fighter to be an npc class already ;) |
| Zilvar03-14-07, 06:46 PM | Then someone came in and said that we can't use gears to demonstrate anything about the fighter because other classes (namely casters) use items better than the fighter. Yeah, that was the argument. It's so silly, I don't even know how to counter it. (Note, it may have been said in a different thread and carried over here.) I'm not sure I'd go around repeating that last bit :) You might consider the arguement silly, but unless it can be shown to be false (simple enough...try to beat a challenge that a fighter can with a similar warrior), or shown that it applies to all classes (ie, an adept can do everything a wizard or cleric can under the same conditions), then it becomes an obvious conclusion that the gear is doing more to beat a challenge than the class behind the gear. Said conclusion might be premature or silly, but it's still a very obvious line to draw. |
| Archangel6203-14-07, 06:50 PM | EDIT: What's really getting old is all of these claims that the warrior can do everything the fighter can through items alone... without an example warrior build. Heck, the anti-fighters haven't even provided a fighter build that fails. Well, like I said, I haven't said its underpowered, but I haven't said a core fighter will work either. I haven't seen a core fighter, nor have I seen one pitted againt various CR's. So I don't know. But I won't accept un unsupported opinion as fact. We get challenged to make fighter builds, if we make intentionally bad ones the pro-fighters claim that we don't know how to make fighters so that is why they fail. As for the warrior thing, it was done last year. Someone used the balor as the example, thus possibly explaining the balors popularity. The fighter was brought in, gear listed, the fighter killed the Balor, same gear given to warrior. Warrior also kills Balor. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 06:56 PM | We get challenged to make fighter builds, if we make intentionally bad ones the pro-fighters claim that we don't know how to make fighters so that is why they fail. As for the warrior thing, it was done last year. Someone used the balor as the example, thus possibly explaining the balors popularity. The fighter was brought in, gear listed, the fighter killed the Balor, same gear given to warrior. Warrior also kills Balor. Not true. I posted a fighter that killed a balor in one round, and almost anything else at CR20. Seerow posted a warrior with a ton of anti-balor gear that killed the balor in one round too. I gave the gear to the original fighter, and the fighter killed two balors in a one round. With the same gear it was mathematically shown the fighter did over 150% of the damage the warrior could do. Not bad considering a level 20 warrior is CR19. |
| FrostHammer03-14-07, 06:59 PM | Not true. I posted a fighter that killed a balor in one round, and almost anything else at CR20. Seerow posted a warrior with a ton of anti-balor gear that killed the balor in one round too. I gave the gear to the original fighter, and the fighter killed two balors in a one round. With the same gear it was mathematically shown the fighter did over 150% of the damage the warrior could do. Not bad considering a level 20 warrior is CR19. I don't think anyone disputes that a Fighter is stronger than a Warrior. I am curious as to how the Fighter killed both Balors in one round? You used bows or something? |
| Zilvar03-14-07, 07:00 PM | I don't think anyone disputes that a Fighter is stronger than a Warrior. I am curious as to how the Fighter killed both Balors in one round? You used bows or something?His fighter did enough damage to kill two balors. Yeah. It was an archer. Splitting FTW. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 07:01 PM | I don't think anyone disputes that a Fighter is stronger than a Warrior. I am curious as to how the Fighter killed both Balors in one round? You used bows or something? Yes, archer. Seerow gave the warrior a +5 Split Surestrike Magebane bow and evil outsider bane, chaotic outsider bane arrows or something like that. The fighter could do like 600 hp of damage to balors with that gear. The warrior could do almost 400, mind you. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-14-07, 07:01 PM | I'm not sure I'd go around repeating that last bit :) You might consider the arguement silly, but unless it can be shown to be false (simple enough...try to beat a challenge that a fighter can with a similar warrior), or shown that it applies to all classes (ie, an adept can do everything a wizard or cleric can under the same conditions), then it becomes an obvious conclusion that the gear is doing more to beat a challenge than the class behind the gear. Said conclusion might be premature or silly, but it's still a very obvious line to draw. No, the argument is not that another class can use the same gear to accomplish what a fighter can do. The argument was specifically that other classes use items *better* than a fighter uses his items, therefore we shouldn't include items when discussing the fighter. A point so irrelevant it isn't even funny. The game *assumes* items. When you play the game, you *get* items. Why then, when discussing a class in the game, do we *ignore* those bits and pieces that we know are a given? We get challenged to make fighter builds, if we make intentionally bad ones the pro-fighters claim that we don't know how to make fighters so that is why they fail. As for the warrior thing, it was done last year. Someone used the balor as the example, thus possibly explaining the balors popularity. The fighter was brought in, gear listed, the fighter killed the Balor, same gear given to warrior. Warrior also kills Balor. And when we make fighter builds, they get utterly ignored or an argument on gear arises. It all seems completely pointless then. As for the balor thing, I don't even accept the argument when it is in favor of the fighter. This is for a number of reasons: 1. I don't think it is a fighter's job to one-shot encounters. I don't think it is anyone's job to one-shot stuff. Further, I don't see how killing a balor in one hit shows anything about how well a fighter performs as a party frontliner. 2. The build I saw used an outsider bane splitting bow. It seemed tailored to defeat a balor. I don't remember specifics but that's the lingering thought I have. 3. I can one-shot a balor with a bard. I don't think it means anything for any class. I honestly don't think a warrior with the same gear can be as good as a fighter because feats do have worth, even if some people don't want to accept that point. |
| Argaud03-14-07, 07:05 PM | 3. I can one-shot a balor with a bard. I don't think it means anything for any class. I am pretty sure I can optimize and adept so he can kill a balor too. OMFG. This clearly mens clerics and wizards are useless NPC classes!!!11!!eleven! </sarcasm> :D |
| Zilvar03-14-07, 07:09 PM | I am pretty sure I can optimize and adept so he can kill a balor too. OMFG. This clearly mens clerics and wizards are useless NPC classes!!!11!!eleven! </sarcasm> :DIf you can, seriously, then maybe the whole gear-related sub-argument can be done away with forever and for good. It's probably the most irritating subset of this entire dogmatic head-butting session. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-14-07, 07:17 PM | The game *assumes* items. When you play the game, you *get* items. Why then, when discussing a class in the game, do we *ignore* those bits and pieces that we know are a given? When trying to compare two things normally you try to make as many things the same as possible so that if you know that A is worth a certain amount then getting something as close as possible to that and then examining the differences can give you a decent idea of how B and A relate. The warrior is an npc class, no doubt about that. So what does the fighter have over him? They are both given the same point buy and the same amount of gear, preferably the 'same' gear. That way this part is mostly neutral. Moving on the fighter gets an average of 1 more hp/hd and has up to 11 bonus feats with the [fighter] descriptor. So, that is it really. The warrior and the fighter have, at level 20 about 20 hp difference and 11 fighter bonus feats. Does 20 hp and 11 fighter bonus feats take an NPC class (and frankly the only npc class worse than the warrior is the commoner, the rest are better in my opinion) and turn it into a PC class? Looking at just the core this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#fighterBonusFeats) is the list that the bonus feats are chosen from. |
| Archangel6203-14-07, 07:19 PM | No, the argument is not that another class can use the same gear to accomplish what a fighter can do. That argument was offered as well. I just mean that there were designs given or comments made where the fighter was given 2-5 times the standard wealth and then what they did was touted as proof of the fighters efficacy. The problem is that both sides have had rather irrational arguments and as a result we too are becoming irrational. Looking back I probably could have phrased some things better and tried to better explain what I saw as a problem. I will admit that and apologize for frustration I may have caused. The argument was specifically that other classes use items *better* than a fighter uses his items, therefore we shouldn't include items when discussing the fighter. A point so irrelevant it isn't even funny. The game *assumes* items. When you play the game, you *get* items. Why then, when discussing a class in the game, do we *ignore* those bits and pieces that we know are a given? And when we make fighter builds, they get utterly ignored or an argument on gear arises. It all seems completely pointless then. The thing was that there were pro-fighters on many threads who argued that a fighter can use the gear they get better than other classes. That was probably the initial impetus to the whole thing of how much each class can theoretically get in terms of power from raw gold use. As for the balor thing, I don't even accept the argument when it is in favor of the fighter. This is for a number of reasons: 1. I don't think it is a fighter's job to one-shot encounters. I don't think it is anyone's job to one-shot stuff. Further, I don't see how killing a balor in one hit shows anything about how well a fighter performs as a party frontliner. This actually depends on how you want to make the fighter. Some people might want an archer instead of a regular frontliner. |
| magmer203-14-07, 11:54 PM | Give a fighter his 18 feats and 720k of gear, and if a warrior can perform nearly as well with just the same 720k of gear then there is a valid argument that (existing) feats are a poor substitute for class abilities. I'm just going to throw this out here, but the fighter will have some or all of these advantages. +20% to hit +6 to damage (Con-wis)x5% on will saves +65% on resist disarms +40% on resisting other maneuvers. -5% on getting hit. |
| OneWinged4ngel03-15-07, 12:07 AM | I'm just going to throw this out here, but the fighter will have some or all of these advantages. +20% to hit +6 to damage (Con-wis)x5% on will saves +65% on resist disarms +40% on resisting other maneuvers. -5% on getting hit. And in all honesty, that's not a real huge deal in the face of that 720k. |
| Kratch03-15-07, 12:18 AM | And in all honesty, that's not a real huge deal in comparison to that 720k. But it's not in comparison, it's in addition to. And that list didn''t appear to be complete. I saw the effects of the weapon sup chain (but it didn't account for the take10, +5 or ability to fight while grapple. it only took the +vs disarm), tt took Combat focus and stability, as well as another combat focus feat (but ignored the +4will. plus the effects of the feat chosen), Endurance and steadfast determination (but didn't include the benifit of endurance). And thats just 1 potential use of the 11 feats, as per the fighter's "lack of class features". |
| OneWinged4ngel03-15-07, 01:40 AM | But it's not in comparison, it's in addition to. I realize this. It's *exceedingly obvious* that the Fighter has more stuff than the Warrior, because he has 11 more feats. And what I'm saying is, it's not an incredibly significant addition when put in perspective to the effects of the 720k, which are significantly greater than that. Look at it this way: What's the approximate *cost* of 11 feats in gp? Consider that using Whirlwind Attack (the result of a long feat chain) 3 times per day is a +1 weapon bonus. Now what's the cost of full spellcasting? +4 to hit, +6 to damage, +1 to AC, bonuses on resisting special maneuvers... not-too-expensive magic items (especially in the perspective of 720k) do all these things. From Bracers of Archery to Anchoring weapons. Consider the difference in CR between you (the Fighter) and the Warrior. If he closed that CR on the wealth tables, could he emulate or surpass your abilities? What if the difference was a bit more realistic than level-1? (We all know a level 20 Magewright or Adept isn't comparable to a level 19 Wizard or Cleric, after all) If the answer is *even close* you may just be in trouble. So what's a level 19 Fighter have in gold vs a level 20 Warrior? The Warrior's got 180,000 gold to spend. With that, can I cover the effect of 11 average combat feats? Don't forget how many feats really have prices, and how many are just kinda scaling up. Remember, +attack an AC isn't that expensive. Resistance against special maneuvers isn't that expensive. Getting some of the more powerful feats a limited number of times per day isn't that expensive (and how often do you really want to use Whirlwind Attack anyways?). If you search, there's quite a few places to get "free feats," but since they're more obscure and variable we'll probably focus more on the numerical bonii. Heck, a significant +vs disarm comes from something as simple as a locked gauntlet... and how high do you need your bonus vs Disarm to be? What if you just stick with core feats? These have the most established precedent for being used in items. Now, how expensive is casting high level spells X number of times per day? There's a big difference here. Don't forget that *crafters* can get stuff for about 37.5% of the gp price without really falling behind significantly in level, effectively doubling the wealth of the party. So there's another point for spellcasting classes and their utility to the party. ___ Anywho, what it comes down to is that the wealth difference to get the effects that Magmer mentioned aren't really very expensive abilities, and it's not an extremely difficult point spread to cover. All you want (according to Magmer) is... +4 to hit, +something to saves, +6 damage, +12 against disarms, +8 against overruns and trips and stuff (or just avoiding them altogether), and +1 AC. Actually calculating this gets semi-tricky when you get into the realm of scaling, however. 1 AC is a lot more expensive if it's from +7 to +8 than if it's from +0 to +1 on a slot. Regardless, it doesn't sound that expensive. +4 to hit and +6 damage is the same thing as a +5 enhancement bonus. Of course, you could save some money on that enhancement bonus by turning to alternative fields of adding attack bonii. +against maneuvers is covered by anchoring (+1 or +2 armor property). +1 AC is covered by any number of different items. +to saves is covered by the standard resistance items, as well as a few nonstandard ones that add unique bonus types. Bam, you're done. Now, consider that that's probably still not going to be far more than 180k even with a good deal of scaling thrown in. Now, consider that that 180k could probably be used more efficiently, to a variety of different and more powerful effects. |
| navar10003-15-07, 02:06 AM | Again, my philosophy is that people who play the game have the reasonable expectation that they should all get to be in the spotlight an equal amount of time. If you really want to just be the "helper" in the campaign and to have most of your role be standing in the way of monsters who want to hurt the spellcasters, okay. Most people find that a little frustrating after a while. Yeah, no one wants to play a fighter, paladin, barbarian, ranger, warblade, crusader, swordsage, psychic warrior, duskblade, ... :rolleyes: |
| navar10003-15-07, 02:14 AM | So, the pro-fighters admit the only way to get a viable fighter is to use PHB II and ToB? Something which I have agreed to since the beginning? Anyone want to try and build a viable fighter using just CORE now otherwise the anti-fighter quite rightly can argue they should get access to splatbooks for their barbarian PCs. We don't admit that. We do admit those books improve upon the figther a great deal. With everyone Core, fighters do alright, despite wildshaping druids, divine power clerics, and gate casting wizards. If there's an issue, it's an issue of spellcasters compared to dedicated warriors, not just the fighter. However, if spellcasters are allowed the Spell Compendium, divine metamaigc and night sticks, and creature types from Monster Manual II, III, IV, and whatevers, then fighters can use other books beyond Core as well and still do alright. The issue, if there is an issue, remains a comparison of spellcasters vs dedicated warriors. Being a fighter specifically has nothing to do with it. |
| Kratch03-15-07, 03:24 AM | I realize this. It's *exceedingly obvious* that the Fighter has more stuff than the Warrior, because he has 11 more feats. And what I'm saying is, it's not an incredibly significant addition when put in perspective to the effects of the 720k, which are significantly greater than that. Look at it this way: What's the approximate *cost* of 11 feats in gp? Consider that using Whirlwind Attack (the result of a long feat chain) 3 times per day is a +1 weapon bonus. Now what's the cost of full spellcasting? 2 problems with your whirlwind +1 enhancement analogy. 1 it's limited in it's uses per day, the feat is not. and 2, it costs a +1 enhancment. on a +1 sword, it's inexpensive, but considering it also stacks onto a +10 sword, it can get a bit more expensive. (i don't have epic handbook, can someone price out the difference between a +10 and a +11 please so we can see what that single feat is worth (when limited by times per day)?) Now, if i wanted to trivialize spellcasting like your trying to trivialize feats, meaning ignoreing that they can be used more then a limited number of times, and ignoring that they offer bonus's on top of the gear that simulates them, i'd say spellcasting is worth 76,050gp. Thats one scroll of the appropriate spell level for every spell an int34 wizard could cast in a day. wow, with how you trivialize things, it appears full spell progression is very inexpensive. +4 to hit, +6 to damage, +1 to AC, bonuses on resisting special maneuvers... not-too-expensive magic items (especially in the perspective of 720k) do all these things. From Bracers of Archery to Anchoring weapons. again, those bonus's are on top of any gear a melee can currently get, so a more accurate comparison would be +11 armour (and thats to accomodateonly 1/5 of a feat) and ... +8 more str, (that gives +4 to hit, +6 damage with a 2hander and +4 on opposed str rolls). That bonus needs to ether be un-named and unslotted or added on top of an already exsisting item, say a +6 str belt. Again, i don't have epic handbook, whats the cost difference between a +6 and a +14 str item? If the answer is *even close* you may just be in trouble. So what's a level 19 Fighter have in gold vs a level 20 Warrior? The Warrior's got 180,000 gold to spend. With that, can I cover the effect of 11 average combat feats? Don't forget how many feats really have prices, and how many are just kinda scaling up. Prove it. Gear out the fighter first, appropriate to his level 19, then spend that 180,000gp to account for the 11 feats i used in my fighter/barbarian comparison Remember, +attack an AC isn't that expensive. Resistance against special maneuvers isn't that expensive. Getting some of the more powerful feats a limited number of times per day isn't that expensive (and how often do you really want to use Whirlwind Attack anyways?). If you search, there's quite a few places to get "free feats," but since they're more obscure and variable we'll probably focus more on the numerical bonii. Heck, a significant +vs disarm comes from something as simple as a locked gauntlet... and how high do you need your bonus vs Disarm to be? and the fighters bonus vs disarm stacks with the locked gauntlet. how are you getting the extra +4-+12 now? As for how high, considering it's an opposed attack roll, with bonus's for size (which you are all so eager to point out there are plenty of), the more bonus's the better. Now, how expensive is casting high level spells X number of times per day? There's a big difference here. 3,825gp x X Don't forget that *crafters* can get stuff for about 37.5% of the gp price without really falling behind significantly in level, effectively doubling the wealth of the party. So there's another point for spellcasting classes and their utility to the party. where's your 37.5% coming from. last i checked, it cost 50% in actual gold, and 45 in xp, at a 5gp per 1 xp exchange value, thats 25% more, for a total of 75% of the normal cost. And your point in favour of spellcasters and they're utility proves nothing about the fighter, just the spellcaster. there are 6 more class's to account for (5 more if you include bard as an item making spellcaster) All you want (according to Magmer) is... +4 to hit, +something to saves, +6 damage, +12 against disarms, +8 against overruns and trips and stuff (or just avoiding them altogether), and +1 AC. Actually calculating this gets semi-tricky when you get into the realm of scaling, however. 1 AC is a lot more expensive if it's from +7 to +8 than if it's from +0 to +1 on a slot. Regardless, it doesn't sound that expensive. I see here that you noticed your error, so when i said you were trivializing above, i know realize it's wasn't completely intentional. but then you say "reguardless" and begin trivializing it again. +4 to hit and +6 damage is the same thing as a +5 enhancement bonus. Of course, you could save some money on that enhancement bonus by turning to alternative fields of adding attack bonii. +against maneuvers is covered by anchoring (+1 or +2 armor property). +1 AC is covered by any number of different items. +to saves is covered by the standard resistance items, as well as a few nonstandard ones that add unique bonus types. Bam, you're done. ok, if you want to say the weapon spec line is +5, whats the difference between +10 weapon and +15? theres your answer to what those 5 feats are worth. The ac and anchoring enhancement are added to a +10 armour for +12-13, again, whats the difference in value?) Now, consider that that's probably still not going to be far more than 180k even with a good deal of scaling thrown in. Now, consider that that 180k could probably be used more efficiently, to a variety of different and more powerful effects. I think it will be significanlt more then 180,000. if the weapons keep scaling in price the same way they do from +5-+10, (IE4,000gp more then that last enhancment cost) a +5 bonus on top of a +10 wepon will add about 250,000gp... thats just for the 5 wepon spec feats (thats not even including weapon sup.) |
| OneWinged4ngel03-15-07, 03:32 AM | I think it will be significanlt more then 180,000. if the weapons keep scaling in price the same way they do from +5-+10, (IE4,000gp more then that last enhancment cost) a +5 bonus on top of a +10 wepon will add about 250,000gp... thats just for the 5 wepon spec feats (thats not even including weapon sup.) A +5 bonus on top of a +10 weapon? Well, I wasn't assuming *that* much stacking. I was assuming the usual +10 limit. If you're at that point, you want to resort to the *alternatives* to +attack. |
| Kratch03-15-07, 03:36 AM | A +5 bonus on top of a +10 weapon? Well, I wasn't assuming *that* much stacking. I was assuming the usual +10 limit. If you're at that point, you want to resort to the *alternatives* to +attack. except a fighter doesn't have to "resort to the alternatives". not to mention, a fighter can also have those alternatives. the only place for a warrior to add is on top of items the fighteris also getting, meaning pushing into epic equipment. because if your giving the warrior a +10 weapon and only giving the fighter a +5 weapon, then 1: your ripping off the fighter, denying his appropriate gear for his level compared to the warrior (they should start with equal gear, then the warrior has 180,000 to spend) and 2: the difference between a +5 wepon and a +10 is still 150,000gp, and only to compensate for 5 feats. you have 30,000 left to account for the other 6 feats. The difference between a +9 armour and a +10 is 19,000, thats accounts for 1/5 of the abilities of weapon sup. leaving you 11,000 to account for 5 4/5's(five and four fifths) feats. |
| OneWinged4ngel03-15-07, 03:38 AM | 2 problems with your whirlwind +1 enhancement analogy. 1 it's limited in it's uses per day, the feat is not. and 2, it costs a +1 enhancment. on a +1 sword, it's inexpensive, but considering it also stacks onto a +10 sword, it can get a bit more expensive. I was not assuming a +10 sword. Anyways, my comment was "How many times do you need to use it per day?" If you wanted to do it on the cheap, you could do it off an infusion without increasing the modifier, or any other ability that adds to the enhancement bonus. You can do that with Able Learner and a one level dip in Expert. Suddenly, you can cheaply get all these enhancement bonuses you want... so long as you can prepare before a battle. *Shrug* 3,825gp x X Where are you getting THAT? If you have, say, a 9th level spell to cast x (let's say 2) times per day at minimum caster level with, say, then it's spell level x caster level x 1800 x 5 / uses per day = 9 x 17 x 1800 / 2.5 = 110,160 (Edit: Caught myself on a mistake in math) Anyways, two spells per day with a -3 caster level penalty and much-reduced saves costs you a ton! Emulating a Sorceror's spellcasting by gear is prohibitively expensive, let alone a *Wizard's* with his versatility. Oh wait, you got it from the *scroll price*! 1) That's hypocritical, because you were criticizing the 3/day permanent effect of Whirling, and this is FAR more limited. 2) You use it once. Period. 3) The Fighter can't use it. It's Spell Completion. where's your 37.5% coming from. last i checked, it cost 50% in actual gold, and 45 in xp, at a 5gp per 1 xp exchange value, thats 25% more, for a total of 75% of the normal cost. And your point in favour of spellcasters and they're utility proves nothing about the fighter, just the spellcaster. there are 6 more class's to account for (5 more if you include bard as an item making spellcaster) So what? Ring of Evasion is 25,000, All those skills you need to catch up on are 317,400 (if you don't count the two you already get). Then you have to get 10d6 sneak attack, all the special abilities from trapfinding to the selectables... list goes on. Much more expensive than the Fighter, still. I see here that you noticed your error, so when i said you were trivializing above, i know realize it's wasn't completely intentional. but then you say "reguardless" and begin trivializing it again. ok, if you want to say the weapon spec line is +5, whats the difference between +10 weapon and +15? theres your answer to what those 5 feats are worth. The ac and anchoring enhancement are added to a +10 armour for +12-13, again, whats the difference in value?) Take aforementioned warrior, give him some schemas, and have him take one multiclass level of Expert. Give him Able Learner. Suddenly, he can infuse his weapons with all the abilities you need for cheapsies, without any stacking issues, so long as you can prepare for a fight (admittedly, not perfect, but it's easier than me actually getting out my books to look through the magic item lists to find the non-stacking alternatives) Alternatively, you could find non-stacking equivelents of the feats. Things like Bracers of Archery come to mind, though I know there's better stuff. I'm just too lazy to actually break open my books until someone actually comes forth with a challenging argument. My really old and thorough arguments, long since pruned, are the last time I did much work on this... because quite simply I've not seen anything useful on the other side. You're trying to make the Warrior use a scroll and say that's it's a full spellcasting class feature every day. That doesn't even begin to make sense. I think it will be significanlt more then 180,000. if the weapons keep scaling in price the same way they do from +5-+10, (IE4,000gp more then that last enhancment cost) a +5 bonus on top of a +10 wepon will add about 250,000gp... thats just for the 5 wepon spec feats (thats not even including weapon sup.) Again, see my above reasoning. Anyways, that's still getting quite a bit of the abilities for cheaper than other class's stuff. And that's when you're using extreme stacking, which you can certainly get around. Alternatively, you could use buffs from other magic items to mimic the effects (including swift ones) using that 180,000gp. Anyways, it's likely to go over 180,000 with a good deal of stacking (as I said before...), but it'll *still* be cheaper than other class feature sets. For the medium/good classes, at least, like the Rogue, Psychic Warrior, etc. Now, if i wanted to trivialize spellcasting like your trying to trivialize feats, meaning ignoreing that they can be used more then a limited number of times, and ignoring that they offer bonus's on top of the gear that simulates them, i'd say spellcasting is worth 76,050gp. Thats one scroll of the appropriate spell level for every spell an int34 wizard could cast in a day. wow, with how you trivialize things, it appears full spell progression is very inexpensive. This reasoning is way off. You're spending that amount of money *per day.* I was pointing to being able to do these things *every day.* |
| Kratch03-15-07, 03:54 AM | I was not assuming a +10 sword. Anyways, my comment was "How many times do you need to use it per day?" actually, your comment was that whirlwind was worth a +1 enhancement. you'll notice, dispite the fact it was limited use (only 3 times per day), i accepted your use of the +1 enhancment as it's value, i just added it onto the best weapon a fighter (pre epic) can get, being +10, since after all, if you have the feat, it can be getting added to a +10 weapon If you wanted to do it on the cheap, you could do it off an infusion without increasing the modifier, or any other ability that adds to the enhancement bonus. You can do that with Able Learner and a one level dip in Expert. Suddenly, you can cheaply get all these enhancement bonuses you want... so long as you can prepare before a battle. *Shrug* But now your getting away from the "a warrior can do it just as well", since your starting to address a certain build thats adding more then just warrior (IE, now he's multiclass), including specific race, feat choice and skill selection. Where are you getting THAT? If you have, say, a 9th level spell to cast x (let's say 2) times per day at minimum caster level with, say, then it's spell level x caster level x 1800 x 5 / uses per day = 9 x 17 x 1800 x 2.5 = 688,500 I just used the cost of a 9th level scroll x X. if you want to go on the cheap, so can I, except my "on the cheap" is as simple as reading a chart in the core DMG, not multiclassing a build with feat choices from a splatbook. |
| OneWinged4ngel03-15-07, 04:14 AM | actually, your comment was that whirlwind was worth a +1 enhancement. you'll notice, dispite the fact it was limited use (only 3 times per day), i accepted your use of the +1 enhancment as it's value, i just added it onto the best weapon a fighter (pre epic) can get, being +10, since after all, if you have the feat, it can be getting added to a +10 weapon It *is* a +1 enhancement. See Magic Item Compendium. But now your getting away from the "a warrior can do it just as well", since your starting to address a certain build thats adding more then just warrior (IE, now he's multiclass), including specific race, feat choice and skill selection. I said that the Warrior isn't that far behind. Remember, the Warrior is one level ahead, and has 180,000 more gold. He gets +1 to attack, and +1 fort, and +1 to an ability score for free. Anyways, using 180,000gp, the Fighter's going to have at most a few extra points of damage, a few extra points on saves, a few extra points on bonuses vs maneuvers you hardly worry about and should be investing in other things that you have to worry about countering more at higher level... I just used the cost of a 9th level scroll x X. if you want to go on the cheap, so can I, except my "on the cheap" is as simple as reading a chart in the core DMG, not multiclassing a build with feat choices from a splatbook. You can't use a scroll and say you're emulating class features forever. You have to use items that can replicate the abilities every day, as if they were class features. That's what I'm doing. I gave a list of reasons why using scrolls was wrong, which should have been immediately apparent anyways (I can use a potion once! That's the same thing as being able to cast it every day! :rolleyes: ), but even after it's explained to you you seem to completely miss it (saying that you were just "on the cheap" instead of "not actually giving the effect." Which of course isn't on the cheap... it just fails). I used the DMG chart to get 110,160 for an item that actually lets you emulate a spell/day like class feature... at -3 caster level and much lower save DC. If you made it full caster level you'd increase one of the multipliers from 17 to 20, making it significantly more expensive. If you wanted to increase the DC to anything like normal levels, it gets much more expensive. If you want to get the number of spells per day a real caster gets, it gets significantly more expensive. Well, the bottom line there is that you can't even *begin* to emulate the caster's class features fully at level 20, while you *can* emulate the Fighter's. Let's see what it costs for you to have one spell known at each level, each castable a number of times equal to the Sorceror with 34 Cha, and with an appropriate caster level. Or add bonus spells. Let's even cut the Fighter a break and not let him have to emulate appropriate DCs. Now then... you get 6 spells per day of each level, 0-9. Everythings CL 20. Now that costs 0.5*20*1800/(5/6)+1*20*1800/(5/6)+2*20*1800/(5/6)+3*20*1800/(5/6)+4*20*1800/(5/6) Etc etc. if I'm doing this right. That adds up to 1,965,600. Now try and add up the price if you want to get the DCs as a cha 34, and more spells known (you can even use reducing costs putting it on the same item). With Bonus Spells per day, the price goes for one spell known goes up to 2,620,800 Now, how is the Fighter's class features costing me 2 million gp for less than half the real benefit? Oh wait, it's not. But the Sorceror is. The reason? Their class features are *worth more*. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-15-07, 02:17 PM | When trying to compare two things normally you try to make as many things the same as possible so that if you know that A is worth a certain amount then getting something as close as possible to that and then examining the differences can give you a decent idea of how B and A relate. The warrior is an npc class, no doubt about that. So what does the fighter have over him? They are both given the same point buy and the same amount of gear, preferably the 'same' gear. That way this part is mostly neutral. Moving on the fighter gets an average of 1 more hp/hd and has up to 11 bonus feats with the [fighter] descriptor. So, that is it really. The warrior and the fighter have, at level 20 about 20 hp difference and 11 fighter bonus feats. Does 20 hp and 11 fighter bonus feats take an NPC class (and frankly the only npc class worse than the warrior is the commoner, the rest are better in my opinion) and turn it into a PC class? Looking at just the core this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#fighterBonusFeats) is the list that the bonus feats are chosen from. So, you are saying there is no reason to have a fighter because he only has these differences compared to a Warrior. Again, we are completely ignoring what the fighter can do and simply making pointless comparisons between him and another class. Perhaps those 11 feats is all it takes to do the job expected of the fighter. It is silly to compare the two and come to any sort of conclusion. You simply cannot decide how well a fighter fights without taking into account how well a fighter fights. The same thing in regards to the 'cost' of feats. So what? You can paint it half a dozen different ways to show how every other class has some sort of class feature/item/feat advantage over the fighter. It will never show that a fighter is incompetent in combat. It will only show that any of you feel the fighter gets the short end of the stick. Again, nothing conclusive in regards to his worth in combat. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-15-07, 02:25 PM | So, you are saying there is no reason to have a fighter because he only has these differences compared to a Warrior. Actually I believe I said that there is no reason to have either one earlier on. Just take the first level fighter feat away from the fighter, reduce his hd to d8, and put him in the npc section. Otherwise the part that you quoted was talking about a comparison between a warrior and a fighter with the same stats and the same gear. The only differences between them are effectively 20hp and 11 fighter bonus feats. If you wish to ignore my comparison go ahead. Please do not misconstrue or declare it to be saying something that it is not. Also, if you feel that comparing two characters whose only differences are 20hp and 11 bonus fighter feats then there is no hope for anyone to make a comparison that would be valid in your eyes as far as I can tell. That is just about as far down to bare bones lack of differences we can get. Much further and we start comparing a guy with the same choices in every possible selection, which I would say is pointless personally. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-15-07, 02:51 PM | Actually I believe I said that there is no reason to have either one earlier on. Just take the first level fighter feat away from the fighter, reduce his hd to d8, and put him in the npc section. Otherwise the part that you quoted was talking about a comparison between a warrior and a fighter with the same stats and the same gear. The only differences between them are effectively 20hp and 11 fighter bonus feats. If you wish to ignore my comparison go ahead. Please do not misconstrue or declare it to be saying something that it is not. I'm not intentionally misconstruing anything. I thought you were saying there is no reaosn to have a fighter because he is similar to a warrior with gear. Also, if you feel that comparing two characters whose only differences are 20hp and 11 bonus fighter feats then there is no hope for anyone to make a comparison that would be valid in your eyes as far as I can tell. That is just about as far down to bare bones lack of differences we can get. Much further and we start comparing a guy with the same choices in every possible selection, which I would say is pointless personally. You are right. No comparison would be valid in my eyes. Because I feel to evaluate the fighter, you should use the CR system. Not compare him to a wizard and say 'You see, the fighter can't do anything at high levels because the wizard can do this.' That is an argument dealing with 'efficiency'. Which is different than an argument stating whether or not a fighter can do something useful in combat. |
| Mnky03-15-07, 03:44 PM | I believe that the warrior was compared with the fighter to illustrate that the fighter's class features (feats) aren't worth much. |
| Kratch03-15-07, 05:06 PM | I believe that the warrior was compared with the fighter to illustrate that the fighter's class features (feats) aren't worth much. Except they didn't address the value of the feats, they simply dismissed them. In order to "illustrate the fighter's class features (feats) aren't worth much", you need to acknowledge those class features, not dismiss them. Thats why i even ackowledged onewingedangles post, because, although he was trivializing the feats, he was still acknowledging them and trying to prove they'e lack of value. |
| Zilvar03-15-07, 05:24 PM | Except they didn't address the value of the feats, they simply dismissed them. In order to "illustrate the fighter's class features (feats) aren't worth much", you need to acknowledge those class features, not dismiss them. Thats why i even ackowledged onewingedangles post, because, although he was trivializing the feats, he was still acknowledging them and trying to prove they'e lack of value.The question being asked is whether or not the value of 11 feats can be dismissed easily. If a warrior can do a fighter's job when decked out in exactly the same gear (make allowances for exotic weapons since no comparison is perfect), then the fighter is little more than the sum-total of his gear choices. It seems to me that the one actual attempt at a comparison showed that a warrior20 was able to pull off about 2/3 of what a fighter20 could pull off. Holding things up on a relative scale, does it seem right and proper that an NPC class with a 1-CR penalty should be able to perform at 2/3 the capacity of a PC class when decked out in the same gear? Can any caster NPC class do that when compared to a caster PC class? Can any expert NPC class? Is 11 feats worth just a 33% difference? Should it be? |
| HellflameArcanite03-15-07, 05:33 PM | Every party needs at least 2 fighters. Clerics and Druids are the classes a party doesn't need. What are you on? Without a cleric, there is no healing. Especially with your suggestion, with TWO melee-ish fighters getting up close and personal, clerics are needed more than ever. |
| FrostHammer03-15-07, 05:42 PM | Do not feed the troll. Olskool is either a troll or not right in the head. |
| Kratch03-15-07, 06:15 PM | The question being asked is whether or not the value of 11 feats can be dismissed easily. If a warrior can do a fighter's job when decked out in exactly the same gear (make allowances for exotic weapons since no comparison is perfect), then the fighter is little more than the sum-total of his gear choices. It seems to me that the one actual attempt at a comparison showed that a warrior20 was able to pull off about 2/3 of what a fighter20 could pull off. Holding things up on a relative scale, does it seem right and proper that an NPC class with a 1-CR penalty should be able to perform at 2/3 the capacity of a PC class when decked out in the same gear? Can any caster NPC class do that when compared to a caster PC class? Can any expert NPC class? Is 11 feats worth just a 33% difference? Should it be? You mean like an adept gets 2/3rd's of the casting potential of a wizard (IE 6 out of 9 spell levels)? You may think i'm trivializing spellcasting, and techinically i am, but no more so then you all are trivializing feats. Because dispite the fact the fighter in the noted example was doing 35-45% (which is more then the 33% your giving credit for), he also had significantly better will saves. a will save reroll, some weapon tricks (mostly from weapon Sup, like the firing when grappled), an extra point of AC, and a feat or two still left over for whatever. and have you ever considered that the warrior, dispite being an NPC class, may be on the upper power level of the NPC class's? it is the most commonnly used (almost always set as the default) class added to NPC opponents. Your trying to prove that a fighter fails because he gets more (certainly a lot more then your giving credit for) then the default class of all monster races in the MM. |
| Treymordin03-15-07, 07:10 PM | Damage Sponge. Tank. Nuff said. |
| OneWinged4ngel03-15-07, 08:54 PM | Damage Sponge. Tank. Nuff said. And what makes you so good at tanking compared to the alternatives? |
| DragonChild_03-15-07, 09:05 PM | Expendability. Duh. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-15-07, 11:15 PM | You are right. No comparison would be valid in my eyes. Because I feel to evaluate the fighter, you should use the CR system. So no comparison would be valid and then you say that you would use the CR system for a comparison? I am still thinking that there is not a comparison of any sort, anywhere which will convince you either way. If the baseline, most easily viewable comparison cannot do it then quite simply nothing at all ever will. |
| Bob Loblaw03-16-07, 12:43 AM | And what makes you so good at tanking compared to the alternatives? I think this is the problem. Very few of us are trying to say the fighter is better. We are saying that the fighter does just fine. The fighter doesn't have to be better than anyone else to not suck. While I do think that he should be better than the cleric at tanking, it does not mean he sucks at it. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-16-07, 01:26 AM | So no comparison would be valid and then you say that you would use the CR system for a comparison? I am still thinking that there is not a comparison of any sort, anywhere which will convince you either way. If the baseline, most easily viewable comparison cannot do it then quite simply nothing at all ever will. Obviously there is a huge difference between what I am suggesting and what you are suggesting Scion. If you weren't trying to make me seem unreasonable, perhaps you would catch it. Using the CR system to evaluate the fighter does not involve comparing the fighter to any other class. It involves pitting the fighter against monsters. This is the big difference I have been advocating. If someone can show me that the fighter consistently fails to do anything to level-appropriate monsters, I will concede the point. On the flip side, I have provided a few builds that I believe demonstrate that a fighter can indeed fight monsters of his level in CR. When you play the game, this is usually what happens: Fighter: I attempt to trip the troll. DM: Roll your touch attack. Fighter: Ok. 17. DM: You hit. Roll your strength check. Fighter: Right. I got a 23. DM: Awesome. The troll rolled a 19. You trip him. And so on and so forth. As opposed to this: Fighter: I attempt to trip the troll. DM: Ok. Cleric, roll your touch attack. Cleric: With all my buffs, my attack roll is 37. DM: Ok. Now roll your strength check. Cleric: Ok. I rolled a 43. DM: Ok. Fighter, you fail your attack roll and strength check on account of the cleric succeeding. Fighter: Huh?? I think this is the problem. Very few of us are trying to say the fighter is better. We are saying that the fighter does just fine. The fighter doesn't have to be better than anyone else to not suck. While I do think that he should be better than the cleric at tanking, it does not mean he sucks at it. Agreed. |
| Leo03-16-07, 07:53 AM | If we take fully buffed casters as the base point, what we'll get is a an endless spiral of power rise untill a badly optimized PC can destroy the universe as a free action. Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 1:"Bah, clerics are much stronger!" Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 2: Okay, so we rise the abilities of the fighter untill they match those of the cleric Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 1: Bah, now my cleric transfroms into a fighter AND buffs himself. Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 2: Okay, rise fighter power again Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 1: Transform and buff again Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 2: Rise fighter power Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 1: Transform and buff Common sense guy: Guys, your characters are now able to split the earth with a finger at lv1. Nonpowergamer roleplayer optimizer master of fallacies 1 and 2: SHUT UP! We're trying to balance the game! |
| Zilvar03-16-07, 09:17 AM | You mean like an adept gets 2/3rd's of the casting potential of a wizard (IE 6 out of 9 spell levels)?This would be a pretty good argument, except for a few niggling points: Adepts only get 5 spell levels, not 6 Adepts have a far more limited spell list Holding true to the spirit of the original 'challenge', the low number of spells per day could roughly match up with having fewer feats, so I'll concede that. Because dispite the fact the fighter in the noted example was doing 35-45% (which is more then the 33% your giving credit for)My bad. I remembered the numbers being about 400 damage vs 600. (...)he also had significantly better will saves. a will save reroll, some weapon tricks (mostly from weapon Sup, like the firing when grappled), an extra point of AC, and a feat or two still left over for whatever. Yes, he did. I think that I'm not presenting myself well here. I'm not trying to say fighters suck because a warrior can do 55% as much damage with the same gear. I'm trying to ask if the disparity of ability between a fighter and a warrior, with the same gear, assuming both are built to a minimal standard (no getting 11 Skill Focus feats, please)), is wide enough to consider that the fighter is really more than just the sum of his gear. Or, alternatively, is the disparity of ability between an Adept and a Wizard just as narrow? In either case, the question of 'gear' can really be answered. For my own $0.05, I think that the disparity is great enough that a fighter is obviously more than the sum of his gear and I wish people would move on to more fruitful arguments :) |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 10:31 AM | Obviously there is a huge difference between what I am suggesting and what you are suggesting Scion. If you weren't trying to make me seem unreasonable, perhaps you would catch it. I am not the one making you seem unreasonable here Khan ;) The CR system is built around the idea of a 4 person party. If a creature is tough enough, skilled enough, magical enough, or whatever then equal CR to the average level of the party will use up roughly 20-25% of the parties resources. If such a creature is put up against a single character then essentially it will be destroyed by the creature unless they happen to be the class that the creature is weak against or the character is incredibly strong in one of a few different ways. Part of the CR system also says that equal CR creatures will have a 50/50 chance effectively. But given that an equal CR to a group is supposed to take out 20-25% of their resources in the vast majority of the cases both cannot be true. As such it is possible to go through a large number of monsters and have the fighter, or even warrior, beat every single one and then declare them to be of good value. Then we can have another test with a large number of monsters and have them lose every single time and so declare them to be of poor value. Which is more accurate? They are both using the CR system as a test after all. But the test I feel that you are being unreasonable on in this case is the warrior and fighter, both with exactly the same gear and stats. We know that the warrior is an npc class, and thereby classified as way below the level of pc classes. If you like we can even go by the CR of the warrior vs the CR of the fighter, which people did a little bit earlier. So either way I think your throwing away of this type of benchmark testing is unreasonable because it is both a good baseline where people can agree (warrior sucks for a pc) and it could even fit with what you were suggesting, assuming that you can get people to agree on what CR the fighter and the warrior are. Using your desired method of CR how many different monsters would need to beat the fighter the majority of the time at the appropriate CR for each for you to be satisfied? I will have some time this weekend to try if the number is low enough. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 10:36 AM | I think this is the problem. Very few of us are trying to say the fighter is better. We are saying that the fighter does just fine. The fighter doesn't have to be better than anyone else to not suck. While I do think that he should be better than the cleric at tanking, it does not mean he sucks at it. If it was proveable to everyones satisfaction that any job that the fighter could do someone else could do it better would that prove that he sucks overall? If not, what would prove that he sucks overall? |
| Khan the Destroyer03-16-07, 10:42 AM | The CR system is built around the idea of a 4 person party. If a creature is tough enough, skilled enough, magical enough, or whatever then equal CR to the average level of the party will use up roughly 20-25% of the parties resources. If such a creature is put up against a single character then essentially it will be destroyed by the creature unless they happen to be the class that the creature is weak against or the character is incredibly strong in one of a few different ways. Part of the CR system also says that equal CR creatures will have a 50/50 chance effectively. But given that an equal CR to a group is supposed to take out 20-25% of their resources in the vast majority of the cases both cannot be true. As such it is possible to go through a large number of monsters and have the fighter, or even warrior, beat every single one and then declare them to be of good value. Then we can have another test with a large number of monsters and have them lose every single time and so declare them to be of poor value. Which is more accurate? They are both using the CR system as a test after all. What I am suggesting is not for the fighter to have to destroy each and every monster by himself. Rather, try to simulate an actual game as much as possible. For instance, one of the monsters suggested was a 10-headed hydra. Were I to run a fighter against it, I would assume a cleric was healing him. I know it may seem more complicated, but to me it seems the closest to the truth. See how the fighter would perform in an actual game. But the test I feel that you are being unreasonable on in this case is the warrior and fighter, both with exactly the same gear and stats. We know that the warrior is an npc class, and thereby classified as way below the level of pc classes. If you like we can even go by the CR of the warrior vs the CR of the fighter, which people did a little bit earlier. So either way I think your throwing away of this type of benchmark testing is unreasonable because it is both a good baseline where people can agree (warrior sucks for a pc) and it could even fit with what you were suggesting, assuming that you can get people to agree on what CR the fighter and the warrior are. I don't agree with this test because in the end it hasn't been shown that a warrior cannot meaningfully contribute as a frontliner in a party. Essentially, we would be assuming that the warrior sucks, and then comparing the fighter to the warrior, and concluding that the fighter sucks because of the similarities. If this isn't the case, I guess I'm confused as to what we're really comparing here. Using your desired method of CR how many different monsters would need to beat the fighter the majority of the time at the appropriate CR for each for you to be satisfied? I will have some time this weekend to try if the number is low enough. I don't know :eek:. But it isn't so much that the monsters would have to *beat* the fighter. That may almost always be a given if the fighter is alone. To me, it is more a matter of if the fighter can hurt it, knock it down, sunder it, etc. If the fighter can do anything to be useful as a frontliner, I think he's doing his job. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 11:03 AM | What I am suggesting is not for the fighter to have to destroy each and every monster by himself. Rather, try to simulate an actual game as much as possible. For instance, one of the monsters suggested was a 10-headed hydra. Were I to run a fighter against it, I would assume a cleric was healing him. I know it may seem more complicated, but to me it seems the closest to the truth. See how the fighter would perform in an actual game. Ok, so use the CR system but not fight anything that the fighter might not be able to beat? I am not sure what you are trying to show here at all then. It is not that the fighter can do anything, or perform up to the CR system, or anything else that I can see. I have seen fighters in an actual game, and typically other than a 1, 2, or 4 level dip they are simply not used. If any alternative way to get where they want to go presents itself the first thing cut are those fighter levels. I don't agree with this test because in the end it hasn't been shown that a warrior cannot meaningfully contribute as a frontliner in a party. You do not agree that the warrior is an npc class and thereby assumed to be weaker than pc classes? Or is it something to do with 'meaningfully contribute' again? That term, as far as I can tell, has no meaning in and of itself. A torchbearer who provides no other skill or combat to the group is meaningfully contributing so long as the party needs that torch, and maybe even if they do not depending on the situation. As such, 'meaningfully contributing' is not something that can be used in any definative way in my eyes and therefore has no place in a topic such as this one. Unless the goal is to never be able to have anyone agree on anything I suppose. If the fighter can do anything to be useful as a frontliner, I think he's doing his job. If you were often in fights for your life would you go for the guy who qualifies for a single job or would you go for the guy who also qualifies for that job and does other jobs as well? Even a blind commoner can be useful as a frontliner. I would not want to have to count on him in the long run though. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-16-07, 11:14 AM | If it was proveable to everyones satisfaction that any job that the fighter could do someone else could do it better would that prove that he sucks overall? Everyone's satisfaction? sure, I don't see that ever happening though. If not, what would prove that he sucks overall? If you could prove that he could not do his job, not that someone can do it better but that he was incapable. If you were often in fights for your life would you go for the guy who qualifies for a single job or would you go for the guy who also qualifies for that job and does other jobs as well? Even a blind commoner can be useful as a frontliner. I would not want to have to count on him in the long run though. That is just it, a blind commoner can't be counted on in the lon run as he wouldn't last more than one fight. |
| Bhaal00603-16-07, 11:18 AM | I'm not sure if you're acting ignorant on purpose to try and dicredit Kahns method or if you really don't understand, the point is whether or not a fighter can do something to contribute in a combat situation, and don't throw that torch bearer BS, because you know thats not what was intened, I'm not seeing where Kahn said "don't throw in anything the fighter might not be able to beat", he doesn't expect the fighter to beat every challenge by himself, he expects the rest of the party to do their part as well, I don't know whay you're stuck on this whole "If the fighter can't kill everything by himself he obviously sucks and should be destroyed." |
| Narvakhan03-16-07, 11:24 AM | Ok, so use the CR system but not fight anything that the fighter might not be able to beat? I am not sure what you are trying to show here at all then. It is not that the fighter can do anything, or perform up to the CR system, or anything else that I can see. I have seen fighters in an actual game, and typically other than a 1, 2, or 4 level dip they are simply not used. If any alternative way to get where they want to go presents itself the first thing cut are those fighter levels. You do not agree that the warrior is an npc class and thereby assumed to be weaker than pc classes? Or is it something to do with 'meaningfully contribute' again? That term, as far as I can tell, has no meaning in and of itself. A torchbearer who provides no other skill or combat to the group is meaningfully contributing so long as the party needs that torch, and maybe even if they do not depending on the situation. As such, 'meaningfully contributing' is not something that can be used in any definative way in my eyes and therefore has no place in a topic such as this one. Unless the goal is to never be able to have anyone agree on anything I suppose. If you were often in fights for your life would you go for the guy who qualifies for a single job or would you go for the guy who also qualifies for that job and does other jobs as well? Even a blind commoner can be useful as a frontliner. I would not want to have to count on him in the long run though. Scion, in the opposite any character that can do anything, (destroy all enemies in a single spell / action) isn't contributing either, simply because everyone else then becomes a lacky. Not the kind of party I want to be in. In all, with all the arguments going back and forth, really come to the same conclusion, imo: any class, albeit weaker than some classes with proper builds can be a contributing member and in the end it comes to the player that plays it. Someone mentioned it earlier, this same argument can be had with rock, paper scissors. Do the fighters have issues: yes Do the casters have issues: yes Is a fighter useless: Only if the player is. Is a fighter usefull: Only if the player is. The last 2 comments can be said of EVERY class. The original post was "Any reason to have a fighter" and the answer to that question is "Yes". Why? Because each class has a place DEPENDING on the person playing it. The reason no end seems to come into play is too many types of people play this game and as such each plays it a different way. For my part, I have actually started a standard fighter for use in a new campaign. I am using core (as is everyone else). I did this so I could actually "live" it and re-aquaint myself with the class. The party consists of several members of the argument (classes, not actual people in the argument), Druid, Fighter, Wizard (non specialized), Rogue. The DM is unaware of our experiment and believes we are simply working some new chars. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-16-07, 11:24 AM | Ok, so use the CR system but not fight anything that the fighter might not be able to beat? Where did I suggest that? I am not sure what you are trying to show here at all then. It is not that the fighter can do anything, or perform up to the CR system, or anything else that I can see. In an actual game, the fighter is not fighting monsters by himself. He is in a party with three other people. Why cut them out? When a fighter tanks, he doesn't do it alone. A CR comparison without the rest of the party is disingenuous. As I said, it would be more complicated that way, but definitely closer to the truth. I have seen fighters in an actual game, and typically other than a 1, 2, or 4 level dip they are simply not used. If any alternative way to get where they want to go presents itself the first thing cut are those fighter levels. This doesn't mean anything, but thank you for sharing. You do not agree that the warrior is an npc class and thereby assumed to be weaker than pc classes? I do agree. I also used the word 'assume'. Or is it something to do with 'meaningfully contribute' again? That term, as far as I can tell, has no meaning in and of itself. A torchbearer who provides no other skill or combat to the group is meaningfully contributing so long as the party needs that torch, and maybe even if they do not depending on the situation. As such, 'meaningfully contributing' is not something that can be used in any definative way in my eyes and therefore has no place in a topic such as this one. Unless the goal is to never be able to have anyone agree on anything I suppose. Well, I'm pretty sure you can gather what I mean, or what anyone else that uses it means. That the fighter can take hits, deal damage, and maneuver his opponents around the battlefield. That he occupies the enemy. A fighter doesn't have to kill the monster every time, or deal the most damage. In other words, whatever the buffed up casters are doing in melee (swinging and hitting or missing) is what the fighter should be doing as well. It's easy to reduce 'meaningfully contribute' into something worth nothing. But then I don't think I'd be the unreasonable one. If you were often in fights for your life would you go for the guy who qualifies for a single job or would you go for the guy who also qualifies for that job and does other jobs as well? Am I playing a D&D game with someone that wants to play a fighter? A fighter can do the job. Period. To argue that someone else can do it and do other things is a completely different argument. Even a blind commoner can be useful as a frontliner. I would not want to have to count on him in the long run though. Please show how a fighter and a blind commoner are equally useful as frontliners. |
| AllisterH03-16-07, 12:02 PM | re: Gear and the NPC warrior class. I think one of the points the anti-fighters are trying to make is that at high levels (anything over level 12 I'd consider high), even with the knowledge that the warrior is supposedly CR-1, it can do a decent job at the same thing as the fighter. For example, give a situation where a fighter is in and while one warrior won't do the job, 2 might actually get the job done. Compare this with say the adept where quite frankly the adept is totally useless in any situation at high levels where the wizard might be. Personally, I'm hoping in 4E they nerf some of those spells above 6th level. Seriously, while we argue about the effectiveness of the fighter, the real problem is those bloody spells. Sp whose with me?:D Down with SPELLS!!!! |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 01:39 PM | Everyone's satisfaction? sure, I don't see that ever happening though. Of course not. People have different expectations and many people on this thread are asking for impossibilities, such as trying to prove that a character can not contribute anything at all. Asking for an acceptable starting place seemed like a good thing to me, but apparently even such a small baseline as that for a place to start is unacceptable. If people cannot even agree on the definition of terms in a discussion then there is no hope of ever doing anything useful. If you could prove that he could not do his job, not that someone can do it better but that he was incapable. Pick a job. If the warrior can do the job as well then what does this mean? If it means nothing then the proof that you are suggesting has no meaning. That is just it, a blind commoner can't be counted on in the lon run as he wouldn't last more than one fight. That was the point. I'm not sure if you're acting ignorant on purpose to try and dicredit Kahns method or if you really don't understand I have actually been trying to get Khan to actually propose a method that will actually prove something. So far it has not worked out very well as his posts come down to, 'as long as the fighter is doing something then he is a-ok' or something similar. He said that he did not want to compare with another class, even though they are incredibly similar. He said that he wanted to compare using CR but that anything of the same CR that the fighter would not be able to face to flee. So far there is nothing testable. Nothing that will show anything one way or the other. That is why people keep bringing up the warrior, or the commoner, or anyone being able to do the same job and more, they are attempting to actually have some structure to the arguement. All I have seen so far is this (hopefully I wont miss anything important): a) the fighter can contribute in some fashion (left ambiguous) b) anyone who can contribute in some fashion does not need to be improved and/or is fine balance wise c) testing with creaters of the appropriate CR to see how the percentages work is a no go d) comparing with other classes who can do similar jobs, or the same job plus more, is immaterial e) asking for a structured arguement is greeted with confusion or hostility I don't know whay you're stuck on this whole "If the fighter can't kill everything by himself he obviously sucks and should be destroyed." Since I have not said that I guess the reason why you do not know why is because you made it up yourself. Where did I suggest that? In the part that I quoted plus the other post that had been in that chain. You wanted to use the CR system but then not use it for some reason. Currently I have no idea what you are even trying to accomplish and I am trying to get more information on it to even try to see where your internal proof lies. Other than, 'he can contribute somehow, somewhere, sometimes and that is good enough' of course. Anyone can do that, so that is not a useful benchmark. In an actual game, the fighter is not fighting monsters by himself. He is in a party with three other people. Why cut them out? When a fighter tanks, he doesn't do it alone. A CR comparison without the rest of the party is disingenuous. Which is why I said that the CR comparison is not helpful. What is the rest of the party doing? What are their builds? Could they get by just as well or better with someone other than the fighter being there? What situations do you pick for them to go against and what monsters are you picking? etc etc etc etc. You cannot get anywhere going that route. Or at least no one has gotten anywhere going that route yet that I have seen in this thread. You are throwing so many variables into the mix that you cannot even hope to have a useful result. Hence, backing up to the basics and working up from there slowly. But you said that you did not want to do it that way and instead want to do it a way that, by definition, cannot get any results that will help this discussion. any class, albeit weaker than some classes with proper builds can be a contributing member and in the end it comes to the player that plays it. In my mind the final question comes down to balancing each option so that each choice is viable along with being able to fill out many different types of archtypes. The fighter currently fails in almost every way in the system. Other classes fail in some ways as well, but the fighter stands way out in the lead. So, being able to contribute 'something' is not the question. Of course everyone can contribute something. You could roleplay a pet rock who had telepathy but no other abilities at all and contribute something, it might even be a great character and have lots of fun doing so. But for the guy who wants to play the pet rock with telepathy I would give that telepathy power equivalent to its level. Early on, not so much, later on it would rock the house! Would the player have fun either way? Likely, since that is the character that they want to play. Would it be better for them, and the group, and the campaign if the choice was a bit more balanced in actual play? I certainly think so. In the same way people could play a warrior and fill whatever roll that they would have while playing the fighter, and still have fun. Would it be better for them, the group, and the campaign for them to have been a full fighter instead? Possibly. He could still play the same character after all, but he would have more options open to him so that would make it more fun by default. Would it have been even better for everyone if he had played a fighterv2 with a few more feats, more skill points, and more skills? I would have to say yes definately, more options means that he can get the abilities that he wants to roleplay. Would it make it unbalanced? That is what I want to find out! Apparently people are against me here though in trying to find things that are balanced, and more flavorful, and even more powerful if it becomes necissary. Would giving fighters more skills, skill points, and feats make them more powerful? Likely a bit yes. Much more so? I doubt it, feats typically do not really work that way, although there are acceptions now. So all in all, unless a point of real comparison can be accepted the discussion cant go anywhere. If you want a party to compare with then you'll have to set a huge amount of conditions and changing any of them might change the result, good luck with that. If you can write it all up and actually make it useful I would love to see it. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-16-07, 01:57 PM | Ok, lets define what a fighter is supposed to be doing in the group then. My opinion: 1. Dealing significant damage to the enemy in combat. 2. Keeping other party members safer by occupying the enemy. Really, I see it as that simple. Any thoughts? |
| snakebliskan03-16-07, 02:04 PM | I dont see how a druid is better than a fighter at low lvls.. 5th lvl and below. Im srry but with the exception of a very few animals like the (ape) most of the animals are going to go down in a very short time in one or 2 rnds now after thats done the druid has wild shaped and buffed himself for one or 2 rnds into any animal... no magical beasts here people, only animals that they are familar with. The best animal I can find is an elephant, now this will be a fighter killer if the druid even knows about them other wise I think the druid is dead.... now when you get to 6th and up then the animal companion starts to get cool bonuses and when that happens then the fighter is most likly dead! |
| snakebliskan03-16-07, 02:04 PM | Ok, lets define what a fighter is supposed to be doing in the group then. My opinion: 1. Dealing significant damage to the enemy in combat. 2. Keeping other party members safer by occupying the enemy. Really, I see it as that simple. Any thoughts? I agree 100%! |
| Bhaal00603-16-07, 02:11 PM | Is Bullrushing a Tarrasque a meaningful contribution, How about disarming a titan, what about tripping an enemy to take them out of the fight, or useing a flying mount to charge an opponent and keeping them occupied, if all those are 'Meaningful Contributions', then I think Kahn has proved his point. As for the whole "fighter Can't kill everything by himself so he's useless.", you may not have said it, but even a 'Blind Commoner' can see thats exactly what you mean when you want the fighter to take out an equal CR all by his lonesome. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 02:23 PM | Ok, lets define what a fighter is supposed to be doing in the group then. My opinion: 1. Dealing significant damage to the enemy in combat. 2. Keeping other party members safer by occupying the enemy. Really, I see it as that simple. Any thoughts? So nothing beyond what pretty much any character can do? For many levels we could simply replace the fighter with a bag of tricks for a character and come out about the same? I agree that the two things that you list are potential tasks for the fighter. Some fighter builds can do significant damage. How does he occupy the enemy other than standing in its way (assuming that he can stand in its way)? If he goes the heavy armor route for a lot of AC he is likely moving slower, so the enemies will have an easier time getting around him to the squishies (squishies like the cleric who has the same AC or higher, comparable hp, and possibly buff spells). If he goes for a lot of damage then he will likely not be using a shield though, so some of that AC drops a bit. I hate to keep coming back to 'who does it better' but if these are the two main, possibly only, goals for the player why not play another class that can do them as well and have other options as well? |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 02:25 PM | As for the whole "fighter Can't kill everything by himself so he's useless.", you may not have said it, but even a 'Blind Commoner' can see thats exactly what you mean when you want the fighter to take out an equal CR all by his lonesome. Obviously you are having issues with your insinuation detector. As you are completely wrong you should have it looked at. |
| Flan03-16-07, 02:39 PM | I hate to keep coming back to 'who does it better' but if these are the two main, possibly only, goals for the player why not play another class that can do them as well and have other options as well? Because other classes don't do it better. But since you won't accept that you'll just have to accept that we know something you don't and are having fun using it. |
| Nephlite03-16-07, 02:40 PM | I dont see how a druid is better than a fighter at low lvls.. 5th lvl and below. Im srry but with the exception of a very few animals like the (ape) most of the animals are going to go down in a very short time in one or 2 rnds now after thats done the druid has wild shaped and buffed himself for one or 2 rnds into any animal... no magical beasts here people, only animals that they are familar with. The best animal I can find is an elephant, now this will be a fighter killer if the druid even knows about them other wise I think the druid is dead.... now when you get to 6th and up then the animal companion starts to get cool bonuses and when that happens then the fighter is most likly dead! Riding dogs have better or equal to AC of a same level Fighter. So any animal that goes down in 2 rounds is also a fighter going down in two levels. |
| Pyke_Moonshadow03-16-07, 02:40 PM | Ok, let me get ultra simple. What are the 2 main goals of any character in combat? 1. Kill the monsters. 2. Help keep everyone else alive. Every class can do these things in some fashion. Some are better at 1 while others are better at 2. The fighter is primarily good at 1. Do others do it better? Is that the question? Well then, if someone doing it better is the basis for usefulness then we need to make 4 new base class archtypes. Cleric, Druid, Wizard and Sorcerer If you are not a primary spellcaster then you are an NPC class. But wait, that isn't really the point. There are 4 base archtypes already: Healer, warrior, skill user and arcanist. Does the fighter fit his archtype? Yes. Is he more effective than the NPC class version of him? Yes. Just like the rogue is better than the expert and the cleric and wizard are better than the adept. What does the fighter have over the other members of his archtype? Feat selection and feat versitility. Can he one shot as much damage as a barbarian, maybe not. Can he spam the enemy with arrows like a ranger? maybe not. Can he reliably do his job in the face of a variety of enemies? Absolutely. |
| Bhaal00603-16-07, 02:42 PM | Regardless of the malfunction with my insinuation detector, do you deny the above listed are not 'Meaningful Contributions'. |
| Bhaal00603-16-07, 02:46 PM | Riding dogs have better or equal to AC of a same level Fighter. So any animal that goes down in 2 rounds is also a fighter going down in two levels. The problem with this is that you have to buy armor for your animal companion, not really a big deal I guess, but last time I checked you still have to buy your own equipment, and your dog can't pull off the same stunts as a fighter, I tthink I already proved that a fighter can easily kill a riding dog in 1 round, but that was a while ago, so I don't blame you for missing it. |
| Bob Loblaw03-16-07, 03:16 PM | Part of the CR system also says that equal CR creatures will have a 50/50 chance effectively. But given that an equal CR to a group is supposed to take out 20-25% of their resources in the vast majority of the cases both cannot be true. This is not really true of the CR system. In all fairness, the CR system is actually for XP determination. You would be much better served by using the Encounter Levels. In addition, while the math may come out showing that you should have a 50/50 shot of defeating something of equal level, that is really unrealistic. The game assumes that there is a team. The cleric can heal while the fighter fights. If the character (any solo character) must take a round just to quaff a healing potion, then the teamwork aspect of the formula was not taken into account and things fall apart. If it was proveable to everyones satisfaction that any job that the fighter could do someone else could do it better would that prove that he sucks overall? If not, what would prove that he sucks overall? Ok, at work there is a pharmacy technician who is better than I am. She is very good at her job. I feel inferior to her. I also know that I am good at my job. I have been nominated more than once for technician of the year. However, just because she is very good, does not make me obsolete. To prove that the fighter sucks, you must prove that he is incapable of doing his job. You cannot show that someone else does it better. That is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether or not he can do what he needs to do. He does not need to do it alone or naked either. He must be able to contribute as part of the fighter, cleric, sorcerer, rogue team that the game assumes. |
| snakebliskan03-16-07, 04:06 PM | Riding dogs have better or equal to AC of a same level Fighter. So any animal that goes down in 2 rounds is also a fighter going down in two levels. lol no way a riding dog has 13 hp one hit np with an AC of 16 are you kidding... there is no way! |
| Bhaal00603-16-07, 04:11 PM | Actually at lvl 1 with 16 str its 2 hits, one from a crossbow, and one from a glaive. |
| Nephlite03-16-07, 04:29 PM | lol no way a riding dog has 13 hp one hit np with an AC of 16 are you kidding... there is no way! Look at level 1 Fighter andLevel Riding dog. Lets say for sake of niceness you have 14 Dex for Fighter (+2 dex to AC). Best armor at level 1 Scale mail or chain mail. You can't afford breastplate much (or used most of gold so no good weapon). So AC: 16/17. If 2hander If shield user: maybe +2 from shield (tower is iffy price range wise). So 18/19. So far so good? HP: 10 + con: to be nice less use say 16 Con. Hps 13. Look same as Riding Dog. Riding Dog AC without armor: 16. Hmm, he only needs Studded Leather to equal Fighter with a shield. 16+3=19. W00t, Riding Dog equaled or exceeded Fighter AC. Now Banded Studded Leagther costs 50 gp. Less than the Fighters armor. It might be all the Druids average starting wealth (are we assuming aveage or max?), but he can't wear much anyway. And he can always use clubs/quarterstaffs/sling since they cost nothing (with rocks). Plus Shillegh makes his quarterstaff/club do 2d6 +1 magic damage. So it is actually okay to go that route. Yeah, things look pretty bad for argument against Riding Dog. |
| Kratch03-16-07, 04:43 PM | As such, 'meaningfully contributing' is not something that can be used in any definative way in my eyes and therefore has no place in a topic such as this one. Unless the goal is to never be able to have anyone agree on anything I suppose. Then what does a class have to provide to the group to be worthy of being allowed to be a member? After all, you're attempting to equate what we define as meaninful contributions, such as bullrushing the terrasque and disarming a titan (among the many other things Khans build was capable of (or even his most recent build)) as on par to holding a torch for light. What does a class need to provide to be worthy? |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 04:45 PM | Because other classes don't do it better. I know that this is tough guys, we are not in each others heads. Hopefully we can at least use what people actually say though. I know that I am trying, I'd appreciate it if others did too ;) Please note flan in the quote you have of mine that I said, 'why not play another class that can do them as well and have other options as well'. The two things on the list were: 1) significant damage 2) keep party members safe by occupying the enemy Since basically everyone can do these two things then I would assume that the choice falls to something else. Maybe you really want to play a guy who has a lot of knowledge(X) and does significant damage and keeps party members safe. Fighter is not a good pick, although Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, or Rogue might just work depending on the knowledge skill you are going for. Does the fighter fit his archtype? Yes. Which archtype are we speaking about right now exactly? Your yes indicates that you have something very specific in mind so I'd like to hear it. Regardless of the malfunction with my insinuation detector, do you deny the above listed are not 'Meaningful Contributions'. I assume that you are talking with me, although I have no real indication here. Do I deny that what you listed are or are not a term that has no useful meaning? How can I? What is the difference between 'meaningful contributions' and 'contributions'? On that scale is there a 'no meaningful contribution' or 'not contributing'? The problem with this is that you have to buy armor for your animal companion I tthink I already proved that a fighter can easily kill a riding dog in 1 round Not in response to my post but I thought I'd say something anyway, I am here after all. Padded armor costs 5gp for the riding dog and 10gp gets it leather. It definately costs money, but those arent too bad money wise. Leather armor makes the riding dogs ac 18 which isnt too shabby. Even with only 16 ac though the riding dog has 13 hp so that sounds like about 2 rounds to kill the dog. With a two handed weapon and a strength of 18 you can knock it to 0 on average damage but getting an 18 really eats into the rest of your stats. In addition, while the math may come out showing that you should have a 50/50 shot of defeating something of equal level, that is really unrealistic. The game assumes that there is a team. Which was part of my point actually. Part of the system does talk about the 50/50 shot, it also talks about the team. The first is essentially incorrect and the second is essentially untestable because of the sheer number of choices for the rest of the group. If we cannot even talk about a single class how can we possibly talk about 4 at once? Ok, at work there is a pharmacy technician ... We are talking about a game here. Life is not fair, that does not mean that the game cannot be as fair as we can humanly make it. Of course if we are going along these lines perhaps the other person took skill focus(pharmacist) while you took toughness. Each have different uses but if you focus on the pharmacist point one is obviously better than the other, although if you start talking about other aspects toughness wins. Neither of these are power feats either, hopefully people will agree with that. To prove that the fighter sucks, you must prove that he is incapable of doing his job. You cannot show that someone else does it better. That is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether or not he can do what he needs to do. It is not irrelevant, but I will avoid that for now. In your eyes to prove that the fighter sucks you have to prove that he cannot do something that anyone can do, even people that normally others would say suck. To me it looks like all you are saying is that no character ever sucks. Great. Run with that. Can we get back to balance discussions now? 'His job' is fairly nebulous anyway. I will refer to my example above about the guy who fulfilles 1 and 2 as well as the fighter but also has knowledge(x). So, if his job was to do 1 and 2 and knowledge(x) the fighter cannot do it nearly as well as the other guy. He could still pick up the skill points cross class so he could do the job at least partially though. But at some point someone just has to look over and tell the guy that he could do the same thing but be able to realize his character better if he would choose a different class. |
| Argaud03-16-07, 04:53 PM | 16+3=19. W00t, Riding Dog equaled or exceeded Fighter AC. Now Banded Studded Leagther costs 50 gp. Less than the Fighters armor. 50 gold is all the Druid's average wealth. But lets give him max wealth so he has 30 gp to buy some gear. 150 gold is all the fighter's average wealth. This is also what costs a riding dog. So giving the fighter max wealth, he will have a riding dog and 90 gp for his own gear. I am taking a scale mail, large wooden shield and a waraxe. The fighter is a dwarf. The fighter takes two crappy feats: dodge and focus: waraxe. The fighter (25 points) has 14 str, 14 dex, 16 con, 13 int, 10 wis, 6 cha. Very typical array for someone that wants to have combat expertise later on. AC 19 vs. dog's 19 hp 13 vs. dog's 13 To hit +4 vs. dog +3 damage 1d10+2 (average 7.5) vs dog 1d6+3 (average 6.5) + trip (+2 vs fighter +6) As you can see the fighter is superior in hitting and damaging even with two of the worst first level feats. And meanwhile the fighter's pet dog obviously eats the druid, since riding dogs are such super-animals and the druid's melee is crappy without wildshape (and druids usually dump str and dex to get high wis with the goal to be shapeshifted 24/7 later). |
| Bhaal00603-16-07, 05:01 PM | Holy F:censored:ing C:censored: Scion, you know what meaningful is, on a scale of 1 to 10 where to you put tripping a collosal monster, on a scale of 1 to 10 where do you put diarming a Huge opponent, on a scale of 1 to 10 where do you ramming a lance through an opponents face for 100's of damage, I know on my scale those rate betwenn 6-8, use your head a little you know what a "Meaningful Contribution" is, you don't need someone else to hold your hand and guide you to the answer. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 05:45 PM | use your head a little you know what a "Meaningful Contribution" is So this term is so obvious that you cannot give a definition for it? A firm definition please, nothing wishy-washy like, 'enough' or 'doing something'. What if you call being able to do more than 100 points of damage in a combat above 10th level meaningful and someone else considerings 50 points of damage being meaningful while yet another wont be satisfied unless you kill at least one thing a round regardless of the damage dealt? Do you see a problem? The term contribute might be easier. If you would rather define what you consider a contribution first and then move on to what a meaningful contribution is that would be even better. |
| Kratch03-16-07, 06:56 PM | So this term is so obvious that you cannot give a definition for it? A firm definition please, nothing wishy-washy like, 'enough' or 'doing something'. What if you call being able to do more than 100 points of damage in a combat above 10th level meaningful and someone else considerings 50 points of damage being meaningful while yet another wont be satisfied unless you kill at least one thing a round regardless of the damage dealt? Do you see a problem? The term contribute might be easier. If you would rather define what you consider a contribution first and then move on to what a meaningful contribution is that would be even better. Except you've managed to shoot down everyones examples of a contribution by trivalizing it into the equivelent of a commoner holding a torch. Instead of having us keep guessing at what you think a meaningful contribution is, then telling us we're wrong, why don't you just define it, so that we can then prove the fighter meats your conditions. As it stands now, your telling us to prove the fighter can provide to a group, what won't tell us what we need to provide to make it acceptable, and appear to keep changing your expectations whenever we show the fighter can provide to a group. So i will ask you again, and hopefully this time i won't be ignored: Then what does a class have to provide to the group to be worthy of being allowed to be a member? After all, you're attempting to equate what we define as meaninful contributions, such as bullrushing the terrasque and disarming a titan (among the many other things Khans build was capable of (or even his most recent build)) as on par to holding a torch for light. What does a class need to provide to be worthy? |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 07:11 PM | Except you've managed to shoot down everyones examples of a contribution by trivalizing it into the equivelent of a commoner holding a torch. Commoner holding a torch is a guy contributing. So, if the only thing you care about is contribution then the commoner is a good example. If you feel that it isnt for some reason then feel free to give a better definition for contributing. I have already said that I do not think meaningful contribution means anything. It is a term that could mean anything (contribute? that means that they are doing something) along with an embellishing word which does not really change the meaning, it only makes it sound more important. I have also already tried to have a valid comparison starting point to build off of, but that was shot down. Now we are trying to figure out what people even mean when they say meaningful contribution but they apparently just cannot do so, even going so far as to say it is so obvious that they dont have to give a definition. So i will ask you again, and hopefully this time i won't be ignored What does someone need to be allowed to be a member? People who will let them be a member. I am going for balance in choices. If someone wants to play a pet rock with no actions or abilities and the rest of the group is happy with that, more power to them. If they want to actually play something that will be balanced with the rest of the group then I can help. Some people are apparently on the boat of, 'if he is doing something at all, he is good to go'. That is fine for them, I am on a different boat of trying to make sure that everyone has good choices to make and is reasonably well balanced. To that end I feel that the fighter needs more feats, more skills, and more skill points. Otherwise, take off his first level feat, reduce his hd to a d8, and call him an npc class. |
| Kratch03-16-07, 08:15 PM | Commoner holding a torch is a guy contributing. So, if the only thing you care about is contribution then the commoner is a good example. If you feel that it isnt for some reason then feel free to give a better definition for contributing. So, if someone said they were going to give you a meaningful contribution of they're lottery winnings, you would see a single dollar and 3 million dollars as equal? cause thats what your trying to do. your skirting around the word contribution like a politician rather then actually trying to understand what people are saying. I have already said that I do not think meaningful contribution means anything. It is a term that could mean anything (contribute? that means that they are doing something) along with an embellishing word which does not really change the meaning, it only makes it sound more important. then what terms would you use. your trying to leave everything on the pro-fighters side so that you can then dance around it. I have also already tried to have a valid comparison starting point to build off of, but that was shot down. Now we are trying to figure out what people even mean when they say meaningful contribution but they apparently just cannot do so, even going so far as to say it is so obvious that they dont have to give a definition. Well, people have defined examples of meaningful contributions, but you have ignored them in favour of believing anything equal to or more then holding a torch is a meaningful contribution. What does someone need to be allowed to be a member? People who will let them be a member. never asked what they "need to be", i asked what they need to provide to the group. But you seem more interested in playing word games then actually debating. You seem to think by not saying anything concrete, that you then can't be held to what you say, and your right. but if you keep dancing around the debate rather then addressing it, you will quickly lose the interest of those reading your posts. I am going for balance in choices. If someone wants to play a pet rock with no actions or abilities and the rest of the group is happy with that, more power to them. If they want to actually play something that will be balanced with the rest of the group then I can help. Here we go. What does a class need to provide/do in order for you to consider them "balanced with the rest of the party"? and please note, i'm saying "a class", not specifically a fighter. Some people are apparently on the boat of, 'if he is doing something at all, he is good to go'. That is fine for them, I am on a different boat of trying to make sure that everyone has good choices to make and is reasonably well balanced. based on the examples provided when they say "meaningful contribution", they are refering to more then just doing anything. Your are simply applying the least benifical interpretation of the word "contribution" and ignoring the clear intent, then claiming that is what we are using as proof. What kind of choices? how many choices are required? must all choices be relevent at all times? Define "reasonably well balanced (thats even more ambiguous then "meaningful contribution". What does it take for you to considered a class to be "reasonably well balanced"? To that end I feel that the fighter needs more feats, more skills, and more skill points. Otherwise, take off his first level feat, reduce his hd to a d8, and call him an npc class. None of us debating in favour of the fighter have claimed it doesn't need work. I'm all for giving him more skills and skill points (most pro-fighters are). However, many anti-fighters will go so far as to say even with what your saying they need, fighters still aren't worth playing (some will then go on to say "over other class's like barbarians, ...etc"). The fighter needs work, but he is not so weak that he is unplayable. He is not so underpowered that there is no "reason to have a fighter" as per the name of this thread. |
| Flan03-16-07, 09:37 PM | Please note flan in the quote you have of mine that I said, 'why not play another class that can do them as well and have other options as well'. No other class can do what the fighter can do. At least not as well. Nothing has the flexibility in combat a fighter has. If we want to talk about underpowered classes I'd have to point my finger at the wizard. The cleric can do everything the wizard can do, plus heal and raise and turn, they have an equipment advantage since they don't have to buy spells, they get more HPs, better armor, domain powers, they can spontaneously convert spells, 50% better BAB, 2 good saves instead of 1, the most spells per day beating the wizard by 16 extra spells by level 20. I mean seriously, you have to be nuts to play a wizard when you can play a cleric instead. :cool: |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 10:00 PM | So, if someone said they were going to give you a meaningful contribution of they're lottery winnings, you would see a single dollar and 3 million dollars as equal? No, of course not, that is not even close to what I said. But, if you consider a meaningful contribution to be 3 million dollars and someone else sees a meaningful contribution to be 20 dollars and they say that they will give you a meaningful contribution, hand you a 20, and then are confused when you tell them that 20 is not a meaninful contribution who is at fault? I am trying to at least get a solid definition in and no one is giving that. A contribution could be anything, hence the comments about the commoner. Of course it is a minimization of the word, that is the point! If you do not like that level of it then set it somewhere higher. If you do not then the commoner is completely valid. So set the bar higher if you want it higher. Otherwise if the bar is set to 'anything' then the commoner torchbearer fits in just fine. Well, people have defined examples of meaningful contributions, but you have ignored them in favour of believing anything equal to or more then holding a torch is a meaningful contribution. Now you are mixing and matching the terms again, that is no good. It definately further reinforces the need for a definition for the term, otherwise it is meaningless. If you all want to use the terms but then complain when people point out that the terms are fluid enough to mean just about anything.. well.. I am not sure what to tell you. I want to do benchmark tests. X is better/worse than Y in situation Z. Better/worse are good terms. When X does Y he is contributing. Yes, I am sure that he is, but what is your point? Is that good or bad? Is it a waste of everyones time or does it rock the house with its power? When X does Z he is meaningfully contributing. Is that better than contributing? the same? worse? Is that good or bad? Is it a waste of everyones time or does it rock the house with its power? I can get a handle for when people are good at something relative to something else or in general when enough positions are defined to get that broad of a scope. Contributing and meaningful contributing are not even on that spectrum. They are completely subjective terms with little to no boundaries shared between people. As such, if you want to use them, define them! i asked what they need to provide to the group. What they need to provide to the group for what? To be part of the group? Whatever they decide is appropriate. The question has no bearing on the balance of the choices however. The group could accept anything at all, balanced or not, but I am working with overall balance, something that may or may not be important to the group dynamic in question. I have been in groups where anything and everything goes, some where it is a very strict regiment military aspect, and others where everyone was expected to fall within a certain range of power level. Balance between choices is not the same as being accepted by a group in all cases. But you seem more interested in playing word games then actually debating. Debates have some sort of structure. They deliberate over a point showing each side. I have been trying to give this debate some structure to actually make it into a debate. Instead it is still just argueing. No one is using the same terms to mean the same thing, everyone has different benchmarks, and no test will satisfy any number of the sides. There is no groundwork here except what is written in the books and people talking past one another. So, I would like to debate, it is too bad there are so few people on this board which can actually do so in a reasonable fashion. Here we go. What does a class need to provide/do in order for you to consider them "balanced with the rest of the party"? and please note, i'm saying "a class", not specifically a fighter. Well, if we are going by the undefined terms in this thread then he would have to be a meaningful contributer in a large enough amount of the cases to warrant being a good choice for the party of people to make to further their goals. There you go, you apparently know what these terms mean even though they are not well defined. Hope that helps you out. based on the examples provided when they say "meaningful contribution", they are refering to more then just doing anything. Your are simply applying the least benifical interpretation of the word "contribution" and ignoring the clear intent, then claiming that is what we are using as proof. Of course my minimal example is designed to make people realize there there must be a baseline somewhere below which it is no longer considered contributing. Meaningful contributing is apparently above this somewhere, somehow. As I am not sure how to set a maximum the base would appear to be a good place to start. Would you prefer an upper limit? I am guessing that meaningful contributing does not have one though.. is killing a god in one round with all four arms tied behind your back too good for a meaningful contribution? Looking at the lower level again, if you would like a more reasonable lower limit than the commoner (assuming that the commoner is unreasonable) then lets go back and look at the warrior again. Warrior or fighter, which do you choose for your party? The player is willing to play either, both would support his character concept, which should he choose to play? would you try to push him to make one choice over another? Why for each of them of course. Next we have a character with a concept and a half dozen different classes would work for it, one way or another. Which class do you recommend that they take and why? For myself, I would tell the first guy to play the fighter over the warrior. He would get more options and be able to round out how he wanted his character to be easier. For the second guy I would pick whichever fit the concept the best, which is all of them for this example, and then recommend which would help out the party the most after that. If the 6 classes are all core and one of them is the fighter most likely I would put it at the bottom of the pile of the 6 and if the extra feats were absolutely needed and the noncore options that would get around this were not available then I would say definately no more than 2 levels of fighter. The fighter gets essentially no skills and the bonus fighter feat is ok if you are going that way but that is all, it is a means to an end if forced but you are giving up a lot for that feat. What kind of choices? how many choices are required? must all choices be relevent at all times? Define "reasonably well balanced (thats even more ambiguous then "meaningful contribution". What does it take for you to considered a class to be "reasonably well balanced"? All choices cannot be relevant at all times, it is impossible. Reasonably well balanced to each other in this case would of course be referencing my own internal guage of balance. But of course at least balanced is relative to something, in this case being able to overcome appropriate challenges. Not every class will be able to overcome every challenge, so it cannot be completely balanced. But if we have situations X, Y, and Z as the only situations possible and three classes A, B, C, and D then we can have something like this: A: X(Great), Y(good), Z(poor) B: X(good), Y(Great), Z(Poor) C: X(poor), Y(good), Z(Great) D: X(good), Y(good), Z(good) If great, good, and poor are worth 3, 2, and 1 points respectively then each of these classes are 6 points. Now we bring in the fighter. I will suddenly apply some values to things. Fighter: combat(great), skills(poor), everythingelse(poor) This is of course extremely rough. I am proposing adding more feats (wont change the combat section, a few more feats will give him more options and hopefully more chances to round out the weaknesses but not really increase his big badness potential) and more skills (moving it up to the good category). For this, again extremely rough, example npc classes would get a good and two poors I think. The warrior would be combat(good), skills(poor), everythingelse(poor). Although that good is only because it is the best of the npc classes. None of us debating in favour of the fighter have claimed it doesn't need work. So I am saying that the fighter would be fine if you add more on to it and you are argueing that the fighter is fine now he just needs more? See why there is a need to define terms? The fighter needs more skills to be better at helping the party, to have something to do outside of combat, and to fill more niches (general perhaps? town guard even?? leader of the 'watch'? good luck with that last one with the fighter as written). Typically feat chains only go up so far and require being a certain level or higher. Adding in extra feats does not change that, it simply allows the fighter to have a few more options. If these feats were from a different sort of list I would be ok with that too (toughness, iron will, diehard, skill focus, and a bunch of others like that). As it is though? Instead of looking forward to taking levels of fighter it is usually better to go out of your way to avoid taking the hit for the sole benefit of picking a feat from the fighter list. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-16-07, 10:09 PM | No other class can do what the fighter can do. Well, the fighter 'fights'. He has a combat role that is to use a weapon of some sort and deal punishment to the enemy. I would have to say that nearly 'every' class can do that. If you mean the feats then your comment is not true either actually. There are a lot of feats or abilities that are better than feats out there that are gained. If you mean the selection of feats I would have to say no again. Psychic warrior gets a bonus feat at first and second level, they are from the fighter list or a feat with the [psionic] descriptor. Nothing has the flexibility in combat a fighter has. Considering the feats, classes, spells, and other options I have to disagree here as well. If we want to talk about underpowered classes I'd have to point my finger at the wizard. The cleric can do everything the wizard can do, plus heal and raise and turn, they have an equipment advantage since they don't have to buy spells, they get more HPs, better armor, domain powers, they can spontaneously convert spells, 50% better BAB, 2 good saves instead of 1, the most spells per day beating the wizard by 16 extra spells by level 20. I mean seriously, you have to be nuts to play a wizard when you can play a cleric instead. True. I have my own fixes for the wizard, cleric, and druid in my own game. Some would call them nerfs and bonuses, at the same time. They become weaker in some ways and stronger in others. But then I also give fighters more feats and skills and skill points. No one has taken the new and improved fighter yet though, but that campaign made it to 7th and then went on haitus as everyones schedules changed and one guy left town. Oh wait.. no, one guy took 1 level in barbarian, 5 levels in fighter, and then 1 more level in barbarian. He also declared himself to be permanently illiterate and had gained spider climb at will, was a halfling, and liked to rage and use his sling. That guy was great! ;) |
| Kratch03-17-07, 12:32 AM | I am trying to at least get a solid definition in and no one is giving that. A contribution could be anything, hence the comments about the commoner. Of course it is a minimization of the word, that is the point! If you do not like that level of it then set it somewhere higher. If you do not then the commoner is completely valid. It is your very point that the term "contribution" can not be defined, so the only method to give substance to the term is to give examples of what one would define as a meaningful contribution. That has been done by several. You then eqate that example as the same as holding a torch to once again confuse the issue. If we define bull rushing the terrasque and disarming a titan of examples of a meaningful contribution, then we are defineing the term through example. Sometimes, you require the use of examples, and so long as the one your defineing it to can understand your examples (and unless you have never read the stats on a titan, or don't see a purpose to disarming one, you should understand that is an example of a meaningful contribution, with holding a torch being an example of not a contribution), you then can begin to set a baseline, within a margin, of how we define it. However, when you choose to set our example as equal to each other, you are rejecting our attempt to set a baseline, the very thing you are demanding. So set the bar higher if you want it higher. Otherwise if the bar is set to 'anything' then the commoner torchbearer fits in just fine. Now you are mixing and matching the terms again, that is no good. It definately further reinforces the need for a definition for the term, otherwise it is meaningless. We did. you dismissed the attempt, re-equating our example of a higher bar as equal to the bar your already setting. if you consider holding a torch as a meaningful contribution (which we do not), and you consider disarming a titan as a meaningful contribution as well (which we do), then it is not use who needs to define "meaningful contribution", it is you. Useing the same examples as yourself, we have defined what fits within and what does not, It is not a particularly clear definition, but it does set limits. by lumping them all together, you are dismissing the limits we have set and leaving the term, once again, undefined. If you all want to use the terms but then complain when people point out that the terms are fluid enough to mean just about anything.. well.. I am not sure what to tell you. If you expect us to define such a fluid term, but chose to ignore the examples we use to define it, i also don't know what to say. I want to do benchmark tests. X is better/worse than Y in situation Z. Better/worse are good terms. Who determines whats better/worst? What critteria are used to determine wether something is better/worst then another? To what extent does something need to be better/worst to be considered better/worst enough to count (IE is 3,000,000,000.00001 better then 3,000,000,000? or are they too close to matter?) Better/worst are as subjective as "meaningful contribution". I can get a handle for when people are good at something relative to something else or in general when enough positions are defined to get that broad of a scope. A fighter is "better" (your term) when compared to a warrior. Does that qualify as a "reason to have a fighter?" The fighter at combat, when compared to a barbarian. Does that qualify as a "reason to have a fighter?" What they need to provide to the group for what? To be part of the group? Whatever they decide is appropriate. Consider the context of the "argument" (IE, the thread name). "what does a class need to provide to a group" to provide a reason to have one? The question has no bearing on the balance of the choices however. The group could accept anything at all, balanced or not, but I am working with overall balance, something that may or may not be important to the group dynamic in question. I have been in groups where anything and everything goes, some where it is a very strict regiment military aspect, and others where everyone was expected to fall within a certain range of power level. Define Balance. Balance between choices is not the same as being accepted by a group in all cases. what is "balance between choices" supposed to mean? you mean like, haveing a choice to trip when tripping is an option, or having the choice to disarm when thats an options, and if ones not an option, haveing the choice to do the other, or if nether is an option, haveing the choice to bullrush the opponent away? or having the choice to forgo all those choices to provide damage?, or the choice to fight defensively should it be needed, or the choice to sacrific defence for extra offence if thats what is required? should i continue, or are there enough choices to balance each other out (presuming i'm using balance in the same maner you are)? Is having a different choice when one choice is insufficient the form of balance you want? I have been trying to give this debate some structure to actually make it into a debate. Instead it is still just argueing. No one is using the same terms to mean the same thing, everyone has different benchmarks, and no test will satisfy any number of the sides. There is no groundwork here except what is written in the books and people talking past one another. If you truely wanted to add strucure to the debate, you would have stepped forward and defined the terms yourself, instead you simply attempt to confuse the issues. Well, if we are going by the undefined terms in this thread then he would have to be a meaningful contributer in a large enough amount of the cases to warrant being a good choice for the party of people to make to further their goals. So, you want to put some structure into this debate, yet, when i ask you to define your own terms, you choose to use terms you clearly see as indefined, thus making your own definition undefined. AKA useless. What do you consider to be a "meaningful contribution in a large enough amount"? If you want to explain yourself with our words that you consider to be undefined them, then you are as responsable to define the term as we are. We have used examples in an attempt to define it, but that has been illrecieved by you. So perhaps, if you would care to show us how you define "meaningful contribution", we may be able to then use a like method to define how we see it. There you go, you apparently know what these terms mean even though they are not well defined. Hope that helps you out. "There you go" nothing. Without knowing how you define meaningfull contribution, let alone meaningful contribution in a large enough amount (how large is enough?), your definition is as meaningless as you claim ours to be. The only difference is, we've given examples of what we mean where as you have simply lumed anything into the same catagory. As I am not sure how to set a maximum the base would appear to be a good place to start. Would you prefer an upper limit? I am guessing that meaningful contributing does not have one though.. is killing a god in one round with all four arms tied behind your back too good for a meaningful contribution? That would be beyond a meaningful contribution. So now you have a limited baseline. Holding a torch is not a meaningful contribution (if can barely even be considered a contribution.), Killing a god (not just an avatar) in a single round with or without all arms tied behind your back is beyond a meaningful contribution, while consistantly (more then 75% of the time) being cappable of performing a particular actions on some of the opponents most resistant to those actions (IE being adept enough to disarm a titan and bullrush a terrasque) fits within meaningful. The fighter gets essentially no skills and the bonus fighter feat is ok if you are going that way but that is all, it is a means to an end if forced but you are giving up a lot for that feat. feats are OK? by who's standard? could they not be significant to someone other then yourself? isn't how ok feats are or aren't a rather subjective way to judge wether there is "any reason to have a class?" Reasonably well balanced to each other in this case would of course be referencing my own internal guage of balance. But of course at least balanced is relative to something, in this case being able to overcome appropriate challenges. Meaningful contribution is also relative to something, it is relative to our internal gauges (much like your definition of blance), to which we have gien examples in order to allow others to attempt to match our gauge. Although you have told us upon what your internal gauge is based, you still haven't defined it for us. To what degree must one overcome a challange (must he be able to solo it, or simply to participate in it's defeat?) what is an appropriate challange (one of equal CR, equal EL or one that is simply close? Is an appropriate challange one tailored for the combatant or against it? or somewhere in between)? Must they be able to overcome all such challanges or mearly some of them if so, how many are enough?)? Not every class will be able to overcome every challenge, so it cannot be completely balanced. But if we have situations X, Y, and Z as the only situations possible and three classes A, B, C, and D then we can have something like this: A: X(Great), Y(good), Z(poor) B: X(good), Y(Great), Z(Poor) C: X(poor), Y(good), Z(Great) D: X(good), Y(good), Z(good) Who defines the levels? could it not become a degree between 1-10? What about Very poor, poor, bellow average, average, good, very good and great? If great, good, and poor are worth 3, 2, and 1 points respectively then each of these classes are 6 points. Now we bring in the fighter. I will suddenly apply some values to things. Fighter: combat(great), skills(poor), everythingelse(poor) Who defines the catagories? What if we were to look at it as offence, defence and outside combat? (after all, most encounters will involve combat), we then get great, great and poor. The fighter is now at a score of 7, which is above your skill of 6. Whats involved in "everything else"? Or a sorcerer, fit into your criteria is great (or good or poor depending on spell choice), poor (How does one define if they are poor? number of skill points and skill choices? or does each skill have a value, who sets that value, etc etc etc.) and poor (or good or great depending on spell choices. but generally, one must sacrific in combat to garrner any degree of "everything else" (a rather vague term for someone wanting structure and clarity in this debate) and vice versa). would that not put his score at the same as a fighters? does that mean a sorcerer is on equal power to a fighter? This is of course extremely rough. I am proposing adding more feats (wont change the combat section, a few more feats will give him more options and hopefully more chances to round out the weaknesses but not really increase his big badness potential) and more skills (moving it up to the good category). What is required to fit into each catagory, is 2 skill points and 2 additional skill choices enough to bump a barbarian from poor to average? what about a sorcerer or wizards skills, do those fit in poor or average? For this, again extremely rough, example npc classes would get a good and two poors I think. The warrior would be combat(good), skills(poor), everythingelse(poor). Although that good is only because it is the best of the npc classes. Actually, adept would likely get good in skills and everything else (depending on what that means) and poor in only combat. Does that mean they are equal to a sorcerer then? So I am saying that the fighter would be fine if you add more on to it and you are argueing that the fighter is fine now he just needs more? See why there is a need to define terms? I'm admitting the fighter could certainly use more. However, there are many in this "argument" that say, even with your "fix's" a fighter still sucks and is unworthy of a position in a group. Yes, i have often asked anti-fighters to define "suck", "contributes nothing", amoung many other terms and phrases (including "relatively balanced"). terms should be defined on both sides. Typically feat chains only go up so far and require being a certain level or higher. Adding in extra feats does not change that, it simply allows the fighter to have a few more options. If these feats were from a different sort of list I would be ok with that too (toughness, iron will, diehard, skill focus, and a bunch of others like that). Far too many of the fighter detractors say feats aren't of any value at all, thus more feats (some even say all feats simultaniously) would do nothing to improve the fighter. As it is though? Instead of looking forward to taking levels of fighter it is usually better to go out of your way to avoid taking the hit for the sole benefit of picking a feat from the fighter list. that is subjective. I know many players who have stayed fighters to make use of the large number of feats available. Many of the builds offered on this (and similar threads) have been quite "good" (your term) and required all 11 bonus feats (sometimes only 10, with a filler feat at 20). I don't know anyone (other then the fighter detractors) who "go out of your way to avoid taking the hit for the sole benefit of picking a feat from the fighter list". |
| Bob Loblaw03-17-07, 01:20 AM | Which was part of my point actually. Part of the system does talk about the 50/50 shot, it also talks about the team. The first is essentially incorrect and the second is essentially untestable because of the sheer number of choices for the rest of the group. If we cannot even talk about a single class how can we possibly talk about 4 at once? I was trying to find this but was unable to. Could you please cite the source for me. I know that some of the information is spread out and I may have simply missed it. I would like to read it in detail. We are talking about a game here. Life is not fair, that does not mean that the game cannot be as fair as we can humanly make it. Who said anything about fair? I was giving an example of two people good at something, just someone is better. Nothing about fair came up. Of course if we are going along these lines perhaps the other person took skill focus(pharmacist) while you took toughness. Each have different uses but if you focus on the pharmacist point one is obviously better than the other, although if you start talking about other aspects toughness wins. Neither of these are power feats either, hopefully people will agree with that. So since I took Toughness, do I suck as a technician? This is the argument the anti-fighters are making. They are saying that since someone else is better, then I must suck. There is no middle ground. There is no way for someone to be almost as good. There is no way for someone to be 75% as good. In fact, they have made it very clear that if the cleric is better then the fighter sucks. It is not irrelevant, but I will avoid that for now. In your eyes to prove that the fighter sucks you have to prove that he cannot do something that anyone can do, even people that normally others would say suck. That's not what I said. What I said was the you have to prove that the fighter cannot do his job. What someone else can do is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the fighter can do. The argument is whether or not the fighter can do his job. Any other discussion is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the cleric, druid, bard, or riding dog is better. The only thing that matters is the fighter. To me it looks like all you are saying is that no character ever sucks. Great. Run with that. Can we get back to balance discussions now? Not what I said. First, I do think the fighter should get a power up. That doesn't mean that I don't think he can't function. I think he should have class abilities that enhance his feats. I think he should have more skill points (I feel this way about the cleric and wizard too). I think he should have more skills. None of this matters on whether or not he can do his job at this moment in time. I just think he could do it better with some changes. Also, I would like to point out that the term "meaningful contribution" needs to be defined by the anti-fighter crowd since they are the ones who brought it up originally. They are the ones saying the fighter can't contribute. It has been shown at least a dozen times in this thread alone that they can, both in and out of combat. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 01:53 AM | Wow. Scion... I don't get it. It seems like you're deliberately being coy. I can understand us not being on the same page because we disagree on the issue, but it's as if you're in a different book. I will stop using the term 'meaningfully contribute' and instead just list the very specific examples of what any fighter I build can do. Using the three builds I have linked to earlier, those fighters can: 1. Disarm a creature of his Huge weapon (and therefore, most likely disarm smaller creatures of their smaller weapons more easily). 2. Bull Rush the Tarrasque, a colossal creature with 45 strength (and therefore, bull rush smaller, weaker creatures more easily). 3. Deal almost 200 points of damage on a charge. 4. Deal 150 points of damage on a full attack with his bow. 5. Sunder weapons. 6. Regular stuff, like attacking normally (am I asking for trouble by using the term 'normally' without defining it?) If you consider those things to be on par with bearing a torch, so be it. I can truly understand the contribution of bearing a torch into battle, specifically if your party cannot see in the dark. But I think you are being very unreasonable here. I cannot define the term 'meaningful contribution'. I honestly thought it would be intuitive since it's been used many times. But I also think it's a non-issue. I'll make it a point to not use it. Rather, if I post more builds, I'll list its strengths, and everyone else can decide if it's up to snuff. As far as comparing the fighter to the warrior, I don't know how else to explain my point of view to you. I've said it a dozen times over all of these threads, and other people have said it as well. Showing that someone else can do something better than you does not mean you can not do that same thing well. For this reason alone, a comparison between the warrior and the fighter would be meaningless in an effort to determine a fighter's competence in combat. And I know that using the CR system would involve a lot of variables. I said it would be complicated. But in all honesty, it would be the only way to truly show if a fighter can frontline or not. I don't think anyone is up for it, which is fine. But no one will be proving anything by comparing the fighter to every other class and declaring him underpowered. That argument is fallacious. As I stated in my example with the DM and the fighter, when the fighter attempts to fight a monster, the DM has the fighter roll to determine whether he succeeds or fails. The DM does not check with the cleric to see if the cleric succeeds or fails to determine the fighter's success. That is the equivalent of what you and so many other people propose. Using the merits fo another class to judge the fighter. Bob Loblaw's example in regards to the pharmacist is spot on. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 02:21 AM | Here's a twist on the archer concept: Human Fighter 20 1. Weapon Focus (Longbow), Two-Weapon Fighting, Point Blank Shot 2. Precise Shot 3. Rapid Shot 4. Weapon Specialization (Longbow) 6. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Buckler Defense 8. Ranged Weapon Mastery (Piercing) 9. Melee Weapon Mastery (Bludgeoning) 10. Greater Weapon Focus (Longbow) 12. Greater Weapon Specialization (Longbow), Greater Two-Weapon Fighting 14. Crushing Strike 15. Pulverize Foe 16. Two-Weapon Rend 18. Weapon Supremacy (Longbow), Improved Precise Shot 20. Far Shot The Elvencraft Longbow is in Races of the Wild. It functions both as a longbow and as a quarterstaff. So you can master it as both a ranged weapon and a melee weapon. This build focuses on archery, but when the enemies close in, you are also a two-weapon fighter. Crushing Strike grants a cumulative +1 bonus to attack rolls for that turn each time you land a hit with your bludgeoning weapon. Pulverize Foe deals an extra 1d6 damage with each attack after the first one that hits (it is in Champions of Ruin). For full attacks with your bow or quarterstaff, the Weapon Focus chain is a huge boon with the bonuses to attack and damage. Weapon Supremacy also helps most of your attacks succeed with the option to take 10 on one attack and add +5 to another. (Essentially, the Weapon Focus chain negates the penalty for two-weapon fighting and adds another +2. Crushing Strike makes your chances to hit on a full attack even better with your quarterstaff.) This build isn't as versatile as some other builds in the sense that it does not focus on manuevering the enemy around. But I think it's a neat concept. Another interesting point is that you can switch between ranged and melee before each attack. Improved Buckler Defense is obviously there for defensive reasons. But in all honesty, I couldn't think of other feats :). Perhaps Manyshot... EDIT: At the end of this... you have: A total +4 attack and +6 damage on your longbow attacks, with 5 attacks at 16th level using Rapid Shot. Those bonuses go up to +5 and +7 respectively when within 30 feet of your enemy. The range of your shots is 130 feet (195 feet at level 20 with Far Shot). If all 5 attacks hit, you are dealing an average of 50 damage before strength (on a composite bow) and weapon enhancements (for instance, a +5 bow would deal another 25 points of damage on a full attack, for a total of 75 damage). With your quarterstaff, you also have a total of +4 to attack and +6 to damage. At 16th level, you have a total of 7 attacks when two-weapon fighting. If all seven attacks hit, you deal an average damage of 81 before strength and weapon enhancements (that's 3 base, plus 6 weapon focus chain, plus 1d6 on 6 of those 7 attacks from Pulverize Foe). If each attack hits, your base to-hit would look like this: +20/+21/+17/+18/+14/+15/+11. Use Weapon Supremacy to turn that last attack from +11 to +16. After adding weapon enhancements, your strength modifier, and your weapon focus bonuses, you should be able to hit most AC's in the MM easily (if not all). I think this guy is a very capable damage dealer. Ignoring him to target someone else invites 5 attacks for a lot of damage, or if the creature is still in melee range, 7 attacks for even more damage. |
| Scion of Coldshard03-17-07, 02:59 AM | Too much backtracking of people in this thread and a whole lot of nonsense. There is some good stuff in there too, but I am too tired to go around yet again trying to dig it out while pushing aside the piles of bad. Good job guys. The fighter is the bastion of all that is holy, or unholy, who knows, we certainly havent set anything useful down. He can meaningfully contribute with the best of something somewhere or whomever, whatever that means, but it certainly fits with the rest of the thread. Maybe in the next thread some actual goals can be set, it looks like most of the people here are mostly just not willing to do so or are trying to set goals in ethereal concepts. Very unfortunate. |
| Archangel6203-17-07, 02:59 AM | Here's a twist on the archer concept: Human Fighter 20 1. Weapon Focus (Elvencraft Longbow), Two-Weapon Fighting, Point Blank Shot 2. Precise Shot 3. Rapid Shot 4. Weapon Specialization (Elvencraft Longbow) 6. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Buckler Defense 8. Ranged Weapon Mastery (Piercing) 9. Melee Weapon Mastery (Bludgeoning) 10. Greater Weapon Focus (Elvencraft Longbow) 12. Greater Weapon Specialization (Elvencraft Longbow), Greater Two-Weapon Fighting 14. Crushing Strike 15. Pulverize Foe 16. Two-Weapon Rend 18. Weapon Supremacy (Elvencraft Longbow), Improved Precise Shot 20. Improved Toughness (misc statistical data) I think this guy is a very capable damage dealer. Ignoring him to target someone else invites 5 attacks for a lot of damage, or if the creature is still in melee range, 7 attacks for even more damage. I actually have to agree. Ok, I will say that you've pushed me into a different camp, I'm not quite in the 'fighters are fine' camp but I'm no longer a member of 'fighter suck'. Currently I'm more in the 'Fighters have design issues that need to be dealt with' camp. I was one of the first to mention meaningful contribution, so I'll try to clarify it as best I can. To me what it means is being able to, in a majority of encounters, do something to strongly affect the outcome of the battle. Being a speedbump doesn't to it for me and if another similar class could have done the designs role equally or better, and be able to do other things aside, then I will argue that the class we are studying likely needs to be revised and reworked. |
| Bhaal00603-17-07, 07:47 AM | on a scale of 1 to 10 where to you put tripping a collosal monster, on a scale of 1 to 10 where do you put diarming a Huge opponent, on a scale of 1 to 10 where do you put ramming a lance through an opponents face for 100's of damage, I know on my scale those rate betwenn 6-8, use your head a little you know what a "Meaningful Contribution" is, you don't need someone else to hold your hand and guide you to the answer. Thats what I mean by "Meaningful contribution", I thought I put right out there plain as day sense you obviously were incapable of infering this is what I meant, and I think all Pro-Fighters can agree that these qualify as meaningful contributions. |
| sinrae_kinesti03-17-07, 08:36 AM | Holy Crap Folks I cannot believe anyone would say a cleric is unnescesary. ive had clerics in my groups take the role of a fighter more than once. a well built cleric using a combination of spells and combat ability is possibly the most versatile character in the group. they are major casters and melee combatants with decent skills to boot where do you go wrong with that? also they have two high saves... and thats just on the mechanics side. a well role played cleric can be extremely fun to play. ive seen players get the misinterpretation that clerics are goody two shoes but that is certainly not the case and i'm certain our more experienced readers here can attest to what i am saying. |
| malisteen03-17-07, 10:24 AM | Just a request, can we stop using campaign specific material (Champions of Ruin), or material that advises the DM not to allow it (Leadership)? Badically any material with the reasons not to allow it built right in. I'm not saying we have to restrict things to core, but there's enough extra material in generic setting books that we shouldn't have too reach for stuff that isn't allowed in 2/3rds of games even even before banhappy, power-shy DMs come into the equation. |
| navar10003-17-07, 10:29 AM | I actually have to agree. Ok, I will say that you've pushed me into a different camp, I'm not quite in the 'fighters are fine' camp but I'm no longer a member of 'fighter suck'. Currently I'm more in the 'Fighters have design issues that need to be dealt with' camp. I was one of the first to mention meaningful contribution, so I'll try to clarify it as best I can. To me what it means is being able to, in a majority of encounters, do something to strongly affect the outcome of the battle. Being a speedbump doesn't to it for me and if another similar class could have done the designs role equally or better, and be able to do other things aside, then I will argue that the class we are studying likely needs to be revised and reworked. Fair enough with me. Ironically, with all my defense of fighters, I don't play fighters. I've only once played a fighter, but that was 2E. The only fighter I've played in 3E was a multiclass fighter/cleric when 3E first came out, and I really didn't know what I was doing. (two weapon fighting and power attack) :P I mostly play clerics, myself, though currently playing a warlock since I want something different than the lawful good cleric of 5 real world years of playtime. I would agree the fighter could be improved upon such that by doing so it would not break the game. I do agree fighters are shortchanged on skills, so I can do my part on meeting you half-way to say fighters are not "perfect". How you are now feeling about fighters I feel about bards. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 10:47 AM | I actually have to agree. Ok, I will say that you've pushed me into a different camp, I'm not quite in the 'fighters are fine' camp but I'm no longer a member of 'fighter suck'. Currently I'm more in the 'Fighters have design issues that need to be dealt with' camp. Thank you. At least a couple of people are not completely ignoring the builds :). I think I have 1 foot in each camp to be honest. Just a request, can we stop using campaign specific material (Champions of Ruin), or material that advises the DM not to allow it (Leadership)? Badically any material with the reasons not to allow it built right in. I'm not saying we have to restrict things to core, but there's enough extra material in generic setting books that we shouldn't have too reach for stuff that isn't allowed in 2/3rds of games even even before banhappy, power-shy DMs come into the equation. This post seems directed right at me. Ok. I agree I should not include them, but not for the dubious statistics you happened to pull out of thin air. I shouldn't include them because they seem to attract too much attention. I swapped out Leadership in one build for Draconic Cohort. Everyone was silent. I swapped out Belt of the Champion for a stronger bonus to Bull Rushes. Everyone but one was silent. I've probably shot myself in the foot yet again because if I swap out Pulverize Foe, this build will fade away as well. If you don't like Pulverize Foe in the build... replace it with something else. Maybe Snap Kick? This totally negates your bonuses from the Weapon Focus chain (a total of -4 and a total of +4). But you gain an 8th attack at your highest BAB. Alternatively, take away Pulverize Foe and Improved Toughness for Manyshot and Improved Rapid Shot. Now you can stay mobile while on the attack, and take no penalties on your full attack rapid shot. |
| Nephlite03-17-07, 10:59 AM | 50 gold is all the Druid's average wealth. But lets give him max wealth so he has 30 gp to buy some gear. 150 gold is all the fighter's average wealth. This is also what costs a riding dog. So giving the fighter max wealth, he will have a riding dog and 90 gp for his own gear. I am taking a scale mail, large wooden shield and a waraxe. The fighter is a dwarf. The fighter takes two crappy feats: dodge and focus: waraxe. The fighter (25 points) has 14 str, 14 dex, 16 con, 13 int, 10 wis, 6 cha. Very typical array for someone that wants to have combat expertise later on. AC 19 vs. dog's 19 hp 13 vs. dog's 13 To hit +4 vs. dog +3 damage 1d10+2 (average 7.5) vs dog 1d6+3 (average 6.5) + trip (+2 vs fighter +6) As you can see the fighter is superior in hitting and damaging even with two of the worst first level feats. And meanwhile the fighter's pet dog obviously eats the druid, since riding dogs are such super-animals and the druid's melee is crappy without wildshape (and druids usually dump str and dex to get high wis with the goal to be shapeshifted 24/7 later). First, you can assume that the Druid dumped all physicals. I never do. I'd have at least 12 Str/ Dex and maybe 14 Con. It just doesn't jive with me. I even have 12-13 Str Casters (to carry their gear). Druid cvasn cast Shilelagh to get 2d6 +1 magic quarterstaff/club. So he fighters offensively almost as good as fighter, but less defense. We must also look at this from the CR viewpoint. Unlike the Fighter, the Druids Animal companion is a class feature and doesn't increase his CR. The Fighters Riding Dog (don't they rock!) incease his CR by 1. So you get more for fighter a Riding dog/Fighter than Druid/Riding Dog. So CR 2 battle at level one is supposed to be a tough battle so it is okay that it was a tough battle for the Druid. The reverse: Druid/Riding Dog versus Fighter party is only CR 1. So you should be able to handle it. Heck, you should be able to handle 4 of them in a day. So Druid gets more exp than Fighter gets in a party in this challenge. :D |
| malisteen03-17-07, 11:25 AM | This post seems directed right at me. Ok. I agree I should not include them, but not for the dubious statistics you happened to pull out of thin air. I shouldn't include them because they seem to attract too much attention. Yes, my statistics are out of thin air. It's just that there are two settings that presumably get about as much attention and game time, and presumably home campaigns or greyhawk campaigns would get about as much game time as either of the other two. Basically, campaigns come in a few differant types: Greyhawk/generic D&D Forgotten Realms Eberron Home Campaign And typically FR material that has not been published in other books will only potentially see use in one of those categories. I myself would likely use material from Champions of Ruin in my own home campaigns, because you make it sound awesome. But I'm probably in the minority, there. I swapped out Leadership in one build for Draconic Cohort. Everyone was silent. I swapped out Belt of the Champion for a stronger bonus to Bull Rushes. Everyone but one was silent. I've probably shot myself in the foot yet again because if I swap out Pulverize Foe, this build will fade away as well. I apologize. Thank you for swapping out feats as you have. I'm one of those types who has an easier time articulating problems I have then things I like. Not an excuse, I know. I appreciate the builds you have posted, and, Like Archangel62, they have pushed me from the "fighters are terrible" camp to the "fighters aren't terrible (but that doesn't mean they're as good as they should be)" camp. Alternatively, take away Pulverize Foe and Improved Toughness for Manyshot and Improved Rapid Shot. Now you can stay mobile while on the attack, and take no penalties on your full attack rapid shot. I'd probably go this route, thank you for the suggestions. Sadly, I don't think weapon supremacy would be as valuable in an archery build as a level or two early on of ranger or rogue or something that grants spot as a class skill (though admittedly not every race can perform such a dip without experience penalties). And I'm still of the opinion that fighters deserve a few more class skills and skill points. Not that it's necessary for a fighter to be able to contribute in or out of combat effectively, but it is necessary for them to have the range of possible character types (effective accross levels) that such a generic class should be able to represent. I also think they should be able to swap out some of their fighter bonus feats (one every few levels at the least, a few every day if we want to make him more versatile), if only to allow new players taking the Fighter class to fix mistakes they have made in the selection of their only class features in games that don't use retraining. Finally, some sort of pipe-dream, cool feature at level 20 as an incentive to take the class 'all the way' would be nice. I'm not really saying the fighter as is is weak in combat, and none of those suggestions (save perhaps allowing the fighter to swap out some portion of his bonus feats on a daily basis) would really increase the fighter's power. They would add versatility on a per-character basis (yes the fighter class is versatile, but individual fighter characters tend not to be so much), allow for some more actions outside of combat, make representing differant fighter character types without multiclassing easier, and all-in-all make Fighter a more enjoyable and accessible class. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 11:42 AM | Yes, my statistics are out of thin air. It's just that there are two settings that presumably get about as much attention and game time, and presumably home campaigns or greyhawk campaigns would get about as much game time as either of the other two. Basically, campaigns come in a few differant types: Greyhawk/generic D&D Forgotten Realms Eberron Home Campaign And typically FR material that has not been published in other books will only potentially see use in one of those categories. I myself would likely use material from Champions of Ruin in my own home campaigns, because you make it sound awesome. But I'm probably in the minority, there. I understand. I guess my stance is 'If you're in FR, the build stands. If not, swap it out.' To that end, I should probably give alternatives if I am to use campaign-specific material again. I appreciate the builds you have posted, and, Like Archangel62, they have pushed me from the "fighters are terrible" camp to the "fighters aren't terrible (but that doesn't mean they're as good as they should be)" camp. I don't think fighters are the end-all-be-all. Most of the time, I understand the opposition when they compare a fighter to the caster. It seems obvious that having a caster would be more efficient for the party (tanking capability PLUS spells and perhaps healing). When I begin to argue is when the claim that fighters are useless or underpowered rears its head. I agree they can stand a power boost, but I don't agree that they can't do well in actual games. I'd probably go this route, thank you for the suggestions. Sadly, I don't think weapon supremacy would be as valuable in an archery build as a level or two early on of ranger or rogue or something that grants spot as a class skill (though admittedly not every race can perform such a dip without experience penalties). Weapon Supremacy I think is useful for archery because you are more likely to get a full attack off from a distance with archery. Also, Weapon Supremacy allows you to use it in a grapple. Spot would be nice, but alas, this is a fighter. And I'm still of the opinion that fighters deserve a few more class skills and skill points. Not that it's necessary for a fighter to be able to contribute in or out of combat effectively, but it is necessary for them to have the range of possible character types (effective accross levels) that such a generic class should be able to represent. I also think they should be able to swap out some of their fighter bonus feats (one every few levels at the least, a few every day if we want to make him more versatile), if only to allow new players taking the Fighter class to fix mistakes they have made in the selection of their only class features in games that don't use retraining. Agreed. A better skills selection and more skill points would be fine in my opinion. Finally, some sort of pipe-dream, cool feature at level 20 as an incentive to take the class 'all the way' would be nice. I am prone to agree, though I can't imagine what it would be. I'm not really saying the fighter as is is weak in combat, and none of those suggestions (save perhaps allowing the fighter to swap out some portion of his bonus feats on a daily basis) would really increase the fighter's power. They would add versatility on a per-character basis (yes the fighter class is versatile, but individual fighter characters tend not to be so much), allow for some more actions outside of combat, make representing differant fighter character types without multiclassing easier, and all-in-all make Fighter a more enjoyable and accessible class. I really think the fighter should be more flexible or customizable than any other class in regards to combat. All of those feats help, but more skills would also help achieve this, as well as more bonus feats. I don't think a bonus feat at each level would really overpower the fighter. |
| Argaud03-17-07, 11:57 AM | And I'm still of the opinion that fighters deserve a few more class skills and skill points. Not that it's necessary for a fighter to be able to contribute in or out of combat effectively, but it is necessary for them to have the range of possible character types (effective accross levels) that such a generic class should be able to represent. I think most of the defenders of the fighters would agree with you. The skill list of the fighter is the greatest flaw of the class and often makes fighters very boring outside combat. There are some optional rules that can help, though. Cityscape gave the option of adding some skills to the character's class skills depending of the social class of the character. I think it is a step in the right direction, since it makes sense a character’s skills are influenced by his or her upbringing. A fighter from a city using Cityscape could have Gather Information, Diplomacy or Knowledge (local) as class skills for all his classes, for instance. Finally, some sort of pipe-dream, cool feature at level 20 as an incentive to take the class 'all the way' would be nice. It might have been the developers original intention that the fighter was a class to dip for feats needed for PrCs or to complement other warrior classes class features. But PHB2 gave some powerful feats that only fighters (or at least characters with many fighter levels) could get, so it seems that idea has been discarded if it was ever there. I hope in this next year we can see half a dozen more worthy feats with the prerequisites being "fighter level 15+" or at least "bab +16 or more". If only the fighter could get the "OMG, that's awesome!" feat that had the Fighter20+ prerequisite... |
| Flan03-17-07, 12:04 PM | Just a request, can we stop using campaign specific material (Champions of Ruin), or material that advises the DM not to allow it (Leadership)? Badically any material with the reasons not to allow it built right in. You mean anything outside of core since all it is is an obvious power ramp in order for WotC to sell more books? Dumping Divine Metamagic, Assay Spell Resistance, Orbs and other no saves, Greater Xs etc. would certainly help the game. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 12:08 PM | Well, technically, it could be anything. We can't account for every single person's game. Leadership doesn't advise the DM not to allow it, it tells the player to check with the DM first. Maybe one game will be completely underground in a dungeon. Perhaps then we shouldn't allow Mounted Combat. Each build works and doesn't work given certain circumstances, which I guess is why I fall in the 'It's no big deal' camp. |
| malisteen03-17-07, 12:40 PM | One of the problems I have with feats as class features, and one of the reasons I wouldn't want to see the fighter just get a bonus feat at every level, is that feat Prereqs don't go high enough. Even granting that you can make an effective fighter build from feats that synergize well, it's hard to get excited about the feats you take at higher levels. Apart from Weapon Mastery or Weapon Supremacy, most of the feats that require high levels aren't that exciting (come on, greater weapon specialization? I'm not saying it's bad, but it's far from flashy). And the tactical feats and other feats with 'long lists of Prereqs', almost all of them could be taken by sixth level as a fighter. So you get to level sixteen and you take that big tactical feat, but you know that if it were actually all that great you would have taken it ten levels ago. So a lot of feats at higher levels have this sort of diminishing returns feel to them, where all the feats you really wanted you took levels ago. After fighter 6 or so, you take the good feats first, and as you level further the feats you take get less good, less interesting, or have less and less to do with your intended build. More feats with high BAB requirements are necessary. PHBII was a start, but they need to take it further. Also, more feats with truely long lists of prereqs- with eight or more feats required to take them. Finally, some fighter-only feats that don't involve specializing in a particular weapon, including a set of two or three crazy feats requiring 20 levels of fighter. Additionally, some of the later feats in feat trees need to be more effective then the origional tree. Take the power attack tree - several decent feats, but none of them are as good as the base feat of the tree which you can take at first level. Simply put - the later feats in feet trees need to be consistantly better and more impressive then the earlier feats, not the other way around. side note- As it is, comparing feats to spells leads to some of the problems people have with fighters. As a spellcaster levels, they get access to more spells, just as a fighter gets access to more feats. Additionally, some of the spells they already have get better with caster level, just as some combat feats get better with more base attack. However, as a caster levels they also get access to more powerful spells then they could have taken before, and, for the most part, past level six or eight a fighter doesn't really get access to more powerful feats. I'm not saying feats should be directly equivalent to spells, nor am I saying that the answer is to make feats and other fighter-abilities function more like spells (as the ToB maneuvers do, for instance). But the 'access to more powerful abilities at higher levels' kind of stops for a fighter in or by mid levels, and turns into 'access to more abilities of the same power as those you already have. It doesn't necessarily make them underpowered at high levels, especially if you find feats with good synergy, but it can feel like you stop getting things, and because of that almost all fighters PrC out. |
| malisteen03-17-07, 12:45 PM | You mean anything outside of core since all it is is an obvious power ramp in order for WotC to sell more books? Dumping Divine Metamagic, Assay Spell Resistance, Orbs and other no saves, Greater Xs etc. would certainly help the game. Perhaps, but the most powerful content still tends to be core content, so I'm not with you on the 'everything else is just power ramp'. Core druid is more powerful then non-core druid. Non-core Favored Soul lags behind core Cleric. Core Wizard is easily more powerful then warmage, beguiler, or dread necromancer with all the non-core they want. Duskblade isn't more powerful then fighter - just more fun (personal opinion!) Dumping DDM, ASR, and orbs still leaves plenty of no-save spells and broken spells (Gate! Polymorph!), abilities (Wild Shape! Animal Companion!), and items (Quicken Rod! Thought Bottle!) right in the core. And in a Core-only environment, Fighters (and other martial types) lag further behind full casters at high levels, not less. Yes, there's a bit of one-upsmanship and power creep in the non core books, but most of what you see is Balance Creep, as the developers are working with a better understanding of the system and how things work within it. Sure there are some glaring exceptions (Planar Shephard, I'm looking at you), but they tend to be obviously broken and easy to spot. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 12:46 PM | One of the problems I have with feats as class features, and one of the reasons I wouldn't want to see the fighter just get a bonus feat at every level, is that feat Prereqs don't go high enough. Even granting that you can make an effective fighter build from feats that synergize well, it's hard to get excited about the feats you take at higher levels. Apart from Weapon Mastery or Weapon Supremacy, most of the feats that require high levels aren't that exciting (come on, greater weapon specialization? I'm not saying it's bad, but it's far from flashy). And the tactical feats and other feats with 'long lists of PrCs', almost all of them could be taken by sixth level as a fighter. So you get to level sixteen and you take that big tactical feat, but you know that if it were actually all that great you would have taken it ten levels ago. So a lot of feats at higher levels have this sort of diminishing returns feel to them, where all the feats you really wanted you took levels ago. After fighter 6 or so, you take the good feats first, and as you level further the feats you take get less good, less interesting, or have less and less to do with your intended build. More feats with high BAB requirements are necessary. PHBII was a start, but they need to take it further. Also, more feats with truely long lists of prereqs- with eight or more feats required to take them. Finally, some fighter-only feats that don't involve specializing in a particular weapon, including a set of two or three crazy feats requiring 20 levels of fighter. Additionally, some of the later feats in feat trees need to be more effective then the origional tree. Take the power attack tree - several decent feats, but none of them are as good as the base feat of the tree which you can take at first level. Simply put - the later feats in feet trees need to be consistantly better and more impressive then the earlier feats, not the other way around. I wholeheartedly agree. I was working on a new set of feats for the fighter before I participated in these discussions. I scrapped it when I started making these sample builds. Maybe I'll finish them up and post them. With such a relatively small list of feats to choose from (especially considering that most people probably don't use every book that comes out), the fighter has very very few options to take at higher levels that represent his mastery over any fighting style. |
| OneWinged4ngel03-17-07, 01:26 PM | Perhaps, but the most powerful content still tends to be core content, so I'm not with you on the 'everything else is just power ramp'. Core druid is more powerful then non-core druid. Non-core Favored Soul lags behind core Cleric. Core Wizard is easily more powerful then warmage, beguiler, or dread necromancer with all the non-core they want. Dumping DDM, ASR, and orbs still leaves plenty of no-save spells and broken spells, abilities, and items right in the core. And in a Core-only environment, Fighters (and other martial types) lag further behind full casters at high levels, not less. Yes, there's a bit of one-upsmanship and power creep in the non core books, but most of what you see is Balance Creep, as the developers are working with a better understanding of the system and how things work within it. Sure there are some glaring exceptions (Planar Shephard, I'm looking at you), but they tend to be obviously broken and easy to spot. I agree. A good recent example would be Magic Item Compendium, which gives us a lot more pretty balanced items than just about everything before. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-17-07, 01:36 PM | I agree. A good recent example would be Magic Item Compendium, which gives us a lot more pretty balanced items than just about everything before. Grrrr. I went to Borders yesterday to check it out and they didn't have it. I am sad. |
| Kresalak03-17-07, 02:37 PM | Khan, could you explain how your builds are able to contribute at level 7? Level 10? Level 13? 20th level builds are all well and good, but most games never even reach level 20, and even those that do end once the adventure is over. |
| DEMONisbest03-17-07, 07:02 PM | Whoops |
| Flan03-17-07, 07:16 PM | Core druid is more powerful then non-core druid. How can you say a core druid is more powerful? lol Non-core Favored Soul lags behind core Cleric. Core Wizard is easily more powerful then warmage, beguiler, or dread necromancer with all the non-core they want. Duskblade isn't more powerful then fighter - just more fun (personal opinion!) A cleric is more powerful by adding non-core books. I don't care about prestiege classes. Simply taking a core campaign and adding spell compendium to it suddenly breaks things. Clerics can suddenly sound lance, or bolt of glory and with ASR they have a 100% land chance with no save. Age of Worms with Spell Compendium and Complete Divine is a fricken joke as a pair of clerics can literally annihilate everything up to and including Kyuss and do it with no save. Completely different adventure without them. Dumping DDM, ASR, and orbs still leaves plenty of no-save spells and broken spells (Gate! Polymorph!), abilities (Wild Shape! Animal Companion!), and items (Quicken Rod! Thought Bottle!) right in the core. And in a Core-only environment, Fighters (and other martial types) lag further behind full casters at high levels, not less. That sounds more like an arguement to dump DnD all together. ASR is a huge gapeing problem with the game, dumping it improves the game. If you think it should stay because DnD is already broken, well, start looking for a new game. |
| malisteen03-17-07, 08:24 PM | How can you say a core druid is more powerful? lol Because as soon as you go non-core you have to deal with that Wild Shape errata. A cleric is more powerful by adding non-core books. I don't care about prestiege classes. Simply taking a core campaign and adding spell compendium to it suddenly breaks things. Clerics can suddenly sound lance, or bolt of glory and with ASR they have a 100% land chance with no save. Age of Worms with Spell Compendium and Complete Divine is a fricken joke as a pair of clerics can literally annihilate everything up to and including Kyuss and do it with no save. Completely different adventure without them. A cleric is more powerful then a favored soul by virtue of the fact that even core domains add more powerful offensive spells then a favored soul gets, and by virtue of the fact that even core cleric knows hundreds of spells, while Favored Soul is increadibly limited in spells know. A single feat spent on scribe scroll gives a core cleric almost limitless versatility, versatility a Favored Soul is doomed to lack. That sounds more like an arguement to dump DnD all together. ASR is a huge gapeing problem with the game, dumping it improves the game. If you think it should stay because DnD is already broken, well, start looking for a new game. I didn't say that. I just think there is a wide, wide gap between Assay Spell Resistance and the vast majority of non-core content, just as there is a wide gap between Wild Spell or Gate and the vast majority of core content. If spell resistance is so amazing to you, stop to take a look at the latest Dragon and its long list of wizard spells that don't allow spell resistance to begin with. Note how many of them don't have the spell compendium asterisk. Non-core material, like core material can be underpowered, balanced, overpowered, or broken. Just like core material, it requires DM oversight. I'm not saying ASR should stay because core is broken. I'm saying that, say, Duskblades and Melee Weapon Mastery shouldn't be thrown out because Planar Shephard is broken. |
| Kresalak03-17-07, 08:33 PM | Because as soon as you go non-core you have to deal with that Wild Shape errata. The errata actually makes the Druid more powerful, but you need to be a lawyer to even tell what the ability does now. |
| malisteen03-17-07, 08:59 PM | The errata actually makes the Druid more powerful, but you need to be a lawyer to even tell what the ability does now. Really? I thought it mostly just kept the Druid's HP the same, making con no longer a dump stat... but then again, I guess I still don't have my law degree, so I'm not really sure. |
| navar10003-17-07, 11:58 PM | By the way, OOTS's most recent comic shows how a few well placed and timed buff spells on dedicated warriors can be more efficient than casting buff spells on yourself or casting an "I Win" spell. That is not to say buffing others will always be the better choice. Indeed Varsuvius has casted "I Win" spells before, but it shows how working together the party is greater than the sum of its individuals. Buffing the fighter is a spellcaster tactic that should not be dismissed out of hand. |
| felldragon03-18-07, 12:15 AM | Fighters are subject to alot of insults in many areas. I also once agreed with this until I was messing around in Baldur's Gate II the other day, making a party of six level 14 spellcasters. It was all fine and dandy until something came up. I was wandering around aimlessly when I was attacked by several Imps. This seemed to be a lesser fight for a bunch of spellcasters, and thus, I began casting the usual spells to dispatch them quickly. Magic Missle, Fireball, Death Spell, Etc, when suddenly it hit me. They weren't dying. Why? Becuase of the two words, the bane of all spellcasters... Magic Resistance. There are a whole array of creatures with this ability, Golems, Imps lots of planar beings, and worse than that... Magic Golems. At this point, I was freaking out, and realized that I had cast all of my summon spells in the previous battle. What happened? I died... To imps! Every party needs variety. A mage can murder werewolves and other creatures with mundane item immunities, but they can have trouble to magic resistant enemies. Sure, a thief can steal items like there's no tommorow, but can he heal himself when he's caught? Almost every party needs variety. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, everyone has a weakness, and when they all combine... Those weaknesses become less apparent. There you go, a huge explaination of the necessity of fighters. If you made it to the end, congrats... Otherwise, boo at you! Thats all. Till next time - Fell P.S. It is not the class that makes a character powerfull, its the player controlling it. |
| Kratch03-18-07, 12:28 AM | That is not to say buffing others will always be the better choice. Indeed Varsuvius has casted "I Win" spells before, but it shows how working together the party is greater than the sum of its individuals. Buffing the fighter is a spellcaster tactic that should not be dismissed out of hand. This is generally the tactic i use when playing a caster. Even my sorcerers tend to be more loaded with buff and utility then offence (thats not to say i have none). I find i get more use out of the buff spells then i would with typical offensive spells, although i typically have 2-3 melee combatents in my group (in fact, my current sorcerer has Fgtr, Brb, Rng, rog plus himself and a cleric). |
| Nephlite03-18-07, 12:37 AM | Really? I thought it mostly just kept the Druid's HP the same, making con no longer a dump stat... but then again, I guess I still don't have my law degree, so I'm not really sure. Ah, but remember adding/subtracting in wildshaped form uses the actual Con of the form effectively increasing hps inadvertently. Level 5 Druid with 14 Con has average hps of: 34 hps. Example Bear with 18 Con. Add a buff of bear endurance which is +4/amulet of health +2 According to actual rules you are supposed to look up table. Not increase health by new con added but use table. D&D is based on tables. So now you have to use the 18 Con (you don't get a choice according to the rules) and than add the bonus od the item/buff. 18 + 4=22 so you gained effectively 20 hps.= 54 hps Or using the item: you gained 15 hps.= 49 hps Either way. Doesn't seem that bad. Whatr if the Druid wore another amulet of health+2 prior to wildshaping too? That counts. Your hps don't change so even though the item becomes inactive you have the bonus hp. Making hps stay 44. Than add the other two options: a. add 20= 64 hps b. add 15= 59 hps This is a benefit of the new rules. |
| NineInchNall03-18-07, 12:56 AM | This is a benefit of the new rules. And one of the things they fixed with polymorph from 3.0 to 3.5. Then they go and break it again with wild shape. :rolleyes: |
| Khan the Destroyer03-18-07, 01:37 AM | Khan, could you explain how your builds are able to contribute at level 7? Level 10? Level 13? That build is pretty straightforward. It focuses on full attacks with your bow/quarterstaff. At level 7, you have 3 attacks with Rapid Shot, at +1 attack and +2 damage (or +2 attack, +3 damage with Point Blank Shot). Alternatively, you have 4 attacks when two-weapon fighting with the quarterstaff, also at +1 to attack and +2 to damage (though with a -2 for TWF). Base Ranged Attack at Level 7: 6/6/2 (or 7/7/5) Base Melee Attack at Level 7: 6/6/2/2 At level 10, you still have 3 attacks on the bow, but now you get +4 attack and +4 damage (or +5/+5). Likewise, you still have the 4 attacks with the quarterstaff, but with a +4 attack and +4 damage. Base Ranged Attack at Level 10: 12/12/7 (or 13/13/8) Base Melee Attack at Level 10: 12/12/7/7 And at level 13, you have 4 attacks with the longbow with bonuses of +4/+6 (or +5/+7). With the quarterstaff, you have 6 attacks with the same bonuses on to-hit and damage (+4/+6). Base Ranged Attack at Level 13: 15/15/10/5 (or 16/16/11/6) Base Melee Attack at Level 13: 15/15/10/10/5/5 Like I said before, that build isn't as versatile as the others. It is meant to focus on full attacks. Usually, full attacks are frowned upon because a creature's mobility can negate its chances and the last couple of attacks may not hit. But I think this build deals with both issues in also focusing on ranged full attacks (negating the monster mobility) and the bonuses to attack (weapon focus chain, crushing strike). 20th level builds are all well and good, but most games never even reach level 20, and even those that do end once the adventure is over. Right. Except that every thread I have participated in mentions a Balor. Which is CR 20. Further, most people that I have discussed this with claim the fighter is underpowered at high levels. Hence the 20th level builds. Even further, many arguments against the fighter use high level spells like Gate and Shapechange to make a point. High level seemed to be the assumed playing field. It's a build though, so we can see where the feats are and figure out where the fighter stands at other levels pretty easily. EDIT: I scanned the MM. Pretty much, the fighter shouldn't have any trouble hitting monsters of CR equal to his level (at levels 7, 10, and 13). Most of them have relatively low AC's. The only issues that I noticed coming in were DR (obviously) and incorporeality. That stuff was rare, and can be overcome with items. Then there's the special attacks, which don't have much to do with the fighter's own attacks, and are too varied to go over for each monster. And there's the rest of the party to consider as well. I may compile the builds I've done up so far and line them up against monster in the MM to get a basic glimpse of what to expect. That'll take time though. |
| Argaud03-18-07, 10:46 AM | Ah, but remember adding/subtracting in wildshaped form uses the actual Con of the form effectively increasing hps inadvertently. Level 5 Druid with 14 Con has average hps of: 34 hps. Example Bear with 18 Con. Add a buff of bear endurance which is +4/amulet of health +2 According to actual rules you are supposed to look up table. Not increase health by new con added but use table. D&D is based on tables. So now you have to use the 18 Con (you don't get a choice according to the rules) and than add the bonus od the item/buff. 18 + 4=22 so you gained effectively 20 hps.= 54 hps Or using the item: you gained 15 hps.= 49 hps Either way. Doesn't seem that bad. Whatr if the Druid wore another amulet of health+2 prior to wildshaping too? That counts. Your hps don't change so even though the item becomes inactive you have the bonus hp. Making hps stay 44. Than add the other two options: a. add 20= 64 hps b. add 15= 59 hps This is a benefit of the new rules. It doesn't work like that. The new re-errated wildshape rules make you keep track of two constitution scores, one to calculate hp and other for the rest of the traits (just like you have to keep track of two int scores to calculate skill points and another for the rest of the int-dependant traits - it is not a brand new system). The druid hp are calculated based in his normal constitution, which can be enhanced by spells or items worn after wildshaping (or items worn before if they had wildling clasps). Most items worn before wildshape merge with the form and stops working. So if the level 5 druid of the example, with 34 hp, shifted into a bear, he would still have 34 hp, although the bear's 18 Con would apply to skill and saves. If he receives a Bear's Endurance spell, the hp would go up to 44 (Con 18 for hp) and his saves and skills would now be based on 22 Con. This is what the new rules mean, and it is not difficult to figure out this is what they try to explain in the latest (poorly writen) errata. The correct interpretation has been confirmed by CostServ. Reading the rules with intention of powergaming will, of course, lead to all kinds of absurd conclusions. As always. |
| TheDiabolicPyrotechnician03-18-07, 08:16 PM | pure fighters suck-sooner or later you'll be faced with a spellcaster that you can't hack up fast enough- try half dragon orc barbarian with a spiked chain and power attack. heheheh...:evillaugh |
| sinrae_kinesti03-19-07, 02:53 AM | hey folks a good feat for a fighter against spellcasters.. mageslayer.. if the caster cannot cast defensively and youre right on him with a huge sword then he effectively cannot cast... also you might say the fighter cant fly and the mage can. boots of flying here people... now i'm, certainly not arguing that a straight fighter with no items could hang with a straight wizard with no items but i am saying that you shouldnt count out the fighter because you think he's weak. even the smallest light can illuminate areas the sun can't reach |
| Kresalak03-19-07, 07:20 AM | It doesn't work like that. The new re-errated wildshape rules make you keep track of two constitution scores, one to calculate hp and other for the rest of the traits (just like you have to keep track of two int scores to calculate skill points and another for the rest of the int-dependant traits - it is not a brand new system). The druid hp are calculated based in his normal constitution, which can be enhanced by spells or items worn after wildshaping (or items worn before if they had wildling clasps). Most items worn before wildshape merge with the form and stops working. So if the level 5 druid of the example, with 34 hp, shifted into a bear, he would still have 34 hp, although the bear's 18 Con would apply to skill and saves. If he receives a Bear's Endurance spell, the hp would go up to 44 (Con 18 for hp) and his saves and skills would now be based on 22 Con. This is what the new rules mean, and it is not difficult to figure out this is what they try to explain in the latest (poorly writen) errata. The correct interpretation has been confirmed by CostServ. Reading the rules with intention of powergaming will, of course, lead to all kinds of absurd conclusions. As always. Please explain how that qorks by quoting the rules, rather than what CustServ said. They're not authorized to actually change the rules, and so anything they say has to actually be based on the rules rather than something they just thought up. |
| malisteen03-19-07, 09:40 AM | Mage slaying is negated by the traditional 5-foot step. It works for chain builds, though. Sadly, it's not so much fighters vs. casters that we have issue with. It's more fighters vs. monsters as opposed to casters vs. monsters at high level. That many of those high level monster also happen to be casters is bad for fighters who's natural defenses and offenses against casting, including the mage slayer feat, are rather limited. The same goes for all non-casters, though, so I'm not sure that that's exactly a fighter issue. Any non-caster meleer is going to have issues when the great wyrm red dragon's first play is Time Stop, followed by force cage on the fighter, energy absorbtion on himself, and a couple delayed blast, cold-substitutioned fireballs on anyone else, then just getting real close to the wizard. The dragon, of course, benefits quite a bit from mage slayer, given his tremendous reach. Of course, a great wyrm red dragon is a poor example of a thing high level characters fight, because they don't fight such things very often, and the CR of dragons are horribly under-valued, especially if you actually play them like the high level spellcasters they are, and have them make use of the items they have in their ridiculous treasury (which is, of course, scattered between several hordes inaccessable except to teleportation or planar travel, all of which are of course guarded by advanced golumns and the animated corpses of his former rivals to help him out in a fight). So no, the example doesn't mean that much. Except that Dragon's are awesome! |
| Argaud03-19-07, 09:49 AM | Mageslayer is a poor feat for a dragon (or any caster) because it reduces the CL in 4. A big dragon can take epic feats, though, and Spellcaster Harrier makes dragons very nasty for casters. |
| sinrae_kinesti03-19-07, 10:01 AM | mageslayer was brought up as a fighter feat... not a caster feat |
| malisteen03-19-07, 10:03 AM | whoops, forgot that. Alright, the dragon doesn't take mageslayer, he just prepares an action to disrupt spellcasting. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-19-07, 10:58 AM | Any non-caster meleer is going to have issues when the great wyrm red dragon's first play is Time Stop, followed by force cage on the fighter, energy absorbtion on himself, and a couple delayed blast, cold-substitutioned fireballs on anyone else, then just getting real close to the wizard. Yep. The arrogant dragon, thinking he has outdone the fighter once and for all, focuses intently on his wizard prey (seemingly, the only PC strong enough to warrant attention). He fails to notice the fighter easily destroy this barrier of force with an Arrow of Disintegration. The fighter charges the dragon with all his might, pushing the wyrm away from the tasty arcane treat he thought for sure was his. The dragon can't take his gaze from the fighter. Confused, he asks himself what went wrong? Is this a fighter fix? Or is he facing a fighter from the PHB? What happened? He was Forcecaged. The wizard thanks his lucky stars that the fighter was prepared for the Forcecage, it being such an obvious tactic used to thwart warriors. He casts his spells freely now, with no dragon in his face. In less than a minute, the party destroys the evil dragon and loots his lair. |
| malisteen03-19-07, 11:11 AM | Sounds good, but how does the fighter break the force cage and charge in the same action? Otherwise the dragon gets to see him coming and do something else mean and big and dragon-y. He certainly gets to make his AOO on the fighter as he charges out of the broken forcecage, which could be quite painful for the fighter, especially after the handful of ice-balls the party just soaked. But, like I said, dragons are crazy to begin with, and many things can get ganked by one. Old dragons are certainly not above the old contingency-teleport escape, or even the astral projection game, followed by the traditional STK |
| Khan the Destroyer03-19-07, 11:16 AM | Sounds good, but how does the fighter break the force cage and charge in the same action? He doesn't. Otherwise the dragon gets to see him coming and do something else mean and big and dragon-y. In which case, the dragon isn't hurting someone else. Like, someone physically weaker than the fighter that can't take as much punishment, but might be able to alter the outcome of the battle in a more dramatic fashion using a medium of combat not known to the fighter but dependent on his ability to keep the enemy away. I dare say, the fighter might even challenge and taunt the dragon once he destroys the forcecage. ;) He certainly gets to make his AOO on the fighter as he charges out of the broken forcecage, which could be quite painful for the fighter, especially after the handful of ice-balls the party just soaked. Well, the party minus the fighter, who was protected from the dragon's fireballs by the Forcecage. Any fighter that is not mounted should trade in the Ride skill for Tumble (as per Cityscape). Besides, it is one attack. It won't kill the fighter. Meanwhile, the dragon is outnumbered. |
| malisteen03-19-07, 11:18 AM | He certainly might. If they do take that dragon down, oh the treasure they'll be getting! Hopefully the wizard made clones of everyone before the battle, though, because it could easily go against them, especially if they haven't already neutralized the iron golums, the handful of dragon zombies & skeletons, the elders of the kobold tribe who worship the dragon, and the deadly fiends the wyrm has bound to his service. Even if they have bypassed the other dangers of its lair, I hope they bothered to track down its sorcerous servants the world over, in order to sever the dragon pacts they have formed with it, lest they should face a dragon with far more ninth level spells then is anything like appropriate. And even if the fighter bull-rushes the dragon away from the wizard (and into a wall for that fun variant ability damage!) they've still got a long way to go to bring down such a monster. Ah, D&D. You just can't beat the classics! It's fun every once in a while to remember why we play this game. |
| Zilvar03-19-07, 11:20 AM | I dare say, the fighter might even challenge and taunt the dragon once he destroys the forcecage. Sir Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to? French Soldier: No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time. |
| Leo03-19-07, 11:57 AM | He certainly might. If they do take that dragon down, oh the treasure they'll be getting! Hopefully the wizard made clones of everyone before the battle, though, because it could easily go against them, especially if they haven't already neutralized the iron golums, the handful of dragon zombies & skeletons, the elders of the kobold tribe who worship the dragon, and the deadly fiends the wyrm has bound to his service. Even if they have bypassed the other dangers of its lair, I hope they bothered to track down its sorcerous servants the world over, in order to sever the dragon pacts they have formed with it, lest they should face a dragon with far more ninth level spells then is anything like appropriate. And even if the fighter bull-rushes the dragon away from the wizard (and into a wall for that fun variant ability damage!) they've still got a long way to go to bring down such a monster. Ah, D&D. You just can't beat the classics! It's fun every once in a while to remember why we play this game. If the DM comes to that point, not even having a party of 20 druids plus 20 wizards and 20 clerics as backup will save your ass. Some of the dragons servants will have discoverd you by now, know all your weakness, destroy your clones, lure you into a trap, kill the casters while they craft their magc stuff, and then rout everyone else. Weeeee. Conlcuion:everyclass is underpowered:P Now let's make a whole new sets of threads discussing this:D |
| malisteen03-19-07, 12:01 PM | Hey, four party members can take down the dragon at 20th level. I just hope they spent a considerable portion of the last 5 to 10 levels working on it is all. A dragon like that isn't an encounter, it's a campaign. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-19-07, 01:05 PM | Sir Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to? French Soldier: No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time. French Soldier: I told them we already got one. *snicker* Hey, four party members can take down the dragon at 20th level. I just hope they spent a considerable portion of the last 5 to 10 levels working on it is all. A dragon like that isn't an encounter, it's a campaign. To each his own. I don't think dragons are that awesome. Especially if you plan on facing one. I don't think it takes 5-10 levels though. |
| Kresalak03-19-07, 01:12 PM | Hey, four party members can take down the dragon at 20th level. I just hope they spent a considerable portion of the last 5 to 10 levels working on it is all. A dragon like that isn't an encounter, it's a campaign. This is why we can't have nice things. |
| Flan03-19-07, 01:38 PM | Any fighter that is not mounted should trade in the Ride skill for Tumble (as per Cityscape). Besides, it is one attack. It won't kill the fighter. Meanwhile, the dragon is outnumbered. Where in Cityscape? I can never find anything in there thanks to them doing stuff like sticking prestiege classes on random pages in the back half of the book. |
| Zilvar03-19-07, 01:47 PM | Where in Cityscape? I can never find anything in there thanks to them doing stuff like sticking prestiege classes on random pages in the back half of the book. Maybe part of what Fighters need is a consolidated source for all things Fighter. Apparently there are interesting options available is some WotC materials, but finding them all is nearly impossible it seems. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-19-07, 01:50 PM | Where in Cityscape? I can never find anything in there thanks to them doing stuff like sticking prestiege classes on random pages in the back half of the book. Apologies. It's not actually in the book. It's in the Web Enhancement on the main site. Any class that has Ride as a class skill can sub it out for Tumble instead. There are a few other skills there as well. I never brought it up because I figured it would get shot down as a variant, non-core rule. Personally, I like the Ride skill anyways. But if your fighter isn't planning on mounted combat, definitely worth it. |
| Nephlite03-19-07, 02:08 PM | It doesn't work like that. The new re-errated wildshape rules make you keep track of two constitution scores, one to calculate hp and other for the rest of the traits (just like you have to keep track of two int scores to calculate skill points and another for the rest of the int-dependant traits - it is not a brand new system). Show me in the rules you keep Int scores seperate. The only rule is skill points don't add retroactively. New levels add more skill points (with increased Int). Maybe you are refferering to the Fox's Cunning spell: yes it doesn't increase Skill piints because it is temporary. It is a brand new system. The druid hp are calculated based in his normal constitution, which can be enhanced by spells or items worn after wildshaping (or items worn before if they had wildling clasps). Most items worn before wildshape merge with the form and stops working. Wait, the item did stop wprking but ou have to keep Hps static I thought you said. If it is'nt static than it gets worse. If it is than the irem increases health either way. Static: 38 + item, item turns off but we aren't allowed to remove its bonus hps or we are cheating. nonstatic: use new Con's Hps so rules contradict themselves. You are either way getting more health. I perfer to follow the new rules and keep hps static. My argument is logically valid: it is impossible for my premises to be true and conclusion false. Whether it is a good or believable one is not what matters. Your argument is the opposite: invalid. So if the level 5 druid of the example, with 34 hp, shifted into a bear, he would still have 34 hp, although the bear's 18 Con would apply to skill and saves. If he receives a Bear's Endurance spell, the hp would go up to 44 (Con 18 for hp) and his saves and skills would now be based on 22 Con. This is what the new rules mean, and it is not difficult to figure out this is what they try to explain in the latest (poorly writen) errata. The correct interpretation has been confirmed by CostServ. Reading the rules with intention of powergaming will, of course, lead to all kinds of absurd conclusions. As always. Powergamer: Oh if I were powergaming it gets worse. I'll pretend hps aren't static so item not included. Turn to Bear and hps increase. You only have two logical conclusions: 1) 3.5 pre-errata: Con change to new form, less abuses, Pros: Logical . Con: but Con dumped stat 2) 3.5 errata: Cons don't change Pros: but any hps held are static even if item increasing them go non-functional (not logical but rules say it is the facts). Con: not logical, reffeerd to power gamer if actual follow rules. Con not a dump stat. |
| Argaud03-19-07, 02:59 PM | Show me in the rules you keep Int scores seperate. The only rule is skill points don't add retroactively. New levels add more skill points (with increased Int). Maybe you are refferering to the Fox's Cunning spell: yes it doesn't increase Skill piints because it is temporary. It is a brand new system. Headband of Intellect This device is a light cord with a small gem set so that it rests upon the forehead of the wearer. The headband adds to the wearer’s Intelligence score in the form of an enhancement bonus of +2, +4, or +6. This enhancement bonus does not earn the wearer extra skill points when a new level is attained; use the unenhanced Intelligence bonus to determine skill points. There. As you can see you can't use the enhanced Intelligence score to gain more skill points. So you need to keep track of the old score. Now that I think about it, it is even simpler. There was already rules for changing shapes and Con scores without altering hit points. The lycanthropes followed those rules. They are very old. Wait, the item did stop wprking but ou have to keep Hps static I thought you said. If it is'nt static than it gets worse. If it is than the irem increases health either way. Static: 38 + item, item turns off but we aren't allowed to remove its bonus hps or we are cheating. nonstatic: use new Con's Hps so rules contradict themselves. You are either way getting more health. I perfer to follow the new rules and keep hps static. My argument is logically valid: it is impossible for my premises to be true and conclusion false. Whether it is a good or believable one is not what matters. Your argument is the opposite: invalid. You argument is irrational in extreme and I really can't believe I need to explain it again. Actually I do not believe I have to explain it again, you are simply refusing to see any "logic" but yours because it is inconvenient to you to accept the truth. Wildshape causes: a) Merged items become non functional, ergo items enhancing constitution stop working, ergo hit points go back to normal b) Constitution score might become altered by the change, but it does not change hit points, ergo hit points remain at the basic value According to your "logic" even though the items become non-functional the hit points remain. Even though the hit points came from the item, which now does not work! What kind of deranged logic is that? Powergamer: Oh if I were powergaming it gets worse. I'll pretend hps aren't static so item not included. Turn to Bear and hps increase. Already covered by the old, old mechanics of alternate form: Alternate Form * The creature retains its hit points and save bonuses, although its save modifiers may change due to a change in ability scores. I don't know why I am still bothering replying these posts. Honestly. |
| Clawhound03-19-07, 05:36 PM | I find the obsession with force cage odd. In my years of playing 3.X D&D, I have never seen force cage used. NEVER. If you are actually in a campaign where force cage is frequently used, fighters will quickly learn ways to escape, then put their money into magic item to guarantee escape. This makes Force Cage somewhat ineffective. Force cage is best used very infrequently, as the party will be least prepared for it and the players will not have prepared for it. But if it is used infrequently, then it will barely affected the fighter. Maybe one or two battles over 20 levels? Something that rare just isn't worth accounting for. Even more oddly, if fighters are the weakest class, why is the enemy spellcaster bothering to waste an action on a fighter? Surely the PC spellcasters are far more fearsome! So either the fighters really are a threat to the spellcaster OR the spellcasters are casting like idiots. |
| Kratch03-19-07, 06:25 PM | Even more oddly, if fighters are the weakest class, why is the enemy spellcaster bothering to waste an action on a fighter? Surely the PC spellcasters are far more fearsome! So either the fighters really are a threat to the spellcaster OR the spellcasters are casting like idiots. Not just an action, but a 7th level spell and 1000gp. |
| Krevon03-20-07, 12:57 AM | Not just an action, but a 7th level spell and 1000gp. Pft! don't you know that spell slots aren't an issue by then....i mean a wizard will have 2 scrolls for everything else.....1,000 gold? easy......just have an everburning torch sweat shop and you'll never have to worry about money again. Yay sarcasm! |
| Khan the Destroyer03-20-07, 01:35 AM | Can anyone activate Rods? I can see a fighter carring around a Rod of Cancellation if the DM is Forcecage-happy. (Though I prefer the Arrows of Disintegration. Although pricey, the issue of Forcecages shouldn't come up so often that you need a whole quiver-full. Unless your DM hates you, one at a time should be enough.) And if we are really going to play a dragon soooo intelligently, he would probably open up with a Split Antimagic Ray targeting the wizard and the cleric. Now, both function as if within an antimagic aura (no save, ranged touch). Then, he can just full attack the fighter and the rogue. Then eat the wizard. Then he is free to peel the armor off the cleric and enjoy his dessert. |
| Archangel6203-20-07, 01:39 AM | Can anyone activate Rods? I can see a fighter carring around a Rod of Cancellation if the DM is Forcecage-happy. (Though I prefer the Arrows of Disintegration. Although pricey, the issue of Forcecages shouldn't come up so often that you need a whole quiver-full. Unless your DM hates you, one at a time should be enough.) And if we are really going to play a dragon soooo intelligently, he would probably open up with a Split Antimagic Ray targeting the wizard and the cleric. Now, both function as if within an antimagic aura (no save, ranged touch). Then, he can just full attack the fighter and the rogue. Then eat the wizard. Then he is free to peel the armor off the cleric and enjoy his dessert. I did that one once...after that I agreed to not be quite so severe...and they agreed not to force feed me my dice, the screen, my notebook, and the table. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-20-07, 01:42 AM | I did that one once...after that I agreed to not be quite so severe...and they agreed not to force feed me my dice, the screen, my notebook, and the table. That's... cruel. But if they were running amok... Sometimes, a DM needs to just throw down. Look your players in the eyes and say 'You want to know what this monster would do if I took its statistics to their logical conclusions?' And they're all like 'Pffft. Whatever. We're uber.' And you're like 'Dragons can cast spells and have crazy wealth and superb combat potential. You're going down.' And it was so. |
| Archangel6203-20-07, 01:51 AM | That's... cruel. But if they were running amok... Sometimes, a DM needs to just throw down. Look your players in the eyes and say 'You want to know what this monster would do if I took its statistics to their logical conclusions?' And they're all like 'Pffft. Whatever. We're uber.' And you're like 'Dragons can cast spells and have crazy wealth and superb combat potential. You're going down.' And it was so. Oh no, they rarely run amok, I was going more for what the dragon could do if I pushed its tactical abilities to the greatest logical limit that I possibly could. I love doing tactical designs for groups of enemies, a trog cave of jubilex worshippers was a real slog for my players because they were dealing with trogs that knew how to use the oozes as weapons as well as the party having to fight the trog stench/avoid getting swallowed by the oozes/close to melee (The areas were too small for the casters AOEs to be as effective as necessary, too narrow for wideset manuevers and the group needed to get rid of the trog high priest,the group had no ranged characters at the time...however they did win and a good time was had by all) |
| Argaud03-20-07, 02:31 AM | Even more oddly, if fighters are the weakest class, why is the enemy spellcaster bothering to waste an action on a fighter? Surely the PC spellcasters are far more fearsome! So either the fighters really are a threat to the spellcaster OR the spellcasters are casting like idiots. Yeah. Just forcecage the cleric and watch them scramble to save her because her only way out involves teleporting to another plane :D |
| malisteen03-20-07, 08:38 AM | Forcecage was just a random note in the random description of some odd dragon attacking people. I acknowledged in the post itself that it was off topic, I was just trying to have some fun with dragons is all. I'm sorry. Forcecage does get brought up a lot for a spell with such a high material cost, but by the time casters can use it the material cost isn't really all that high, and NPCs only have to be able to afford a single fight. From, say, a dragon's perspective: "well, I have to use a spell slot, but I've got many of those because of the various dragon pacts I've made with my sorcerous offspring the world over... and it costs a thousand odd gold (mmm, I like gold), but I'd only use it on reasonably competant addventurers who are certain to be laden down with hundreds of thousands of gold worth of magic items (mmm, I like magic items), and I do have millions of gold (it makes a great chair, a great bed, a good snack, and it's pretty!), so it sounds like a fair trade to me." I like the antimagic rays. I sure hope the rogue has a functioning answer in scroll form. I'll have to remember that the next time one of my elder dragons rolls a metamagic (splitting) rod for his arsenal . . . I mean horde. Hmm, quickened split Antimagic Ray on both casters, followed by regular split Antimagic Ray on the rogue and fighter (in case they have useful magic items). Then maybe forcecage, if he's feeling froggy. Theoretically, the Wizard (or wizard and cleric) might live through this due to casting hijinks (clone, astral projection, something of that nature), but it wouldn't be pretty. I'm thinking maybe as the DM I should be handing the party some sort of artifact . . . . Then again, this is probably just the old 'at high levels, initiative = win' problem rearing it's ugly head, as we do keep giving the dragon the first action. If party wins initiative, it might be a differant story (although dragon probably does have enough HP to survive a single round of fighter or rogue, depending on what scrolls rogue's packing). |
| bluemage5503-20-07, 08:57 AM | Boots of Command Word Dimension Door entails immunity to forcecage thereafter, as well as the other benefits of being able to dimension door when desired. At only 50,400 gp (following the pricing formulas in the SRD), they are a great bargain for a fighter who, for some reason, cannot count on his spellcasting allies to dispel forcecages for him. Alternatively, a fighter who has a decent UMD check (made possible by some multiclassing and/or competence skill boost items) can carry scrolls or maybe even a staff instead. |
| Argaud03-20-07, 09:25 AM | Boots of Command Word Dimension Door entails immunity to forcecage thereafter, as well as the other benefits of being able to dimension door when desired. The new book of magical items is going to greatly alter high-level battle: Stuff like: 6000gp - Boots of Big Stepping - Greater Teleport 60' range 3/day Binding - +1 property for weapons - on a hit spend a swift action to nail the target with a no-save Dimensional Anchor. Usable twice a day. Suddenly make warriors able to chase and hold all those annoying teleport-at-will outsiders. I am eager to get my copy of the book. |
| sinrae_kinesti03-20-07, 10:27 AM | ...Oh the dragons balls were blazin' as I stepped into his cave, Then I sliced his friggin' cockles, With a long and shiney blade! 'Twas I who smoked the dragon... (edited severely) |
| Flan03-20-07, 11:05 AM | 6000gp - Boots of Big Stepping - Greater Teleport 60' range 3/day Youch, so cheap! I think I'd get those at that price even if I already had my 49k boots of teleport. |
| Archangel6203-20-07, 12:09 PM | The new book of magical items is going to greatly alter high-level battle: Stuff like: 6000gp - Boots of Big Stepping - Greater Teleport 60' range 3/day Binding - +1 property for weapons - on a hit spend a swift action to nail the target with a no-save Dimensional Anchor. Usable twice a day. Suddenly make warriors able to chase and hold all those annoying teleport-at-will outsiders. I am eager to get my copy of the book. In addition there are magic items and augment crystals that help the fighter overcome problems like: 1) Golfbagging: Many of the augment crystals can be used to replace the normal annoyances that the fighter might find themselves with without having to go out to buy a metric ton of weapons and armor for each foe type. 2) Few tactical options, many new items give the fighter some interesting new tricks, not to mention that there are items like a set of bracers that allow you to wield weapons one size category larger with no penalty for a pretty nice price. |
| malisteen03-20-07, 02:17 PM | Of course, then we're back to the problem of patching what may or may not be holes in the Fighter class with items. 'Course, these items are cool, so I don't care so much. ;) |
| AllisterH03-20-07, 02:34 PM | My only problem is that it feels like I have to play D&D like "pokemon" and buy each expansion to cover what should have been presented already. Still, WOTC admits is is learning so I hope we get a compilation of the "best" feats and equipment for all classes. Hmm..so now if we say a core fighter has access to ToB, PHB II and the magic item compendium, he becomes better than a 4 level dip, would people agree with this? |
| Khan the Destroyer03-20-07, 02:56 PM | I think he is fine with just the PHB and PHB 2. Not to say he isn't fine with just Core, but I haven't checked out any builds with just Core to determine either way. And I don't think Forcecage is a problem with the fighter class. Meaning a magic item that grants a teleportation effect is not patching a fighter weakness. |
| AllisterH03-20-07, 03:21 PM | I think he is fine with just the PHB and PHB 2. Not to say he isn't fine with just Core, but I haven't checked out any builds with just Core to determine either way. And I don't think Forcecage is a problem with the fighter class. Meaning a magic item that grants a teleportation effect is not patching a fighter weakness. I thought half your feats were non-core though? |
| malisteen03-20-07, 03:35 PM | he said he hadn't passed judgement on core yet. So, do we have a list of 'best books', or a 'revised core'? For me, you just have to add PHBII, other expansions are not as necessary. Spell Compendium is, however, very close, and Magic Item Compendium might be up there, once I'm done digesting it. The new run of the Complete Books also seem to be pretty good. A few good feats aside, I wasn't a big fan of the first run. |
| Flan03-20-07, 03:51 PM | 2) Few tactical options, many new items give the fighter some interesting new tricks, not to mention that there are items like a set of bracers that allow you to wield weapons one size category larger with no penalty for a pretty nice price. Theres already lots of nice bracer options. Takeing a mithril breastplate for a fighter so you can tumble (and sleep in it) and then taking Dastana lets you stick expensive armour boosters like Soulfire on to the Dastana "cheaply" and not really give up much in the way of AC. The real winners I find are the +XGP enhancements since you can get them tacked on to existing things cheap. What really had me scratching my head at the weapons and armour enhancements were the X use per day on items that were +bonus. +bonus is a lot more expensive in my mind than +GP so why were they limiting them? Most of the +bonus limited use benefits were rendered completely unappealing due to the limited use. |
| JKJudgeX03-20-07, 03:56 PM | Just as a matter of course, most campaigns I play in do not allow the use of extended books. We all have them, as a matter of collection, and to glean the occasional idea or item from, but the inclusion of any given portion of books beyond the PHB 3.5 and DMG and monster manuals is highly questionable, and up to the DM. I am usually a player these days, and I don't mind being denied access to the torrent of munchkin crap available in these books. lvl 20 wizard is going to have an average of like 50 hit points, and that's being somewhat generous. In the event that a level 20 fighter (average about 150 hit points since he's highly likely to have some con) actually gets within range and attacks that wizard with a full attack... I think the wizard is dead. let's say 3 of the attacks land, at 1d10+7 damage each ( + 4 from strength, +3 from a somewhat decent weapon) that's very likely the end of that wizard's life. Conversely, if the wizard gets the drop on the fighter, there are a bunch of ways that he can kill or doom the fighter in one turn, so, it really becomes a "who goes first" situation... Then you start min-maxing in the "who has what magical item or contingency plan" and it becomes flying harm-sword anti-magic ray goggle fighter vs. insta-teleporting triple cloned time stopper wizard, and it gets retarded. And by the way, if your characters are regularly buying 50,000+ gp items, your campaign is stupid. That stuff is supposed to be hard to obtain, and 50,000 gp items should be RANDOMIZED, typically. Once or twice, maybe they should be able to make them, but, jesus, who wants to play twink-war? |
| Bhaal00603-20-07, 04:16 PM | I don't appreciate your attitude, who are you to say my campaign is stupid because I actuall give my characters the recomended amount of wealth(either in GP or gear) and actually let them buy the stuff they want, D&D is all about Phat-Lute(intentional), otherwise we'd just play Iron Heroes and have no fun at all. |
| Argaud03-20-07, 04:55 PM | lvl 20 wizard is going to have an average of like 50 hit points, and that's being somewhat generous. NO WAY IN HELL. The average level 20 wizard will have Con ~20 and at least one spell giving him temporal hit points 24/7. Probably several of them. A wizard will have 150-170 hit points at least. Your statement shows you have never played or seen played a high level wizard. lIn the event that a level 20 fighter (average about 150 hit points since he's highly likely to have some con) actually gets within range and attacks that wizard with a full attack... Try again, no level 20 fighter is going to have less than 200hp. 250 is much more likely. I think the wizard is dead. let's say 3 of the attacks land, at 1d10+7 damage each ( + 4 from strength, +3 from a somewhat decent weapon) that's very likely the end of that wizard's life. And now we see you have never played a high level fighter ever, either. It will be +15 from strength and +6 from feats. Typically a level 20 fighter will deliver 50-60 hp of damage in each strike. So yes, he might be able to kill the wizard in a round. But only barely, and only if the wizard has been very careless with his protections. And by the way, if your characters are regularly buying 50,000+ gp items, your campaign is stupid. That stuff is supposed to be hard to obtain, and 50,000 gp items should be RANDOMIZED, typically. Once or twice, maybe they should be able to make them, but, jesus, who wants to play twink-war? He is not retarded. It is in the freaking DMG, page 137. Actually, it is pretty retarded to call retarded someone who actually knows and applies the rules. |
| Clawhound03-20-07, 08:32 PM | One of the balances in the game has traditionally been the difficulty in obtaining high value items. One of the advantages to melee is knowing that magic weapons and armor will show up. You can bet your bar tab on that. On the other hand, guaranteeing that a specific rare item will show up, that's a bit iffier. That often makes it hard to construct builds that depend on certain items. In other words, many of us find UNCERTAINTY an important part of the game. |
| malisteen03-20-07, 09:17 PM | But . . . and I don't mean this as a problem with fighters (not anymore) . . . but crafting. Just make the item you want. You're a bloody wizard, you can afford to sacrifice a level to keep your party stocked with the most important things, even in games with limited item access... |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-20-07, 09:49 PM | With the coming of the Tome of Battle book the fighter has become obsolete. Take the Warblade, it has full BAB, d12 hit dice and those special maneuvers the straight fighter really isn't needed. |
| Leo03-20-07, 09:54 PM | But . . . and I don't mean this as a problem with fighters (not anymore) . . . but crafting. Just make the item you want. You're a bloody wizard, you can afford to sacrifice a level to keep your party stocked with the most important things, even in games with limited item access... Honestly, only a mad DM will allow their players to craft whatever they want. There are some very sick things out there like the metamagic rods, wich I don't recall a single one of my Dms even thinking of ever let it slip in the campaign. |
| JLaurHughes03-20-07, 10:03 PM | NO WAY IN HELL. The average level 20 wizard will have Con ~20 and at least one spell giving him temporal hit points 24/7. Probably several of them. A wizard will have 150-170 hit points at least. Your statement shows you have never played or seen played a high level wizard. This is true, the average Wizard at about level 20 will have some sort of boosters to his scores, CON and INT specifically that will generally boost them up to or above 20 in either of those scores. I've only seen once that a wizard has had a low Con, and that's when the person rolled 2 17's and the rest below 10 to start off with, would have been a better barbarian I think. Average Hp of a wizard before con modifier is about 50, but with con it can easily be boosted between 100 and 200 hp or more. Try again, no level 20 fighter is going to have less than 200hp. 250 is much more likely. I've actually calculated, and have seen fighters with a con no lower than 12 to begin with go up to 20 con by 20th level with magic items or permanent magic cast on them. On average the fighter will have 220Hp before Con modifier. And now we see you have never played a high level fighter ever, either. It will be +15 from strength and +6 from feats. Typically a level 20 fighter will deliver 50-60 hp of damage in each strike. So yes, he might be able to kill the wizard in a round. But only barely, and only if the wizard has been very careless with his protections. I've known a few wizards who were careless with protections, only because of a high Dex by 20th level. He is not retarded. It is in the freaking DMG, page 137. Actually, it is pretty retarded to call retarded someone who actually knows and applies the rules. And added to this, Average magic item for 20th level characters is about 50,000gp, the major items range anywhere from 100,000gp to 300,000gp at that high of a level. Or have no purchase price on them at all because they are extremely rare and probably one-of-a-kind-non-reduplicating-god-forged items. I digress this is a fighter class board, there are several reasons to have a fighter. |
| scienceman4703-20-07, 11:37 PM | Honestly, only a mad DM will allow their players to craft whatever they want. There are some very sick things out there like the metamagic rods, wich I don't recall a single one of my Dms even thinking of ever let it slip in the campaign. Perfect. I'm banning spiked chains and all relics. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-20-07, 11:52 PM | Ok I have been playing Wizards for over 28 years now. Let me give you a few tips. First a 20th level character on average has 760,000gp worth of items. Ok a Wizard will certainly have items that will boost Dex, Int and Con. Gloves of Dex +6, Headband of Intellect +6, Amulet of Health +6, Vest of Resistance +6, Ring of Protection +5, and has read a tome to gain the +5 to Int and Boots of Flying. Now there are many item combos that you can get, but these were just a few common examples. Now the real deal is in the spells. Now the first thing is to have my Contingency up. My Contingency would be the first time I am hit by the fighter I Teleport straight up and activate my Boots of Flying. Now my first spell I cast is Time Stop, followed by Arcane Spellsurge which for the next 20 rounds my spells are cast as swift actions, then i cast Retributive Enervation every time the Fighter makes a successful hit loses 10 levels, I then hit him with Ray of Enfeeblement, and Ray of Clumsiness. Then I could pepper him with spell after spell from the air, and unless he is using ranged he won't get me. If he has specialized in range spells Stoneskin is always good along with many many other spells. A properly played 20th level Wizard will destroy a 20th level fighter pretty much every time. |
| Krevon03-21-07, 12:22 AM | Ok I have been playing Wizards for over 28 years now. Let me give you a few tips. First a 20th level character on average has 760,000gp worth of items. Ok a Wizard will certainly have items that will boost Dex, Int and Con. Gloves of Dex +6, Headband of Intellect +6, Amulet of Health +6, Vest of Resistance +6, Ring of Protection +5, and has read a tome to gain the +5 to Int and Boots of Flying. Now there are many item combos that you can get, but these were just a few common examples. Now the real deal is in the spells. Now the first thing is to have my Contingency up. My Contingency would be the first time I am hit by the fighter I Teleport straight up and activate my Boots of Flying. Now my first spell I cast is Time Stop, followed by Arcane Spellsurge which for the next 20 rounds my spells are cast as swift actions, then i cast Retributive Enervation every time the Fighter makes a successful hit loses 10 levels, I then hit him with Ray of Enfeeblement, and Ray of Clumsiness. Then I could pepper him with spell after spell from the air, and unless he is using ranged he won't get me. If he has specialized in range spells Stoneskin is always good along with many many other spells. A properly played 20th level Wizard will destroy a 20th level fighter pretty much every time. This is completely off topic but i could see an archer yelled to the a meleer... Archer-" Ok pull!" Melee -*macks Wizard* Archer- *Shoots said wizard and giggles* |
| aelryinth03-21-07, 03:44 AM | Ok I have been playing Wizards for over 28 years now. Let me give you a few tips. First a 20th level character on average has 760,000gp worth of items. Ok a Wizard will certainly have items that will boost Dex, Int and Con. Gloves of Dex +6, Headband of Intellect +6, Amulet of Health +6, Vest of Resistance +6, Ring of Protection +5, and has read a tome to gain the +5 to Int and Boots of Flying. Now there are many item combos that you can get, but these were just a few common examples. Now the real deal is in the spells. Now the first thing is to have my Contingency up. My Contingency would be the first time I am hit by the fighter I Teleport straight up and activate my Boots of Flying. Now my first spell I cast is Time Stop, followed by Arcane Spellsurge which for the next 20 rounds my spells are cast as swift actions, then i cast Retributive Enervation every time the Fighter makes a successful hit loses 10 levels, I then hit him with Ray of Enfeeblement, and Ray of Clumsiness. Then I could pepper him with spell after spell from the air, and unless he is using ranged he won't get me. If he has specialized in range spells Stoneskin is always good along with many many other spells. A properly played 20th level Wizard will destroy a 20th level fighter pretty much every time. 1) You can't teleport into the air, I believe, only to another surface. And what if his sword dispels your contingency as it hits? 2) Your Enervation fails, because he's smart and wearing Soulforge bracers, and is immune to ability and energy drain. So your two follow up spells don't do anything, either. 3) Your Ray attacks miss, because he's got the Shield Ward feat and has arranged for Energized Armor, and his AC applies against your Sucky attack roll. 4) You pepper him with spell after spell, assuming he can't come up after you with a simple potion of flying, bust an AntiMagic shell something on you, and then wrap you up in a grapple and strangle you to death. And that's if he just doesn't bother to find some cover, drink a potion of invisibility and watch you waste more spells trying to find him. HE can plow through your stoneskin very easily with adamantine weapons, and you really don't want to know how sick a fighter can get with some of the ranged weapons out there, do you? Hey, mages can own fighters, but you are going to have to do much better then that. ===+Aelryinth |
| sinrae_kinesti03-21-07, 07:48 AM | hey solution for ya... play by mail dueling... it works.. of course if you want it to go faster play by email |
| malisteen03-21-07, 09:59 AM | Have we really come all this way only to go back to dueling? |
| Khan the Destroyer03-21-07, 11:45 AM | I thought half your feats were non-core though? The very first build I posted in one of these threads had 14 of the 19 feats in the Player's Handbook. The last one I posted required feats only from the Player's Handbook and the Player's Handbook 2. I'm not saying that more books wouldn't mean more power. Only that as far as I know and believe, the PHB and PHB 2 are enough. As for item randomization... The main reason for Item Creation feats is to obtain the items you need. Random treasure more than likely gets you wealth rather than items you're actually looking for. I truly do not understand why people are against item creation when you get the items *you want* for *half-price*. This is another huge benefit casters provide for the party. |
| Otto the Bugbear03-21-07, 12:10 PM | The main reason for Item Creation feats is to obtain the items you need. Random treasure more than likely gets you wealth rather than items you're actually looking for. I truly do not understand why people are against item creation when you get the items *you want* for *half-price*. I support this idea completely. So much so that I've actually removed item creation feats and switched item creation over to the Craft skill. Plus, I've even made it possible to change the existing magic found within items into other effects, rather than relying on the old "sell it for 1/2 price and go shopping for the item you need" method. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-21-07, 12:14 PM | I support this idea completely. So much so that I've actually removed item creation feats and switched item creation over to the Craft skill. Plus, I've even made it possible to change the existing magic found within items into other effects, rather than relying on the old "sell it for 1/2 price and go shopping for the item you need" method. Dude. That's awesome. The players in my party never craft items. We just tell the DM what we want and we ending finding a way to purchase it. It's pretty lame. |
| Otto the Bugbear03-21-07, 12:41 PM | Dude. That's awesome. The players in my party never craft items. We just tell the DM what we want and we ending finding a way to purchase it. It's pretty lame. Thanks This is the current, very rough, idea I'm using. It's lacking quite a bit, like flavor and how to switch the magical auras around, but the general outline is there. My skill changes page (http://dsenchuk.googlepages.com/skills) Craft (weapons and armor) Crafting Magic Items: Feats to create magic items are gone. In their place, a character with the appropriate ranks in craft and the required spells can create magic items related to that craft. For this purpose, craft is divided into several different skills: Bowyer / Fletcher: creates, improves or changes magical bows, crossbows, bolts, and arrows. Weaponsmithing: creates, improves or changes magical weapons not included in bowyer/fletcher. Armorsmithing: creates, improves or changes magical armor, shields, and helms. Blacksmithing: creates, improves or changes magical items traditionally created by a blacksmith, such as chain, horseshoes, metal boxes/crates, iron doors, and gates. Woodworking: creates, improves or changes magical items traditionally created by a carpenter, such as boats, doors, homes, and wagons. Masonry: creates, improves, or changes magical items traditionally created by a stonemason, such as castles, dungeons, and crypts. Alchemy: creates or changes magical oils, potions, philters, draughts, infusions and similar one-shot items usable by anyone. Clothing: creates, improves or changes magical clothing, usually made from cloth or leather. This includes boots, shirts, cloaks, pants, belts, pouches and bags, hats, gloves, leather bracers, and cloth or leather masks. Jewelry: creates, improves or changes magical jewelry, including rings, earrings, necklaces, metal bracers, torcs, crowns, and metal masks. Trigger Items: creates, improves or changes magical rods, staves, wands, and traps. Scribing: creates, improves or changes magical scrolls, runes, contingent spells, and tattoos. Constructs: creates, improves or changes magically animated constructs, such as golems, animated objects, living spells, homunculi, boguns, and shield guardians. Wondrous Items: creates, improves or changes magical items not covered with any category found above. In order to craft one of these items, you must make an appropriate skill check and have the spell or spells available to be cast during the creation process. The base DC for creating a magic item is 15 + spell level + minimum caster level required to cast that spell ((spell level x 1.5 round down) –1). Magic items are always created at the minimum caster level required for that spell. The item in question must first be a masterwork item. You may create the item yourself, using the above craft sub-categories, or you may purchase a masterwork item yourself. Imbuing an item with magic takes 1 day for each 1000 gold pieces of value the item has. An item requires half this amount in raw materials to create (which does not includes the cost of the base masterwork item). During the course of creating the magic item, the spell or spells being used must be available every day for the entire creation process. You may provide the spell yourself, or you may hire a caster to provide it for you (though the cost of hiring a caster is not included in the cost of the item). At the end of the standard time period (1 day / 1000 gold), you make your skill check. If you fail the check, the raw materials are lost, including the masterwork item, and you must begin anew. You may extend the time you take to create and gain a bonus to your check. For each extra week that you spend imbuing an item, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your check. You can see I tried to add in all the subcategories that sort of filtered into the game with supplements. I also really wanted to separate out Wondrous into categories that are more coherent, like clothing, jewelry, tattoos and constructs. Overall I feel it's a pretty good start. The most exciting part (to me anyway) is that the non-casters now get to do something instead of waiting around (i.e. getting into trouble) while the casters finish their own custom items, plus work on the non-casters' custom items. Rogue wants boots of elvenkind? He makes them with craft and his move silently skill. Barbarian wants an axe +3? He makes it! (Weapons and armor don't necessarily require magical talent, just a lot of skill points.) Fun stuffs galore. 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| Argaud03-21-07, 01:13 PM | As for item randomization... The main reason for Item Creation feats is to obtain the items you need. Random treasure more than likely gets you wealth rather than items you're actually looking for. I truly do not understand why people are against item creation when you get the items *you want* for *half-price*. This is another huge benefit casters provide for the party. There are several good reasons, see... -It takes time. Sometimes the PC has time, but many times the party needs to go to place X to do stuff Y "soon" -It makes the casters weaker and less useful for the party. Both because they take crafting feats (instead of metamagic or regular combat feats) and because they linger behind in xp and levels (although I admit if they craft only a little, they can catch up soon) -Captured items are useful when the PCs fight other humanoids with class levels. In the games I play and DM, this is fairly often -In most cities of 25,000 or more inhabitants it is possible to buy magical items up to 100,000 gold. About the only item over 100,000 a PC might want is a Rod of Greater Quicken... and only very high level casters need or can afford those. (Contrarily to popular belief weapons over +7 aren't good for you. Too much gold for too little gain) -We don't think it is lame to purchase magical items. Casters that earn a living crafting for gold, although not plentiful, can usually teleport from a city to another and have a net of contacts that tell them who wants and where the potential buyer is staying. They are very wealthy folks So yes, crafting is nice, but not crafting has also many advantages. |
| Flan03-21-07, 02:17 PM | -It makes the casters weaker and less useful for the party. Both because they take crafting feats (instead of metamagic or regular combat feats) and because they linger behind in xp and levels (although I admit if they craft only a little, they can catch up soon) Because of 3.5's XP system you can actually GAIN XP from crafting instead of lose. A level 20 fighter gets 1500 XP for defeating a CR 20 encounter in a party of 4, a level 19 wizard gets 2137. Thats 637 free XP from crafting. Thats a 16k GP item's XP cost for free. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-21-07, 02:49 PM | 1) You can't teleport into the air, I believe, only to another surface. And what if his sword dispels your contingency as it hits? 2) Your Enervation fails, because he's smart and wearing Soulforge bracers, and is immune to ability and energy drain. So your two follow up spells don't do anything, either. 3) Your Ray attacks miss, because he's got the Shield Ward feat and has arranged for Energized Armor, and his AC applies against your Sucky attack roll. 4) You pepper him with spell after spell, assuming he can't come up after you with a simple potion of flying, bust an AntiMagic shell something on you, and then wrap you up in a grapple and strangle you to death. And that's if he just doesn't bother to find some cover, drink a potion of invisibility and watch you waste more spells trying to find him. HE can plow through your stoneskin very easily with adamantine weapons, and you really don't want to know how sick a fighter can get with some of the ranged weapons out there, do you? Hey, mages can own fighters, but you are going to have to do much better then that. ===+Aelryinth See thats easy to say cause you know my tactic. But what if the fighter doesn't have that stuff? You are talking about a few individual items. Yes you can Teleport straight up in the air just like you can Dimension Door straight up. Drink your potion of flying and follow me straight up in the air. One Dispel Magic and you drop like a rock. Or I could hit you with Mord's Disjunction and destroy every magical item and magical effect you have. Go ahead grapple me, there are spells like Balor Nimbus, Fireshield, Fireburst, Greater Fireburst. Oh yeah and a good old simple Ring of Freedom of Movement, no grapple there. There is Acid Sheath, Body of the Sun, Babau Slime, Hamatula Barbs, and a whole lot more spells for grapple. And if you pi$$ed me off enough I could just spend 1000xp cast Gate and call forth a 40 HD Solar to deal with you. The Solar could easily cast End of Strife and every time you swing your sword and you are within 80ft of me you would take 17d6 points of damage no save. So if you had 4 attacks and you swung for times that 17d6 four times. Well we could say that Solar used Incense of Meditation that day so everything is maximized. That would be 102 points of damage per swing so that comes to 408 points of automatic damage. Yeah a little overkill but i'm just having fun. |
| Argaud03-21-07, 03:26 PM | Because of 3.5's XP system you can actually GAIN XP from crafting instead of lose. A level 20 fighter gets 1500 XP for defeating a CR 20 encounter in a party of 4, a level 19 wizard gets 2137. Thats 637 free XP from crafting. Thats a 16k GP item's XP cost for free. Exactly. A 16k item in exchange of raising level a session after the rest of the party and having a feat (or more) devoted to craft seems reasonable to me. 16k out of the 180k (a character gains 180k gold going from level 19 to 20). It means the wizard has items worth ~10% more than the rest of the members of the party. Maybe 835k in items instead of 760k at level 20. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-21-07, 06:54 PM | -It takes time. Sometimes the PC has time, but many times the party needs to go to place X to do stuff Y "soon" Well, I find games with little-to-no downtime a little unrealistic. Really, my judgments on this issue are mostly due to my opinion on how a game should be run :). But at least in Eberron, there is a homonculus that can take the time to craft for you. -It makes the casters weaker and less useful for the party. Both because they take crafting feats (instead of metamagic or regular combat feats) and because they linger behind in xp and levels (although I admit if they craft only a little, they can catch up soon) The value of a metamagic feat, to me, is not as great as an item creation feat. Considering the boon item creation feats are to just casters alone (for the wizard, items such as wands and staves help overcome the limitations of preparation casting) and the boon they provide to the rest of the party, I consider them well beyond metamagic feats. Having no experience at all with item creation and the effect on XP and levels, I can't say much. But again, I don't think the cost outweighs the benefits. You are providing the exact items needed, at half price. XP can always be gained back with another foray into a dungeon. There is no time-limit on the game. If the party stays at level 14 for a while longer than expected, you don't suddenly start fighting CR 15 and 16 monsters. So for me, the issue of XP doesn't seem too great. The wizard will cacth up with enough encounters, and start the whole thing over again. Also, I seem to remember a rule that you can share the XP loss with the caster. Is this rule somewhere? -Captured items are useful when the PCs fight other humanoids with class levels. In the games I play and DM, this is fairly often And it will largely be a matter of game style. For instance, as I said, very little item creation is done in the games I have played. One reason for this is one you have already said, there is no downtime. Ever. The games I usually play in are non-stop quests. Item creation feats are useless in these games. Likewise, I can see how they wouldn't be worth much in games where most enemies are NPC's with the same tastes in items as the PC's :). But in a game with downtime, and non-NPC enemies, I think Item Creation feats are awesome. -In most cities of 25,000 or more inhabitants it is possible to buy magical items up to 100,000 gold. About the only item over 100,000 a PC might want is a Rod of Greater Quicken... and only very high level casters need or can afford those. (Contrarily to popular belief weapons over +7 aren't good for you. Too much gold for too little gain) -We don't think it is lame to purchase magical items. Casters that earn a living crafting for gold, although not plentiful, can usually teleport from a city to another and have a net of contacts that tell them who wants and where the potential buyer is staying. They are very wealthy folks Well, again, this is just my opinion. It doesn't make sense to me for high level NPC casters to make a living on item creation. The resoures needed to run an entire store of the kinds of magical items higher level PC's will be looking for would be astronomical. Not to mention the amount of defenses you would need to stop all of the endless thieves guilds in the gameworld from robbing you. It also seems unlikely that the exact items you want would be conveniently available. And if not, you're talking about 4 PC's comissioning an NPC to craft 4 items. I mean, I don't see my character walking into a store and purchasing a Nine Lives Stealer. And considering wealth-by-level for an NPC and the items he might need to craft just to get to a high level himself, I don't think he would have the income to devote to item creation. (Of course, I have done nothing to research this, so take it with a huge grain of salt.) I don't know. Just my 2 cents. Otto: I like what you did with the skills in that link you provided. It seems logical to base some of those abilities on ranks instead of simply taking the penalty to the roll. I think it better demonstrates proficiency then simply saying 'Well, I'll probably do it.' |
| Flan03-21-07, 07:12 PM | Exactly. A 16k item in exchange of raising level a session after the rest of the party and having a feat (or more) devoted to craft seems reasonable to me. 16k out of the 180k (a character gains 180k gold going from level 19 to 20). It means the wizard has items worth ~10% more than the rest of the members of the party. Maybe 835k in items instead of 760k at level 20. It also means that if the party just broke 20 the wizard can burn off 10 XP on a scroll to keep himself at 19. Then after the encounter the wizard ends up over 600 XP ahead of everyone else. But thats a problem with the silly XP system more than crafting. |
| NineInchNall03-21-07, 07:22 PM | Also, I seem to remember a rule that you can share the XP loss with the caster. Is this rule somewhere? It's in the PHB2 web enhancement: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a There was also a sidebar about it in the Epic Level Handbook. |
| ZocckCastlestorm03-21-07, 08:19 PM | Warblades have made Fighters obsolete?!?!? Yeaaaaaa,right. Can a Warblade do this: By 16th Character Level have a Full Round Attack with NINE (9) APR (Attacks-Per-Round)? On a consistant basis, mind you, no Haste Spells, no Weapon of Speed(It can be shut-down by a High Level Mage). Here is Rue Harccin (Th' Storm of Blades! tm). Human Fighter: 14/Exotic Weapon Master: 2 (Total Character Level= 16) Base Attributes: Str; 14/Dex; 19/Con; 14/Int; 14/ Wis; 11/Cha; 10. HP's; 124, BAB; +16, Saves; Fort:+14/ Reflex:+8/Will:+6(Feats/Attributes Only) Feats, by Level; Level 1) Exotic Weapon: 2 Bladed Sword Ftr 1) 2 Weapon Fighting Human) 2 Weapon Defense Ftr 2) Weapon Focus: 2 Bladed Sword Level 3) Iron Will Ftr 4) Weapon Specialist: 2 Bladed Sword Level 6) Improved 2 Weapon Fighting Ftr 6) Improved 2 Weapon Defense ~EWMaster 1) Flurry of Strikes~Exotic Weapon Stunt at 7th Char Level ~EWMaster 2) Show Off~ Exotic Weapon Stunt at 8th Char Level Level 9) Melee Weapon Mastery:Slashing Ftr 8) Greater Weapon Focus; 2 Bladed Sword Level 12) Greater 2 Weapon Fighting Ftr 10) Greater 2 Weapon Defense Ftr12) Greater Weapon Specialist: 2 Bladed Sword Level 15) Alertness Ftr 14) Slashing Flurry Total(Pre-Magic) Bonuses For Full Round Attack= base /2wf/Flry/base/SlFlry/I2WF/base/G2WF/base +20 /+20 /+20/+15 /+15 /+15 /+10 /+10 /+5 Each Attack doing(with Feats/Attributes only) +12.5 Ave Base/11.5 Ave Off Hand Attack |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-21-07, 10:17 PM | Warblades have made Fighters obsolete?!?!? Yeaaaaaa,right. Can a Warblade do this: By 16th Character Level have a Full Round Attack with NINE (9) APR (Attacks-Per-Round)? On a consistant basis, mind you, no Haste Spells, no Weapon of Speed(It can be shut-down by a High Level Mage). Here is Rue Harccin (Th' Storm of Blades! tm). Human Fighter: 14/Exotic Weapon Master: 2 (Total Character Level= 16) Base Attributes: Str; 14/Dex; 19/Con; 14/Int; 14/ Wis; 11/Cha; 10. HP's; 124, BAB; +16, Saves; Fort:+14/ Reflex:+8/Will:+6(Feats/Attributes Only) Feats, by Level; Level 1) Exotic Weapon: 2 Bladed Sword Ftr 1) 2 Weapon Fighting Human) 2 Weapon Defense Ftr 2) Weapon Focus: 2 Bladed Sword Level 3) Iron Will Ftr 4) Weapon Specialist: 2 Bladed Sword Level 6) Improved 2 Weapon Fighting Ftr 6) Improved 2 Weapon Defense ~EWMaster 1) Flurry of Strikes~Exotic Weapon Stunt at 7th Char Level ~EWMaster 2) Show Off~ Exotic Weapon Stunt at 8th Char Level Level 9) Melee Weapon Mastery:Slashing Ftr 8) Greater Weapon Focus; 2 Bladed Sword Level 12) Greater 2 Weapon Fighting Ftr 10) Greater 2 Weapon Defense Ftr12) Greater Weapon Specialist: 2 Bladed Sword Level 15) Alertness Ftr 14) Slashing Flurry Total(Pre-Magic) Bonuses For Full Round Attack= base /2wf/Flry/base/SlFlry/I2WF/base/G2WF/base +20 /+20 /+20/+15 /+15 /+15 /+10 /+10 /+5 Each Attack doing(with Feats/Attributes only) +12.5 Ave Base/11.5 Ave Off Hand Attack Dude we are talking Fighter not PrC's. And I think you need to redo your character. You will not have 9 attacks I really don't know where in the world you got this from. With Flurry of Strikes you get one extra attack. With what you have is getting into epic stuff. And yes a Warblade will rip the fighter a new one. :confused: |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-21-07, 10:42 PM | This is how it should look. Primary Hand: Just your starting BAB with minuses no bonuses added. 12/12/7/2/-2 Off-hand 12/7/2 Not very good even when adding bonuses. All of this is with Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved and Greater and the Flurry of Strikes. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-22-07, 12:37 AM | He has 4 primary attacks from his BAB. He then has 3 off-hand attacks from his two-weapon fighting feats. He then has 1 extra attack from the Exotic Weapon Stunt. And finally, another attack from his 14th level fighter feat, Slashing Flurry from PHB 2 (though I don't recall if that is the actual name). Nine attacks total. If you can fit it in, which you can, Snap Kick adds another attack, for a total of 10. The only problem is that your attack bonus is taking severe penalties. Most likely to the point where you might have issues fighting. Especially with that Slashing Flurry feat. A -5 to all attacks? Not worth it in my opinion. With that alone you're on par with the rogue for attack bonus, except with two more attacks. Then the -2 from two-weapon fighting makes you worse than the rogue. Then the Flurry ability from EWM may bring you down lower (don't remember). It doesn't seem likely that all of those attacks will hit. |
| Flan03-22-07, 12:57 AM | Toss on great cleave and robilar's gambit for a potential 20 more attacks, lol. |
| Krevon03-22-07, 01:06 AM | @ Kahn Have you noticed that weapon master can be applied twice to a morningstar? Also allowing you to gain the benefits of Crushing Strike and Driving Attack. |
| Argaud03-22-07, 01:15 AM | A level 15 warblade can do better already with Raging Mongose: 5 attacks with each weapon. At level 16 he would have 6 attacks with the primary and 5 with the secondary. Moreover the three first attacks of each hand are with the base attack. At level 17 the wablade will have Time Stand Still and can make 22 attacks in a single round. He can also have Combat Reflexes. It is one of the warblade bonus feats. It might be possible to sneak in a Snap Kick in the build too. There is really no contest. Martial Adepts simply make more attacks than fighters. The fighter can usually hit a bit better and a bit harder, and can use ranged weapons. But the Martial Adepts are the undisputed masters of hitting many times very quickly. Even at low level they can move and full-attack, or even charge and full-attack. |
| Flan03-22-07, 01:27 AM | A level 15 warblade can do better already with Raging Mongose: 5 attacks with each weapon. At level 16 he would have 6 attacks with the primary and 5 with the secondary. Moreover the three first attacks of each hand are with the base attack. For one round... Then he spends a round recovering the action so he's really doing 5.5 attacks/round. |
| sinrae_kinesti03-22-07, 01:43 AM | who cares 11 attacks in one round will kill most monsters....not to mention other players |
| aelryinth03-22-07, 02:28 AM | See thats easy to say cause you know my tactic. But what if the fighter doesn't have that stuff? You are talking about a few individual items. Yes you can Teleport straight up in the air just like you can Dimension Door straight up. Drink your potion of flying and follow me straight up in the air. One Dispel Magic and you drop like a rock. Or I could hit you with Mord's Disjunction and destroy every magical item and magical effect you have. Go ahead grapple me, there are spells like Balor Nimbus, Fireshield, Fireburst, Greater Fireburst. Oh yeah and a good old simple Ring of Freedom of Movement, no grapple there. There is Acid Sheath, Body of the Sun, Babau Slime, Hamatula Barbs, and a whole lot more spells for grapple. And if you pi$$ed me off enough I could just spend 1000xp cast Gate and call forth a 40 HD Solar to deal with you. The Solar could easily cast End of Strife and every time you swing your sword and you are within 80ft of me you would take 17d6 points of damage no save. So if you had 4 attacks and you swung for times that 17d6 four times. Well we could say that Solar used Incense of Meditation that day so everything is maximized. That would be 102 points of damage per swing so that comes to 408 points of automatic damage. Yeah a little overkill but i'm just having fun. And see, that's easy to say if you think the fighter is stupid. 1) Dispel his flight. Fine, while he's feather falling to the ground (which happens when flight goes away, read the description) he drinks another one, and is flying at you again. Congrats on wasting a spell. Or maybe he just starts shooting you on the way down. 2) Like any caster at level 20 is going to wear a ring of Freedom of Movement over wizardry and +5 protection? And you are in an anti-magic shell, dude, I don't care how many spells you have on you...NONE of them apply. 3) And maybe the Fighter took martial study, and has a +30 to his Will save via concentration substitution, without magic items, and laughs at your feeble tactic with MDJ? 4) And your solar can't get past an AM shell, and the fighter doesn't have to kill the solar...he has to kill you. And End of Strife isn't on the default Solar's spell list, so that's not going to work for you, either. And they don't premax themselves just so you can call on them either. Also, did you read the Gate spell? Max 25 HD limit. Sorry, no greasing your NPC's and summoned monsters. 5) If a high level fighter doesn't have the wherewithal to pull off at least limiited flight and 'porting, he's hosed before the battle starts, anyways. 6) You have an interesting notion of how teleportation works, since you have to specify a destination. Straight up is probably 'unknown', which is 25% chance of error and could wind up in all sorts of craziness. Perhaps you mean greater teleporting, which is always spot on. As I said, you are being pretty simple, and I'm just using routine stuff the fighter would have to have just to remain viable. ===Aelryinth |
| aelryinth03-22-07, 02:34 AM | For one round... Then he spends a round recovering the action so he's really doing 5.5 attacks/round. A Warblade can take TWF as easily or moreso then a Fighter, because he's not as dependent on Str to deliver him damage for a good build. Without charging, can your Fighter do a guaranteed 100 dmg + Weapon, in one attack? Can he stack +16d6 or more of rending damage on something hit by that blizzard of attacks? Can he get off two full attack actions in one round, every other round, if he so desires, and a full attack on his 'off rounds', that could wind up being lethal in and of themselves? Can he whip out a blow that does 2-12 Con dmg if it hits? (The answer would be 'yes' if Fighters were given full Initiator levels, but I digress). But the glory and wonder of Warblades is the power of their Standard actions, even moreso then the Full Attacks. Diamond Nightmare Blade, x4 dmg on one strike...that's better then a Full attack, and it's a standard action. Diamond MInd concentrationx2...turns a skill check directly into dmg, standard action. All the flesh ripping and DR pounding of the Dragon and Tiger schools...mostly standard actions if they dont' deal with two handedness. ====Aelryinth |
| sinrae_kinesti03-22-07, 02:50 AM | And see, that's easy to say if you think the fighter is stupid. 1) Dispel his flight. Fine, while he's feather falling to the ground (which happens when flight goes away, read the description) he drinks another one, and is flying at you again. Congrats on wasting a spell. Or maybe he just starts shooting you on the way down. 2) Like any caster at level 20 is going to wear a ring of Freedom of Movement over wizardry and +5 protection? And you are in an anti-magic shell, dude, I don't care how many spells you have on you...NONE of them apply. 3) And maybe the Fighter took martial study, and has a +30 to his Will save via concentration substitution, without magic items, and laughs at your feeble tactic with MDJ? 4) And your solar can't get past an AM shell, and the fighter doesn't have to kill the solar...he has to kill you. And End of Strife isn't on the default Solar's spell list, so that's not going to work for you, either. And they don't premax themselves just so you can call on them either. Also, did you read the Gate spell? Max 25 HD limit. Sorry, no greasing your NPC's and summoned monsters. 5) If a high level fighter doesn't have the wherewithal to pull off at least limiited flight and 'porting, he's hosed before the battle starts, anyways. 6) You have an interesting notion of how teleportation works, since you have to specify a destination. Straight up is probably 'unknown', which is 25% chance of error and could wind up in all sorts of craziness. Perhaps you mean greater teleporting, which is always spot on. As I said, you are being pretty simple, and I'm just using routine stuff the fighter would have to have just to remain viable. ===Aelryinth every wizard ive played wears a ring of freedom of movement.. rings of wizardry dont really impress me. id rather not be grappled and use a staff,wands and scrolls for extra spells summoned creatures with spell resistance do not wink out automaticaly and a solar has a SR of 32... if you can see where you are teleporting it is considered a well known location... and you know it isnt a false destination because you can see it with your own two eyes...(unless someone is cunning enough use alter terrain on the sky) |
| aelryinth03-22-07, 06:58 AM | every wizard ive played wears a ring of freedom of movement.. rings of wizardry dont really impress me. id rather not be grappled and use a staff,wands and scrolls for extra spells summoned creatures with spell resistance do not wink out automaticaly and a solar has a SR of 32... if you can see where you are teleporting it is considered a well known location... and you know it isnt a false destination because you can see it with your own two eyes...(unless someone is cunning enough use alter terrain on the sky) let me reiterate something. If the fighter is going to grapple you, he's going to do it inside an AM field. you don't have Freedom of Movement, or any magic at all. You are thusly and properly hosed. The Solar can't enter an AM field, either, so it's moot. The fighter is just going to go around him to get to you. Remember, the Fighter does NOT have to kill him. The fighter has to kill YOU. You knowing it's a false destination doesn't make it well known. It makes it 'seen once' at the very best, and that's if you are looking that way instead of having eyes on the fighter about to take your head off with one full attack. You just said said "Straight Up." That's basically a random teleport, and you've got to live with the random results...or do you teleport to that same point whenever you teleport straight up? I'd find it kind of funny if 'straight up' meant the same vertical point as where you practiced it when you were tenth level some dimensions away...THAT would be a familiar 'straight up' point. So, no, you don't get out of the randomness rules. Sorry. ===Aelryinth |
| sinrae_kinesti03-22-07, 07:08 AM | obviously you are unreasonable. so i will no longer attempt to explain what i am saying as far as the teleport goes. |
| FrostWolf03-22-07, 07:13 AM | Instead of WIZARD VS. FIGHTER, how about melee vs. casting? Anyways, I've always seen Fighter as a splash class. Good way to get that one feat you need for a PrC, along with a nice beefy hit die and some weapon/armor skills. |
| FrostWolf03-22-07, 07:16 AM | let me reiterate something. If the fighter is going to grapple you, he's going to do it inside an AM field. ===Aelryinth But then it's magic beating the wizard at that point. |
| Argaud03-22-07, 07:28 AM | But then it's magic beating the wizard at that point. Newsflash: Fighters can use magical items. Newsflash II: So can everybody else, not just the wizard. |
| Kresalak03-22-07, 07:29 AM | How is the Fighter flying in his antimagic field? And why do we care if he can kill a Wizard in an antimagic field? |
| malisteen03-22-07, 10:36 AM | Anyways, I've always seen Fighter as a splash class. Good way to get that one feat you need for a PrC, along with a nice beefy hit die and some weapon/armor skills. Which is fine. And would be fine, if they printed fighter as 2 levels. But the Fighter is supposed to be a 20 level base class. Further, it's one of the Big Four, the Archetypal Classes. It should be a good and interesting and useful and versatile base class for 20 levels. In short: "Just because a fighter is an excellant 2 level dip, that doesn't mean its a decent 20 level class". I happen to think that it's more important for a fighter to be a good 20 level class then 2 level dip. If I had my way, I might even make the fighter a worse 2 level dip while making him a better 20 level class. |
| Bob Loblaw03-22-07, 11:41 AM | Just a note on the teleport spell: From Teleport in the SRD: Familiarity “Very familiar” is a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home. “Studied carefully” is a place you know well, either because you can currently see it, you’ve been there often, or you have used other means (such as scrying) to study the place for at least one hour. “Seen casually” is a place that you have seen more than once but with which you are not very familiar. “Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic. Teleporting straight up is Studied Carefully if you can see it. If you are just ging up without looking, then it is Seen Casually or Viewed Once. Strictly speaking, it should be Viewed Once since it is a place that you have seen once. As to why do we care if the fighter can kill the wizard in an antimagic field it is because the fight described gave the wizard all the tactical advantages and assumed the fighter would not have or use any. The fight looked like the wizard was fully prepared to fight the fighter but the fighter was not given the same luxury. If I was going to go up against a wizard, I would do everything I could to be prepared. To be honest, the PvP fight is rather silly. Common scenarios can continuously be set up to show that one or the other will win. Anecdotal and situational evidence are really bad ways to demonstrate that something is weak or powerful. Since no two characters will be built alike and no two campaigns are the same, examples like this have actually no real value except to show how well someone knows how to play their character in their campaign. |
| FrostWolf03-22-07, 11:54 AM | Which is fine. And would be fine, if they printed fighter as 2 levels. But the Fighter is supposed to be a 20 level base class. Further, it's one of the Big Four, the Archetypal Classes. It should be a good and interesting and useful and versatile base class for 20 levels. In short: "Just because a fighter is an excellant 2 level dip, that doesn't mean its a decent 20 level class". I happen to think that it's more important for a fighter to be a good 20 level class then 2 level dip. If I had my way, I might even make the fighter a worse 2 level dip while making him a better 20 level class. I agree. 100%. Feats is okay, but okay isn't good enough. They need skills, but who can say what is balanced and what isn't? The only way we can do it is buy getting a bunch of people that have an expert grasp of the rules and seeing what they can hash out, then get a group together, 50% for changing the fighter, and 50%against changing the fighter, and letting them play with the new fighter and see what they all think. So why don't we all start throwing some upgrade ideas out there and try our damnedest to do what we feel needs doing? ~~~~~~~~~~ To Argaud. NEWSFLASHIII: There is no guarantee that a fighter will have access to an AMF item. NEWSFLASHIV: An arcane caster can make most of the items he needs. |
| Bhaal00603-22-07, 12:16 PM | Ok I have been playing Wizards for over 28 years now. Let me give you a few tips. First a 20th level character on average has 760,000gp worth of items. Ok a Wizard will certainly have items that will boost Dex, Int and Con. Gloves of Dex +6, Headband of Intellect +6, Amulet of Health +6, Vest of Resistance +6, Ring of Protection +5, and has read a tome to gain the +5 to Int and Boots of Flying. Now there are many item combos that you can get, but these were just a few common examples. Now the real deal is in the spells. Now the first thing is to have my Contingency up. My Contingency would be the first time I am hit by the fighter I Teleport straight up and activate my Boots of Flying. Now my first spell I cast is Time Stop, followed by Arcane Spellsurge which for the next 20 rounds my spells are cast as swift actions, then i cast Retributive Enervation every time the Fighter makes a successful hit loses 10 levels, I then hit him with Ray of Enfeeblement, and Ray of Clumsiness. Then I could pepper him with spell after spell from the air, and unless he is using ranged he won't get me. If he has specialized in range spells Stoneskin is always good along with many many other spells. A properly played 20th level Wizard will destroy a 20th level fighter pretty much every time. The only issue you have here is that if a fighter is some how surrounded by a mobile AMF you're screwed, because your contingency doesn't go off, and you don't teleport away, so the fighter doesn't need to fly to catch you. |
| Krevon03-22-07, 07:01 PM | The only issue you have here is that if a fighter is some how surrounded by a mobile AMF you're screwed, because your contingency doesn't go off, and you don't teleport away, so the fighter doesn't need to fly to catch you. Its called an Antimagic Torc from the Underdark book. |
| Leo03-22-07, 07:24 PM | Why do you want so much to give the fighter skills? It's called fighter for god's sake! He fights! He's not McGyver, he's the gladiator(from the movie with the same name)! |
| Argaud03-22-07, 07:26 PM | To Argaud. NEWSFLASHIII: There is no guarantee that a fighter will have access to an AMF item. NEWSFLASHIV: An arcane caster can make most of the items he needs. Sure there is. Unless there is no city in the world with 25,000 population or the DM is houseruling. The Torc of Anti-magic is not that expensive. It is cheap at high level. If the fighter's strategy involves using anti-magic, he can do it. Period. Those are the rules. Magic items can be purchased. The fighter does not need a wizard friend to make them. Live with it. If you don't like it, change the rules in your game. But do not expect most of the posters play like you do. |
| FrostWolf03-22-07, 08:28 PM | Why do you want so much to give the fighter skills? It's called fighter for god's sake! He fights! He's not McGyver, he's the gladiator(from the movie with the same name)! Becouse as it stands, A swim to a castle wall, followed by climbing said wall will kill him most of the time due to the low ammount of skill points he gets. The skill selection they get is fine, but they just don't get the points to make them anything above a 50/50 in more than a couple skills. Is underdark even in print still? And if so, who's going to drop $50 just to get the stats for one item to make their fighter able to handle casters. No, better yet, that same item would be much more effective on any other class, even a wizard (If he takes levels into Effigy Master or Gnome Articifer). |
| FrostHammer03-22-07, 10:37 PM | I haven't yet played under a DM that says, "Anything under this value can be found in this city" Instead, what happens mostly is, "This is the list of items that this shop has for sale. You may only choose from this. Otherwise, you can try to use gather information to locate anotehr item, but nothing is guaranteed, and it'll be more expensive. Alternatively,you can ask the local wizard to craft the item for you, and if he agrees, it'll be ready in x week of time. Sometimes the wizard will send you on a quest to get the mateirals needed to craft said item." |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-22-07, 11:15 PM | And see, that's easy to say if you think the fighter is stupid. 1) Dispel his flight. Fine, while he's feather falling to the ground (which happens when flight goes away, read the description) he drinks another one, and is flying at you again. Congrats on wasting a spell. Or maybe he just starts shooting you on the way down. 2) Like any caster at level 20 is going to wear a ring of Freedom of Movement over wizardry and +5 protection? And you are in an anti-magic shell, dude, I don't care how many spells you have on you...NONE of them apply. 3) And maybe the Fighter took martial study, and has a +30 to his Will save via concentration substitution, without magic items, and laughs at your feeble tactic with MDJ? 4) And your solar can't get past an AM shell, and the fighter doesn't have to kill the solar...he has to kill you. And End of Strife isn't on the default Solar's spell list, so that's not going to work for you, either. And they don't premax themselves just so you can call on them either. Also, did you read the Gate spell? Max 25 HD limit. Sorry, no greasing your NPC's and summoned monsters. 5) If a high level fighter doesn't have the wherewithal to pull off at least limiited flight and 'porting, he's hosed before the battle starts, anyways. 6) You have an interesting notion of how teleportation works, since you have to specify a destination. Straight up is probably 'unknown', which is 25% chance of error and could wind up in all sorts of craziness. Perhaps you mean greater teleporting, which is always spot on. As I said, you are being pretty simple, and I'm just using routine stuff the fighter would have to have just to remain viable. ===Aelryinth Dude reread the Gate spell. The max hit dice creature you can summon is double your character level. 20 x 2 = 40. Tell me this, how many fighters run around with an anti-magic field? And yes the Solar could get past the AM shell because he is called not summoned. As for drinking another potion I will just use my swift action and cast Dispel Magic again, our I will just slam his butt to the ground with reverse gravity. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-22-07, 11:24 PM | He has 4 primary attacks from his BAB. He then has 3 off-hand attacks from his two-weapon fighting feats. He then has 1 extra attack from the Exotic Weapon Stunt. And finally, another attack from his 14th level fighter feat, Slashing Flurry from PHB 2 (though I don't recall if that is the actual name). Nine attacks total. If you can fit it in, which you can, Snap Kick adds another attack, for a total of 10. The only problem is that your attack bonus is taking severe penalties. Most likely to the point where you might have issues fighting. Especially with that Slashing Flurry feat. A -5 to all attacks? Not worth it in my opinion. With that alone you're on par with the rogue for attack bonus, except with two more attacks. Then the -2 from two-weapon fighting makes you worse than the rogue. Then the Flurry ability from EWM may bring you down lower (don't remember). It doesn't seem likely that all of those attacks will hit. Forgot about Slashing Fury. But my god with all these minuses you may only hit with 2 or three attacks. |
| JLaurHughes03-23-07, 12:26 AM | Becouse as it stands, A swim to a castle wall, followed by climbing said wall will kill him most of the time due to the low ammount of skill points he gets. The skill selection they get is fine, but they just don't get the points to make them anything above a 50/50 in more than a couple skills. Is underdark even in print still? And if so, who's going to drop $50 just to get the stats for one item to make their fighter able to handle casters. No, better yet, that same item would be much more effective on any other class, even a wizard (If he takes levels into Effigy Master or Gnome Articifer). Swim is easy in water that has no obstacles and moats don't usually unless the castle master wants them. And climb is aided by a grapling hook provided your fighter decided to invest in one. And skill selection is easier with a better intelligence. Make it too low and you're hurting your fighter more than you believe. |
| FrostHammer03-23-07, 12:43 AM | Duels are stupid. Contingent DD away, so he can't reach you, and then on your turn, blast the fighter. Stupid spells being so powerful...any spellcaster worth his salt has a decent change of offing/neutralizing the fighter in one round. |
| Bob Loblaw03-23-07, 12:48 AM | NEWSFLASHIII: There is no guarantee that a fighter will have access to an AMF item. NEWSFLASHIV: An arcane caster can make most of the items he needs. First newsflash: True. Second Newsflash: Untrue. The wizard needs to spend his feats on this. He will not be able to craft as much as one thinks. While he can craft quite a bit, every craft feat he takes is one metamagic feat he doesn't. To make the assumption that the wizard crafts most of his items is unrealistic. As has been pointed out, feats themselves are not class features so should not be assumed to be a part of the class. Becouse as it stands, A swim to a castle wall, followed by climbing said wall will kill him most of the time due to the low ammount of skill points he gets. The skill selection they get is fine, but they just don't get the points to make them anything above a 50/50 in more than a couple skills. So let's take a look at the skills. I posted this earlier in the thread, but I will repost with updated information. Let's assume 30 Strength, 14 Intelligence (our fighter wants Power Attack and Combat Expertise), all other stats 10. None are unreasonable at level 20. He will have 92 skill points by level 20. He is in full plate with a heavy steel shield (both magical therefore masterworked). Climb: DC 30 is the highest. If he can get up to a +20 bonus to climb, he doesn't need any more skill points in there. (He can take 10.) Besides, if he can find other ways around the problem (pitons and rope should make for easier climbing realisitically bringing it to DC 15). 0 Points needed. Craft: DC 20 for masterwork items. He only needs +10 on his check to take 10. 7 points (if he buys the right tools) per Craft (he may only need or want 2 or 3). Handle Animal: DC 30 is the highest (unless he wants to rear a wild animal). He needs a +10 to be able to Take 20. 8 points needed. Intimidate: This is an opposed check so every point should go here if he wants this skill. While not necessary, it really should be maxed if he chooses it at all. 23 points needed. Jump: The more points here the better. Taking the Run feat will grant a +4 bonus. Honestly though, if you need to be jumping more than 20 feet, it may be time to ask that wizard for a fly spell. However, he needs +20 to be able to jump 30 feet. We need to deal with the Armor Check Penalty of -6 and the fact that his movement rate is 20 feet. Skipping feats, he needs 12 points. Ride: DC 20 is the highest he will have to worry about. DC 10 or 15 is more likely. While he won't be able to Take 10 on most of these checks, 5 ranks in Handle Animal and a military saddle grant him a +4 bonus. 16 points needed. Swim: DC 20 is the worst one. Not a good idea to be swimming in a storm in full plate. He will need to dump a lot into this skill to make it viable at that point. However, DC 10 Calm Water and DC 15 Rough Water are more common. I don't think I'd let him Take 10 in rough water. 10 points for Calm Water, 15 for Rough, 20 for Stormy. Total Skill Points needed: 79 (without taking craft skills). He still has 13 skill points to play with. Those are all of his skills. Once he has managed to be able to hit those DCs without rolling (and he doesn't have to be very high level for any one individually), he can focus on other skills. Note that taking magic items that enhance his attributes will make things better. He can still get items that improve the skills as well. While I don't think this is necessarily the best way to spend his money. It is still an option. I note that cross-class skills are going to be painful. However, these really aren't all that big of a deal all the time. He won't need to worry about many of them (Bluff, Concentration, Decipher Script, Forgery, Open Lock, Perform, Profession). Others will be very simple for what will be expected of him (Appraise, Disable Device, Heal, Knowledge, Sense Motive) so he can always dump one or two points in just to be able to do these tasks. Others are not really things he is expected to do, or in his heavy armor are sometimes a little out of place (Balance, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Hide, Move Silently, Sleight Of Hand, Spellcraft, Tumble, Use Magic Device, Use Rope). Others, while useful, are either opposing skill checks with severe penalties (Spot and Listen), have other means of accomplishing the same thing (Escape Artist, Speak Language), or at a minimum allow him to Aid others to help them (Search, Survival) or at least he can accomplish some Average to Tough tasks (DC 10-15) with little problems, he can even achieve Challenging tasks (DC 20) with enough time. While I can see an argument for more skill points and skills, to say he is unable to succeed on his skill checks is false. |
| FrostHammer03-23-07, 12:55 AM | How is he getting 30 strength, just curious. Max bonus from any item is +6. Even if he starts with 18 strength, and dumps every boost into strength, that's 29 strength at level 20. |
| Bob Loblaw03-23-07, 01:01 AM | How is he getting 30 strength, just curious. Max bonus from any item is +6. Even if he starts with 18 strength, and dumps every boost into strength, that's 29 strength at level 20. 30 at level 20? 14 (base) +5 (every 4 levels) +5 (book) +6 (belt) I'm at 30. |
| Krevon03-23-07, 01:07 AM | How is he getting 30 strength, just curious. Max bonus from any item is +6. Even if he starts with 18 strength, and dumps every boost into strength, that's 29 strength at level 20. You can read Tomes.....a human fighter should have a str of 34 @ level 20. if using a hammer of thunderbolts you can use gauntlet of ogre power at the same time to get a 36. |
| navar10003-23-07, 01:08 AM | I agree. 100%. Feats is okay, but okay isn't good enough. They need skills, but who can say what is balanced and what isn't? The only way we can do it is buy getting a bunch of people that have an expert grasp of the rules and seeing what they can hash out, then get a group together, 50% for changing the fighter, and 50%against changing the fighter, and letting them play with the new fighter and see what they all think. So why don't we all start throwing some upgrade ideas out there and try our damnedest to do what we feel needs doing? ~~~~~~~~~~ To Argaud. NEWSFLASHIII: There is no guarantee that a fighter will have access to an AMF item. NEWSFLASHIV: An arcane caster can make most of the items he needs. NewsflashV: There's no guarantee an arcane caster will have the proper item creation feat, the time and money to make the item, and the proper spell required to make the item. |
| Krevon03-23-07, 01:11 AM | The newsflash thing is getting me laughing....keep it up |
| Red_Rabbit03-23-07, 01:13 AM | I didn't read all those freaking pages, but Fighters(usually with PrC) are toughest melee I've seen in any of my games. Druids - Wildshape usually get beat up when they try to be fighters themselves sure there good for afew rounds, but not for the fight. When they Wildshape and fly up and try to cast spells there more effective, but Druids aren't great fighters just average. Clerics - Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic (Divine Power and Rightous Might) after that the Cleric is crying for the fighter to come save her. Everyone just assumes that there not gonna be dispelled or someones not gonna see an upset Cleric beating everyone senseless. This is really my favorite for players to try I stopped this one from happening with a Globe of Invulnerability. This is a last ditch effort at best anyone who thinks this is the best fighter hasn't been trying this against a smart villian. Mages - It's been tried once or twice this is usually ends the worst of it all. The Rabbit |
| FrostHammer03-23-07, 01:16 AM | You can read Tomes.....a human fighter should have a str of 34 @ level 20. if using a hammer of thunderbolts you can use gauntlet of ogre power at the same time to get a 36. Arne't tomes and items both Enchancement bonuses, or do tomes give different bonuses? |
| Krevon03-23-07, 01:18 AM | Arne't tomes and items both Enchancement bonuses, or do tomes give different bonuses? Nope Tomes are inherent bonuses. |
| FrostHammer03-23-07, 01:28 AM | I didn't read all those freaking pages, but Fighters(usually with PrC) are toughest melee I've seen in any of my games. Druids - Wildshape usually get beat up when they try to be fighters themselves sure there good for afew rounds, but not for the fight. When they Wildshape and fly up and try to cast spells there more effective, but Druids aren't great fighters just average. Clerics - Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic (Divine Power and Rightous Might) after that the Cleric is crying for the fighter to come save her. Everyone just assumes that there not gonna be dispelled or someones not gonna see an upset Cleric beating everyone senseless. This is really my favorite for players to try I stopped this one from happening with a Globe of Invulnerability. This is a last ditch effort at best anyone who thinks this is the best fighter hasn't been trying this against a smart villian. Mages - It's been tried once or twice this is usually ends the worst of it all. The Rabbit Druids can turn into animals and plants with abilities of fighter can get. Can a Fighter swallow multiple enemies and paralyze them with his special stomach acids? Can a Fighter *always* act in the Surprise Round? Can a Fighter reliably grapple strong enemies more than 2 sizes larger than he is? Even if he can do any of these things, can he do ALL of those things in different rounds or different encounters? The huge selection of Animals and Plants means the Druid can be versatile AND good at combat, without spending feats (unless you count Natural Spell, which eveyr druid takes anyways) Oh yeah, and this is all WITHOUT taking into account the animal companion. As for the Cleric, if you can make the Big Bad Evil Guy waste some turns to Greater Dispell you, then TERRIFIC! You have done your job. The BBEG has wasted one or two turns, and you and your teammates get to beat on him for free! He starts dispells your buffs, you shrug and return to casting things like Gate. |
| aelryinth03-23-07, 01:50 AM | Dude reread the Gate spell. The max hit dice creature you can summon is double your character level. 20 x 2 = 40. Tell me this, how many fighters run around with an anti-magic field? And yes the Solar could get past the AM shell because he is called not summoned. As for drinking another potion I will just use my swift action and cast Dispel Magic again, our I will just slam his butt to the ground with reverse gravity. You reread the Gate spell. It's been errata'd to a maximum of 25 HD. I looked at the SRD just before I posted that. I notice how people are whining about the Fighter getting an Anti-Magic item, but no one is protesting the collecting of +6 Str boosters, +5 Inherent Str boosters, or the like. by the rules of the Game, if the Fighter wants the Item, he can go buy it. Just like his +10 sword and shield sets. It just becomes part of his equipment. And if he's using HIS magic that he's allowed by level to shut down the wizard's magic, I'd call that a very effective tactic, wouldn't you? It'd be suicide against a melee monster, but against a caster heavy bunch of foes, it may be the only way he'd get out alive. ===Aelryinth |
| sinrae_kinesti03-23-07, 02:23 AM | I didn't read all those freaking pages, but Fighters(usually with PrC) are toughest melee I've seen in any of my games. Druids - Wildshape usually get beat up when they try to be fighters themselves sure there good for afew rounds, but not for the fight. When they Wildshape and fly up and try to cast spells there more effective, but Druids aren't great fighters just average. Clerics - Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic (Divine Power and Rightous Might) after that the Cleric is crying for the fighter to come save her. Everyone just assumes that there not gonna be dispelled or someones not gonna see an upset Cleric beating everyone senseless. This is really my favorite for players to try I stopped this one from happening with a Globe of Invulnerability. This is a last ditch effort at best anyone who thinks this is the best fighter hasn't been trying this against a smart villian. Mages - It's been tried once or twice this is usually ends the worst of it all. The Rabbit wow dude you must have a low opinion of clerics... clerics dont need the spells you listed to be effective in combat. or are you the type that thinks of a cleric as nothing more than a healer? |
| Argaud03-23-07, 03:06 AM | by the rules of the Game, if the Fighter wants the Item, he can go buy it. Just like his +10 sword and shield sets. It just becomes part of his equipment. A minor point here. Weapons +10 cost 200,000 gold. Without even going into if they are really worth so much cash I have to mention that such price is, indeed, well beyond the 100k limit of the largest cities. So purchasing those items depends on the DM stating some kind of mega-city with a higher gold limit than normal or allowing the PCs to find some special NPC willing to do the enchanting. |
| Bob Loblaw03-23-07, 03:50 AM | So I assume that there are fewer real problems with the fighter's skills? If the only problem is whether or not he can have a 30 Strength, and that's been corrected, then I can only assume the fighter does fine with his skills. This doesn't mean that more wouldn't be better, but he can do ok with what he has. |
| Archangel6203-23-07, 03:55 AM | So I assume that there are fewer real problems with the fighter's skills? If the only problem is whether or not he can have a 30 Strength, and that's been corrected, then I can only assume the fighter does fine with his skills. This doesn't mean that more wouldn't be better, but he can do ok with what he has. My big issue is simply that the fighter has no real special tricks, what tehy can do is so easily duplicated that it's not even funny. |
| Bob Loblaw03-23-07, 04:06 AM | My big issue is simply that the fighter has no real special tricks, what tehy can do is so easily duplicated that it's not even funny. This would hold true for anyone using skills so it's not really a problem with the fighter individually. I would like to see some cool things the fighter can do as well. I think it's still a viable class, but it is definately not unique. Every other class has a coolness factor that the fighter lacks. At least in the previous editions the fighter was the one with the most attacks. |
| Archangel6203-23-07, 05:03 AM | This would hold true for anyone using skills so it's not really a problem with the fighter individually. I would like to see some cool things the fighter can do as well. I think it's still a viable class, but it is definately not unique. Every other class has a coolness factor that the fighter lacks. At least in the previous editions the fighter was the one with the most attacks. I didn't mean skills necessarily, more abilities overall. Skill selection is a bit of a beef with me but more because I would prefer to be able to tweak the skills available a bit more. I'm currently considering doing some modifications in my game based on the generic classes in UA. But for combat abilities, well when everyone and tehir brother can do the fighters tricks in combat and a bit more besides it can get a little disheartening. |
| FrostWolf03-23-07, 06:33 AM | The newsflash thing is getting me laughing....keep it up If you insist, good sir! NewsflashVI: If an arcane caster WANTS an item, then he'll more than not take the feat and spells needed to make the item. Time isn't an issue eather. Craft Construct lets you make homunculi. Make a Dedicated Wright and dump it in a portable hole. I'm done with this. If everyone wants a class that isn't anything but a handfull of feats, fine. Just seems funny that a low level cleric can tank better with Sanctuary and Spiritual weapon than a fighter of a higher level. |
| Leo03-23-07, 06:59 AM | Ok, but then the wizard pwns everybody, not just the fighter. He will bide his time building an army of construcsts, then unleash thm upon the world and not even the druid or the cleric will be able to whitstand him. So what? If one class pwns the oter 11, who is badly designed? The 1 or the other 11? My Dm has an interesting agument about this: If you can do something broken, you can bet someone has already doen it in this campaign, and believe me, he doesn't like competition. Translation:Try to use tht much cheese, and you'll find yourself in the wrong end of a DM party of high level angry greedy characters that think your wizard is geting too dangerous to be left alone. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-23-07, 09:01 AM | You reread the Gate spell. It's been errata'd to a maximum of 25 HD. I looked at the SRD just before I posted that. I notice how people are whining about the Fighter getting an Anti-Magic item, but no one is protesting the collecting of +6 Str boosters, +5 Inherent Str boosters, or the like. by the rules of the Game, if the Fighter wants the Item, he can go buy it. Just like his +10 sword and shield sets. It just becomes part of his equipment. And if he's using HIS magic that he's allowed by level to shut down the wizard's magic, I'd call that a very effective tactic, wouldn't you? It'd be suicide against a melee monster, but against a caster heavy bunch of foes, it may be the only way he'd get out alive. ===Aelryinth I'm going straight by the book with the Gate spell. And a fighter having anti-magic is rare. In most campaigns when you walk into a magic shop, if one even exists, and just open up the DMG or any book and start shopping away. Some DM's do this, but to me that is stupid. Anti-magic items are not found in the standard DMG and what dumb fighter would walk with anti-magic anyway? This would mean that all of his magic items don't work so he can't do much damage to creatures with DR and high AC's. Lets look at this from a campaign point of view not vs. Ok normally a wizard would have these spells and items. Now in order for your fighter to e effective throughout the campaign he will not have anti-magic anything on his person. He will have whatever magical item he can get his hands on. Now any high level wizard will have spells such as Foresight up, Arcanesight, detection spells, Contingencies, or if that fighter does happen to have anti-magic whatever then the wizard just throws up a Prismatic Sphere. Lets see you try and run through that. Ant-magic fields don't effect a Prismatic Sphere. |
| Argaud03-23-07, 09:20 AM | and what dumb fighter would walk with anti-magic anyway? This would mean that all of his magic items don't work so he can't do much damage to creatures with DR and high AC's. Lets look at this from a campaign point of view not vs. Ok normally a wizard would have these spells and items. Now in order for your fighter to e effective throughout the campaign he will not have anti-magic anything on his person. He will have whatever magical item he can get his hands on. Now any high level wizard will have spells such as Foresight up, Arcanesight, detection spells, Contingencies, or if that fighter does happen to have anti-magic whatever then the wizard just throws up a Prismatic Sphere. Lets see you try and run through that. Ant-magic fields don't effect a Prismatic Sphere. Anti-magic does not affect a Prismatic Sphere, but it affects Contingency and Foresight, which means the wizard can be surprised and won't be able to escape. Anti-magic items make perfect sense for meleers. They are an excellent item to take down enemy casters. They are good to fight many sla-oriented critters (beholders, many outsiders, breath-strafing dragons, etc, etc). Anti-magic generally brings down more tha AC of casters than warriors. Anti-magic rarely affects feats and non-caster class features. A tag-team of a fighter and a rogue using anti-magic and flanking is terrifying, for instance. All those sneak attacks work perfectly. (Actually Torcs of Anti-magic are even better for rogues than for warriors). |
| Archangel6203-23-07, 03:12 PM | Anti-magic does not affect a Prismatic Sphere, but it affects Contingency and Foresight, which means the wizard can be surprised and won't be able to escape. Anti-magic items make perfect sense for meleers. They are an excellent item to take down enemy casters. They are good to fight many sla-oriented critters (beholders, many outsiders, breath-strafing dragons, etc, etc). Anti-magic generally brings down more tha AC of casters than warriors. Anti-magic rarely affects feats and non-caster class features. A tag-team of a fighter and a rogue using anti-magic and flanking is terrifying, for instance. All those sneak attacks work perfectly. (Actually Torcs of Anti-magic are even better for rogues than for warriors). Yes, but if that's the fighters big thing then they need to almost entirely build themselves around that antimagic field. They need to set up their feats and gear ENTIRELY around the AMF. They also need to make sure that they warn their compatriots of that aura, since the party can use it quite well so long as they plan it out correctly. But in that regard the fighter is pretty much defined by their gear and also horrificially dependant on it. |
| ravingbantha03-23-07, 03:17 PM | I've been playing D&D for over 19 years, and have played fighters most of that time. When I play in a game with my regular group of friends they always ask if that's what I'm playing. Simply becuase I can easily break a fighter, and the higher level I get the more insane it get's. I've even been asked by DM's to try something else. Either most players are not looking at enough options or I am missing too much Munchkin stuff out there. |
| aelryinth03-23-07, 06:05 PM | I'm going straight by the book with the Gate spell. And a fighter having anti-magic is rare. In most campaigns when you walk into a magic shop, if one even exists, and just open up the DMG or any book and start shopping away. Some DM's do this, but to me that is stupid. Anti-magic items are not found in the standard DMG and what dumb fighter would walk with anti-magic anyway? This would mean that all of his magic items don't work so he can't do much damage to creatures with DR and high AC's. Lets look at this from a campaign point of view not vs. Ok normally a wizard would have these spells and items. Now in order for your fighter to e effective throughout the campaign he will not have anti-magic anything on his person. He will have whatever magical item he can get his hands on. Now any high level wizard will have spells such as Foresight up, Arcanesight, detection spells, Contingencies, or if that fighter does happen to have anti-magic whatever then the wizard just throws up a Prismatic Sphere. Lets see you try and run through that. Ant-magic fields don't effect a Prismatic Sphere. Dude, seriously, when's the last time WoTC came over to your house and stenciled the errata into your book? On the other hand, the SRD gets adjusted for errata in a timely manner. Don't call me wrong because you don't correct your book. The spell has been errata'd, it's in the SRD. Go look. As for the fighter building himself around his gear...that's an exaggeration. He's building himself WITH his gear. An AM Torc he can activate to take down spellcasters is a super handy peice of hardware, and if he's already built for combat, shutting down his own magical stuff isn't going to hurt him anywhere nearly as badly as its going to hurt that wizard who now can't do snot. Against things that don't spam magic? Well, of course he won't use the thing if he doesn't have to. Fighters like their buffs, too. As I said, you are playing the Fighter stupidly and the Wizard with access to everything under the sun. That's patently unfair AND imbalanced. ===Aelryinth |
| Argaud03-23-07, 06:24 PM | As for the fighter building himself around his gear...that's an exaggeration. He's building himself WITH his gear. An AM Torc he can activate to take down spellcasters is a super handy peice of hardware, and if he's already built for combat, shutting down his own magical stuff isn't going to hurt him anywhere nearly as badly as its going to hurt that wizard who now can't do snot. Yes. The feats will work inside and outside the AMF, a fighter does not need to build himself around an item that is worth about 6% of his available wealth. As a matter of fact it is likely the AMF gets used only in 10-25% of the battles. |
| Archangel6203-23-07, 07:17 PM | As for the fighter building himself around his gear...that's an exaggeration. He's building himself WITH his gear. An AM Torc he can activate to take down spellcasters is a super handy peice of hardware, and if he's already built for combat, shutting down his own magical stuff isn't going to hurt him anywhere nearly as badly as its going to hurt that wizard who now can't do snot. Against things that don't spam magic? Well, of course he won't use the thing if he doesn't have to. Fighters like their buffs, too. As I said, you are playing the Fighter stupidly and the Wizard with access to everything under the sun. That's patently unfair AND imbalanced. ===Aelryinth My comment was based on unfamiliarity with the item. Is this item a constant antimagic field or is it an activated times per day deal? I only ask because my commentary was based on the idea of it being constantly active, and if so a fighter WOULD need to design themselves around it at least somewhat. If it is times per day thing then yes, it is different. I've been playing D&D for over 19 years, and have played fighters most of that time. When I play in a game with my regular group of friends they always ask if that's what I'm playing. Simply becuase I can easily break a fighter, and the higher level I get the more insane it get's. I've even been asked by DM's to try something else. Either most players are not looking at enough options or I am missing too much Munchkin stuff out there. Please explain how you 'broke' the fighter and what the rest of your group uses. |
| Argaud03-23-07, 09:27 PM | My comment was based on unfamiliarity with the item. Is this item a constant antimagic field or is it an activated times per day deal? I only ask because my commentary was based on the idea of it being constantly active, and if so a fighter WOULD need to design themselves around it at least somewhat. If it is times per day thing then yes, it is different. It is a wondrous item that casts AMF 1/d at CL11. Pretty straightforward. It costs only 25,000 gold. I think it is a good deal as "panic button" item for almost any class, or as an assassination tool for rogues. |
| Kresalak03-23-07, 09:57 PM | Dude, seriously, when's the last time WoTC came over to your house and stenciled the errata into your book? On the other hand, the SRD gets adjusted for errata in a timely manner. Don't call me wrong because you don't correct your book. The spell has been errata'd, it's in the SRD. Go look. I just did. Gate received no errata. Shapechange did, but I'm afraid Gate is the same as it is in the Player's Handbook. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-24-07, 01:06 AM | Dude, seriously, when's the last time WoTC came over to your house and stenciled the errata into your book? On the other hand, the SRD gets adjusted for errata in a timely manner. Don't call me wrong because you don't correct your book. The spell has been errata'd, it's in the SRD. Go look. As for the fighter building himself around his gear...that's an exaggeration. He's building himself WITH his gear. An AM Torc he can activate to take down spellcasters is a super handy peice of hardware, and if he's already built for combat, shutting down his own magical stuff isn't going to hurt him anywhere nearly as badly as its going to hurt that wizard who now can't do snot. Against things that don't spam magic? Well, of course he won't use the thing if he doesn't have to. Fighters like their buffs, too. As I said, you are playing the Fighter stupidly and the Wizard with access to everything under the sun. That's patently unfair AND imbalanced. ===Aelryinth Hey man thats ok, I will just move back from the Fighter and his anti-magic item and just pelt him with Conjuration Creation spells such as the Orb Spells. And now since his AC is a hell of a lot lower then I should be able to hit him almost all the time. |
| navar10003-24-07, 01:14 AM | Dude, seriously, when's the last time WoTC came over to your house and stenciled the errata into your book? On the other hand, the SRD gets adjusted for errata in a timely manner. Don't call me wrong because you don't correct your book. The spell has been errata'd, it's in the SRD. Go look. As for the fighter building himself around his gear...that's an exaggeration. He's building himself WITH his gear. An AM Torc he can activate to take down spellcasters is a super handy peice of hardware, and if he's already built for combat, shutting down his own magical stuff isn't going to hurt him anywhere nearly as badly as its going to hurt that wizard who now can't do snot. Against things that don't spam magic? Well, of course he won't use the thing if he doesn't have to. Fighters like their buffs, too. As I said, you are playing the Fighter stupidly and the Wizard with access to everything under the sun. That's patently unfair AND imbalanced. ===Aelryinth Even though I am a pro-fighter ... XunValDorl does have a legitimate argument in the sense that just because something is in errata does not mean he has to go by it, and it's not a house rule because of it. He does not even need to use the SRD because he has the book himself. Presumably he owns his own copy himself. For the purpose of the debate it is fair to say whether or not to use the errata, and I'm guessing by default assumption errata has always been included, but if XunValDorl or anyone else wants to use a sourcebook as written and ignore whatever is on the WOTC website, he is well within his rights to do so and is not in the wrong. In any case, I do agree it is a fallacy to assume the fighter will play stupidly. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-24-07, 01:37 AM | Hey man thats ok, I will just move back from the Fighter and his anti-magic item and just pelt him with Conjuration Creation spells such as the Orb Spells. Right. And then on his turn he charges you and deals 1d8+60+10+6 (average of 80 damage, without any magic) and triggering a trip attempt, which succeeds, attacks you again thanks to improved trip, hits you for the same damage (another 80, you are most likely dead), triggers a save against Shaken and a save against Nausea thanks to Brutal Strike and Three Mountains and is now towering over your prone form aching to swat you when you attempt to cast a spell or get up from prone. Assuming of course you are alive and not nauseated. Damage is Power Attack, Heedless Charge, Leap Attack, Strength 24, Weapon Focus chain, morningstar. Trip trigger is Knockdown. Save against Shaken is Brutal Strike, and save against Nausea is Three Mountains. No, I don't really care if you counter this with more silly scenarios. All of these situations are contrived and utterly pointless. Unless your fighter routinely faces off against same-level wizards by himself, I can't find anything meaningful in these comparisons. I just felt like adding to the irrelevance. |
| Red_Rabbit03-24-07, 02:36 AM | Druids can turn into animals and plants with abilities of fighter can get. Can a Fighter swallow multiple enemies and paralyze them with his special stomach acids? Can a Fighter *always* act in the Surprise Round? Can a Fighter reliably grapple strong enemies more than 2 sizes larger than he is? When Druids Wildshape doesn't mean you get to go in surprise round to so that's not really a defense. Swallowing someone whole i really do hope you can add more to that, because that's more of an open invitation to die. You'd be lvl 15 before you could turn into anything that can swallow someone. By that time the fighter has a nice mean crit weapon, but sure It's good for a round of stalling. By the time you can turn into a huge (example) T-Rex and swallow the fighter you'll be proud of that round of bite and alittle stomache dmg, but that fighter will give you more indigestion than that swallow was really worth. As for Grappling it always sounds like everyone assumes they'll fight a lvl 1 fighter when they are a big plant. Fighters have a higher BAB and a higher Str than a druid so no it's not hard to break a grapple check as a fighter. Grapple check is BAB+str+size, You may have size, but I got BAB and str as a fighter. Even if he can do any of these things, can he do ALL of those things in different rounds or different encounters? The huge selection of Animals and Plants means the Druid can be versatile AND good at combat, without spending feats (unless you count Natural Spell, which eveyr druid takes anyways) When Druids Wildshape doesn't mean you get to go in surprise round to so that's not really a defense. Swallowing someone whole i really do hope you can add more to that, because that's more of an open invitation to die. You'd be lvl 15 before you could turn into anything that can swallow someone. By that time the fighter has a nice mean crit weapon, but sure It's good for a round of stalling. By the time you can turn into a huge (example) T-Rex and swallow the fighter you'll be proud of that round of bite and alittle stomache dmg, but that fighter will give you more indigestion than that swallow was really worth. Grapple check is BAB+str+size, You may have size, but I got BAB and str as a fighter. As for Grappling it always sounds like everyone assumes they'll fight a lvl 1 fighter when they are a big plant. Fighters have a higher BAB and a higher Str than a druid so no it's not hard to break a grapple check as a fighter. Grapple check is BAB+str+size, You may have size, but I got BAB and str as a fighter. Going to compare lvl 18 fighter to a T-Rex since a druid has to be lvl 18 to assume this form T-Rex Grapple attempt +30 Lvl 18 Fighter Str 32 Grapple attempt 18+11=+29 That's pretty far depends if he took any feats that might help him out to there's a good size. Oh yeah, and this is all WITHOUT taking into account the animal companion. This has got to be a joke, the animal companion is good enough to kill off little fish. PC's aren't little fish I've seen animal companions last 2 rounds tops. Even when the companion had afew more HD on the fighter. As for the Cleric, if you can make the Big Bad Evil Guy waste some turns to Greater Dispell you, then TERRIFIC! You have done your job. The BBEG has wasted one or two turns, and you and your teammates get to beat on him for free! He starts dispells your buffs, you shrug and return to casting things like Gate. I'd hardly call casting about 4-6 buffs on you to be dispelled in 1 or 2 rounds hardly a good job, and no BBEG is alone so your teammates wouldn't get afew rounds of beat down they'd be busy covering there own butts. The only thing you had to offer was what you can do, but you didn't think what the fighter could do if he was the same lvl, much less with the number of feats. I've seen a druids and clerics put up entertaining attempts to be the party fighter, but nothing that lasts long term. Besides anything you fight is gonna be your lvl or your lvl +2. All the hype is just "look what I can do" The Rabbit |
| sinrae_kinesti03-24-07, 03:19 AM | Right. And then on his turn he charges you and deals 1d8+60+10+6 (average of 80 damage, without any magic) and triggering a trip attempt, which succeeds, attacks you again thanks to improved trip, hits you for the same damage (another 80, you are most likely dead), triggers a save against Shaken and a save against Nausea thanks to Brutal Strike and Three Mountains and is now towering over your prone form aching to swat you when you attempt to cast a spell or get up from prone. Assuming of course you are alive and not nauseated. Damage is Power Attack, Heedless Charge, Leap Attack, Strength 24, Weapon Focus chain, morningstar. Trip trigger is Knockdown. Save against Shaken is Brutal Strike, and save against Nausea is Three Mountains. No, I don't really care if you counter this with more silly scenarios. All of these situations are contrived and utterly pointless. Unless your fighter routinely faces off against same-level wizards by himself, I can't find anything meaningful in these comparisons. I just felt like adding to the irrelevance. Hulk is strongest one there is but he still cant match the Mighty Thor |
| Nephlite03-24-07, 11:19 AM | Right. And then on his turn he charges you and deals 1d8+60+10+6 (average of 80 damage, without any magic) and triggering a trip attempt, which succeeds, attacks you again thanks to improved trip, hits you for the same damage (another 80, you are most likely dead), triggers a save against Shaken and a save against Nausea thanks to Brutal Strike and Three Mountains and is now towering over your prone form aching to swat you when you attempt to cast a spell or get up from prone. Assuming of course you are alive and not nauseated. Damage is Power Attack, Heedless Charge, Leap Attack, Strength 24, Weapon Focus chain, morningstar. How did you get 24 Strength wthout magic items? Anti-magic torc you acticated remember? Trip trigger is Knockdown. I thought Knockdown was left in Sword and fist which is 3.0. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-24-07, 11:24 AM | How did you get 24 Strength wthout magic items? Anti-magic torc you acticated remember? A base strength of 14, another 5 from levels, and another 5 inherent. A total of 24. I thought Knockdown was left in Sword and fist which is 3.0. It is in the SRD in the Deities and Demigods section. Also, I don't really mind if it is in 3.0. People still use 3.0. WotC says that 3.0 stuff is fine if it hasn't been changed in 3.5. Not an issue if you ask me. |
| Kresalak03-24-07, 02:10 PM | The Antimagic strategy is utter ****. At 20th level you're fighting Balors and Pit Fiends-and neither of them will be affected at all by that. They both fly, so you can't touch them. The Balor can pelt you with Telekinesis, and the Pit Fiend can just create Mohrgs until the Antimagic fails. |
| FrostHammer03-24-07, 02:38 PM | Some forms let you always go in Surprise Round. See Sandstorm's Dire Tortoise. For swallowing whole, it's terrific. You go straight to to enemy mage, and you can neuytralize him because you can't cats while swallowed. DC 20 Fortitude save or be Paraluzed is nothing to laugh...and it happens EVREY SINGLE TURN. You basically die if you get paralyzed in the stomach. And I'm not talking about the T-rex. It sucks. Go with Tendriculous (also from the Monster Manual). As for Grappling, how are YOU going to reliably grapple something Gargantuan like a Purple Worm? I can turn into something Huge with like 39 strength. Your BAB is only a few more than a Druids, but the Size difference REALLY screws you over when you try to grapple something humongous. Do you really want to argue that a Fighter is a better combatant than a Druid + his animal companion? Are you that brain dead? As for the Cleric, it's two buffs that the BBEG has dispelled, not 4-6. A cleric only needs 2 buffs to be scary in fights. Sounds like a fair trade to me. Any other stupid comments Rabbit? |
| Flan03-24-07, 05:46 PM | Some forms let you always go in Surprise Round. See Sandstorm's Dire Tortoise. Player: I shapechange into a Dire Tortoise. DM: You've never seen a Dire Tortoise, you can't. Player: I studied them back when I was level 0, I went all the way across the world to see these high level monsters that would do enough damage to kill me 20 times over with one bite. My animal handling of 0 coupled with my lack of animal empathy let me do it. DM: No, you didn't, and they don't exist in my world so you couldn't have seen them. Player: Fine I shapechange into a T-Rex. DM: You didn't learn anything from the Tortoise did you? At least normal Tortoises exist in my world, dinosaurs... nope, don't be stupid. Next time we play a one million years in the past campaign you can learn about dinosaurs. Player: You're anti-druid! I hate you! DM: I'm anti-stupidity, shut up and die. |
| FrostHammer03-24-07, 06:25 PM | it's not that hard. Knowing a Dire Tortoise can't be more than a DC 20 Know (nature) skill check. |
| Loranna_Pyrel03-24-07, 06:34 PM | it's not that hard. Knowing a Dire Tortoise can't be more than a DC 20 Know (nature) skill check. Just to toss in my own two cents, if I were DMing, I would require a Druid to know an animal form from more than just book learning, stories from other druids, and other second-hand sources (ie, a Knowledge check) - I'd insist he actually meet that dire tortoise first hand and see it in action to know it shape and abilities ^_^ Loranna |
| JLaurHughes03-24-07, 07:01 PM | As for Grappling, how are YOU going to reliably grapple something Gargantuan like a Purple Worm? I can turn into something Huge with like 39 strength. Your BAB is only a few more than a Druids, but the Size difference REALLY screws you over when you try to grapple something humongous. Do you really want to argue that a Fighter is a better combatant than a Druid + his animal companion? Are you that brain dead? The fighter isn't, but the fighter is going to beat the purple worm down more effectively than the druid, and with a feat from Complete warrior the fighter can even break the grapple a little easier. A feat combo such as Improved Unarmmed Strike, Improved Grapple and Clever Wrestling(CW) gains the fighter +10 to escape the grapple initiated by the worm. |
| Kresalak03-24-07, 07:31 PM | Player: I shapechange into a Dire Tortoise. DM: You've never seen a Dire Tortoise, you can't. Player: I studied them back when I was level 0, I went all the way across the world to see these high level monsters that would do enough damage to kill me 20 times over with one bite. My animal handling of 0 coupled with my lack of animal empathy let me do it. DM: No, you didn't, and they don't exist in my world so you couldn't have seen them. Player: Fine I shapechange into a T-Rex. DM: You didn't learn anything from the Tortoise did you? At least normal Tortoises exist in my world, dinosaurs... nope, don't be stupid. Next time we play a one million years in the past campaign you can learn about dinosaurs. Player: You're anti-druid! I hate you! DM: I'm anti-stupidity, shut up and die. Player: I'm going to take Weapon Supremacy. DM: Nope, that feat doesn't exist in my world. Player: What? You're anti-Fighter! DM: I'm anti-stupidity, shut up and die. |
| Loranna_Pyrel03-24-07, 07:50 PM | Player: I'm going to take Weapon Supremacy. DM: Nope, that feat doesn't exist in my world. Player: What? You're anti-Fighter! DM: I'm anti-stupidity, shut up and die. Obviously, the player failed to bribe the DM sufficiently when the DM was outlining what the campaign was going to be like and what house rules he had in mind. This is very important advice; always come to the first session of a campaign laden with gifts, food, soda/beer, and if need be tickets to the next Dodgers game so you can help make the DM see why you should be allowed to have X, Y, Z, and the Kitchen Sink. Or, if you're the DM, bring all these things and more to console your players when you tell them "No, No Way, Nuh uh, Nope, No How, Not In My Campaign, Negative, and NO WAI!!!" ^_^ ... Really, it's the DM's call whether a fighter would be useful in the campaign he's got in mind. The DM's the one who controls what's in the campaign after all; if he or she is only going to use encounters and monsters that leave Fighters sitting around twidling their thumbs, well Fighters aren't worth it. Unless, you know, you actually wanted to play a Fighter, and the rest of the group didn't have any major objections, in which case if the DM is throwing encounters at you that you're patently unable to handle, then the DM's doing something wrong. Speak up, ask the DM to try and give you something tailored to your abilities once in a while. If the rest of the party are CoDZillas or Sorcerers Who Tank Better Than You Ever Could, well ... read an Avengers comic for an idea on how to handle PC of wildly divergant power levels ^_^ Loranna |
| Leo03-24-07, 10:23 PM | Player: I'm going to take Weapon Supremacy. DM: Nope, that feat doesn't exist in my world. Player: What? You're anti-Fighter! DM: I'm anti-stupidity, shut up and die. You are suposed to know your class. You are not suposed to know the MM and friends. Otherwise, you could just ask the DM to show you the HP of the monsters, wich ones he's planning to show up today, how they will fight, etc, etc. |
| Kresalak03-24-07, 10:27 PM | Or, y'know, you could ask your DM to use the rules on the Knowledge skill. Just a thought. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek03-24-07, 11:14 PM | Right. And then on his turn he charges you and deals 1d8+60+10+6 (average of 80 damage, without any magic) and triggering a trip attempt, which succeeds, attacks you again thanks to improved trip, hits you for the same damage (another 80, you are most likely dead), triggers a save against Shaken and a save against Nausea thanks to Brutal Strike and Three Mountains and is now towering over your prone form aching to swat you when you attempt to cast a spell or get up from prone. Assuming of course you are alive and not nauseated. Damage is Power Attack, Heedless Charge, Leap Attack, Strength 24, Weapon Focus chain, morningstar. Trip trigger is Knockdown. Save against Shaken is Brutal Strike, and save against Nausea is Three Mountains. No, I don't really care if you counter this with more silly scenarios. All of these situations are contrived and utterly pointless. Unless your fighter routinely faces off against same-level wizards by himself, I can't find anything meaningful in these comparisons. I just felt like adding to the irrelevance. Dude a 20th level fighter can't do 80 points of damage without any magical help. I don't care what feats you have unless you maybe roll a critical with max damage. Anyway, I wave him over with Waves of Exhaustion. Or If I wanted I could approach him using Project Image. My image can't be destroyed and I can cast spells through it. And if that fighter wants to grapple how about grappling while taking damage from a Ring of Blades, a Fireshield, Balor Nimbus or any combination. A fighter isn't stupid enough to try and rush a spellcaster. But if it's a do or die then I guess he would. A simple expeditious Retreat spell will keep ahead of the fighter. If this fighter is wearing medium or heavier armor his speed will be 20. And if you want to fight with a spiked chain there is a spell that the wizard can cast the will make the chain turn around and attack you and can grapple you. |
| Khan the Destroyer03-25-07, 01:07 AM | Dude a 20th level fighter can't do 80 points of damage without any magical help. I don't care what feats you have unless you maybe roll a critical with max damage. Yes, he can. I just showed you. 1d8 morningstar 60 power attack (pour your entire BAB into attack with a two-handed weapon and Leap Attack, use Heedless Charge to save your attack bonus) 6 Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery 10 from 24 Strength and two-handed weapon That's 80 damage on a charge. Remember, your wizard backed away from the antimagic field. And then you are tripped, attacked again, and most likely shaken and nauseated, if not dead. Further, he is still threatening you on your turn and you are still within the anitmagic field. Anyway, I wave him over with Waves of Exhaustion. Or If I wanted I could approach him using Project Image. My image can't be destroyed and I can cast spells through it. And if that fighter wants to grapple how about grappling while taking damage from a Ring of Blades, a Fireshield, Balor Nimbus or any combination. A fighter isn't stupid enough to try and rush a spellcaster. But if it's a do or die then I guess he would. A simple expeditious Retreat spell will keep ahead of the fighter. If this fighter is wearing medium or heavier armor his speed will be 20. And if you want to fight with a spiked chain there is a spell that the wizard can cast the will make the chain turn around and attack you and can grapple you. The fighter is in an antimagic field. Besides, this is all pointless. But I can't help myself. |
| FrostHammer03-25-07, 02:15 AM | I wonder...can a MKJ get rid of the torq of AMF? |
| NineInchNall04-01-07, 11:26 PM | Yes, he can. I just showed you. 1d8 morningstar 60 power attack (pour your entire BAB into attack with a two-handed weapon and Leap Attack, use Heedless Charge to save your attack bonus) 6 Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery 10 from 24 Strength and two-handed weapon That's 80 damage on a charge. Remember, your wizard backed away from the antimagic field. Actually, you're 20 down on your calculation. Power Attack: -20/+40 Leap Attack: 100% * 40 = +40 ------------- Total: 40 + 40 = 80 |
| Cernunnos5604-02-07, 08:49 PM | Your joking right? Druids and clerics make better fighters than fighters...Especially druid with wildshape and natural spell. Sounds like you have never been hit while trying to cast a spell! Or when the fighter subtracts 10-15 to his attack to add to his damage roll! |
| Archangel6204-02-07, 09:06 PM | Sounds like you have never been hit while trying to cast a spell! Or when the fighter subtracts 10-15 to his attack to add to his damage roll! That's what casting defensively is for. Or does your DM remove that mechanic? |
| Flan04-02-07, 09:17 PM | Actually, you're 20 down on your calculation. Power Attack: -20/+40 Leap Attack: 100% * 40 = +40 ------------- Total: 40 + 40 = 80 Thats the errated version yes. The feat is already gross enough without it that I tend not to take it or my DM will hate me. Although considering I have the improved crit feat and we haven't fought anything that can be critted for oh... 2 years... I think I'll retrain next chance I get. :D That's what casting defensively is for. Or does your DM remove that mechanic? Thats what things like Mage Slayer or held actions are for. |
| Cernunnos5604-02-07, 09:18 PM | That's what casting defensively is for. Or does your DM remove that mechanic? Still doesn't help when the Damage dealt is enough to drop you! |
| Archangel6204-02-07, 09:27 PM | Still doesn't help when the Damage dealt is enough to drop you! If you cast defensively you don't provoke attacks of opportunity. That and on average a caster has enough defenses that unless they are facing a pure mage slayer then they are going to be able to get around most of the attempts with relative ease. |
| Cernunnos5604-02-07, 09:32 PM | Realize it doesn't cause AO, and the DC = 15+Spell level. But do you forget that Fighters progress with +1 BAB every level? You have to have a really high AC in a class that cannot wear armor without a percentage of failure. |
| Archangel6204-02-07, 09:35 PM | Realize it doesn't cause AO, and the DC = 15+Spell level. But do you forget that Fighters progress with +1 BAB every level? You have to have a really high AC in a class that cannot wear armor without a percentage of failure. And you forget the amount of miss chances, AC boosts, and multiple copies I can have of my caster. It's been shown again and again and again that a wizard can out tank and outgrapple a fighter. |
| navar10004-02-07, 09:36 PM | That's what casting defensively is for. Or does your DM remove that mechanic? Fighter: I ready an action. When he starts to cast, I attack. |
| Archangel6204-02-07, 09:38 PM | Fighter: I ready an action. When he starts to cast, I attack. Wizard: I take a five foot step back then cast. The fighter can ready an action but to be effective they have to focus on range for this, and with range you don't have enough damage to really be able to weaken your foe. |
| Crashy7504-02-07, 09:39 PM | Fighter: I ready an action. When he starts to cast, I attack. My casters always take a 5' step if able. |
| Cernunnos5604-02-07, 09:42 PM | And you forget the amount of miss chances, AC boosts, and multiple copies I can have of my caster. It's been shown again and again and again that a wizard can out tank and outgrapple a fighter. OUT-TANK? OUT-GRAPPLE? I don't think so! I will admit that fighters are awesome at lower levels with all the bonus feats they get... and less effective at higher levels. But the one thing one must remember when characters advance and the more powerful you become... characters collect MIs and gain varying degrees of power and build. No one... no one... is more effective than any other class! It all depends on who goes first in combat, distance, terrain, MIs... etc, as well. |
| navar10004-02-07, 09:42 PM | Wizard: I take a five foot step back then cast. The fighter can ready an action but to be effective they have to focus on range for this, and with range you don't have enough damage to really be able to weaken your foe. There's a feat that takes care of this too, if it happens often enough to be a bother to be worth taking the feat. (Granted not Core) Or the fighter can use a reach weapon. Hello Quickdraw. |
| vagabonvoid04-02-07, 09:53 PM | just a question, this seams an appropriate place for it... How much would a bag of Antimagic Pebbles (Bag of Marbles) cost??? I think that any smart fighter would just toss a big bag of those down in the room and watch the wizard scramble to get away from a room full of those... Then charge... Then Smash... |
| Kresalak04-02-07, 09:58 PM | Still doesn't help when the Damage dealt is enough to drop you! Druids and Clerics both have d8 hit dice and can get ACs that Fighters can only dream of. |
| JLaurHughes04-02-07, 11:37 PM | If you cast defensively you don't provoke attacks of opportunity. That and on average a caster has enough defenses that unless they are facing a pure mage slayer then they are going to be able to get around most of the attempts with relative ease. This is true, and with Combat casting this is +4 to casting on the defensive. The only time this is stopped is if there is an attack that hits while casting on the defensive, hello readied action. The DC for casting is still the same, but the spell is lost if the attack is successful on the wizard or other caster. Realize it doesn't cause AO, and the DC = 15+Spell level. But do you forget that Fighters progress with +1 BAB every level? You have to have a really high AC in a class that cannot wear armor without a percentage of failure. Only fighters who prep an action for when the caster starts casting can stop a spellcaster who is casting on the defensive, by the time the wizard casts any spell while in direct combat the caster has +4 shield, +6 greater Mage armor and +1 from haste, +Dex modifier. High dex is a definite bonus to any spellcaster who can't wear armors. IN addition to this the caster can have Blink, blur and Mirror Image cast, or any combination of these three spells/similar spells. And you forget the amount of miss chances, AC boosts, and multiple copies I can have of my caster. It's been shown again and again and again that a wizard can out tank and outgrapple a fighter. See above. Druids and Clerics both have d8 hit dice and can get ACs that Fighters can only dream of. See above. The spells that boost the AC up, like shield and spells that last only minutes/caster level, can be cast during combat(1 spell per round, plus any swift actions), while those that last hours/caster level can be cast hours before combat. In respect to the fighter AC, the wizard can get their AC very high. On the other hand a fighter can have a permanent AC of 18, and with defensive maneuvers that add more bonuses the Fighter's AC can get just as high as the wizard's if not higher with Magic Items. Comparing a fighter to a wizard or other spell caster is just unfair because the fighter can't visually stand up to those classes. Mechanically though the fighter is equal to a wizard. |
| Arem_K04-02-07, 11:47 PM | Player: I shapechange into a Dire Tortoise. DM: You've never seen a Dire Tortoise, you can't. Player: I studied them back when I was level 0, I went all the way across the world to see these high level monsters that would do enough damage to kill me 20 times over with one bite. My animal handling of 0 coupled with my lack of animal empathy let me do it. DM: No, you didn't, and they don't exist in my world so you couldn't have seen them. Player: Fine I shapechange into a T-Rex. DM: You didn't learn anything from the Tortoise did you? At least normal Tortoises exist in my world, dinosaurs... nope, don't be stupid. Next time we play a one million years in the past campaign you can learn about dinosaurs. Player: You're anti-druid! I hate you! DM: I'm anti-stupidity, shut up and die. Player: I turn into a dog. DM: No dogs in my world. That's the problem with the whole "being familiar with the form" part of wildshape. If you use it to start vetoing specific creatures, you can use it to veto all creatures, thus making wildshape do nothing. I also have to say that I think the knowledge nature check is actually a more legitimate way of being familiar with something. I mean, I have seen a tiger before, but I don't know how big it is, or how many toes it has. Someone who could make the check probably does. |
| sinrae_kinesti04-02-07, 11:54 PM | i'm going to wild shape into a dire were penguin and unsubscribe from this thread beacause it has been going on for 46 pages now and nothing new has come of it. oh yeah... the my dad can beat up your dad stuff is what the geeks did in third grade... just thought you might like to know |
| Kresalak04-02-07, 11:58 PM | See above. The spells that boost the AC up, like shield and spells that last only minutes/caster level, can be cast during combat(1 spell per round, plus any swift actions), while those that last hours/caster level can be cast hours before combat. In respect to the fighter AC, the wizard can get their AC very high. He was saying that a Cleric or Druid would get slaughtered by a Fighter. I was wondering how that could be, since Clerics have the exact same AC (same proficiencies) or more, and Druids get something like 50 AC at level 10. |
| Flan04-03-07, 12:01 AM | Wizard: I take a five foot step back then cast. You can 5 foot on a held action. Fighters will probably have 10 foot if not 20 foot reach anyway. (Or a bow.) Player: I turn into a dog. DM: No dogs in my world. That's the problem with the whole "being familiar with the form" part of wildshape. If you use it to start vetoing specific creatures, you can use it to veto all creatures, thus making wildshape do nothing. Which would be exactly how it's described in the PHB. Dinosaurs AREN'T in temperate forests, if your druid wants to wildshape into one he's SOL unless he comes from some pre-historic hot spot. I also have to say that I think the knowledge nature check is actually a more legitimate way of being familiar with something. I mean, I have seen a tiger before, but I don't know how big it is, or how many toes it has. Someone who could make the check probably does. A druid who has spent the last 19 levels clearing out dungeons with his party could probably break 50 on a knowledge nature check. That doesn't mean he's ever even SEEN a tiger let alone be familiar enough with one to take it's form. |
| JLaurHughes04-03-07, 12:01 AM | He was saying that a Cleric or Druid would get slaughtered by a Fighter. I was wondering how that could be, since Clerics have the exact same AC (same proficiencies) or more, and Druids get something like 50 AC at level 10. I wasn't disagreeing, I was just pointing out that the fighter has the same or similar options to boost their own AC up as the cleric and wizard and other spell casters get. It is also unfair to have a comparison. I am curious though, how is that druid gaining 50 AC at level 10? I don't play druids very often so I would really like to know. |
| Flan04-03-07, 12:07 AM | I am curious though, how is that druid gaining 50 AC at level 10? I don't play druids very often so I would really like to know. 1. Have a lousy GM 2. ??? 3. You win DnD |
| JLaurHughes04-03-07, 12:12 AM | 1. Have a lousy GM 2. ??? 3. You win DnD Snide remarks aside, how does one get a druid AC of 50 at 10th? |
| Kresalak04-03-07, 12:42 AM | Snide remarks aside, how does one get a druid AC of 50 at 10th? Get a set of +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate, for +9 AC. +1 Wild Tower Shield for +5. Turn into a Polar Bear for +5 NA (and -1 size penalty). Due to the wording of the Wild property, ONLY the AC bonus transfers over. You now have an AC of 10+9+5+5+1-1, or 29 before anything. But wait! You're not technically wearing armor, so grab a Monk's Belt for Wisdom+1 to AC. 30+Wisdom before any spells, which means you have something like 36 AC. Extended Barkskin lasts 200 minutes (3 and a quarter hours) so you can have it up all day for another +4, giving you an AC of 40 all day long. So I exaggerated, but it still makes everyone cry. All Core too. Give me the Spell Compendium and I can get another 5 AC all day long, though. |
| Bhaal00604-03-07, 02:09 AM | How'd you get that monks belt on without opposable thumbs. I'd rule that being familiar with an animal requires the druid to have succeeded on a Handle Animal check against an animal of the type he wishes to change into, that just seems fair to me. |
| Archangel6204-03-07, 04:05 AM | How'd you get that monks belt on without opposable thumbs. I'd rule that being familiar with an animal requires the druid to have succeeded on a Handle Animal check against an animal of the type he wishes to change into, that just seems fair to me. ...Knowledge nature is a lot more logical and reasonable. As for how, if they got wilding put on the monks belt it still works. |
| navar10004-03-07, 04:10 AM | I'd rule that being familiar with an animal requires the druid to have succeeded on a Handle Animal check against an animal of the type he wishes to change into, that just seems fair to me. That's an unfair nerf. |
| Argaud04-03-07, 04:37 AM | Get a set of +1 Wild Dragonhide Fullplate, for +9 AC. +1 Wild Tower Shield for +5. Turn into a Polar Bear for +5 NA (and -1 size penalty). Due to the wording of the Wild property, ONLY the AC bonus transfers over. You now have an AC of 10+9+5+5+1-1, or 29 before anything. But wait! You're not technically wearing armor, so grab a Monk's Belt for Wisdom+1 to AC. 30+Wisdom before any spells, which means you have something like 36 AC. Extended Barkskin lasts 200 minutes (3 and a quarter hours) so you can have it up all day for another +4, giving you an AC of 40 all day long. So I exaggerated, but it still makes everyone cry. All Core too. Give me the Spell Compendium and I can get another 5 AC all day long, though. Won't work. In the first place to get a dragonhide full plate you need to kill a colossal dragon (CR25 minimum). It is unlikely the shops will have that kind of armor. In the second place a Monk's Belt does not work with any armor, and wearing a wild armor counts as wearing armor even when wildshaped. This has been confirmed by CustServ and you already know it. |
| Archangel6204-03-07, 04:39 AM | That's an unfair nerf. :OMG! :shocked: I think this might be the first time you and I agreed on something. First Arguad, now you...I don't know what's going on and it makes me nervous. |
| Clawhound04-03-07, 07:30 AM | Let's see, a fighter: +3 Full Plate (+8 armor) = +11 +3 Large shield (+2 AC) = +5 +3 Fighting Defensively (with cross-class tumble synergy) = +3 +5 Combat Expertise = +5 +1 Ring of Protection = +1 + 1 Amulet of Barkskin = +1 +1 Dex (Dex of 12) = +1 TOTAL = 10 + 11 + 5 + 3 + 5 = 36 That's AC 36 at level 10 without trying. There are many ways to crank it higher than this. Do the next better Combat Expertise, you hit AC 41. Add a tower shield, you hit AC 43. |
| Dalmaris_cerebromancer04-03-07, 08:07 AM | Most people don't like the fighter because it is strong at low levels but as it gets higher the spellcasters take over being able to do 90 damage and hit many targets. I have come up with a way to make the fighter even better alowing him to do more damage and learn ways to fight that spellcasters can only dream of. Just follow this link http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=820765 |
| WayneTheGame04-03-07, 10:40 AM | So.. this whole "Druid can get a super high AC" argument is based on a flawed interpretation of the rules that lets you get the benefits of full armor and a tower shield without the penalties (and without actually carrying the shield)? I love this. The "zomg druids are teh uber!!11eleventyone" comments are all based on dubious rule interpretations that most sane DMs wouldn't even allow. No DM with any common sense would let you wear magic items when you're wildshaped (especially not into something like a BEAR) because it's deliberately trying to circumvent the limitation of wildshape (that your magic items meld into your form). |
| Argaud04-03-07, 11:13 AM | I love this. The "zomg druids are teh uber!!11eleventyone" comments are all based on dubious rule interpretations that most sane DMs wouldn't even allow. No DM with any common sense would let you wear magic items when you're wildshaped (especially not into something like a BEAR) because it's deliberately trying to circumvent the limitation of wildshape (that your magic items meld into your form). I agree with the first statements, but I disagree with the lasts. There are many items a bear can resonably use, and evidence in the rules to support that animals can, indeed use at least some magical items. For instance, the celestial unicorn in the MM is using bracers of armor. No reason a bear could not use them too. |
| Bhaal00604-03-07, 12:33 PM | That's an unfair nerf. Why is this unfair, it's a lot better than "One time i saw a Polar bear(assuming teperate forest background) so I can change into it." I don't think that this sort of limitation is unwaranted agaianst what is the most "uber" of all classes that will apparently "pwnzorz" every other class in the game. |
| Flan04-03-07, 01:01 PM | They really slipped when they made natural armour and armour different bonuses and let dodge bonus go unchecked. Dwarven Ancestor blah blah blah, 200 AC, huzzah! :rolleyes: |
| Khan the Destroyer04-03-07, 06:37 PM | Actually, you're 20 down on your calculation. Power Attack: -20/+40 Leap Attack: 100% * 40 = +40 ------------- Total: 40 + 40 = 80 Oh. It works like that? Sweet. So, it actually mimics Supreme Power Attack when used in conjunction with a two-handed weapon. I had no idea. ...bunch of stuff about a fighter dueling casters... As much as I think the caster vs. fighter duels are pointless, I have to say... Any caster in his right mind attempting to defeat a fighter will not cast a spell within the fighter's running distance. If the fighter can't reach you in 1-2 rounds, you should be alright. Considering the range on some spells and the wacky stupid stuff of brokenation you can do with spells, any talk of miss chances, buffs, and the like should be irrelevant. In all honesty, discussing a caster vs. fighter duel is pretty difficult, because the caster can take so many shapes and has such a wide variety of options available to defend himself, shape the battlefield, and attack his enemy. Essentially, we know what the fighter has in mind. Attack in melee or attack from a distance. The caster can come from many different angles, and many of those choices ignore most of the fighter defenses. If the caster goes first, forget it. There is very little hope that a fighter can win the battle. At least, I suspect. I am not a supreme expert on casters or their spells. With all that said, I feel obliged to comment that I don't believe this means the fighter is underpowered in regards to his role in a party of four advneturers going up against level-appropriate encounters. But the casters certainly have a huge edge on non-casters. |
| navar10004-03-07, 07:00 PM | :OMG! :shocked: I think this might be the first time you and I agreed on something. First Arguad, now you...I don't know what's going on and it makes me nervous. ;) I don't think fighters suck, but I still do like wizards, druids, and clerics and do not believe they need to be "nerfed" to unplayability. I've played clerics literally for years, since 2E in college, only now playing a warlock because I wanted to play something different already. Yes, I did have Persistent Spell previous campaign, and I benefited from when it was only +4 levels. With an irony only I can appreciate because only I in my group participates in these forums, last game session the druid's wolf helped me a lot when I was encased in an ectoplasmic coccoon and a bad guy was attempting to carry me away. The wolf attacked him and tripped him. He delayed the bad guy long enough until I was freed. |
| navar10004-03-07, 07:08 PM | Why is this unfair, it's a lot better than "One time i saw a Polar bear(assuming teperate forest background) so I can change into it." I don't think that this sort of limitation is unwaranted agaianst what is the most "uber" of all classes that will apparently "pwnzorz" every other class in the game. Because you can't reasonbly expect anyone to "handle animal" every animal they know about. You unfairly limit druids to perhaps mice, cats, dogs, horses, donkeys, owls, and hawks. Do you really expect a player of a druid spend "downtime" working with lions and tigers and bears (oh my) or any other "wild and dangerous" animal? Knowledge Nature is fair because that signifies a druid knowing enough about an animal to mimic it. You're using the wrong skill. |
| Arem_K04-03-07, 07:27 PM | Won't work. In the first place to get a dragonhide full plate you need to kill a colossal dragon (CR25 minimum). It is unlikely the shops will have that kind of armor. Arguad, why do you persist in arguing this? There are absolutely no rules that say you have to personally skin a colossal dragon for dragonhide armor. It just says that you have to pay double the cost for normal armor. It is like arguing that a fighter can not have an adamantine greatsword because he does not have enough ranks in Craft:Miner to go dig it up. |
| Argaud04-03-07, 07:32 PM | Arguad, why do you persist in arguing this? There are absolutely no rules that say you have to personally skin a colossal dragon for dragonhide armor. It just says that you have to pay double the cost for normal armor. It is like arguing that a fighter can not have an adamantine greatsword because he does not have enough ranks in Craft:Miner to go dig it up. Because it is true. The rules of the costs of dragonhide armor go from hide to fullplate, but that crafting the armor is relatively cheap it does not mean getting the skin is easy. It is easy when all one needs is a large dragon (you can even use wyverns) but it is insanely hard when you need a colossal dragon. And yes, if your campaign is a world where nobody has deep mines, then adamantine is probably unavailable, or about as hard to get as colossal dragon skins. Most D&D words, however, include dwarves and many underground races, and even humans usually have the technology and the means to dig deep mines too. However, very few campaigns would have dragonhunters killing CR25 dragons and skinning them to provide mid-level adventurers with dragonhide fullplate. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek04-04-07, 12:10 AM | Realize it doesn't cause AO, and the DC = 15+Spell level. But do you forget that Fighters progress with +1 BAB every level? You have to have a really high AC in a class that cannot wear armor without a percentage of failure. Let me give you 2 spells that will spank a fighter. Greater Ironguard, and Tensers Transformation. These are just 2 on the fly. There are many many more. A high level Wizard will be prepared for close encounters. A high level fighter also has enough sense to not go head to head with the high level wizard. Also, if your fighter is stacked in armor then Wraith Strike can take care of that. But make sure these spells are cast before Tensers Transformation. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek04-04-07, 12:25 AM | See what makes the fighter not useful later on is the fact that he can't adapt to different situations. You are either going to be good at melee, or ranged or even in both, but you will never be maxed in both. And the fighter has to rely on magic items that he may not ever get. Unless he has a ghost touch weapon (example) he is going to have that 50% miss chance against incorporeal creatures. Wizards no, force spells and spells that allow that fighter to hit those creatures enables the wizard to adapt. I'm just using Wizard as an example since they are my favorite and specialty. Fighters truly have to rely on others. |
| Flan04-04-07, 12:47 AM | Let me give you 2 spells that will spank a fighter. Greater Ironguard, and Tensers Transformation. :rolleyes: |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek04-04-07, 12:55 AM | :rolleyes: And you rolling your eyes is supposed to change that fact? |
| Flan04-04-07, 12:59 AM | Oh. It works like that? Sweet. So, it actually mimics Supreme Power Attack when used in conjunction with a two-handed weapon. I had no idea. In the errata too. They closed the loophole of doing infinite damage with improved or supreme power attack (applying an infinite penalty to your attack and hitting anyway on a 20.) |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek04-04-07, 01:13 AM | Dude you have yet to present to me a legit statement from a legit source that says you must take a feat when ever you obtain a feat slot. Let me explain these to spells to you. First Greater Ironguard makes you immune to all magical metal weapons. Next Tenser's Transformation, this turns you into a pure fighting machine. With both of these spells in effect the fighter can try and grapple you down, or beat you with his fists, but at the same time you have full use of weapons that you can use on the fighter. The fighter is way outclassed. Don't get angry and call others clueless when you don't understand something. |
| Clawhound04-04-07, 09:40 AM | Dude you have yet to present to me a legit statement from a legit source that says you must take a feat when ever you obtain a feat slot. And as being clueless apparently you are. You must not know how spells work. Well let me explain these to spells to you. First Greater Ironguard makes you immune to all magical metal weapons. Next Tenser's Transformation, this turns you into a pure fighting machine. With both of these spells in effect the fighter can try and grapple you down, or beat you with his fists, but at the same time you have full use of weapons that you can use on the fighter. The fighter is way outclassed. Don't get angry and call others clueless when you don't understand something. That's fairly meaningless: #1) Because very few spellcasting opponents will use this tactic over the course of a character's career, making this a marginal argument at best. #2) Comparing characters via duals does not work and is a known problem. #3) The "golf bag" style fighter is fairly common, and those folks usually have a wooden or crystal weapon on them just in case they run into metal eaters. #4) The fighter is tuned to melee encounters, having both feats and equipment to handle that whereas the spellcaster doesn't. That, and the spellcaster has lost all spellcasting abilities, which is a huge nerf compared to being a spellcaster. |
| Argaud04-04-07, 10:02 AM | That's fairly meaningless: #1) Because very few spellcasting opponents will use this tactic over the course of a character's career, making this a marginal argument at best. #2) Comparing characters via duals does not work and is a known problem. #3) The "golf bag" style fighter is fairly common, and those folks usually have a wooden or crystal weapon on them just in case they run into metal eaters. #4) The fighter is tuned to melee encounters, having both feats and equipment to handle that whereas the spellcaster doesn't. That, and the spellcaster has lost all spellcasting abilities, which is a huge nerf compared to being a spellcaster. Good recap, let me add a few bits. -The bonus given by Tenser's transformation are pathetic compared with the stuff needed to be an effective level 11 fighter. +4 enhancement to Con, Dex and Str? Okay, as a level 11 wizard that character should already have the Con bonus. Now he is a warrior (the NPC class, good bab, marial weapons, no feats) without the right gear to go melee, with 14 strength and maybe decent Dex. The +4 NA is maybe the greatest benefit of the spell, since more AC is always good, and it is not an enhancement bonus. But Since the wizard lacks armor proficiencies that +4 NA barely puts him at a warrior's AC level. 14 strength and no feats makes a sucky frontliner. -Greater Ironguard is a decent spell when fighting NPC classes, but most CR11 encounters aren't against enemies armed with magical weapons. A far better spell could be Polymorph (become a troll or even wartroll) which is probably one of the reasons Polymorph is now "retired" from official campaigns. |
| Bob Loblaw04-04-07, 10:37 AM | Dude you have yet to present to me a legit statement from a legit source that says you must take a feat when ever you obtain a feat slot. From the FAQ, first question under Miscellaneous: Can a character choose to delay a choice (such as spending skill points or selecting a feat) until a later level? No. All choices regarding character advancement must be made as soon as they become available. You can’t save skill points from one level to another, nor may you delay selecting a feat from, say, 3rd level to 4th level. That said, the retraining rules in Player’s Handbook II allow you to adjust such decisions later in your career, which accomplishes a similar result. And as being clueless apparently you are. You must not know how spells work. Well let me explain these to spells to you. First Greater Ironguard makes you immune to all magical metal weapons. Next Tenser's Transformation, this turns you into a pure fighting machine. With both of these spells in effect the fighter can try and grapple you down, or beat you with his fists, but at the same time you have full use of weapons that you can use on the fighter. The fighter is way outclassed. Don't get angry and call others clueless when you don't understand something. The problem with one-upmanship like this is that it is completely useless. This type of argument always begins with the misconception that character X will have whatever he needs to beat character Y. Meanwhile, character Y will not be given the same courtesy. I can make a fighter that can beat any spellcaster. I can make a spellcaster that can beat any fighter. The questions that should be asked with comparisons like this are: Do I want to play such a limited character in an actual campaign? Is the expenditure of resources worth the effort or could I spend my money better? Does this really prove that the class is better or that I just found a good combination that works against a combination that isn't as good. |
| Flan04-04-07, 11:26 AM | -The bonus given by Tenser's transformation are pathetic Exactly, as anyone taking even the first look at the spell and has any clue at all could see. Tenser's Transformation would be a reasonable 2nd level spell that you might actually use for a couple levels, as a 6th level it's a joke. Calling it a fighter beater is laughable in the extreme. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-04-07, 06:54 PM | See what makes the fighter not useful later on is the fact that he can't adapt to different situations. Like what situations? He fights enemies. So long as there are enemies, he has something to do. You are either going to be good at melee, or ranged or even in both, but you will never be maxed in both. This is a very simplistic argument. What constitutes 'maxed in both'? Further, I find it strange that people still mention the prospect of specializing in ranged combat when the Warblade has few options for ranged combat and is heralded as some sort of god-class for players interested in melee. And the fighter has to rely on magic items that he may not ever get. Why may he never get them? What about your wizard? Aren't you relying on spells you may never get? Unless he has a ghost touch weapon (example) he is going to have that 50% miss chance against incorporeal creatures. Just like... The paladin. The barbarian. The monk. The rogue. The ranger. The druid. And the list continues on. Wizards no, force spells and spells that allow that fighter to hit those creatures enables the wizard to adapt. Good for the wizard. So, here's a thought. If one of the team members is having trouble... another one of the team members can step in and lend a hand. Rogue- Gee, for whatever reason, Fighter can't get a Ghost Touch weapon. It would really be useful right now. Wizard- Agreed. He looks like he's having difficulty with those seven wraiths. Rogue- Couldn't you have crafted him some Ghost Touch weaponry? Wizard- Who me? Take item creation feats? For what? Wouldn't you rather pay double the cost for items you really wanted or, at the mercy of the Fates, use whatever old items we find in the dungeons? Rogue- No, not really. It just sucks. Without them, these kinds of monsters are hard to beat. Wizard- Maybe for you. I can kill them easily with my spells. Rogue- Then why don't you? Fighters truly have to rely on others. Try a party of four wizards. Start from level 1. Choose a low level adventure, and have someone run it for you and your friends. Feel free to level them as much as you want. Then get back to me. Not that I care for the Irongaurd 'argument', but I just wanted to mention... For the most part, a fighter will probably not know what spell a wizard has just cast. So when his sword starts going through the wizard and stops dealing damage, he won't automatically think 'Let me try one of those non-metal weapons that I keep for Rust Monsters.' He might switch to his bow, or to a weapon with a different damage type, or he might lunge at the wizard with his fists. Who knows? But I don't think he will immediately suspect that the wizard is now totally immune to metal-based attacks. Unless he has super spellcraft check powers. |
| Dalmaris_cerebromancer04-04-07, 07:02 PM | Try a party of four wizards. Start from level 1. Choose a low level adventure, and have someone run it for you and your friends. Feel free to level them as much as you want. Then get back to me. Yes fighters are definitly needed at low levels. But at higher levels they get weaker. So i have made this (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=820765) |
| Midnight_v04-04-07, 07:09 PM | IS there really a point to having a Fighter in the party? Since according to most everyone here all Fighter will lose to casters at higher levels, why not just have a party of all casters? Now you'll have 4 party members that can deal with all threats, instead of some that can't deal with enemy casters. Hell, even a party of 4 rogues may be better than a party of 4 fighters, since you can probably pull off some neat tactics with all the sneakiness. Any reason to have a fighter.... hmmm... nostalgia. ...possibly the human flaw to resist change and hate that which is new or different or not understood... Reasons enough for some people... |
| Khan the Destroyer04-04-07, 07:30 PM | Um... has anyone ever tried starting the game at level 1 with four casters? I doubt it, since it gets suggested often. I mean, a shortbow can down a wizard with one hit at level 1. Alternatively, a greataxe *will* down a wizard in one hit on average damage alone, *before* the strength modifier multiplied by 1.5. When someone suggests that it is possible to play the game with only casters... they must be referring to an idealic game where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is set up in just the right manner. |
| Midnight_v04-04-07, 07:36 PM | Yeah... we played a game once with Cleric/Druid/Cleric/Battlesorceror .... Went fine for a bit. Ended when someone moved, one guy got a new job, but over all things went fine. I don't think we had lots of difficulties, but nor were we playing "an idealic game where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is set up in just the right manner." |
| Bob Loblaw04-04-07, 08:05 PM | Yeah... we played a game once with Cleric/Druid/Cleric/Battlesorceror .... Went fine for a bit. Ended when someone moved, one guy got a new job, but over all things went fine. I don't think we had lots of difficulties, but nor were we playing "an idealic game where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is set up in just the right manner." Was it run any differently than if the party was more standardized? What I mean is, were the threats kept the same or were they more spaced out with fewer tough opponents rather than several weaker ones. Once you hit levels 5-10, did the dyanmics change at all? How far did you go? We the adventures premade or were they custom designed by the DM? What types of adventures were you on? |
| Khan the Destroyer04-04-07, 08:18 PM | This is why when I mentioned the famed party of four casters in the other thread, I suggested running it through a mod. In this way, the DM might have less influence if he stuck closely to the gamebook. Did you guys start at level 1? Who was your trapfinder? In the end, this anecdotal evidence will get regarded the same way other anecdotal evidence does. It won't. Like when all of those people say that the fighters were awesome in their games. Also, I find it amusing that I referred to how easy a level 1 wizard can fall to average weapon damage, and your party lacked a wizard, but instead had the absolutely horrendous Battle Sorcerer. Presumably to keep with the d8 HD theme :rolleyes:. |
| Midnight_v04-04-07, 09:00 PM | Khan Did you guys start at level 1? Who was your trapfinder? Yes we started at level on. We had no trapfinder, the druid allowed his wolf to "take point" and it died at second level. Used that 24 hour ritual to get anouther one. Traps weren't that bad, although... we only played levels 1-6 In the end, this anecdotal evidence will get regarded the same way other anecdotal evidence does. It won't 1. You're already regarding it, even as you read this, even if it's in some odd attempt to discount it. 2. I mean you asked this %^$( question! OMg... was that rhetorical? Like when all of those people say that the fighters were awesome in their games Maybe like that...maybe... I have not said that the party rocked but I simply state that I have played in such a party as you asked. It si a simple truth... which you seem no to like. Also, I find it amusing that I referred to how easy a level 1 wizard can fall to average weapon damage, and your party lacked a wizard, but instead had the absolutely horrendous Battle Sorcerer. Presumably to keep with the d8 HD theme Khan... my friend. That... thats just insulting. I was that battle sorceor! LOL. Much to my chagrin, Unearthed arcana had just came out and a one of the group suggested it (I had wanted to become a fighter) so I went with it. In the scope of that one game it wasnt' that horrible, but nor did I have a good concept of what I was losing out on either. So .... well yeah... BOB Loblaw Threats were average I think but he ran a series of articles from Dungeon magazine. So for whatever that's worth...yeah. As stated above we only got to about level 6 and it was over but... It was fun. Not optimal. Not Uber. Just Fun. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek04-04-07, 09:11 PM | Khan Yes we started at level on. We had no trapfinder, the druid allowed his wolf to "take point" and it died at second level. Used that 24 hour ritual to get anouther one. Traps weren't that bad, although... we only played levels 1-6 You do know that clerics have the spell Find Traps. And you had two clerics and neither one used it? |
| Midnight_v04-04-07, 09:23 PM | Seriously.... not the point. I knew very little of 3.0/3.5 D&D at that point it was one of my first adventures and I can't control what others do with a character even if I did know that at the time. Still yeah you're right but it wasnt' a group of hard core gamers so they probbably never thought about it. . . |
| Bob Loblaw04-04-07, 11:47 PM | KhanBOB Loblaw Threats were average I think but he ran a series of articles from Dungeon magazine. So for whatever that's worth...yeah. As stated above we only got to about level 6 and it was over but... It was fun. Not optimal. Not Uber. Just Fun. It actually does make a difference. The modules are designed with the fighter, cleric, rogue, sorcerer model. I wanted to see how your party did against that. It looks like you did ok. I don't know if the DM fudged any rolls or not at the lower levels. As long as you had fun that's all that matters. I think you would have seen a serious power jump in the next few levels. You would also see the clerics starting to take on the same roles (even though they don't have to) and things may have gotten boring after a while for them. |
| Flan04-05-07, 12:08 AM | Um... has anyone ever tried starting the game at level 1 with four casters? I doubt it, since it gets suggested often. I mean, a shortbow can down a wizard with one hit at level 1. Alternatively, a greataxe *will* down a wizard in one hit on average damage alone, *before* the strength modifier multiplied by 1.5. When someone suggests that it is possible to play the game with only casters... they must be referring to an idealic game where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is set up in just the right manner. My DM isn't opposed to tossing a few hundred damage at a character in a round on a level 15. Maxed orbs, multiple maxed+empowered fireballs, traps that do 150+ damage to entire rooms with reflex saves only rogues will likely make, finger of death traps etc. He's nice enough to put it on the fighters though, otherwise the wizard would be dead literally every single fight even with Friendshield rings. |
| XunValDorl of HouseKilsek04-05-07, 01:10 AM | Um... has anyone ever tried starting the game at level 1 with four casters? I doubt it, since it gets suggested often. I mean, a shortbow can down a wizard with one hit at level 1. Alternatively, a greataxe *will* down a wizard in one hit on average damage alone, *before* the strength modifier multiplied by 1.5. When someone suggests that it is possible to play the game with only casters... they must be referring to an idealic game where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is set up in just the right manner. Actually we have started a game with all casters. We did very well actually. We had a straight wizard, we had a Warmage/Fighter/Eldritch Knight, We had a Wizard/Wyrm Wizard who took some of the Cure spells so we could heal, and we had a Sorcerer. All we did was put our minds together and kicked butt. |
| Bhaal00604-05-07, 01:18 AM | I played a campaign at level 1 with all wizards, we all died, in the second encounter, one died in the first encounter. because an orc rogue with a short bow will kill you because you can't see him. |
| FrostHammer04-05-07, 02:04 AM | A group of level 1 wizards should all take the Toughness Feat. Then later on, use the re-training option to switch it out for something else. |
| Leo04-05-07, 06:43 AM | Wait, isn't something wrong with a druid using his own animal companion as trap trigger? Isn't the companion suposed to be his close friend? |
| Barlo_Browns04-05-07, 07:01 AM | Level 1 Caster party? Cleric, Wizard, Druid, Duskblade |
| AllisterH04-05-07, 09:51 AM | I kinda have to disagree with you Khan. I've done two druids and three clerics before and they pretty much had no problem with anything at level 1 and above. I can see a wizard getting schooled in that situation but ironically, I think the sorceror's higher number of slots per day make it more viable. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-05-07, 07:58 PM | Khan Yes we started at level on. We had no trapfinder, the druid allowed his wolf to "take point" and it died at second level. Used that 24 hour ritual to get anouther one. Traps weren't that bad, although... we only played levels 1-6 Ugh. I know what this will seem like. It will seem like me making a point just to discredit your example. And yet... A druid's animal companion is a companion. Not a trapspringer. For a character that loses all spells and druid abilities if he ceases to revere nature, this seems like a strange way to treat your animal companion. My point is of course moot to a certain degree. Alternatively, someone could have simply had the Kobold Domain and gain the Trapfinding ability as well as Search and Disable Device as class skills. The Find Traps spell doesn't work as well because the Search check sucks at low levels and you have no means to disable the trap. 1. You're already regarding it, even as you read this, even if it's in some odd attempt to discount it. I think we both know what I meant. 2. I mean you asked this %^$( question! OMg... was that rhetorical? I didn't actually expect for a bunch of people to say 'Sure, we play in a party with clerics and druids and it was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. In fact, at levels 1-5, we function just as well as a fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric party.' Yeah, I asked. No, that doesn't mean I care for the answer. Khan... my friend. That... thats just insulting. I was that battle sorceor! LOL. Much to my chagrin, Unearthed arcana had just came out and a one of the group suggested it (I had wanted to become a fighter) so I went with it. In the scope of that one game it wasnt' that horrible, but nor did I have a good concept of what I was losing out on either. So .... well yeah... :D Sorry. But, the Battle Sorcerer is... well, it is what it is. I can see the appeal but... so few spells known :(. Actually we have started a game with all casters. We did very well actually. We had a straight wizard, we had a Warmage/Fighter/Eldritch Knight, We had a Wizard/Wyrm Wizard who took some of the Cure spells so we could heal, and we had a Sorcerer. You had 3 characters with a d4 HD and you all made it to a high enough level where you can prestige class? That just seems... highly improbable. Essentially, there is no reason for any tank, not the fighter, the cleric, or the animal companion. A d4's worth of HP is enough I guess. I don't know. I'd have to see this happen in person. AllisterH, that's a party of 5. With more resources and an extra action in each combat, you should be able to handle encounters with little difficulty. It seems that at higher levels, we contend with Gate, Energy Drain and Polymorph. But when we get to the low levels, the wizard gets abandoned and everyone whips out the druid and cleric. What a mutable foe indeed ;). |
| M1kh43l_P4r4d1s004-05-07, 08:02 PM | What are fighters good for? See that scrawny old man in the back, waving his arms and gibbering like a mad man? He wouldn't ave made it past lvl 1 without the help of his favorite meat shield. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-05-07, 08:12 PM | What are fighters good for? See that scrawny old man in the back, waving his arms and gibbering like a mad man? He wouldn't ave made it past lvl 1 without the help of his favorite meat shield. Apparently, he would have :rolleyes:. |
| Kresalak04-05-07, 10:48 PM | It's not even hard. Sleep is a long ranged save or die until level 4, Web removes people from the fight for at LEAST 4 rounds, etc. Plus, a Wizard can easily replace a Fighter from level one, and I'm not kidding. Human Conjurer 1, 14 Str, 13 Dex, 12 Con, 15 Int, 10 Wis, 6 Cha. You take Militia and Toughness (which you later retrain) at first level, which means you can bust out a Greatsword and a Longbow and you have 8 hp. The difference in attack between you and your Fighter friend is seriously like 2 points, which means in 18 out of 20 rolls you won't even notice. You know Mage Armor, Sleep, Magic Weapon, and whatever. You have an AC of 15 and an attack bonus of +3 for 2d6+4 damage, which is enough to kill pretty much anyone. Anyone you can't kill can always die to Sleep. At level 3 you can become a Troglodyte and pocket a fat +6 to AC, and at level 6 you get to be an Eldritch Knight with Heroism on, which pretty much means you're one point behind the Fighter. At level 8 you get Polymorph and your numbers shoot through the roof. |
| thecasualoblivion04-05-07, 10:55 PM | It's not even hard. Sleep is a long ranged save or die until level 4, Web removes people from the fight for at LEAST 4 rounds, etc. Plus, a Wizard can easily replace a Fighter from level one, and I'm not kidding. Human Conjurer 1, 14 Str, 13 Dex, 12 Con, 15 Int, 10 Wis, 6 Cha. You take Militia and Toughness (which you later retrain) at first level, which means you can bust out a Greatsword and a Longbow and you have 8 hp. The difference in attack between you and your Fighter friend is seriously like 2 points, which means in 18 out of 20 rolls you won't even notice. You know Mage Armor, Sleep, Magic Weapon, and whatever. You have an AC of 15 and an attack bonus of +3 for 2d6+4 damage, which is enough to kill pretty much anyone. Anyone you can't kill can always die to Sleep. At level 3 you can become a Troglodyte and pocket a fat +6 to AC, and at level 6 you get to be an Eldritch Knight with Heroism on, which pretty much means you're one point behind the Fighter. At level 8 you get Polymorph and your numbers shoot through the roof. All that is assuming the DM lets you do that. I'm known to be very agressive as a DM. Monsters hit hard and fast, and a caster needs time to stack spells on themselves. If a caster thinks he's going to stand on the front lines in my game, he's got some problems. The Fighter and his big pile of HP and AC both survives my hyper-agressive style of hit them hard on turn 1, and is nice enough to stand in front of the more squishy characters. This isn't a computer game where perfect tactics work all of the time. In the real world, things don't work out the way you want them to, and thats the way I roll. Those magey tricks take time. Why should I give it to them? |
| Argaud04-05-07, 11:39 PM | Human Conjurer 1, 14 Str, 13 Dex, 12 Con, 15 Int, 10 Wis, 6 Cha. You take Militia and Toughness (which you later retrain) at first level, Militia is a regional feat from a specific part of the FR, right? The fighter takes Jotunbrud. which means you can bust out a Greatsword and a Longbow and you have 8 hp. And strength 10. The difference in attack between you and your Fighter friend is seriously like 2 points, which means in 18 out of 20 rolls you won't even notice. Wrong. The difference is that the wizard has Int 14+ while the fighter has Str 14+. This even if the wizard didn't dump Dex to pump Int even higher. And then the wizard will have an AC 7 points lower than the fighter. Except when he casts one of his precious first level spells to have Mage Armor. Then he is "just" 3 points behind. And with a to hit 4 points behind, and doing 2-3 points less of damage. The first level wizard sucks as a warrior. It is not even funny. You know Mage Armor, Sleep, Magic Weapon, and whatever. You have an AC of 15 and an attack bonus of +3 for 2d6+4 damage, The wizard does not have that. He is not even close to have that. He has Mage Armor for one hour. Magic Weapon for one hour. The one remaining spell is Sleep, which takes a full round to cast, and the wizard lacks the concentration to avoid AoOs. He will get hit if he was so stupid to be in the front ranks. At level 3 you can become a Troglodyte and pocket a fat +6 to AC, And the fighter has the cash for full plate. That and a large shield means he gets +10 AC. and at level 6 you get to be an Eldritch Knight with Heroism on, which pretty much means you're one point behind the Fighter. At level 8 you get Polymorph and your numbers shoot through the roof. Eldritch Knights and gishes rock. But they are not pure casters anymore. A level 6 wizard is 3 bab behind a fighter, though, plus lower physical stats and probably no combat feats. Polymorph is so broken that can't be used in WotC campaigns anymore. And it is still better when cast on a fighter. |
| Kresalak04-05-07, 11:50 PM | lulz i r trolled |
| Arem_K04-06-07, 12:00 AM | Um... has anyone ever tried starting the game at level 1 with four casters? I doubt it, since it gets suggested often. I mean, a shortbow can down a wizard with one hit at level 1. Alternatively, a greataxe *will* down a wizard in one hit on average damage alone, *before* the strength modifier multiplied by 1.5. When someone suggests that it is possible to play the game with only casters... they must be referring to an idealic game where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is set up in just the right manner. I am doing druid, cleric, beguiler, conjurer right now. We have not had the problems that you believe that we would have. In the first few levels the druid and his animal companion did the tank thing very well while the conjurer and I (beguiler) killed things with the early level SoD's. Later on, we changed tactics so that I was doing the defense thing with silent images. Life is short and cheap in the first level. One lucky hit from an orc's greataxe brings down anybody. Wizard's are more vulnerable hp wise, but then again they can cast a lot of spells (like silent image) that slow down combat. For the most part, in all my games everyone avoids melee combat at first level unless they are really optimized to the hilt for it. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-06-07, 12:01 AM | It's not even hard. Sleep is a long ranged save or die until level 4, Web removes people from the fight for at LEAST 4 rounds, etc. Kresalak, spells do indeed harm enemies. But that's not the point. If encounters in your games usually begin with your PC's noticing the enemies so far ahead that they can hit them with long range spells or fire off their offensive stuff before the enemy closes, so be it. My point is, that is not a given all of the time. Especially in dungeons, or sewers, or caverns, encounters will happen closer. Your wizard is not focused on initiative. It can be anyone's game. Web and Sleep may not matter if the enemy gets to you first. In a party with *only* wizards, the enemies have no choice but to attack a caster. If there is a big burly guy with a sword standing in the way, suddenly they have a choice to make. Human Conjurer 1, 14 Str, 13 Dex, 12 Con, 15 Int, 10 Wis, 6 Cha. You take Militia and Toughness (which you later retrain) at first level, which means you can bust out a Greatsword and a Longbow and you have 8 hp. The difference in attack between you and your Fighter friend is seriously like 2 points, which means in 18 out of 20 rolls you won't even notice. You know Mage Armor, Sleep, Magic Weapon, and whatever. You have an AC of 15 and an attack bonus of +3 for 2d6+4 damage, which is enough to kill pretty much anyone. Anyone you can't kill can always die to Sleep. At level 3 you can become a Troglodyte and pocket a fat +6 to AC, and at level 6 you get to be an Eldritch Knight with Heroism on, which pretty much means you're one point behind the Fighter. All I see are more limited spells being presented as if they are on all of the time. At level 1, you are going to make do as a fighter with one casting of Mage Armor, Sleep, and Magic Weapon? I also see a Regional feat from Faerun and some funky point-buy. Did you subtract two points from your charisma to boost another ability score? Is that possible? At level 8 you get Polymorph and your numbers shoot through the roof. It's more efficient when you cast it on the fighter. |
| Kresalak04-06-07, 12:10 AM | I messed up the Charisma, since it was supposed to be a Dwarf and then I realized a Human was better. But that's not even important, since I actually used the Elite array there. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-06-07, 12:14 AM | I am doing druid, cleric, beguiler, conjurer right now. We have not had the problems that you believe that we would have. In the first few levels the druid and his animal companion did the tank thing very well while the conjurer and I (beguiler) killed things with the early level SoD's. Later on, we changed tactics so that I was doing the defense thing with silent images. Then I give up. Apparently, casters win all the time :(. Life is short and cheap in the first level. One lucky hit from an orc's greataxe brings down anybody. Which is of course different from the average damage of a falchion blow bringing someone down. Wizard's are more vulnerable hp wise, but then again they can cast a lot of spells (like silent image) that slow down combat. Define 'a lot' of spells. See, I played in a game where we didn't level up very quickly. There were a lot of encounters for each level. Meaning, it's nice that the cleric gets Persistent Divine Might and Righteous Might and all of that good stuff. But what about all of the other levels before that, and all of those other encounters? Likewise with the druid before Wildshape (though the animal companion seems to be where its at). And with the wizard. At level 1, you don't have lots of spells. Same with level 2. Further, people make the argument that my fighter builds can't even be referenced in defense of the fighter because those are specific choices that I made that not everyone might. *Likewise* not everyone might choose SoD's, or optimize an animal companion. What if I chose Magic Missile for my spells per day? What if I wanted Expeditious Retreat? I am suddenly getting off track here :). Let me stop now. For the most part, in all my games everyone avoids melee combat at first level unless they are really optimized to the hilt for it. Well, I guess this is one of my issues. You shouldn't 'for the most part' be able to avoid melee combat as an active choice. The game is very much about chance. If you can avoid melee whenver you want, knowing the risks, I can see why your casters can survive and end up victorious. If that's the case, there really is no need for a tank, whose job is to engage in melee. I messed up the Charisma, since it was supposed to be a Dwarf and then I realized a Human was better. But that's not even important, since I actually used the Elite array there. Meh. Ugly is ugly right? |
| Kalman1404-06-07, 12:18 AM | Why not have a party of 4 casters? Because unless one of them is a Cleric that can function in melee a charging enemy will be like a tank running over a jello mold, and unless you happen to find a scroll of True Rez you're gonna be down a caster which increases your(the player's) chance of being the next magic wielder to be trampled. In a campaign I'm playing, we have a dragon shaman, an illusionist, a cleric, and a Frenzied Berserker(me) which due to careful planning only has a 5% chance to go berserk on the party. More than twice, at the end of a good-sized battle, I end up at about 60/210 HP and spend the next few minutes feeding potions to my unconcious and bleeding allies. In one case we had DM intervention because someone died and the DM didn't want him dead that early. |
| Arem_K04-06-07, 01:06 AM | Which is of course different from the average damage of a falchion blow bringing someone down. Even if it is a falchion you are generally still in the damage range, especially if it is a crit. Two shots take down everybody. A fighter might survive thanks to his (thankfully maxed) d10 hit dice. But at pretty much every juncture he is going to be one or two shots away from death. Like I said, I would rather shoot things with arrows unless I am playing a chain tripper or something that has a way of negating the extremely perilous nature of low level melee. Define 'a lot' of spells. See, I played in a game where we didn't level up very quickly. There were a lot of encounters for each level. Meaning, it's nice that the cleric gets Persistent Divine Might and Righteous Might and all of that good stuff. But what about all of the other levels before that, and all of those other encounters? Likewise with the druid before Wildshape (though the animal companion seems to be where its at). And with the wizard. At level 1, you don't have lots of spells. Same with level 2. When I said a lot of spells I actually meant wide variety. That being said a level one specialist wizard can cast three spells. There are ways to bring that up to four or five. That has usually been enough that I can cast a level one spell in every encounter before a rest. If the team does poorly and I have to use more than that I would not hesitate to call for a rest afterwards. Like I said, life is cheap at first level and it is very easy for the brave to become the dead. A wizard can also make a decent number of scrolls after getting some experience. Sometime in the second level I usually pick up a wand of silent image, which gives me something to do up till the point when true seeing becomes available. But then it is not so much of a problem. Well, I guess this is one of my issues. You shouldn't 'for the most part' be able to avoid melee combat as an active choice. The game is very much about chance. If you can avoid melee whenver you want, knowing the risks, I can see why your casters can survive and end up victorious. If that's the case, there really is no need for a tank, whose job is to engage in melee. It is more like an advantage of our class features. Our party had a dedicated scout (beguiler) who could find the enemy before it found us. A creature sneaking up on our party had to beat six spot rolls. One from the beguiler (maxed spot and listen), one from the druid (maxed spot and listen, high wis), the druid's animal companion (high spot and listen, scent), one from the cleric (high wis), one from the conjurer (alertness bonus feat), and one from the conjurer's familiar. By level three, that number had risen to eight rolls because the beguiler got a familiar and the druid bought another riding dog. So yeah, it was somewhat hard to sneak up on us. That lets us engage with ranged weapons or control the battlefield with spells or by putting our relatively beefy members upfront. If your DM just does the "orcs appear 30 ft away" thing you may have a harder time with it. Of course, then the orcs can just charge anyone they feel like and it does not matter really if you have a tank or not. |
| Bhaal00604-06-07, 01:28 AM | I don't suppose corners exist in your fantasy world, also the sneaking monsters should be SNEAKY monsters, i.e. rogue/ranger levels. your DM is quite obviously failing in his duties, which is to provide challenges for the PC's which obviously is not happening, in my opinion if a charcter doesn't come close to death at least once every three sessions I'm not doing my job. I know alot of people disagree with the adversarial system, but I think it is my duty to try my best, whithin the capabilities of the mob, to kill the characters. |
| Arem_K04-06-07, 01:38 AM | I don't suppose corners exist in your fantasy world, also the sneaking monsters should be SNEAKY monsters, i.e. rogue/ranger levels. your DM is quite obviously failing in his duties, which is to provide challenges for the PC's which obviously is not happening, in my opinion if a charcter doesn't come close to death at least once every three sessions I'm not doing my job. I know alot of people disagree with the adversarial system, but I think it is my duty to try my best, whithin the capabilities of the mob, to kill the characters. Okay, this is ridiculous. You have the most vague description of how my games go, but from this you have managed to glean that it is obvious that my DM is failing in her duties. Also, learn to type. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-06-07, 01:56 AM | Even if it is a falchion you are generally still in the damage range, especially if it is a crit. Two shots take down everybody. But the point is that those two shots will hopefully never happen. Because instead of summoning a monster or casting Sleep, the fighter is attacking the enemy. Hopefully, this weakens the enemy (if not kills him) so that the rest of the party can finish the enemy. Casting Sleep is great, unless it fails. Now you are down one spell, you have done nothing to the enemy, and it is his turn. Good luck. Same goes for summoning to a lesser extent. You are doing nothing for 1 round. No, I'm not saying they will always make their saving throws. But obviously the fighter will fight differently than the wizard. Further, two shots does not take everyone down. Many CR 1 creatures deal around 3 points of damage. It will take around 4 hits to drop a fighter, ranger, and paladin. About 5 for the barbarian. But that's average damage. When you bring luck into it (like that critical hit you keep mentioning), the wizard is worse off than any melee character, because more weapons can down him with a crit than the others. A fighter might survive thanks to his (thankfully maxed) d10 hit dice. But at pretty much every juncture he is going to be one or two shots away from death. Not really. Like I said, I would rather shoot things with arrows unless I am playing a chain tripper or something that has a way of negating the extremely perilous nature of low level melee. Like I said... you don't always have the luxury of killing your enemies before they can strike you in melee. It is more like an advantage of our class features. Our party had a dedicated scout (beguiler) who could find the enemy before it found us. A creature sneaking up on our party had to beat six spot rolls. One from the beguiler (maxed spot and listen), one from the druid (maxed spot and listen, high wis), the druid's animal companion (high spot and listen, scent), one from the cleric (high wis), one from the conjurer (alertness bonus feat), and one from the conjurer's familiar. By level three, that number had risen to eight rolls because the beguiler got a familiar and the druid bought another riding dog. So yeah, it was somewhat hard to sneak up on us. That lets us engage with ranged weapons or control the battlefield with spells or by putting our relatively beefy members upfront. If your DM just does the "orcs appear 30 ft away" thing you may have a harder time with it. Of course, then the orcs can just charge anyone they feel like and it does not matter really if you have a tank or not. I am not referring to enemies sneaking up on the party. I am referring to encounters that take place in dungeons. You know... those dark, underground places that usually have narrow passages and many small rooms. It's half of the name of the game we're discussing. Sewers, dungeons, caverns, ancient ruins, etc. All of that stuff doesn't really facilitate your super safe 'just hit them from afar when we see them' combat technique. My DM doesn't do the whole 'orcs appear 30 ft away' thing. But we don't start every combat at longbow range with no chance for the enemy to close before we kill them either. |
| Arem_K04-06-07, 03:10 AM | Khan, either I am communicating very poorly or you are not trying to be fair about this. Honestly, I don't know what we are discussing at this point. There was a theoretical argument about the strength of fighters v. casters, you asked if someone has played all casters, I said that my group does and that we have survived fine. Now you are arguing theory again, presumably looking for the one perfect argument that will make my entire groups HP fall to zero from your blistering logic. Seriously, I am not even debating fighter v. caster with you. I am just saying that 4 casters are perfectly viable. As far as I can understand, you are arguing that the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard or lower in power than the fighter. But the point is that those two shots will hopefully never happen. Because instead of summoning a monster or casting Sleep, the fighter is attacking the enemy. Hopefully, this weakens the enemy (if not kills him) so that the rest of the party can finish the enemy. Casting Sleep is great, unless it fails. Now you are down one spell, you have done nothing to the enemy, and it is his turn. Good luck. I really do not understand this part of the debate. Yes creatures can make their saving throws v. sleep and color spray, and yes nothing happens if they make them. Similarly, fighters make attacks against opponents against and fail to beat their AC, and nothing happens. The difference is that that an orc that fails its save is generally dead and one that eats an attack from a fighter is generally hurt. [QUOTE=Khan the Destroyer;12003102] Further, two shots does not take everyone down. Many CR 1 creatures deal around 3 points of damage. It will take around 4 hits to drop a fighter, ranger, and paladin. About 5 for the barbarian. But that's average damage. When you bring luck into it (like that critical hit you keep mentioning), the wizard is worse off than any melee character, because more weapons can down him with a crit than the others. Well, as the damage shrinks the benefit of being a fighter lessens because the wizard is no longer going down in one hit anymore and the druid and cleric can easily survive for multiple rounds. I always mention the critical hit because critical hits, while rare, actually do happen and the person who gets hit by usually dies. It is simply seems like a better idea than not to me to avoid taking that chance. [QUOTE=Khan the Destroyer;12003102] Not really. The standard orc warrior presented by in the SRD does around 9 points of damage on a hit. That is generally the most common enemy in my experience. I have not seen many fighters that can suck down two of those at level 1. [QUOTE=Khan the Destroyer;12003102] Like I said... you don't always have the luxury of killing your enemies before they can strike you in melee. I am not referring to enemies sneaking up on the party. I am referring to encounters that take place in dungeons. You know... those dark, underground places that usually have narrow passages and many small rooms. It's half of the name of the game we're discussing. Sewers, dungeons, caverns, ancient ruins, etc. All of that stuff doesn't really facilitate your super safe 'just hit them from afar when we see them' combat technique. My DM doesn't do the whole 'orcs appear 30 ft away' thing. But we don't start every combat at longbow range with no chance for the enemy to close before we kill them either. We don't either. But if we can fight at a distance (for example, we are outside) we do. In dungeons the beguiler scouts out the rooms and tells us where the enemies are so that we can effectively control them. Sometimes it does not work, like when the allip came out of the floor, but for the most part low level parties are not challenged by things with super powerful hiding skills and it is an entirely appropriate tactic to attempt to be the ones doing the ambushing rather than the ones being ambushed. Just for an overview, let me just give a snapshot a brief version of what my game has looked like. Hopefully, this will convince you that four casters are playable more than me just asserting that everyone in my game is totally cool. Level 1-2: Pretty basic strategy. I (beguiler) would scout and try to get us a surprise round. If that happened things tended to end very quickly, if not it was usually me and the conjurer who threw out SoDs while the druid and his riding dog attacked and the cleric supported with arrows. Sometimes the druid would cast entangle and we would kill things from a distance. Later, I switched to using silent image to distract the enemy and keep them from stabbing us in the face. Level 3-4: Basically the same thing. The druid got some new spells and bought another dog, giving us three guys in melee. The conjurer jumped up in effectiveness because he got more spells, including glitterdust which seems to be his favorite. The cleric got more spells and occasionally casts hold person but seems to prefer a support role. I mostly stuck with casting illusions to protect us, allowing my more offensively minded teammates to lash out from a position of safety. Level 5-6 (to present) The druid retired his dogs, both his animal companion riding dog and the one he purchased. He chose a leopard for an animal companion (no fleshrakers) and pretty much lives in animal form. That can be kind of a pain, but we have adjusted. At level 6, he got natural spell, making him officially a double threat. The cleric got blindness, which gave him both a good will and fort save or die. He also has been using his feats to boost DCs and has shown himself to be very competent in taking out a single target. The conjurer got stinking cloud, another area affecting save or lose, but this one also has bad effects even if you make your save. He started putting grease in his first slot so that he can target any save. I still mostly cast illusions to defend the party. And that has pretty much worked for us. In the beginning, me and the conjurer focused on taking out groups of enemies, sometimes taking out everyone before they got a turn, while the cleric and druid mopped up the remainder. Then we switched to using crowd control magic and physical force to destroy our enemies. |
| Flan04-06-07, 04:51 AM | It's not even hard. Sleep is a long ranged save or die until level 4, Web removes people from the fight for at LEAST 4 rounds, etc. Plus, a Wizard can easily replace a Fighter from level one, and I'm not kidding. Our rogue got a dagger with a powerful web varient once per day in it. He's been able to cast it once due to the "two anchor points" limitation. As for sleep, DC 10 + 1 (level) + 4 (int) = 15, thats minimum 30% chance of it doing nothing assuming you aren't fighting level 1's favourite monsters, the skeletons and zombies, on which it does nothing at all. |
| Archangel6204-06-07, 08:37 AM | Our rogue got a dagger with a powerful web varient once per day in it. He's been able to cast it once due to the "two anchor points" limitation. As for sleep, DC 10 + 1 (level) + 4 (int) = 15, thats minimum 30% chance of it doing nothing assuming you aren't fighting level 1's favourite monsters, the skeletons and zombies, on which it does nothing at all. But then some DMs favorite level 1s are kobolds, goblins, and orcs, who are affected very well by it. If your DM goes out of the way to keep casters abilities from coming up then of course they don't look that great. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-06-07, 09:07 AM | Further, two shots does not take everyone down. Many CR 1 creatures deal around 3 points of damage. It will take around 4 hits to drop a fighter, ranger, and paladin. About 5 for the barbarian. But that's average damage. A fighter might survive thanks to his (thankfully maxed) d10 hit dice. But at pretty much every juncture he is going to be one or two shots away from death. Not really. How disingenuous. "Many CR 1 creatures deal around 3 points of damage" Yeah? And many deal around 7 points of damage. :rolleyes: CR 1s [potentially] deal damage in the range of 1 through 18 damage for a single round. With the average across CR 1s coming in at ~4.6. Not counting PC classed NPCs with stuff like two-handed weapons, and a Str of 14+ But you do bring up one important difference there... Instead of 1 hit to drop the wizard & 2 to drop the fighter, it changes to 2 to drop the wizard and 3 to drop the fighter. Isn't that still a 1 hit difference? |
| Leo04-06-07, 09:27 AM | Honestly, in my current campaign we only detect our enemies first in around 1/5 of the encounters, and almost everybody has ranks in spot, high wisdom and eyes of the eagle(+5 to spot). Then there are other things. Burrowing enemies, flying enemies hiding in front of the sun/clouds, etc, etc, that mean that the party is taking an heavy hit before being able to do anything at all, making spending a turn buffing yourself a waste of time. |
| magmer204-06-07, 10:47 AM | What are fighters good for? See that scrawny old man in the back, waving his arms and gibbering like a mad man? He wouldn't ave made it past lvl 1 without the help of his favorite meat shield. Yes, good boy Kiba. *Scracthes Belly* |
| Khan the Destroyer04-06-07, 10:56 AM | Khan, either I am communicating very poorly or you are not trying to be fair about this. Honestly, I don't know what we are discussing at this point. There was a theoretical argument about the strength of fighters v. casters, you asked if someone has played all casters, I said that my group does and that we have survived fine. Now you are arguing theory again, presumably looking for the one perfect argument that will make my entire groups HP fall to zero from your blistering logic. It's quite simple. I appreciate the savvy tactics that you and your group used to avoid combat so often. I just don't think it would happen so often in the average game. Seriously, I am not even debating fighter v. caster with you. I am just saying that 4 casters are perfectly viable. As far as I can understand, you are arguing that the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard or lower in power than the fighter. No. I am arguing that it is not always possible to play from level 1-6 and avoid melee combat almost everytime. I might just be being hard-headed. I imagine that if I were in a group of all casters, we could find a way to do it as well. From the outside though, it seems unlikely. But our playing experiences may be different. How disingenuous. "Many CR 1 creatures deal around 3 points of damage" Yeah? And many deal around 7 points of damage. *shrugs* I don't know where you're looking. I see 3 monsters that deal an average of 7 damage at CR 1 in the MM (grimlock, small earth elemental, and githyanki). Alternatively, there are around 12 CR 1 monsters that deal an average of 3 damage with some sort of attack (whether its natural, melee, or ranged). CR 1s [potentially] deal damage in the range of 1 through 18 damage for a single round. With the average across CR 1s coming in at ~4.6. Yes. Many also deal 4 or 5 points of damage as well. Not counting PC classed NPCs with stuff like two-handed weapons, and a Str of 14+ Or warrior NPC's brought up to CR 1 through numbers. But you do bring up one important difference there... Instead of 1 hit to drop the wizard & 2 to drop the fighter, it changes to 2 to drop the wizard and 3 to drop the fighter. Isn't that still a 1 hit difference? I didn't suggest there wasn't a 1-hit difference between the fighter and the wizard (though a wizard with 14 con will have 6 HP, which is significantly lower than a fighter with 12 HP). But are you suggesting that a 1-hit difference is not important? EDIT: Hmmm... I'm afraid that my arguments will soon be spiraling into 'It's impossible!' and 'No way Jose!' type points. Next time I get the opportunity to play, I might suggest the all caster party and see what happens. I'm intrigued no doubt. But I'm afraid I may not be able to grasp the concept without experiencing it firsthand. Which is ok. I usually don't play a caster-type (except the psion) and this might be fun :). |
| Westbound04-06-07, 12:57 PM | If your idea of D&D is minis on a map, then fighters may seem rather limited only to combat. But this is a game where multi-classing is no longer limited to "demi-humans," and a L1 character has lots of options. And if the DM is creative and doesn't limit his games to mere dungeon crawls but full-fledged campaigns stocked with NPCs other than monsters or enemies, any character can prove more of a worth than his class dictates him to be. Stop looking at a class as the sum of what a character is. A class is merely a set of skills and abilities imparted to a character. What he does with those abilities say more about him than "fighter" or "wizard." The best reasons to have a fighter are obvious - a dedicated warrior is nice to have around when you run out of spells. At low levels, if your wizards and clerics are casting spells at every encounter, they're going to run out of spells fast and they're going to be resting - a lot. As a DM, a lot of my adventures are time-dependant (come to think of it, just about all of them are). The bad guys aren't just going to wait for you to rest up and reclaim your spells. They're going to go through with their plans, whatever they may be. If they know you're in the area, they're gonna come for you, and if most of the party is sleeping, that's when they attack. This means that an adventuring party has to think logistically. Spell-casters should use their spells sparingly and judiciously. All of my spell-casters can use a weapon, and some of them, including wizards, wear armor (I know, that sounds like heresy what with the Spell Check penalty, but if you play D&D like me and my friends do, if you don't wear armor, you'll die fast). All of my spell-casters prepare scrolls and potions and wands - lots of them. Even this, though, might not be enough. As DM, spell-casters are almost always my first targets for my monsters if they see them. And bad things do happen. Equipment can, and does, get damaged, even scrolls, potions, and wands. The warrior classes, particularly the fighter, represents fighting damage and protection that isn't reliant on magic. No need to rest to reclaim a warrior's fighting ability, unless he's Fatigued. Good warrior players know how to protect the spell-casters in the party and the spell-casters know how to reinforce the warriors. |
| catharz04-06-07, 01:33 PM | lulz i r trolled This thread is built for trolls :D |
| Otto the Bugbear04-06-07, 03:14 PM | *shrugs* I don't know where you're looking. I see 3 monsters that deal an average of 7 damage at CR 1 in the MM (grimlock, small earth elemental, and githyanki). Alternatively, there are around 12 CR 1 monsters that deal an average of 3 damage with some sort of attack (whether its natural, melee, or ranged). I was talking about full attacks also. What I don't get is the way you mention "many CR 1 monsters do 3 damage" and then took off as if that were setting the standard, and then dismiss a similar statement with a higher number. How does picking a low number support your case that the fighter is really much better off than Arem_K claims, being only one hit more than a wizard from going down? The claim that characters are really better off avoiding that sort of contact if at all possible, while at level 1? And since you wanted to get nit-picky, you're right, 7 was too high for a comparison if you omit full attacks. I'll just amend my statement to double the bar that you set; "Many CR 1 monsters do 6 damage." Now, the fighter is still going down is 2 or 3 hits, and the wizard is going down in 1 or 2 hits. That comparison didn't change. And I just counted 6 creatures that do an average of 3.5 (rounded to 3) damage, whether natural, weapon or ranged. Unless, of course, you're counting creatures that do more. After all, a creature that does 5 is doing 3, just with a little extra. single attack 0 damage = 3 1 average damage = 4 1.5 average damage = 2 2.5 average damage = 4 3.5 average damage = 6 4.5 average damage = 11 5 average damage = 1 5.5 average damage = 4 6.5 average damage = 6 7.5 average damage = 2 8 average damage = 1 Full attack / single attack small animated object - 2.5 darkmantle - 6.5 lemure - 2.5 duergar - 5.5 small air elemental - 2.5 small earth elemental - 7.5 small fire elemental - 5 small water elemental - 6.5 drow - 4.5 shrieker - 0 ghoul - 8.5 / 4.5 githyanki - 8 githzerai - 4.5 gnoll - 6.5 svirfneblin - 2.5 grimlock - 7.5 homunculus - 1.5 krenshar - 8.5 / 4.5 lizardfolk - 4.5 pseudodragon - 2 / 1 wolf skeleton - 4.5 sprite - 1 nixie - 1 pixie - 1 spider swarm - 3.5 troglodyte - 6 / 3.5 trog zombie - 6.5 camel - 4.5 riding dog - 6.5 heavy horse - 9 / 4.5 light horse - 7 / 3.5 light war horse - 13 / 5.5 hyena - 6.5 manta ray - 4.5 mule - 11 / 5.5 octopus - 2 or 0 medium shark - 4.5 medium viper - 1.5 squid - 4.5 / 0 wolf - 4.5 giant worker ant - 3.5 large monstrous centipede - 5.5 medium monstrous scorpion - 9 / 3.5 medium monstrous spider - 3.5 and perhaps we should give honorable mention to a few less than CR 1s, starting with the oft-downtrodden orc, at 9 It's quite simple. I appreciate the savvy tactics that you and your group used to avoid combat so often. I just don't think it would happen so often in the average game. No. I am arguing that it is not always possible to play from level 1-6 and avoid melee combat almost everytime. I might just be being hard-headed. I imagine that if I were in a group of all casters, we could find a way to do it as well. From the outside though, it seems unlikely. But our playing experiences may be different. Yes, you are being hard-headed. You asked for experiences with a 4 caster party. Before they were presented, you dismissed them. After they were presented, you changed the goal posts, trying to show that's not how it's going to work with a 4 caster party, and dismissed them. Arem_K responded with "It does work. We worked it." You dismissed it yet again, while saying that they "avoided combat from level 1-6", which was not a claim that was ever made. :waits: |
| Khan the Destroyer04-06-07, 09:08 PM | How does picking a low number support your case that the fighter is really much better off than Arem_K claims, being only one hit more than a wizard from going down? The idea is that the consequences of not killing the enemy are more severe for the wizard 'tank' because he goes down quicker. That 3 damage is enough to down him in two rounds. That 3 damage on a crit might down him in one round. It basically comes down to the fact that it is more dangerous for a wizard to be in melee. Which seems basic I guess. The low number is used to demonstrate that point. Sure, a fighter falls to 7 damage in 2 rounds. But 7 damage takes the wizard down in 1. As we go lower, the scenario is the same. The whole point is that you don't really have someone to absorb hits. Mostly it was a knee-jerk response to defend the fighter. But one I still feel holds merit. The few extra hit points means more at those low levels. In the same way a warforged fighter 1 with 13 HP, DR 2, and AC 21 will be able to take more hits than a human fighter 1 with 12 HP, no DR, and AC 17, the human fighter 1 can take more hits than the wizard. Again, I'm not arguing that the fighter can take more than one hit over the wizard. I'm claiming that the one hit more the fighter can take is an advantage over the wizard tank. This is obviously not an issue for druids and clerics, or at least, not as much of one. Their HP are closer to a fighter, and the druids animal companion has more HP at level 1 than the fighter does. The claim that characters are really better off avoiding that sort of contact if at all possible, while at level 1? I'm not sure what you mean here. I wasn't arguing that the tactics weren't sound. And since you wanted to get nit-picky, you're right, 7 was too high for a comparison if you omit full attacks. I'll just amend my statement to double the bar that you set; "Many CR 1 monsters do 6 damage." Likewise, 3 points was too low. Full attacks were an oversight on my part. And I didn't set a bar, I was making a point. Not all monsters deal 3 damage. Though I admittedly didn't make the point clear, it is that regardless of the wizard spells, a wizard is quite fragile at low levels (in this case, level 1). An obvious point it may seem. Now, the fighter is still going down is 2 or 3 hits, and the wizard is going down in 1 or 2 hits. That comparison didn't change. I'm not sure where it seemed I was disputing this. In either case, 6 damage drops a wizard in 1 hit, unless he has Toughness. Of course, a fighter with Toughness has 15 HP. Unless, of course, you're counting creatures that do more. After all, a creature that does 5 is doing 3, just with a little extra. No, I wasn't counting those :). Yes, you are being hard-headed. Yes, admittedly so. You asked for experiences with a 4 caster party. Before they were presented, you dismissed them. Which should have been a clue as to how I would react when I got those experiences. After they were presented, you changed the goal posts, trying to show that's not how it's going to work with a 4 caster party, and dismissed them. Yeah. Just because I ask if it's been done doesn't mean I agree that's how it will work in every game. In fact, many arguments against the fighter often touch on how the fighter only works in 'certain types of games'. When I saw the responses, that was my inital thought. These groups probably don't see a lot of melee. Maybe, maybe not. You're caught up on the fact that I asked a question, and now I'm not accepting the answers. Oh well. I am certainly surprised that several people have played successfully in an all-caster game. But it really means jack for whether or not an all-caster party can function as well as a typical party at low levels. Anecdotal evidence gets refused all of the time. Just because I happened to ask the question that brought the anecdotal evidence doesn't make it any more rock-solid in defense of an all-caster party. In all honesty, I planned on dismissing any responses that I got simply because it has no bearing on the numbers. The question was to quiet the talk of all-caster parties rather than get actual people claiming they've done it, so the answers weren't expected or cared for. But, I just found it so hard to believe that it works out so well I contested the point. As I said in my last post, drawing from the responses here (especially Arem K's) I can see the possibility. Arem K's group seemed to play prepared to get the job done. In other words, if someone knows what they're doing, an all-caster party seems plausible. Hmmm... that sounds like... the fighter. Arem_K responded with "It does work. We worked it." You dismissed it yet again, while saying that they "avoided combat from level 1-6", which was not a claim that was ever made. :waits: Otto, give me a break. Every debate on the fighter eventually comes down to someone saying 'It does work' and someone else saying 'No, it doesn't'. I've done up builds. Other people have done builds. People have shared their experiences. People have done work with skill points and gear and yadda yadda yadda. All stuff that gets dismissed out of hand. There is nothing different than me coming to these boards and making a fighter build and saying 'See, the fighter can do this with these stats, and if the team works together, this can be achieved. Tada!' And someone else coming here and saying 'See, we have an all-caster party. With these builds and these stats, we can do this. When we work together, this can be achieved.' Yet, the hard numbers get dismissed oh so easily, while the anecdotal evidence is supposed to mean something to me. Granted, it seems part of the problem is that people assumed when I asked the question I was expecting answers and might have been swayed by them (which I was in the end). But truly, this stuff is no different than any other 'data' that's been brought to the table before. |
| Arem_K04-06-07, 10:15 PM | In all honesty, I planned on dismissing any responses that I got simply because it has no bearing on the numbers. Well, I guess I am done here. If you ask a question having already decided that the answer is going to be "No" no matter what evidence is produced, we absolutely can not have a debate. Otto, thank you for the assist. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-06-07, 10:36 PM | The idea is that the consequences of not killing the enemy are more severe for the wizard 'tank' because he goes down quicker. That 3 damage is enough to down him in two rounds. That 3 damage on a crit might down him in one round. It basically comes down to the fact that it is more dangerous for a wizard to be in melee. Which seems basic I guess. The low number is used to demonstrate that point. Sure, a fighter falls to 7 damage in 2 rounds. But 7 damage takes the wizard down in 1. As we go lower, the scenario is the same. The whole point is that you don't really have someone to absorb hits. Mostly it was a knee-jerk response to defend the fighter. But one I still feel holds merit. The few extra hit points means more at those low levels. In the same way a warforged fighter 1 with 13 HP, DR 2, and AC 21 will be able to take more hits than a human fighter 1 with 12 HP, no DR, and AC 17, the human fighter 1 can take more hits than the wizard. Again, I'm not arguing that the fighter can take more than one hit over the wizard. I'm claiming that the one hit more the fighter can take is an advantage over the wizard tank. This is obviously not an issue for druids and clerics, or at least, not as much of one. Their HP are closer to a fighter, and the druids animal companion has more HP at level 1 than the fighter does. I'm not sure what you mean here. I wasn't arguing that the tactics weren't sound. Likewise, 3 points was too low. Full attacks were an oversight on my part. And I didn't set a bar, I was making a point. Not all monsters deal 3 damage. Though I admittedly didn't make the point clear, it is that regardless of the wizard spells, a wizard is quite fragile at low levels (in this case, level 1). An obvious point it may seem. Better. :cool: I'm not sure where it seemed I was disputing this. In either case, 6 damage drops a wizard in 1 hit, unless he has Toughness. Of course, a fighter with Toughness has 15 HP. I'm not on the fighter's side, but even I can face the fact that nobody takes toughness. It's just that crappy. And without it, it's still at Wizard = 1 hit, Fighter = 2 hits. Which should have been a clue as to how I would react when I got those experiences. Yeah. Just because I ask if it's been done doesn't mean I agree that's how it will work in every game. In fact, many arguments against the fighter often touch on how the fighter only works in 'certain types of games'. When I saw the responses, that was my inital thought. These groups probably don't see a lot of melee. Maybe, maybe not. You're caught up on the fact that I asked a question, and now I'm not accepting the answers. Oh well. I am certainly surprised that several people have played successfully in an all-caster game. But it really means jack for whether or not an all-caster party can function as well as a typical party at low levels. Anecdotal evidence gets refused all of the time. Just because I happened to ask the question that brought the anecdotal evidence doesn't make it any more rock-solid in defense of an all-caster party. In all honesty, I planned on dismissing any responses that I got simply because it has no bearing on the numbers. The question was to quiet the talk of all-caster parties rather than get actual people claiming they've done it, so the answers weren't expected or cared for. But, I just found it so hard to believe that it works out so well I contested the point. After reading how you asked, responded, and responded again, do you ever wonder why people say things like "Khan's fighter build doesn't prove the fighter is good, it only proves Khan's fighter build is good"? Seems like a pot/kettle moment there. I've done up builds. Other people have done builds. People have shared their experiences. People have done work with skill points and gear and yadda yadda yadda. All stuff that gets dismissed out of hand. There is nothing different than me coming to these boards and making a fighter build and saying 'See, the fighter can do this with these stats, and if the team works together, this can be achieved. Tada!' And someone else coming here and saying 'See, we have an all-caster party. With these builds and these stats, we can do this. When we work together, this can be achieved.' Then why the vehement and dismissive argument that it doesn't work? (Until most recently, that is. This post you're now saying it works.) Yet, the hard numbers get dismissed oh so easily, while the anecdotal evidence is supposed to mean something to me. Granted, it seems part of the problem is that people assumed when I asked the question I was expecting answers and might have been swayed by them (which I was in the end). But truly, this stuff is no different than any other 'data' that's been brought to the table before. No. Both should be accepted, just in different ways. Hard numbers are posted to show just how good a player could build a fighter. Conversely, hard numbers are posted to show just how badly a player can screw their character. Anecdotal stories are used to show that someone can do something (or some group), despite vocal people making claims like "can't happen" or "well, I don't believe it." They can also be used to shoot down especially stupid arguments (like "powergaming means you can't roleplay"). |
| Khan the Destroyer04-06-07, 10:47 PM | Well, I guess I am done here. If you ask a question having already decided that the answer is going to be "No" no matter what evidence is produced, we absolutely can not have a debate. Otto, thank you for the assist. Good grief, the drama. I don't get it. I admit I was being hard-headed, I admit it was a knee-jerk response, and I admit that my initial attitude was to ignore the responses (which weren't expected) but that the responses actually swayed me to believe it is indeed possible to run an all-caster party. And yet... because I won't say Since it worked for Arem K, it must work for everyone in every game... It's ok. Like I said before, in light of your responses, I can see it working. But I don't think, in the games I play in, it would work. Our encounters often start close enough for the enemies to move right up on their turns. Not because they spontaneously appear out of nowhere, but because of cramped battlegrounds. And again, if six people were to come here and say Fighters all contribute really well in my games, the whole community wouldn't suddenly say 'Well, if Arem K's group says fighters are just fine, it must be so.' I'm not on the fighter's side, but even I can face the fact that nobody takes toughness. It's just that crappy. And without it, it's still at Wizard = 1 hit, Fighter = 2 hits. Well, the wizard build I saw a few posts up had Toughness in it, so I included it just because. And again, I think the difference of 1 hit is pretty significant. After reading how you asked, responded, and responded again, do you ever wonder why people say things like "Khan's fighter build doesn't prove the fighter is good, it only proves Khan's fighter build is good"? Seems like a pot/kettle moment there. That goes for absolutely anything. And it's also a point I made in one of my last posts. In the same way someone can claim that fighters don't usually work, but Khan's fighter builds work, someone can say an all-caster party won't work, unless Arem K's group plays it. If something is possible, it's possible. It's possible for the fighter to not be underpowered. I didn't think it was possible for an all-caster party to work. But after reading a few of the tactics used by his group, I can see it working. Therefore, I consider it possible. And feel free to point out any other pot/kettle moments. I am not particularly moved by people calling me out, calling me a hypocrite, or pointing out any other evidence of my current state of non-perfection. Then why the vehement and dismissive argument that it doesn't work? (Until most recently, that is. This post you're now saying it works.) I'm thinking that it has a lot to do with my own style of play and the experiences I have had in my games. I play mostly melee types. So, even when considering the notion of an all-caster party, I think I was trapped in the inevitability of melee combat (when you're playing a warrior, you know its coming). When Arem K posted his other response, it was sort of en eye opener... Oh yeah, they can do that stuff with spells. Then I realized I haven't really played casters enough to determine how they can operate to avoid melee. Even with my psion, I was a kineticist. Not to say I was in melee, but my power selection was not one designed to facilitate non-melee tactics. The dismissive attitude was mostly because I didn't answer the question to be provided with evidence. So I didn't really care. Further, having seen so much get dismissed against the fighter, I couldn't really see why this is any better. No. Both should be accepted, just in different ways. :rolleyes: Should being the key word in that sentence. But in the short time I've been discussing the fighter in these threads, I find that to hardly be the case. Except now apparently. Hard numbers are posted to show just how good a player could build a fighter. Conversely, hard numbers are posted to show just how badly a player can screw their character. Anecdotal stories are used to show that someone can do something (or some group), despite vocal people making claims like "can't happen" or "well, I don't believe it." They can also be used to shoot down especially stupid arguments (like "powergaming means you can't roleplay"). Agreed. I was actually going to respond that anecdotal evidence is still influenced by the DM's style, but in the end, so are the hard numbers. Which of course leads me to a point I've made before, that these discussions are largely pointless because in the end, anything can happen in anyone's game. |
| Bob Loblaw04-07-07, 12:36 AM | And again, if six people were to come here and say Fighters all contribute really well in my games, the whole community wouldn't suddenly say 'Well, if Arem K's group says fighters are just fine, it must be so.' This is exactly what I have been saying for months now on these threads. The only time anecdotal evidence is supposed to be considered is when it supports the anti-fighter argument. As soon as someone says that an all fighter party works for their group, then the DM is coddling or they don't know what they are doing. Seems to me that the anti-fighters really don't care that fighters work for some. They dismiss both hard evidence (my skill analysis was very detailed and showed that the fighter does not have any problems with skills) and the dismiss anecdotal evidence (in my groups, we almost always have at least 1 fighter with no prestige classes and have no problems with the character). |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 12:44 AM | Which is why when I asked the question, I didn't really expect answers or care for what they were going to be. I didn't actually think that if someone claimed it works, I was supposed to change my mind. I mean, there are so many people that come here and say 'In my game, the fighter totally sucked!' and 'In my game, the fighter routinely deals hundreds of damage and kills almost everything!' We have to take it for what it is. Different games come with different results. |
| Bob Loblaw04-07-07, 01:00 AM | Yet when you were honest about it, you caught hell. I agree with you completely. While it worked for their games, that certainly doesn't mean that it works for all games. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 01:19 AM | Yet when you were honest about it, you caught hell. I'm not worried about it. Though I'm not sure why I'm catching so much flak for really just being as hard-headed and dismissive as the people that argue against the fighters. I mean, nothing I said is different than anything that's been said against the fighter before. In all honesty, I asked the question assuming that people who made the claim that a party of all casters can work had not actually experienced it to be true. So, when several responses came back to the contrary, I was pretty surprised. I agree with you completely. While it worked for their games, that certainly doesn't mean that it works for all games. Don't let them fool you Bob. They agree with that point completely as well. It's been the same way people have handled this sort of stuff since I've been on these boards. The difference now is that I seemed to ask for the answer, and then didn't agree with the answer. So they're driving the point home that I'm being unreasonable. *shrugs* It doesn't really matter. If you look back and pretend that I never said anything, and Arem K just came on here and said 'We played with all casters at low levels and had no problems' the overall effect would still be the same. Absolutely no effect at all. |
| navar10004-07-07, 02:43 AM | But then some DMs favorite level 1s are kobolds, goblins, and orcs, who are affected very well by it. If your DM goes out of the way to keep casters abilities from coming up then of course they don't look that great. You meant different DMs have different campaigns and can thus affect effectiveness? Gee, why didn't I think of that?! :rolleyes: |
| navar10004-07-07, 02:50 AM | Which is why when I asked the question, I didn't really expect answers or care for what they were going to be. I didn't actually think that if someone claimed it works, I was supposed to change my mind. I mean, there are so many people that come here and say 'In my game, the fighter totally sucked!' and 'In my game, the fighter routinely deals hundreds of damage and kills almost everything!' We have to take it for what it is. Different games come with different results. Yet when you were honest about it, you caught hell. I agree with you completely. While it worked for their games, that certainly doesn't mean that it works for all games. <raises hand in a frantic "me too" gesture :D > Different DMs, different campaigns |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 04:43 AM | You meant different DMs have different campaigns and can thus affect effectiveness? Gee, why didn't I think of that?! :rolleyes: Which is why I argue we look at the raw mechanics rather than campaign specifics. |
| Midnight_v04-07-07, 06:53 AM | Which is why I argue we look at the raw mechanics rather than campaign specifics. seconded but what then can we include in raw mechanics? I mean fighters get feats. Feats < Spells. Feats < sneak attack? Feats < Classabilities (other than feats in general. Eva/D.grace/wildshape?) I mean Any reason to have a fighter? Maybe, but isn't there almost always a better answer? I don't say this because I hat the fighter. I love the fighter, I'm just annoyed with the dead levels, lack of scaling, abscense of fighter only feats. Sigh.... but you know... whatever. There should be more crazy tactical feats that only fighter cant reach take like 8 feats or more and let you do all kinds of krazy stuff. . . or not... but the class just needs a boost overall I think. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 07:11 AM | seconded but what then can we include in raw mechanics? I mean fighters get feats. Feats < Spells. Feats < sneak attack? Feats < Classabilities (other than feats in general. Eva/D.grace/wildshape?) I mean Any reason to have a fighter? Maybe, but isn't there almost always a better answer? I don't say this because I hat the fighter. I love the fighter, I'm just annoyed with the dead levels, lack of scaling, abscense of fighter only feats. Sigh.... but you know... whatever. There should be more crazy tactical feats that only fighter cant reach take like 8 feats or more and let you do all kinds of krazy stuff. . . or not... but the class just needs a boost overall I think. But the logical question is what. The fighters biggest focus should be on versatility, being the ultimate man at arms. Being able to fill different martial roles competently. The problem is that they system itself doesn't work well for this. Iron Heroes uses wildcard feats which help somewhat but the question is how well this would logically translate. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 11:43 AM | Which is why I argue we look at the raw mechanics rather than campaign specifics. Except that the raw mechanics always come up against the gear dependent, non-core, and/or relying on teamwork arguments. While focusing on the numbers seems appropriate, you need to first acheive those numbers. And from what I can tell, there is very little agreement on what's acceptable in that regard when discussing the fighter. |
| Bob Loblaw04-07-07, 11:48 AM | Which is why I argue we look at the raw mechanics rather than campaign specifics. You must take into account campaign specifics. You must take into account the rest of the party. You must take into account the prefered style of game play. Chapter 1 of the DMG covers this in quite a bit of detail. The most important part of the DMG (so important that it comes first) is quite often ignored in discussions like this. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 11:51 AM | Except that the raw mechanics always come up against the gear dependent, non-core, and/or relying on teamwork arguments. While focusing on the numbers seems appropriate, you need to first acheive those numbers. And from what I can tell, there is very little agreement on what's acceptable in that regard when discussing the fighter. I agree, it's problematic to work out what is acceptable and what isn't. Where does necessary equipment become a crutch? How do we argue the role of a class? I don't deny that it's tricky, I pointed out in another thread that at least part of the problem is that if you look at unaltered monsters in the manuals the higher tiered ones are more than a slight problem for the average fighter. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 11:53 AM | You must take into account campaign specifics. You must take into account the rest of the party. You must take into account the prefered style of game play. Chapter 1 of the DMG covers this in quite a bit of detail. The most important part of the DMG (so important that it comes first) is quite often ignored in discussions like this. Yes, for individual games that is important. But you can argue it one way, so let's look at it another, a good DM can also make it possible for me to play a living god in a game with first level characters and have the game be fun and interesting without anyone overshadowing and everyone being able to contribute. Or would you agree that mechanical balance has to come into play for the argument at hand? (Please don't force me to reiterate the balloon world point again) |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 11:57 AM | You must take into account campaign specifics. You must take into account the rest of the party. You must take into account the prefered style of game play. Chapter 1 of the DMG covers this in quite a bit of detail. The most important part of the DMG (so important that it comes first) is quite often ignored in discussions like this. Agreed. Many times, when we try to be objective by cutting out as many variables as possible, we might end up with a skewed conclusion. When Archangel posited that list of monsters from CR 1-20 (which I think is a step in the right direction for these discussions), it seemed almost pointless to consider the fighter fighting those monsters without taking into account the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Rogue that would undoubtedly be there with him. You're simply not simulating the typcial game, and as such, any conclusions drawn do not matter for the typical game. I agree, it's problematic to work out what is acceptable and what isn't. Where does necessary equipment become a crutch? How do we argue the role of a class? I don't deny that it's tricky, I pointed out in another thread that at least part of the problem is that if you look at unaltered monsters in the manuals the higher tiered ones are more than a slight problem for the average fighter. In the same way, how do we determine the 'average' fighter? The class is whatever the player makes of it. Like in the case of Arem K's party. I know the group I play in could not have pulled it off, the elven sorcerer in my party casts Magic Missile. All of the time. (The actual wizard in our group casts Mage Armor in the first round of every battle, and he wears Bracers of Armor.) So again, this is all pointless to an extent. At best, we can say it is possible to play a fighter that isn't underpowered. And that goes for every other class as well. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 12:06 PM | Agreed. Many times, when we try to be objective by cutting out as many variables as possible, we might end up with a skewed conclusion. When Archangel posited that list of monsters from CR 1-20 (which I think is a step in the right direction for these discussions), it seemed almost pointless to consider the fighter fighting those monsters without taking into account the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Rogue that would undoubtedly be there with him. You're simply not simulating the typcial game, and as such, any conclusions drawn do not matter for the typical game. The reason I wanted to look at it from the idea of the fighter alone was to work out how the fighter would face the creature and how effective it would be. Even if the fighter lost each fight if they were able to be a significant problem for it then I would feel more willing to side with those that say the fighter is fine. And we also would need to look at the limitations the fighter is facing, how much does he need to pull from his allies to face this thing? I guess what I mean is that if the fighter only has a prayer against it because the group is buffing him out the wazoo and they are doing the majority of the work while he pings it...well that works but it doesn't tell us much about the fighter as is. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 12:13 PM | The reason I wanted to look at it from the idea of the fighter alone was to work out how the fighter would face the creature and how effective it would be. Even if the fighter lost each fight if they were able to be a significant problem for it then I would feel more willing to side with those that say the fighter is fine. Ahhh. Gothca. Understood. I actually have the list in my apartment still :). One day, I will get around to running that gauntlet. Right now I am toying around with a warforged fighter. A pretty decent tank at low levels, and I think there's potential for a powerful bull rusher at higher levels. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 12:53 PM | Ahhh. Gothca. Understood. I actually have the list in my apartment still :). One day, I will get around to running that gauntlet. Right now I am toying around with a warforged fighter. A pretty decent tank at low levels, and I think there's potential for a powerful bull rusher at higher levels. The warforged has the added advantage of being less expensive...in most areas anyhow. However the one thing that did come up was the warforged needing to pretty much take a break for 4 months to get himself enchanted. |
| Bob Loblaw04-07-07, 01:08 PM | Yes, for individual games that is important. But you can argue it one way, so let's look at it another, a good DM can also make it possible for me to play a living god in a game with first level characters and have the game be fun and interesting without anyone overshadowing and everyone being able to contribute. Or would you agree that mechanical balance has to come into play for the argument at hand? (Please don't force me to reiterate the balloon world point again) Obviously mechanical balance must come in to play. However, when we start removing assumed parts of the game, the balance tips in the wrong direction. The fighter cannot be viewed in a vacuum. It is also the DM's responsibility to make sure that the challenges are not too much. Look at it this way, if you were a fighter in a DnD world, would you try to take on a balor if you weren't prepared? You would do what you can to make sure you can survive. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 01:18 PM | The warforged has the added advantage of being less expensive...in most areas anyhow. Are you referring to the fact that he can start out with full plate armor at level 1? However the one thing that did come up was the warforged needing to pretty much take a break for 4 months to get himself enchanted. Four months? Wow. And he can't sleep through any of it. I may suggest for them to make me inert, so the time passes quicker. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 01:21 PM | Are you referring to the fact that he can start out with full plate armor at level 1? Four months? Wow. And he can't sleep through any of it. I may suggest for them to make me inert, so the time passes quicker. Yep, the full plate at start is nice. The reason is because the warforged can't take off their body to have a local mage enchant it and they can't replace it with the armor they find on a dungeon crawl. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 01:29 PM | Yep, the full plate at start is nice. The reason is because the warforged can't take off their body to have a local mage enchant it and they can't replace it with the armor they find on a dungeon crawl. I understand that. I just didn't know it takes months to enchant armor. Lame, but not really a problem either. Downtime is downtime afterall. |
| Archangel6204-07-07, 01:33 PM | I understand that. I just didn't know it takes months to enchant armor. Lame, but not really a problem either. Downtime is downtime afterall. 1 day per 1000 gp, 100,000 gp to enchant armor to +10 total of abilities and all. So yeah. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 01:39 PM | Right. That's a long time :). That feat in EBCS can reduce it to 75 days, which is 2.5 months. |
| Bhaal00604-07-07, 04:05 PM | Warforged don't sleep at all. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-07-07, 04:34 PM | 1 day per 1000 gp, 100,000 gp to enchant armor to +10 total of abilities and all. So yeah. When I get near my books again, I'll have to check how upgrading items works. More than likely, a warforged will not have his armor enchanted to +10 at one time. It will be upgraded over the course of his career. I'll have to check how this affects the time required. |
| navar10004-07-07, 08:28 PM | Which is why I argue we look at the raw mechanics rather than campaign specifics. Which is why I argue raw mechanics is not enough. |
| navar10004-07-07, 08:31 PM | I agree, it's problematic to work out what is acceptable and what isn't. Where does necessary equipment become a crutch? How do we argue the role of a class? I don't deny that it's tricky, I pointed out in another thread that at least part of the problem is that if you look at unaltered monsters in the manuals the higher tiered ones are more than a slight problem for the average fighter. Given that's true, the monster was not intended to be fought by just the sole fighter. It was intended to be fought by a party, one of whom could be a fighter. The party, working together, will defeat the monster. |
| aelryinth04-07-07, 10:46 PM | When I get near my books again, I'll have to check how upgrading items works. More than likely, a warforged will not have his armor enchanted to +10 at one time. It will be upgraded over the course of his career. I'll have to check how this affects the time required. I also thought the armor bonus was +6 not +8, so not quite equal to full plate. As long as the party gets any amount of 'down time', the Warforged shouldn't have a problem. Another warforged can certainly do the enchanting at night while normal humans sleep, and it won't have any effect on what the warforged does during the day (so the 'magic item' is up and walking around. I find that pretty funny, really.) ==Aelryinth |
| Khan the Destroyer04-08-07, 02:35 AM | I also thought the armor bonus was +6 not +8, so not quite equal to full plate. It is actually +8, or rather, a +6 bonus added to the normal +2 bonus every warforged has, for a total of +8. As long as the party gets any amount of 'down time', the Warforged shouldn't have a problem. Another warforged can certainly do the enchanting at night while normal humans sleep, and it won't have any effect on what the warforged does during the day (so the 'magic item' is up and walking around. I find that pretty funny, really.) ==Aelryinth Good call on the warforged caster. That cuts the time in half no? That still means 1 month, unless the time taken is different when you upgrade. |
| Flan04-08-07, 02:55 AM | As long as the party gets any amount of 'down time', the Warforged shouldn't have a problem. Another warforged can certainly do the enchanting at night while normal humans sleep, and it won't have any effect on what the warforged does during the day (so the 'magic item' is up and walking around. I find that pretty funny, really.) If you're using the training rules from the DMG the rogue of the party has a minimum 1 month of downtime any time they level in order to train, often more like 2 months or more. |
| Archangel6204-08-07, 03:08 AM | Given that's true, the monster was not intended to be fought by just the sole fighter. It was intended to be fought by a party, one of whom could be a fighter. The party, working together, will defeat the monster. Yes, but it's worth looking at for a comparison. As I pointed out to Khan earlier, it's not that the fighter can't solo the things, it's that the fighter can't be more than a minor nuisance to many of these things without the intervention of a team. And I argue using monsters because the fighters arena is combat. A rogue that isn't great in combat still has their skills, still can bust traps, open locks, and do all sorts of skill based things. |
| Flan04-08-07, 03:17 AM | Yes, but it's worth looking at for a comparison. As I pointed out to Khan earlier, it's not that the fighter can't solo the things, it's that the fighter can't be more than a minor nuisance to many of these things without the intervention of a team. The same can be said of wizards who tend to flop over dead without a team to soak some hits for them. And I argue using monsters because the fighters arena is combat. A rogue that isn't great in combat still has their skills, still can bust traps, open locks, and do all sorts of skill based things. A rogue's skills are mostly pointless. At even mid levels magic is far superior to anything a rogue could hope to do and most of the rogue's skills can be easily and cheaply replaced with a wand or a spell slot or two. If you really insist on using skills you can buy a couple +20 to skill items and cut the rogue out completely and get 33% more XP. |
| Archangel6204-08-07, 03:54 AM | The same can be said of wizards who tend to flop over dead without a team to soak some hits for them. Then please explain how all caster groups can work so well? A rogue's skills are mostly pointless. At even mid levels magic is far superior to anything a rogue could hope to do and most of the rogue's skills can be easily and cheaply replaced with a wand or a spell slot or two. If you really insist on using skills you can buy a couple +20 to skill items and cut the rogue out completely and get 33% more XP. Actually, no you can't. A rogue can disarm magical traps something that you can't do without the trapfinding ability. SO a caster can dispel but a thickly trapped area is going to still present an issue. It's a matter of practicality. |
| satanicway04-08-07, 04:01 AM | Traps = Summon Monster 1... Summoned monster died... Summon monster I again Out of 1 lvl spells? Summon monster II... lol Its 100% of disarming the trap, not like a rogue that can fail... |
| Archangel6204-08-07, 06:48 AM | Traps = Summon Monster 1... Summoned monster died... Summon monster I again Out of 1 lvl spells? Summon monster II... lol Its 100% of disarming the trap, not like a rogue that can fail... Unless the traps reset, are AOE based, and since summoned monsters last only for very short periods it's not worth it in the long run. It's a matter of efficiency, a caster might need dozens of spell slots or dozens of charges or scrolls to imitate a rogue. |
| satanicway04-08-07, 07:13 AM | Unless the traps reset, are AOE based, and since summoned monsters last only for very short periods it's not worth it in the long run. It's a matter of efficiency, a caster might need dozens of spell slots or dozens of charges or scrolls to imitate a rogue. Magical traps have LONG reset time. A summon still trigger the AoE. Its better to bring 2 wizards, and one of them use all his first, secound circles to disarm traps, and still have all the damage and versatility of a wizard, them have a rogue just for Skills. Rogues can be good in the party if they act as killers, with TWF and a pure damage build, with skills as secoundary addiction to the party. |
| Argaud04-08-07, 07:56 AM | Unless the traps reset, are AOE based, and since summoned monsters last only for very short periods it's not worth it in the long run. It's a matter of efficiency, a caster might need dozens of spell slots or dozens of charges or scrolls to imitate a rogue. Or a wand of summon monster I, for 750 gp. I am afraid Satanicway is right, a skillmonkey is easy to replace in a party if they are willing to invest in +skill items, which can be easily done at mid-high level. Magical traps are generally revealed by Detect Magic or True Seeing. And dealt with Dispel Magic or by summoning something to trigger them. Mechanical traps are detected by a +20 to Search item (used by the very high Int arcane caster) and dealt with using Disintegrate or sending a summoned monster to trigger it. Both kinds of traps can often be bypassed completely with Dimension Door. Likewise Spot and Listen can be handled by the very high Wis CoD using an item. |
| Archangel6204-08-07, 08:29 AM | Magical traps have LONG reset time. A summon still trigger the AoE. Its better to bring 2 wizards, and one of them use all his first, secound circles to disarm traps, and still have all the damage and versatility of a wizard, them have a rogue just for Skills. Rogues can be good in the party if they act as killers, with TWF and a pure damage build, with skills as secoundary addiction to the party. It won't work at low levels, and at mid to high the casters are going through too many summons to be able to do much else during the game, that and if you look at the radius on some traps the party has to be a large distance back. |
| Bob Loblaw04-08-07, 11:07 AM | Then please explain how all caster groups can work so well? I would ask you how all fighter groups do so well? I think much of it has to do with group dynamics. While the casters most definately have daily versatility on their sides, the non-caster group has a very good chance of survival even against high Challenge Rating monsters. Actually, no you can't. A rogue can disarm magical traps something that you can't do without the trapfinding ability. SO a caster can dispel but a thickly trapped area is going to still present an issue. It's a matter of practicality. This is going to vary a lot with the traps that are present. I don't personally like using traps. I find them to be boring most of the time. This doesn't mean I don't use them, I just don't use them all that often. As for what can wizards to do deal with traps? Simple dimension door can bypass most problems. Getting back from a chest and casting knock will deal with other problems. Casters can definately deal with traps, the hard part is knowing that the trap is there in the first place. Perhaps some divinations could help? |
| Flan04-08-07, 11:59 AM | Then please explain how all caster groups can work so well? Because the DM lets it. Actually, no you can't. A rogue can disarm magical traps something that you can't do without the trapfinding ability. SO a caster can dispel but a thickly trapped area is going to still present an issue. It's a matter of practicality. Find the Path defeats most magical traps. Dimension Door or bears pulled from a bag of tricks defeats the rest. |
| PirateAle04-08-07, 01:25 PM | Im running a camp right now where 2 of the 3 characters have 4 levels in fighter to get a HUGE amount of bonus feats then take a level in another fighter like class such as a rogue or a duskblade.Having a pure fighter can give you alot of party skills like versitile flanker and stuff like that. |
| Clawhound04-08-07, 06:44 PM | LA's are not always your friend. Some races, like the minotaur, are well worth their LA. Other races, which are more magically oriented, take too much away from being a frontliner. Crunch those numbers. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-08-07, 07:02 PM | Then please explain how all caster groups can work so well? In the same way anything can work so well, even a fighter. No one can convince me that a high level fighter cannot perform his duty as tank because I have done some builds and have seen the numbers. Arguably, not everyone will build a fighter the same way, so my example does not extend to every fighter build. Likewise, an all-caster group *can* work so well. But just because it works in some games, doesn't mean those examples extend to *all* caster-only parties. It really depends on the players roleplaying the characters, and on the DM, his campaign world, and his preferred style. So to answer your question, a caster group may work so well, because the players playing are very competent when it comes to playing a caster and selecting spells that allow them to defeat enemies at range or severely cripple the enemy's chances of harming them in melee. Or, the DM prefers ranged skirmishes, providing the casters with few opportunities to take melee damage or have their spellcasting disrupted. Or, the campaign world is easier on casters and harder on warrior types, giving the PC's advantages in the way of wealth or political power while simultaneously stripping warriors of decent weapons and armor. It can be for any of those reasons, or a combination of those reasons. Or for some other reasons I overlooked. But it isn't because casters are inherently powerful. Because casters don't play themselves. And they don't exist outside of a gameworld run by the DM. And the very same thing goes for the fighter, and all other warrior types. They *can* function, and they *cannot* function. It really matters on the players, the DM, and the world. Hence why some people come here with stories of fighters sucking hardcore, and some people come here with stories of fighters rocking hardcore. |
| Skritz_the_Lizardmen04-08-07, 07:40 PM | Fighter are asy to play, you dont need to bother whit casting time and all that...at least 5 level of Fighter are enough. Plus, n00b usually play fighter... Warforged don't sleep at all. They can become bored...and the player too so ITS long. |
| Azar_of_Faerun04-08-07, 07:53 PM | He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until I am bored to death. |
| Olskool04-08-07, 08:03 PM | The best reason for having a fighter? Most people love fighters. For real, Fighters are cool. Fighters make people try this game. Fighters are the archtypes people immediately understand and gravitate towards when initially picking a class. If fighters were eliminated from this game, half a dozen math nerds on this board would rejoice, and everybody else would find a different RPG to play. One with fighters. Because the visceral thrill of crushing someone's skull with a heavy hammer beats the visceral thrill of casting colorspray any day of the week. |
| Clawhound04-09-07, 08:23 AM | Here's an example of how an all-caster party can be problematic. I recently ran an encounter. The players were recovering a captured temple of good. The temple had a "hallow" on it. The druid's earth elemental companion could not enter the temple due to the hallow's "protection from evil". The druid could not summon any creatures, and many of the "best" creatures could not be summoned by the sorcerer. That may sound like I nerfed the druid. I did not. I merely placed hallow/unhallow on temples as appropriate. I did not remember until I reread the "hallow" spell that it had those effects. At the higher levels, your opposing spellcasters should be taking more time preparing against other spellcasters than they do against fighters. Note: I'm not saying, "Nya nya casters." I'm just pointing out the dynamics of the situations. Casters can prepare for so many more situations than fighters, but by the same token, so can your enemy based on "first principals." My casters don't need to know what their opponents can do. An "unhallow" and a "teleport denier" is a no-brainer for my hidden temple. A wizard setting up shop in an abandoned evil temple. The advantage of denying any good opponent their summoning and gate spells is well worth the effort. |
| Bob Loblaw04-09-07, 08:56 AM | Here's an example of how an all-caster party can be problematic. I recently ran an encounter. The players were recovering a captured temple of good. The temple had a "hallow" on it. The druid's earth elemental companion could not enter the temple due to the hallow's "protection from evil". The druid could not summon any creatures, and many of the "best" creatures could not be summoned by the sorcerer. That may sound like I nerfed the druid. I did not. I merely placed hallow/unhallow on temples as appropriate. I did not remember until I reread the "hallow" spell that it had those effects. At the higher levels, your opposing spellcasters should be taking more time preparing against other spellcasters than they do against fighters. Note: I'm not saying, "Nya nya casters." I'm just pointing out the dynamics of the situations. Casters can prepare for so many more situations than fighters, but by the same token, so can your enemy based on "first principals." My casters don't need to know what their opponents can do. An "unhallow" and a "teleport denier" is a no-brainer for my hidden temple. A wizard setting up shop in an abandoned evil temple. The advantage of denying any good opponent their summoning and gate spells is well worth the effort. While I don't disagree with casters potentially having issues at any level of play, why couldn't the druid's companion enter the hallowed area. I reread everything under hallow and protection from evil yet I can't find anything that would prevent this. I am assuming that you made the call that the elemental companion was a summoned creature. |
| Kimokeo04-09-07, 11:18 AM | Magical traps have LONG reset time. A summon still trigger the AoE. Its better to bring 2 wizards, and one of them use all his first, secound circles to disarm traps, and still have all the damage and versatility of a wizard, them have a rogue just for Skills. Rogues can be good in the party if they act as killers, with TWF and a pure damage build, with skills as secoundary addiction to the party. LONG reset time? Says who? As the DM, I'll guarantee you that it won't be LONG. Also, the DMG is off limits to players. AND, characters better have knowledge skill levels or they won't know what the players think. Of course, it's fun to set magical traps that don't do anything just to waste those scrolls, spells, and wands. |
| Flan04-09-07, 12:06 PM | I recently ran an encounter. The players were recovering a captured temple of good. The temple had a "hallow" on it. The druid's earth elemental companion could not enter the temple due to the hallow's "protection from evil". The druid could not summon any creatures, and many of the "best" creatures could not be summoned by the sorcerer. The magic circle against evil effect is 40 foot radius emanation, i.e. it only works in one room. The dimensional anchor effect will hit the whole temple but will also hurt the caster, and people that can cast dimensional anchor tend to be the ones that can also teleport or planeshift when there is a problem and want to escape with their lives. |
| Judging Eagle04-12-07, 04:19 PM | In the same way, how do we determine the 'average' fighter? The class is whatever the player makes of it. Like in the case of Arem K's party. I know the group I play in could not have pulled it off, the elven sorcerer in my party casts Magic Missile. All of the time. (The actual wizard in our group casts Mage Armor in the first round of every battle, and he wears Bracers of Armor.) So again, this is all pointless to an extent. At best, we can say it is possible to play a fighter that isn't underpowered. And that goes for every other class as well. ... Your group has some players that need to be beaten to senselessness. I mean, magic missile, really? What are we playing here, second edition? The wizard... just makes me sigh. You've told him that Mage Armour lasts hours; and it doesn't stack with Bracers of Armour? If he was casting Sheild in the 1st round, sure, I could understand. Casting Mage Armour means he's not playing an int 11 wizard; let alone whatever int he actually has. I guess your DM plays nice and wouldn't send 4 Hezrou demons at you guys if you were level 11? Seriously, your fellow players should be playig the barbarians; play the wizard yourself and make them feel small in pants. As it sands, your group should have never made it past level 3. Well, most "adventurers" usually don't make it that far in the first place. Lvl 3+ is the point at which adventurers tend to survive a bit better and while many people adventure, most don't go higher than 3rd lvl, either they die or retire. In any case, a Tank Fighter can work. I've done it, but it tok me a while of playing 3.5 to make an effective tank-tighter. I wrote up a straight lvl 12 fighter with feats and gear from everywhere to compare to a races of war fighter that I optimized a month or so ago. The core fighter's concept was prety much "threaten 35' out with an extending spiked chain; get 9 AoOs from combat reflexes; abuse AoO-granting feats (so, taking a 5-foot step; readying an action, drawing a weapon, moving into my threatened area etc. provokes an AoO); pick up any AoO-feats that let you move after AoOing and grab Stand Still to keep enemies back. I did every trick posible to make this guy work, goign as far using weapon groups from UA over stock proficiencies to save a feat on EWP(S. chain). It worked pretty well, and would probably level pretty decently; but it had such a limited focus that it would be pretty boring to play. In any case, a wizard can make a decent fighter if he's played by a smart player; as can a wizard that goes Eldritch knight. With a wand of Heroic at 4,500 gives the character all the Fighter feats that such a Gish would want. Plus they can change them on the fly. Which strikes me as being utter balls for a fighter. Unless he has no dead levels ever (dumbest thing ever; a wizard gets 1-3 special abilities that he can use 1/day and change them around not only on the fly, but can "keep special abilties he will want to sue later in storage every level, called spells), access to better feats (scaling feats? wtf?) and stuff that keeps him competetive with the monsters he'll be facing. Which is what, I think the classes need to be able to do; be competetive against monsters it would fight every level. In any case, I want fighters to have a place in a group that has to fight literally mobs of Gnolls at level 1 (My fighter and an other one have had to do that on our own; we killed about 12 Gnolls and a gnoll sergeant in a bit of tactical shenanigans involving Alchemist fire and pre-opened oil-skins; it was pretty dicy though as they tried to run around the fire and afte the first round we didn't have time to light a new skin, so we were overlapping fires) have to hunt down a rune hounds at level 5; or do something like kill 6 Dust Wights at level 16 before you go into the dungeoun; and earn no XP Seriously, Dust Wights are CR 7 creatures that force everything beside them to make DC 18 fort saves or be petrified, can break your gear b/c their attacks can ignore hardness; and they're undead with 120 hp and 20 ac. So while the level 16 fighter should kill one or three a round, he's got to make 6 saves or 'die'; the other party members have to deal with their own 6 Dust wights as well, so 24 Dust wights; did I mention this earns no XP? After learning that, it just boggles the mind that a fighter with nothing besides feats is supposed to stand up to **** like that; which is the easy encouner on the way to the level appropriate dungeon. Yes, the fighter will have to stand up to that on his own; as each of his allies will have a half-dozen Dust Wights after them! You seriously do not want to even think what the group will face in a "level appropriate" dungeon. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-12-07, 04:46 PM | ... Your group has some players that need to be beaten to senselessness. Agreed :P. I mean, magic missile, really? What are we playing here, second edition? She loves the spell. Loves it. I showed her that Force mage prestige class in Complete Arcane and she loved that too. I figured if she was going to use it so much I might as well get more damage out of it for the party. The wizard... just makes me sigh. Strange. He made me throttle innocent people on my way home from the game. You've told him that Mage Armour lasts hours; and it doesn't stack with Bracers of Armour? Absolutely. Are you kidding me? See, I explained to him that his Mage Armor was probably still on because of the duration, and the DM confirmed it. So, I told him that frees up his spell slots for something else. It wasn't until a later session when he wanted the Bracers of Armor +5 and said he'd give someone else his Bracers of Armor +4 that I about flipped my ****. If he was casting Sheild in the 1st round, sure, I could understand. Casting Mage Armour means he's not playing an int 11 wizard; let alone whatever int he actually has. Which is of course part of the point. Not everyone has a mind to play casters the way they are portrayed in these threads. And this anecdote just happens to be extreme. Even a competent player may choose good spells such as Grease and make a great addition to the party, without utterly dominating the scene and making anyone obsolete. There is a spectrum to class power, and it is based on the person playing that class. The power of that individual will always come down to player choices. Spells, feats, levels, gear, actions, etc. These things will determine your strength. And these things are all decided by the player. I guess your DM plays nice and wouldn't send 4 Hezrou demons at you guys if you were level 11? My DM sent a Retriver at us when we were level 7. I died. The scout/warmage died (I think he was petrified to be precise). The barbarian was defeated but taken alive. By that time, the guy playing the wizard went off to boot camp and his wife (the sorceress) stopped playing. Lucky them. We got pwned, and somehow I don't think her magic missiles would have saved us. (On a side note, the barbarian/frenzied berserker was given some sort of unique sword with dark and evil powers. This normally wouldn't strike me as anything except that I've seen arguments about the DM giving powerful artifact items to fighters. It makes me laugh now looking back on it.) Seriously, your fellow players should be playig the barbarians; play the wizard yourself and make them feel small in pants. Thank you. But, I don't like the spellcasting system. As petty as it may sound, I don't like the prospect of having to decide what spells to cast, and the sorcerer is too limited for me. That's why I normally play melee types. As it sands, your group should have never made it past level 3. Well, most "adventurers" usually don't make it that far in the first place. Lvl 3+ is the point at which adventurers tend to survive a bit better and while many people adventure, most don't go higher than 3rd lvl, either they die or retire. The group was made up of a cleric, a fighter/barbarian (me), a barbarian/frenzied berserker, a sorceress, a wizard, and a warmage/scout. We two barbarians tanked, we had the healer, and we had a scout and magical backup (the warmage was actually decent with his skirmish/acid orb spells). Plus, we started at level 4 :). When the wizard rejoined the game, he wanted to play a paladin. We were all delighted, and chose his spells for him. |
| Judging Eagle04-12-07, 05:55 PM | You have some dumb players. Seriously; I've got people who are still in high school or just out of high school who can make better tactical choices than that. Anyway; if you do hate play a caster b/c of "lack of choice", do the following: 1. Play a wizard (sigh, be a horesfaced grey elf, the int will help you). 2. You have Scribe Scroll for free. 3. Use Scribe Scroll. Serously, don't be afraid of burning XP on scrolls; buff scrolls and spells that remove stuff like blindness are good choices, as are summoning spells. Save or Dies and... 'damage' spells are better prepared in your slots (higher DCs). 4. Make everyone feel small in pants. 4.B. Tell your DM to start using Tome of Necromancy, Tome of Fiends, The Dungeonomicon and Races of War. 4.C. Play whatever you want, you've already shown these other players some good tactics. If they can learn, good for them. If not, them playing a RoW barbarian or Dungeonomicon Monk will have them still playing a decent character. Then again, I'm the sort of guy who makes a weak little librarian into a much more dangerous character than the Adamantine-Plated Greatsword wielding Warforged Juggerzzerker. Which really ****** me off. Because I don't fancy playing: "Dungeons and Dragons: I'm the kick-ass guy, you guys are my cohorts. Whether you play like fiends or lazy" at all. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-12-07, 06:59 PM | You have some dumb players. Nah. They aren't stupid people, they just don't have as complete of an understanding of the game as other people. Anyway; if you do hate play a caster b/c of "lack of choice", do the following: I don't think they lack choices, I think they have too many. I don't want to be bothered with choosing what spells to prepare and what spells to learn. Making a warrior is easier for me than making a caster (unless it's a psion, I love psions). 4. Make everyone feel small in pants. That's not usually my intent when I play the game :). 4.B. Tell your DM to start using Tome of Necromancy, Tome of Fiends, The Dungeonomicon and Races of War. While the groups I play with typically allow any offical WotC books, they are leery of anything else. |
| Flan04-12-07, 07:21 PM | Nah. They aren't stupid people, they just don't have as complete of an understanding of the game as other people. Sounds more like they have a different reason to play than to get all the toys and beat all the monsters with the maximum efficiency with the minimum of risk. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-12-07, 07:35 PM | Sounds more like they have a different reason to play than to get all the toys and beat all the monsters with the maximum efficiency with the minimum of risk. I was trying to avoid saying as much. But yes, that is likely true. These discussions are really about what is possible, and what is efficient. And in the end, probably in most games, none of it matters. People will do what they would like to do, most likely ignorant of everything they could actually be doing, and the game will go on with everyone hopefully having fun. |
| navar10004-13-07, 02:49 AM | The magic circle against evil effect is 40 foot radius emanation, i.e. it only works in one room. The dimensional anchor effect will hit the whole temple but will also hurt the caster, and people that can cast dimensional anchor tend to be the ones that can also teleport or planeshift when there is a problem and want to escape with their lives. You can set a Dimensional Anchor with Hallow so as to affect only your enemies. You can teleport within your own Hallowed Dimensional Anchor all you want. |
| Judging Eagle04-13-07, 11:41 AM | Meh, the social aspect of gaming is usually what most people play for, but that leads to few stories you can tell later. Having your group remember the time when the two wizards and bard killed a half-dozen trogs b/c they could move faster than everyone else or when the two barbarians stood toe to toe with a trio of bulettes makes for better memories than all the stupid in-jokes or groan-worthy puns we normally spend our time coming up with. Then again, I'm going for the stories that are told after the adventure is over. High stress from high challenge tends to result in that. I could serously leave a single torch in an abandoned doorway and know that the players would react a certain way. Since they reacted in almost the same fashion a coupl of years ago (and had their reactions proven to be appropriate). Of course, each group comes up with it's own story. My campaign had the stories of: the morality of running a city of evil-ish humanoids (this really split the group up, but they decided to go through the lake than turn back), slavery over indentured servitude (literally hours were spent discussing this) and working to reclaim ancesctral territory over commiting genocide on the new inhabitants; but those were the highlights. How they came into their position of power over the humanoids or became owners of humanoid chattel or blooded killers are other stories in and of themselves. Other groups have their own stories, and while just as valid, might not always be remembered by the people who took part in them, which could be the result of a less impressionable moment. |
| Keladelros04-13-07, 12:22 PM | A fighter is the tank. Plain and simple. He tanks stuff. Give him proper equipment and spend that hard earned gold to bolster spell resistance etc etc. Get him up there quickly to take down the casters and he'll do it. Have him defend with certain anti-spell enchantments on that sheild of his and make use of him! A fighter can be a great class. Yeah, spellcasters are its weakness. But put a clay golem in front of a spellcaster and watch them squirm. All classes have their place. Any class can beat another class. I've seen a Bard pwn a wizard (and it was sooooooooo coooooolllll). Figheter do have a function, Deal damage and tank it all. Use your gold, get equipment, play a kickass fighter :P |
| Kresalak04-13-07, 12:36 PM | A fighter is the tank. Plain and simple. He tanks stuff. Give him proper equipment and spend that hard earned gold to bolster spell resistance etc etc. Get him up there quickly to take down the casters and he'll do it. Have him defend with certain anti-spell enchantments on that sheild of his and make use of him! A fighter can be a great class. Yeah, spellcasters are its weakness. But put a clay golem in front of a spellcaster and watch them squirm. All classes have their place. Any class can beat another class. I've seen a Bard pwn a wizard (and it was sooooooooo coooooolllll). Figheter do have a function, Deal damage and tank it all. Use your gold, get equipment, play a kickass fighter :P You know that tanking doesn't work like that, right? |
| FrostHammer04-13-07, 02:13 PM | Tanking implies protecting others from harm. A Knight does that, not a Fighter. |
| solbergb04-13-07, 04:21 PM | fighters primary purpose is to kill whatever he is standing next to. If it takes more than one round, his secondary purpose is to be durable enough to still be standing the next round so he can finish it with his second full attack. That tends to make him durable enough to simply ignore weak opponents, and kill any number of them while taking minimal damage. In a confined area, the second two things listed here can allow him to "tank" but in the levels most people seem to be talking about here, the problem isn't interposing the fighter, rather it is manipulating things so the fighter is next to the enemy, so he can destroy them. This is done via battlefield control spells (with fighter waiting by the "Exit" of the area), or by transport spells (with fighter being moved next to the enemy) or by temporarily disabling/slowing the enemy (dimensional lock, blinding, etc) or by standing the fighter within reach of things the enemy is trying to get at. The last option is to provide the fighter with his own means of getting at the enemy (flight items, teleport items etc) but that's less efficient, just as it is less efficient in lower levels to have the fighter charge than to let the enemy come to you and get butchered. This assumes a melee fighter. Archer fighters just need line of effect to do their damage, but because they don't need that secondary "and I have to be able to survive a counterattack" function as strong, they aren't usually blockers. They still sometimes need to be moved or have barriers removed to operate at full efficiency. |
| navar10004-14-07, 04:16 AM | Tanking implies protecting others from harm. A Knight does that, not a Fighter. Tanking means being able to take hits while dishing them out in melee. |
| Archangel6204-14-07, 06:19 AM | Tanking means being able to take hits while dishing them out in melee. Then technically any martial class can do that and both the Knight and Crusader do it better. |
| navar10004-14-07, 07:51 AM | Then technically any martial class can do that and both the Knight and Crusader do it better. Yes, any martial class can tank. No, Knight and Crusader, and every single martial class, just do it differently. |
| Archangel6204-14-07, 09:01 AM | Yes, any martial class can tank. No, Knight and Crusader, and every single martial class, just do it differently. Actually both Knight and Crusader can force foes to stick to them and the Crusader can also heal himself. |
| Judging Eagle04-14-07, 01:43 PM | I'd rather be a Barbarian. The tank needs to prove an actual threat to be even considered as a "target" by enemies. If your "tank" can't do something that really, really hampers the enemy; then there's no reason why they should even fight you. Stupid people who can't grasp the most elementary of tactics that even a wolf could grasp (i.e. "kill the weakest member of the pack, the rest will leave, eat the body") and game masters who have to coddle their players useless characters (or railroad them needlessly) are the only GMs that would have any monster with more than 2 int attack somehting other than the tough armoured character. The other targets a monster or mosntres could choose to attack: The lightly armoured guy The 'other' heavily armoured guy The non-armoured guy who is literally glowing in potential "killing you" power The rogue with light armour and a slighther build is a more tempting target that the ... 'tank'. Especally if the sneak can outdamage the tank and the monster can attack both easily. [any lightly armoured character is lumped in here; warlocks, bards, war mages, etc. etc.]. The cleric has as much armour as a tank, so it's discountable as a real target to go after. Unless you're undead and you know that they can turn/powder you or if it's proven to be really dangerous and can use magic to hurt you. [Any heavily armoured characer goes into this "don't attack if you don't need to group"; armoured archivists, heavy armour wearing pactbinders, favoured souls etc. etc.) Lastly, we've got the character with no armour, and lots of potential killing power. Almost every monster will try to kill this guy first. He's like much smaller and potentially tastier Kevyn in Schlock Mercenary in the eyes of the Jeopards, the infant gazelle on the savanna to the lions/wild dogs/hyenas, the sickly whale in the ocean to the sharks and Orcas (killer whales); the easiest obvious target. The fact that such an easy target is all dangerous means that people, monsters and even animals will regularly ignore other people and kill the casters if they can. Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule above. Mindless creatures attack whoever attacked them last or whatever is closest and acts like a target (you can literally lead a stone golem in circles around an acid cloud if you use an illusion or a sound that keeps moving in circles until it dies). So, as long as the caster isn't in melee and the rogue delays on sneak attack routine until him and the fighter arrange it so that fighter will always attack before the monster strikes anyone. Also, "how" you arrange your group will mitigate who will be attacked in your party. If you move about with the casters in the middle, fighters in the front, armoured casters in the rear and rogues on the sides or middle; then most people will attack the edges and if they try any further in, that's free AoOs and even a wolf won't willingly provoke an AoO. Other than that, unless the person designated as the "tank" is a viable enough target for your enemies, no one will actually attack him. If you're the BBeG and he's not a threat that can mow down your mooks in a matter of seconds or kill you in about twelve to eighteen seconds; why waste your time attacking him? After you've killed his allies, you can kill him with no difficulty. Seriously, take a page out of most MMOs. Casters that deal damage, generate "hate." Healers that Buff, Heal or deal damage also/i] generate "hate." Rogue generate "Hate" b/c they're stabbing stuff in the [i]family jewels (or equvalent), that generates a lot of "hate." The "tanks" of these types of games have to do one of two things: 1. Generate so much "hate" that the monster will only attack them. This is done by either using wierd skills that increase "hate" on yourself at higher rate than the Wizard spamming Save or Dies and the ongoing damage from Acid Fogs or by... doing so much damage that no one can afford to ignore you. Most Fighters in 'classic' MMOs (Like EQ, not sure on EQ2 though) rely on wierd skills; while some of the "new-Age" MMOs (like WoW) on damage since that captures people attention. 2. Survive getting the snot beat out of you by a fourty foot demon or a two hundred foot crocodile godling long enough to get slow-healed by the healers. most characters can already do this. So, we have our criteria. The problem is that most people can't fulfill the 1st one. Why? I dunno, frankly, being a really good tank is just as hard as being a caster. It's a matter of knowing what needs to be done and then doing it, and being able to improvise. In any case, I guess that it's like Laurence of Arabia said about how, no matter hwo much you are taught about tactics, the true test comes "... like flash of light that you see as the kingfisher dives at the water to catch it's meal". Some people can get it sometimes, some people can't get it sometimes. Of course, the fact that the character classes for "tanks" could blow me and I'd still beat their heads in with a wrench means that most people are given a big pile of steaming material and have to make a character that actually does a specific task. Sure, some people can make choices across a half-dozen books and make a build that will both keep anyone away from the party and deal decent damage at the same time. However, you shouldn't have to go everywhere for feats, or class abilities or whatever. Those sort of things shoudl he hard-coded into your class. Seriously, the Core fighter wasn't changed b/c you could PrC it with some broken 3rd party material. That's actually part of the original arguments that the desingers for 3.5 had for not completely overhauling the Core fighter. Seriously; I don't know about anyone else here, but I find that not only horribley insulting that I and you and all of the people who had to buy a 3.5 PHB were given material that only works if we buy a book from a company that isn't WoTC. Seroiusly, a class should be good enough to take all 20 levels of, even if you were given Frenzied Berzerker, Exotic Weapon Master and Lord of the Inexorable Charge as PrCs in core material. Yeah, that's a big order, but it's one that should be part of the design intent. Barbarian 20 should be just as good as Warforged Barbarian 4/Fighter 2/Warforged Juggernaut 5/Reforged 3/Frendized Berzerker 6. If it's not, Barbarian should be a 5 or a 10 level class and he designers shouldn't lie through their teeth that they made a level appropriate class. Really, the reason I'm so ****** is that I had to find all of this crap out from people who don't design the game. When people who have read the books can say with more certainty that "fighters BaB actually means nothing under the current rules, even at level 1"; that tends to get you all ornery that the guys who wrote this crap wouldn't even be honest and say that they wrote up ****** classes. Anyway, that's all for now, writing from my gut tends to make me hungry. |
| Argaud04-14-07, 02:13 PM | I'd rather be a Barbarian. The tank needs to prove an actual threat to be even considered as a "target" by enemies. Why is the barbarian a greater threat than the fighter when it has already been demonstrated several times in this thread that after level 7 the barbarian is weaker? If you're the BBeG and he's not a threat that can mow down your mooks in a matter of seconds or kill you in about twelve to eighteen seconds; why waste your time attacking him? After you've killed his allies, you can kill him with no difficulty. It has also been shown in this thread, several times, the fighter can mow down the mooks in seconds and kill the BBeG in one full attack. Often just with one charge. Why is again this clever monster ignoring the guy that can kill him/her/it pretty much instantly? Finally, slightly off-topic, but something I have seen many times lately, I'd like to add that the comparison of a tabletop game with a MMO is completely invalid, they are very different kinds of games based in different mechanics. Likewise comparing it to comic books, books or movies is also invalid (otherwise TWF drow rangers would be awesome meleers, and we all know what happens to TWF, rangers and low-con/LA+2 races in melee). |
| Bob Loblaw04-14-07, 10:27 PM | I'd rather be a Barbarian. The tank needs to prove an actual threat to be even considered as a "target" by enemies. If your "tank" can't do something that really, really hampers the enemy; then there's no reason why they should even fight you. So let me see if there is anything the fighter can do that may warrant being targeted: 1) Daze opponent (Anvil of Thunder) 2) Two attacks, followed by grapple, followed by dagger attack in a single round (Bear Fang) 3) Force the enemy to be shaken (Devastating Thunder) 4) Use a bow in melee to trip your opponent, take a free attack, all the while treating the bow as magical even if it is not (Frontline Archer) 5) Simply hit your opponent hard enough to knock your opponent prone (Hammer’s Edge) 6) Make three trip attempts with only two successful hits, and if successful take an additional hit. (High Sword, Low Axe) 7) When you roll a threat you get a free attack against your opponent. Note that you don’t have to succeed on the critical hit. (Lightning Mace) 8) Entangle your opponent from 10 feet away then move in for a full attack in the same round. (Net and trident) 9) When using a halberd, you can make a full attack, improve your AC, and get an additional attack. (Spinning halberd) 10) Beat your opponent to the ground (Storm of Flying Strikes) 11) Nauseate your opponent (Three Mountains) 12) Intimidate as a swift action (Bloodsoaked Intimidate) 13) Strike at multiple target with the same thrown weapon (there are a variety of ways) 14) Whenever you hit with a slashing weapon, you deal an additional point after the first hit (Flay Foe) 15) Whenever you hit with a bludgeoning weapon, you deal an additional 1d6 damage after the first (Pulverize Foe) 16) Skewer Doe does the same as Pulverize Foe for piercing weapons 17) Disarm a balor’s vorpal sword and then attack him with it in the same round (Snatch Weapon) 18) If your opponent misses you, on your next turn you get +4 to hit him back. You can convert this to an additional 8 damage with each hit for that round with Power Attack. (Defensive Strike) 19) Duck underneath a Huge opponent and cause him to be flat-footed against your attacks while you enjoy an additional +4 to hit. (Giantbane) 20) Using Improved Rapid Shot and Ranged Pin, you can make 5 grapple attempts at range to keep you opponent nailed to a tree (Ranged Pin). So there’s 20 things. I got tired of looking for more because there are so many. Maybe it’s time for your fighters to do more than swing. Stupid people who can't grasp the most elementary of tactics that even a wolf could grasp (i.e. "kill the weakest member of the pack, the rest will leave, eat the body") and game masters who have to coddle their players useless characters (or railroad them needlessly) are the only GMs that would have any monster with more than 2 int attack somehting other than the tough armoured character. Wow, a lot of attacks in there without knowing thing one about anyone else's games. Let me start with this simple statement: No two DMs are alike so be prepared for games to be run differently even using only core. Seroiusly, a class should be good enough to take all 20 levels of, even if you were given Frenzied Berzerker, Exotic Weapon Master and Lord of the Inexorable Charge as PrCs in core material. The same can be said of the casting prestige classes. There is no reason to stay wizard when you can keep your full casting progression and get a slew of other abilities as well. Yeah, that's a big order, but it's one that should be part of the design intent. I agree, but what's done is done. The old material is not going to be rewritten so we must now buy more material that makes the character viable. |
| Flan04-14-07, 11:24 PM | The non-armoured guy who is literally glowing in potential "killing you" power If the party had one of those, an intelligent monster would run the heck away as fast as inhumanly possible. Anything with a decent intelligence that isn't suicideally overconfident wouldn't mess with a PC party. Might be why my DM tends to use tons of constructs, undead and summoned monsters (which by grace of being summoned are suicideally overconfident because "dying" just means they get to go home sooner.) |
| Nephlite04-15-07, 12:00 AM | If the party had one of those, an intelligent monster would run the heck away as fast as inhumanly possible. Anything with a decent intelligence that isn't suicideally overconfident wouldn't mess with a PC party. Might be why my DM tends to use tons of constructs, undead and summoned monsters (which by grace of being summoned are suicideally overconfident because "dying" just means they get to go home sooner.) I'm surprised most casters don't get Mithral +1 Twilight chain shirt: cheaper than Bracers of armor and all. |
| Flan04-15-07, 12:51 AM | I'm surprised most casters don't get Mithral +1 Twilight chain shirt: cheaper than Bracers of armor and all. Doesn't work with monks belt. Doesn't work when polymorphed/wild shaped. Can't wear a robe. More expensive then, and doesn't work against incorporeal attacks like, mage amor. Not allowed to wear metal/may as well wear plate mail. Don't like the +6 max dex bonus. Can't find any because all the other wizards are wearing them. |
| degaul04-15-07, 01:28 AM | I didn't read ALL of the previous 11 pages or whatever, so this had probably been said.... The group I play in is pretty recreational (meaning we don't seek to break the game, and we laugh at people that do, it's about fun) and we haven't ever gotten past level 15 or so, but I have played a lot of fighters, and seen others play a lot of them. In my experience people that play fighters always want to concentrate on one thing and one thing only. Whatever they have in their head that their fighter does is what they do. I think this is a big reason that their fighters are less effective at higher levels. My approach to fighters is versatility. My primary goal as a fighter is to always be able to perform my job in any situation. Feats, magic items, potions, whatever I can get my hands on that fills a gap I get it. My secondary goal is to always be able to help in some way. If I have to pour potions down the throats of over-aggroing casters that got pwned I'll do that too. I have been tasked with making a new "melee" character recently, because our "fighter" is a dervish and wants to dual wield the same magic scimitars against everything, even if they are innefective she keeps swinging, and refuses to switch to a weapon that may work without us mentioning/demanding it. Anyway I have played many fighters and I still have a hard time deciding, even with nine swords out and other non-core books. The bonus feats on a fighter support versatility a lot more than the alternatives it seems. I do agree that as you get into post lvl 10, and then to lvl 15+ the feat selections seem bleak at best. That has been improved some with phb2, nine swords, and probably other books, but I still wouldn't say it's great. Because of this fighters require gear, they depend on it a lot, moreso than other classes. They also depend on their party members a lot. If you are a 15th level fighter or whatever and your casters aren't buffing you when they can (I mean pre-battle, etc) you've got issues with your casters. This is no secret. D&D isn't about soloing. I think a lot of these anti-fighter sentiments come from selfish optimizers who want to "solo the universe". They don't want to or don't know how to use their resources to make the fighter help them do their own job better. A lack of teamwork and tactics, in other words. Sorry for the rambling.... |
| aelryinth04-15-07, 01:40 AM | So let me see if there is anything the fighter can do that may warrant being targeted: 1) Daze opponent (Anvil of Thunder) 2) Two attacks, followed by grapple, followed by dagger attack in a single round (Bear Fang) 3) Force the enemy to be shaken (Devastating Thunder) 4) Use a bow in melee to trip your opponent, take a free attack, all the while treating the bow as magical even if it is not (Frontline Archer) 5) Simply hit your opponent hard enough to knock your opponent prone (Hammer’s Edge) 6) Make three trip attempts with only two successful hits, and if successful take an additional hit. (High Sword, Low Axe) 7) When you roll a threat you get a free attack against your opponent. Note that you don’t have to succeed on the critical hit. (Lightning Mace) 8) Entangle your opponent from 10 feet away then move in for a full attack in the same round. (Net and trident) 9) When using a halberd, you can make a full attack, improve your AC, and get an additional attack. (Spinning halberd) 10) Beat your opponent to the ground (Storm of Flying Strikes) 11) Nauseate your opponent (Three Mountains) 12) Intimidate as a swift action (Bloodsoaked Intimidate) 13) Strike at multiple target with the same thrown weapon (there are a variety of ways) 14) Whenever you hit with a slashing weapon, you deal an additional point after the first hit (Flay Foe) 15) Whenever you hit with a bludgeoning weapon, you deal an additional 1d6 damage after the first (Pulverize Foe) 16) Skewer Doe does the same as Pulverize Foe for piercing weapons 17) Disarm a balor’s vorpal sword and then attack him with it in the same round (Snatch Weapon) 18) If your opponent misses you, on your next turn you get +4 to hit him back. You can convert this to an additional 8 damage with each hit for that round with Power Attack. (Defensive Strike) 19) Duck underneath a Huge opponent and cause him to be flat-footed against your attacks while you enjoy an additional +4 to hit. (Giantbane) 20) Using Improved Rapid Shot and Ranged Pin, you can make 5 grapple attempts at range to keep you opponent nailed to a tree (Ranged Pin). So there’s 20 things. I got tired of looking for more because there are so many. Maybe it’s time for your fighters to do more than swing. Wow, a lot of attacks in there without knowing thing one about anyone else's games. Let me start with this simple statement: No two DMs are alike so be prepared for games to be run differently even using only core. The same can be said of the casting prestige classes. There is no reason to stay wizard when you can keep your full casting progression and get a slew of other abilities as well. I agree, but what's done is done. The old material is not going to be rewritten so we must now buy more material that makes the character viable. I'll have to say that pretty much every option you gave was more a 'melee options' then a "fighter options", and a lot of the stuff is very situational and requires specific builds to actually utilize a lot (example: High Sword, Low Axe basically forces a TWF build, meaning less dmg output, AND forces you to make a Tripper, except with a penalty...and Tripping doesn't work well as you advance in levels. Etc etc.) ====Aelryinth |
| degaul04-15-07, 02:00 AM | I'll have to say that pretty much every option you gave was more a 'melee options' then a "fighter options", and a lot of the stuff is very situational and requires specific builds to actually utilize a lot (example: High Sword, Low Axe basically forces a TWF build, meaning less dmg output, AND forces you to make a Tripper, except with a penalty...and Tripping doesn't work well as you advance in levels. Etc etc.) ====Aelryinth I agree with you on that post. Whatever happened to the tried and true meatshield method. You know, find narrow hallway and separate the party and enemies with the fighter and whatever other sudo-tanks you have. Yeah it doesn't work in open area fights, etc, but it works a lot. Everything is situational in D&D anyway. Don't people do this anymore? Taunting itself, quite honestly, is always subject to DM opinion unless you have the recently published Goad feat or are a Knight, etc. You want your fighter to have aggro make him/her the only thing that can be attacked, imo. That can obviously apply to many classes, as it's a party tactic. I guess if your party always does that you could use anyone that has some ac and/or some defensive specials/feats.... |
| Bob Loblaw04-15-07, 02:09 AM | I'll have to say that pretty much every option you gave was more a 'melee options' then a "fighter options", and a lot of the stuff is very situational and requires specific builds to actually utilize a lot (example: High Sword, Low Axe basically forces a TWF build, meaning less dmg output, AND forces you to make a Tripper, except with a penalty...and Tripping doesn't work well as you advance in levels. Etc etc.) ====Aelryinth Like I said, I stopped at 20. There were a couple ranged options in there though. Also, many of these require more feats than non-fighter may want to invest. I wasn't going for damage. That wasn't the goal. It was said that the fighter can't make someone want to attack him. I know that if someone kept tripping me so that I could only get attacked when I stood up and then only make a single attack in response, I wouldn't be happy with him. The advancing in levels thing has been dealt with many times. Not every creature is untrippable. I can make a core only CR 20 creature of Medium size. As a DM, I prefer these types of opponents anyway. |
| TheCanadian04-15-07, 03:36 AM | I haven't read the past 50 some odd pages, but I'd like to put in a note here. I've just recently built a level 8 fighter for my friends upcoming campaign and I have to say that even though the fighter may not have cool spells, or the ability to morph into a great eight-legged monster from the Nine Hells, he does have one thing that not many classes can match: RP Flexibility. Now I know that a lot of the arguing on this thread has been about damage output and AC numbers and the like, but there is another side to DnD, the roleplaying side. For my friends campaign I decided that I wanted to play a revolutionary who believes that the monarchy is corrupt and outdated and that a system much like democracy was needed. I wasn't sure what to do for this character. I knew I wanted him to be a meleer or ranged guy, but I needed something that was humble but tough. Barbarian wouldn't do...too savage. Paladin wouldn't do because my character wants to overthrow the powers-that-be. Rogue...maybe...but I'd rather be able to stand toe-to-toe with my adversaries. So this lead me back to the fighter. The fighter, out of all the classes in the PHb or any other add-on is the most Blank Canvas. You can create and roleplay pretty much anything using the fighter. Crossbow weilding revolutionary? Check. Grizzled old war vet? Check. Mounted Knight of the Lord? Check. Farmhand who wants to defend is home? Check. The possibilities are endless. So in my opinion, yes, there is a place for a fighter in the party. Perhaps not because he can deal the most damage or "tank" the best, but if only because it can add a roleplaying richness that you just can't get from any other class. |
| Judging Eagle04-16-07, 02:19 PM | So let me see if there is anything the fighter can do that may warrant being targeted: 1) Daze opponent (Anvil of Thunder) works, but there's a heavy feat investment for a very limited shtick 2) Two attacks, followed by grapple, followed by dagger attack in a single round (Bear Fang) likewise 3) Force the enemy to be shaken (Devastating Thunder) same 4) Use a bow in melee to trip your opponent, take a free attack, all the while treating the bow as magical even if it is not (Frontline Archer) PHB2 feat, yes? Not sure on it's pre-reqs 5) Simply hit your opponent hard enough to knock your opponent prone (Hammer’s Edge) 6) Make three trip attempts with only two successful hits, and if successful take an additional hit. (High Sword, Low Axe) 7) When you roll a threat you get a free attack against your opponent. Note that you don’t have to succeed on the critical hit. (Lightning Mace) 8) Entangle your opponent from 10 feet away then move in for a full attack in the same round. (Net and trident) 9) When using a halberd, you can make a full attack, improve your AC, and get an additional attack. (Spinning halberd) 10) Beat your opponent to the ground (Storm of Flying Strikes) 11) Nauseate your opponent (Three Mountains) 12) Intimidate as a swift action (Bloodsoaked Intimidate) 13) Strike at multiple target with the same thrown weapon (there are a variety of ways) 14) Whenever you hit with a slashing weapon, you deal an additional point after the first hit (Flay Foe) 15) Whenever you hit with a bludgeoning weapon, you deal an additional 1d6 damage after the first (Pulverize Foe) 16) Skewer Doe does the same as Pulverize Foe for piercing weapons 17) Disarm a balor’s vorpal sword and then attack him with it in the same round (Snatch Weapon) 18) If your opponent misses you, on your next turn you get +4 to hit him back. You can convert this to an additional 8 damage with each hit for that round with Power Attack. (Defensive Strike) 19) Duck underneath a Huge opponent and cause him to be flat-footed against your attacks while you enjoy an additional +4 to hit. (Giantbane) 20) Using Improved Rapid Shot and Ranged Pin, you can make 5 grapple attempts at range to keep you opponent nailed to a tree (Ranged Pin). So there’s 20 things. I got tired of looking for more because there are so many. Maybe it’s time for your fighters to do more than swing. In any case, those narrowly specific things are cute for some fighter to have. I was talking about built in features to the class. The fighter as a class doesn't have something that any player regardless of their skill at "knowing the rules" will have at their disposal. The "story" of the fighter; the armoured combatant that takes on spell casters, giant monsters, a villans master of arms or a platoon of enemy troops has a lot of collectively believed material behind it. The "mechanics" of the PHB fighter don't demonstrate that. The core level 6 wizard with 16 int has more "combat ending power" than the core fighter does even if he's been allowed to use non-core feats. Heck, the wizard is able to make many melee people feel small in pants even if you let the melee character use any and all of the stuff in melee-caster balancing supplements like Races of War and the Dugnenomicon. I don't even have to make this **** up. One wizard, with just spell slots in Grease, Glitter Dust, Blindness and Deep Slumber can screw up a bunch of Wyverns (4) and Bulettes (3) that are attacking 6 lvl 6 PCs. After blinding, knocking prone or putting an enemy to sleep, who cares what the mosnter was? Yeah, I can seriously give the melee playing players supposedly "overpowered" material and when I pit them against 4 EL 9 encounters, the caster with no PrCs and nothing but spell slots turns a potential TPK into a nearly scratchless match. The Gargoyle knight, the Summoner's Hippogriff and the Jester's cart-pulling mule were the only part of the PCs that was harmed. Wow, a lot of attacks in there without knowing thing one about anyone else's games. Let me start with this simple statement: No two DMs are alike so be prepared for games to be run differently even using only core. The same can be said of the casting prestige classes. There is no reason to stay wizard when you can keep your full casting progression and get a slew of other abilities as well. Yeah, but the core wizard can contribute more than the PCs built with "overpowered" material. I seriously wrote up a scaling "Mental Weaponry" feat (that most would consider broken) for the dagger-throwing Rogue to use simply to give him some more damage per round and that wasn't very noticable. I agree, but what's done is done. The old material is not going to be rewritten so we must now buy more material that makes the character viable. No, every time we buy material, we get crap. Until WoTC designers are able to say "yeah, we've fvcked up a lot"; there's not even a point. They're not even trying to write material that is meant to be played in a real game. They're writing material based on opinions and ideas that are based on stuff like: "what we think will be cool" or "lets make a character with idea X" The problem is this: They seriously think that "being weaker than the class you left" is part of a PrCs flavour (Swiftblade). So, if you leave level 6 wizard and enter the Swiftblade class, you lose They think that a 10 level Prestige Class that you enter at level 5 should have character level ten abilities at level fifteen. That's what the melee-ish classes get shoved with. Yet, at the same time we have all sorts of seriously broken casting PrCs. Which all really, really makes me cry. Why? I'll tell you why. I want to a play a fighter, and have it be as good for the party as the Druid with his animal companion and her awakened horde of animals or the cleric and his celestial companions or the wizard who... oh yeah, who ends fights in six seconds. :weep: |
| Nephlite04-16-07, 03:20 PM | Doesn't work with monks belt. Doesn't work when polymorphed/wild shaped. Can't wear a robe. More expensive then, and doesn't work against incorporeal attacks like, mage amor. Not allowed to wear metal/may as well wear plate mail. Don't like the +6 max dex bonus. Can't find any because all the other wizards are wearing them. Armor doesn't take away robe slot. You are mistaken. But yes, the bracers stop incorporeal. |
| Archangel6204-16-07, 04:57 PM | I haven't read the past 50 some odd pages, but I'd like to put in a note here. I've just recently built a level 8 fighter for my friends upcoming campaign and I have to say that even though the fighter may not have cool spells, or the ability to morph into a great eight-legged monster from the Nine Hells, he does have one thing that not many classes can match: RP Flexibility. Now I know that a lot of the arguing on this thread has been about damage output and AC numbers and the like, but there is another side to DnD, the roleplaying side. For my friends campaign I decided that I wanted to play a revolutionary who believes that the monarchy is corrupt and outdated and that a system much like democracy was needed. I wasn't sure what to do for this character. I knew I wanted him to be a meleer or ranged guy, but I needed something that was humble but tough. Barbarian wouldn't do...too savage. Paladin wouldn't do because my character wants to overthrow the powers-that-be. Rogue...maybe...but I'd rather be able to stand toe-to-toe with my adversaries. So this lead me back to the fighter. The fighter, out of all the classes in the PHb or any other add-on is the most Blank Canvas. You can create and roleplay pretty much anything using the fighter. Crossbow weilding revolutionary? Check. Grizzled old war vet? Check. Mounted Knight of the Lord? Check. Farmhand who wants to defend is home? Check. The possibilities are endless. So in my opinion, yes, there is a place for a fighter in the party. Perhaps not because he can deal the most damage or "tank" the best, but if only because it can add a roleplaying richness that you just can't get from any other class. That is the biggest steaming pile that I have every heard. You can roleplay that regardless of the class; Warblade, Crusader, Swordsage, Knight, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Soulborn, Duskblade, each and every one of these can have those possibilities you listed and more. And that's before you get the the fact that RP is based on the PERSON PLAYING THE CHARACTER not a function of the class. I can RP just as well with a wizard as I can with a fighter as I can with a cleric as I can with a binder as I can with a warlock. Mechanically the fighter is absolutely horrid compared to pretty much all the other martial classes. Not to mention the obvious tactical problems that it has to deal with because the rules screw martial classes sideways and the fighter has the least to counter it. |
| Cael04-16-07, 06:11 PM | In any case, those narrowly specific things are cute for some fighter to have. I was talking about built in features to the class. The fighter as a class doesn't have something that any player regardless of their skill at "knowing the rules" will have at their disposal. The "story" of the fighter; the armoured combatant that takes on spell casters, giant monsters, a villans master of arms or a platoon of enemy troops has a lot of collectively believed material behind it. The "mechanics" of the PHB fighter don't demonstrate that. The core level 6 wizard with 16 int has more "combat ending power" than the core fighter does even if he's been allowed to use non-core feats. Heck, the wizard is able to make many melee people feel small in pants even if you let the melee character use any and all of the stuff in melee-caster balancing supplements like Races of War and the Dugnenomicon. I don't even have to make this **** up. One wizard, with just spell slots in Grease, Glitter Dust, Blindness and Deep Slumber can screw up a bunch of Wyverns (4) and Bulettes (3) that are attacking 6 lvl 6 PCs. After blinding, knocking prone or putting an enemy to sleep, who cares what the mosnter was? Yeah, I can seriously give the melee playing players supposedly "overpowered" material and when I pit them against 4 EL 9 encounters, the caster with no PrCs and nothing but spell slots turns a potential TPK into a nearly scratchless match. The Gargoyle knight, the Summoner's Hippogriff and the Jester's cart-pulling mule were the only part of the PCs that was harmed. Yeah, but the core wizard can contribute more than the PCs built with "overpowered" material. I seriously wrote up a scaling "Mental Weaponry" feat (that most would consider broken) for the dagger-throwing Rogue to use simply to give him some more damage per round and that wasn't very noticable. No, every time we buy material, we get crap. Until WoTC designers are able to say "yeah, we've fvcked up a lot"; there's not even a point. They're not even trying to write material that is meant to be played in a real game. They're writing material based on opinions and ideas that are based on stuff like: "what we think will be cool" or "lets make a character with idea X" The problem is this: They seriously think that "being weaker than the class you left" is part of a PrCs flavour (Swiftblade). So, if you leave level 6 wizard and enter the Swiftblade class, you lose They think that a 10 level Prestige Class that you enter at level 5 should have character level ten abilities at level fifteen. That's what the melee-ish classes get shoved with. Yet, at the same time we have all sorts of seriously broken casting PrCs. Which all really, really makes me cry. Why? I'll tell you why. I want to a play a fighter, and have it be as good for the party as the Druid with his animal companion and her awakened horde of animals or the cleric and his celestial companions or the wizard who... oh yeah, who ends fights in six seconds. :weep: Well, play a Ogre Fighter. We have one in the party at ECL 15, and he is having fun. His philosophy is "victory goes to those who rolls the most dice". And he does :D Large weapon, reach, Whirlwind Attack, etc. It is hilarious to see him go off. Similarly, my Wiz/Drd/AH uses Grease to end combats and to give him more chances to go ballistic. Fun all round. |
| Bob Loblaw04-17-07, 01:17 AM | In any case, those narrowly specific things are cute for some fighter to have. So it's hand waved away, I understand. I was talking about built in features to the class. The features are bonus feats. The fighter is supposed to be able to do more things than others in combat. Not necessarily dozens more, just more. They can do that. The fighter as a class doesn't have something that any player regardless of their skill at "knowing the rules" will have at their disposal. Besides the option of actually having more choices? Name another class that can take 2+ tactical feats giving themselves 6 more combat options. The "story" of the fighter; the armoured combatant that takes on spell casters, giant monsters, a villans master of arms or a platoon of enemy troops has a lot of collectively believed material behind it. Should the fighter be able to do all of these at once? That is the way it is often portrayed and I would have to disagree. The "mechanics" of the PHB fighter don't demonstrate that. Khan has been throwing fighter builds out there for every fighter type mentioned. His builds are great and would be able to fill his role just fine. The core level 6 wizard with 16 int has more "combat ending power" than the core fighter does even if he's been allowed to use non-core feats. How one class performs is 100% irrelevant to how another performs. I know how powerful wizards are. They are my favorite class. I also know that how well the fighter fills his role is not affected by how well the wizard fills his. Just because someone may be better does not mean that the first person can't perform his duties. Heck, the wizard is able to make many melee people feel small in pants even if you let the melee character use any and all of the stuff in melee-caster balancing supplements like Races of War and the Dugnenomicon. What is this Races of War that everyone keeps throwing about? Where can one find this Dungeonomicon? One wizard, with just spell slots in Grease, Glitter Dust, Blindness and Deep Slumber can screw up a bunch of Wyverns (4) and Bulettes (3) that are attacking 6 lvl 6 PCs. After blinding, knocking prone or putting an enemy to sleep, who cares what the mosnter was? This is assuming that your wizard actually gets the chance. What if he is sniped by a level 6 rogue from 100 feet? Would your almighty wizard have a chance? Yeah, I can seriously give the melee playing players supposedly "overpowered" material and when I pit them against 4 EL 9 encounters, the caster with no PrCs and nothing but spell slots turns a potential TPK into a nearly scratchless match. Not every class can handle every challenge the same way. There are plenty of opponents that wizards or clerics will have a difficult time with. Yeah, but the core wizard can contribute more than the PCs built with "overpowered" material. Who cares about who can contribute more? Why can't we just be happy that the fighter can contribute? Why must this be a ******* match between PCs? No, every time we buy material, we get crap. In your opinion. In my opinion, much of the material is actually pretty good. My games are not run the same way yours are so maybe I'm part of that target audience. Until WoTC designers are able to say "yeah, we've fvcked up a lot"; there's not even a point. Maybe, in their minds, they didn't screw up. Maybe some of us agree. Just because one class doesn't work in your games certainly doesn't mean it won't work in other games. They're not even trying to write material that is meant to be played in a real game. So my games aren't real? Why must I play by your standards? I've been running games longer than many of the posters on these boards have been alive. They're writing material based on opinions and ideas that are based on stuff like: "what we think will be cool" or "lets make a character with idea X" Yeah, what a dumb idea. They shouldn't make anything that seems cool. The problem is this: They seriously think that "being weaker than the class you left" is part of a PrCs flavour (Swiftblade). So, if you leave level 6 wizard and enter the Swiftblade class, you lose They think that a 10 level Prestige Class that you enter at level 5 should have character level ten abilities at level fifteen. That's what the melee-ish classes get shoved with. Yet, at the same time we have all sorts of seriously broken casting PrCs. I won't deny that not all prestige classes are the same. I will say that not every prestige class is meant for every group. In fact, I would say that many of them are really meant as NPCs. I'll tell you why. I want to a play a fighter, and have it be as good for the party as the Druid with his animal companion and her awakened horde of animals or the cleric and his celestial companions or the wizard who... oh yeah, who ends fights in six seconds. Why is the fighter considered underpowered, but the druid is not overpowered? Take a look at the encounter tables. A druid with a wolf (not his companion) is a harder encounter than a druid with his wolf companion simply because they added a little line. The companion is actually more powerful than the trained wolf. There seems to be a problem here. The druid is actually overpowered. Any class that can eliminate the need for any other class is overpowered; especially when we're talking core. |
| Zilvar04-17-07, 09:23 AM | Any class that can eliminate the need for any other class is overpowered; especially when we're talking core.Without actually responding to any of your other points, I'd have to take issue with this statement. Core only there are 11 classes. If you NEED all of them, then it's impossible to create an iconic 4-man party. Of course, I think you meant something a lot more complex. There are 4 roles that make up an iconic party. Meat Shield, Arcane, Divine, Skill Monkey. I suspect you meant to say something like 'any class that fills a role so well (while still being able to fill or support another at the same time) as to make another class a poor choice is an overpowered class'. I think it's been shown that a fighter can fill the role of the meat shield well, but that it is not easily managed (that is, it takes a certain amount of character building skill to pull off.) requires specific supporting gear to maximize (this is primarily a campaign-specific point. My own game experiences, for example, have never allowed us enough time to make more than a few scrolls between disasters. Counting on specific gear items...even something as simple as a Ring of Freedom of Movement...cannot be done.) requires a slightly larger subset of material to pull from. Many of the good builds posted have been largely core, but not completely. Even Core+Complete might be too much of a stretch for some gaming groups. I think that this might be the most agreed-on point in this entire debate...more available feat sources make for more powerful fighters. |
| Bob Loblaw04-17-07, 10:29 AM | Without actually responding to any of your other points, I'd have to take issue with this statement. Core only there are 11 classes. If you NEED all of them, then it's impossible to create an iconic 4-man party. Of course, I think you meant something a lot more complex. There are 4 roles that make up an iconic party. Meat Shield, Arcane, Divine, Skill Monkey. I suspect you meant to say something like 'any class that fills a role so well (while still being able to fill or support another at the same time) as to make another class a poor choice is an overpowered class'. I think it's been shown that a fighter can fill the role of the meat shield well, but that it is not easily managed (that is, it takes a certain amount of character building skill to pull off.) requires specific supporting gear to maximize (this is primarily a campaign-specific point. My own game experiences, for example, have never allowed us enough time to make more than a few scrolls between disasters. Counting on specific gear items...even something as simple as a Ring of Freedom of Movement...cannot be done.) requires a slightly larger subset of material to pull from. Many of the good builds posted have been largely core, but not completely. Even Core+Complete might be too much of a stretch for some gaming groups. I think that this might be the most agreed-on point in this entire debate...more available feat sources make for more powerful fighters. You are correct. That is what I was trying to say. Specific builds is what the fighter is about from my understanding. He isn't meant to do everything. Often times the casters get the upper hand because the DM either ignores most spells components or the spells are misused/misunderstood (I was in an argument at a convention about how blade barrier worked, some were assuming that it was cylindrical rather than a flat plan as the book clearly stated). The gear issue seems to only be a problem when addressing fighters. If the other party members can't get their gear or have time to make it, that is often ignored. The need for more books is an issue, but honestly isn't that bad. Most groups have some of the other books. The other problem here is that he see how great the Warblade or Swordsage are compared to the fighter. Then when we bring up non-core feats the argument shifts to saying we didn't stay core. I do agree that the core fighter could use a boost, I certainly don't think he's unplayable. |
| Flan04-17-07, 12:00 PM | Armor doesn't take away robe slot. You are mistaken. Then so is DMG214, and the MIC back sheet with handy magic item location silhouette. |
| Zilvar04-17-07, 12:13 PM | The gear issue seems to only be a problem when addressing fighters. If the other party members can't get their gear or have time to make it, that is often ignored.Or it really is less of an issue, maybe? In my last campaign, we had a fighter with about a half-level advantage in gear wealth, and all of it was relevant. Character did OK when we could kill a monster in two rounds or so (which was fairly often), but found herself to be useless in fights underwater, in the air, or against certain foes. I don't remember specifics, but the archer cleric did remarkably well with a simple +3 bow and bracers of archery. The barbarian was about the same as the fighter, but what do you expect out of a gnome? My character, the bard, had almost no relevant magic. I had a scarf of charisma and a songblade and did fine. The wizard had almost nothing (until he quit playing the game) but a Staff of Fire he picked up from a boss. He did fine. The dread pirate was just a joke, with a +4-ish will save. ;) Because of my gameplay experiences, I agree with the general feeling that fighters both need more gear, and are less capable of picking up just any-old-thing and using it. That's not a bad thing, in a game where you have some means of finding, crafting, or trading for what you feel you need. I can't say that's ever really been the case for me. The need for more books is an issue, but honestly isn't that bad.I don't consider it an issue as much as an observation. IF someone is playing a restrictive game with regard to source material, THEN a fighter character might suffer. I do agree that the core fighter could use a boost, I certainly don't think he's unplayable.My personal feelings on this are simple. WotC puts too much emphasis on the supposed flexibility offered in the class design. I believe that the fighter could have a feat on every level and 3 strong saves and STILL wouldn't be overpowered. :) But he'd sure as heck be desirable for a while. |
| Clawhound04-17-07, 02:44 PM | You are correct. That is what I was trying to say. Specific builds is what the fighter is about from my understanding. He isn't meant to do everything. Often times the casters get the upper hand because the DM either ignores most spells components or the spells are misused/misunderstood (I was in an argument at a convention about how blade barrier worked, some were assuming that it was cylindrical rather than a flat plan as the book clearly stated). The gear issue seems to only be a problem when addressing fighters. If the other party members can't get their gear or have time to make it, that is often ignored. The need for more books is an issue, but honestly isn't that bad. Most groups have some of the other books. The other problem here is that he see how great the Warblade or Swordsage are compared to the fighter. Then when we bring up non-core feats the argument shifts to saying we didn't stay core. I do agree that the core fighter could use a boost, I certainly don't think he's unplayable. The new MIC does wonders for basic melee. The new MIC also does wonders to better demonstrate what characters of a particular level should have. The more that I see how middle-of-the-road D&D looks to the designers, the more that I like it. |
| vagabonvoid04-17-07, 03:42 PM | Then so is DMG214, and the MIC back sheet with handy magic item location silhouette. Non-magical armor doesn't take away the robe slot; however, magical armor does take up that slot. DMG 214 is specifically talking about magic items, not mundane items. |
| Flan04-17-07, 04:01 PM | Non-magical armor doesn't take away the robe slot; however, magical armor does take up that slot. And a +1 twilight mithril chain shirt, which is what we're talking about, is magical. |
| tahngarth4004-17-07, 05:04 PM | I personally enjoy the fighter, that is why I play it. But there's a laundry list of reasons to play one depending on your campaign, whether its you're in a low/no magic campaign, or you play in a group that doesn't seem to make it past level 12 very often. I've been playing in the same campaign for a few years now and we've made it past level 12 once, to lvl 14, where I made my Dwarf Fighter 6/Occult Slayer 5/ 3 Dwarf Paragon , with all the anti-caster gear and feats I could find. He did alright. But the Druid still made me look like a pile of trash. |
| FrostHammer04-18-07, 03:17 PM | I personally enjoy the fighter, that is why I play it. But there's a laundry list of reasons to play one depending on your campaign, whether its you're in a low/no magic campaign, or you play in a group that doesn't seem to make it past level 12 very often. I've been playing in the same campaign for a few years now and we've made it past level 12 once, to lvl 14, where I made my Dwarf Fighter 6/Occult Slayer 5/ 3 Dwarf Paragon , with all the anti-caster gear and feats I could find. He did alright. But the Druid still made me look like a pile of trash. Well, Druids will likly get the nerf stick come DnD version 4, but until then, I feel Fighters need a way to carve out their own little niche. But right, this thread is not assuming any level restrictions or low-magic restrictions. |
| Nathreet04-18-07, 03:35 PM | Well, Druids will likly get the nerf stick come DnD version 4, but until then, I feel Fighters need a way to carve out their own little niche. But right, this thread is not assuming any level restrictions or low-magic restrictions. Our group already gave druids the nerf stick. No wild spell, limitations to animal companion, and I forget what else. But I remember we had a shapechanged druid in the party that was still pretty weak even when shapechanged. Might have been poorly optimized too. A while back I posted a thread challenging anyone to beat my straight fighter with only PHB classes (besides fighter) and straight melee fighting (no spells, hit and run, etc.). The only one that could truly pull it off was a shapechanged druid. He utterly annihilated the fighter. The barbarian barely beat him using rage. Others used better equipment, so I updated the fighter to use the same equipment. Still others that beat him used cheesy tactics involving ghosts and the like. Others broke the rules of the challenge and used spells. Not even buff spells, mind you (which IMO is stupid to waste a round on), but direct offensive spells. Quickened spells and long lasting spells cast ahead of time were allowed. |
| Flan04-18-07, 03:54 PM | The only one that could truly pull it off was a shapechanged druid. He utterly annihilated the fighter. Take UMD and use a scroll of shape change to become an astral titan. No, the magic system isn't broken. :rolleyes: |
| Argaud04-18-07, 05:17 PM | Take UMD and use a scroll of shape change to become an astral titan. No, the magic system isn't broken. :rolleyes: Or use a Candle of Invocation and call a Solar to win the fight for you. Don't forget to ask him for something worth 25,000 gold from his daily wish before he leaves, so you can purchase a couple new Candles of Invocation and have some spare cash. Yup, broken dumb :D |
| FrostHammer04-18-07, 05:41 PM | Our group already gave druids the nerf stick. No wild spell, limitations to animal companion, and I forget what else. But I remember we had a shapechanged druid in the party that was still pretty weak even when shapechanged. Might have been poorly optimized too. A while back I posted a thread challenging anyone to beat my straight fighter with only PHB classes (besides fighter) and straight melee fighting (no spells, hit and run, etc.). The only one that could truly pull it off was a shapechanged druid. He utterly annihilated the fighter. The barbarian barely beat him using rage. Others used better equipment, so I updated the fighter to use the same equipment. Still others that beat him used cheesy tactics involving ghosts and the like. Others broke the rules of the challenge and used spells. Not even buff spells, mind you (which IMO is stupid to waste a round on), but direct offensive spells. Quickened spells and long lasting spells cast ahead of time were allowed. Well probably because the challenge sounds really, really dumb. nobody just stands still taking turns using full-round attacks. That is not how real fights go. |
| Nathreet04-18-07, 06:50 PM | Point was to see if anyone could beat him physically, and to keep it simple. Of course magic will always win out. And foo on you for expecting it to be like a "real fight". Nobody wants to create a perfect simulation of reality. Or even a perfect simulation of the D&D world. That's just insane. |
| Greendevilman04-18-07, 06:58 PM | Well probably because the challenge sounds really, really dumb. nobody just stands still taking turns using full-round attacks. That is not how real fights go. Oh it was way dumber than it sounds. One of the rules he forgot to mention was that both combatants had to take a full round attack action, so you couldn't even use tactics that would involve doing something that might take a standard action and win the fight immediately. Like tripping him. Or grappling. He set up the challenge to be rediculously favorable to the figher and still lost. In a challenge that was so far removed from actual gameplay as to be beyond irrelevant. The link to that particular piece of idiocy is here. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=797784) Edit: Oh an it wasn't so much that he changed the gear of his fighter to compensate for superior selection from his opponents so much as he changed his gear to compensate for tactics that he completely overlooked like sundering along with other subtle things about his build like his race/feat selection/etc. That whole thing was a total crock and the idea that he's using it to support his views is rediculous. |
| Judging Eagle04-19-07, 10:38 PM | God, his fighter would die to the lvl 12 fighter I wrote up; every action he makes provokes and AoO, and with 9 AoOs a round and 3 to 4 normal attacks, that build does crap. Heck, he; well, it's not important. It's simply more proof that most fighters are stuck in narrow foci that don't give them many options. When you have to compare yourself to classes who can change their class abilities every day (all Prep-casters) or get every feature ever printed (most prep divine casters) at their disposal, or even spend time yesterday to have an additional ability to use today (scribe scroll, craft wand) means that unless the fighter gets something on the equivalent of "the whole TWF tree, with additional bonuses" at the cost of one feat is still going to come up short to the wizard who changed into a troll, cast heroics on himself and a bunch of defense spells to out-do the fighter at "attacking a bunch of times in a meanigful way". It does however allow the fighter to have a whole list of abilities that are related to: "close combat shooting"; "mounted combat", "mook-rushing" and "mage-hunting". Which makes him look less lack-luster than the wizard who makes the sorcerer feel small in pants. It at least gives the Fighter a chance to fight and survive against monsters that he is expected to tank for the party. Like the horde of Shadows at lvl 12 or the 24 Trolls. Since the Wizard picks his spell to prep every day; and writes up the rest into scrolls. The sorcerer has to pick his new spells for a whole level. I won't go into how most spells can't be duplicated with non-magical effects. |
| Bob Loblaw04-19-07, 10:56 PM | It's simply more proof that most fighters are stuck in narrow foci that don't give them many options. It's proof that that fighter had problems. My fighters do not have the same issues that others complain about. When you have to compare yourself to classes who can change their class abilities every day (all Prep-casters) or get every feature ever printed (most prep divine casters) at their disposal, or even spend time yesterday to have an additional ability to use today (scribe scroll, craft wand) means that unless the fighter gets something on the equivalent of "the whole TWF tree, with additional bonuses" at the cost of one feat is still going to come up short to the wizard who changed into a troll, cast heroics on himself and a bunch of defense spells to out-do the fighter at "attacking a bunch of times in a meanigful way". This is part of the problem. The fighter can do his job. He can do it well. The fact that caster classes can do it better sometimes is (at least as far as I'm concerned) an issue with those classes. I won't go into how most spells can't be duplicated with non-magical effects. I think this is why they call it magic. |
| Judging Eagle04-20-07, 08:47 AM | Yes, but the caster's aren't the problem in and of themselves. The problem is the fact that the challenges that the fighter has to face cannot be faced with his ability set. The Ranger, Rogue, Cleric, Druid and Wizard can face and survive appropriate level challenges on their own (encounters who's EL is 3-4 higher than the PCs). When people keep poo-pooing the "one on one versus a monster of your CR" test of a characters ability, they don't realize that those types of situations can and do occur in a game. These challenges are not only appropriate, but necessary as a means to see if the the character and class in question can help their party fight 4 stone Golems at level 11 or 8 orcs at level 1. If the average fighter can't help his party in a meanigful way defeat 4 stone golems at level 11, then what is he doing working with them? In a believable scenario he would have been dropped, since he doesn't contribute to doing the "work" of adventuring and he still will claim a piece of the treasure. It should be noted that at this point, the Druid can be an animal all day long, with a variety of forms, and the Wizard can Chain-Bind Vrocks to be his shock-troopers. Neither of which is exceptionally broken, considering that 2-3 Hezrou demons and 20-40+ Dretchs is only a "tough" encounter, and until you hit the 4-6 Hezrou and 30-60 Dretch challenge does the fight become "challenging". |
| Leo04-20-07, 09:05 AM | Yes, but the caster's aren't the problem in and of themselves. The problem is the fact that the challenges that the fighter has to face cannot be faced with his ability set. The Ranger, Rogue, Cleric, Druid and Wizard can face and survive appropriate level challenges on their own (encounters who's EL is 3-4 higher than the PCs). When people keep poo-pooing the "one on one versus a monster of your CR" test of a characters ability, they don't realize that those types of situations can and do occur in a game. These challenges are not only appropriate, but necessary as a means to see if the the character and class in question can help their party fight 4 stone Golems at level 11 or 8 orcs at level 1. If the average fighter can't help his party in a meanigful way defeat 4 stone golems at level 11, then what is he doing working with them? In a believable scenario he would have been dropped, since he doesn't contribute to doing the "work" of adventuring and he still will claim a piece of the treasure. It should be noted that at this point, the Druid can be an animal all day long, with a variety of forms, and the Wizard can Chain-Bind Vrocks to be his shock-troopers. Neither of which is exceptionally broken, considering that 2-3 Hezrou demons and 20-40+ Dretchs is only a "tough" encounter, and until you hit the 4-6 Hezrou and 30-60 Dretch challenge does the fight become "challenging". Enlighten me, before geting the good magical equipment, how exactly can a rogue take down an enemy all by himself? He can't flank alone. Especially a golem, wich is immune to sneak attack at all(I know about golembane scrolls, but hey, the fighter could as well get an anti golem weapon then). Or do you mean run away? That the fighter can do as well. Oh, yes, you live in the land of free wishes at level 9. But then the fighter can then buy a million rings of 3 wishes and eat golems at breakfast. |
| Archangel6204-20-07, 09:07 AM | Enlighten me, before geting the good magical equipment, how exactly can a rogue take down an enemy all by himself? He can't flank alone. Especially a golem, wich is immune to sneak attack at all(I know about golembane scrolls, but hey, the fighter could as well get an anti golem weapon then). Or do you mean run away? That the fighter can do as well. Telling blow, augment crystals, UMD, not to mention the fact that substitution options let them deal penalties to the enemies AC in lieu of sneak attack if they can't SA, or they can just use a bag of tricks to make flanking partners. |
| Leo04-20-07, 09:21 AM | Most of them noncore, half of them most people don't know at all. UMD is only reliable at mid-high levels(and somewhat expensive, since for it to be effective you need to cash out high level scrolls), and bats can't even threaten enemies because they can't attack at all, thus they can't flank, so the bag of tricks has somewhat 1/3 chance not working at all. Reducing your oponent's AC, great. You're still doing pretty low damage compared to a fighter and if facing multiple small enemies it even gets better as the rogue is easily overrun by numbers. So the rogue is okay using magic stuff and every splatbook you can get your hands on and the fighter doing this isn't? I sense some unfairness here. |
| Argaud04-20-07, 09:29 AM | The golem is not a threat for an optimized fighter either. A chain tripper with a living chain and potion of enlarge will keep him down all the time and unable of attack because of superior reach. An archer with a potion of flying is an auto-win, etc, etc. Golems are "closet trolls". |
| Bob Loblaw04-20-07, 10:56 AM | Yes, but the caster's aren't the problem in and of themselves. Casters, no. Their spells can be. The problem is the fact that the challenges that the fighter has to face cannot be faced with his ability set. He's not supposed to. DnD is based on a 4 person party. The fact that he needs to be part of that party seems more of a design than a flaw. The Ranger, Rogue, Cleric, Druid and Wizard can face and survive appropriate level challenges on their own (encounters who's EL is 3-4 higher than the PCs). Last time I checked, an appropriate encounter is one of equal EL to the party. A single opponent 3-4 ELs higher than 1 member who must fight him alone is not appropriate. If this is what happens in your games then I can see why you have problems with the fighter (or any other class). When people keep poo-pooing the "one on one versus a monster of your CR" test of a characters ability, they don't realize that those types of situations can and do occur in a game. They shouldn't be the norm. If this is the norm, then you have changed the dynamics of the game and in so doing, you have changed the effectiveness of any class, fighter or not. A bit of interesting trivia: If a party of 4 is meant to handle an equal EL, then a single character should be able to handle that same EL if he gets 4 times the actions and 4 times the gear. The EL/CR system assumes as much. These challenges are not only appropriate, but necessary as a means to see if the the character and class in question can help their party fight 4 stone Golems at level 11 or 8 orcs at level 1. They are actually futile. For every encounter you create that a class can't handle, I can create one that the class can handle. You bring your golems (EL 15) and I bring 8 half-elves (half-elf3/elf3/fighter3/half-celestial). These encounters are two very different things and the fighter will have to deal with them differently. If the average fighter can't help his party in a meanigful way defeat 4 stone golems at level 11, then what is he doing working with them? The designers wanted the cleric to be a part of the party. They also wanted the wizard as part of the party. Looking over the spell lists, there are a lot of buffing spells. This tells me that they feel the casters should be helping out the party so that they can all be more effective. However, I can tell you that a fighter does not need the casters to buff him. The player of the fighter needs to really understand the combat system and learn how to get every advantage out of it. He should consider branching out into new suppliments and improve his options more. For some builds that do well and contribute effectively, check out what Khan has done. In a believable scenario he would have been dropped, since he doesn't contribute to doing the "work" of adventuring and he still will claim a piece of the treasure. Sorry, but an EL 3-4 levels higher than the party is not what I consider believable. According to my DMG, page 49-50, this is a Very Difficult encounter that the party should see about 15% of the time. And I would have to say that if the Fighter dies, he was targetted. If he was targetted, someone else wasn't. While I don't think that dying is a great contribution, his death meant someone else's life. Besides, if he's so worthless, why was he targetted in the first place? It should be noted that at this point, the Druid can be an animal all day long, with a variety of forms, and the Wizard can Chain-Bind Vrocks to be his shock-troopers. Just because the druid and wizard can do well does not mean that the fighter can't do well also. I have seen fighters do some pretty amazing things. Have you seen a fighter take 10 attacks of opportunity in a round and use great cleave to wipe out a small raiding party? I have. I watched a fighter leap into combat against 6 opponents of nearly equal level, take one down in round one. On round two, he had half the remaining nearly dead and the rest leaving his threatened area. Neither of which is exceptionally broken, considering that 2-3 Hezrou demons and 20-40+ Dretchs is only a "tough" encounter, and until you hit the 4-6 Hezrou and 30-60 Dretch challenge does the fight become "challenging". 20-40 dretches is actually not a good encounter. At least according to my DMG page 50, it states: Encounters with more than a dozen creatures are difficult to judge. If you need 13 or more creatures to provide enough XP for a standard encounter, then those individual monsters are probably so weak that they don't make for a good encounter. 4-6 Hezrou is an EL of 14-16. I don't know what level PCs you are talking about when you say challenging, but I assume you are talking about a party of 15th level characters. If so, then the fighter can contribute just fine. Keep in mind that the game design assumes that the cleric will be healing (it's why he gets spontaneous cures). The wizard should be controlling the battlefield so that the others can get into position and stay there (they have a ton of spells that help with this). The rogue should be flanking as many as possible, and the casters should be doing what they can to keep him from getting hit hard and often. The fighter can get himself into a position that will maximize his potental based on his build and should get help from the casters to make sure that the enemy stays in the danger zone. |
| Clawhound04-20-07, 11:58 AM | To review, the game was balanced around an average encounter of: - 8 CR-6 creatures - 4 CR-4 creatures - 2 CR-2 creatures - 1 CR creature The vast bulk of encounters should fit that curve. Your characters occasionally should encounter even more difficult encounters, but those should be increasing rare. Stock fighters rock through CR-6 and CR-4 creatures. They're heck on CR-2's. The CR-0's can hurt, but they still go down fast. Your choice of cranking up the difficulty is your own preference. |
| NobodyRemembersThis04-20-07, 12:18 PM | Any class that requires magical equipment and non-core abilities to be even mildly useful is an untenable class - Only the fighter is guilty of this. No other class has this problem in the core. Only the fighter. |
| Argaud04-20-07, 12:20 PM | Any class that requires magical equipment and non-core abilities to be even mildly useful is an untenable class - Only the fighter is guilty of this. No other class has this problem in the core. Only the fighter. False. All classes fail without the magical gear. Even the monk and the sorcerer. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-20-07, 12:30 PM | However, I can tell you that a fighter does not need the casters to buff him. The player of the fighter needs to really understand the combat system and learn how to get every advantage out of it. He should consider branching out into new suppliments and improve his options more. For some builds that do well and contribute effectively, check out what Khan has done. So it's come back to 'The fighter is effective if you have the right books, and are skilled in optmization and pre-planning, and if you follow one of a few formulas that make it effective'? Doesn't that sound suspiciously like a reason the fighter sucks? Sorry, but an EL 3-4 levels higher than the party is not what I consider believable. According to my DMG, page 49-50, this is a Very Difficult encounter that the party should see about 15% of the time. Wait wait wait. Unbelievable to you is the same as occuring 15% of the time? And I would have to say that if the Fighter dies, he was targetted. If he was targetted, someone else wasn't. While I don't think that dying is a great contribution, his death meant someone else's life. Besides, if he's so worthless, why was he targetted in the first place? WTF is that? You make the claim he was targeted, then use that claim to back up your claim that he's fine? Just because the druid and wizard can do well does not mean that the fighter can't do well also. I have seen fighters do some pretty amazing things. Have you seen a fighter take 10 attacks of opportunity in a round and use great cleave to wipe out a small raiding party? I have. I watched a fighter leap into combat against 6 opponents of nearly equal level, take one down in round one. On round two, he had half the remaining nearly dead and the rest leaving his threatened area. At what level was that? Up until what level do you think this works? 4-6 Hezrou is an EL of 14-16. I don't know what level PCs you are talking about when you say challenging, but I assume you are talking about a party of 15th level characters. If the EL is 14-16, and the PCs are 15th level, that isn't a challenging encounter. That's a standard encounter. EL ~15 v. APL 15th. If so, then the fighter can contribute just fine. Keep in mind that the game design assumes that the cleric will be healing (it's why he gets spontaneous cures). Cleric = Walking Band Aid. Everyone got that!? The wizard should be controlling the battlefield so that the others can get into position and stay there (they have a ton of spells that help with this). As opposed to just ending the battle instead? The rogue should be flanking as many as possible Or UMD, but ok, sure. the casters should be doing what they can to keep him from getting hit hard and often.The fighter can get himself into a position that will maximize his potental based on his build and should get help from the casters to make sure that the enemy stays in the danger zone. Casters = Fighter's Lackeys. Everyone got that!? They shouldn't be ending the fight, they should be directing the fight and keeping the fighter from getting hit hard and often. They should be helping the fighter to make sure the enemy stays near the fighter, so the fighter can show everyone he's not inept. |
| crashlogic04-20-07, 12:31 PM | These challenges are not only appropriate, but necessary as a means to see if the the character and class in question can help their party fight 4 stone Golems at level 11 or 8 orcs at level 1. Well eight orcs at first level, should pretty much work any first level party, unless the DM just tosses them away with no intelligence. I would love to see the party of four wizards who can take out eight orcs at first level. |
| Bob Loblaw04-20-07, 12:59 PM | Any class that requires magical equipment and non-core abilities to be even mildly useful is an untenable class - Only the fighter is guilty of this. No other class has this problem in the core. Only the fighter. Interesting, my DMG says otherwise. Let me see if I can find the quote on Page 3, “A character without magic items is like a wizard with only half her spells prepared or a fighter who hasn’t bothered to select all his feats. – he’s simply incomplete.” Let's look at the rogue. What is he giong to do against the golems that keep getting mentioned? He needs to go out of core as well. His Will Save sucks just like the fighter. Slippery Mind is useless if you can't make the second save either. What about the barbarian? He can't seem to do much without magical gear either. I doubt he's getting past that DR easily. I know that he's going to need some healing after the pounding is going to take. How is your Wizard faring? If you use even a single magic item, regardless if you made it or not, then you are reliant upon your gear as well. Do you honestly think you're going to get past SR without boosting yourself a bit. What about dealing with the high saves that the opponents have? Have you looked at the saves for dragons lately? The Black Dragon (CR 20) has all his saves in the 20's plus SR of 28 (gives you 65% chance of needing to then deal with saving throws). Fort +28, Ref +20, Wil +25. Your wizard (no magic) will have, at best, DCs at best +27 (Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Intelligence 23, level 9 spell). This gives the dragon about a 50/50 shot of dealing with your spells just fine. The cleric is no better off. Neither is the druid. I doubt the paladin or ranger can do well without their gear either. The bard really should bring along some stuff too. This leaves the sorcerer who's just as bad off as the wizard. Every class is dependent upon gear to varying degrees. As for non-core abilities, why not use the books? They are there and some of us spent money on them. Besides, I can make a viable fighter with just core. I find it boring, but not unplayable. However, the group I'm in understands teamwork so we all chip in to help the others. |
| Flan04-20-07, 02:58 PM | To review, the game was balanced around an average encounter of: And then splatbooks came out and those encounters end in 1 round thanks to metamagiced blasts from a couple mages. |
| Flan04-20-07, 03:11 PM | How is your Wizard faring? If you use even a single magic item, regardless if you made it or not, then you are reliant upon your gear as well. Do you honestly think you're going to get past SR without boosting yourself a bit. Assay Spell Resistance. SR is meaningless and part of the reason the magic system is completely broken. If melee never missed like casters never do, if power attack didn't lower you to-hit like maximize doesn't lower the saves a lot of the "casters are overpowered" arguement would go away. What about dealing with the high saves that the opponents have? Orbs don't have saves. Maximized twinspelled don't have saves either. Shape chaned astral titans don't give saves. A horde of summoned or gated monsters don't give saves. And guess what, even if you save you still take half a lot of the time, wouldn't it be cool if when a fighter missed they only did half damage? Wouldn't it be cool if instead of the fighter rolling when they swung it was automatic that something happened and there was no to-hit and instead it was the target that had to make a defensive roll and if they roll badly they flop over dead like save or dies do? The magic system is broken. Have you looked at the saves for dragons lately? The Black Dragon (CR 20) has all his saves in the 20's plus SR of 28 (gives you 65% chance of needing to then deal with saving throws). Fort +28, Ref +20, Wil +25. Your wizard (no magic) will have, at best, DCs at best +27 (Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Intelligence 23, level 9 spell). This gives the dragon about a 50/50 shot of dealing with your spells just fine. Wrong, assay + feat and it's automatically through resistance. After that at worst you're doing half damage assuming you even bother with things that give saves. The magic system is broken. The cleric is no better off. Neither is the druid. I doubt the paladin or ranger can do well without their gear either. The bard really should bring along some stuff too. This leaves the sorcerer who's just as bad off as the wizard. Yeah, um, about that... you know a couple low level slots and a cleric is running around with +5 armor, weapon, shield, +6 all saves, feast of the hero's benefit. Eagle's Splendor and persist DMM and they're all day boosted with righteous might or whatever, and can of course haste themselves with a further +3 hit/damage. Cleric will have to "suffer" with +4 wisdom enhancement instead of +6, but they'll survive. Druid is doing pretty fine too, thanks. The magic system is broken. |
| Kulthos04-20-07, 03:13 PM | The problem is that fighters are the worst at what they are supposed to do. The bonus feats amount to very little later in the game. Trip and grapple fighters are much less able to trip and grapple than a druid past level 12. Barbarians are better at tanking and damage dealing than fighters, and clerics have the same AC, almost as many hit points, and most importantly, good will saves. You can count on a battle cleric or dire bear druid on the front lines much more than you can count on a fighter when the will saves start flying. I got sick of playing the brave knight in shining armor who pees himself and flees when someone casts fear at him or has a fear effect. The weak will saves are a real deal breaker for the class, among other problems. |
| Argaud04-20-07, 03:47 PM | Assay Spell Resistance. SR is meaningless and part of the reason the magic system is completely broken. If melee never missed like casters never do, if power attack didn't lower you to-hit like maximize doesn't lower the saves a lot of the "casters are overpowered" arguement would go away. But the enemy makes the save, so the SoD spell fails because the wizard lacks the Tome of X and Item of Y that raised his Int to the point the enemy rarely made the save. Moreover he lacks the Rod of Quicken to try again. So the CR20 critter strikes back and the wizard, that lacks Cloak of Resistance, fails the save against the SoD effect. Or gets hit by 200 hit points of damage (because his AC without items is mediocre) and lacking Con booster items, gets killed too. Orbs don't have saves. Maximized twinspelled don't have saves either. Shape chaned astral titans don't give saves. A horde of summoned or gated monsters don't give saves. Orbs are good in emergencies, but do not cause enough damage for the spell level they are, even maximized and twinned an orb won't do much more than annoy a dragon. I am not entirely familiar with the astral titan, so I can't comment if he is an auto-win or not, but I can tell you summon a solar won't save the gearless wizard if the dragon decides to take a round in killing him and leave the fight with the solar for the next round. Which he will, just to make sure the wizard does not Gate a second solar. Yeah, um, about that... you know a couple low level slots and a cleric is running around with +5 armor, weapon, shield, +6 all saves, feast of the hero's benefit. Eagle's Splendor and persist DMM and they're all day boosted with righteous might or whatever, and can of course haste themselves with a further +3 hit/damage. Cleric will have to "suffer" with +4 wisdom enhancement instead of +6, but they'll survive. Druid is doing pretty fine too, thanks. The magic system is broken. DMM-Persistant is only genuinely broken with Nightsticks. A gearless cleric can have 2 or 3 good spells persistanced, but it does not matter much. Yes, he is slightly tougher than the wizard (he is a cleric, a cleric is always superior to the wizard, and to anyone else too) but Righteous Might and Divine Favor aren't enough to save him of CR20 monsters that often have DR/notmagic and save to all his spells with 2s or 3s. He might win some fights, but he won't even come close to winning 50% of them. He is still better than all the other gearless classes that won't survive not even 10% of the battles, certainly, but he is still doing very poorly without his magical stuff. He does not work without his toys. Nobody does. |
| aelryinth04-20-07, 06:30 PM | But the enemy makes the save, so the SoD spell fails because the wizard lacks the Tome of X and Item of Y that raised his Int to the point the enemy rarely made the save. Moreover he lacks the Rod of Quicken to try again. So the CR20 critter strikes back and the wizard, that lacks Cloak of Resistance, fails the save against the SoD effect. Or gets hit by 200 hit points of damage (because his AC without items is mediocre) and lacking Con booster items, gets killed too. Orbs are good in emergencies, but do not cause enough damage for the spell level they are, even maximized and twinned an orb won't do much more than annoy a dragon. I am not entirely familiar with the astral titan, so I can't comment if he is an auto-win or not, but I can tell you summon a solar won't save the gearless wizard if the dragon decides to take a round in killing him and leave the fight with the solar for the next round. Which he will, just to make sure the wizard does not Gate a second solar. DMM-Persistant is only genuinely broken with Nightsticks. A gearless cleric can have 2 or 3 good spells persistanced, but it does not matter much. Yes, he is slightly tougher than the wizard (he is a cleric, a cleric is always superior to the wizard, and to anyone else too) but Righteous Might and Divine Favor aren't enough to save him of CR20 monsters that often have DR/notmagic and save to all his spells with 2s or 3s. He might win some fights, but he won't even come close to winning 50% of them. He is still better than all the other gearless classes that won't survive not even 10% of the battles, certainly, but he is still doing very poorly without his magical stuff. He does not work without his toys. Nobody does. Uh? You do realize that if he has to, the mage can do away with magic items and cast his buffs himself, right? Sure, it takes away from his spells/day...but it leaves him at full defenses. A Fighter, take away his gear...is in a world of hurt. Your point on the saves is moot...the wizard is going to be smart and against creatures with high saves either use a spell with no saves, or employ something to drastically affect those saves...possibly a limited wish, since we are talking cr20 dragons. Tomes? Wizards don't need tomes. Wizards just use Wish spells. And, oh, right...unlike the Fighters, the Wizards can MAKE all their own magic items, they don't have to rely on handouts or the prescence of other spellcasters. And they can cast Fox's Cunning, just fine. A level 18 wizard can summon up an Efreet, get 3 wishes off it, cast two of his own, and he's got the inherent bonus the fighter never will. His AC is going to suck without items? Are you even serious? He can hop into Stone Giant form for +11 Nat Armor, a 15 dex with Dex booster cast on top of it for 19, Greater Mage ARmor +6 (higher with levels in Argent Savant) and +4 Shield spells for a measley 35 AC before casting anything that grants a deflection bonus, or insight (like, say, Foresight). Yeah, and in Stone Giant Form, he's stronger then the itemless, uninherent Fighter, too. And has reach. Orbs are the best all around damage spell in the game by level. No save, No SR, touch attack, 15d6 dmg, choose your elemental type, AND force a save for a secondary effect. A Twinned/Maximized version, coupled with Arcane Thesis, is going to result in 180 pts of dmg to whatever hapless target is on the receiving end, prompting two saves against massive damage and doing so at a very long range. And having no items doesn't mean the wizard suddenly lost access to his contingency spells, either, if something actually does get close enough to attack him. As for DMM...those two spells make killer cleric builds that can lock, stock and schmock all day on CR 20 encounters. Nghtsticks just makes it so you don't have to use higher level spell slots for all the spells. It doesn't make the problem go away at higher levels...they just allow access to the abuse much, much sooner. Seriously, have you ever sat down and seen what spellcasters can do with good spell access? Relying on magical items is anything but neccessary for them. ===Aelryinth |
| aelryinth04-20-07, 06:33 PM | The problem is that fighters are the worst at what they are supposed to do. The bonus feats amount to very little later in the game. Trip and grapple fighters are much less able to trip and grapple than a druid past level 12. Barbarians are better at tanking and damage dealing than fighters, and clerics have the same AC, almost as many hit points, and most importantly, good will saves. You can count on a battle cleric or dire bear druid on the front lines much more than you can count on a fighter when the will saves start flying. I got sick of playing the brave knight in shining armor who pees himself and flees when someone casts fear at him or has a fear effect. The weak will saves are a real deal breaker for the class, among other problems. A fighter who concentrates on the spec tree can deal every bit as much damage as the barbarian, and fulfill the tank role with his higher AC. But...that's pretty much it. Damage on full attack actions is not the fighter's problem. ===Aelryinth |
| Flan04-20-07, 06:42 PM | But the enemy makes the save Then don't use something with a save. Orbs are good in emergencies, but do not cause enough damage for the spell level they are, even maximized and twinned an orb won't do much more than annoy a dragon. Ah, sorry, didn't know you had to kill something in one round. If 180 damage/round at range while bare naked isn't good enough for you I'm sure I can some up with some better ways, I only used 1 spell slot and 4 feats, I have a bit of room to work with there. I am not entirely familiar with the astral titan See the shapechange thread that nicely got locked. Naked wizard with 1 casting of shapechange core only is basically unkillable and can destroy pretty much anything since they can astral form, greater teleport at will and become a titan. As an example, it's much much worse outside of core. DMM-Persistant is only genuinely broken with Nightsticks. Oh, again you got me. See, I was thinking powerful without gear, not broken without gear. Silly me. I guess +8 STR, large size/reach, +4 con, +3 AC, 15 DR at the cost of 1 feat and a 5th level spell slot doesn't count as powerful. Although I sure as **** wouldn't mind a feat that gave all of that to my fighter. He does not work without his toys. Nobody does. Sorry, I didn't know you defined a cleric as not working if they weren't broken with night sticks. Although the +5 armor (25k), +5 shield (25k), +6 resistance bonus (more than 25k), +5 weapon (50k) I get all day as a cleric at the cost of 3 3rds and a 6th surely don't compare to 125k of gear on someone else AT ALL, noooo. Especially not on top of the permanent enlarge (10k), and the +4 natural armor (32k), and the unpriceable 15 DR and the stackable +8 str, +4 con, although from raw items you can get 3 DR for (15k) and 4 con for (16k) and 8 str maybe (64k), although really worth far more since they stack with bull's strength and other enhancement bonuses, but call it the equivalent of 250k of gear on the Cleric with a couple of all-day buff spells without even really trying. |
| Argaud04-20-07, 06:55 PM | Oh, again you got me. See, I was thinking powerful without gear, not broken without gear. Silly me. I guess +8 STR, large size/reach, +4 con, +3 AC, 15 DR at the cost of 1 feat and a 5th level spell slot doesn't count as powerful. Although I sure as **** wouldn't mind a feat that gave all of that to my fighter. I am not going to bother to comment the rest, but this one makes me suspect you have not seen or use the errata about Righteous Might. You really should. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-20-07, 07:55 PM | So it's come back to 'The fighter is effective if you have the right books, and are skilled in optmization and pre-planning, and if you follow one of a few formulas that make it effective'? Doesn't that sound suspiciously like a reason the fighter sucks? Otto, this pretty much goes for everyone. Look at the claims that Flan and Aelryinth have made with their spellcasters. Those abilities take certain spells, certain feats, and in some situations, certain items and levels. That is no different. Now, I don't disagree with anything in particular they said, but it seems inconsistent to pretend that wizards are inherently powerful through no action of the player playing the class, while a fighter *has* to be optimized with a mountain of splat books available. Before I came to these boards, I never even glanced at the Polymorph spells. I don't like the idea of having to transform into something else to fight. I never would have known how strong the spells were if I never visited these boards. It goes without saying that my wizards would have been lackluster compared to the ones found here. Choosing a spell is the same as choosing a feat. The player is making a choice that will impact his character and the way his character contributes. That the wizard has more choices to make and more options to choose from doesn't mean he is free from needing optimization or certain spell/feat combos to be the uber mega powerhouse that he is often portrayed as. In other words, when someone looks at one of my builds and says 'It doesn't matter. Not everyone will build a fighter like that Khan. Your build only shows how strong a fighter *you* make is.' it is the same thing that can be said of any wizard builds or demonstrations of power that are thrown around here. They aren't a given, just like any fighter build or any other build for that matter. Casters = Fighter's Lackeys. Everyone got that!? They shouldn't be ending the fight, they should be directing the fight and keeping the fighter from getting hit hard and often. They should be helping the fighter to make sure the enemy stays near the fighter, so the fighter can show everyone he's not inept. Well, what is it the other way? Melee Guy = Caster's Lackeys. What is the difference? Or, what happens in the lame Cleric, Cleric, Wizard, Druid party? If one is 'ending the fight' as you put it, what are the rest doing? It is entirely unrealistic to me to assume that the casters will end every fight. Now, I'm not saying a caster has to buff the warrior instead of launching his SoD's and making everyone else entirely useless. There's plenty of other things he can do. But, if buffing a fighter is so troublesome to you, is it that hard to believe that the caster defeating everything alone is troublesome to other people? Of course not. Everyone has a different play style, and the same goes for particular groups. And that's really the big difference here. In some groups, the caster will choose every optimal spell and feat possible, and do everything in his power to defeat each encounter alone and with as few resources as possible. In some groups, the druid will use his animal companion as a warrior, and in the future take the place of warrior with his wild shape. In some groups, the cleric will not focus on keeping people alive through healing spells, but rather make his feat and prepared spell choices on the assumption that he will be the primary warrior of the group, or even the rogue in some builds. But those assumption aren't a given, and they certainly don't represent the average representation of that class. Maybe in another group, the wizard likes to be a team player and use battlefield control spells, or he (heaven forbid) likes to blast stuff with evocation spells. And the druid just likes to heal or demonstrate his ties to nature with weather-changing spells. And the cleric wants to heal people, and actually use his Turn Undead attempts for... turning undead. None of those are bad choices, nor do they stop the party from succeeding in combat. They're just different player choices. [/rambling] |
| Bob Loblaw04-20-07, 08:49 PM | A lot of good stuff I was responding to the part about not not needing gear and staying core. You left core and the whole thing changed. And much of waht you said still involved gear. Sorry, but you only supported my point. |
| Bob Loblaw04-20-07, 08:59 PM | The problem is that fighters are the worst at what they are supposed to do. The bonus feats amount to very little later in the game. Trip and grapple fighters are much less able to trip and grapple than a druid past level 12. False. Very, very false. Why must every encounter be with creatures that make this difficult? Why isn't the DM doing his job and putting some things in there so that everyone can have fun. I'll be willing to wager that if there was a Ranger with Favored Enemy: Dragons, the party would encounter some dragons. Barbarians are better at tanking and damage dealing than fighters, and clerics have the same AC, almost as many hit points, and most importantly, good will saves. You can count on a battle cleric or dire bear druid on the front lines much more than you can count on a fighter when the will saves start flying. Barbarians are no better than the fighter. Fighters can deal as much, if not more damage than the barbarian consistently. As for the cleric/druid issue, I'll have to try explaining this differently. If the cleric or druid was not present, can the fighter do his job? If so, then there is no problem with the fighter. How another class fares is 100% irrelevent to how well another class does. Let me ask you a question. If fighters could take 3 domains, cast clerical spells using Strength for bonus spells, and shapechange as per the spell 6 times per day, would you say that they are stepping on the toes of other classes? If you say "no," you are full of it. I got sick of playing the brave knight in shining armor who pees himself and flees when someone casts fear at him or has a fear effect. The weak will saves are a real deal breaker for the class, among other problems. A few things. First, most of the fear effects will only cause a penalty at the upper levels rather than causing you to run. Second, why didn't you boost your saves? Third, why didn't the rest of your party care to boost your saves? DnD is a team effort. If your fighter is up on the front lines making sure that the casters can get their spells off, then they should be doing something to keep you there. If they aren't, then they don't understand what real teamwork is about. |
| Flan04-20-07, 09:12 PM | I am not going to bother to comment the rest, but this one makes me suspect you have not seen or use the errata about Righteous Might. You really should. It got nerfed, but only by a bit. 9 DR instead of 15, 4 str instead of 8, 2 con instead of 4. It still all stacks, it's still better than anything else out there for non-casters. Maybe you'll want to persist the cleric's version of haste instead though. And much of waht you said still involved gear. Sorry, but you only supported my point. Nothing I said involved gear, you misread. I merely compared what a gearless cleric has compared to a gearless non-cleric. For a fairly insignificant amount of spell slots a cleric has the equivalent of 250k of gear all day, every day. I don't know about you, but I'm using magic vestments (core) on my cleric for free +5 armor normally. It even works on clothing. If you're truely going gearless, the cleric can pick up a leaf, lick it, cover his nipples with it, call it clothing, magic vestments and poof, it's a +5 armored nipple covering leaf. Pick up a twig, greater magic weapon, poof +5 twig of vicious eye gouging. |
| ZocckCastlestorm04-20-07, 09:26 PM | See the shapechange thread that nicely got locked. Naked wizard with 1 casting of shapechange core only is basically unkillable and can destroy pretty much anything since they can astral form, greater teleport at will and become a titan. As an example, it's much much worse outside of core. Ummmm. Excuse me, but if the the Wizard is gear-less. How did cast "Shapechange"? It requires a Jade Circlet worth 5,000 GP. Even if you did happen to have it. What makes you think that a Dragon, with thier High INT's will not break/Sunder the Circlet, which the PHB states wold end the spell. Stone items of, say, 1 inch thickness is child's play for a Dragon's STR/Damage to Sunder. Even a Fighter with a Club can do this. And yes, he is NOT starting with a club, but just grab a branch that weighs about 3 lbs, like a club, and voila1 He's armed. Also, of you have no Gear, where is your Spellbook? You cannot have memorized spells if you have no Spellbook, although I freely admit it's a moot point if the Mage is a Sorcerer. Also, where is you Spell Component Pouch? If both the Fighter and Mage were suddenly nude/Gear-less, the fighter needs to grab a tree branch and pull. Instant club. Grabs a good sized rock. Thrown Weapon. Where is your magic if you cannot use components? What about Foci? If you have no Gear, then you have no Diamond Dust for Stoneskin either. I'll just throw the rock at a few rabbits, till it can get a few for both food and furfed loincloth. You remember the "useless Fighter Skills" like Craft(Weaponsmith) to use a stone and a flint from the ground to make a stone mace. and Craft(Leather) so that at least the Fighter will not remain nude for too long. Good luck finding a Spellbook in the woods though... |
| Flan04-20-07, 09:38 PM | Ummmm. Excuse me, but if the the Wizard is gear-less. How did cast "Shapechange"? It requires a Jade Circlet worth 5,000 GP. 1500GP. Wish for it. There are lots of easier ways, but whatever. Even if you did happen to have it. What makes you think that a Dragon, with thier High INT's will not break/Sunder the Circlet, which the PHB states wold end the spell. It does? Actually PHB states the circlet melds with your form, so I'm not sure how it could say it could be sundered. Not that you could even be hit mind you. Also, where is you Spell Component Pouch? You can get that with the Wish too. Or just take Eschew. Good luck finding a Spellbook in the woods though... With the remaining 23495 gold you have left over from the Wish you can walk into town and buy a spell book, along with a good portion of the town, and rescribe. |
| Bob Loblaw04-20-07, 11:46 PM | 1500GP. Wish for it. There are lots of easier ways, but whatever. It does? Actually PHB states the circlet melds with your form, so I'm not sure how it could say it could be sundered. Not that you could even be hit mind you. You can get that with the Wish too. Or just take Eschew. With the remaining 23495 gold you have left over from the Wish you can walk into town and buy a spell book, along with a good portion of the town, and rescribe. And all that is assuming you have Wish on your list and prepared. |
| vagabonvoid04-21-07, 12:18 AM | There are so many variables that can lead to either gearless individual getting stomped. I let my players get together and there and go at it. This was my favorite... ***this part was played out with 10th level characters after an actual adventure during a campaign*** A fighter and a wizard go into a bar after a long day of adventuring. After a cleric heals them they have a couple of drinks and find a couple of beds to sleep... ***And the fight begins*** The next morning they awaken naked in the wilderness. They hear a voice boom from the sky telling them that they must fight to the death or both shall die. While the wizard is pondering how he is going to cast spells since he didn't have time to memorize and prepare spells this morning, the fighter found a suitable heavy rock and prepare to charge and initiate powerattack, heedless charge, and leap attack... Surprise round... WHACK!!! KOed wizard. ***Note: this was treated as a nightmare for the wizard after this bout. From then on his character never got drunk. So please, Don't call this a DM gone bad senario or call me a JA$$; the people who usually do this are those who play wizards and hate it when a wiz gets PWNed.*** |
| Kulthos04-21-07, 12:19 AM | False. Very, very false. Why must every encounter be with creatures that make this difficult? Why isn't the DM doing his job and putting some things in there so that everyone can have fun. I'll be willing to wager that if there was a Ranger with Favored Enemy: Dragons, the party would encounter some dragons. A few things. First, most of the fear effects will only cause a penalty at the upper levels rather than causing you to run. Second, why didn't you boost your saves? Third, why didn't the rest of your party care to boost your saves? DnD is a team effort. If your fighter is up on the front lines making sure that the casters can get their spells off, then they should be doing something to keep you there. If they aren't, then they don't understand what real teamwork is about. So, in The World's Largest Dungeon and Age of Worms, the two last campaigns I have played in, the higher levels are crammed full of large or huge monsters that are essentially untrippable and ungrapplable. Unless you tailor the adventures to the hapless fighter, their feats become useless. A druid can still trip and grapple at high levels, as they can turn into huge monsters with improved grab or improved trip (or swallow whole). Fighters have weak will saves, and will never be as good at resisting spells as a cleric or a druid. A fighter is much more likely to flee or be dominated than a cleric or a druid. A fighter is one of the most cowardly of classes when the spells start to fly, and that is just sad. You are much better off having a cleric or a druid as the front line brawler than a fighter. Casters don't need a fighter to help them get their spells off, BTW. The smart monsters shoot past the fighters. My LG Barbarian/Cleric of Kord never hid behind a fighter in his career, and often had to save them when they got glitterdusted or something similar. To him fighters were high-maintenance useless people who did little to help the party. |
| Bob Loblaw04-21-07, 12:54 AM | So, in The World's Largest Dungeon and Age of Worms, the two last campaigns I have played in, the higher levels are crammed full of large or huge monsters that are essentially untrippable and ungrapplable. Unless you tailor the adventures to the hapless fighter, their feats become useless. A druid can still trip and grapple at high levels, as they can turn into huge monsters with improved grab or improved trip (or swallow whole). You gave two examples. Sorry, but with a near infinite number of monsters available at all elvels of play, you can't claim that all campaigns will end this way. Also, let's be honest, if you put things in an adventure, you have tailored it in some way. It is the DMs responsibility to ensure that everyone is useful in the adventure. For more information, I refer you to Chapters 1 and 3 of your DMG. Fighters have weak will saves, and will never be as good at resisting spells as a cleric or a druid. Correction, fighters will not be better at resisting Will saves. There are two other saves that fighters are either going to be equal or better than the clerics and druids. A fighter is much more likely to flee or be dominated than a cleric or a druid. A fighter is one of the most cowardly of classes when the spells start to fly, and that is just sad. You are much better off having a cleric or a druid as the front line brawler than a fighter. Dominated does not equal feared. The fighters that I play are not afraid of spells. They do what they can to avoid the problems that spells provide. Whether or not the druid or cleric is irrelevant. The fighter can do his job. Just because you have a different style of play than others do does not make your style the only correct one. Casters don't need a fighter to help them get their spells off, BTW. The smart monsters shoot past the fighters. My LG Barbarian/Cleric of Kord never hid behind a fighter in his career, and often had to save them when they got glitterdusted or something similar. To him fighters were high-maintenance useless people who did little to help the party. If the fighter isn't a target, then why do you care about his low Will saves? This is a contradiction. Either the fighter is a threat or he isn't. Also, I never said that the caster needs to hide behind the fighter. I said the casters should be helping the group rather then just themselves. If the fighters in your games are high maintenance, then I would have to say that is an issue with your style of play more than a problem with the fighter. In the games that I run and play in, the fighters have had zero problems. Maybe the people playing fighters in your games need to learn the system better. Maybe the DM needs to actually learn how to write adventures that include all the characters. If someone plays a ranger, should the DM put the ranger's favored enemy in the game? If someone plays a wizard, should the DM have the party attacked every night so they can't prepare their spells? If someone plays an item creator, should the DM provide downtime so the items can be made? Are these catering or tailoring to the party? Are they problems? If not, why can't the DM make adventures that the fighter can do well in? If so, why must the player make characters that become less useful at upper levels? Would you make a fire-specialist if you knew that the campaign was going to be on the Plane of Fire? |
| myusernameis04-21-07, 01:14 AM | I'm in the "game balance varies from game to game" camp here. I have a few questions: If the fighter is so useless why are you just sitting here hashing over it's uselessness? Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the class? What is complaining about it accomplishing? Do you think Wizards is just gonna come onto the forums and say "Oops, we screwed up. Here's a free cookie for putting up with our mistake for so long."? |
| Flan04-21-07, 01:24 AM | So, in The World's Largest Dungeon and Age of Worms, the two last campaigns I have played in, the higher levels are crammed full of large or huge monsters that are essentially untrippable and ungrapplable. Unless you tailor the adventures to the hapless fighter, their feats become useless. A druid can still trip and grapple at high levels, as they can turn into huge monsters with improved grab or improved trip (or swallow whole). How can a druid trip/grapple when a fighter can't? You've lost me there. Also how are the fighter's feats useless? Granted you can make some feats useless like mounted combat in a dungeon, but thats the exception, not the rule, and the same thing can be said about the druid's feats and spells, a druid with a fire spell memorized isn't doing jack with it against a devil, and drown isn't going to work on a dracolich. |
| myusernameis04-21-07, 01:27 AM | How can a druid trip/grapple when a fighter can't? You've lost me there.It's a matter of size differences. Basically a medium sized human fighter can't grapple or trip the huge sized hill giant, however the druid wildshaped into a huge animal or elemental can. |
| Archangel6204-21-07, 08:26 AM | I'm in the "game balance varies from game to game" camp here. I have a few questions: If the fighter is so useless why are you just sitting here hashing over it's uselessness? Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the class? What is complaining about it accomplishing? Do you think Wizards is just gonna come onto the forums and say "Oops, we screwed up. Here's a free cookie for putting up with our mistake for so long."? Some of us have tried, the real problem is trying to work out WHERE the problem is. Khan has shown that if the fighter is heavily optimized it can contribute. But realistically we need to figure out if the problems are internal or external for the fighter. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-21-07, 08:32 AM | Otto, this pretty much goes for everyone. Look at the claims that Flan and Aelryinth have made with their spellcasters. Those abilities take certain spells, certain feats, and in some situations, certain items and levels. That is no different. Ah, but the difference isn't in having or preparing for those specific situations. The difference lies in the fact that for the big three (cleric, druid, wizard), making that choice isn't a set-in-stone situation like it is for the fighter*. Those decisions can be changed tomorrow. * - Except gear, everyone can change their gear, so that is equal footing at least. Now, I don't disagree with anything in particular they said, but it seems inconsistent to pretend that wizards are inherently powerful through no action of the player playing the class, while a fighter *has* to be optimized with a mountain of splat books available. This goes back to two things though: Spells are more powerful and game altering than feats & the big three casters can change their spells quite easily. That is one way that makes them inherently more powerful. In other words, playing the class has that built right in. (And it's not a mountain of splat books. More like 4 or 5, but I understand the exaggeration. :P ) Choosing a spell is the same as choosing a feat. The player is making a choice that will impact his character and the way his character contributes. That the wizard has more choices to make and more options to choose from doesn't mean he is free from needing optimization or certain spell/feat combos to be the uber mega powerhouse that he is often portrayed as. Except that each time a feat is chosen, it's a one-time event. There's no going back on the decision. Well, PHBII says there is now, but only once per level. Choosing a spell, on the other hand, is a once per day event. The cleric/druid/wizard player chooses spells poorly -- not character ending bad, just a less than good choice. The player does this for 3 months every time he games. He starts to learn and starts making choices that are 'less bad'. He now has the option built right into the class to make good choices the very next game day. The fighter/barbarian/monk player chooses feats poorly -- not character ending bad, just a less than good choice. The player does this for 3 months every time he gains the appropriate level. He starts to learn and starts making choices that are 'less bad'. He has no option built right into the class to make good choices the very next game day. In other words, when someone looks at one of my builds and says 'It doesn't matter. Not everyone will build a fighter like that Khan. Your build only shows how strong a fighter *you* make is.' it is the same thing that can be said of any wizard builds or demonstrations of power that are thrown around here. How do your builds show that the fighter has a built in way to rectify poor choices? Well, what is it the other way? Melee Guy = Caster's Lackeys. What is the difference? You know, you're absolutely, unequivocally right. Melee Guy shouldn't be the caster's lackey. The class shouldn't be set up in a way to punish poor choices later on. The system should have perhaps been set up differently. Perhaps he should have been able to change what he does on a more frequent basis (see Tome of Battle & Seerow's Fighter Fix v3.0). Or perhaps the system should have been set up to better reward those feat choices so they have more meaningful contributions as the fighter advances in level (see, not so humbly, my feat changes (http://dsenchuk.googlepages.com/feats%2Cpart2)). Or, what happens in the lame Cleric, Cleric, Wizard, Druid party? If one is 'ending the fight' as you put it, what are the rest doing? Waiting for their turn to end the fight. It is entirely unrealistic to me to assume that the casters will end every fight. Of course, and you'll notice that what I was arguing against in this case was some retarded statement that the casters are doing battlefield control and making sure the fighter survives via buffs. Every character should be trying to end every fight ASAP. The way resource consumption works in D&D, the party is universally better off eliminating the threat quickly, including 200 point leap attack, power attack, shock trooper tricks and one spell = monster loses tricks. Saying that for the first three rounds the caster is doing battlefield control and fighter buffing (on top of a couple long-running buffs) just shows a complete lack of sense. Now, I'm not saying a caster has to buff the warrior instead of launching his SoD's and making everyone else entirely useless. There's plenty of other things he can do. But, if buffing a fighter is so troublesome to you, is it that hard to believe that the caster defeating everything alone is troublesome to other people? It's not troublesome to me that casters can and do do this. In fact, my biggest drawback when I play casters is to typically only take whole-party buffs (haste, bear's heart) or spells that are SoD (dominate person, slay living), leaving the more utility spells (knock, locate object) out. But that's a personal gaming style thing. What troubles me is the assumption was made that the caster should be doing battlefield control and fighter buffing in order to make the fighter able to meet the challenge. Here's the quote, "the casters should be doing what they can to keep [the fighter] from getting hit hard and often" Of course not. Everyone has a different play style, and the same goes for particular groups. And that's really the big difference here. ... But those assumption aren't a given, and they certainly don't represent the average representation of that class. ... So you agree then. It's not a matter of what the caster "should be" doing, because it'll vary no matter what. Since it varies so much -- indeed, there will be as much variance as there are players that play casters -- perhaps it's best to just say that this is a common theme throughout all classes, and ignore it. But doesn't that bring us right back to only looking at what the mechanics provides? [/rambling] Heh! Me too, often enough. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-21-07, 08:33 AM | I'm in the "game balance varies from game to game" camp here. I have a few questions: If the fighter is so useless why are you just sitting here hashing over it's uselessness? Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the class? What is complaining about it accomplishing? Do you think Wizards is just gonna come onto the forums and say "Oops, we screwed up. Here's a free cookie for putting up with our mistake for so long."? Some of us have done exactly that. In fact, some of us had been doing exactly that for months and months before the board fad turned from 'uranium katana argument threads' to 'fighter argument threads.' Alignment threads I won't touch, those have been around forever and always will be! :yuck: |
| Bob Loblaw04-21-07, 09:30 AM | So it's come back to 'The fighter is effective if you have the right books, and are skilled in optmization and pre-planning, and if you follow one of a few formulas that make it effective'? That's only part of it. Honestly, every character sucks if you don't know what you're doing with it. If the core fighter is so bad, and there are plenty of new books that add to his options, why not use them? My PHB is not going to be rewritten. Wait wait wait. Unbelievable to you is the same as occuring 15% of the time? He made it sound like EL 3-4 levels higher than the party is the norm for his game. He also was saying the the PCs should be able to solo that encounter. That is unbelievable. If that's what's happening then there is a problem either with his game or the system itself. WTF is that? You make the claim he was targeted, then use that claim to back up your claim that he's fine? If the fighter is not a threat, why does anyone care that his Will save is low? Would you target someone who doesn't threaten you? These are intelligent opponents he was talking about. If I have two choices of targets, one that can't hurt me and one that can, I'm taking out the one that can hurt me. Since the fighter is a target, he must be a threat. At what level was that? Up until what level do you think this works? All the way through 20 levels. Note that my games involve more humanoids than many people assume a game should have. I don't have the party fight against dragons and demons all the time. I don't think I've used the tarrasque in years. Giants are not common in my world. If the EL is 14-16, and the PCs are 15th level, that isn't a challenging encounter. That's a standard encounter. EL ~15 v. APL 15th. Yes, but I wasn't given any information from the poster I was responding to. His post made is sound like the party was about level 10-12 rather than 14-16. Note he was talking about ELs 3-4 levels higher than the party. Cleric = Walking Band Aid. Everyone got that!? Bad form. I never made that claim. You can't deny the fact that they are meant to be the parter healer to a degree. They are the only class that can spontaneously cast cure spells. They also have more healing options than any other core class. Curing the party is part of their job. As opposed to just ending the battle instead? Sure, they can end the battle in a single round. If this is the case, then why even have anyone else with them? Besides, some of us really enjoy the whole team effort thing rather than the ubercharacter with his groupies. Or UMD, but ok, sure. Not every rogue takes UMD. Every rogue has sneak attack. Casters = Fighter's Lackeys. Everyone got that!? They shouldn't be ending the fight, they should be directing the fight and keeping the fighter from getting hit hard and often. They should be helping the fighter to make sure the enemy stays near the fighter, so the fighter can show everyone he's not inept. I also said that the fighter should be keeping the enemy off the casters. I may not have said it in that post, but I have said it many times in these threads. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-21-07, 10:00 AM | That's only part of it. Honestly, every character sucks if you don't know what you're doing with it. If the core fighter is so bad, and there are plenty of new books that add to his options, why not use them? My PHB is not going to be rewritten. But not every class lacks the ability to become better without resorting to retiring the character. Some can become amazingly better just by changing their choice the next day. He made it sound like EL 3-4 levels higher than the party is the norm for his game. He also was saying the the PCs should be able to solo that encounter. That is unbelievable. If that's what's happening then there is a problem either with his game or the system itself. PCs: Plural; group of Player Characters PC's: Singular Possessive; Player Character's magic duck. All the way through 20 levels. Note that my games involve more humanoids than many people assume a game should have. I don't have the party fight against dragons and demons all the time. I don't think I've used the tarrasque in years. Giants are not common in my world. Ha! And one more just out of charity... Ha! You just said "I don't actually use things that cause problems for X, so X doesn't have problems." All the way through 20 levels, near their level? What does "near" mean? Let's go with 80-90% of their level. At level 5, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with a Displacer Beast, a Polar Bear, a Minotaur, a Zombie Wyvern, a Griffon, and a Gargoyle, and pwning them? At level 10, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with a Stone Giant, a Vrock, an Elder Xorn, a Bodak, a Colossal Centipede, and a Greater Elemental and pwning them? At level 15, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with an Eleven Headed Cryohydra, an Iron Golem, a Displacer Beast Pack Lord, an Adult Green Dragon, and a 13th level Druid and pwning them? Color me skeptical. Bad form. I never made that claim. the game design assumes that the cleric will be healing Curing the party is part of their job. Note the difference between "part of their job" and "the game design assumes that the cleric will be healing" Sure, they can end the battle in a single round. If this is the case, then why even have anyone else with them? Besides, some of us really enjoy the whole team effort thing rather than the ubercharacter with his groupies. Awesome! Perhaps it was bad design that the game was even set up in this fashion in the first place, yes? I also said that the fighter should be keeping the enemy off the casters. I may not have said it in that post, but I have said it many times in these threads. How does the fighter do that in a way that can't be mimicked by other classes that also have more powerful resources? |
| Repeekluos04-21-07, 10:14 AM | The poor Fighter:( (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html#) Off subject, but thoroughly true. |
| Argaud04-21-07, 11:04 AM | The poor Fighter:( (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html#) Off subject, but thoroughly true. That lich is 7-8 levels higher than Roy, and a lich (DR15/not a sword). Off subject too: The poor wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0440.html#) |
| Bob Loblaw04-21-07, 11:09 AM | But not every class lacks the ability to become better without resorting to retiring the character. Some can become amazingly better just by changing their choice the next day. Don't assume that I am trying to take away the caster's thunder. I know how powerful they are. PCs: Plural; group of Player Characters PC's: Singular Possessive; Player Character's magic duck. Go read what he said. It is very clear that he meant solo. He said they could handle an appropriate EL of 3-4 levels higher on their own. He meant solo. Ha! And one more just out of charity... Ha! You just said "I don't actually use things that cause problems for X, so X doesn't have problems." Go back and reread it. I said I don't use them often. I made no claim that I never use them. Are you trying to say that my games aren't valid? Sorry, but just because my games happen to be a prefered game style does not negate them. Just for the record, I've been running games like this for nearly 30 years now. Before 3rd edition. My players and I enjoy this style of play. It is no less valid than any other. All the way through 20 levels, near their level? What does "near" mean? Let's go with 80-90% of their level. What do you think it means? At level 5, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with a Displacer Beast, a Polar Bear, a Minotaur, a Zombie Wyvern, a Griffon, and a Gargoyle, and pwning them? Yeah that's what I meant. Of course it is. I put nonsensical encounters together too. The fighter is rarely alone. I tend to run a party of 4-6 players at a time. When this happens, then combat options open up that were not available before. At level 10, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with a Stone Giant, a Vrock, an Elder Xorn, a Bodak, a Colossal Centipede, and a Greater Elemental and pwning them? Yup, more nonsensical encounters that I create. Did you know that I also give fighters maximum hit points and iterative attacks at twice the rate of the other classes? At level 15, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with an Eleven Headed Cryohydra, an Iron Golem, a Displacer Beast Pack Lord, an Adult Green Dragon, and a 13th level Druid and pwning them? Yup, that's what I said. I also said that I only use creatures that are size Large or bigger too. I like to put creatures with such a wide variety of defenses up agains the party to see how they can handle things. Let's be honest, you know full well that I said no such thing. You have ignored what I said and twisted the rest to make your argument sound valid. You know full well what I said and meant. Color me skeptical. Or I could just say that you are intentionally ignoring what I say and twisting things to support your claim. Why is it so hard to believe that not every game is run your way? Why can't people get it out of their thick skulls that even RAW games will have an incredible amount of variety between them? Note the difference between "part of their job" and "the game design assumes that the cleric will be healing" So you deny that the designers assume the cleric will be healing? So, according to Skip Williams (one of the designers) in his article on Clerics with Class: Spontaneous Spells: A cleric with a good alignment can spontaneously convert any spell he has prepared into a cure spell. This ability allows him to load up on flashier spells and then convert them to healing as his party needs it. Likewise, a cleric with an evil alignment can spontaneously convert any spell he has prepared into an inflict spell, so he always has a nasty surprise in store for his foes. and under Your Friends are Your Best Weapons: The Party's Main Fighter: Whoever has to stand in the front line and handle most of the fighting will look to you for healing and other kinds of cures from time to time. If you're stingy with your healing spells, the adventure could be over more quickly than you think. A single cure light wounds or cure moderate wounds spell can keep a fighting character going, ultimately dealing more damage to the enemy than any of your other spells can. So yeah, I do believe that it was designed this way. Awesome! Perhaps it was bad design that the game was even set up in this fashion in the first place, yes? I do believe it is bad game design when a single class can completely eliminate the need for an entire group of classes. With the cleric or druid, there is little need for barbarian, fighter, paladin, monk, ranger, or rogue. The wizard becomes an alright addition, but isn't really needed anymore either. This is bad game design. How does the fighter do that in a way that can't be mimicked by other classes that also have more powerful resources? I don't care at all about what another class can do. Mimicking what the fighter can do only shows that the fighter isn't useless. It must be useful otherwise you wouldn't want to mimic the class. Many of the "problems" with fighters that other see in their games have a lot to do with group dynamics and setting. The games I am in, the players work together so everyone can have fun. If that means slapping Enlarge Person on the fighter so that he can get some reach and extra damage, then so be it. Every action that the enemy keeps on the fighter is an action that isn't being used on the mage. |
| Clawhound04-21-07, 11:10 AM | All the way through 20 levels, near their level? What does "near" mean? Let's go with 80-90% of their level. At level 5, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with a Displacer Beast, a Polar Bear, a Minotaur, a Zombie Wyvern, a Griffon, and a Gargoyle, and pwning them? At level 10, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with a Stone Giant, a Vrock, an Elder Xorn, a Bodak, a Colossal Centipede, and a Greater Elemental and pwning them? At level 15, that fighter, according to your claim, is jumping into the middle of a fight with an Eleven Headed Cryohydra, an Iron Golem, a Displacer Beast Pack Lord, an Adult Green Dragon, and a 13th level Druid and pwning them? Color me skeptical. I interpret what he said differently. He said nothing about fighters p0wning these encounters. He merely indicated that the fighter performed well enough to solidly contribute in level appropriate encounters, along with his fellow party members. |
| Flan04-21-07, 11:12 AM | It's a matter of size differences. Basically a medium sized human fighter can't grapple or trip the huge sized hill giant, however the druid wildshaped into a huge animal or elemental can. Theres no rule for size stopping someone from being able to trip. The fighter can perfectly well trip something of any size. Also it costs < 10k for a permanent enlarge person and about that for items with 3/day reduce person, by the time a druid is shapechanging into huge creatures the fighter is large sized and has items to help with melee. |
| Bob Loblaw04-21-07, 11:54 AM | I interpret what he said differently. He said nothing about fighters p0wning these encounters. He merely indicated that the fighter performed well enough to solidly contribute in level appropriate encounters, along with his fellow party members. Thank you. I need this. It's nice to know that what I wrote was easy to understand. |
| myusernameis04-21-07, 03:13 PM | Some of us have done exactly that. In fact, some of us had been doing exactly that for months and months before the board fad turned from 'uranium katana argument threads' to 'fighter argument threads.' Alignment threads I won't touch, those have been around forever and always will be! :yuck:I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the Katana threads. Anyhow, I gotta say your idea for scaling feats is pretty awesome. It's a neat idea but it still fails to adress what I think is the main fighter weakness: mobility. A fighter can do alot of damage if he gets the opportunity to do a full attack, thing is at high levels he's rarely going to get that chance. Afterall, what is the level 20 fighter going to do against the cr 20 balor who can use greater teleport at will? Of course, that's my oppinion and again it varies from game to game. I use a large number of humanoid foes with character levels instead of monsters (I feel the best BBEGs are evil in the way only humanoids can be and I feel overusing monsters makes them trivial) so it isn't quite as big a problem. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-21-07, 03:22 PM | Let's be honest, you know full well that I said no such thing. You have ignored what I said and twisted the rest to make your argument sound valid. You know full well what I said and meant. Sure I know what you said.:smirk: I watched a fighter leap into combat against 6 opponents of nearly equal level, take one down in round one. On round two, he had half the remaining nearly dead and the rest leaving his threatened area. Perhaps the "pwning them" part was a bit of injected interpretation, but when a character is facing 6 monsters in the fashion I listed, kills two in two rounds and "has the rest leaving his threatened area", I call that owning them. Are you trying to say that my games aren't valid? Sorry, but just because my games happen to be a prefered game style does not negate them. Just for the record, I've been running games like this for nearly 30 years now. Before 3rd edition. My players and I enjoy this style of play. It is no less valid than any other. 30 years, 20 years, why does that matter? Both are before 3rd edition. And I'm not saying that your games aren't valid. I'm saying that it's questionable that tactics used in your games, where a fighter takes on 6 creatures of a CR near his level, like the ones I listed, can even begin to be taken seriously. Or I could just say that you are intentionally ignoring what I say and twisting things to support your claim. Or I'm using a claim you made to show how retarded that claim is. Why is it so hard to believe that not every game is run your way? How is my game run? Why can't people get it out of their thick skulls that even RAW games will have an incredible amount of variety between them? Didn't I already say this, when responding to Khan? The Party's Main Fighter: Whoever has to stand in the front line and handle most of the fighting will look to you for healing and other kinds of cures from time to time. If you're stingy with your healing spells, the adventure could be over more quickly than you think. A single cure light wounds or cure moderate wounds spell can keep a fighting character going, ultimately dealing more damage to the enemy than any of your other spells can. So yeah, I do believe that it was designed this way. More bad design. If "The Party's Main Fighter" is instead a Fighter / Cleric / Hospitaller or a Fighter / Cleric / Fist of Raziel, it puts to question this idea that "the party's main fighter" will be looking to you, the cleric, for healing. Even with a measly 8 levels of casting, that's likely enough to be a self-sufficient healer, instead of looking to the cleric for that. The cost? 4 feats, two of which you may be able to replace with Domain granted feats. I do believe it is bad game design when a single class can completely eliminate the need for an entire group of classes. With the cleric or druid, there is little need for barbarian, fighter, paladin, monk, ranger, or rogue. The wizard becomes an alright addition, but isn't really needed anymore either. This is bad game design. Absolutely. This is something I've said time and again, and I see you agree with it. (Not that I'm the first or only to say it, I just happen to agree with this sentiment.) I don't care at all about what another class can do. Mimicking what the fighter can do only shows that the fighter isn't useless. It must be useful otherwise you wouldn't want to mimic the class. holy crap. Mimicking what the fighter can do doesn't show that the fighter is useless. Mimicking what the fighter can do and still having caster powah shows that. Many of the "problems" with fighters that other see in their games have a lot to do with group dynamics and setting. The games I am in, the players work together so everyone can have fun. If that means slapping Enlarge Person on the fighter so that he can get some reach and extra damage, then so be it. Every action that the enemy keeps on the fighter is an action that isn't being used on the mage. Conversely, every action the caster uses to buff the fighter or control the battlefield, is an action he didn't use to get rid of the threat outright. That's why Dispelling the cleric is such an ass tactic. Sure, the enemy might axe the righteous might on the cleric, but the response is to outright slay the dispelling caster. That's the same reasoning why dispelling the fighter's sword or armor is such an ass tactic. |
| Argaud04-21-07, 03:23 PM | I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the Katana threads. Anyhow, I gotta say your idea for scaling feats is pretty awesome. It's a neat idea but it still fails to adress what I think is the main fighter weakness: mobility. A fighter can do alot of damage if he gets the opportunity to do a full attack, thing is at high levels he's rarely going to get that chance. Afterall, what is the level 20 fighter going to do against the cr 20 balor who can use greater teleport at will? Of course, that's my oppinion and again it varies from game to game. I use a large number of humanoid foes with character levels instead of monsters (I feel the best BBEGs are evil in the way only humanoids can be and I feel overusing monsters makes them trivial) so it isn't quite as big a problem. He can force the balor to teleport every round to avoid him, basically rendering the balor with no actions to attack. Teleport is an standard action. Even if the balor manages to put himself in a position the figher needs two rounds to threaten him again, he is still losing half his attacks. Fact is you can't say the fighter is ineffective and at the same time that the balor can avoid him by teleporting, since if the balor is teleporting, he is not attacking, and therefore the fighter is being very useful to the party. Of course the balor might decide the fighter is so ineffective that he does not need avoid him, but we have already seen what happens to the balor then. |
| myusernameis04-21-07, 03:41 PM | The lack of a range limit on greater teleport means that the balor can teleport far enough away to keep the fighter out of melee for a few rounds and hammer him with spell like abilities while he tries to use his limited mobility to catch up with the Balor. This is of course assuming the Balor hasn't just teleported somewhere inaccessable to the fighter. |
| Argaud04-21-07, 03:49 PM | The lack of a range limit on greater teleport means that the balor can teleport far enough away to keep the fighter out of melee for a few rounds and hammer him with spell like abilities while he tries to use his limited mobility to catch up with the Balor. This is of course assuming the Balor hasn't just teleported somewhere inaccessable to the fighter. 1) What limited mobility? There are many ways to teleport/DDoor at level 20. And the fighter will be flying hasted anyway (again, for a minimal investment of his wealth). 2) Most of the fights aren't going to happen in a place the balor has hundreds of yards to maneuver, anyway. 3) Casting spells at the fighter means the fighter is a serious threat, which it is, again, a win for the party: While the balor concentrates in avoiding and casting on the fighter the cleric and the wizard bombard him with deadly spells and the rogue sneaks to the perfect position for a killer attack. |
| Bob Loblaw04-21-07, 04:53 PM | Perhaps the "pwning them" part was a bit of injected interpretation, but when a character is facing 6 monsters in the fashion I listed, kills two in two rounds and "has the rest leaving his threatened area", I call that owning them. But you changed what I said the encounters are like. You can't honestly say that you picked those creatures randomly from a list of monsters. You hand selected them to prove a point completely ignoring what I said. 30 years, 20 years, why does that matter? Both are before 3rd edition. It matters because it's before 3rd edition. The actual amount of time doesn't matter near as much. When the fighters were considered one of the best classes, I ran my adventures this way. I do not create adventures just to make the fighter shine, as you were accusing me of. And I'm not saying that your games aren't valid. I'm saying that it's questionable that tactics used in your games, where a fighter takes on 6 creatures of a CR near his level, like the ones I listed, can even begin to be taken seriously. You know that I did not say that the fighter can handle those particular creatures. In fact, I didn't say which ones at all. I did say that I use more humanoids. I like to add templates and class levels. It's part of the fun for me. The fighters in the games I run can deal a considerable amount of damage in a round or two. I play my creatures as if they want to live. The enemy rarely wants to fight to the death. Or I'm using a claim you made to show how retarded that claim is. You are deliberately ignoring what is said and changing things to suit your position. You even admitted it yourself. How is my game run? Differently than mine. That's all I am saying. No two DMs will do things the same way. Once that is realized, people will be able to admit that some classes do better than others based on campaign, player, and DM styles. All of this can remain RAW without changing the discussion at all. Didn't I already say this, when responding to Khan? I think that too often, when looking at RAW, entire sections of the rulebooks are ignored. The DMG is RAW and specifically goes into detail on how to make the game interesting for everyone. Why do you have a problem with the fighter and not ranger? The ranger is much more dependant upon DM fiat than any other class. Yet it is often considered a better class. If "The Party's Main Fighter" is instead a Fighter / Cleric / Hospitaller or a Fighter / Cleric / Fist of Raziel, it puts to question this idea that "the party's main fighter" will be looking to you, the cleric, for healing. Even with a measly 8 levels of casting, that's likely enough to be a self-sufficient healer, instead of looking to the cleric for that. The cost? 4 feats, two of which you may be able to replace with Domain granted feats. I am speaking fighter class only. Multiclassing changes the entire discussion. Back to my original question: Do you agree that the cleric is meant to be the healer in a standard party of four (fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue)? This is the ideal party the game is built upon. Absolutely. This is something I've said time and again, and I see you agree with it. (Not that I'm the first or only to say it, I just happen to agree with this sentiment.) Oh yeah I agree completely. I would like to see the druid and cleric toned down a lot. Fortunately my group really hates playing clerics and druids so we don't have to worry about any houserules or interpretations to make them more balanced. holy crap. Mimicking what the fighter can do doesn't show that the fighter is useless. Mimicking what the fighter can do and still having caster powah shows that. I didn't say that the ability to mimic the fighter shows that he is useful. I said the fact that everyone wants to be him and has to go out of their way to do it shows that he is useful. If he wasn't useful, then why would there be endless ways to show how others should do the same job? Obviously he must be useful. This doesn't mean that another can't do it better. I just don't think that anyone should be able to. Conversely, every action the caster uses to buff the fighter or control the battlefield, is an action he didn't use to get rid of the threat outright. If the casters are able to continously end the battle with the casting of a single spell or two spells, then the DM has dropped the ball and needs to find ways to provide challenges. |
| Leo04-21-07, 05:09 PM | Honestly, the DMG itself says that if a party member is geting too strong the DM can and SHOULD make something about it, even if it means hosing the guy. That is why the Dm is there. To help keep the game balanced and fun everyone. One of the main examples is that if the party happens to find lots of good stuff too early thanks to dice luck in treasure the Dm should adapt the campaign to it. Otherwise, it may become something like this: "DM:Okay, roll initiative Wizard:Alright! I go first! This spell that allows me to win initiative is the pnrz! Quickened maximized cheesed finger of gating polymorph!(wipes out enemy forces)! Druid.ENOUGH! I'm sick of this! It's been 3 months of REAL time and I haven't got to make a single attack!" Cleric:Yeah, me too! Wizard:Hey, nobody told you to choose to week classes that can't change the universe at their desires! Druid and cleric:Okay, this is too much, DIE! WIzard slaugthers cleric and druid. WIzard:ok, can I continue the aventure alone? DM:Sure. After all, Im just a mindless drone to roll dice acording to the table and never make anything out of my own will. The DM is there to keep the challenge to the players, and honestly, where is the challenge if the casters kill anything in the first round of battle? |
| Benorf04-21-07, 07:17 PM | God knows there is no way that I'm going to read all of these replies, most likely there is someone that has said the exact thing I'm about to say. Fighters are good. There is no reason NOT to play one, the fact is that they get many feats, have high hit points, and can deal damage. A fighter may not be able to do ridiculous amounts of damage in one round, but if there happens to be an ancient wyrm red dragon sitting next to you, who is most likely to be ganked in one round, the fighter, or the caster with 1/5th the hp of the fighter and half the ac? |
| Zilvar04-21-07, 07:31 PM | I don't care at all about what another class can do. Mimicking what the fighter can do only shows that the fighter isn't useless. It must be useful otherwise you wouldn't want to mimic the class.I would differ here slightly. It isn't that CoDZilla is trying to mimic the fighter, it's that he's choosing to fill the role of the party tank/melee uberness. It may be that in order to do so, said class might appropriate certain class abilities that are shared by a fighter (such as getting a full BAB via a spell), but I argue that's not the same thing as mimicing a fighter. Today there are too many base classes (and prestige classes) to assume that a 'fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue' combination is the ideal against which games, encounters, and campaigns should be balanced. I think discussions about group composition should properly be based around the roles that are filled by a given character, with an ideal party having 'tank/heal-capable/blaster/skills and funkiness'. |
| Archangel6204-21-07, 07:47 PM | God knows there is no way that I'm going to read all of these replies, most likely there is someone that has said the exact thing I'm about to say. Fighters are good. There is no reason NOT to play one, the fact is that they get many feats, have high hit points, and can deal damage. A fighter may not be able to do ridiculous amounts of damage in one round, but if there happens to be an ancient wyrm red dragon sitting next to you, who is most likely to be ganked in one round, the fighter, or the caster with 1/5th the hp of the fighter and half the ac? Your comment makes it fairly obvious you haven't read the responses or you would realize that you are wrong. |
| Bob Loblaw04-21-07, 07:57 PM | Today there are too many base classes (and prestige classes) to assume that a 'fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue' combination is the ideal against which games, encounters, and campaigns should be balanced. I think discussions about group composition should properly be based around the roles that are filled by a given character, with an ideal party having 'tank/heal-capable/blaster/skills and funkiness'. I agree with this statement overall. The only reason I stick with the fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue is because the argument goes to core as soon as the fighter has a chance of being worthwhile. So I stick to core when I talk about the design. Personally, I don't think there is any way to make things perfectly balanced with the literally millions of options available. There are 11 class combinations and 7 classes just in the PHB. Add in prestige classes, more base classes, more races, paragon classes, and the number gets astronomically huge. Then it's time to customize with feats, substitution levels, skills, spells, and gear. Perfect balance is gone (and may not have really been there in the first place). |
| Nephlite04-21-07, 08:39 PM | God knows there is no way that I'm going to read all of these replies, most likely there is someone that has said the exact thing I'm about to say. Fighters are good. There is no reason NOT to play one, the fact is that they get many feats, have high hit points, and can deal damage. A fighter may not be able to do ridiculous amounts of damage in one round, but if there happens to be an ancient wyrm red dragon sitting next to you, who is most likely to be ganked in one round, the fighter, or the caster with 1/5th the hp of the fighter and half the ac? The caster who can't be hit due to miss chance, Mirror Image, or high AC through spells. Why do you assume AC is less than Fighter? It is plain easier for him to reach same AC: Greater Mage armor= +6 alone, Mithral buckler is (cheap cost at 1000 gp)=17 + dex And that is without magic items to AC (less than full Plate). Trust me, the AC of a Wizard is at least the same as a Fighter if done right. |
| LordRoberts04-21-07, 09:02 PM | Yes other classes have special abilities, that a fight doesn't have. Yes Wizards and other blaster classes can do alot of damage in one round. Othere classes do not (I repeat DO NOT!) have the ability to feat combo the othere classes has!. Take a my Favorit weapon the spike chain or for that mater a bastard sword. A swashbucler get weapon finess, and othere abilities make it a nasty chainslinger. But, The shashbuckler will not gain the dodge/mobility/spring attack or the combat expeties/impove trip/improve disarm comboes until 6th lvl or higher. And If you don't take human as a race, You won't get combat reflexes till 3rd (A must feat for any chainslinger) Or take the ever popular bastard sword. Yes, A good weapon for a Pallidin or Barbarian. But A fighter can Have weapon focus/improve iniative/power attack, at third lvl, while the bArb or palidin has on ly power attack. Giving the Fighter an Nice advantage in a one-one fight. I smart player playing a fighter can make even more advatages than that. Fighter isn't the worse class in the game He is the most flexable and verried. Oh thoes in love with spell casters who can make one round kills. Do not forget that the DM can be devious deings. They controll the reality that you characteres are in. A smart DM could send in a Monster that you cast distoyes in the first round. Then explaines that that was an illusion. The real one is behind the caster. Remember. once a spell is cast it is gone for the day. Yes Sorcerer can cast the same spell more often but, There is always a Mastermind villian, who knows you favorit spells, and can make his minion immune to them. A evil wizard can rain distuction down from his evil tower killing a fighter before said fighter can ever get close to the wizard. A smart fighter has to think of a way to get to the wizard before he can cast a spell. or get somesort of spell immunity. Remember dumn player get there character killed. Smart character think of way to keep his character alive. It is really a mater of how a character thinks and what type of character he likes to play. Remember it is just a game. We just want to have fun. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-21-07, 09:13 PM | Ah, but the difference isn't in having or preparing for those specific situations. The difference lies in the fact that for the big three (cleric, druid, wizard), making that choice isn't a set-in-stone situation like it is for the fighter*. Those decisions can be changed tomorrow. Well yes. But it still comes down to a player choice. And always will. This goes back to two things though: Spells are more powerful and game altering than feats & the big three casters can change their spells quite easily. That is one way that makes them inherently more powerful. In other words, playing the class has that built right in. They have the potential for more power. But if you play one of the big three and choose not to realize that potential, what does it matter? Except that each time a feat is chosen, it's a one-time event. There's no going back on the decision. Well, PHBII says there is now, but only once per level. Choosing a spell, on the other hand, is a once per day event. True. But I think this is a different issue than whether or not a fighter is strong enough to see play. The fighter is unforgiving. Ok. But that doesn't mean much for a well-built fighter. The cleric/druid/wizard player chooses spells poorly -- not character ending bad, just a less than good choice. The player does this for 3 months every time he games. He starts to learn and starts making choices that are 'less bad'. He now has the option built right into the class to make good choices the very next game day. Agreed, but I still think a different issue. The player can choose to make changes. But he doesn't have to. He doesn't need to choose Grease, Polymorph, Scorching Ray, Gate, Teleport, etc. In other words, he doesn't need to be the uber one-man party. So, while the casters may make being stronger easy, it doesn't mean they *will* be stronger. They still need to choose certain spells, feats, items, etc. to achieve Status: Boring in the game. It's the same reason we discussed *only* the riding dog in the other thread about animal companions. I didn't see anyone saying 'Yeah, the druid's owl companion at level 1 totally pwnzrs a fighter' or 'I don't see why you need a fighter when a druid's small viper can just tank instead'. Heck, I even mentioned the wolf and got corrected to riding dog. Obviously, they wouldn't be optimal choices. And yet, no one cried foul about 'specific' builds needed to accomplish this druid tankery at level 1. Considering he needs a particular animal companion, particular gear (barding), and particular spells (to buff animal), I fail to see how it isn't a specific build. Either builds are kosher, or they aren't. The fighter/barbarian/monk player chooses feats poorly -- not character ending bad, just a less than good choice. The player does this for 3 months every time he gains the appropriate level. He starts to learn and starts making choices that are 'less bad'. He has no option built right into the class to make good choices the very next game day. A problem with the class? Yes. A reason that the fighter is not strong or cannot function as a tank? No. How do your builds show that the fighter has a built in way to rectify poor choices? They don't, and weren't intended to. It is a different issue than 'Fighters suck, they are worthless and can't do what they are supposed to yadda yadda yadda....' I agree that fighters do not have a built-in mechanic to rectify poor choices. Except wealth I suppose. You could pay an NPC psion to manifest Psychic Reformation on you. But the point still stands, no built-in method to do it alone. You know, you're absolutely, unequivocally right. Melee Guy shouldn't be the caster's lackey. On the same token, casters shouldn't impact the game so much. Waiting for their turn to end the fight. Well, I suppose that goes for anyone then as well. If the uber-caster doesn't do it on his turn, then the fighter can possibly full attack, or charge, or whatever. The rogue can then sneak attack or UMD. The cleric can attack through weapon or spell, or heal if needed. Any of those actions can end a fight as well. And, one can argue that the example I present is even more entertaining than a caster casting a save-or-die fight after fight after fight. Of course, and you'll notice that what I was arguing against in this case was some retarded statement that the casters are doing battlefield control and making sure the fighter survives via buffs. Every character should be trying to end every fight ASAP. The way resource consumption works in D&D, the party is universally better off eliminating the threat quickly, including 200 point leap attack, power attack, shock trooper tricks and one spell = monster loses tricks. Saying that for the first three rounds the caster is doing battlefield control and fighter buffing (on top of a couple long-running buffs) just shows a complete lack of sense. I understand and agree (partially) with you. However, that seems like a style of play. Some groups may not worry so much about resource consumption. They may just like using their abilities because they're cool abilities. As I've said before, if you (in the general sense) are worried about efficiency and resources consumption, I understand why you might choose a druid over a fighter. But, who really worries about that? I'm not sure. I know over on the Psionics board we get plenty of people telling us that they never have more than 1-2 fights in a day. In that instance, resource consumption may be less of an issue. It's not troublesome to me that casters can and do do this. In fact, my biggest drawback when I play casters is to typically only take whole-party buffs (haste, bear's heart) or spells that are SoD (dominate person, slay living), leaving the more utility spells (knock, locate object) out. But that's a personal gaming style thing. What troubles me is the assumption was made that the caster should be doing battlefield control and fighter buffing in order to make the fighter able to meet the challenge. Here's the quote, "the casters should be doing what they can to keep [the fighter] from getting hit hard and often" Understood. So you agree then. It's not a matter of what the caster "should be" doing, because it'll vary no matter what. Since it varies so much -- indeed, there will be as much variance as there are players that play casters -- perhaps it's best to just say that this is a common theme throughout all classes, and ignore it. But doesn't that bring us right back to only looking at what the mechanics provides? Well, this seems impossible without making a build (at least, in the case of the fighter). And if builds are to be replied to with 'well, that's a specific instance' then pretty much nothing can be concluded. The poor Fighter Off subject, but thoroughly true. Well... it is true that the fighter at that level has access to items that allow him to fly, and that it would be as a sound a tactic to purchase one as it is for that lich to cast the spell in the morning. It is also true that he has enough hit points to survive a meteor swarm. And that an arrow of disintegration will buy the fighter enough time to ask the caster to discern the location of the formerly-known-as-lich-but-currently-a-pile-of-dust's phylactery. That is why the Dm is there. To help keep the game balanced and fun everyone. One of the main examples is that if the party happens to find lots of good stuff too early thanks to dice luck in treasure the Dm should adapt the campaign to it. Otherwise, it may become something like this: "DM:Okay, roll initiative Wizard:Alright! I go first! This spell that allows me to win initiative is the pnrz! Quickened maximized cheesed finger of gating polymorph!(wipes out enemy forces)! Druid.ENOUGH! I'm sick of this! It's been 3 months of REAL time and I haven't got to make a single attack!" Cleric:Yeah, me too! Wizard:Hey, nobody told you to choose to week classes that can't change the universe at their desires! Druid and cleric:Okay, this is too much, DIE! WIzard slaugthers cleric and druid. WIzard:ok, can I continue the aventure alone? DM:Sure. After all, Im just a mindless drone to roll dice acording to the table and never make anything out of my own will. The DM is there to keep the challenge to the players, and honestly, where is the challenge if the casters kill anything in the first round of battle? Well, that is apparently how some people play. Which is fine. But to base your analysis of a class on one style of play is to draw an incomplete conclusion. At the most, you can say 'In a game where the casters choose the most optimal spells, and actively work to cover the most roles as possible, a fighter is made obsolete by their use of spells and feats.' EDIT: Otto, I like your feat changes a lot. Some of them are similar to some of the feat changes I had in mind. Well done :). Have you been able to use most of your homebrew stuff in your games? |
| Archangel6204-21-07, 10:03 PM | Yes other classes have special abilities, that a fight doesn't have. Yes Wizards and other blaster classes can do alot of damage in one round. Ok, you've already shown that you don't know much about casters since you see them as blasters. Othere classes do not (I repeat DO NOT!) have the ability to feat combo the othere classes has!. Take a my Favorit weapon the spike chain or for that mater a bastard sword. A swashbucler get weapon finess, and othere abilities make it a nasty chainslinger. But, The shashbuckler will not gain the dodge/mobility/spring attack or the combat expeties/impove trip/improve disarm comboes until 6th lvl or higher. And If you don't take human as a race, You won't get combat reflexes till 3rd (A must feat for any chainslinger) Feat chains aren't usually worthwhile unless you have the full integration (chaingun tripper or Jack-be-quick) and in most cases they are very specific. Smaller feat chains can be taken just as easily by other martial classes or non-martial and they usually get more mileage out of it. The average monsters at mid to high levels are getting on the huge and larger size. Their strength score is higher, they also have dozens of innate abilities, in short the fighter can't do a damn thing unless the group is buffing him out the wazoo and all his gear is focused to this rig of his. Or take the ever popular bastard sword. Yes, A good weapon for a Pallidin or Barbarian. But A fighter can Have weapon focus/improve iniative/power attack, at third lvl, while the bArb or palidin has on ly power attack. Giving the Fighter an Nice advantage in a one-one fight. I smart player playing a fighter can make even more advatages than that. Fighter isn't the worse class in the game He is the most flexable and verried. Wow...you really don't know optimization do you. Bastard sword is a fairly crappy weapon since a greatsword or greataxe does better damage as a 2hander and using it one handed isn't worth the feat because the comparative tradeoff is a waste. The paladin is a fairly poor martial class as well, decent tank but not much better. No matter how intelligently a fighter is played they cannot bring the number of options or abilities to the table that your standard caster can if played equally well. Oh thoes in love with spell casters who can make one round kills. Do not forget that the DM can be devious deings. They controll the reality that you characteres are in. A smart DM could send in a Monster that you cast distoyes in the first round. Then explaines that that was an illusion. The real one is behind the caster. Remember. once a spell is cast it is gone for the day. Yes Sorcerer can cast the same spell more often but, There is always a Mastermind villian, who knows you favorit spells, and can make his minion immune to them. Yes, and the DM can also make monsters that can't be hurt by the fighters weapon of choice or just have foes that are immune to their abilities by dint of size, locomotion, DR, etc...oh wait random encounters can do that. Yes, if a DM decides to intervene directly to make a class suck then it will suck, and yes a smart villian will study their foes but in order to immunize their followers they need to be casters too and barring massive DM fiat they'll use up most of their spells to pump up their minions which gives them precious little in the main fight. A evil wizard can rain distuction down from his evil tower killing a fighter before said fighter can ever get close to the wizard. A smart fighter has to think of a way to get to the wizard before he can cast a spell. or get somesort of spell immunity. Yes, and a smart wizard can outthink the fighter. Total spell immunity, so no magic whatsoever, fine I just summon/gate/bind a few friends and they can go to town on you. Remember dumn player get there character killed. Smart character think of way to keep his character alive. It is really a mater of how a character thinks and what type of character he likes to play. Remember it is just a game. We just want to have fun. Yes, but your arguments give nothing mechanically, essentially you're saying that things work because you say so, not exactly great oratory there. And frankly having almost any other class outdo you at your role isn't really very fun. |
| Otto the Bugbear04-22-07, 12:38 AM | But you changed what I said the encounters are like. You can't honestly say that you picked those creatures randomly from a list of monsters. You hand selected them to prove a point completely ignoring what I said. Completely randomly. I didn't select them specifically to prove a point. I selected 6 at CR 80-90% of the stated level, since 6 is what you stated, and I figured 80-90% was "near the same level" It matters because it's before 3rd edition. The actual amount of time doesn't matter near as much. When the fighters were considered one of the best classes, I ran my adventures this way. I do not create adventures just to make the fighter shine, as you were accusing me of. I never said that. Others have. I said that your adventures aren't using an even spread of possible encounters. You know that I did not say that the fighter can handle those particular creatures. In fact, I didn't say which ones at all. You said they handle six of near equal level. I randomly provided 6 of near equal level. After gathering those six, I was actually amazed that you could claim the fighter was killing one on round 1, one on round 2, and the rest were leaving his threatened area. You are deliberately ignoring what is said and changing things to suit your position. You even admitted it yourself. Where was that? When I added "owning them"? I already explained why I called that "owning them". Why do you have a problem with the fighter and not ranger? The ranger is much more dependant upon DM fiat than any other class. Yet it is often considered a better class. I do have a problem with the ranger. But then I went and made it a true half caster (advancing druid casting at every even level), along with a few other minor changes, and now I'm satisfied with it. Honestly, the ranger has nearly the problems a fighter has, but makes up for it a little with a few tasty spells and a really great skill suite. Oh yeah I agree completely. I would like to see the druid and cleric toned down a lot. Well, minor correction: druid toned down, cleric spells toned down. Looking at the cleric sans spells, it doesn't really have much to tone down. Fortunately my group really hates playing clerics and druids so we don't have to worry about any houserules or interpretations to make them more balanced. :uh-huh: I didn't say that the ability to mimic the fighter shows that he is useful. I said the fact that everyone wants to be him and has to go out of their way to do it shows that he is useful. If he wasn't useful, then why would there be endless ways to show how others should do the same job? Obviously he must be useful. This doesn't mean that another can't do it better. I just don't think that anyone should be able to. I understand what you said, and I was trying to explain that that's not what's being claimed. People aren't going out of their way to mimic the fighter because he's so great. They mimic the fighter to provide a fighting man, WHILE STILL HAVING FULL CASTING. And honestly, they don't really need to go out of their way to mimic the fighting man while still having full casting. -=-=-=-= Well yes. But it still comes down to a player choice. And always will. They have the potential for more power. But if you play one of the big three and choose not to realize that potential, what does it matter? In actual play, it doesn't. But then I'm talking about this crap viewing it from a mechanical microscope. True. But I think this is a different issue than whether or not a fighter is strong enough to see play. The fighter is unforgiving. Ok. But that doesn't mean much for a well-built fighter. That's the rub. Well-built isn't a built in design in that class (and others, but I've stated that enough times that I shouldn't have to repeat it over and over). Agreed, but I still think a different issue. The player can choose to make changes. But he doesn't have to. He doesn't need to choose Grease, Polymorph, Scorching Ray, Gate, Teleport, etc. In other words, he doesn't need to be the uber one-man party. So, while the casters may make being stronger easy, it doesn't mean they *will* be stronger. They still need to choose certain spells, feats, items, etc. to achieve Status: Boring in the game. Except when given the same amount of effort, they will always be stronger. A problem with the class? Yes. A reason that the fighter is not strong or cannot function as a tank? No. Anything can function as a tank. It's all a matter of degree of competence. Fighter can function as a tank. Cleric functions better as a tank. They don't, and weren't intended to. It is a different issue than 'Fighters suck, they are worthless and can't do what they are supposed to yadda yadda yadda....' I promise I will never use the term "fighters are worthless". I stated somewhere else that the term "worthless" is used in ways that make my head asplode. 'Worth less', certainly, but that's not the same thing as "worthless". The first denotes a comparison with another entity (class in this case) and being less, the second denotes "having zero value". I agree that fighters do not have a built-in mechanic to rectify poor choices. Except wealth I suppose. You could pay an NPC psion to manifest Psychic Reformation on you. But the point still stands, no built-in method to do it alone. Even wealth they don't, but then almost every class is in that boat. Wealth is mutable for every class by general game design. Because of that, the mutable quality of character wealth can be said to be equal across nearly all classes. (Artificer not so much, with free crafting exp and all that.) On the same token, casters shouldn't impact the game so much. No they shouldn't. Impact it profoundly, sure, but not at such a disparity from what other classes can do. One of the reasons I'm all for meeting more in the middle. Amping the fighting men up a bit (better, more profound class features and feats), and toning the casters down a bit (changing some spells and switching to dual casting ability scores. I understand and agree (partially) with you. However, that seems like a style of play. Some groups may not worry so much about resource consumption. They may just like using their abilities because they're cool abilities. As I've said before, if you (in the general sense) are worried about efficiency and resources consumption, I understand why you might choose a druid over a fighter. But, who really worries about that? I'm not sure. I know over on the Psionics board we get plenty of people telling us that they never have more than 1-2 fights in a day. In that instance, resource consumption may be less of an issue. Again, it boils down to what the mechanics provide. The play-style should be completely moot. The mechanics should be better when it comes right down to it. EDIT: Otto, I like your feat changes a lot. Some of them are similar to some of the feat changes I had in mind. Well done :). Have you been able to use most of your homebrew stuff in your games? Well, I raced a big group (6, sometimes 7) PCs through the first three levels, and it worked pretty good. I had a bit of a problem with several players intentionally gimping their character, so using them wasn't a very good test. The ones that just picked feats for character growth did exceptionally well. The feats fit the character's "theme", so to speak, and yet they were able to actually perform really well at their chosen "theme" at the same time. Here's what I had... Human Barbarian 1-4: Picked extended rage (a waste) and weapon focus (good choice). This one was more a testament to how good the barbarian rewrite functioned. Human Fighter 1 / Scout 3: Completely ignored the fighter's Height of Battle. Picked up TWF, but never got to a level to make it come into it's own. He was heading for Dervish. I specifically told this guy to take my Swashbucker rewrite, but he was a little to dense to figure out that the swashbuckler would have functioned exactly like the fighter / scout / dervish he was trying to make, but better. This character taught me nothing. Halfling Cleric 4: His feat choices weren't that great, but with a 6 strength, and most feats being rewritten for combat, it's not a surprise. This character taught me how well dual casting stats and limiting divine casters' spells known work. A complete success on the casting side, the spellcasting works great. Human? Wizard (evoker) 3 / Sorcerer (dread necromancer) 1. Good multiclassing experiment. This worked out pretty dang well, even if I only got to see it for 2 sessions. No roleplaying from this guy, but a lot of talk about mechanics. Another good mechanical test. Elf Hexblade 4: What a pleasant surprise. This guy made good choices with his feats, with his hexes, and even with his invocation. When I tested the Hexblade out myself (in a party), I thought it didn't do so hot. In game, I'd rank this class rewrite in the same boat with the rogue. Very well balanced. Human Rogue 2 / Wizard 2: I'm not sure what this guy was doing mechanics wise. He made some strange choices, but overall they fit his character's theme, and helped him out mechanically, so I can't say this was a failure from that standpoint. The feats he chose (Weapon Finesse especially) were spot on. The biggest problem evaluating this was actually the player. He didn't want to adventure. He wanted to basically sit around the table bickering about EVERYTHING and practically refusing to adventure. But no worries. He's gone now. :D The one big thing, and it's going to be a big doozy of a thing, that I considered was switching the tiers around a little. Instead of a 1st level feat with tiers at 3rd and 5th, it might be 5th and 9th. It'll all depend upon how I mix stuff up. If I mix stuff up. I started working on more changes to magic as well. I'd like to switch spells into 4 categories. Spells: work just like they do now. Auras: casters can choose to have a certain number of auras active. Auras would be stuff like Bull's Strength (which can be used on others) or Water Breathing or Aura of Protection (which is a consolidation of Protection from X spells) Rites: Rites are stuff that can be cast, and while active also make another spell slot unavailable. Passwall would take a 5th level spell slot to cast, plus occupy a 4th level spell slot to keep the effect going. Rituals: Stuff like Permanency or others that I feel dont' really act like spells. (See, rambling. But worse, rambling while tired!) Cheers Otto :) |
| AllisterH04-22-07, 12:52 AM | The poor Fighter:( (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html#) Off subject, but thoroughly true. It should be noted that the OotS party aren't exactly the epitome of optimized characters. I mean, does Roy have ANY magic items other than his ancestral sword? He got whacked by FIRE damage. The same type of damage many people the reason why the Desert Wind sucks. Seriously, even if he's only level 9, a regular non-optimized fighter should have fire resistance and/or Flight. |
| Flan04-22-07, 02:08 AM | That lich is 7-8 levels higher than Roy, and a lich (DR15/not a sword). Off subject too: The poor wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0440.html#) I guess the earlier encounter shows that rage is better than a magic sword. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html lol. |
| Archangel6204-22-07, 02:22 AM | I guess the earlier encounter shows that rage is better than a magic sword. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html lol. And a couple comics later we learn that heavily warded magic doors are even better than anger. |
| Argaud04-22-07, 07:15 AM | I guess the earlier encounter shows that rage is better than a magic sword. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html lol. That is what happens when you grapple a wizard that likes to talk, talk and talk instead of casting Dimension Door asap :D |
| Leo04-22-07, 08:41 AM | And a couple comics later we learn that heavily warded magic doors are even better than anger. Who cares? He pwned an enemy of around 8 CR bigger than him with his bare hands. So much for the "I'm a druid, I have class features stronger than your entire class" After all, the purpose of OOTS is to make fun of D&D, and not exactly provide an acurate exposure of the game. |
| AllisterH04-22-07, 09:39 AM | Who cares? He pwned an enemy of around 8 CR bigger than him with his bare hands. So much for the "I'm a druid, I have class features stronger than your entire class" After all, the purpose of OOTS is to make fun of D&D, and not exactly provide an acurate exposure of the game. How does the fact that the CLERIC was able to finally put the beatdown on the DRUID refute the "I'm a druid, I have class features stronger than your entire class" since that was mentioned with regard to Haley, the ROGUE? That said, you are right that OotS is a parody and shouldn't be taken as gospel. Like I said before, Roy has how many magic items? |
| Leo04-22-07, 04:40 PM | How does the fact that the CLERIC was able to finally put the beatdown on the DRUID refute the "I'm a druid, I have class features stronger than your entire class" since that was mentioned with regard to Haley, the ROGUE? That said, you are right that OotS is a parody and shouldn't be taken as gospel. Like I said before, Roy has how many magic items? Also note the cleric finished the druid with a wrong interpetration of the rules:P What bothers me it's that some people around here ALWAYS bring the druid post in the fighter's discussions, but they never remember the posts where the casters have their asses pwned. Like the one where the bandit sorceress pwns almost all the party, INCLUDING the wizard. Hmmm, now that I notice it it seems that the cleric almost all times escapes the massacres. |
| YotartheBrave04-22-07, 10:15 PM | I realize that I'm new to the threads and all, but WHAAAAT. Every party needs a melee tank. Fact. There are many ways to do that. Fact. ...but what fantasy realm do you live in to tell someone that a druid can out tank a fighter off the get go? ...and to say that a wolf companion animal will splat the fighter...even at first level?!?!? Wolf has 2HD (avg HP 11) and +1 Str +2 Dex and Con sooooo...+1 BAB, +3 to hit d6+1 damage and trip. I don't know about you, but any fighter with a reach weapon will take out the wolf companion with the AoO it provokes in one shot until the druid hits 3rd?? level and the wolf gets 2 more HD....assuming the fighter has a Str of 16 and something like a poleaxe. Or even readies and has a great sword. Either way the weapon deals an average of 11 pts of damage. Seems to be a dead wolf. As for the druid, he can't even wildshape until 5th level and then he doesn't make a particularily good wolf. A 5HD wolf would have a total attack bonus of +5 (+3 BAB, +1 Str, WFocus: Bite), and a 5HD druid as a wolf only has a total attack bonus of +4 (+3 BAB, +1 Str). Druids do not get to use the feats of the creatures that they wild shape into until 16th level, and then it only applies to elementals. That same 5HD fighter (now with a 17 Str) has s total attack bonus of, dare I say, +10 (+5 BAB, +3 Str, +1 WFocus, +1 MW Weapon if not magical) and his average damage has jumped to 13 (2d6+6 with Weapon Spec.), while the druid/wolf is still at an average damage of 4.5 (d6+1). The Druid/wolf is stuck at an AC of 14 (+2 Dex, +2 Nt), no matter what level the druid is, while the fighter has probably upgraded to a breastplate, AC 17 (+2 Dx, +5 Ar). The druid/wolf averages 32.5 HP (4.5*5HD +10) and the fighter averages 37.5 HP (5.5*5 +10) Someone is going to scream about the trip. OK, lets address the trip. If the wolf hits with it's melee attack, then it can trip as a free action which is an opposed strength check (or dex for the defender, if it is better!). +1 for our wolf, and +3 for our 1st level fighter. Simple math says that the wolf will only successfully trip the fighter 40% of the time. Same math applies to our 5th level druid and fighter. the druid will only trip 40% of the time, and frankly the fighter doesn't care. His attack bonus is so high that even if he takes the -4 for attacking from prone HE STILL HITS ON AN 8 OR BETTER (thats 65% of the time for you math geeks.) So this is how it stands: fighter prone, druid as a wolf fighter hits 65% of the time, while the druid (even with a +4 for prone) only hits 60% of the time. Fighter 65% of 13 avg dmg = 8.45 dmg/round Druid 60% of 4.5 avg dmg = 2.7 dmg/round Clearly the fighter wipes the floor with the druid, and if the trip is unsucessful, it's even more lopsided because the fighter suddenly jumps to 12.35 damage per round while the druid drops to 1.8 damage per round. And as the levels get higher, the descrepency gets larger. I've got a straight 12th level fighter, and I pitted against a druid/dire lion of the same level. It all mattered on who won inititive. If the druid got the drop on me, and was already in dire lion form, he and his animal companion got one round to act after his pounce. If I won, the druid didn't get to act at all after he pounced, and his companion was dead in the next round. Of course this is assuming no spells have been cast, and no magic items are worn. Just remember that for every action you take to ramp up, the fighter gets the same opportunity. People who say that a druid (or cleric) can top out a straight fighter are powering up their casters and springing them on unsuspecting fighters Someone show me one example of a druid who can best a straight fighter who is equal level with equal equipment. Oh, and since I was in this math frenzy last night anyway. have you ever considered that a 20th level druid who wild shaped into a wolf would get his behind handed to him by his wolf companion. Check it out! 20th level Druid as wolf (medium) 20 HD + 40 (130) Str 13, Dex 15, Con 15 AC 14 (+2 Nt, +2 Dx) BA/Grp +15/+16 Bite +16 1d6+1 (4.5) wolf companion (large) 14 HD + 56 (119) Str 27, Dex 19, Con 19 AC 29 (+16 Nt, +4 Dx, -1 Sz) BA/Grp +10/+22 Bite +18 1d8+12 (16.5) Of course at 20th level there are better things than wolves, but thought it was interesting none the less |
| YotartheBrave04-22-07, 10:55 PM | The reason to have a fighter in the party is to get the feat Weapon Supremecy (PHB II pg 85) Prerequisites: Weapon Proficiency, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery, Fighter level 18 Benefit: When fighting with the weapon that you chose for this feat, you gain a number of advantages. -You gain a +4 bonus on all checks made to resist being disarmed. -You can weild your weapon against a foe who grapples you without penalty and without first making a grapple check. In this situation, you can take a standard action or a full attack action as normal. -When you take a full atack action, you can apply a +5 bonus to any single attack after your first strike. -Once per round before making an attack roll, you can instead choose to treat your d20 result as a 10. -You gain a +1 bonus to AC Special: You can only take this feat once, for a specific kind of weapon. The dedication and focus it requires makes it impossible to gain this feat for more than one weapon. That's the reason to have a fighter! Toss in the advanced Spring Attack progression, and you have the makings of a kick but, high mobility fighter. It's the fighter ability to completely master more than one feat progression that makes it a tactically valuable member of a party. |
| Kulthos04-22-07, 11:38 PM | ...but what fantasy realm do you live in to tell someone that a druid can out tank a fighter off the get go? ...and to say that a wolf companion animal will splat the fighter...even at first level?!?!? Fighters are not bad until levels 8-12. Past 12 and they are a drag on the party. |
| Archangel6204-23-07, 12:32 AM | The reason to have a fighter in the party is to get the feat Weapon Supremecy (PHB II pg 85) Prerequisites: Weapon Proficiency, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Weapon Mastery, Fighter level 18 Benefit: When fighting with the weapon that you chose for this feat, you gain a number of advantages. -You gain a +4 bonus on all checks made to resist being disarmed. -You can weild your weapon against a foe who grapples you without penalty and without first making a grapple check. In this situation, you can take a standard action or a full attack action as normal. -When you take a full atack action, you can apply a +5 bonus to any single attack after your first strike. -Once per round before making an attack roll, you can instead choose to treat your d20 result as a 10. -You gain a +1 bonus to AC Special: You can only take this feat once, for a specific kind of weapon. The dedication and focus it requires makes it impossible to gain this feat for more than one weapon. That's the reason to have a fighter! Toss in the advanced Spring Attack progression, and you have the makings of a kick but, high mobility fighter. It's the fighter ability to completely master more than one feat progression that makes it a tactically valuable member of a party. Great, a subpar and fairly useless feat given when it is gained and the amount of investment of subpar feats to get it I'd have to say that frankly while it's better than the other feats at that level it's a bit like saying something smells better than a skunk. A cleric/druid/martial adept will be a better tank than a fighter, as will a knight and what's more they can actually bring more options to the party and be more effective for the group overall wonder of wonders. |
| Flan04-23-07, 01:46 AM | After all, the purpose of OOTS is to make fun of D&D, and not exactly provide an acurate exposure of the game. Much like these boards. |
| LordRoberts04-23-07, 08:03 AM | That what the fighter class needs more more fighter only feats. |
| Khan the Destroyer04-23-07, 09:10 AM | Fighters are not bad until levels 8-12. Past 12 and they are a drag on the party. I honestly suspect that the reverse is true. If anything, the fighter may seem lackluster at lower levels, and seem pretty kickass at higher levels when gear and other feats make monster sizes and strengths a non-issue. Of course, one can say that at higher levels the casters make fighters a non-issue, but that's a problem with the casters. After all, the purpose of OOTS is to make fun of D&D, and not exactly provide an acurate exposure of the game. Much like these boards. :rofl: |
| not Yoda04-23-07, 09:26 AM | I honestly suspect that the reverse is true. If anything, the fighter may seem lackluster at lower levels, and seem pretty kickass at higher levels when gear and other feats make monster sizes and strengths a non-issue. Of course, one can say that at higher levels the casters make fighters a non-issue, but that's a problem with the casters. :rofl: I would go so far as to to say the game kinda falls apart after 10th level. Monsters are not designed to be tough enough to withstand even one attack from marginally optimised characters. It may have helped if D&D had been designed to fit a system of scaling that classes were fitted to rather than what is in place. If instead of balancing them against each other in some kind of arms race balance them against a code. then either fighters would end up with a boost or casters would be nerfed.Casters more or less scale like this character levels power levels - example Dmg 1-3 ordinary - Magic Missile 4-6 exceptional - Fireball 7-9 heroic - Cone of Cold 10-12 legendary -Polar ray 13-15 epic -delayed blast fireball 16-20 godlike -Meteor swarm |
| Thawmus04-23-07, 09:50 AM | Don't most, if not all, of the tactical feats count as fighter bonus feats? I'd say that's a pretty good reason to run a fighter, right there. Most of the tactical feats that I've used, such as Elusive Target, and Combat Brute, are extremely powerful, with plenty of benefits. And the fighter is the best class for attaining them. |
| Flan04-23-07, 11:26 AM | Most of the tactical feats that I've used, such as Elusive Target, and Combat Brute, are extremely powerful, with plenty of benefits. And the fighter is the best class for attaining them. Yes, they're powerful, but they're not as powerful as spells, nowhere close actually, and casters get dozens of spells. |
| Nephlite04-23-07, 02:07 PM | Wolf has 2HD (avg HP 11) and +1 Str +2 Dex and Con sooooo...+1 BAB, +3 to hit d6+1 damage and trip. I don't know about you, but any fighter with a reach weapon will take out the wolf companion with the AoO it provokes in one shot until the druid hits 3rd?? level and the wolf gets 2 more HD....assuming the fighter has a Str of 16 and something like a poleaxe. Or even readies and has a great sword. Either way the weapon deals an average of 11 pts of damage. Seems to be a dead wolf. Did you bother buying the wolf armor? That is like a Fighter wearing no srmor: unoptimized and suicidal in combat. As for the druid, he can't even wildshape until 5th level and then he doesn't make a particularily good wolf. A 5HD wolf would have a total attack bonus of +5 (+3 BAB, +1 Str, WFocus: Bite), and a 5HD druid as a wolf only has a total attack bonus of +4 (+3 BAB, +1 Str). Druids do not get to use the feats of the creatures that they wild shape into until 16th level, and then it only applies to elementals. That same 5HD fighter (now with a 17 Str) has s total attack bonus of, dare I say, +10 (+5 BAB, +3 Str, +1 WFocus, +1 MW Weapon if not magical) and his average damage has jumped to 13 (2d6+6 with Weapon Spec.), while the druid/wolf is still at an average damage of 4.5 (d6+1). Why? Why would a Druid want to be a wolf? Depending on if you follow the new Wild Shape rules you do or do'nt get feats. Choose a better form for the Druid like Crocodile or bear. The Druid/wolf is stuck at an AC of 14 (+2 Dex, +2 Nt), no matter what level the druid is, while the fighter has probably upgraded to a breastplate, AC 17 (+2 Dx, +5 Ar). The druid/wolf averages 32.5 HP (4.5*5HD +10) and the fighter averages 37.5 HP (5.5*5 +10) False. Why is the Wold stuck? They can wear barding (animal armor). It is in the PHB. Someone show me one example of a druid who can best a straight fighter who is equal level with equal equipment. Oh, and since I was in this math frenzy last night anyway. have you ever considered that a 20th level druid who wild shaped into a wolf would get his behind handed to him by his wolf companion. Check it out! Yes, and fighter with all his feats in useless feats is also weak (skill focus- craft basketweaving). Why would a Druid ever, ever, ever, ever choose a wolf? If he wanted a wolf-like form he'd go Dire Wolf for combat prowress. 20th level Druid as wolf (medium) 20 HD + 40 (130) Str 13, Dex 15, Con 15 AC 14 (+2 Nt, +2 Dx) BA/Grp +15/+16 Bite +16 1d6+1 (4.5) wolf companion (large) 14 HD + 56 (119) Str 27, Dex 19, Con 19 AC 29 (+16 Nt, +4 Dx, -1 Sz) BA/Grp +10/+22 Bite +18 1d8+12 (16.5) Of course at 20th level there are better things than wolves, but thought it was interesting none the less Wolves don't increase in size as Animal Companions. Only if increase in iHD naturally. |
| YotartheBrave04-23-07, 02:45 PM | OK little confusion there. A: Can't buy barding at 1st level for a wolf companion B: Whenever I used the druid/wolf, I was refering to a wild shaped druid. C: Crocodile is a far harder animal to justify seeing as a druid must be familliar (as in local fauna) with an animal to be able to wild shape into it. Wolf is a good choice, and trip makes it every bit as valuable as a bear. D: If the druid has to get into his barding at 5th level when he wild shapes, he's never going to get a swing at the fighter, oh yeah, and a wolf can't put on it's own barding. (Something about opposable thumbs.) E: Of course I did the numbers without magical gear. Like my post said, you start talking about gear and the only thing I ask is I get a like amount. And finally... F: When I did mention anything above 5th level, I specifically cited a Dire Lion. And really finally... Where does it state that adding HD to an animal companion doesn't advance it like any other animal you would add HD to. No seriously, I'd like to look that up. I just did the math for the two of them at 20th level as a lark. Ya know, a little matematical amusement. |
| YotartheBrave04-23-07, 03:09 PM | Ya know what? Let's say you've got access to a book I don't, like "Races of the Wild" and there is some optional ruling that lets you use the critters feats. OK, so what? even at 20th level the scariest thing you can turn into is what? a triceratops or a t-rex. (And in my opinion the trample and gore attack from a charge outweigh the swallow whole any day.) That's still only a CR 8 or 9 creature with basically twice as many feats as normal. We'll call it a CR 10 modified. I call your bluff. Show me the MATH that says you have a chance of beating a 20th level character. I showed you mine, you show me yours! For those who wondered about about my math, it's based on average damage dealing capability per round. The percentile chance that you will hit in a round is multiplied by the average damage that your attack would do, giving you an average damage that that attack would do every round. Even situational things like Rake can be figured out as an average damage. As per the Dire Tiger, if it hits with its bite, then it can attack with its rake. It's merely a matter of multiplying the two percentage chances together and then multiplying by the average damge of the rake CONCRETE EXAMPLE: Average damage 20 total attack bonus +10 rake bonus to hit +10 AC to hit 21 You have a 50% chance to hit AC 21. Every other round you wil hit doing 20 points of damage on average, therefore you average 10 points per round If you hit every other round, there is a 50% chance your rake will hit, meaning that you deal 20 points of damage every fourth round. In other words 5 points average in every round. (50% * 50% = 25%) There are even complicated procedures for figuring out criticals, but that's about the same time that subspace and time are permanently breached causing a small black hole that swallows the cat. I tend to stay away from that. I'll say it again: You show me your math and I'll show you mine |
| YotartheBrave04-23-07, 03:13 PM | Great, a subpar and fairly useless feat given when it is gained and the amount of investment of subpar feats to get it I'd have to say that frankly while it's better than the other feats at that level it's a bit like saying something smells better than a skunk. A cleric/druid/martial adept will be a better tank than a fighter, as will a knight and what's more they can actually bring more options to the party and be more effective for the group overall wonder of wonders. Show me your math |
| Archangel6204-23-07, 04:45 PM | Show me your math For weapon supremacy, the feats taken before it are flat tiny bonuses to one weapon that diminish in value as levels increase. Monster HP totals get into the 500+ range and since the fighter will usually not be able to make a full attack without help we have the wonderful issue of a whopping +6 to damage...wow so worth those 5 feats :rolleyes: . A few of weapon supremacies abilities are useful, the ability to use it in grapple is actually fairly nice. However, the following things have to be considered: 1) The fighter has the opportunity costs of feats, while admittedly most of their feats aren't that great the amount of suck generated by a decent chunk of the weapon supremacy tree could rival a black hole. The combat focus feats at least give mildly scaling defensive options and also provide the fighter with utility. 2) Opportunity cost of class, the fighter is locked into the fighter class to get this feat, the fighter cannot prestige, cannot multiclass heavily. For that kind of cost the feat should really be good, really provide something useful, instead most of the things that you're getting would have been really handy a few levels ago but now are either moot or you have better means of dealing with them. A ring of freedom of movement, or simply the spell, can allow you to fight properly in a grapple and can be used by anyone with any weapon. The take 10 on an attack roll is probably not going to be that useful simply because either it wouldn't be enough or wouldn't be needed because of the AC of most opponents at that level. Reason I say this is that AC can fluctuate wildly and in the AC competition the fighter will almost always be in second place without heavy augmentation from the party casters. The enemy will have a higher base natural armor, can wear armor besides, as well as various protective items and possibly even protective spells. Taking 10 can allow the first, or maybe second attack to land accurately but those first two attacks would likely have landed regardless so the only reason I can see it being used is if you're having a bad night in terms of luck. The +1 AC bonus is nice, but really too small to be that helpful at the level it's gained. As for the caster comparisons. A druid can wear wilded dragonhide fullplate, can transform into a Bloodstriker, a dire bear, hell a dire rhinocerous or elephant depending on level, and gain a large amount of strength as well as natural armor and reach. They can also cast spells in this form so the Bite of... spells can push their physical abilities higher and give them unique powers besides. But then if you nerf your caster characters and boost your martial characters of course they look equal, but that isn't assuming a neutral game. |
| Midnight_v04-23-07, 04:48 PM | I was thinking about that Order of the stick and honestly I think it pretty well illustrates the power differential between fighters and full casters... I don't know if anyone saw how that ends for poor Roy but. It led me to this thought. Fate of Roy... Part 1. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0441.html Part 2. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0442.html Part 3. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0443.html Warriors I think are never going to be as "powerful" as spellcasters because of the power principles of their basic premises. Spellcasters Control reality Fighters kill things through Melee combat. The most successful mage has complete control over "reality". The most succesful fighter has complete contol over "combat" The weakest fighters: "I can fight, but just barely" The weakest spellcasters: "I can control reality, but just barely". Sorry I know this is out of the blue but ... inspiration struck. Warriors are never equal to spellcasters, because starting even at a the most conceptual levels Spellcasters have a by definition more powerful ideal they seek to achieve. . . interesting. . . |
| Flan04-23-07, 05:13 PM | For weapon supremacy, the feats taken before it are flat tiny bonuses to one weapon that diminish in value as levels increase. Alternatly they increase in value as you take additional feats which synergize with them. Monster HP totals get into the 500+ range Titan 370, Balor 290, Pit Fiend 225, Solar 209. The CR22+ dragons and the tarrasque are about it for breaking 500 in the MM, but they're not typical encounters at 18th level. and since the fighter will usually not be able to make a full attack without help Oh? I can make an equally valid statement... "and since the wizard will usually not be able to cast spells without help" If a monster is moving so fast and getting cover so a fighter can't even fire a bow at it, casters are basically screwed hard to the wall too. |
| Archangel6204-23-07, 05:49 PM | Oh? I can make an equally valid statement... "and since the wizard will usually not be able to cast spells without help" If a monster is moving so fast and getting cover so a fighter can't even fire a bow at it, casters are basically screwed hard to the wall too. The problem is that the fighter has to remain next to the target for melee and most ranged feats stop working after 30 feet. A caster can use their spells in hundreds of feet in terms of distance which also allows for them to be safely positioned while casting as well as being better able to keep up on a target. |
| Flan04-23-07, 06:52 PM | most ranged feats stop working after 30 feet. A tiny fraction (one?) does, that isn't "most." |
| Archangel6204-24-07, 02:00 AM | A tiny fraction (one?) does, that isn't "most." Actually Focus/spec with it also stops at 30, as do any that give any kinds of bonuses to hit or damage. Also ranged sunder, pin, and disarm also only work within 30 feet. |
| navar10004-24-07, 03:06 AM | Assay Spell Resistance. SR is meaningless and part of the reason the magic system is completely broken. If melee never missed like casters never do, if power attack didn't lower you to-hit like maximize doesn't lower the saves a lot of the "casters are overpowered" arguement would go away. Orbs don't have saves. Maximized twinspelled don't have saves either. Shape chaned astral titans don't give saves. A horde of summoned or gated monsters don't give saves. And guess what, even if you save you still take half a lot of the time, wouldn't it be cool if when a fighter missed they only did half damage? Wouldn't it be cool if instead of the fighter rolling when they swung it was automatic that something happened and there was no to-hit and instead it was the target that had to make a defensive roll and if they roll badly they flop over dead like save or dies do? The magic system is broken. Wrong, assay + feat and it's automatically through resistance. After that at worst you're doing half damage assuming you even bother with things that give saves. The magic system is broken. Yeah, um, about that... you know a couple low level slots and a cleric is running around with +5 armor, weapon, shield, +6 all saves, feast of the hero's benefit. Eagle's Splendor and persist DMM and they're all day boosted with righteous might or whatever, and can of course haste themselves with a further +3 hit/damage. Cleric will have to "suffer" with +4 wisdom enhancement instead of +6, but they'll survive. Druid is doing pretty fine too, thanks. The magic system is broken. So it is perfectly fine for the wizard and cleric to use non-core stuff, but when the fighter uses non-Core stuff, he gets lambasted for it. |
| Clawhound04-24-07, 07:44 AM | The problem is that the fighter has to remain next to the target for melee and most ranged feats stop working after 30 feet. A caster can use their spells in hundreds of feet in terms of distance which also allows for them to be safely positioned while casting as well as being better able to keep up on a target. The problem is, most monsters become lose their melee ability beyond thirty feet. This is why monsters want to be up close and personal, and spellcasters don't. Out of reach = infinite protection. If all combat was in the open, then we would have a silly design. However, combat happens in dungeons, in buildings, in towns and cities, and other areas where the caster can't stay hundreds of feet away. Monsters WANT to close to melee. Melee wants to close to melee. Melee is easy to pull off and rarely nerfed. |
| Lacyon04-24-07, 08:59 AM | Actually Focus/spec with it also stops at 30, as do any that give any kinds of bonuses to hit or damage. Where did you find that? You gain a +2 bonus on all damage rolls you make using the selected weapon. You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon. -Lacyon |
| Archangel6204-24-07, 10:41 AM | Where did you find that? -Lacyon PHB |
| Archangel6204-24-07, 10:42 AM | The problem is, most monsters become lose their melee ability beyond thirty feet. This is why monsters want to be up close and personal, and spellcasters don't. Out of reach = infinite protection. If all combat was in the open, then we would have a silly design. However, combat happens in dungeons, in buildings, in towns and cities, and other areas where the caster can't stay hundreds of feet away. Monsters WANT to close to melee. Melee wants to close to melee. Melee is easy to pull off and rarely nerfed. Yes, but assuming neutral combat zones (out in the open works for that) the monster will almost always be moving while they fight, and in more than 5 foot step incriments. If the fighter does that they lose their full attack option, which means one hit. |
| Flan04-24-07, 11:49 AM | PHB You have the "special" edition then, only PBS and Manyshot have 30 foot limitation (and sneak attack.) |
| Nephlite04-24-07, 11:55 AM | OK little confusion there. A: Can't buy barding at 1st level for a wolf companion Why can't you? You stingy with your gold? You cabn buy Padded Barding if yiou are that cheap. Either way: you can buy armor. B: Whenever I used the druid/wolf, I was refering to a wild shaped druid. No, you used a large wolf. You can't become a Large wolf: a Dire Wolf is possible but not a wolf. You specicaklly meabnt the Animal Companion. D: If the druid has to get into his barding at 5th level when he wild shapes, he's never going to get a swing at the fighter, oh yeah, and a wolf can't put on it's own barding. (Something about opposable thumbs.) What? Wild Shape lasts for hours. Allies can't help you put armor on. Some friends they turned out to be. And really finally... Where does it state that adding HD to an animal companion doesn't advance it like any other animal you would add HD to. No seriously, I'd like to look that up. The Sage, the FAQ, and Customer Service. Basically all WotC who decided to comment on the subject. |
| Bob Loblaw04-24-07, 12:18 PM | Why can't you? You stingy with your gold? You cabn buy Padded Barding if yiou are that cheap. Either way: you can buy armor. Remember that is does cost double for the armor for your wolf. As the creature gets larger so does the cost. Once your animal companion hits Large the cost is 4 times what's listed. This is a pretty good investment. Also note that the armor weighs double for Large creatures. Yes you can still have barding, but there is a cost. The first level druid is investing 20% of his initial gold on average. If you wanted leather, the investment is almost half his starting funds. This is a significant amount. Might still be worth it, just wanted to point that out. What? Wild Shape lasts for hours. Allies can't help you put armor on. Some friends they turned out to be. In this case, I would say that they cannot. The fighter is assumed to be alone in his comparisons so the druid should be as well. The Sage, the FAQ, and Customer Service. I agree with their rulings, I just wish it was more clear in the books. |
| Clawhound04-24-07, 12:39 PM | Yes, but assuming neutral combat zones (out in the open works for that) the monster will almost always be moving while they fight, and in more than 5 foot step incriments. If the fighter does that they lose their full attack option, which means one hit. It is to the creature's advantage to stop and fight. It is to the melee character's advantage to stop and fight. In fact, it is the melee character's advantage to let the fast moving creature come to them so that the creature gets only one attack, and the melee character responds with a full attack, maybe even a readied action, and maybe some AoO's via reach. In this way, a melee character converts a disadvantage (slow speed) into an advantage (uses his opponents speed to his own advantage). Heck, the fighter isn't even penalized for going last. Secondly, if the creature stops to engage the melee character, then the melee character has stopped it from engaging the softer targets. The creature may either take a full attack against the melee character or move and make a single attack against a softer target. Again, the melee character has reduced the effectiveness of the dangerous creature. This movement towards a softer target may give the melee character flanking and wind up helping the character. Melee characters constantly influence the battlefield. They just don't use magic to do it. They use themselves and the threat of what they could do to affect the enemy. |
| scienceman4704-24-07, 03:27 PM | Remember that is does cost double for the armor for your wolf. As the creature gets larger so does the cost. Once your animal companion hits Large the cost is 4 times what's listed. This is a pretty good investment. Also note that the armor weighs double for Large creatures. Yes you can still have barding, but there is a cost. The first level druid is investing 20% of his initial gold on average. If you wanted leather, the investment is almost half his starting funds. This is a significant amount. Might still be worth it, just wanted to point that out. In this case, I would say that they cannot. The fighter is assumed to be alone in his comparisons so the druid should be as well. I agree with their rulings, I just wish it was more clear in the books. I would just like to note that an animal companion does NOT grow in size with HD increases. So while animal size is a concern when buying barding (armored triceritops FTW!), its only a concern if you dump your critter for a bigger beasy. |
| Bob Loblaw04-24-07, 03:37 PM | I would just like to note that an animal companion does NOT grow in size with HD increases. So while animal size is a concern when buying barding (armored triceritops FTW!), its only a concern if you dump your critter for a bigger beasy. You are correct. I was just pointing it out because I read about druids dumping their current companion for a better one when the time comes. |
| Archangel6204-24-07, 07:41 PM | It is to the creature's advantage to stop and fight. It is to the melee character's advantage to stop and fight. In fact, it is the melee character's advantage to let the fast moving creature come to them so that the creature gets only one attack, and the melee character responds with a full attack, maybe even a readied action, and maybe some AoO's via reach. In this way, a melee character converts a disadvantage (slow speed) into an advantage (uses his opponents speed to his own advantage). Heck, the fighter isn't even penalized for going last. Secondly, if the creature stops to engage the melee character, then the melee character has stopped it from engaging the softer targets. The creature may either take a full attack against the melee character or move and make a single attack against a softer target. Again, the melee character has reduced the effectiveness of the dangerous creature. This movement towards a softer target may give the melee character flanking and wind up helping the character. Melee characters constantly influence the battlefield. They just don't use magic to do it. They use themselves and the threat of what they could do to affect the enemy. Ok, let me explain this simply, a moving foe is one that is harder to track, if a creature is in motion striking foes and moving onwards it can injure them and also make AOE spells and other types of attacks difficult or dangerous for fear of harming teammates. Also, the creature can usually garauntee only a couple good hits, some can only make one or two attacks and those that can make more usually have pounce or other means of locomotion (flight with ranged for example) Mobile foes mean the fighter has to be mobile too. The problem is that the caster can get off his ninth level spell at the same speed as his 1st. Most spells take a standard action to cast. In economy of actions I can either cast a spell and move my range of motion. Take that versus I can only make a 5 foot step if I want to full attack or I can move my range but I can only strike once. This is where the issue comes in, in terms of economy of actions the fighter, and most other martial classes, get the thumbscrews. |
| Flan04-24-07, 08:13 PM | Take that versus I can only make a 5 foot step if I want to full attack or I can move my range but I can only strike once. Modify a belt of battle from magic item compendium to be more than 3x/day and voila. Although considering how cheap they are you could just buy 10 of them. Anyway, if something is running away from the fighter, a chargeing build, bullrushing build, AoO build or a bow build, or with a swift teleport item wouldn't care (and at the levels you're talking all fighters will have at least one of those builds as part of their feat/gear.) In fact the charge build would thank them for it as it means they'll get two attacks/round thanks to AoO instead of just the charge. And of course if it's trippable or grappleable it won't be going anywhere. And anyway, people keep saying how fricken awesome wizards are at battlefield control that there is no point in doing anything as feeble as damage, so there you go, lock the monster in a steel cage with the fighter to beat on it. |
| Clawhound04-25-07, 09:36 AM | Ok, let me explain this simply, a moving foe is one that is harder to track, if a creature is in motion striking foes and moving onwards it can injure them and also make AOE spells and other types of attacks difficult or dangerous for fear of harming teammates. Also, the creature can usually garauntee only a couple good hits, some can only make one or two attacks and those that can make more usually have pounce or other means of locomotion (flight with ranged for example) Mobile foes mean the fighter has to be mobile too. The problem is that the caster can get off his ninth level spell at the same speed as his 1st. Most spells take a standard action to cast. In economy of actions I can either cast a spell and move my range of motion. Take that versus I can only make a 5 foot step if I want to full attack or I can move my range but I can only strike once. This is where the issue comes in, in terms of economy of actions the fighter, and most other martial classes, get the thumbscrews. In most encounters, mobility can be summarized as "close as quickly as possible." This situation is so common that by 20th level, we can reasonably expect a fighter to seek a short range teleportation item as soon as it is affordable. Even so, most fights start fairly close, and the enemy also seeks to close. If the party has enough sense to not run up and expose themselves ASAP, one round usually closes the gap with your fighter in the lead. Next come encounters where your opponents close with you. You don't need any special mobility for those. Your opponents do all the work. The trick with closing opponents is that they are MELEE. They must be in striking range in order to be effective. By design, they MUST enter the fighter's threat range. The fighter has reach, held actions, delays, and AoO's to work with as tools. Pouncing: A pounce based opponent gets one good charge (for all practical purposes). Most pounces lead to grapple attempts. Grappling opponents don't move. Charging: A rhino gets a charge attack. With the party rogue spotting for you, there's no excuse for a fighter to NOT have a set pole arm ready and the party arrayed in such a way as to make the fighter the point man. Even if the rhino surprises the party, it's second charge should meet the pointy end of a stick. Spring Attack: This is so rare among opponents that it boils down to being a special case. A fighter only needs to see this attack once to switch to holding his action. Next comes running battles. These are so rare in D&D that the DMG does not include good rules for this type of battle. Our next type of encounter is ranged. This is where things get tougher for fighters. Ranged: Non-magic ranged attacks are usually weaker than non-magic melee attacks. In other words, a fighter is safer against these. A fighter with a tower shield is VERY safe against these. The creatures can not statistically hit often enough to eliminate the fighter. This then brings the battle to melee. See closing above. Mobility + Magic Ranged: This is the magic combo that hoses fighters. Fortunately, a fighter is in a group and his friends can help. These type of creatures usually have glass jaws. Even at one attack per round, a fighter can gank these critters quickly. This brings us up to fighter vs. classes opponents. Most encounters against classed opponents boil down to the examples above. Some special cases exist that can hose up a fighter. In other words, true non-melee situations are the minority of encounters. Most encounters have a strong stand-and-fight component or close-and-fight logic behind them. As for casters vs. fighters, I acknowledge that your words are true. As fighter don't have spells, that issue is a caster design problem, not a fighter design problem. |
| YotartheBrave04-27-07, 12:51 PM | As for mobility: the PHB II has two more feats to add to the Spring Attack repitoire. Bounding assult allows you to make two attacks as part of a Spring attack, and Rapid Blitz which allows you to take three attacks as part of a Spring Attack (which is a standard action by the way). Heck with that you can maximize your attacks per round, while minimizing the attacks that your opponent can take on you. |
| YotartheBrave04-27-07, 01:06 PM | Ok, so you buy armor for your companion...and ...what??? Animal armor class never gets very good, and even with barding will probably never get past the low 20's. Factor in the cleric base attack, and the fighter still outstrips any animal you can put in front of him. Math is still on my side. It's all about putting average damage per round on target. I don't care if you can do 4d20 + 16 damage per attack, if you only hit on a 18 - 20, your damage per round is only (3.97) 4 points of damage per round. A fighter hits more often, so even if it doesn't do as much per hit, it just out damages per round. |
| YotartheBrave04-27-07, 01:07 PM | Just happened to notice no one took up my challenge of trying to use math to prove their point. |
| aelryinth04-27-07, 01:58 PM | Just happened to notice no one took up my challenge of trying to use math to prove their point. Did you happen to read the fight scene with the 'new' Against the Giants at WoTC? Do you know what finally brought down the improved Nonsrna, the Hill Giant Cheif with levels in Frenzied berserker? A druid animal companion with its AC so high it literally could not be touched. From a 12th level character. Yeah. The math has already been done. You just need to go look for it. ===Aelryinth |
| crashlogic04-27-07, 02:18 PM | If the companion has all the buffs, kill the druid. |
| Flan04-27-07, 02:24 PM | The math has already been done. You just need to go look for it. Well since google gives pretty much nothing for "Nonsrna", nor does wizard's search, and "Against the Giants" gives maps about a year old as the newest thing, I think you either need to be lucky or omniscient to find the garbage you're talking about. Would have been nice of you to provide a link, although frankly from your description it sounds so stupid it's probably better not read anyway. |
| elchucha04-27-07, 04:20 PM | I agree. Hitting more often is better than hittting harder. More chances of critical, also. |
| Nephlite04-27-07, 05:57 PM | Ok, so you buy armor for your companion...and ...what??? Animal armor class never gets very good, and even with barding will probably never get past the low 20's. Factor in the cleric base attack, and the fighter still outstrips any animal you can put in front of him. Math is still on my side. It's all about putting average damage per round on target. I don't care if you can do 4d20 + 16 damage per attack, if you only hit on a 18 - 20, your damage per round is only (3.97) 4 points of damage per round. A fighter hits more often, so even if it doesn't do as much per hit, it just out damages per round. So asssuming same Armor: Fighter AC never gets poast low 20's. That is horrible. After all, why can Fighter get better AC than the creature? |
| Judging Eagle04-27-07, 07:02 PM | Well since google gives pretty much nothing for "Nonsrna", nor does wizard's search, and "Against the Giants" gives maps about a year old as the newest thing, I think you either need to be lucky or omniscient to find the garbage you're talking about. Would have been nice of you to provide a link, although frankly from your description it sounds so stupid it's probably better not read anyway. Hmm, use 'site' searches; I used: "against the giants" site:http://www.wizards.com/ and it's the 7th link from the top. Actually, there was a thread in the backpages on an other forum that had the links I was seeking, I did the search to see if I could just find it via google though. The only reason I know what to look for was b/c I had already seen it. Here's the link to the official game: Lunchtime Campaign: Against the Giants (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/news/20070116a) As well, the second installment (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/news/20070301a) And, let's not forget the fact that they went to the CO boards to get info, players (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=765491) and DM (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11074862&postcount=22) alike. |
| Oakes04-27-07, 07:12 PM | Fighters are kind of my favorite class. I don't understand why people claim they're underpowered in any way. In fact, I take special care to make sure Fighters in my games aren't unbalanced in the other direction. But that's neither here nor there. Fighters (and other classes) exist because people enjoy playing them. Even though this answer has been given a few dozen times by now. Feats are just really -great- things to acquire. You feel like you can do things. |
| aelryinth04-27-07, 10:48 PM | Well since google gives pretty much nothing for "Nonsrna", nor does wizard's search, and "Against the Giants" gives maps about a year old as the newest thing, I think you either need to be lucky or omniscient to find the garbage you're talking about. Would have been nice of you to provide a link, although frankly from your description it sounds so stupid it's probably better not read anyway. Ah, Flan and his reasoning, reasonable views, and his inability to actually search the back articles of WoTC. Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance for the rest of us. Google...LOL. ===Aelryinth |
| Zelck04-27-07, 11:11 PM | Ah, Flan and his reasoning, reasonable views, and his inability to actually search the back articles of WoTC. Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance for the rest of us. Google...LOL. ===Aelryinth It was misspelled. I ran across the exact same problem. |
| Flan04-28-07, 03:15 AM | Ah, Flan and his reasoning, reasonable views, and his inability to actually search the back articles of WoTC. Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance for the rest of us. You've done quite a good job of demonstrating why you're now on my ignore list. Had you actually been able to spell the character's name, searchs might have worked, but somehow your mistake is my ignorance and an excuse for ad hominem? Google...LOL. Works better than wizard's search, whose sort by date is broken, assuming you have the correct information to search on of course. As for the article all that is said was that there was a fleshraker dinosaur with a high AC. There was no mention of actual AC. How you could possibly imagine this would make a good response to someone talking about mathematical proof is simply mindboggling. Thankfully this board has ignore and this is the last vomitus spew I'll have to suffer reading by you. Ta ta. |
| Arem_K04-28-07, 04:08 AM | Just happened to notice no one took up my challenge of trying to use math to prove their point. Yotar, what exactly are you looking for when you say you want mathematical proof? Fighters get their AC from armor and magic items that boost stats or attributes directly. Animal companions can wear the same stuff, but they also have natural armor. They also have a natural armor bonus from the druid. The fleshraker enters the game at level 4 with an AC of 20. That is its naked AC. Every item you add to that it is going to bring it higher. |
| YotartheBrave04-28-07, 11:41 AM | Yotar, what exactly are you looking for when you say you want mathematical proof? Fighters get their AC from armor and magic items that boost stats or attributes directly. Animal companions can wear the same stuff, but they also have natural armor. They also have a natural armor bonus from the druid. The fleshraker enters the game at level 4 with an AC of 20. That is its naked AC. Every item you add to that it is going to bring it higher. You are absolutely correct. However, what this monster can't make up for is it's lower BAB and feats. If we assume the EXACT SAME AC for the purposes of this little experiment (is this a 4HD creature????), then the fighter already hits 15% (+3 difference) more often because of BAB and Weapon Focus and a MW weapon. If you're talking about a druid transforming into a fleshraker the discrepency is even greater. Now the fighter has a BAB of +5, while the druid still has a BAB of +3, still assuming the same AC the fighter now hit 20% more often than the druid. Given the typically lower weapon damage that creatures have, even multiple attacks don't make up the difference in damage per round that your typical fighter can do. The higher the level, the bigger the difference: At 8th level (or HD) the gap is +5 (Ftr BAB+8, WF, GWF, Mw weapon= +11)(Dru BAB+6). 11 - 6 = +5 or 25% more hits per round and an equal chance of the second attack hitting as the druid. At 12th level the discrepency to hit is +8 or 40% on the first attack, +3 or +15% on the second attack, and -2 or a -10% less than the druids initial attack. and so on, and thats just BAB and fighter only feats, thats no even counting strength. And that is a mathematical example. I'm going to repeat this: the only thing I ask is that you start them on an even footing. If you assume barkskin on a creature, put barkskin on the fighter. If you bull strength the critter, bull strength the fighter. An even playing field is one where both the druid and the fighter are aware of each other, and neither has a tactical advantage at the beggining of combat. |
| Bob Loblaw04-28-07, 02:40 PM | I'm going to repeat this: the only thing I ask is that you start them on an even footing. If you assume barkskin on a creature, put barkskin on the fighter. If you bull strength the critter, bull strength the fighter. An even playing field is one where both the druid and the fighter are aware of each other, and neither has a tactical advantage at the beggining of combat. One will always have a tactical advantage over the other to start. If you start at range, and the fighter has his bow, he has an advantage over the druid. If you start in melee, the fighter has the advantage if he wins initiative against the druid. If you give them even 2 rounds to prep, the druid will have a significant advantage. If you start the battle while both sides are sleeping, the druid has the advantage. Someone will always have the advantage. |
| Qube04-28-07, 04:08 PM | If you start the battle while both sides are sleeping, the druid has the advantage. euh ?? because he snores? |
| aelryinth04-28-07, 04:33 PM | You are absolutely correct. However, what this monster can't make up for is it's lower BAB and feats. If we assume the EXACT SAME AC for the purposes of this little experiment (is this a 4HD creature????), then the fighter already hits 15% (+3 difference) more often because of BAB and Weapon Focus and a MW weapon. If you're talking about a druid transforming into a fleshraker the discrepency is even greater. Now the fighter has a BAB of +5, while the druid still has a BAB of +3, still assuming the same AC the fighter now hit 20% more often than the druid. Given the typically lower weapon damage that creatures have, even multiple attacks don't make up the difference in damage per round that your typical fighter can do. The higher the level, the bigger the difference: At 8th level (or HD) the gap is +5 (Ftr BAB+8, WF, GWF, Mw weapon= +11)(Dru BAB+6). 11 - 6 = +5 or 25% more hits per round and an equal chance of the second attack hitting as the druid. At 12th level the discrepency to hit is +8 or 40% on the first attack, +3 or +15% on the second attack, and -2 or a -10% less than the druids initial attack. and so on, and thats just BAB and fighter only feats, thats no even counting strength. And that is a mathematical example. I'm going to repeat this: the only thing I ask is that you start them on an even footing. If you assume barkskin on a creature, put barkskin on the fighter. If you bull strength the critter, bull strength the fighter. An even playing field is one where both the druid and the fighter are aware of each other, and neither has a tactical advantage at the beggining of combat. The correct answer to this is...no, I don't have to give the fighter what I'm giving my animal companion. As a matter of fact, I don't have to give him a damn thing. My animal companion is mine to buff and equip. The fighter's job is to buff and equip himself. Does he want to spend his cash on Amulets of Nat AC and the like? Go right ahead. I've seen all the stats for what a basic Animal Companion without all that much cash outlay can look like. Those Nat AC bonuses are HUGE (that Fleshraker at level 20 STARTS at a 30 AC...before adding ANYTHING.) and extremely hard to overcome when your fighter is starting at AC 10. Start throwing/sharing Barkskin, ANimal Growth, Bite of this or that Werebeast, Shell of the Tortoise, add Armor/barding, and suddenly the damage and TH problems of El Dino start going away really quickly. And that's without silly stuff like Nature's Avatar. Add in Aura of Vitality too...all this stuff stacks and starts getting really, really nasty. And Greater Magic Fang or amulets thereof, of course... Nasty enough, that a Hill giant Cheiftain Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker couldn't hit the beast, and it could hit him, and eventually outlasted him and brought him down. === As for finding that article, I just go into the history of the posted articles on the website, I didn't use the Search function. As for Nonsrna's proper spelling...I was assuming old time players who'd know who I was talking about (what, you never played Against the Giants?) more then trying to remember that gobbledygook name precisely. Nosnra? Nonsra? Heh. ====== As for Flan...'vomitus spew'. LOL. Still hasn't learned how to post nicely. I'm glad I'm on his Ignore list...I guess I won't be the target of 'spewage' anymore. But, of course, that doesn't mean I can't report him for flaming! ===Aelryinth |
| navar10004-28-07, 09:44 PM | euh ?? because he snores? Because the fighter won't be wearing his armor while the druid will have a decent AC in wildshape. A fighter could have Endurance and wear medium armor, though. If he happens to have mithral fullplate or similar that'll work, but that's too circumstantial to be used as viable generic comparison. |
| navar10004-28-07, 09:51 PM | The correct answer to this is...no, I don't have to give the fighter what I'm giving my animal companion. As a matter of fact, I don't have to give him a damn thing. My animal companion is mine to buff and equip. The fighter's job is to buff and equip himself. Does he want to spend his cash on Amulets of Nat AC and the like? Go right ahead. I've seen all the stats for what a basic Animal Companion without all that much cash outlay can look like. Those Nat AC bonuses are HUGE (that Fleshraker at level 20 STARTS at a 30 AC...before adding ANYTHING.) and extremely hard to overcome when your fighter is starting at AC 10. Start throwing/sharing Barkskin, ANimal Growth, Bite of this or that Werebeast, Shell of the Tortoise, add Armor/barding, and suddenly the damage and TH problems of El Dino start going away really quickly. And that's without silly stuff like Nature's Avatar. Add in Aura of Vitality too...all this stuff stacks and starts getting really, really nasty. And Greater Magic Fang or amulets thereof, of course... ===Aelryinth Have to have to buff the fighter or else? No, the druid is under no such obligation. If you're going to cast a buff spell anyway and casted upon the fighter would make an already good warrior into an even better warrior such that the bad guys are beaten faster? That's what friendship, working together as a team, and being party members is all about. We've been through this already. Please take your selfish I want to win the game alone attitude away. |
| Bob Loblaw04-28-07, 10:17 PM | euh ?? because he snores? navar got it right. The fighter can't sleep well in his armor, the druid can wild shape and still use his spells. |
| aelryinth04-29-07, 02:10 AM | Have to have to buff the fighter or else? No, the druid is under no such obligation. If you're going to cast a buff spell anyway and casted upon the fighter would make an already good warrior into an even better warrior such that the bad guys are beaten faster? That's what friendship, working together as a team, and being party members is all about. We've been through this already. Please take your selfish I want to win the game alone attitude away. Ah, so in other words I'm going to ask for all sorts of buffs from the party c leric and mage for my animal companion as well? That should be interesting. Nothing selfish about this...we are simply comparing class abilities and what can become of them. The base fighter against a moderately buffed animal companion (or evenly equipped) is not nearly the walk over you posit it to be. Dismissing it out of hand because you want to move the goal post around simply isn't a good answer. ===Aelryinth |
| YotartheBrave04-29-07, 08:42 PM | The correct answer to this is...no, I don't have to give the fighter what I'm giving my animal companion. As a matter of fact, I don't have to give him a damn thing. My animal companion is mine to buff and equip. The fighter's job is to buff and equip himself. Does he want to spend his cash on Amulets of Nat AC and the like? Go right ahead. I've seen all the stats for what a basic Animal Companion without all that much cash outlay can look like. Those Nat AC bonuses are HUGE (that Fleshraker at level 20 STARTS at a 30 AC...before adding ANYTHING.) and extremely hard to overcome when your fighter is starting at AC 10. Start throwing/sharing Barkskin, ANimal Growth, Bite of this or that Werebeast, Shell of the Tortoise, add Armor/barding, and suddenly the damage and TH problems of El Dino start going away really quickly. And that's without silly stuff like Nature's Avatar. Add in Aura of Vitality too...all this stuff stacks and starts getting really, really nasty. And Greater Magic Fang or amulets thereof, of course... Nasty enough, that a Hill giant Cheiftain Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker couldn't hit the beast, and it could hit him, and eventually outlasted him and brought him down. ===Aelryinth Wow! And how many rounds did you have to work to get all of those spells off??? Apparently I'm not making myself understood. All I want is too see your math. Just how nasty does that make a fleshraker, and how many of those spells are hour long, that you HAPPEN to have them in play at the beggining of combat. Equip yourself in whatever you want, give me a gold peice value, and allow me to equip up to that amount. Oh, and I don't want to nit-pick, but a 20th level druid's fleshraker companion doesn't have an AC of 30. I don't have the books right in front of me, but it's only 28 or 29. I think 29. And then their DEX goes up a coupla points so it's AC 32. To put that in perspective: a 20th level fighter will hit it's naked AC without any magical equipment on a 2 or better. That's what I said. A 2 or BETTER!!! Here is the Math: 20th LEVEL FIGHTER: BAB + 20 STR 22 or 23 = +6 WFocus +1 GWFocus +1 WMastery +2 Mw Weapon +1 +31 to hit, and I didn'tt even buff up yet. Do you seriously think that I think your fleshraker's AC is something to fear?? We're talking about 20th level characters here. Part of the reason that hill giant didn't hit the mythical animal companion is all of those giant level that only give a 3/4 BAB. It really adds up....kinda like your fleshraker. If I'm not mistaken, a maxed out fleshraker has 13 HD , a +9 to NA, +5 to STR & DEX..again, I don't have the books in front of me, but these are pretty close figures Soooo.... a fleshraker at 20th level companion status has: BAB + 9 STR 22 = +6 WFocus: Bite +1 Wow...a whole +16 to hit before you buff up. Any fighter in full plate will be missed a full 15% of the time. Why am I afraid of this critter again. After all this quality time with his druid master he becomes what?.. CR 8, maybe 9. |
| Flan04-29-07, 09:24 PM | Because the fighter won't be wearing his armor while the druid will have a decent AC in wildshape. A fighter could have Endurance and wear medium armor, though. If he happens to have mithral fullplate or similar that'll work, but that's too circumstantial to be used as viable generic comparison. At higher levels mithril chain shirt + dastana are better than full plate since you enhance both. They also don't slow your movement and allow you to tumble, which is a useful combat maneuver. Even if you're talking about a non-minmaxed fighter (vs of course the min-maxed out the ass druid, because there is no other, right), the augment crystal from magic item compendium that allows you to sleep in your armor costs almost nothing, and there is a ring that likewise lets you instantly summon your armor on to you that costs almost nothing. |
| YotartheBrave04-29-07, 09:39 PM | ...and you better believe that animal companions are push overs. Let's take the flesh raker again at the minimum level a druid and put it up against a 4th level fighter. I'll even be nice and give it chain barding BAB +3 STR +3 Total + 6 AC 24 (10 + 4 Dex,+6 Nt, +4 Ar) unfortunately I don't know the damage right off hand for their attacks. My 4th level fighter BAB +4 Str 19 = +4 WFocus +1 +1 Weapon +1 WpSpec +2 dmg +1 Hvy Poleaxe +10 2d6+9 (20) x3 If I get inititive, I set for charge. Avg damage on a set for charge is 32 with a 45% chance to hit is 14.4 points of damage. Then I get an AoO with avg damage of 16 at 45% to hit, which is 7.2 damage. 21.6 damage and the fleshraker hasn't even gone yet, and after raising it's AC by 4 points. Just for those of you who missed it, if the set for charge hits, the flesh raker is DEAD!!! If the AoO hits it, it is over HALF DEAD. Two hits with avg damage kill this crature, and any creature that the druid has access to at this level. If it's still alive at the end of it's turn, I fall back and set for charge again. It's a Pounce creature, it's gonna charge! Period! |
| navar10004-29-07, 10:13 PM | Ah, so in other words I'm going to ask for all sorts of buffs from the party c leric and mage for my animal companion as well? That should be interesting. Nothing selfish about this...we are simply comparing class abilities and what can become of them. The base fighter against a moderately buffed animal companion (or evenly equipped) is not nearly the walk over you posit it to be. Dismissing it out of hand because you want to move the goal post around simply isn't a good answer. ===Aelryinth You're missing the point. Your druid is casting buff spell after buff spell on your animal companion to make him the uberoverlord beast of the multiverse. That such a buffed up animal can be a real hard time on a fighter I don't doubt - not a given but possible depending upon the spells for the animal and the fighters feats and equipment. However, you're a party, a druid and fighter working together. Instead of casting 10 spells on your animal over the course of the day, since you're casting those spell slots on buff spells anyway, it might only be necessary to cast 5 spells on the fighter to achieve victory over the course of the day. Maybe it's only 3 spells on the fighter and 3 spells on the animal. Maybe the fighter won't need a spell from you one day. Maybe he doesn't need a spell but you cast one on him anyway to make him that much better such that you don't need to cast Flame Strike that battle. It's a given with all your spells you have lots of options and tactics from which to choose. You don't have to choose any particular option. However, absolutely refusing to buff the fighter, your alleged friend and party member, just because you don't like fighters says more about you the player than how powerful a druid is or can make his animal companion. |
| navar10004-29-07, 10:23 PM | At higher levels mithril chain shirt + dastana are better than full plate since you enhance both. They also don't slow your movement and allow you to tumble, which is a useful combat maneuver. Even if you're talking about a non-minmaxed fighter (vs of course the min-maxed out the ass druid, because there is no other, right), the augment crystal from magic item compendium that allows you to sleep in your armor costs almost nothing, and there is a ring that likewise lets you instantly summon your armor on to you that costs almost nothing. Mathematically possible, yes, however that's too specific. In a game situation, the druid will have an advantage over the fighter in a night time encounter. It is a good thing that it's possible for a fighter to overcome his disadvantage of his AC having just woken up. Whether he can get the absolute best mathematically possible in all of D&Ddom is a matter of an individual campaign. Otherwise, if he's bothered enough by this to want to do something about it, he strives to find the best solution he can given the campaign. Not directed at Flan in particular: Believe it or not, some spellcaster players might even find it tacticly advantageous for the party as a whole for them to cast a spell on said fighter right after being woken up. Shocking, I know, but some players are just so not out to win the game all by their lonesome just because it's mathetically possible. Casting a 2nd or 3rd level spell on the fighter just might be the better option than a 5th or 6th level spell casted directly against the enemy, which can be used later. The mind boggles at such cooperativeness. |
| Nephlite04-29-07, 11:18 PM | ...and you better believe that animal companions are push overs. Let's take the flesh raker again at the minimum level a druid and put it up against a 4th level fighter. I'll even be nice and give it chain barding BAB +3 STR +3 Total + 6 AC 24 (10 + 4 Dex,+6 Nt, +4 Ar) unfortunately I don't know the damage right off hand for their attacks. My 4th level fighter BAB +4 Str 19 = +4 WFocus +1 +1 Weapon +1 WpSpec +2 dmg +1 Hvy Poleaxe +10 2d6+9 (20) x3 If I get inititive, I set for charge. Avg damage on a set for charge is 32 with a 45% chance to hit is 14.4 points of damage. Then I get an AoO with avg damage of 16 at 45% to hit, which is 7.2 damage. 21.6 damage and the fleshraker hasn't even gone yet, and after raising it's AC by 4 points. Just for those of you who missed it, if the set for charge hits, the flesh raker is DEAD!!! If the AoO hits it, it is over HALF DEAD. Two hits with avg damage kill this crature, and any creature that the druid has access to at this level. If it's still alive at the end of it's turn, I fall back and set for charge again. It's a Pounce creature, it's gonna charge! Period! Yes, because you can't afford more than 400 gp for defense for the animal companion. :rolleyes: Yeah, right. At expect at least +1 Chain shirt barding if we are stuck to chain shirt. Why not Full plate or some protective gear like a ring (they have fingers)? Why not Barkskin even (lasts a long time)? How did you get 45%? (edit you wrote +10 when you meant +12) You need a 12 or better. 40% chance to hit him. If your had to roll a 10 that is 50%. But you need 2 more which is equal to -10% chance (5% each point). If charge 10 or better. so 50% hitting. Wait, why do you get an attack of opportunity? Charges do not provoke! Little rules point. |
| Flan04-30-07, 02:24 AM | Yes, because you can't afford more than 400 gp for defense for the animal companion. :rolleyes: The more money spent on the pet, the more killable the druid is. Fine, the pet has a billion AC, kill the druid. I find it amusing (and really why I bother to keep reading these inane threads) how people will in one post claim fighters are useless at high levels because opponents are all flying untrippleable huge mind controlling monsters with unmatchable movement, but in the next say a pet with worse saves, worse movement which can't use a magic item with flight or teleport is somehow more effective. Wait, why do you get an attack of opportunity? Charges do not provoke! Little rules point. Moving through squares threatened by a reach weapon do. |
| Kurama Youko04-30-07, 05:54 AM | You're missing the point. Your druid is casting buff spell after buff spell on your animal companion to make him the uberoverlord beast of the multiverse. That such a buffed up animal can be a real hard time on a fighter I don't doubt - not a given but possible depending upon the spells for the animal and the fighters feats and equipment. However, you're a party, a druid and fighter working together. Instead of casting 10 spells on your animal over the course of the day, since you're casting those spell slots on buff spells anyway, it might only be necessary to cast 5 spells on the fighter to achieve victory over the course of the day. Maybe it's only 3 spells on the fighter and 3 spells on the animal. Maybe the fighter won't need a spell from you one day. Maybe he doesn't need a spell but you cast one on him anyway to make him that much better such that you don't need to cast Flame Strike that battle. It's a given with all your spells you have lots of options and tactics from which to choose. You don't have to choose any particular option. However, absolutely refusing to buff the fighter, your alleged friend and party member, just because you don't like fighters says more about you the player than how powerful a druid is or can make his animal companion. Quoted for Great Truth. |
| Kurama Youko04-30-07, 06:03 AM | Wait, why do you get an attack of opportunity? Charges do not provoke! Little rules point. I think because he has a 10ft reach and the creature doesnt is the reason why he added the AOO. Also the cash of the 4th druid in question is like 2,700 its not out of the question to think that most of that money might be spent on the Druid and whatever residual money he has left might go toward equiping his animal companion next. That is unless we are talking about one of those situations where its a one on one and the druid is already surmizing how he is gonna make his animal companion do all the work and as such spends on his money on the animal companion. |
| YotartheBrave04-30-07, 03:16 PM | Yes, because you can't afford more than 400 gp for defense for the animal companion. :rolleyes: Yeah, right. At expect at least +1 Chain shirt barding if we are stuck to chain shirt. Why not Full plate or some protective gear like a ring (they have fingers)? Why not Barkskin even (lasts a long time)? How did you get 45%? (edit you wrote +10 when you meant +12) You need a 12 or better. 40% chance to hit him. If your had to roll a 10 that is 50%. But you need 2 more which is equal to -10% chance (5% each point). If charge 10 or better. so 50% hitting. Wait, why do you get an attack of opportunity? Charges do not provoke! Little rules point. Yup, charges don't provoke AoO, except that I have a reach weapon, oh yeah, wait....charges still provoke for moving through threatened squares. And I meant +10 to hit. The fleshraker loses 2 AC for charging, so I need a +12 or better to hit which is 45% chance to hit it. FYI if you hit on a 10 or better that's a 55% chance because there are 11 numbers between and including 10 to 20. It's actually a really common error. And the reason I didn't give the fleshraker magical gear is because I didn't give myself magical gear. |
| YotartheBrave04-30-07, 03:32 PM | Tell ya what, when I get a chance, I'll list the standard gear for standard NPC characters as it appears in the back of the PHB II, and that way we'lol have a baseline for what kind of gear is available at what level. I find it kind of hard to believe that I'll give my animal companion +1 barding before I get +1 armor for myself. but that's just me. |
| Alpha_Moose04-30-07, 06:51 PM | Quoted for Great Truth. Just to mention, most of the Druid's buffs only affect animals anyways, so you can only buff yourself or your companion (usually). |
| cactot04-30-07, 08:26 PM | Tell ya what, when I get a chance, I'll list the standard gear for standard NPC characters as it appears in the back of the PHB II, and that way we'lol have a baseline for what kind of gear is available at what level. I find it kind of hard to believe that I'll give my animal companion +1 barding before I get +1 armor for myself. but that's just me. Regardless, you built a very specific fighter that is good versus a charging creature. What if you were a 2h sword fighter? Not quite as lopsided. At lvl 4 the fleshraker has 4 attacks, 1d6+3 x 2 with poison, 1d6+1 with poison, 1d6+1 without poison. DC is only 14 (fort save) but does 2d6 total dex damage (1d6 then 1d6 a round later). The fight would not be lopsided in either direction. |
| Kresalak04-30-07, 08:33 PM | And no one cares whether idiot #726's Fighter can beat a Fleshraker, since the Fleshraker can still shred enemies of his level. |
| YotartheBrave04-30-07, 09:03 PM | Standard 4th level NPC Druid equipment: Mw weapon Hvy Wooden Sheild Mw Dragonhide Breastplate Cloak of Resistance +1 +1300 gp Standard 4th level NPC Fighter equipment: Mw Weapon Full Plate Armor Hvy Steel Shield Cloak of Resistance +1 +500 gp Now, before anyone complains, this just gives a baseline of equipment that doesn't penalize either side. Now make up your druid and companion, and post it with this equivilent of equipment, and I'll post up my fighter with the same. |
| YotartheBrave04-30-07, 09:07 PM | When you say "of his level" do you mean of his CR or of his HD, because the two are not synoomous when talking about animals. and I didn't specifically try to be great against charging creatures, I found a great weapon, and a great feat *Short Haft* and I built a character around it so as to be versitile. |
| cactot04-30-07, 09:22 PM | When you say "of his level" do you mean of his CR or of his HD, because the two are not synoomous when talking about animals. and I didn't specifically try to be great against charging creatures, I found a great weapon, and a great feat *Short Haft* and I built a character around it so as to be versitile. Fair enough, though it must be noted that you do NOT threaten all the squares in a 2 square range with short haft. You either threaten all that are 2 away, or all that are one away. Just something that a LOT of people overlook (or turn a blind eye to) in order to passively buff the fighter types. Doesn't matter much in a 1v1, but its a big difference in a large battle. |
| YotartheBrave04-30-07, 09:45 PM | Oh, I'm fully aware of what I threaten. I've got a really good group and we keep an eye on each other. And before anyone says it...yup, I know that it's a free action to short haft, and therefore can only be done once per round. |
| Nephlite04-30-07, 10:30 PM | Standard 4th level NPC Druid equipment: Mw weapon Hvy Wooden Sheild Mw Dragonhide Breastplate Cloak of Resistance +1 +1300 gp Standard 4th level NPC Fighter equipment: Mw Weapon Full Plate Armor Hvy Steel Shield Cloak of Resistance +1 +500 gp Now, before anyone complains, this just gives a baseline of equipment that doesn't penalize either side. Now make up your druid and companion, and post it with this equivilent of equipment, and I'll post up my fighter with the same. NPCs are poorer than PCs so a PC Druid can afford to put stuff on his animal. But let us go with NPCs: Even with 1300 means Mithral Chain shirt or Chain shirt +1. |
| magmer205-01-07, 12:26 AM | The druid could grab natural bond to get the fresh raker an additional two HD and natural armor, making fourth level a really sweet spot for the Companion. |
| navar10005-01-07, 02:12 AM | Just to mention, most of the Druid's buffs only affect animals anyways, so you can only buff yourself or your companion (usually). A cleric/wizard is better than a druid in buffing other party members, but let's see what druids get, PHB only. Level 0: Resistance Level 1: Jump Level 2: Barkskin Bear's Endurance Bull Strength Cat's Grace Delay Poison Owl's Wisdom (Will save improvement!) Resist Energy Level 3: Nothing Level 4: Freedom Of Movement Level 5: Death Ward Stoneskin Level 6: The Mass spells Level 7: Nothing Level 8: Animal Shapes Level 9: Foresight Hmm, not that much admittedly. Level 2 is the juicy level. Level 5's Stoneskin will do wonders for key battles. I wouldn't advise for any spellcaster to buff party members as their sole tactic. Wizards and clerics certainly are much better at it than druids in any event. I can give a pass on a druid not bothering at all to buff party members or a fighter in particular, maybe once or twice with a level 2 spell, because his spell selection isn't efficient for it. Stoneskin remains a good tactic for the important battles. However, I retain objection for not buffing the fighter only because you don't like fighters. |
| Archangel6205-01-07, 02:17 AM | I wouldn't advise for any spellcaster to buff party members as their sole tactic. Wizards and clerics certainly are much better at it than druids in any event. I can give a pass on a druid not bothering at all to buff party members or a fighter in particular, maybe once or twice with a level 2 spell, because his spell selection isn't efficient for it. Stoneskin remains a good tactic for the important battles. However, I retain objection for not buffing the fighter only because you don't like fighters. My problem is more that we shouldn't use another teammate providing buffs as an argument for the strenght of the buffed one. I mean it would be like saying that the commoner is a fine class because if you buff it up enough it can really tear the enemy apart. |
| navar10005-01-07, 02:20 AM | My problem is more that we shouldn't use another teammate providing buffs as an argument for the strenght of the buffed one. I mean it would be like saying that the commoner is a fine class because if you buff it up enough it can really tear the enemy apart. I don't. I only object to the absolute refusal of buffing a party member because spellcasters are the bomb. |
| Kurama Youko05-01-07, 02:48 PM | last i checked once a druid can cast animal shapes on his allies their type becomes animal and thus the bigger margin of his buff spells can now be applied to his allies. Now given this might penalize a fighter since he cant use his weapons or has the benefits of his armor and other magic items the potiental other buffs the druid could cast on him and other party members combinded with his selection of feats could make it worthwhile. |
| Judging Eagle05-01-07, 04:38 PM | I don't. I only object to the absolute refusal of buffing a party member because spellcasters are the bomb. Fine build a team. I'll bet you that the Druid, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue party beats up the Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue party. For fun, let's look at them at level 1, 5, 10 and 15. Since people play at those levels in a (usually) appropriate fashion. In any case, the problem here is with the class that does nothing in an of itself. The phb fighter class was not redesigned in 3.5 b/c Andy Collins used to PrC his fighters and his players fighters with one, specific 3rd party PrC; if I remember correctly. That's really a funny problem, but the fallout has been raining for the past three+ years. |
| Flan05-01-07, 05:01 PM | Fine build a team. I'll bet you that the Druid, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue party beats up the Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue party. I bet whoever's wizard wins initiative wins. |
| Argaud05-01-07, 05:20 PM | I bet whoever's wizard wins initiative wins. Only at level 20. I am not sure the idea is having a duel, though. If it is the party that can lit up more Candles of Invocation per round will win. |
| aelryinth05-01-07, 05:21 PM | Sigh, okay, since you seem determined not to run the numbers yourself. 1) Mithril breastplate barding +4. +10 AC bonus. 2) Barkskin. Shared spell between Druid so he doesn't need an Amulet. +5 Nat AC. Duration is hours. Cast every day ahead of time. 3) Greater Magic Fang +5. Shared spell, helps druid in Wild Shape. Duration in hours. Cast every day ahead of time. No need magic weapon. AC, before any form of pre-combat buffing, is now 47. Your lordly fighter with his primary attack is now hitting 1/4. Combat buffs. Needs one, maybe two. 1) Animal Growth. +1 AC, +8 Str, +4 Con, Size increase to base dmg types. Effectively +3 th, +4 Dmg, +1 AC. Duration....in minutes, more then long enough for a fight. Oh, and has reach for being size L. Don't ignore the Dr 10/magic and +4 Res to saves. There are a ton of high level monsters that don't have naturally magical attacks. AC is now 48. TH is now about +24, Dmg bonus is +16ish? and his poison save DC went up by 2 (Con increase), so the Fort save is probably around 20 or so (include Con mods from companion levels). 2) Bite of the Werebear. The real combat buff, shared between Druid and companion, measured in rounds. +16 Str, +2 Dex, +8 Con, +7 Nat AC (all enhancement) Claw dmg to 2-12 because of Animal Growth, Bite to 3d8 (L Werebear Dmg) AC is now 50. Dmg increases to +24ish, gain blind-fighting and Power attack. TH is now +32...more then enough to take on just about any CR 20 encounter...and most CR 20 Fighters. Others: 3) Nature's Favor: ANimal only version of Divine Favor, Luck BOnus TH/AT. Duration only 1 minute, +5 Th/Dmg, and you could Persist it if you have the feat. Optional, but we are now at +37 Th and +29ish dmg. 4) Nature's Avatar: If the Druid really wants you dead, This spell grants Haste, +10 th/dmg (morale), and d8/level temp hp (or 20d8). So, we're at +48 TH and +39ish dmg, AC 51, and another 90 hp or so. 5) Aura of Vitality: +4 Morale Bonus to Str/Dex/Con. Affects whole party, 1 rd/level. 6) Brilliant Blade/Aura could let the Companion ignore all Armor for one or all natural attacks. Owie. The fighter has to pay for a Brilliant weapon to compensate... We haven't factored in that the Companion gets 3 more feats, probably Improved Natural Attack (claws and bite). That would bring base dmg to 4d8 for the bite and 2-16 for claws. With four attacks all going off at only -2, his average hit numbers with a full attack are likely better then a Fighter's iteratives, too, although Weapon supremacy might mitigate this. We still only have a +2 enhancement to Dex in effect, so an amulet +4 raises the AC to 52. The Animal has no deflection or Shield bonuses, either. Tortoise Shell might give us another +2 Nat AC for a 54. A really combat happy druid will probably spring for the ring +5 Prot and get him to a 57 (or a 52, before all the 'extra' buffs). Shield and other bonuses will likely be a little more expensive, but the ring effectively replaces an Amulet of Nat Armor, which neither Druid nor Animal needs in terms of pricing strategy. With a sword +5 and a +6 Str enhancer, your Fighter is swinging at a +39, and now needs an 18 just to hit this monstrosity. His AC is likely to be high 30's or low 40's, meaning that the Companion hits with every attack and deals tremendous amounts of dmg doing so. Granted, this IS at level 20. However, Bite of the Werebear is available at level 11, and Animal Growth at 7th. The Fighter will have equal problems scaling his AC and TH as the companion does, over time, and some of the combat buffs are incredibly strong, even lethal (taking out a Fighters armor and shield bonuses, in combo with Power Attack, probably makes for a quick demise). Is this the be-all and end-all of CR 20 monsters and matchups? no...but it does mean that an Animal Companion can be really, really nasty given half a chance, and most of the 'buffing' to get there can be done well ahead of time. ========= As for Nonsrna, the reason he couldn't hit the Animal Companion was the high AC. Losing out on 3 BAB or so for Hill Giant HD was probably more then made up by the Barbarian and FB levels the Cheif had....and at least a +12 Str bonus from Rage and Frenzy. With a +15 TH from Str of 40 at least, +9 BAB from Hill Giant, and probably +5-8 from class levels/magic, he likely had a +30 bonus TH or better...not bad for a level 12 module. It's just it's kind of hard to beat on a 50 AC no matter who you are. ==Aelryinth |
| YotartheBrave05-01-07, 05:24 PM | Fine build a team. I'll bet you that the Druid, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue party beats up the Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue party. For fun, let's look at them at level 1, 5, 10 and 15. Since people play at those levels in a (usually) appropriate fashion. In any case, the problem here is with the class that does nothing in an of itself. The phb fighter class was not redesigned in 3.5 b/c Andy Collins used to PrC his fighters and his players fighters with one, specific 3rd party PrC; if I remember correctly. That's really a funny problem, but the fallout has been raining for the past three+ years. I don't knbow about you, but a party is a party. Every party member is supposed to lend his strengths, and cover the weaknesses of the other party members. I got into this because someone said that druids are better tanks than fighters, and one on one kill the fighter every time. I disagreed, and rightly so. My claim is that a druid taking on a fighter of the same level, and trying to out tank him with wildshape ig going to get squished. If the druid doesn't take several rounds to buff himself, he can't out fight the fighter. |
| aelryinth05-01-07, 05:34 PM | I don't knbow about you, but a party is a party. Every party member is supposed to lend his strengths, and cover the weaknesses of the other party members. I got into this because someone said that druids are better tanks than fighters, and one on one kill the fighter every time. I disagreed, and rightly so. My claim is that a druid taking on a fighter of the same level, and trying to out tank him with wildshape ig going to get squished. If the druid doesn't take several rounds to buff himself, he can't out fight the fighter. It's the 'several rounds' that is a misnomer. Key spells can be cast hours ahead of time. The Druid needs MAYBE one spell...Shapechange if you want brokenness, or Bite of the Werebear for the stat buffs when in a wildshape form like Air Elemental. Brilliant Weapon would also work, since it would negate the Fighter's armor, and Power Attack would clean up. Simple spells like Greater Magic Fang and Barkskin free up money elsewhere for other enhancements. Changing forms into things with high Nat AC and stats can effectively replace a Fighter's tanking ability, and the Druid still has spells available. Take away his shapechanging ability, and I'll agree, the Fighter should kick his arse...although the Animal Companion is still there to give the Fighter fits, and summoned beasties on top of it all... Ahhhhh....CoDzilla lives. That's all there is to it. ===Aelryinth |
| Flan05-01-07, 05:57 PM | I am not sure the idea is having a duel, though. If it is the party that can lit up more Candles of Invocation per round will win. Scroll of Time Stop, d4+1 candles, go go go! |
| Argaud05-01-07, 06:17 PM | Scroll of Time Stop, d4+1 candles, go go go! That is what the rogue does. The wizard cast maximized timestop (using a rod) and follows with quicken timestop (using another) for 1d4+6 Gates. And he also autowins the initiative with a spell. The cleric... I think he can do even better than the wizard. The druid and the fighter do not count. At all. |
| Argaud05-01-07, 06:28 PM | 2) Barkskin. Shared spell between Druid so he doesn't need an Amulet. +5 Nat AC. Duration is hours. Cast every day ahead of time. And they remain within 5' of each other all the duration? I guess it is possible if the companion is a mount. Otherwise no. Same goes for all the shared spells. AC, before any form of pre-combat buffing, is now 47. Your lordly fighter with his primary attack is now hitting 1/4. Is the base AC of this critter 32? Just asking. Combat buffs. Needs one, maybe two. 1) Animal Growth. +1 AC, +8 Str, +4 Con, Size increase to base dmg types. Effectively +3 th, +4 Dmg, +1 AC. Duration....in minutes, more then long enough for a fight. Oh, and has reach for being size L. Actually, +2 natural armor but -2 dex and -1 for size means Animal Growth won't add to the critter AC. I am not going to comment on the buffs, but most of them are short of duration. Yes, AC 50 is good and +32 to hit is adequate at level 20, but the druid has been casting spells just in the companion for 2-3 rounds. To get it where a cleric gets in 2-3 rounds. Or halfway where a wizard can get a fighter in 2-3 rounds. And if the animal is dueling a fighter, the Pierce Magical Protection will dispel all those buffs instantly. The animal loses. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-01-07, 06:38 PM | I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the 'fighters are underpowered' camp wouldn't consider that an optimized druid build, but rather, a straight-out-of-the-box-average-any-player-would-create-it-build that demonstrates the harmless power level all classes should strive for. I guess now that the question 'Any reason to have a fighter?' has been answered... we can answer this one: 'Any reason to play the game?' At least, when your AC is so high no one can touch you and you one-shot all encounters with your save-or dies. We might as well forgo creating actual characters and just discuss how quickly we would have ended such and such encounter with our sweet caster abilities. |
| Grimmoloth05-01-07, 06:45 PM | I know I'm a little late in this but I find fighters to be beautiful for two-weapon fighters or archers, if not in the least a base for a later presitge class. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-01-07, 06:57 PM | I know I'm a little late in this but I find fighters to be beautiful for two-weapon fighters or archers Did you mean and archers? http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11802609&postcount=1178 After toying around with the build, I would change the full attack sequence with the quarterstaff to alternating each end of the double weapon (which is probably how it actually happens anyways). With Crushing Strike, that nets you... +20/+21/+17/+18/+14/+15/+11 (that's just BAB) And Weapon Supremacy turns that last attack from +11 into +16. |
| Argaud05-01-07, 07:10 PM | Did you mean and archers? http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=11802609&postcount=1178 After toying around with the build, I would change the full attack sequence with the quarterstaff to alternating each end of the double weapon (which is probably how it actually happens anyways). With Crushing Strike, that nets you... +20/+21/+17/+18/+14/+15/+11 (that's just BAB) And Weapon Supremacy turns that last attack from +11 into +16. I have also been thinking about that build and I think that weapon can be twinked even more. See, an elvenbow is a melee weapon. Melee weapons can be Wounding weapons. However, it is also a bow, which can be made Split. And bows give their magical properties to the arrows. So, you can shot 12 wounding arrows using a Wounding Spit elvenbow. You don't even need DR-penetration, you can destroy any living target Con! |
| Otto the Bugbear05-01-07, 07:21 PM | We might as well forgo creating actual characters and just discuss how quickly we would have ended such and such encounter with our sweet caster abilities. There's a term for that, too... Bench racing. |
| BluEnigma05-01-07, 07:34 PM | I have also been thinking about that build and I think that weapon can be twinked even more. See, an elvenbow is a melee weapon. Melee weapons can be Wounding weapons. However, it is also a bow, which can be made Split. And bows give their magical properties to the arrows. So, you can shot 12 wounding arrows using a Wounding Spit elvenbow. You don't even need DR-penetration, you can destroy any living target Con! Didn't check the book, but if I recall, the bow part and the quarterstaff part are enchanted separately. Good idea, though. |
| Judging Eagle05-01-07, 07:41 PM | Firstly, aelryinth; thanks for doing the numbers. Sorry for being lazy. I hadn't counted the "Bite of ..." line of spells, but they're remarkably viable in that respect. Man, I need to get my Archivist a Wild Cohort and Leadership...be the canny librarian gone feral. I don't knbow about you, but a party is a party. Every party member is supposed to lend his strengths, and cover the weaknesses of the other party members. I got into this because someone said that druids are better tanks than fighters, and one on one kill the fighter every time. I disagreed, and rightly so. My claim is that a druid taking on a fighter of the same level, and trying to out tank him with wildshape ig going to get squished. If the druid doesn't take several rounds to buff himself, he can't out fight the fighter. I don't know about you, but if I have to make mirror-match teams, I'd make my NPC teams tanks PHB fighters; b/c if I take a druid, the PCs will lose. Now, with the PCs having won "Wheel of Genie" last session (3 PCs Decent combat abilities + Spells to buff = Disaster for anything that can't cast spells to Buff. Also, the Druid can spend hours and hours in completely discreet and unbotrusive forms; cast their buff spells, then wild shape into a dire bear. |
| Ieyke05-01-07, 09:01 PM | I haven't read this thread at all, because it's 58 pages long, so I have no idea what has been said so far. That being said, I can't believe ANYONE would challenge the usefullness of a Fighter. As a player whose specialization is brutally powerful Fighter builds I can safely say that a Fighter built carefully is a match for any other class. There may not be as much room for error in your Feat and equipment selection as other classes, but when you've seen a level 13 Fighter do a minimum of 500 damage in one round and a maximum of 2500, you become keenly aware of the Fighter's potential. Granted he had a PrC or 2, but he was more than half Fighter. (Yes that damage is accurate and based off the WotC D&D rules. We recalculated and triple checked everything) |
| cactot05-01-07, 09:43 PM | I haven't read this thread at all, because it's 58 pages long, so I have no idea what has been said so far. That being said, I can't believe ANYONE would challenge the usefullness of a Fighter. As a player whose specialization is brutally powerful Fighter builds I can safely say that a Fighter built carefully is a match for any other class. There may not be as much room for error in your Feat and equipment selection as other classes, but when you've seen a level 13 Fighter do a minimum of 500 damage in one round and a maximum of 2500, you become keenly aware of the Fighter's potential. Granted he had a PrC or 2, but he was more than half Fighter. (Yes that damage is accurate and based off the WotC D&D rules. We recalculated and triple checked everything) Summation of the thread: 1. Fighters are okay at doing damage in melee combat (and sometimes ranged, with the correct magic items) 2. Many fighter tactics either do not work, or do not work well against high level foes (because of size, type or outrageous strength scores, ex. grapple or trip) 3. In MOST situations other classes can do the fighters job fine without much noticeable difference. 4. Fighters are completely worthless out of combat (no useful specialties and very low skill points and intelligence usually) 5. Other classes (who can be very good at melee) are also very useful out of combat 6. Other classes (who can be very good at melee) do not have to specialize in order to be effective in combat, thus making them more diverse foes. Conclusion: While fighters can be a force to be reckoned with in combat, they are not irreplaceable, and are nearly always far outclassed outside of combat. Secondary argument against fighters as they are: Fighters are one of the few classes that can be completely underpowered depending on build. They require extreme optimization to be competitive with non-optimized versions of other classes, and depend heavily on PrC's. A cleric, druid or warblade are easier to play well for a new person, as they do not require extreme knowledge of the game to be useful. Of the primary classes fighters and sorcerers are the hardest to play well into high levels for newbies (both for the same reason, potential bad choices of unchangeable class features), followed by bards and wizards, the rest are easy. |
| aelryinth05-01-07, 10:35 PM | I haven't read this thread at all, because it's 58 pages long, so I have no idea what has been said so far. That being said, I can't believe ANYONE would challenge the usefullness of a Fighter. As a player whose specialization is brutally powerful Fighter builds I can safely say that a Fighter built carefully is a match for any other class. There may not be as much room for error in your Feat and equipment selection as other classes, but when you've seen a level 13 Fighter do a minimum of 500 damage in one round and a maximum of 2500, you become keenly aware of the Fighter's potential. Granted he had a PrC or 2, but he was more than half Fighter. (Yes that damage is accurate and based off the WotC D&D rules. We recalculated and triple checked everything) Now, take away his PrC dips and make him all Fighter, and you might have a supportable argument if he can still do the same kind of damage. Otherwise, you're just backing what we've been saying all along. No one's doubting the power of a melee monster...we're picking at the Fighter. ===Aelryinth |
| aelryinth05-01-07, 10:56 PM | And they remain within 5' of each other all the duration? I guess it is possible if the companion is a mount. Otherwise no. Same goes for all the shared spells. Is the base AC of this critter 32? Just asking. Actually, +2 natural armor but -2 dex and -1 for size means Animal Growth won't add to the critter AC. I am not going to comment on the buffs, but most of them are short of duration. Yes, AC 50 is good and +32 to hit is adequate at level 20, but the druid has been casting spells just in the companion for 2-3 rounds. To get it where a cleric gets in 2-3 rounds. Or halfway where a wizard can get a fighter in 2-3 rounds. And if the animal is dueling a fighter, the Pierce Magical Protection will dispel all those buffs instantly. The animal loses. As you calculated before the AC is indeed STARTING at 32. I'm using your numbers, and ignoring Natural Bond increasing it one stage as an option. As for Animal Growth, it's +2 Nat AC for size and -2 Dex for +1 AC, which is what I used. There's no size loss to AC. Correct your own math. And sure, if the Fighter runs up the feat chain and takes this at the 3rd feat (in addition to all the feats blown on weapon supremacy and whatever other feats you are now going to give him) it's a nice thing. However, he has to land the hit. And he could easily be dead before then (Pounce is natural to the 'raker). He's also got to make some DC 24 or so fort saves or start losing his DEx. as for 5'...we can call that riding, but in Air Elemental form, not a problem at all...and definitely worth it. ==Aelryinth |
| cactot05-01-07, 11:13 PM | Now, take away his PrC dips and make him all Fighter, and you might have a supportable argument if he can still do the same kind of damage. Otherwise, you're just backing what we've been saying all along. No one's doubting the power of a melee monster...we're picking at the Fighter. ===Aelryinth Depending on whose arguments your referring to, it still doesn't even address the argument, seeing as being powerful in melee combat is a small part of being a useful contributor to a team. |
| Archangel6205-02-07, 03:11 AM | Depending on whose arguments your referring to, it still doesn't even address the argument, seeing as being powerful in melee combat is a small part of being a useful contributor to a team. True, but the question is about the fighter, not the fighter as part of an overall build. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-02-07, 05:05 AM | Summation of the thread: 1. Fighters are okay at doing damage in melee combat (and sometimes ranged, with the correct magic items) Fighters are very good at doing damage in both melee combat and ranged. 2. Many fighter tactics either do not work, or do not work well against high level foes (because of size, type or outrageous strength scores, ex. grapple or trip) This is mostly BS. With appropriate items, you can do just fine. The only truth here is that size limitations are indeed in place. So that a large fighter (permanent Enlarge) is mostly restricted to huge foes or smaller. 3. In MOST situations other classes can do the fighters job fine without much noticeable difference. If your fighter does little more than swing his weapon around to deal damage. And even then, maybe not. And 'other classes' is really meant to mean 'casters'. Optimized to tank. 4. Fighters are completely worthless out of combat (no useful specialties and very low skill points and intelligence usually) Not necessarily true. They have a social skill, and handle animal can be used in place of spot, listen, survival, etc. Feats like Able Learner facilitate cross-class skill investment. And any fighter with Combat Expertise will have a 13 intelligence. 5. Other classes (who can be very good at melee) are also very useful out of combat Being very good at melee is a strange term. Mostly, you mean 'can deal damage and/or take hits'. A fighter is 'good in melee' very differently than other classes. Further, you are simplifying the case (as many do). A barbarian is very good at melee, but not 'very useful' out of combat (listen is alright, but most likely you have a scout, and survival is alright, but most likely everyone has rations). A rogue is very useful out of combat, but not 'very good' at melee. 6. Other classes (who can be very good at melee) do not have to specialize in order to be effective in combat, thus making them more diverse foes. What is specializing? Because 'other classes' do indeed have to make feat choices, spell choices, skill choices, and item choices to do what they want to do. Consider the druid build that got tossed a few posts before us. That's a specific animal companion with specific spells. And magical armor. And the DMM Persistent Cleric isn't specializing either? Give me a break. Conclusion: While fighters can be a force to be reckoned with in combat, they are not irreplaceable Considering there are three other full BAB classes in the PHB, I might say this was a given. and are nearly always far outclassed outside of combat. Which is of course to be expected. Secondary argument against fighters as they are: Fighters are one of the few classes that can be completely underpowered depending on build. That's every class. They require extreme optimization to be competitive with non-optimized versions of other classes, and depend heavily on PrC's. This is also not true. There is nothing 'extreme' about choosing a fighter feat and choosing an item. Also, I don't think many people in this thread understand what 'optimization' means. A cleric, druid or warblade are easier to play well for a new person, as they do not require extreme knowledge of the game to be useful. Did we poll people for this secondary conclusion? Cactot, I'm not picking on you specifically, because in truth these are the actual claims and conclusions being drawn in this thread. You just happened to consolidate them :). But, the idea that a fighter build is 'worthless' as proof of any power (this has been said before) because it takes certain feats or items while any cleric/druid/wizard build is acceptable to demonstrate power is laughable. It is wholly inconsistent and shows a huge bias. How can you optimize a druid's wild shape and animal companion to show how strong in melee a druid is, and then reject an optimized fighter build as 'extreme optimization' or a 'specific case'? It's not so much that the fighter is hard to optimize. It's that people don't want to bother. |
| Argaud05-02-07, 06:57 AM | As you calculated before the AC is indeed STARTING at 32. I'm using your numbers, and ignoring Natural Bond increasing it one stage as an option. As for Animal Growth, it's +2 Nat AC for size and -2 Dex for +1 AC, which is what I used. There's no size loss to AC. Correct your own math. Increases in size come always with a loss of AC. Learn the rules. Medium to large is -1 AC. And sure, if the Fighter runs up the feat chain and takes this at the 3rd feat (in addition to all the feats blown on weapon supremacy and whatever other feats you are now going to give him) it's a nice thing. However, he has to land the hit. Pierce Magical Protection only requires one feat: Mage Slayer. Pierce Magical Protection ignores all AC given by spells wen making a hit, so the companion AC isn't very good. About 41 for a large, armored, fleshraker. It is pretty difficult for a level 20 fighter to miss against that. And he could easily be dead before then (Pounce is natural to the 'raker). He's also got to make some DC 24 or so fort saves or start losing his DEx. I guess he can miss those saves with a 1. Unless he has a feat to not miss them even with a one, of course. This if the fleshraker can land a hit. +32 to hit means that it misses half the attacks even against an unbuffed (AC42 easily) fighter. as for 5'...we can call that riding, but in Air Elemental form, not a problem at all...and definitely worth it. Riding works, although it is not optimal for a high level druid. However the fleshraker is a medium animal, so only a small druid can ride it (animal growth makes it ridable by medium druids, but only for 1min./level). I fail to see how being an air elemental would allow a druid to remain within 5' of the animal at all times. The only way I know the animal and the druid can move together is if one of them carries the other. The second one leaves (like when the fleshraker charges) one of them loses all the shared spells. Edit to add something: A fleshraker is a companion for a level 4 druid. This means he reaches +12 to natural armor when the druid is level 21. At level 20 he has +10 natural armor so the base AC is 31 (+5 Dex, +16 Nat) not 32. At least before druid feats. The mithril breastplate (which I guess is +5, not +4, if you want +10 AC) limits his Dex bonus to +5. However, it can be optimized better by adding Nimbleness to the properties of the armor, allowing for Dex +7 (from the 24 Dex) and base AC 33. It is still a 14 HD critter with Str 22, so he has a bab +10 and +16 to hit in melee. With Animal Growth +19. With Greater Magic Fang +24. With Bite of the Werebear +32, which is good but nothing to write home about. He can't breach any DR but /magic. He has no range attacks and no reach (large does not give reach to most animals, check the MM). Nobody takes poison seriously at level 20. Or grapple. Or +8 to will saves. I don't see it doing great. |
| cactot05-02-07, 08:51 AM | Fighters are very good at doing damage in both melee combat and ranged. and? So are many classes This is mostly BS. With appropriate items, you can do just fine. The only truth here is that size limitations are indeed in place. So that a large fighter (permanent Enlarge) is mostly restricted to huge foes or smaller. Its also rather hard to charge a flying foe, or grapple one with blink or SLA teleport or anything of that sort. If your fighter does little more than swing his weapon around to deal damage. And even then, maybe not. ... And 'other classes' is really meant to mean 'casters'. Optimized to tank. Ok, what will your specialist do other than "swing his weapon" when he is fighting foes that are not weak against his one specialty? Not necessarily true. They have a social skill, and handle animal can be used in place of spot, listen, survival, etc. Feats like Able Learner facilitate cross-class skill investment. ... And any fighter with Combat Expertise will have a 13 intelligence. I understand what you are trying to say, but my point is that no other class needs to try so hard to contribute so little out of combat. Being very good at melee is a strange term. Mostly, you mean 'can deal damage and/or take hits'. A fighter is 'good in melee' very differently than other classes. Slightly different, a fighter is really good at one combat tactic and can usually do pretty good damage when swinging his weapon. Further, you are simplifying the case (as many do). A barbarian is very good at melee, but not 'very useful' out of combat (listen is alright, but most likely you have a scout, and survival is alright, but most likely everyone has rations). A rogue is very useful out of combat, but not 'very good' at melee. Barbarians have twice the skillpoints and a better skill list, while this does not make them "good", they are certainly in a better position than fighters. Warblades, Crusaders, Druids (specialized), Clerics(specialized), Rangers and Paladins (just a few examples, not an exhaustive list) can all be "very good" in melee combat and "very useful" outside of melee combat. What is specializing? Because 'other classes' do indeed have to make feat choices, spell choices, skill choices, and item choices to do what they want to do. Consider the druid build that got tossed a few posts before us. That's a specific animal companion with specific spells. And magical armor. And the DMM Persistent Cleric isn't specializing either? Give me a break. The difference is what do the DMM cleric or wildshape focused druid sacrificing? Even the most specialized cleric or druid is going to be many many times more versatile than the least specialized fighter. I was not meaning to imply that they do not specialize at all, just that specialization hurts them far less. Considering there are three other full BAB classes in the PHB, I might say this was a given. ... Which is of course to be expected. Yes, and they just happen to have the least out of combat utility and are the most dependent on extreme knowledge of the game (and access to splat books) of any of the full BAB classes. That's every class. ... This is also not true. There is nothing 'extreme' about choosing a fighter feat and choosing an item. No, its not every class. Clerics and druids can memorize a whole new set of spells every day if they didn't like the ones they used yesterday. Wizards can learn a HUGE quantity of spells, even if the ones they picked at level up weren't optimal. Fighters that choose bad feats suck, now and forever, unless optional rules for re-speccing them is used. Feat synergy matters far more for fighters than any other class, and thus the feats have to be considered very carefully. Also, I don't think many people in this thread understand what 'optimization' means. Please enlighten us then. Did we poll people for this secondary conclusion? Did we poll people for any of these conclusions? Cactot, I'm not picking on you specifically, because in truth these are the actual claims and conclusions being drawn in this thread. You just happened to consolidate them :). But, the idea that a fighter build is 'worthless' as proof of any power (this has been said before) because it takes certain feats or items while any cleric/druid/wizard build is acceptable to demonstrate power is laughable. It is wholly inconsistent and shows a huge bias. How can you optimize a druid's wild shape and animal companion to show how strong in melee a druid is, and then reject an optimized fighter build as 'extreme optimization' or a 'specific case'? It's not so much that the fighter is hard to optimize. It's that people don't want to bother. I never said that a fighter is worthless, I am just campaigning to get them more versatility and scaling feats, so they can be useful and fun to play in all situations. (Like warblades and crusaders for other pure melee examples) I am not saying that it is impossible for a fighter to optimize itself into being more powerful in melee combat than a druid, but the question is: Exactly how much melee power is needed? And how much are you sacrificing to get that power? The answer is that while its possible for a fighter to be more powerful, a druid can easily do the job (and in some situations have an advantage), yet sacrifice nearly no versatility for that power. As can many other classes. Your right, to someone who knows the game extremely well and has tons of books, its not hard to optimize a fighter. The issue is that the fighter NEEDS to be optimized, because if it cannot contribute to melee combat significantly it serves NO role. Classes should not NEED to be optimized with extensive knowledge of the rules in order to provide useful contribution to the group. None of the casters do. I think that many people have knee jerk reactions to complaints about the fighters (no they don't suck!!11!! see this sweet build?!?) and completely ignore the point of the people who are doing the complaining. I am pro-fighter, I want them as an enjoyable and useful party member. Thats all, sure they can be melee powerhouses now, but they are also among the easiest to make impotent with the right foes (second to rogues). Whereas classes like crusader and warblade are fun to play and competitive out of the box, yet not overpowered. Just how it should be. |
| Raxmei05-02-07, 09:04 AM | I have also been thinking about that build and I think that weapon can be twinked even more. See, an elvenbow is a melee weapon. Melee weapons can be Wounding weapons. However, it is also a bow, which can be made Split. And bows give their magical properties to the arrows. So, you can shot 12 wounding arrows using a Wounding Spit elvenbow. You don't even need DR-penetration, you can destroy any living target Con!I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. Wounding doesn't say "Bows, crossbows, and slings so crafted bestow the wounding power on their ammunition." Wounding would only work with attacks made with the bow itself, not its arrows. |
| Bob Loblaw05-02-07, 10:29 AM | Its also rather hard to charge a flying foe, or grapple one with blink or SLA teleport or anything of that sort. This is where gear, feats, and teamwork is supposed to come in. I have yet to see in actual game play, any of these be more than a simple nuisance. Ok, what will your specialist do other than "swing his weapon" when he is fighting foes that are not weak against his one specialty? The fighter is not required to specialize in a single weapon. With the number of feats that he has available, he can actually focus on 1 weapon and several tactical/style feats. The fighter has enough feats to focus on two weapons, one ranged and one melee. He won't have a ton of extra abilities, but he can do it. Remember that he has 18 feats to play with, assuming that he is non-human. 19 if he's human. If you use flaws, he can have 25 feats total. That gives him quite a few options. Using substitution levels the fighter can be even more interesting. I understand what you are trying to say, but my point is that no other class needs to try so hard to contribute so little out of combat. Barbarians have twice the skillpoints and a better skill list, while this does not make them "good", they are certainly in a better position than fighters. Warblades, Crusaders, Druids (specialized), Clerics(specialized), Rangers and Paladins (just a few examples, not an exhaustive list) can all be "very good" in melee combat and "very useful" outside of melee combat. The fighter (and all classes) can do just fine out of combat with the current skill system. I have posted a complete breakdown of all the skills and how they apply to the fighter. When I was done, I found that I had skill points left over and was able to do just fine out of combat. I also used 0 cross class skills to accomplish this. If you would like, I will post it again. The difference is what do the DMM cleric or wildshape focused druid sacrificing? Even the most specialized cleric or druid is going to be many many times more versatile than the least specialized fighter. I was not meaning to imply that they do not specialize at all, just that specialization hurts them far less. This is dependent upon the campaign. Not every campaign allows dinosaurs as companions or wildshape forms. This isn't because the dinosaur isn't considered an animal in those games, it's because dinosaurs may be extinct so they are not available as choices. Every time you choose to include something for your character, you have also chosen to exclude something else. For the druid that focuses on wildshape, in order to make it work well, he must sacrifice a bit on his animal companion. The druid has few feats so each one brings him more focus to the one area that he feels works best for him. While his animal companion is going to still improve, it will not improve as much as it could if the druid decided to focus on it. This focus would then affect his wildshape focus. Yes, and they just happen to have the least out of combat utility and are the most dependent on extreme knowledge of the game (and access to splat books) of any of the full BAB classes. Not true at all. In fact, you brought up the Divine Metamagic which is also non-core. The fighter does require the player to really understand what he is doing with the combat system. The player needs to understand how and when to use Power Attack and Combat Expertise. The fighter can be an very unforgiving class if you make some bad choices. Hopefully the player is discussing this with the DM before the choices are made. This holds true for the other classes as well, but it may be more true for the melee classes than the caster classes. No, its not every class. Clerics and druids can memorize a whole new set of spells every day if they didn't like the ones they used yesterday. Wizards can learn a HUGE quantity of spells, even if the ones they picked at level up weren't optimal. Fighters that choose bad feats suck, now and forever, unless optional rules for re-speccing them is used. Feat synergy matters far more for fighters than any other class, and thus the feats have to be considered very carefully. Clerics and druids can change their prepared spell list daily. True. They have to live to see that next day. If their choices were bad enough, they won't be able to survive ant better than the fighter who has made poor choices. If your wizards have tons of spells, they have been spending quite a bit of their resources on those spells. At level 20, the wizard will have 45 spells, not counting 0-level (assuming 18 Intelligence). If the DM is giving him access to spellbooks without charging the wizard, then he has favored the wizard and given him free gear. Remember that scribing the spell into the book costs 100gp per spell level. A spellbook has 100 pages. A full spellbook is worth 5,000 gold. This is all assuming that the wizard has a spellbook just waiting to be read from. If the DM is giving scrolls, these count as wealth plus the 100gp per spell level to scribe. Some figures that are often ignored for a single scroll to be scribed as far as Wealth values: 1) Level 1: 125gp 2) Level 2: 350+gp 3) Level 3: 675+gp 4) Level 4: 1100+gp 5) Level 5: 1625+gp 6) Level 6: 2150+gp 7) Level 7: 2975+gp 8) Level 8: 3800+gp 9) Level 9: 4725+gp The wizard really shouldn't have HUGE quantities of spells and still have all the money left over that they do. I think that many people have knee jerk reactions to complaints about the fighters (no they don't suck!!11!! see this sweet build?!?) and completely ignore the point of the people who are doing the complaining. I am pro-fighter, I want them as an enjoyable and useful party member. Thats all, sure they can be melee powerhouses now, but they are also among the easiest to make impotent with the right foes (second to rogues). Whereas classes like crusader and warblade are fun to play and competitive out of the box, yet not overpowered. Just how it should be. I don't think that we are ignoring what the "fighter sucks" crowd is saying. In fact, I believe that we are being ignored. Many of us say that the fighter may suck in some games and not others because of group dynamics. We say that we have had no problems with the fighter being a viable member of a group. We are then told that our experiences are wrong. When Kahn mentioned that he doubted an all caster party could survive from level 1 on up, there were several people who said that they had managed to do just that. There anecdotal evidence was good enough for the community to show that it can happen. The pro-fighters' anecdotal evidence is ignored or attacked. Also, whether or not a class is fun to play out of the box is purely a matter of opinion. I cannot stand playing druids, clerics, crusaders, rogues, rangers, and several other classes. I have my reasons. They mostly boil down to the fact that I find the class boring as all get out. I have tried and tried to make a druid that I would enjoy playing. I can't even get past reading the class without scrapping the idea and moving on. As for crusaders, I absolutely despise the randomness they added to how I get my maneuvers. I want control over my character. Not every class is meant for every player nor every campaign. |
| blindcynic05-02-07, 10:52 AM | Greetings everyone First off, itwasntme PLEASE LEARN TO SPELL!!! It made reading this entire long thread that much harder. Everytime you had something to say I was forced to skip it. (If learning to spell is not an option, use SPELL CHECK, copy then paste etc.) Cactot I understand what you are trying to say, but my point is that no other class needs to try so hard to contribute so little out of combat. Obviously you did not understand what Khan was trying to say. Fighters can contribute fairly well outside of combat, it is a stubborn belief that you have to have 10+ ranks in a skill to be effective using it. Ok, what will your specialist do other than "swing his weapon" when he is fighting foes that are not weak against his one specialty? Before arguing further, you should check out the CO boards and learn what he is talking about. Fighters can offer just as much battlefield control as any other character trying to go tank and then some. They don't get stuck on one or two specialties if they are well built. (I know I know, Well built??? why should I have to try to make my character useful? He should come out of the box useful! Yet people argue time and again all of these fancy strategies that make non-tank characters into tanks...) Yes, and they just happen to have the least out of combat utility and are the most dependent on extreme knowledge of the game (and access to splat books) of any of the full BAB classes. AGAIN please visit the CO boards, learn about optimally built fighters. Khan is really quite acknowledged as uberly skilled, by MANY on the subject. I understand that you are trying to say that more time and investment goes into making a good fighter than a cleric, druid or any other spell caster and now you are arguing any other class altogether. I just have to say: wtf? SO WHAT? Fighters are useful as a PART of ANY roleplaying group. I mean if it's just PvP or scenarios where someone lists a good fighter and then you pick him apart then...of course something can be designed or thought of to beat him. Barbarians have twice the skillpoints and a better skill list, while this does not make them "good", they are certainly in a better position than fighters. Warblades, Crusaders, Druids (specialized), Clerics(specialized), Rangers and Paladins (just a few examples, not an exhaustive list) can all be "very good" in melee combat and "very useful" outside of melee combat. Say it isn't so...I thought we were discussing party usefulness? Barbarians are *in my experience* the worst class at combat contribution *when compared* to any other melee class. Especially the fighter, which offers a level of battlefield control, and when played as part of the group excels at battlefield control and synergizing the heck out of the party rogue (NOT ROUGE!!!!!!!! itwasntme). Sure the druid might be useful in two or perhaps three encounters as a tank but that woefully limits your druid and he doesn't make all that good a substitute fighter either. A druid's vaunted dire bear form or w/e is not so easy to use ALL of the time. Whereas a fighter usually has three or four good combat techniques or tactics to choose from at any given time. (See special attacks phb 155) Even if he doesn't have the feats for all of them a fighter should be comparably TWICE as good at most of these options as a druid of equal level. These special attacks offer a degree of battlefield control that is a constant resource! Time and again I hear people say "Wait so and so can do it better than the fighter" this is simply untrue. No other class has the feats/class abilties to be specialized in at least three or four of these special attacks *every* encounter. Fighters are not just good at fighting, they are exceptional at fighting, even a slightly below average fighter should be able to outfight MOST averagely built druids!!! (SEE CO boards, don't demand I show you, click character optimization boards and scroll for fighter builds or ask them to show a fighter that can do most of these things. They are much better than me or you at building characters of any class) but they are also among the easiest to make impotent with the right foes (second to rogues). I apologize for seeming nitpicky here, but what other melee characters wouldn't be nerfed by a foe that would nerf a fighter??? Your argument as I understand it, has been based on the idea that other classes can fulfill a fighter's role almost or just as well AND do something else outside of combat. I dunno about you but combat accounts for at least 40% of my gaming experience, or perhaps 35%, at any rate it is a LARGE part of the game for me and my players. Having a fighter in the party (and I have had small and large groups, ranging from 2-11, usually sitting at about 3-5) has NEVER been a drawback. As far as roles go, if the druid or the cleric can do everything better why have any other classes at all??? So barring clerical or druidic choices (simply because I am tired of saying see CO boards if you think Druids or clerics are better at melee or ranged combat than a fighter) what classes can fulfill a fighter's role and versatility (his KEY strength in combat) AND do something else outside of combat BETTER or at least well enough to ACTUALLY contribute more than a fighter? In my 15 years of dungeons and dragons through the various incarnations of the game, I have learned each character has a role. Some characters learn to roleplay their characters to take over more roles. As the PHB roles go though, I would say: Barbarian: Good at melee, okay skill choices, poor battlefield control Bard: Useful character fills in gaps, good skill monkey Cleric: Absolutely integral to a dynamically built party, healing is a must and undead turning helps Druid: Not as good as a cleric, but almost Fighter: Exceptional combatant, versatile at ranged or melee. Monk: okay at melee, possibly better if optimally built, okay skills. Can fill in gaps Paladin: Okay at melee, possibly better if optimally built, okay skills. Helps out with healing Ranger: Okay at melee, good at ranged, possibly better if optimally built, good skills, fills in gaps. Rogue: Absolutely integral to a dynamically built party, Skill monkey is a must Sorcerer or Wizard: Personally I believe that a wizard's versatility make it the better class. One of these is absolutely integral to a dynamically built party. This thread is about fighters and their apparent inability to fill their role, I disagree completely. See above list, only the fighter is actually exceptional at combat in my opinion. The rest of the combatants are 1 trick ponies in melee or ranged. Unable to switch or requiring buffs, items, time, opportunity etc to go toe to toe with monsters. Whereas a fighter is ready out of the gate at the beginning of nearly any encounter to do his thing. aka his role, nobody else's! Because as you can see the argument that everyone has been using *against* the fighter, the one where they say "he lacks versatility outside of combat" can be argued against every other class. They lack versatility INSIDE combat. Spellcasters need time, space or buffs or whatever to be effective, :embarrass Barbarians & Monks need to get in close, rage or flurry and attack. :eek: Rogues need flank attacks or surprise...:( What does a fighter need? He needs an opponent.:cool: |
| Clawhound05-02-07, 03:44 PM | Its also rather hard to charge a flying foe, or grapple one with blink or SLA teleport or anything of that sort. These are rare occurances. If they were frequent, the fighter would gear up for them and they would become non-issues. Ok, what will your specialist do other than "swing his weapon" when he is fighting foes that are not weak against his one specialty? Let's do a little math. +20 BAB +8 Strength (15 Strength + 5 from Leveling Up + 6 Enhancement) +5 Weapon Enhancement =Total= +33 I haven't done anything fancy yet, and this guy hits an AC 36 on a 3 or more. FIGHTERS HAVE NO ISSUES HITTING THINGS WITHOUT SPECIALIZATION. |
| TheSeventhStooge05-02-07, 05:06 PM | Wow, 58 pages on the worth of a fighter. Never thought such a topic would gain this much discussion. Pretty cool, eh? I haven't read all that much on this thread, and I think I may have posted a couple of times here, but I have picked up enough to conclude that overall, I would not want a melee-type to go one-on-one with a high-ranking spellcaster unless I was able to win initiative. In the group I am playing with right now, my fighter does very well at dealing out damage, plus with his heavy flail and the Brutal Strike feat I have stunned more than one opponent with it and that has made a difference in the games we have played. However, there is no way I would want to tangle with the wizard we have in our group, because there would simply be no way I could get to him in order to deal out damage (Wizard: "Okay, I win initiative. I cast Fly and go straight up 100'. Now I start peppering the fighter with fireballs. Result: One dead fighter."). But anyway, cut to the chase. I wonder if one of the reason why the fighter class is "broken" or at least underpowered in D&D (and I do tend to lean toward this belief, although I am not TOTALLY convinced of this) is because of the changes in XP gains among classes from 1st/2nd edition to 3rd edition. Back in my day, when I was playing 1st edition, the fighter was a good class to take because XP advancement was much easier than for a cleric or a mage. If memory serves, for instance, a fighter needed 250,000 XP to advance at higher levels, wheras a wizard needed 375,000. That is a MASSIVE difference, and I think it was put there to try to offset the power difference between a high-level fighter and a high-level mage. Today, with 3rd edition, that is no longer the case. The XP increments are now exactly the same regardless of what class you take. I wonder if this is a reason (not THE reason, mind you, just A reason) why the fighter is underpowered, simply because from an XP standpoint all character classes stand on equal footing. Any thoughts? I could be totally wrong on this but it does seem to make sense, at least from a certain point of view. TheSeventhStooge... (keep swinging that flail!) |
| Ieyke05-02-07, 06:09 PM | Again, I skipped most of the stuff after the post I'm quoting (Sorry, too busy with school work to read it all): "Its also rather hard to charge a flying foe, or grapple one with blink or SLA teleport or anything of that sort." You must not have any idea how to build a Fighter. Off the top of my head I can think of a myriad of ways to accomplish those things with VERY minimal effort...of course that may be because my DMs take great pleasure in throwing us against every situation imaginable. Also, my Fighters have never been lacking in INT or skill points to use, it would be foolish to build a Fighter like that IMO. Certainly CHA is the dump stat, but the class isn't called "Socialite", it's called Fighter, and I'd expect it to be very good at fighting even if that means it lacks in manners. I find it hilarious that this thread isn't about how utterly useless a Barbarian is. THEY serve no purpose if there's a Fighter in the party. Their damage is nothing compared to a Fighter's and their survivability is less than or equal to the Fighter's. Barring the Frenzied Berzerker PrC which IS extremely effective, there is no reason to ever take more than 1 level of Barbarian. I'll admit that the Warblade and Swordsage are more effective than a Fighter (Crusader is a very questionable class in my opinion), but what those classes boil down to are full divine casters with nothing but melee spells and high BAB. Seeing as full casters are always above the game's average power curve, I'm not surprised they outstrip the Fighter. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-02-07, 06:18 PM | and? So are many classes Well, my point is that fighters are *good* at ranged and melee combat. You said they were alright. :) Its also rather hard to charge a flying foe, or grapple one with blink or SLA teleport or anything of that sort. But it's not hard to charge a foe standing on the ground at a distance no greater than twice your move. And, how many foes do you encounter with Blink or Flight that force you to avoid entire combat styles? Ok, what will your specialist do other than "swing his weapon" when he is fighting foes that are not weak against his one specialty? The point is that the fighter has more options in melee or ranged combat than a wizard/cleric/druid trying to replicate him. Of those three, perhaps the druid has the most versatility if his wild shape form grants Pounce, or Improved Grab/Swallow Whole, or something like that. As I said before, a fighter can be built to focus on bull rushing, tripping, grappling, disarming, sundering, archery, full attacks, etc. So, if the fighter is fighting someone that can't be moved... he most likely tries to swing and hit. But the cleric really doesn't have a choice. He lacks that melee combat versatility. Not that I think it's a big deal for a fighter to face an un-trippable monster every now and then. That's sort of like a rogue fighting undead, or a ranger fighting a non-favored enemy. Or a paladin fighting a neutral NPC. Oh noes! Where are my trickses!?!?!?! I understand what you are trying to say, but my point is that no other class needs to try so hard to contribute so little out of combat. Where is the difficulty? Max out intimidate. Now, you always get what you want. Put some ranks in Handle Animal. At low levels, you have a better scout than the rogue. And, a creature to find food for you in the wild. Put some points into climb, and you can continue your position as frontman when the party reaches a wall or other obstacle. Slightly different, a fighter is really good at one combat tactic and can usually do pretty good damage when swinging his weapon. I don't understand. What one combat tactic? Why can he only be good at one? Barbarians have twice the skillpoints and a better skill list, while this does not make them "good", they are certainly in a better position than fighters. Regardless, the only difference in lists is Listen and Survival. I'm not seeing what's that great. Especially when the fighter can replicate that with Handle Animal. Warblades, Crusaders, Druids (specialized), Clerics(specialized), Rangers and Paladins (just a few examples, not an exhaustive list) can all be "very good" in melee combat and "very useful" outside of melee combat. But... does it matter that warblades, crusaders, rangers, and paladins can be very good in combat when you consider the druid and cleric alongside them? It's kind of a non-issue I thought. The difference is what do the DMM cleric or wildshape focused druid sacrificing? The DMM cleric is sacrificing feats. He needs Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Divine Metamagic, and Extra Turning. That's four out of 7 (or 8) feats. He may need a higher charisma score than normal. He may need to spend money on Nightsticks. I'm not so sure on the wildshaping druid. I don't really know what is needed other than the class ability and one feat (Natural Spell). Even the most specialized cleric or druid is going to be many many times more versatile than the least specialized fighter. I was not meaning to imply that they do not specialize at all, just that specialization hurts them far less. How does specialization hurt the fighter? Yes, and they just happen to have the least out of combat utility and are the most dependent on extreme knowledge of the game (and access to splat books) of any of the full BAB classes. Strange, the DMM Cleric needs: Libris Mortis, Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, any number of books for spells to persist. Even the druid's Fleshraker animal companion is from the Monster Manual 3. And I think the Bite of the Werebear spell is in Spell Compendium. I think my fighter builds used mostly PHB 2 and Complete Warrior. I am not saying that it is impossible for a fighter to optimize itself into being more powerful in melee combat than a druid, but the question is: Exactly how much melee power is needed? Not as much as the casters provide for us. And really, that's it. People see the supreme awesomeness of the broken spell system and set that as the benchmark, when in fact, that much power isn't needed. So, instead of assuming that melee classes (and in this case, specifically the fighter) are underpowered, understand that really it's magic that is overpowered. Your right, to someone who knows the game extremely well and has tons of books, its not hard to optimize a fighter. Let me add a little more. It's not hard to optimize a fighter with just a few books and an average knowledge of the game. The issue is that the fighter NEEDS to be optimized, because if it cannot contribute to melee combat significantly it serves NO role. Classes should not NEED to be optimized with extensive knowledge of the rules in order to provide useful contribution to the group. None of the casters do. So...................................... ..................... Going into the game fresh, I will intuitively know that although WoTC plays casters to be relatively weak, the right spells can make them extremely formidable, in such a way that I can play them against their archtype and function as a tank. Further, I already know that Persistent Spell feat is in Complete Arcane, and that it will allow me to avoid spending precious time in combat casting spells. Also, I understand the steep +6 LA penalty for using the feat, so I delve into my non-knowledge of the game and my non-library to notice that Divine Metamagic in Complete Divine can be used to mitigate that level adjustment to my spells. Knowing that I will need turn attempts and charisma fuels my turn attempts, I give myself a decent charisma score at character creation. But even that isn't enough. I also grab Extra Turning in the PHB and remember that the Nightsticks in Libris Mortis provide me with more turning attempts per day that I can use for Persistent Spell. Now I just need to choose the spells. Without knowing that size is an advantage in combat, as well as DR and strength and consitution, I will choose to persist Righteous Might. Divine Power seems like another good one, considering that I don't know the bonuses to strength do indeed stack because they are of different types. Now, I'll instinctively work towards protecting my on-going spell effects from enemies that may have some way to dispel them....... Wow. You're right. You don't need any extra books or any extensive knowledge of the game to create a melee powerhouse cleric. You can just hop right into the game and produce gold. I wish fighters were that easy. Hmmmm.... for my druid, I will go with the Riding Dog trained for war, because it can trip, and its stats are as good or better than a level 1 fighter. I will purchase barding with my money, and prepare spells that can boost my animal companion, making sure to take advantage of our share spells ability. After getting wildshape at level 5, I will get Natural Spell at level 6 because I know how powerful spells are and the impact they have in the game, so I need to be able to cast them at all times. As I gain levels, I will continue pouring over all books to retain an optimized animal companion. It just so happens that the Fleshraker in MM 3 is choice. Using spells that I don't know about in the book I don't have Spell Compendium, I will buff the dinosaur. As my wildshape gets better, I will take forms like the Legendary Ape from MM2, and use the Wilding Clasp in Magic Item Compendium because of the errata. And blah blah blah. See, I don't see that as much different than... I want to push people around, so I will get Improved Bull Rush. Holy crap, some monsters are big and strong. I will increase my strength and get an item to grant a bonus. Nice. I think that many people have knee jerk reactions to complaints about the fighters (no they don't suck!!11!! see this sweet build?!?) and completely ignore the point of the people who are doing the complaining. Oh. That's priceless. Yeah. We're the unreasonable, completely biased hardheads that ignore evidence and ignore the fact that many of our claims simply come from different playing styles. Whereas classes like crusader and warblade are fun to play and competitive out of the box, yet not overpowered. Just how it should be. Yeah, because ToB classes have no choices to make at all that impact how powerful and effective they are in combat. Nope. They are just Strong. It is one of their class features. |
| Argaud05-02-07, 06:45 PM | Not as much as the casters provide for us. And really, that's it. People see the supreme awesomeness of the broken spell system and set that as the benchmark, when in fact, that much power isn't needed. So, instead of assuming that melee classes (and in this case, specifically the fighter) are underpowered, understand that really it's magic that is overpowered. It is not even "the supreme awesomeness of the broken spell system". It is just 1% of the spells that are broken. The spells and spell combos that tend to be houseruled in most games all the time. Most of them are 8th or 9th level spells that actually see very little use, since few games get to level 15+. Every time I see someone talking about how weak is the fighter, and all warriors, because they can't Gate pet Solars (which, of course, exist only to serve wizards) or abuse Shapeshift, I roll my eyes. Seriously, take away the small handful of broken spells. Those all veteran players already know are broken. And any claim casters have of being able to take the warriors place with any competitiveness are gone. And you will have a far saner game, too. No need to turn the fighter into Fighter X. |
| cactot05-02-07, 07:28 PM | Well, my point is that fighters are *good* at ranged and melee combat. You said they were alright. :) But it's not hard to charge a foe standing on the ground at a distance no greater than twice your move. And, how many foes do you encounter with Blink or Flight that force you to avoid entire combat styles? The point is that the fighter has more options in melee or ranged combat than a wizard/cleric/druid trying to replicate him. Of those three, perhaps the druid has the most versatility if his wild shape form grants Pounce, or Improved Grab/Swallow Whole, or something like that. As I said before, a fighter can be built to focus on bull rushing, tripping, grappling, disarming, sundering, archery, full attacks, etc. So, if the fighter is fighting someone that can't be moved... he most likely tries to swing and hit. But the cleric really doesn't have a choice. He lacks that melee combat versatility. Not that I think it's a big deal for a fighter to face an un-trippable monster every now and then. That's sort of like a rogue fighting undead, or a ranger fighting a non-favored enemy. Or a paladin fighting a neutral NPC. Oh noes! Where are my trickses!?!?!?! Where is the difficulty? Max out intimidate. Now, you always get what you want. Put some ranks in Handle Animal. At low levels, you have a better scout than the rogue. And, a creature to find food for you in the wild. Put some points into climb, and you can continue your position as frontman when the party reaches a wall or other obstacle. I don't understand. What one combat tactic? Why can he only be good at one? Regardless, the only difference in lists is Listen and Survival. I'm not seeing what's that great. Especially when the fighter can replicate that with Handle Animal. But... does it matter that warblades, crusaders, rangers, and paladins can be very good in combat when you consider the druid and cleric alongside them? It's kind of a non-issue I thought. The DMM cleric is sacrificing feats. He needs Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Divine Metamagic, and Extra Turning. That's four out of 7 (or 8) feats. He may need a higher charisma score than normal. He may need to spend money on Nightsticks. I'm not so sure on the wildshaping druid. I don't really know what is needed other than the class ability and one feat (Natural Spell). How does specialization hurt the fighter? Strange, the DMM Cleric needs: Libris Mortis, Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, any number of books for spells to persist. Even the druid's Fleshraker animal companion is from the Monster Manual 3. And I think the Bite of the Werebear spell is in Spell Compendium. I think my fighter builds used mostly PHB 2 and Complete Warrior. Not as much as the casters provide for us. And really, that's it. People see the supreme awesomeness of the broken spell system and set that as the benchmark, when in fact, that much power isn't needed. So, instead of assuming that melee classes (and in this case, specifically the fighter) are underpowered, understand that really it's magic that is overpowered. Let me add a little more. It's not hard to optimize a fighter with just a few books and an average knowledge of the game. So...................................... ..................... Going into the game fresh, I will intuitively know that although WoTC plays casters to be relatively weak, the right spells can make them extremely formidable, in such a way that I can play them against their archtype and function as a tank. Further, I already know that Persistent Spell feat is in Complete Arcane, and that it will allow me to avoid spending precious time in combat casting spells. Also, I understand the steep +6 LA penalty for using the feat, so I delve into my non-knowledge of the game and my non-library to notice that Divine Metamagic in Complete Divine can be used to mitigate that level adjustment to my spells. Knowing that I will need turn attempts and charisma fuels my turn attempts, I give myself a decent charisma score at character creation. But even that isn't enough. I also grab Extra Turning in the PHB and remember that the Nightsticks in Libris Mortis provide me with more turning attempts per day that I can use for Persistent Spell. Now I just need to choose the spells. Without knowing that size is an advantage in combat, as well as DR and strength and consitution, I will choose to persist Righteous Might. Divine Power seems like another good one, considering that I don't know the bonuses to strength do indeed stack because they are of different types. Now, I'll instinctively work towards protecting my on-going spell effects from enemies that may have some way to dispel them....... Wow. You're right. You don't need any extra books or any extensive knowledge of the game to create a melee powerhouse cleric. You can just hop right into the game and produce gold. I wish fighters were that easy. Hmmmm.... for my druid, I will go with the Riding Dog trained for war, because it can trip, and its stats are as good or better than a level 1 fighter. I will purchase barding with my money, and prepare spells that can boost my animal companion, making sure to take advantage of our share spells ability. After getting wildshape at level 5, I will get Natural Spell at level 6 because I know how powerful spells are and the impact they have in the game, so I need to be able to cast them at all times. As I gain levels, I will continue pouring over all books to retain an optimized animal companion. It just so happens that the Fleshraker in MM 3 is choice. Using spells that I don't know about in the book I don't have Spell Compendium, I will buff the dinosaur. As my wildshape gets better, I will take forms like the Legendary Ape from MM2, and use the Wilding Clasp in Magic Item Compendium because of the errata. And blah blah blah. See, I don't see that as much different than... I want to push people around, so I will get Improved Bull Rush. Holy crap, some monsters are big and strong. I will increase my strength and get an item to grant a bonus. Nice. Oh. That's priceless. Yeah. We're the unreasonable, completely biased hardheads that ignore evidence and ignore the fact that many of our claims simply come from different playing styles. Yeah, because ToB classes have no choices to make at all that impact how powerful and effective they are in combat. Nope. They are just Strong. It is one of their class features. I really wasn't trying to start beef with you, nor insult you with that last part. I have vast respect for you, and in fact spend most of my time on the char-op boards. I am very well versed in the power of fighters in combat, I am not really trying to say they are worthless, just that even if they are 5 stars in combat and a druid is 4, it is of no difference if you only need a 3 to accomplish the job. Also, I definitely was not intending to call you a biased hardhead. I agree with you that it depends on playstyle, and that they are very able to be melee powerhouses. I just want some versatility, I wouldn't call intimidate and handle animal "versatile" in the same sense that I would call spells and maneuvers "versatile". Truthfully I love fighters, and have been known to play them (with the help of PrC's) occasionally, and know how to build them quite well. I guess it boils down to how your group plays. Still doesn't change the fact that i think they need changes. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-02-07, 07:39 PM | Cactot, I didn't take any insult to what you said, and my response to your 'knee-jerk' claim was just an excuse to call people biased hardheads ;). |
| Khan the Destroyer05-02-07, 07:42 PM | It is not even "the supreme awesomeness of the broken spell system". It is just 1% of the spells that are broken. The spells and spell combos that tend to be houseruled in most games all the time. Most of them are 8th or 9th level spells that actually see very little use, since few games get to level 15+. Every time I see someone talking about how weak is the fighter, and all warriors, because they can't Gate pet Solars (which, of course, exist only to serve wizards) or abuse Shapeshift, I roll my eyes. Seriously, take away the small handful of broken spells. Those all veteran players already know are broken. And any claim casters have of being able to take the warriors place with any competitiveness are gone. And you will have a far saner game, too. Agreed. But for some, that 1% *is* the magic system. To the point that they assume all casters will have those spells and use them and that those spells will represent their power and the expected power level of anyone that wants to game in the same party. But you are of course right. Not all spells are bassackwards uber. No need to turn the fighter into Fighter X. Need? No. Want...? |
| cactot05-02-07, 08:59 PM | Need? No. Want...? something like that = ) |
| Clawhound05-03-07, 09:53 AM | Agreed. But for some, that 1% *is* the magic system. To the point that they assume all casters will have those spells and use them and that those spells will represent their power and the expected power level of anyone that wants to game in the same party. For many, 20th level *is* the game. For many, playing optimized characters against equally well optimized opponents is the game. For many, taking a first level character and growing them through many levels is the game. For many, taking a new class and learning about it, including making mistakes and developing new strategies is the game. For many, those old familiar classes is the game. Viva la game. |
| Flan05-03-07, 12:46 PM | It is not even "the supreme awesomeness of the broken spell system". It is just 1% of the spells that are broken. 1%? Try over 50%, and it's not limited to high level spells either. Shivering Touch is 3rd level, maxed it does 18 dex damage with no save. Pretty nice effect at level 5 isn't it, it's still an overpowered effect at level 20. That, like gate, shapechange, wish etc. are GROSSLY broken and probably what you call your 1%, but the fact is that the MAJORITY of the spell system is broken. Enervation, another good example is over the top and goes from broken to insane with the application of metamagic. Assay Spell Resistance, another good one, it completely bypasses the spell resistance mechanic. Even something as innocuous as magic vestments, which being a 3rd level spell uses a slot that is nearly worthless to a cleric at higher levels since they probably have 9 of them and it's a very low level. It grants a +5 bonus to armor all day for the cleric. At a minimum it's saving the cleric 25K of gold buying armor, more likely they'll stack huge bonuses on their armor and get away with buying +5 worth of bonuses for 36k instead of 100k saving themselves 64k of "wealth." Do that to a shield and weapon and the cleric is now running around with 300k worth of gear for the price of 100k (assuming they didn't make it themselves and only spend 50k that is). Greater Resistance, 24 hr +6 all saves, saves you 25k for the inferior cloak of resistance +5 and leaves your back slot open for something effective. For a negligeable cost they've saved themselves almost 30% of their expected wealth they can put into other uses. Potentially they can have an effective 10 to 1 magic item advantage over non-casters. Imagine the person beside you getting 10 times the magic items you get every time loot is split because they happened to play a caster who could craft and you played a meleer. If you don't like using up multiple 3rd level slots, a 3rd level pearl of power is 9k, so for 9k you can turn your 36k +1 armor of heavy fortification into 100k +5 armor of heavy fortification. Isn't it funny how a 3rd level spell priced at 9k can be turned into a 55k GP advantage like that? Sounds like the pearl of power is underpriced to me because the spell it allows to be cast is worth a lot more. Wanna know whats worse? If you were to pay the GP price for pearls of power to have the equivalent number of spell slots as a cleric, the GP value would be astronomical AT THE PRICE WHICH IS ALREADY UNDERPRICED. 9th level cleric with 26 wisdom is walking around with 244k "worth" of spells each day on top of a 9th level character's expected wealth of 36k. It's unargueable that CoDzilla is overpowered and that casters make melee look sad at higher levels. The magic system is broken, and it isn't just 1% of it. |
| Argaud05-03-07, 02:32 PM | 1%? Try over 50%, and it's not limited to high level spells either. Shivering Touch is 3rd level, maxed it does 18 dex damage with no save. Pretty nice effect at level 5 isn't it, it's still an overpowered effect at level 20. That, like gate, shapechange, wish etc. are GROSSLY broken and probably what you call your 1%, but the fact is that the MAJORITY of the spell system is broken. Enervation, another good example is over the top and goes from broken to insane with the application of metamagic. Assay Spell Resistance, another good one, it completely bypasses the spell resistance mechanic. Sure, Gate, Shapeshif (the entire polymorph kind of spells, really) and Wish. Enervation, maybe. Assay Spell Resistance yes. Shivering Touch, indeed. You have named 6 spells out of thousands, though. I could add another half a dozen without even checking the books, yet they are still a very small %. Even something as innocuous as magic vestments, which being a 3rd level spell uses a slot that is nearly worthless to a cleric at higher levels since they probably have 9 of them and it's a very low level. It grants a +5 bonus to armor all day for the cleric. It does that only at CL20. Before that it is far less impressive. Moreover it is a spell that benefits the entire party by... saving money. Woo. Big deal :). Thanks to Magical Vestment and its cousin, Greater Magic Weapon (cast by wizards at level 3, too) plus a handful of pearls of power the entire party has better AC and better weapons. I call that teamwork, not broken. Lets not exaggerate the problem, please. |
| Kulthos05-03-07, 03:02 PM | I am going to weigh in on the pro fighter side very quickly. An unbuffed fighter is no match for a cleric or druid with buffs. A fighter can, however, get buffed by a druid better than a cleric can buff himself, and the fighter makes a much better T-Rex or dire bear (via polymorph or animal shape) than does a druid. An animal growthed dire bear *fighter* with fighter feats like improved grapple (better than improved grab) and improved trip would kick ass. |
| Flan05-03-07, 03:27 PM | It does that only at CL20. Before that it is far less impressive. Moreover it is a spell that benefits the entire party by... saving money. Woo. Big deal :). Thanks to Magical Vestment and its cousin, Greater Magic Weapon (cast by wizards at level 3, too) plus a handful of pearls of power the entire party has better AC and better weapons. I call that teamwork, not broken. Lets not exaggerate the problem, please. What you call teamwork, I call a party wanting a cleric or other spell caster far more than a melee. Which I also call unbalanced, or broken. |
| Flan05-03-07, 03:29 PM | An animal growthed dire bear *fighter* with fighter feats like improved grapple (better than improved grab) and improved trip would kick ass. Bink, you just lost 18 dex no save. Now your fighter is somewhat less than impressive, in fact, you're probably dead when the wizard's toad coup de grace you. :weep: One 6th level spell slot, good bye mister fighter. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-03-07, 04:14 PM | My fighter's touch AC is awesome thanks to my Shield Ward and Deflective Armor feats (yeah, I'm psionic). Unfortunately for you, my Mage Slayer feat forced you to provoke an attack for that casting, and I took it. So, I hit you, and then tripped you, and then disarmed you of your spell component pouch. Sorry. Flan, I agree with you. But, I had to make a contrived fighter build to deal with your wizard, because I have issues. |
| Flan05-03-07, 04:54 PM | My fighter's touch AC is awesome thanks to my Shield Ward and Deflective Armor feats (yeah, I'm psionic). Unfortunately for you, my Mage Slayer feat forced you to provoke an attack for that casting, and I took it. So, I hit you, and then tripped you, and then disarmed you of your spell component pouch. Sorry. It was quickened, didn't need to concentrate so no mage slayer, and I still had a quickened truestrike up from last round so your AC doesn't help much and you're flat-footed since I did a scry location and greater teleported in on you from another planet on the far side of the universe. |
| Clawhound05-03-07, 05:02 PM | Bink, you just lost 18 dex no save. Now your fighter is somewhat less than impressive, in fact, you're probably dead when the wizard's toad coup de grace you. :weep: One 6th level spell slot, good bye mister fighter. Isn't shivering touch a touch spell? Heck, by that level, even ranged touch is iffy. At high levels, you can expect a fighter to be wearing an item of displacement or blink. (They're essential. Trust me. There's a reason these things are worth 50,000 GP. Every melee specialist needs these ASAP.) That reduces the caster to a 50/50 chance at landing a touch. Do you want to bet your life on delivering a touch spell? If the fighter wants to be 133t, he's ethereal and attacking with a ghost touch weapon. At very high levels, he has a Cube of Force. (Again, well worth the 200,000 gp.) At lower levels, that spell just won't do enough Dex damage to the fighter to actually matter. His AC isn't based on Dex and his attacks aren't based on Dex. Your assertion looked good, but it falls apart when compared against expected fighter abilities and equipment. Odds are, it will either give him a small AC penalty or do nothing at all. Given the power of 8th and 9th level spells, I think that you spellcaster has better choices than a shivering touch. If he's burning an action on something so useless (the spell may be quickened, but not the touch attack), at that level, he's a mighty dumb or mighty desperate. |
| Flan05-03-07, 05:12 PM | Given the power of 8th and 9th level spells Well it's a 6th level spell maximized, 3rd when metamagic rodded, 5 and 11th level casters don't usually cast 9th level spells, but if you want to toss Time Stop and Gate into the mix fine after time stopping and gating a solar which then grapples the fighter the wizard then does TWO shivering touchs draining 36 dex from the fighter, leaving him at 0 and unable to act so the wizard's frog familiar can coup de grace him. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-03-07, 05:30 PM | It was quickened, didn't need to concentrate so no mage slayer, and I still had a quickened truestrike up from last round so your AC doesn't help much and you're flat-footed since I did a scry location and greater teleported in on you from another planet on the far side of the universe. Oh. Well, now I know. So... carry on. |
| Argaud05-03-07, 06:02 PM | What you call teamwork, I call a party wanting a cleric or other spell caster far more than a melee. Which I also call unbalanced, or broken. Casters have nice buffs, that is one of the reason why we want them in parties. Now, I am not sure Greater Magic Weapon does make it to the top 10 of good buffs, IMHO it is not even close. |
| YotartheBrave05-03-07, 07:49 PM | Sigh, okay, since you seem determined not to run the numbers yourself. 1) Mithril breastplate barding +4. +10 AC bonus. 2) Barkskin. Shared spell between Druid so he doesn't need an Amulet. +5 Nat AC. Duration is hours. Cast every day ahead of time. 3) Greater Magic Fang +5. Shared spell, helps druid in Wild Shape. Duration in hours. Cast every day ahead of time. No need magic weapon. AC, before any form of pre-combat buffing, is now 47. Your lordly fighter with his primary attack is now hitting 1/4. Combat buffs. Needs one, maybe two. 1) Animal Growth. +1 AC, +8 Str, +4 Con, Size increase to base dmg types. Effectively +3 th, +4 Dmg, +1 AC. Duration....in minutes, more then long enough for a fight. Oh, and has reach for being size L. Don't ignore the Dr 10/magic and +4 Res to saves. There are a ton of high level monsters that don't have naturally magical attacks. AC is now 48. TH is now about +24, Dmg bonus is +16ish? and his poison save DC went up by 2 (Con increase), so the Fort save is probably around 20 or so (include Con mods from companion levels). 2) Bite of the Werebear. The real combat buff, shared between Druid and companion, measured in rounds. +16 Str, +2 Dex, +8 Con, +7 Nat AC (all enhancement) Claw dmg to 2-12 because of Animal Growth, Bite to 3d8 (L Werebear Dmg) AC is now 50. Dmg increases to +24ish, gain blind-fighting and Power attack. TH is now +32...more then enough to take on just about any CR 20 encounter...and most CR 20 Fighters. Others: 3) Nature's Favor: ANimal only version of Divine Favor, Luck BOnus TH/AT. Duration only 1 minute, +5 Th/Dmg, and you could Persist it if you have the feat. Optional, but we are now at +37 Th and +29ish dmg. 4) Nature's Avatar: If the Druid really wants you dead, This spell grants Haste, +10 th/dmg (morale), and d8/level temp hp (or 20d8). So, we're at +48 TH and +39ish dmg, AC 51, and another 90 hp or so. 5) Aura of Vitality: +4 Morale Bonus to Str/Dex/Con. Affects whole party, 1 rd/level. 6) Brilliant Blade/Aura could let the Companion ignore all Armor for one or all natural attacks. Owie. The fighter has to pay for a Brilliant weapon to compensate... We haven't factored in that the Companion gets 3 more feats, probably Improved Natural Attack (claws and bite). That would bring base dmg to 4d8 for the bite and 2-16 for claws. With four attacks all going off at only -2, his average hit numbers with a full attack are likely better then a Fighter's iteratives, too, although Weapon supremacy might mitigate this. We still only have a +2 enhancement to Dex in effect, so an amulet +4 raises the AC to 52. The Animal has no deflection or Shield bonuses, either. Tortoise Shell might give us another +2 Nat AC for a 54. A really combat happy druid will probably spring for the ring +5 Prot and get him to a 57 (or a 52, before all the 'extra' buffs). Shield and other bonuses will likely be a little more expensive, but the ring effectively replaces an Amulet of Nat Armor, which neither Druid nor Animal needs in terms of pricing strategy. With a sword +5 and a +6 Str enhancer, your Fighter is swinging at a +39, and now needs an 18 just to hit this monstrosity. His AC is likely to be high 30's or low 40's, meaning that the Companion hits with every attack and deals tremendous amounts of dmg doing so. Granted, this IS at level 20. However, Bite of the Werebear is available at level 11, and Animal Growth at 7th. The Fighter will have equal problems scaling his AC and TH as the companion does, over time, and some of the combat buffs are incredibly strong, even lethal (taking out a Fighters armor and shield bonuses, in combo with Power Attack, probably makes for a quick demise). Is this the be-all and end-all of CR 20 monsters and matchups? no...but it does mean that an Animal Companion can be really, really nasty given half a chance, and most of the 'buffing' to get there can be done well ahead of time. ========= As for Nonsrna, the reason he couldn't hit the Animal Companion was the high AC. Losing out on 3 BAB or so for Hill Giant HD was probably more then made up by the Barbarian and FB levels the Cheif had....and at least a +12 Str bonus from Rage and Frenzy. With a +15 TH from Str of 40 at least, +9 BAB from Hill Giant, and probably +5-8 from class levels/magic, he likely had a +30 bonus TH or better...not bad for a level 12 module. It's just it's kind of hard to beat on a 50 AC no matter who you are. ==Aelryinth 1. +4 Mithril breastplate Barding is only +9 (+5 Armor, +4 Enh), and limits a creature with a natural Dex bonus of +7 to +5. You so realize that this is a 20,400 gp item, right?? The AC is now 39 2. Barkskin has a duration of 10 minutes per level, so even at 20th level it only lasts just over 3 hours. Oh yeah, and your animal companion can't ever leave being ajacent to the druid or he'll lose the benefit of Barkskin. Can't cast that unless you know there's combat. AC is now 44 not 47. 3. Greater Magic Fang actually does last hours per level. good for you, but only affects one natural weapon, unless you're going to cast it four times. And thank the gods you've already decided your animal companion is attached to your hip, or he'll lose the benefit of the FOUR 3rd level spells you cast this morning. Attack= +21 Damage =+11 4. You got Animal growth right. +2 AC un-named +8 STR, +4 CON -1 Size to AC and Attacks. Duration is minutes. Oops, can't cast that unless you know there's combat. AC is now 45, Attack is +24, and Damage is + 15 (finally equal to the fighter without magical gear). 5. Bite of the Werebear, measured in rounds. +16 STR, +2 DEX (to bad the armor is already maxed out), +8 CON, +7 Nt Armor. Why did we waste a round casting Barkskin?? AC is now 47 , Attack is +32 (finally equal to the fighter without magical gear!!!), damage is a very impressive +23/ +12 on the bite. 6. Nature's Favor, a +5 Luck bonus to attack and damage. AC is now 47 , Attack +37, Damage +28/17. And only four ROUNDS to get there. 7. Fifth round and NOW the druid wants me dead? So he casts Nature's Avatar. Haste +1 AC and Att, +10 Morale bonus to Attack and Damage. AC is now 48 , Att is +47, Dmg is +38/27 8. SIXTH round of combat, Aura of Vitality, a wonderful spell. +4 Morale to STR,DEX,& CON. To bad we don't get any bonus out of the DEX seeing as we're still maxed out at +5 (barding in case you forgot). AC is still 48, Att +49, Dmg +40/28. (Keep in mind that this is impressive!) 9. SEVENTH round, and this is where I think you messed up, Brilliant Aura should have been your fist spell out of the gate. Giving your companion the ability to ignore armor is much better than taking two or three spells to give an equivilent bonus to attack. 10. Just for fun, Tortise Shell. Final AC 50. 10. And finally we mention the items, +4 DEX amulet and +5 ring (Deflection). Well, we still get no benefit from the Dex amulet (still pigeon-holed at +5 max for the barding), and a +5 Defelction bonus to AC...finally cresting the mythical 50 to end on a 55. And it only took EIGHT valuable rounds of combat to get there. Yup, you've got a veritable killing machine. Round 1: AC 45 (the ring) Att +21 dmg d6+11/8 Round 2: AC 49 Att +25 dmg d6+15/10 Round 3: AC 50 Att +32 dmg +23/12 Round 4: AC 52 Att +37 dmg +28/17 Round 5: AC 52 Att +47 dmg +38/27 Round 6: AC 53 Att +49 dmg +20/28 Round 7: AC 53 Att +49 dmg +40/28 Round 8: AC 55 Att +49 dmg +40/28 And all with a whopping 259 HP's to boot, except.... As a standard action, I can ignore all bonuses to AC due to spells, and if the attack hits, all spells that grant bonuses to AC are dispelled. That means that with my itty bitty +39 to hit, I only have to aim for an AC of 44 (10 +9 Ar, +5 Dex, +16 Nt Ar, +5 Dfl, -1 Sz). A whole 5 or better to hit the beastie. An 80 % chance to hit the unhittable critter. Meanwhile the fleshraker is going to have a hard time hitting me in my 42 AC (10 +10 Ar, +5 Dex, +7 Sh, +5 Nt, +5 Dfl) with it's puny +23 to hit (10 BAB, +5 Gr Mg Fang, +5 Nature's Favor, +2 Aura of Vitality. And how long will said critter live when it only has 119 HP's because the only bonus it gets is from Aura of Vitality. Sorry, I'm still not impressed. Any fighter that doesn't take Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Protection (and available at 3rd and 4th level respectively) is limiting his usefulness at the higher levels. |
| Argaud05-03-07, 08:35 PM | As a standard action, I can ignore all bonuses to AC due to spells, and if the attack hits, all spells that grant bonuses to AC are dispelled. That means that with my itty bitty +39 to hit, I only have to aim for an AC of 44 (10 +9 Ar, +5 Dex, +16 Nt Ar, +5 Dfl, -1 Sz). A whole 5 or better to hit the beastie. An 80 % chance to hit the unhittable critter. Meanwhile the fleshraker is going to have a hard time hitting me in my 42 AC (10 +10 Ar, +5 Dex, +7 Sh, +5 Nt, +5 Dfl) with it's puny +23 to hit (10 BAB, +5 Gr Mg Fang, +5 Nature's Favor, +2 Aura of Vitality. And how long will said critter live when it only has 119 HP's because the only bonus it gets is from Aura of Vitality. Sorry, I'm still not impressed. Any fighter that doesn't take Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Protection (and available at 3rd and 4th level respectively) is limiting his usefulness at the higher levels. So Joe the fighter had AC42 and +39 to hit? Nah :) Maybe he did a week ago. Then the party wizard used Polymorph Any Object and turned him into a planetar. Now Joe has AC60 (+19 natural, -1 size) can fly 90' (good) and is large. He is also super-smart (22) and has several random superpowers. Already better than the super-dino, and this before combat buffing, of course. Super-dino, on the other hand, can't be turned into a planetar. He has the HD, kinda, but if he stops being an animal he loses all the benefits of being a druid's pet and goes down to 4HD. Yes, I know planetar is not even the best way to break the game with PAO. Just making a point about broken buffs. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-03-07, 10:17 PM | Argaud you fox! This whole time I've settled for Permanent Enlarge when at higher levels, a PAO spell would do wonders for any fighter that can afford it (which is *any* fighter). I need to get over my aversion to the D&D magic system. |
| aelryinth05-03-07, 11:02 PM | 1. +4 Mithril breastplate Barding is only +9 (+5 Armor, +4 Enh), and limits a creature with a natural Dex bonus of +7 to +5. You so realize that this is a 20,400 gp item, right?? The AC is now 39 2. Barkskin has a duration of 10 minutes per level, so even at 20th level it only lasts just over 3 hours. Oh yeah, and your animal companion can't ever leave being ajacent to the druid or he'll lose the benefit of Barkskin. Can't cast that unless you know there's combat. AC is now 44 not 47. 3. Greater Magic Fang actually does last hours per level. good for you, but only affects one natural weapon, unless you're going to cast it four times. And thank the gods you've already decided your animal companion is attached to your hip, or he'll lose the benefit of the FOUR 3rd level spells you cast this morning. Attack= +21 Damage =+11 4. You got Animal growth right. +2 AC un-named +8 STR, +4 CON -1 Size to AC and Attacks. Duration is minutes. Oops, can't cast that unless you know there's combat. AC is now 45, Attack is +24, and Damage is + 15 (finally equal to the fighter without magical gear). 5. Bite of the Werebear, measured in rounds. +16 STR, +2 DEX (to bad the armor is already maxed out), +8 CON, +7 Nt Armor. Why did we waste a round casting Barkskin?? AC is now 47 , Attack is +32 (finally equal to the fighter without magical gear!!!), damage is a very impressive +23/ +12 on the bite. 6. Nature's Favor, a +5 Luck bonus to attack and damage. AC is now 47 , Attack +37, Damage +28/17. And only four ROUNDS to get there. 7. Fifth round and NOW the druid wants me dead? So he casts Nature's Avatar. Haste +1 AC and Att, +10 Morale bonus to Attack and Damage. AC is now 48 , Att is +47, Dmg is +38/27 8. SIXTH round of combat, Aura of Vitality, a wonderful spell. +4 Morale to STR,DEX,& CON. To bad we don't get any bonus out of the DEX seeing as we're still maxed out at +5 (barding in case you forgot). AC is still 48, Att +49, Dmg +40/28. (Keep in mind that this is impressive!) 9. SEVENTH round, and this is where I think you messed up, Brilliant Aura should have been your fist spell out of the gate. Giving your companion the ability to ignore armor is much better than taking two or three spells to give an equivilent bonus to attack. 10. Just for fun, Tortise Shell. Final AC 50. 10. And finally we mention the items, +4 DEX amulet and +5 ring (Deflection). Well, we still get no benefit from the Dex amulet (still pigeon-holed at +5 max for the barding), and a +5 Defelction bonus to AC...finally cresting the mythical 50 to end on a 55. And it only took EIGHT valuable rounds of combat to get there. Yup, you've got a veritable killing machine. Round 1: AC 45 (the ring) Att +21 dmg d6+11/8 Round 2: AC 49 Att +25 dmg d6+15/10 Round 3: AC 50 Att +32 dmg +23/12 Round 4: AC 52 Att +37 dmg +28/17 Round 5: AC 52 Att +47 dmg +38/27 Round 6: AC 53 Att +49 dmg +20/28 Round 7: AC 53 Att +49 dmg +40/28 Round 8: AC 55 Att +49 dmg +40/28 And all with a whopping 259 HP's to boot, except.... As a standard action, I can ignore all bonuses to AC due to spells, and if the attack hits, all spells that grant bonuses to AC are dispelled. That means that with my itty bitty +39 to hit, I only have to aim for an AC of 44 (10 +9 Ar, +5 Dex, +16 Nt Ar, +5 Dfl, -1 Sz). A whole 5 or better to hit the beastie. An 80 % chance to hit the unhittable critter. Meanwhile the fleshraker is going to have a hard time hitting me in my 42 AC (10 +10 Ar, +5 Dex, +7 Sh, +5 Nt, +5 Dfl) with it's puny +23 to hit (10 BAB, +5 Gr Mg Fang, +5 Nature's Favor, +2 Aura of Vitality. And how long will said critter live when it only has 119 HP's because the only bonus it gets is from Aura of Vitality. Sorry, I'm still not impressed. Any fighter that doesn't take Mage Slayer and Pierce Magical Protection (and available at 3rd and 4th level respectively) is limiting his usefulness at the higher levels. 1) Actually, Since the MM3 isn't in the SRD, I couldn't find the base stats. ERgo, we'd go with Chain Shirt Mithril +4, for a bonus of 8 and a Dex bonus of +6...since he'll be Animal Growth'd, he'll still get his full Dex. If you want to make it +5 for a +9, that's fine by me. If you want to insted make it Nimble for the +10, that's probably smarter and won't change the AC bonus I handed out. Of course, the real solution is Bracers of Armor +8 with no max Dex limit, but that's pricey and I wanted to keep costs down. 2) This is a non-argument, because we are talking a level 2 spell the Druid has a minimum of 7 of. He can share it, or he can cast it on the 'raker independently, and he can Extend it without difficulty to effectively make it last All Day. If he really, really had to, he could spring for the Amulet to replace it...but why? 3) Ah, my mistake. Superior Magic Fang from the SPell Compendium buffs all natural weapons. Oh, and repeat #2. This latter spell is level 4 duration 1 rd/level...so a precombat buff. An amulet of Magic Fang could be substituted in lieu of this, replacing the Druid's need for an Amulet of Nat Armor, which won't stack with Barkskin. 4) With a duration in minutes, it's going to last through multiiple combats, because you can make multiple combats happen in 20 minutes. And it can be Extended fairly easily. 5) Bite of the Werebear is again the only spell that really helps pre-combat fighting immensely, and is shared. 6) Nature's Favor is completely optional, and a decent use of the Druid's action if he doesn't want to engage in melee. It's only a level 2 spell, after all. Oh, and this is round 1, 2 at the latest. Animal Growth won't be cast unless you know a fight is coming...Bite of the Werebear would be used first Nature's Favor is actually better then Animal Growth as the second spell in a more suprised condition. 7)Nature's Avatar could be cast at anytime, but it's a 9th level spell. He'd have to weigh it against Shapechanging, for example. If so, it would probably lead the way, or be saved for a fight he knows is coming and buffed right before combat. Really, that's why it's optional, and I stuck with other spells first. Are you really that bad at placing things in context? It's optional because one build is what you can expect you'd be fighting if you ran across the Druid in a hostily environment. Options are for when you want the 'raker to take down the BBEG. 8) Aura of Vitality actually affects the entire party. Also note the Aura effectively replaces the Dex penalty lost to size, and with Nimbleness, the barding is at a +8 Max Dex. 9) Brilliant Aura is useless against creatures with only Natural Armor. It's only good for fighting stuff completely reliant on armor and shields...like, say, a Fighter Type. And again, it affects the whole party. For instance, against most monsters, it's a useless spell...it's best against PC's and NPC's. Attacking a Dragon with a Brilliant Weapon is generally pretty dumb. 1-0) tortoise shell would only be used to replace Barkskin, as the AC bonus tops out at +10...only 3 better then Bite of the Werebear. Note it also counts as heavy armor. Ugh! So, your combat example doesn't work, either. He'll go into combat in the first round pretty much as I stated. And if the druid has any time to prepare, he'll go in much, much worse. And all this, without using any consumable items or other things the Fighter would have to pay for to replicate. And you keep assuming I'm fighting a Fighter. No. I'm kicking the Fighter out of the group and using my Animal COmpaniion to replace him. You, of course, are whining and taking the Mage slayer Chain just so you can dispel his buffs, despite the fact that not a whole lot of Fighters actually take those feats. The pre-reqs are hard to get into for a straight fighter, and cost him a lot, especially in deferal of combat effectiveness. IF you aren't fighting spellcasters who use buffs for AC and stuff (you know, the ones that actually wear some magic items?), they are actually totally useless feats! At higher levels, this becomes even more true, as the casters replace defensive buffs with items so as to be able to cast even broader defensive spells that typically don't involve AC. Example: Instead of casting Mage armor, mages in the late game tend to get Bracers of Armor, Amulets of Nat Armor, Rings of deflection, and so on. Your feats are useless against them, and the whole Ignore Concealment thing is useless if they aren't using blur or invisibility...such as, oh, when fireballing you from afar, or something. Like Brilliant Weapons, the Pierce tree is far more effective against PC's then against monsters. A Fighter investing in it is wasting a feat that 95% of the monsters he encounters it will be useless against...which is a pretty sucky feat tree, and why it gets poo-pooed. It sure looks great against a buffed Raker, however! The Raker does an excellent job of replacing the Fighter, and from round to round I can heal it (as the Fighter could not heal himself...remember, the Animal Companion is an extension of the Druid) or I can buff it. With only a couple key spells, I can turn it into a truly terrifying combat machine. Fully loaded, it's really and truly a monster of a beast. The Amulet would work if he is wearing Nimble Armor and is Animal Growth'd. Otherwise, just don't use it. It's only +2 over Bite of the Werebear, anyways. ======= ARGAUD....you need to read the Rules, man. Go look under the rules for Advancing Monsters by size, not merely Size Adjustments. To Wit, when a monster (including Animals) change size from Medium to Large, they get a +3 Nat Ac bonus, -2 to Dex, and -1 Size modifier TH/AC, resulting in a +1 AC bonus...which is exactly what I used. That's in addition to a size bonus for Grappling, to Con, and to Str. === Now, stand, take a deep breath and realize that this brute is a CLASS ABILITY of the Druid. He can very easily replace the fighter in most, if not all melee combat situations. This means that the 4th party slot can now be filled by a character who is not a melee tank...possibly a bard, or a cleric who could alternate with or complement the bear in melee. The druid can still hop into melee as needed...or could be built in other ways. Sure, the Fighter can all the time be a nice melee machine. The 'raker can effectively all the time be a nice melee machine, and when buffed, can be a horrendously powerful melee machine, the equal of anything the Fighter can do. This allows you to get rid of the Fighter, because Druid+Animal is definitely a stronger combat choice then just Fighter alone. That character slot can be used for another party buffer, spellcaster, or gish, who can bring more flexibility and power to the party as a whole. And again, this is just a class ability of the Druid. As for the bonuses applied to the 'raker, I was going off the 32 AC build, which I believed used the +10 number. I think to get the +12 you needed Natural Bond for the level boost...but then, we haven't assigned any feats to the Druid, yet, really. ================ Also, be aware I did not advocate for the 'raker, which is clearly one of the 'polymorph school' problem creatues, i.e. one of those beasts that is simply too good to use, and helps break Animal COmpanion the same way every new monster book starts breaking Shapechange and Polymorph, etc. He wanted math, I showed him math. Despite his counter-arguments, all my numbers pretty much stand as they are, and it's pretty obvious you can replace the Fighter with an animal...and that buffed up monster doesn't need 750k of gear to be a huge, awesome, dire threat to an enemy...he needs a few expended spell slots from the druid who runs him, and some lesser magical items. A renewable resource. ===Aelryinth |
| Khan the Destroyer05-03-07, 11:39 PM | You know, I personally don't really care about the comparison, though I understand it means something to other people. But what gets me is how some people claim 'you can't hit me because of my buffed AC and all of the miss chances that my spells get' and then other people say 'who uses buff spells for AC and miss chances?'. And yet still, the fighter is constantly said to be easily defeated by casters using all of their leet magic. But at the same time, the Mage Slayer chain is not that great because... how often do you fight casters that have AC and miss chance buffs? So, if the fighter sucks because high level monsters and casters can kill him so easily, the Mage Slayer chain isn't that bad. If on the other hand, mages are not that common, the fighter doesn't have much of a problem as far as weaknesses go. If you instead argue that mages don't use many buff spells for AC or miss chances, than you are ignoring one important aspect of a tank, and putting yourself in danger. If on the other hand, your mages do use buff spells for AC and miss chances (which they have thus far), Mage Slayer again seems like an intelligent choice. This is similar to the idea that fighters lose against high level NPC casters because of their spells. But at the same time, high level NPC's (caster or not) don't have the mega size and strength of many monsters. So, the fighter has no trouble tripping, bull rushing, or grappling, and can likely use disarm or sunder. But the second that gets suggested, enemies suddenly shift from two-legged medium-sized opponents to huge-sized, mega-strength quadrapeds. If I then contend that the fighter can resist the improved grab and soak up the damage with his hit points, the monster again shifts to some smaller creature with spell-like abilities and awesome mobility. *shrugs* Just admit that the fighter can succeed and fail just like any other class. |
| navar10005-04-07, 01:21 AM | "Moving the goal posts" is only wrong when a pro-fighter is alleged to have done it. |
| Kulthos05-04-07, 01:30 AM | I have said it before, and I stand by it; Fighters have lousy will saves and that makes them less capable than druids or clerics at tanking. |
| Bob Loblaw05-04-07, 02:50 AM | I have said it before, and I stand by it; Fighters have lousy will saves and that makes them less capable than druids or clerics at tanking. You can remain core and get your Will save at +25 with a straight fighter. It takes some work, but you can do it and not sacrifice as much as one might think. I know because I've done it. If the casters still want to make it better, they can chip in. Since the most dangerous Will save DC I can find is at 27 (from the Balor), I think +25 is not too shabby at all. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-04-07, 06:15 AM | "Moving the goal posts" is only wrong when a pro-fighter is alleged to have done it. Right. That's how we determine if anecdotal evidence is meaningful or not as well. I have said it before, and I stand by it; Fighters have lousy will saves and that makes them less capable than druids or clerics at tanking. Against what percentage of enemies that attack will saves? I mean, can we stop pretending for one moment that all enemies are mobile, spell-slinging, gargantuan-sized behemoths that target will saves? I mean, for every caster the party fights, the party can fight a non-caster, like a barbarian, or ranger. For every gargantuan quadraped the party fights, the party can fight large to small-sized bipeds. For every mobile enemy, there is a non-mobile bruiser. This is like when people say fire damage is pointless because at high levels, everyone has fire resistance. Or grappling is useless at high levels because of Freedom of Movement. Like the will save, this is true. If we ignore the fact that there are literally an endless number of enemies to pit against your party that don't *have* to adhere to these particular archtypes. @Bob: Wow. I can get 6 base, 2 iron will, and 5 resistance. That's +13 before wisdom. I'll round it up to +15 assuming a 14 wisdom (either buffed or unbuffed). Even just pumping up your wisdom with items will give you a better than even chance against the Balor's save. |
| Clawhound05-04-07, 07:27 AM | Thanks for reminding us that this is NOT arena fighting. Focusing on fighters vs. casters is a poor line of reasoning. Casters will always represent a minority of encounters. Casters can waste valuable combat time countering fighters, or they can have hired minions who do the same thing as summoned creatures, but don't disappear and don't waste combat time. This frees the caster up to deal with the more dangerous casters, and delays their fighter a few rounds. Look familiar? The stock spellcaster encounter is fairly optimal, when you think about it. |
| Argaud05-04-07, 08:17 AM | 1) Actually, Since the MM3 isn't in the SRD, I couldn't find the base stats. ERgo, we'd go with Chain Shirt Mithril +4, for a bonus of 8 and a Dex bonus of +6...since he'll be Animal Growth'd, he'll still get his full Dex. If you want to make it +5 for a +9, that's fine by me. If you want to insted make it Nimble for the +10, that's probably smarter and won't change the AC bonus I handed out. Of course, the real solution is Bracers of Armor +8 with no max Dex limit, but that's pricey and I wanted to keep costs down. Okay, although it is not in the SRD I don’t think I am breaking any rule if I post a few details about the Fleshraker capabilities. Here is the basics (from MM3 page 40): Str 17, Dex 19, Con 15, Wis 14 4HD, +6 natural armor, speed 50’, pounce ability + free trip vs. medium or smaller creatures + grapple if he trips. 4 attacks: 2 claws (main), bite, tail (secondary) and rake. It is a mean SoB for CR2, no doubt. As companion of a level 20 druid he gets (before druid feats) it gets +10 HD, +10 natural armor, +5 str and dex, link, share spells, improved evasion, multiattack and devotion (+4 morale to save against will saves from enchantment spells and effects) So we have now HD 14 (91 hp) Str 22, Dex 24, Con 15, Wis 14 AC 33 (+7 dex, +16 natural) Bab +10. Full attack +16 claw (x2) (1d6+6+poison), +14 bite (1d6+3+poison), +14 tail (1d6+3). +15 Rake on a pounce (1d6+4) Saves +11 fort, +16 ref, +6 will (+4 vs. enchantment) Not bad, he is now a serious threat for some CR10 creatures. And he also got 3 feats. Now the druid spends some cash. He buys a mithril chain shirt of nimbleness for 37k gold and a device of protection +3 for 18k (it might be a ring if the DM allows for rings to be worn in claws, but otherwise there are plenty of spots in an animal’s body to put protection gear). The druid has spent 55k and wants to save cash, so that’s it. Moreover the Fleshraker always has Superior Greater Fang for a +5 in all attacks and Barkskin for a +5 to natural armor. When a fight starts the druid always cast Quickened Animal Growth and Bite of the Werebear on the companion, which then goes and charge-pounces. This means a level 9 spell and a level 6 spell, although to conserve level 9 spells the druid might be using a rod of quicken for the level 5 spell, so no bid deal unless there are many battles in a day. A number of animals grow to twice their normal size and eight times their normal weight. This alteration changes each animal’s size category to the next largest, grants it a +8 size bonus to Strength and a +4 size bonus to Constitution (and thus an extra 2 hit points per HD), and imposes a -2 size penalty to Dexterity. The creature’s existing natural armor bonus increases by 2. The size change also affects the animal’s modifier to AC and attack rolls and its base damage. The animal’s space and reach change as appropriate to the new size, but its speed does not change. The spell also grants each subject damage reduction 10/magic and a +4 resistance bonus on saving throws. Animal Growth AC bonus is not untyped, it is natural armor. Moreover the creature gets –2 Dex and large size, which means it loses –1 dodge AC and –1 size AC. It is not as good as a real size increase, but very close. So the fleshraker gains +5 (Barkskin) +2 (Animal Growth) and +7 (Bite of the Werebear) to natural armor for a total of +14. He gets a +9 armor AC (with no dex penalty) loses no Dex (Bite compensates for Animal Growth) but –1 AC for the size increase. Strength goes up +24, Dex stays as it is, Con goes up +12. Claw damage increases to 2d6, bite to 3d8, tail is 1d8 now. He is +5 to hit and damage. DR10/magic. +4 resistance to saves. So we have now HD 14 (175 hp) Str 46, Dex 24, Con 27, Wis 14 AC 58 (+7 dex, +30 natural, +9 armor, +3 deflection, -1 size) Bab +10. Full attack +32 claw (x2) (2d6+23+poison), +30 bite (3d8+14+poison), +30 tail (1d8+14). +31 Rake on a pounce (1d8+15) Saves +21 fort, +20 ref, +10 will (+4 vs. enchantment) And he also got 3 feats, plus Power Attack and Blind-Fight. Looks threatening? Well... it is going to be fighting CR20 challenges. So lets see how it does: Vs. the Balor. If the balor is flying, the fleshraker does nothing. If the balor is grounded the fleshraker charges, avoids the AoO easily, pounces and hits pretty well the Balor AC39 (35+Unholy Aura all the time). The balor is immune to poison and has DR15/notmagic so the fleshraker does 4d6+16+3d8-1+1d8-1+1d8 damage, or about 50 damage if all hits, most usually around 40 (the balor has 290 hp). Then he trips with a +18 str check vs. the balor’s +12, generally tripping the balor. Then he grapples with a +37 vs. the balor’s +36 and might be grappling the balor. Not bad! Then the balor can: a) Teleport up and away. The fleshraker has succeeded in neutralizing him for one round. The balor is unlikely to be touching the ground around, though. Still the companion neutralized him for a round, not bad. b) Use Blasphemy, paralyzing the 14HD dino for several minutes. Not bad if nobody else got affected by the Blasphemy, since the balor also wasted one round. c) Use a sla against the dino. Dominate Monster would be very nasty, with a 60% chances to turn the fleshraker against the party, if this succeeds the rest of the party will curse the druid and his weak willed companion. A lot. d) Completely ignore the dino since it can only cause him minor damage. Just use the slas on the druid and the party. Not a bad option unless there is a rogue able to take advantage of his grappled condition. Regardles... the flashraker fails at being anything more than a minor distraction. It does not do enough damage and it does not inflict any condition on the balor that it can’t recover in one round, moreover, it is awfully vulnerable to the balor slas. Yet if it managed to make the balor waste –one- round, it is not all that bad, since the druid wasted one round buffing it. That is not all of what a real party member is supposed to do, though. Vs. the Tarrasque The fleshraker charges, the Tarrasque hits it with the AoO (+57 to hit) and eats it. The end. If someone had the foresight to cast Freedom of Movement on the fleshraker, it can do about 50 hp damage/round on the Tarrasque, which is pretty sad. The flashraker fails again. Vs. the Pit Fiend If the fiend is flying, the dino does nothing. If the pit fiend is grounded the fleshraker... looks confused since it can’t see the invisible fiend. But then the fiend shows up, it charges and pounces and generally hits once or twice his AC44 and trips and maybe grapples him, causing ~20-30 damage to the fiend’s 225hp. Then the fiend does basically the same that the balor did with the dino. So at most it is distracted one round. The fleshraker fails again to take the place of a real warrior. Vs. the Gargantuan Wyrm Black Dragon If the dragon is flying, the fleshraker does nothing. If the dragon is grounded the flashraker charges, maybe avoids the AoO (which is not stopping him anyway) hits the AC43+ (39+mage armor at the very least) fairly often and gets through the DR causing some decent damage, maybe 50-60 hit points... of the dragon’s 459. It can’t trip the dragon because it is too large. It won’t poison the dragon unless a 1 is rolled on the save. Then the dragon flies away and ignores the fleshraker while he fights the druid and his party. The fleshraker fails to be more than a minor nuisance. So the fleshraker has completely failed to take the fighter's place. Sure, he can be done better with those 3 feats I didn’t spend, and maybe some additional druid feats. It can be better with more money invested on it in the form of magical items, too (but then the druid might end under-equipped). It will be far better if the druid can spend several rounds buffing him too (which won't happen often). But it is still an animal, with no ranged attacks at a level 90% of the enemies fly, unable to use most magical items, needing a lot of buffing to do anything and generally useless fighting anything that is not another minion or pet of the main bad guy. |
| cactot05-04-07, 09:19 AM | So we have now HD 14 (175 hp) Str 46, Dex 24, Con 27, Wis 14 AC 58 (+7 dex, +30 natural, +9 armor, +3 deflection, -1 size) Bab +10. Full attack +32 claw (x2) (2d6+23+poison), +30 bite (3d8+14+poison), +30 tail (1d8+14). +31 Rake on a pounce (1d8+15) Saves +21 fort, +20 ref, +10 will (+4 vs. enchantment) And he also got 3 feats, plus Power Attack and Blind-Fight. Looks threatening? Well... it is going to be fighting CR20 challenges. So lets see how it does: Vs. the Balor. If the balor is flying, the fleshraker does nothing. If the balor is grounded the fleshraker charges, avoids the AoO easily, pounces and hits pretty well the Balor AC39 (35+Unholy Aura all the time). The balor is immune to poison and has DR15/notmagic so the fleshraker does 4d6+16+3d8-1+1d8-1+1d8 damage, or about 50 damage if all hits, most usually around 40 (the balor has 290 hp). Then he trips with a +18 str check vs. the balor’s +12, generally tripping the balor. Then he grapples with a +37 vs. the balor’s +36 and might be grappling the balor. Not bad! Then the balor can: ... d) Completely ignore the dino since it can only cause him minor damage. Just use the slas on the druid and the party. Not a bad option unless there is a rogue able to take advantage of his grappled condition. Regardles... the flashraker fails at being anything more than a minor distraction. It does not do enough damage and it does not inflict any condition on the balor that it can’t recover in one round, moreover, it is awfully vulnerable to the balor slas. Yet if it managed to make the balor waste –one- round, it is not all that bad, since the druid wasted one round buffing it. That is not all of what a real party member is supposed to do, though. 89+5d8+4d6 on a pounce if all hit (not terribly unlikely) (avg 125.5) and that minus 1d8+15 (avg 106) on an average round (if all hit) i would not consider that the sort of damage the balor could "completely ignore". I know the critter is not going to be hitting all every time, but its not overly improbable that it will happen, and thus a threat to the creature. Certianly not the threat that a high level fighter is (who has a much higher damage potential) but still a threat nonetheless. |
| Argaud05-04-07, 09:50 AM | 89+5d8+4d6 on a pounce if all hit (not terribly unlikely) (avg 125.5) and that minus 1d8+15 (avg 106) on an average round (if all hit) i would not consider that the sort of damage the balor could "completely ignore". I know the critter is not going to be hitting all every time, but its not overly improbable that it will happen, and thus a threat to the creature. Certianly not the threat that a high level fighter is (who has a much higher damage potential) but still a threat nonetheless. You are forgetting the fleshraker can't get through the DR15 of the balor. 125 damage would be pretty good and give the balor a reason to fear the companion, since it can kill him in 3 rounds. But it is actually far less. +34 claw for 2d6+23-15 means 24 average damage from 2 claws (counting a 80% chance to hit) +32 bite for 3d8+14-15 means 8.75 average damage (counting a 70% to hit) +32 tail for 1d8+14 -15 means 2.45 average damage (counting 70% to hit) +33 Rake on a pounce 1d8+15-15 means 3.375 average damage (counting a 75% to hit) Total average damage 38.5. Compare that with the damage a non-ubercharger fighter does with a charge, wielding a +5 shadowstriking magebane weapon. Even before factoring polymorph into a planetar or the cheap MIC items that allow for a full attack after the charge, the fleshraker looks very weak indeed. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-04-07, 10:02 AM | 89+5d8+4d6 on a pounce if all hit (not terribly unlikely) (avg 125.5) and that minus 1d8+15 (avg 106) on an average round (if all hit) i would not consider that the sort of damage the balor could "completely ignore". I know the critter is not going to be hitting all every time, but its not overly improbable that it will happen, and thus a threat to the creature. Certianly not the threat that a high level fighter is (who has a much higher damage potential) but still a threat nonetheless. For the fighter I designed to focus on full attacks, that's about right. Of course, the fighter can actually penetrate the DR. His two-weapon fighting with the quarterstaff amounted to 7 attacks with damage: 7d6 (quarterstaff) 6d6 (pulverize foe) 35 (+5/+5 weapon) 35 (+5 strength modifier, conservative number) 42 (+6 weapon focus/weapon mastery chain) That's an average of 151 damage. The difference is he also had a ranged full attack, with 5 attacks that amounted to an average damage of: 5d8 (longbow) 25 (+5 weapon) 25 (composite +5, conservative number) 30 (+6 weapon focus/weapon mastery chain) Or ~100 damage. The balor has to take care whether he is on the ground or in the air (rhyme not intended). And, I haven't even optimized the fighter's strength score, or factored in weapon enhancements. Throw Speed on that Bow and consider a +10 strength modifier, and the damage goes up to 150. Add Splitting instead, and now you have 10 arrows on a full attack for 250 damage. |
| Bob Loblaw05-04-07, 10:30 AM | Against what percentage of enemies that attack will saves? I mean, can we stop pretending for one moment that all enemies are mobile, spell-slinging, gargantuan-sized behemoths that target will saves? I mean, for every caster the party fights, the party can fight a non-caster, like a barbarian, or ranger. For every gargantuan quadraped the party fights, the party can fight large to small-sized bipeds. For every mobile enemy, there is a non-mobile bruiser. I agree with you 100%. I don't know if anyone caught this earlier in the thread but I made a chart of all the monsters in the SRD that force the characters to make saving throws. Will Power was increasingly more important. This did not include things like advancing monsters, adding templates, adding class levels, etc. It was just the base creature. To me it shows that the DM needs to be wary of what he throws against the party. I would also like to add that the roge has the exact same problem with his Will Save. Slippery Mind is not enough. Here is the chart (note that you have to subtract 1 on the bottom row to get the CR of the creature, Excel wanted to do some weird stuff to me): http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j299/blzbob_photos/DnDSaves.jpg @Bob: Wow. I can get 6 base, 2 iron will, and 5 resistance. That's +13 before wisdom. I'll round it up to +15 assuming a 14 wisdom (either buffed or unbuffed). Even just pumping up your wisdom with items will give you a better than even chance against the Balor's save. I had to create a magic item, but I stayed within the rules. I know that people like to throw the magic item creation out so that they can be right, but honestly the item in question cost me 208,000 gold so I felt it would be reasonable. I made a Ring of Greater Heroism. There are two ways I could make this item. I chose the single spell because it was easier on the math but both ways come out close to the same. The ring provides: +4 Morale Bonus on all saves +4 Morale Bonus on attack rolls +4 Morale Bonus on skill checks Immunity to Fear 13 Hit points Version 1: Level 4 x Level 13 x 2,000 x 2(duration in minutes made continous) = 208,000 gold. Version 2: +4 Morale Bonus on all saves = 4^ x 2000 x 2= 64,000 +4 Morale Bonus on attack rolls = 4^ x 2000 x 1.5 x 2 = 96,000 +4 Morale Bonus on skill checks = 4^2 x 100 x 1.5 x 2 = 4,800 Immunity to Fear = Remove Fear, Level 1 x Level 1 x 2,000 x 1.5 x 2 = 6,000 13 Hit points = Maximized False Life, Level 4 x Level 3 x 2000 x 1.5 = 36,000 Total: 206,800 (I multiplied everything after the first ability by 1.5 because these are mutliple abilities that are different from each other. I multiplied many of them by 2 because the abilities were continuous based based on spells with durations that measured in minutes.) They both came out pretty close to the same so I chose the higher one for the sake of the community's arguments. In my game I would round it down to 200,000. So my fighter (25 point buy) has this Ring of Heroism [morale], a cloak of resistance +5 [resistance], Iron Will [unnamed], Wisdom 20 (started at 14, Tome +2, Periapt +4, 1 point from levels) [unnamed], Stone of Good Luck [luck], Pale Green Ioun Stone [competence]. Following my list, in order, Will Save is 6 (base) + 4 + 5 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 1 = 24. I could increase my Wisdom more and improve that score and at one point I did but I needed the money for something else. If the wizard in my party is kind enough to make the ring for half price, I would definately be able to improve my Wisdom by 1-2 more points with some money left over. As a side note, my skill checks all improved by +6 as well from these items. Not too bad. So balor, you can spam me all you want with your spells, but with an 85% chance of success each round, you are wasting precious time. Time that I will use to sunder/disarm (+44 for me compared to your +36) your weapons so that you won't be hurting me much anymore. Seeing as I will be able to fly as well, you can't run far. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-04-07, 11:31 AM | Bob, you're so resourceful. (Though that ring is a bit too expensive for my tastes, unless the caster is crafting it, and he provides lots of wealth through spell economics like Flesh to Salt, or Iron Wall/Fabricate.) |
| Flan05-04-07, 12:45 PM | Argaud you fox! This whole time I've settled for Permanent Enlarge when at higher levels, a PAO spell would do wonders for any fighter that can afford it (which is *any* fighter). I need to get over my aversion to the D&D magic system. Heh. Poof, you're a colossal+ prismatic dragon great wyrm for a week. Roooooar! Sooo broken. |
| zayvier2605-04-07, 12:53 PM | fighters do get a little better if you get one of those prestige classes in the epic level handbook. it makes fighting a large army or hordes of creatures rather interesting. |
| Argaud05-04-07, 01:03 PM | Heh. Poof, you're a colossal+ prismatic dragon great wyrm for a week. Roooooar! Sooo broken. Very, very broken, all the polymorph spells are broken, from Alter Self to Shapeshift. However with PAO you are still limited to creatures with 15HD or less, so no colossal dragons. There are better picks than the planetar, though. |
| Flan05-04-07, 01:09 PM | Very, very broken, all the polymorph spells are broken, from Alter Self to Shapeshift. However with PAO you are still limited to creatures with 15HD or less, so no colossal dragons. There are better picks than the planetar, though. Cool, so it won't work on fighters over level 15? LOL! "The assumed form can't have more HD than your caster level to a maximum of 15." |
| Argaud05-04-07, 01:34 PM | Cool, so it won't work on fighters over level 15? LOL! "The assumed form can't have more HD than your caster level to a maximum of 15." Of course it works on fighters over level 15, but the creatures in which a wizard can transform the fighter are limited by: -The level of the wizard (but it is a level 8 spell, so this does not matter) -The HD of the creature being transformed (so you can't turn a 4HD fleshraker into a 14HD planetar) -15HD is the absolute limit for creatures into which transform Read the text of the polymorph in the SRD for the details. |
| Flan05-04-07, 02:06 PM | Of course it works on fighters over level 15, but the creatures in which a wizard can transform the fighter are limited by: -The level of the wizard (but it is a level 8 spell, so this does not matter) -The HD of the creature being transformed (so you can't turn a 4HD fleshraker into a 14HD planetar) -15HD is the absolute limit for creatures into which transform Read the text of the polymorph in the SRD for the details. They seem to have thrown out the HD limit portion of Polymorph as the first two examples, pebble and marionette into a human would be going from a 0 HD to a 1HD (or more) which is illegal by the description of Polymorph. Likewise the fact that it can do stone to flesh would be another break with the HD limits of polymorph, again a 0HD object going to a form that has more than 0 HD (and likely more than 15 HD). If Polymorph can take a human adventurer of 20 HD and turn them into a elf adventurer with 20 HD, why can't it take a human adventurer with 20 HD and turn them into a dragon adventurer with 20 HD? |
| Khan the Destroyer05-04-07, 02:09 PM | I believe in the FAQ, it says that PAO is still subject to the 15 HD limit, though not to the limit restricting creatures from transforming into creatures of higher HD. I am confused how to determine duration though. How is manticore to shrew permanent? How does kingdom and class translate into the D&D race and type system? |
| Bob Loblaw05-04-07, 02:23 PM | Bob, you're so resourceful. (Though that ring is a bit too expensive for my tastes, unless the caster is crafting it, and he provides lots of wealth through spell economics like Flesh to Salt, or Iron Wall/Fabricate.) Strangely enough, the cost is exactly why I chose it. Too often custom magic items are hand waved away because their costs are subject to DM approval. With the cost of this ring, especially being determined two different ways, I felt that there would be little reason for it to be thrown out by a large lot of the nay-sayers. Oh, I and I was wrong on the chance to make my save. It's 90% not 85%. Small difference but that 5% could mean the difference between success and failure. |
| Argaud05-04-07, 02:40 PM | If Polymorph can take a human adventurer of 20 HD and turn them into a elf adventurer with 20 HD, why can't it take a human adventurer with 20 HD and turn them into a dragon adventurer with 20 HD? Polymorph mechanics are so nightmarish, broken and poorly written that there has been two series of articles about it. WotC has already admitted it is broken and recommends not to use it. However, polymorph spells keep appearing in the lists of NPCs (like in PHB2) so the left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing :rolleyes: Here you have the articles. Mind you, they are long, they are dense and they are dumb. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040511a http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20060502a And this is where WotC admitted polymorph is broken: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060216a |
| Flan05-04-07, 03:09 PM | Polymorph mechanics are so nightmarish, broken and poorly written that there has been two series of articles about it. WotC has already admitted it is broken and recommends not to use it. However, polymorph spells keep appearing in the lists of NPCs (like in PHB2) so the left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing :rolleyes: Yeah, I know. I don't let my players use them for anything aside from non-combat advantages like movement, disguise etc. with the exception of wild shape which I require the character to ACTUALLY be familiar with the form. There are ample other things to abuse in order to get broken combat advantages, I don't need the headache of worrying about daily polymorph errata. I don't know why they didn't limit alter form/shapechange/polymorph/wildshape to the summon monster/summon nature's ally list + core races. |
| Kulthos05-04-07, 03:12 PM | If druids can wild shape into dinosaurs, how does one get rid of polymorph? I had a campaign wrecked by a sorcerer with polymorph and a battle cleric who carried around a large weapon. The sorcerer would change the cleric into a grey render and then the cleric would cast righteous might almost every fight. |
| YotartheBrave05-05-07, 12:26 PM | 1) You, of course, are whining and taking the Mage slayer Chain just so you can dispel his buffs, despite the fact that not a whole lot of Fighters actually take those feats. The pre-reqs are hard to get into for a straight fighter, and cost him a lot, especially in deferal of combat effectiveness. IF you aren't fighting spellcasters who use buffs for AC and stuff (you know, the ones that actually wear some magic items?), they are actually totally useless feats! At higher levels, this becomes even more true, as the casters replace defensive buffs with items so as to be able to cast even broader defensive spells that typically don't involve AC. Example: Instead of casting Mage armor, mages in the late game tend to get Bracers of Armor, Amulets of Nat Armor, Rings of deflection, and so on. Your feats are useless against them, and the whole Ignore Concealment thing is useless if they aren't using blur or invisibility...such as, oh, when fireballing you from afar, or something. Like Brilliant Weapons, the Pierce tree is far more effective against PC's then against monsters. A Fighter investing in it is wasting a feat that 95% of the monsters he encounters it will be useless against...which is a pretty sucky feat tree, and why it gets poo-pooed. It sure looks great against a buffed Raker, however! ======= ARGAUD....you need to read the Rules, man. Go look under the rules for Advancing Monsters by size, not merely Size Adjustments. To Wit, when a monster (including Animals) change size from Medium to Large, they get a +3 Nat Ac bonus, -2 to Dex, and -1 Size modifier TH/AC, resulting in a +1 AC bonus...which is exactly what I used. That's in addition to a size bonus for Grappling, to Con, and to Str. === He wanted math, I showed him math. Despite his counter-arguments, all my numbers pretty much stand as they are, and it's pretty obvious you can replace the Fighter with an animal...and that buffed up monster doesn't need 750k of gear to be a huge, awesome, dire threat to an enemy...he needs a few expended spell slots from the druid who runs him, and some lesser magical items. A renewable resource. ===Aelryinth WOW! Wher to start? Animal Growth is very specific about the bonuses and penalties you assign the animal. You're saying that Animal Growth grants a +5 to natural armor?? +3 for getting bigger and a +2 for the spell?? Why don't you just advocate that you get +16 to strength because the spell grants +8 and size changes grant another +8. Animal growth is a net sum +0 on AC because it grants + 2 natural armor -2 Dex and -1 Size As far as it's reach goes, yup that stays at 5 feet, ya know, like horses and bears, and almost every animal that isn't HUGE. And exactly how is Mage Slayer and Peirce Magical Portection wasted feats?? Yes they are especially effective against PC classes, and every spell wielding monster in the books! Combat brutes have a low AC versus there attack bonus, and lots of HP's, so it doesn't hurt to have the feats. Against DRAGON'S (the nasty of the nasty) the feats are especially effective. And I would venture so far as to say that the bulk of creatures bested in ANY campaign are the two legged variety. The ugly boss at the end of almost every campaign is a spell wielding madman/ creature. And how hard is it to get those two feats....ummmmm, let me see...4 skill points and a BAB of +3 to get Mage Slayer, and wait Mage Slayer to get Pierce Magical Protection. Damn, you qualify to have both by 4th level. And who would deny Mage Slayers use until casters can start throwing Quickened spells around. If you threaten the caster, they can't cast on the defensive. No concentration check can save them. A darned useful feat. As for Pierce Magical Protection...The average fighter or cleric (or heavy armor class) AC at 20th level is around 43 with all the items in the DMG that will help...The average pure caster's AC is 32 (38 is they dump every point into Dex and started with an 18)...and for your much vaunted druid, IF they can find wildshape dragonhide full plate, AND have the nastiest shield they can get, AND have every item in the DMG....they can get a whopping AC of 48 as a fleshraker, 49 as a triceratops, and 51 as a treant. Now that is assuming +5 full plate (13 Ar), +5 hvy shield (7 Sh), +5 ring of protection (5 Dfl), +5 amulet of natural armor (5 Nt Ar), and boots of speed (1 Haste) or +8 bracers of armor (8 Ar), and +6 gloves of dex (+3 Dex bonus) That's a substantial chunk of change at any level. About 198,000 gp for magical bonuses alone, or 212,000 for the pure caster. That's one-fourth of all your wealth at 20th level. To tell me that those feats are wasted is like saying that you shouldn't play a rogue because you might encounter undead or constructs. Wtihout those feats any of the above might be unhittable after the cleric gives everyone a sacred or luck bonus to AC. With the feats, a +39 hits all of them pretty handily except the wildshaped druid in treant form, which the fighter will hit slightly less that 50 % of the time. |
| Archangel_yuki05-05-07, 02:21 PM | Reason to have a fighter? BEcause everything else takes time. I raped my PC's party yesterday by having a single 16th level vampire monk use spider climb to go onto the ceiling and waited untill the last person acme in and dropped down on the mage. Raped him with a single flurry of blows. Everybody was like "OMG that n00b took outses our majorpwnagekillerofdeath!!!11oneone!11el even!" Had a party of a 16th, a 15th and 14 chararcters run from a single monk. Magic takes time. Wildshape takes time. Fists take about long enough for you to realize that you are dead. |
| Nephlite05-05-07, 02:28 PM | As for Pierce Magical Protection...The average fighter or cleric (or heavy armor class) AC at 20th level is around 43 with all the items in the DMG that will help...The average pure caster's AC is 32 (38 is they dump every point into Dex and started with an 18)...and for your much vaunted druid, IF they can find wildshape dragonhide full plate, AND have the nastiest shield they can get, AND have every item in the DMG....they can get a whopping AC of 48 as a fleshraker, 49 as a triceratops, and 51 as a treant. Now that is assuming +5 full plate (13 Ar), +5 hvy shield (7 Sh), +5 ring of protection (5 Dfl), +5 amulet of natural armor (5 Nt Ar), and boots of speed (1 Haste) or +8 bracers of armor (8 Ar), and +6 gloves of dex (+3 Dex bonus) That's a substantial chunk of change at any level. About 198,000 gp for magical bonuses alone, or 212,000 for the pure caster. That's one-fourth of all your wealth at 20th level. To tell me that those feats are wasted is like saying that you shouldn't play a rogue because you might encounter undead or constructs. Wtihout those feats any of the above might be unhittable after the cleric gives everyone a sacred or luck bonus to AC. With the feats, a +39 hits all of them pretty handily except the wildshaped druid in treant form, which the fighter will hit slightly less that 50 % of the time. My Wu Jen has 25 at level 8. I find it hard to believe a Caster will only have 32 or 38. At level 20: +5 Mithral Buckler is 6, +5 Ring is 5, +5 Amulet is 5, Bracers +6 = 3 +Dex(maybe 16) is 6. Ioun Stone (or similar slotless Insight) adds +1. So with just that (easily affordable by level 20) he has 32. Now he can buy Bracers of armor (+8) +8 or +5 Twilight Chain Shirt so +9 Bracers bring us up to 40. The armor to 41. And than a caster has spells like Displacement or Blur. But, anyway, it is easy to get same armor rating as a warrior. |
| rolig05-05-07, 04:31 PM | Because some ppl cannot get too many feats:P |
| Khan the Destroyer05-05-07, 05:26 PM | Considering the Balor has Unholy Aura, the Wizard has Polymorph, the Cleric has Righteous Might, the Druid/Fleshraker has Barkskin/Animal Growth, the Dragon has Mage Armor, etc., I fail to see the worthlessness of Mage Slayer and its small feat chain. And keep in mind, I didn't just pull this out of my behind. All of those spells have been brought up by those flaunting the vast superiority of everything non-fighter. So, if I say 'Hey, look what the fighter can do.' and you say 'So what? Look how puny it is against all of these guys with these buff spells.' I can say 'Point. But the fighter can easily dispel them with an attack.' And then you respond with 'Point.' as well. Because to say 'Not everyone will take Mage Slayer' is once again inconsistent. Not every caster will play the way you insist. So get over it. Not every fighter will take the Mage Slayer chain. But those that do can indeed strip some important buffs from the casters-that-want-to-be-fighters. |
| Flan05-05-07, 06:55 PM | Reason to have a fighter? BEcause everything else takes time. I raped my PC's party yesterday by having a single 16th level vampire monk use spider climb to go onto the ceiling and waited untill the last person acme in and dropped down on the mage. Raped him with a single flurry of blows. Everybody was like "OMG that n00b took outses our majorpwnagekillerofdeath!!!11oneone!11el even!" Had a party of a 16th, a 15th and 14 chararcters run from a single monk. Magic takes time. Wildshape takes time. Fists take about long enough for you to realize that you are dead. Of course, had it been a wizard instead of a monk, it would have killed the entire party. |
| Kerin05-05-07, 07:16 PM | Is it un-druidly to sacrifice animals like this to achieve your objective? I have no idea how there's even any question in your mind about this. Of course it's un-druidly. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-05-07, 07:32 PM | Of course, had it been a wizard instead of a monk, it would have killed the entire party. Well, after killing the wizard, the monk would have used Spring Attack to easily catch up to the rogue and use his Quivering Palm. With the rogue's pitiful fortitude save vs. the monk's awesome wisdom, the rogue dies as a free action. When the fighter tries to take him out now that two PC's are dead and this guy is obviously quick, the vampire monk uses his Robilar's Gambit+Combat Reflexes to make the fighter pray to his gods. 'Do I try to flee and provoke another 2 negative levels? Or do I stand and fight and provoke another 2 negative levels?' Since the cleric spent all of his turn undead attempts persisting his l33t spells, and his remaining spells were used up on Insta-Fighter and Uber-Melee-Weapon-Modification and Make-Me-Big and Thanks-For-The-AC, he has to stand and fight as well. Or run with his 20' speed. In the end, everyone dies. It doesn't take a wizard. I have no idea how there's even any question in your mind about this. Of course it's un-druidly. To be honest though, druids can be evil. An evil aspect of nature would be survival of the fittest (perhaps) or the idea of parasitic relationships. In this case, the druid is clearly stronger than his companion, and has forged a relationship wehre the druid gains the benefits and the animal companion suffers for it. |
| Argaud05-05-07, 08:28 PM | To be honest though, druids can be evil. An evil aspect of nature would be survival of the fittest (perhaps) or the idea of parasitic relationships. In this case, the druid is clearly stronger than his companion, and has forged a relationship wehre the druid gains the benefits and the animal companion suffers for it. Actually the animal companion will dump the druid pretty quickly. If you check DMG page 205 you'll see there are some limitation about what you can do with the companion. For instance, he will leave the druid if they spend most of their time away from the companion home territory. They will also leave if they are not treated well. Well, I guess all those druid with fleshrakers and T-rexes live in Jurassic Island. Those with dire tigers companions obviously live in tropical savannas and jungles, while the polar bear lovers clearly live in the frozen poles. |
| aelryinth05-05-07, 08:29 PM | WOW! Wher to start? Animal Growth is very specific about the bonuses and penalties you assign the animal. You're saying that Animal Growth grants a +5 to natural armor?? +3 for getting bigger and a +2 for the spell?? Why don't you just advocate that you get +16 to strength because the spell grants +8 and size changes grant another +8. Animal growth is a net sum +0 on AC because it grants + 2 natural armor -2 Dex and -1 Size As far as it's reach goes, yup that stays at 5 feet, ya know, like horses and bears, and almost every animal that isn't HUGE. And exactly how is Mage Slayer and Peirce Magical Portection wasted feats?? Yes they are especially effective against PC classes, and every spell wielding monster in the books! Combat brutes have a low AC versus there attack bonus, and lots of HP's, so it doesn't hurt to have the feats. Against DRAGON'S (the nasty of the nasty) the feats are especially effective. And I would venture so far as to say that the bulk of creatures bested in ANY campaign are the two legged variety. The ugly boss at the end of almost every campaign is a spell wielding madman/ creature. And how hard is it to get those two feats....ummmmm, let me see...4 skill points and a BAB of +3 to get Mage Slayer, and wait Mage Slayer to get Pierce Magical Protection. Damn, you qualify to have both by 4th level. And who would deny Mage Slayers use until casters can start throwing Quickened spells around. If you threaten the caster, they can't cast on the defensive. No concentration check can save them. A darned useful feat. As for Pierce Magical Protection...The average fighter or cleric (or heavy armor class) AC at 20th level is around 43 with all the items in the DMG that will help...The average pure caster's AC is 32 (38 is they dump every point into Dex and started with an 18)...and for your much vaunted druid, IF they can find wildshape dragonhide full plate, AND have the nastiest shield they can get, AND have every item in the DMG....they can get a whopping AC of 48 as a fleshraker, 49 as a triceratops, and 51 as a treant. Now that is assuming +5 full plate (13 Ar), +5 hvy shield (7 Sh), +5 ring of protection (5 Dfl), +5 amulet of natural armor (5 Nt Ar), and boots of speed (1 Haste) or +8 bracers of armor (8 Ar), and +6 gloves of dex (+3 Dex bonus) That's a substantial chunk of change at any level. About 198,000 gp for magical bonuses alone, or 212,000 for the pure caster. That's one-fourth of all your wealth at 20th level. To tell me that those feats are wasted is like saying that you shouldn't play a rogue because you might encounter undead or constructs. Wtihout those feats any of the above might be unhittable after the cleric gives everyone a sacred or luck bonus to AC. With the feats, a +39 hits all of them pretty handily except the wildshaped druid in treant form, which the fighter will hit slightly less that 50 % of the time. The Mage slayer chain of feats is useless against 90% of a Fighter's encounters. It takes up 3 feats, it takes cross-class skill points to learn, and incidentally shafts any spellcasting the Fighter might pick up by multi-classing. If you could cycle it in when its useful and out and replace it when it wasn't, it'd be a great feat tree. If you are in a campaign heavy with mage buffing, sure, Mage Slayer makes sense. Hells, it works to get rid of a Haste spell on an enemy. =========== Casters can almost universally get higher AC then fighters just because of access to Polymorph and the variety of forms with hefty natural armor. Easier access to sacred and insight bonuses to armor are also helpful. If you go to Andy Collins' site, the penultimate encounter description of the party's mage from his old campaign has the character running around with an AC of around 70. It's not that hard to arrange, and the COpt boards actually had a thread on how easy it was to get High AC's. For starters, think Monk's Belt and either Kung Fu Genius or Carmadine Monk....Int to AC. Add In Stone Giant Form from a basic polymorph (or Draconic Polymorph!) = +11 Nat AC (and you get better with Firbolgs) and a 15 dex, and we are already at 33 standing there with nude with a cord around his waist with an Int of 'merely' 30! Now, your typical bracers+8 and Shield spell will net him +12, +5 deflection, +5 Nat Armor enhancement, +6 dex enhancement, and we haven't dipped into Foresight, Haste or other odd bonuses and he's at a 55. Again, Polymorph is exaggerating the problem, but the fact is mages who want a high AC have the resources to get there. Abjurant Champion's five levels can raise standard cast Shields and Greater Mage Armor by +5 each...Add in Argent Savant levels for a further +2 each, and we have a whopping 32 AC from exactly two spells! It's not core, but it IS possible. === As for Animal Growth, quit being willfully stupid. I've never said it gives +5 to AC. Go look up the table and you'll see exactly what I was referring to. Now, there's a typo on one table or the other, because Animal Growth perfectly mirrors the table otherwise. In deference to how common even modifiers are, I'm more then willing to concede the net change in AC is 0 for being Animal Growth'd and the Size Increase addition should be +2, not +3. Honestly, the +1 AC is not something to get that worked up over. ================ As for fighters not being built with the Mage Slayer chain...the fact is, you rarely see it built because of its restricted usefulness and the cost to use it for the class it is most suited for. Oh, a Mage can't cast defensively. Fine, he takes Shielded Caster, and he's never considered threatened. Or he simply gets away from you...you know, with fly spells, or contingencies, or withdrawing, or the like. Bingo, you don't threaten him, he can cast all he likes. Really, if he has to cast defensively, he's probably waaaaaay too close to your full attack action anyways. As for the Vampire monk example...A DM can arrange combat any way he wants to, and he can kill the entire party if he wants to. If the Mage was dumb enough to have a crappy AC and think he was safe, that was his problem. If you built the character as a foil to the party, unconsciously or not, that's also not their fault. You can kill them all any time you like, and they can't do anything about it. Hence, examples like that are less valid then something the players do all the time...like walk around with AC's of 40+ when they want it. It's about as valid as saying that 'I attacked my players in the middle of the night when they were at their weakest and I killed them all in an encounter that during the day they would have butchered, LOL, they suck.' Stealth/sneak attack encounters are exactly the same. I also like the rejoinder that if the vampire had been a mage, then the whole party would have died, hehe. And as for turning, that vampire monk would probably have been impossible for the Cleric to turn anyways, so why would he care what he spent his turn attempts on? Oh, and lastly, a vampire only does energy drain with a Slam attack, not an Unarmed Strike...so if that Fighter gets off a full attack action on the vamp, -2 levels gets Restored fast, and we have a dead monk vamp. Unless I'm missing some sort of feat somewhere that allows otherwise. ====Aelryinth |
| Khan the Destroyer05-05-07, 08:56 PM | Actually the animal companion will dump the druid pretty quickly. If you check DMG page 205 you'll see there are some limitation about what you can do with the companion. For instance, he will leave the druid if they spend most of their time away from the companion home territory. They will also leave if they are not treated well. Well, I guess all those druid with fleshrakers and T-rexes live in Jurassic Island. Those with dire tigers companions obviously live in tropical savannas and jungles, while the polar bear lovers clearly live in the frozen poles. Nice. The Mage slayer chain of feats is useless against 90% of a Fighter's encounters. Can I borrow your codex of D&D statistics please? As for fighters not being built with the Mage Slayer chain...the fact is, you rarely see it built because of its restricted usefulness and the cost to use it for the class it is most suited for. I imagine I rarely see it because I rarely see fighter builds period. Regardless, I try not to base my judgment on the judgment of the boards. Oh, a Mage can't cast defensively. Fine, he takes Shielded Caster, and he's never considered threatened. Yes, there are foils. Which was the point. Those two Mage Slayer feats are a foil to buff spells. Divine Power, Polymorph, Righteous Might, Barkskin, Animal Growth, Mage Armor, any of the Auras, Haste, Shield, Luminous Armor, Reduce Person, etc. Or he simply gets away from you...you know, with fly spells, or contingencies, or withdrawing, or the like. Bingo, you don't threaten him, he can cast all he likes. Really, if he has to cast defensively, he's probably waaaaaay too close to your full attack action anyways. Yes. Because you usually fight the lich or the cult leader in an open field, not a dark, dank tomb or underground temple. I'm sure withdrawing and flying will always be an option as opposed to 'Ack! The PC's just invaded the altar room while we were in the middle of sacrificing!' And of course contingencies are a real non-possibility. The DM sets up the encounter for the PC's to most likely win. If the wizard is optimized out the ass with spell selection and preparation, well, then no one has a chance and the point is moot. If the DM wants the villain to escape this time, then again, the PC's didn't stand a chance. And again... we see mages used as examples regularly as to why fighters die at higher levels. And we see mages buffed out the wazoo. So, claiming that Mage Slayer is useless 90% of the time seems inconsistent with everything said up until now. As for the Vampire monk example...A DM can arrange combat any way he wants to, and he can kill the entire party if he wants to. That was my point. It doesn't have to be a wizard. The DM can make it happen regardless. And as for turning, that vampire monk would probably have been impossible for the Cleric to turn anyways, so why would he care what he spent his turn attempts on? Because a cleric can optimize his turning checks if he wishes to focus on turning undead. Optimization doesn't start and end with turning casters into fighters. Oh, and lastly, a vampire only does energy drain with a Slam attack, not an Unarmed Strike...so if that Fighter gets off a full attack action on the vamp, -2 levels gets Restored fast, and we have a dead monk vamp. Unless I'm missing some sort of feat somewhere that allows otherwise. I'm not sure what you mean. The monk can still make AoO's with his Slam attack. So, if the fighter attacks, so does the monk. Except his attacks deal damage and 2 negative levels. I don't know the composition of the party or the monk for that matter. Just pointing out that if the DM wanted a tpk, it can be done with anyone. I'm sure we could optimize until the cows come home on both sides. |
| navar10005-06-07, 03:54 AM | The Mage slayer chain of feats is useless against 90% of a Fighter's encounters. It takes up 3 feats, it takes cross-class skill points to learn, and incidentally shafts any spellcasting the Fighter might pick up by multi-classing. If you could cycle it in when its useful and out and replace it when it wasn't, it'd be a great feat tree. If you are in a campaign heavy with mage buffing, sure, Mage Slayer makes sense. Hells, it works to get rid of a Haste spell on an enemy. ====Aelryinth Thank you for agreeing with me that different DMs have different campaigns such that figthers are not useless just because in your games they might be. |
| Archangel6205-06-07, 07:18 AM | Thank you for agreeing with me that different DMs have different campaigns such that figthers are not useless just because in your games they might be. Which says nothing about the actual abilities of the class. :banghead: I think I am going to have to sig that balloon world example. |
| Bob Loblaw05-06-07, 11:19 AM | Which says nothing about the actual abilities of the class. :banghead: I think I am going to have to sig that balloon world example. Actually it does. Every example of why the fighter sucks is campaign dependent. I know you disagree but it's true. Not every DM will run the same game and they can still stick with RAW. Since there are as many variations on game styles as there are DMs, blanket statements that say the fighter is 100% useless are false (this seems to be what the anti-fighter crowd wants to say). It is up to the nay sayers to prove that fighters are always a bad choice. If even one person can show otherwise, then the statement is false. Since there are at least 10 people in this thread alone who say otherwise, some with actual evidence to back up their claim, then it shows that fighters do not suck under any and all circumstances in a standard DnD game. |
| Archangel6205-06-07, 03:04 PM | Actually it does. Every example of why the fighter sucks is campaign dependent. I know you disagree but it's true. Not every DM will run the same game and they can still stick with RAW. Since there are as many variations on game styles as there are DMs, blanket statements that say the fighter is 100% useless are false (this seems to be what the anti-fighter crowd wants to say). It is up to the nay sayers to prove that fighters are always a bad choice. If even one person can show otherwise, then the statement is false. Since there are at least 10 people in this thread alone who say otherwise, some with actual evidence to back up their claim, then it shows that fighters do not suck under any and all circumstances in a standard DnD game. Ok, this is the exact problem, we can prove the fighter is mechanically inferior, has more design issues, and contributes less. At first your side argued that RP and the like could compensate and we said that RP can't make up for bad mechanics since everyone can RP. The real problem is this, if I make a campaign world where +5 weapons of awesome that only fighters and other martial characters can use, keep the opponents to where the fighter isn't shut down by their basic abilities and challenge the casters heavily then of course the fighter is fine in my campaign, but any class can be good if you coddle it enough. The balloon world example is this, I make a game setting called balloon world, in this gave I have a class called the pinmaster which is the only class that can consistently and reliably kill balloon beasts. Now in that context the pinmaster is fine, maybe even overpowered, but you can't use that to argue that the pinmaster is a universally acceptable class. |
| Geraturatu05-06-07, 03:19 PM | Fighter's are useful since they get tons of feats alot quicker than anyone else (and surely we all know how good feats are), and have a high base attack bonus and fortitude save. They also have a higher hit point total than most classes. They begin with good proficiencies so they don't have to use one of their feats to get a proficiency. They can dish out good damage at beggining levels. They can also qualify for lots of prestige classes easily. |
| Flan05-06-07, 04:35 PM | Oh, a Mage can't cast defensively. Fine, he takes Shielded Caster, and he's never considered threatened. Yes, there are foils. Which was the point. Those two Mage Slayer feats are a foil to buff spells. Divine Power, Polymorph, Righteous Might, Barkskin, Animal Growth, Mage Armor, any of the Auras, Haste, Shield, Luminous Armor, Reduce Person, etc. I guess the mere POSSIBILITY of going up against a fighter with a particular feat has weakened wizards, costing them two of their somewhat precious feats in case a fighter uses one of his. Not bad. With concentration items being as cheap as they are there is absolutely no point in taking that feat aside from mage slayer. Not bad at all. Need more feats like mage slayer. Or more really really stupid arguements from the anti-fighter camp, like that one. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-06-07, 05:48 PM | Ok, this is the exact problem, we can prove the fighter is mechanically inferior, has more design issues, and contributes less. At first your side argued that RP and the like could compensate and we said that RP can't make up for bad mechanics since everyone can RP. I don't think I argued that RP can *save* the fighter. Though, I do believe that many people cut the fighter short in this department. Especially with the onslaught that is ToB and the Warblade. The fighter can be as cool as you want to make him. That people consider the fighter bland really baffles me, because as far as I know, roleplaying and flavor start with the player. The real problem is this, if I make a campaign world where +5 weapons of awesome that only fighters and other martial characters can use, keep the opponents to where the fighter isn't shut down by their basic abilities and challenge the casters heavily then of course the fighter is fine in my campaign, but any class can be good if you coddle it enough. Actually, the real problem is this: those that argue against the fighter's balance consider only scenarios that inherently work against the fighter and consider those scenarios while simultaneously disallowing the fighter to use wealth or participate in teamwork. They consider big and strong monsters, and complain about the fighter using his wealth to optimize his fighting style. They consider optimized buff mages, and argue that Mage Slayer is worthless for most fighters. They accept overpowered wizard spells as nothing special, but gripe about the Splitting enhancement. They argue about enemy mobility, but won't consider mount cohorts, or refuse to accept wealth to compensate. The list goes on. The truth is there is a whole spectrum of enemies to pit against a party, and many of them don't have spells, aren't super mobile, and aren't godzillas. For those that are, the fighter has options to consider. Now, like it or not, there have been examples given of the fighter dealing with huge and bigger opponents, and coming out on top. There have been examples given of the fighter dishing out lots of damage. The DM doesn't have to coddle the fighter. He can throw a tarrasque at the party. The fighter says 'Wizard, polymorph me. I can keep that thing away from you guys and take it down while you figure out how to keep it dead.' The wizard says 'No problem.' Anything smaller shouldn't be an issue. A Titan? The fighter trips it and then disarms it. A Balor? Blast it with arrows or charge on horseback. A dragon? Same deal. Now, on the flip side, if the DM isn't trying to prove a point, he will also be throwing regular NPC's at the party as well. And (again, if the DM isn't some sort of anti-warrior) not all of those NPC's will be casters. Against these foes, the fighter will shine even more. The balloon world example is this, I make a game setting called balloon world, in this gave I have a class called the pinmaster which is the only class that can consistently and reliably kill balloon beasts. Now in that context the pinmaster is fine, maybe even overpowered, but you can't use that to argue that the pinmaster is a universally acceptable class. That is actually what you are arguing, but reverse. You are putting the Pinmaster in the Brick World, a setting with only bricks. In this setting, the Pinmaster is completely useless because he cannot destroy the bricks with a pin. Alternatively, we have the Balloon World example and the other argument against the fighter. The Pinmaster is underpowered because the mega-pinmaster can pop more balloons at once. Now... regardless of the flawed assumptions with the first argument (the Brick World/Pinmaster argument), we've actually gone ahead and shown how a pinmaster can break bricks. Further, we've shown that just because the mega-pinmaster can pop more balloons, it doesn't mean the pinmaster can't pop any balloons, or suddenly goes from viable to not viable. The two are unrelated. I really fail to see how the fighter is incapable. And, I fail to see how games continue to run when the casters are showboating and one-shotting everything. It just all seems like the most extreme of cases to try and show that a class is underpowered. |
| Bob Loblaw05-06-07, 07:11 PM | Ok, this is the exact problem, we can prove the fighter is mechanically inferior, has more design issues, and contributes less. At first your side argued that RP and the like could compensate and we said that RP can't make up for bad mechanics since everyone can RP. The real problem is this, if I make a campaign world where +5 weapons of awesome that only fighters and other martial characters can use, keep the opponents to where the fighter isn't shut down by their basic abilities and challenge the casters heavily then of course the fighter is fine in my campaign, but any class can be good if you coddle it enough. The balloon world example is this, I make a game setting called balloon world, in this gave I have a class called the pinmaster which is the only class that can consistently and reliably kill balloon beasts. Now in that context the pinmaster is fine, maybe even overpowered, but you can't use that to argue that the pinmaster is a universally acceptable class. I have never made a single argument from a roleplaying perspective. I have continuously argued that fighters do not suck. I have said on many occasions that other classes may be able to fill the role better. I have also said that some of those classes are actually too powerful in my opinion. I have said more than once that how well a character performs in a setting has a lot to do with how the group functions. Your balloonworld example is actually a strawman attack against my argument. Since the DM is under no obligation to use balors, dragons, hydras, etc, and can still use the MM as written there is nothing wrong with the fighter. Why must the DM only use huge and larger creatures? Is there some rule I missed? Please cite source if you can find it. |
| Flan05-06-07, 07:23 PM | I really fail to see how the fighter is incapable. And, I fail to see how games continue to run when the casters are showboating and one-shotting everything. It just all seems like the most extreme of cases to try and show that a class is underpowered. Balloon world is called "published adventures." Doing Shackled City and yes the melee really are incapable. Hard to kill something thats already dead. I had to retrain out DMM because it was too effective, 1 or 1.5 rounds and cleric + wizard would have everything dead. Had to sell off metamagic rods, same reason, even without DMM everything falls over dead instantly. Guess what... still problems, now theres good chunks of the spell list I have to not cast or take otherwise things are still falling over dead too easily, between harm and bolt of glory 6th level is pretty much write out for taking spells. I resign myself to conciously taking vastly less effective spells to help the melee so they can enjoy the game. Bolt of Glory is pure rape on most of the monsters we fight, combined with the damage a tweaked out evocation wizard does things just dissapear in one round. But instead of taking that I take Hero's Feast *twirls finger* wheeeee. So now I buff the melee and they get to do some small fraction of enemy's HPs while the wizard chews massive chunks out of them. But at least by playing the worst possible cleric I can, the melee get to roll some d20s and think they're contributing. |
| Otto the Bugbear05-06-07, 07:44 PM | They consider big and strong monsters, and complain about the fighter using his wealth to optimize his fighting style. ... ... or refuse to accept wealth to compensate. That's not what is being said about the wealth. This has been pointed out when you change the argument into this time and again. The argument is never about the fighter using his wealth to optimize his fighting style. And you know it. You (generally, not Khan specifically) have been told that the wealth issue doesn't work, because that same wealth can be used by a different class to accrue the same items. If those are the same for both the fighter and a replacement character, then it cancels out as an argument. It cancels out as an argument because both characters get the same benefit from that wealth. Once both characters -- the fighter and the replacement -- get the same benefits from that wealth, we can exclude the wealth as causing a significant benefit for one (the fighter) or the other (the replacement). In essence, the benefit is the same so why use it? I honestly don't know how to explain it more simply. I feel like people are either intentionally being obtuse on this matter, or they're ignoring it in some sort of misguided hope that it will get ignored. and aren't godzillas. Godzilla. :ahem: It's a proper name! Capitalize it. ;) I really fail to see how the fighter is incapable. Not incapable, capable of less. Not worthless, worth less. And, I fail to see how games continue to run when the casters are showboating and one-shotting everything. It just all seems like the most extreme of cases to try and show that a class is underpowered. That's just a side effect of these threads. You know, when it changes from a theoretical discussion into a competition. The theoretical statement starts at "Well, sure, the fighter contributes some, but the cleric can contribute nearly as well or better at the fighter's schtick, and still have a truckload of spells remaining for better utility." Then the argument gets warped into this retarded one-on-one competition. Once it changes into a one-on-one competition it, quite naturally, becomes a matter of finishing off the "fighter as gladiator opponent" as quickly as possible. And to be fair, the fighters are doing exactly the same thing with "Well, I just got a +11 initiative and did 500 damage this round." With as many people as there are that claim the 1 v. 1 battles prove nothing, I'm beginning to think it's some sort of new-fangled trolling. Party with fighter v. monsters compared to Party with replacement character v. monsters would be better. |
| Bob Loblaw05-06-07, 07:48 PM | Balloon world is called "published adventures." Doing Shackled City and yes the melee really are incapable. This is a single example. I don't know anything about the adventure path (and I'm noit going to read it because one of our DMs is thinking about running it). Khan, navar, and myself (and others) have given examples of how the fighter fares well in our games. Why is our experience wrong while yours right? I'm not trying to single you out. The only time someone's experience matters is when it is to show that the fighter sucks. When it is used to show that the fighter doesn't suck, it is hand waved away. |
| Argaud05-06-07, 10:29 PM | I ran City of the Spider Queen with a party that ended up being ECL16 and the warriors had a great time smacking enemies around - many of them medium-sized drow and undead. Fighting in cramped underground caves and rooms proved to be quite inconvenient for the wizard, the cleric and the druid (although they had their moments of glory, too) but it was easy for the paladin and the fighter/barbarian. It was also balloon world, being an official campaign and all. I very often toughened up the encounters because that party, after nearly two years of playing, is a well-oiled killing machine that crushes almost everything in their path. I don't pull punches and I have killed PCs several times in the 12 levels we have played. What I have seen is that the best performance of the party is when they use teamwork. They killed the final Big Bad Gal of the adventure in a particularly memorable way after all their usual tactics crashed against the uberbuffed cleric of doom. An AMF killed her. Anyone that says that spell is useless is a moron. |
| aelryinth05-06-07, 10:45 PM | The Shackled City is probably going to be similar to the problems melees have in Age of Worms, which is stupendously heavy with undead and negative energy attacks and things with high will save reqs...and yet there IS a wide variety of foes in it. ===Aelryinth |
| Khan the Destroyer05-06-07, 10:53 PM | Balloon world is called "published adventures." Balloon World can be whatever you want it to be. But it will always be a specific case. That's not what is being said about the wealth. This has been pointed out when you change the argument into this time and again. The argument is never about the fighter using his wealth to optimize his fighting style. And you know it. You (generally, not Khan specifically) have been told that the wealth issue doesn't work, because that same wealth can be used by a different class to accrue the same items. If those are the same for both the fighter and a replacement character, then it cancels out as an argument. It cancels out as an argument because both characters get the same benefit from that wealth. Once both characters -- the fighter and the replacement -- get the same benefits from that wealth, we can exclude the wealth as causing a significant benefit for one (the fighter) or the other (the replacement). In essence, the benefit is the same so why use it? I honestly don't know how to explain it more simply. I feel like people are either intentionally being obtuse on this matter, or they're ignoring it in some sort of misguided hope that it will get ignored. Otto, this should get ignored. If wealth is a part of the character, and is expected in order for the character to succeed, there is no reason in ignoring it. To be honest, without wealth, no melee character can bull rush, trip, or grapple some higher level opponents. I have never really cared about what other characters can do in the place of the fighter, because I know it has no bearing on the fighter's own contribution to a party. It really only means something to someone interested in playing a very very very powerful, very versatile character. And this 'everyone gets wealth' argument came up after the fact, when someone else mentioned it (perhaps onewinged4ngel?). Before that it was pretty much 'but it's not the fighter, it's the wealth that is accomplishing that'. Not incapable, capable of less. Not worthless, worth less. Perhaps that is how you see it. But there are others making a different case against the fighter as well. That's just a side effect of these threads. You know, when it changes from a theoretical discussion into a competition. The theoretical statement starts at "Well, sure, the fighter contributes some, but the cleric can contribute nearly as well or better at the fighter's schtick, and still have a truckload of spells remaining for better utility." Then the argument gets warped into this retarded one-on-one competition. Once it changes into a one-on-one competition it, quite naturally, becomes a matter of finishing off the "fighter as gladiator opponent" as quickly as possible. And to be fair, the fighters are doing exactly the same thing with "Well, I just got a +11 initiative and did 500 damage this round." With as many people as there are that claim the 1 v. 1 battles prove nothing, I'm beginning to think it's some sort of new-fangled trolling. Party with fighter v. monsters compared to Party with replacement character v. monsters would be better. I don't make a fighter build to win a 1 v. 1 competition. I do it to show potential where a group of people refuse to believe any exists. Let's face the facts for a second. While your claim is a little more reasonable than most, it's not the average claim. Usually, it's that fighters suck. Or they can't do crap. Read the posts that came right before yours. The pinmaster stuff. An implication that the fighter cannot do anything in a world not designed to coddle him. A different argument than yours Otto. I am not competing against a cleric or druid when I make a fighter build. I am building a character to contribute to a group of 4 adventurers as they face challenges set up by the DM. As such, I assume wealth by level, teamwork, and a reasonable game. In other words, my theory has tried to steer clear of the 1 v. 1 stuff. Always. It's not trolling, it's common sense. The Shackled City is probably going to be similar to the problems melees have in Age of Worms, which is stupendously heavy with undead and negative energy attacks and things with high will save reqs...and yet there IS a wide variety of foes in it. So, for all of the vaunted power of the cleric, he can't help his allies against negative energy and undead? And the fighter can't take Iron Will or Combat Focus or Steadfast Determination or Indomitable Will? Or for negative levels... Font of Life? Enduring Life? Lasting Life? |
| Flan05-06-07, 10:54 PM | Khan, navar, and myself (and others) have given examples of how the fighter fares well in our games. Why is our experience wrong while yours right? If your fights are lasting longer than 2 rounds, then your casters simply aren't trying. An AMF killed her. Anyone that says that spell is useless is a moron. I have it as a domain spell on my current cleric and I took Domain Spontenaity for my domains. It's pretty handy as it allows you to ignore so much crap like the trap the rogue can't quite disarm, the big nasty SLA or supernatural ability of the big baddy, and of course to grapple the enemy wizard who the DM likes to have dimension door away as a recurring villian... So, for all of the vaunted power of the cleric, he can't help his allies against negative energy and undead? And the fighter can't take Iron Will or Combat Focus or Steadfast Determination or Indomitable Will? Or for negative levels... Font of Life? Enduring Life? Lasting Life? The single best help the cleric can be is to use Bolt of Glory and obliterate the undead before it does those negative energy attacks. Age of Worms big boss fights at the end are tough for melee, they have decent AC and they have all the typical flying, huge whatever. Clerics with bolt of glory are the best damage dealers, like they often are on typical baddies, and the shorter the fight, the less the enemy hurts you. |
| Clawhound05-06-07, 10:57 PM | That's not what is being said about the wealth. This has been pointed out when you change the argument into this time and again. The argument is never about the fighter using his wealth to optimize his fighting style. And you know it. You (generally, not Khan specifically) have been told that the wealth issue doesn't work, because that same wealth can be used by a different class to accrue the same items. If those are the same for both the fighter and a replacement character, then it cancels out as an argument. It cancels out as an argument because both characters get the same benefit from that wealth. Once both characters -- the fighter and the replacement -- get the same benefits from that wealth, we can exclude the wealth as causing a significant benefit for one (the fighter) or the other (the replacement). In essence, the benefit is the same so why use it? I honestly don't know how to explain it more simply. I feel like people are either intentionally being obtuse on this matter, or they're ignoring it in some sort of misguided hope that it will get ignored. Wealth doesn't cancel. Only two equal things cancel. In the abstract, two characters have the same wealth. In actual implementation, two characters have considerably different equipment. It is equivalent, but not equal. Put non-mithril Full Plate on a barbarian and a heavy shield on a barbarian. Will those work as well for a barbarian as well as for a fighter? No, they won't. The nature of each class pushes you towards different equipment, and this equipment pushes you towards different capabilities. This means that you must assess a class WITH its wealth, or your comparisons will be inaccurate. That's the difference between equality and equivalence. |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 12:49 AM | If your fights are lasting longer than 2 rounds, then your casters simply aren't trying. Or, as DM, I am setting things up so that the fights will last more than 2 rounds. I like to use multiple opponents rather than one big one. It makes things more challenging for everyone in my games. |
| Flan05-07-07, 01:01 AM | Or, as DM, I am setting things up so that the fights will last more than 2 rounds. I like to use multiple opponents rather than one big one. It makes things more challenging for everyone in my games. Clerics tend to be better on fewer targets, but DMM Twinspell is pretty effective. That plus a max wand is 180 damage no save to two targets at level 15, not crippling in itself but combined with damage from the wizard and things die. Wizards like single targets too because of orbs, sound lance, disintigrate etc. but their damage doesn't drop using AEs as much as the opponent's HPs drop, so they do just fine on multiple targets. Things like Scorching Ray, Chain Lighting, or AEs like Meteor Swarm, or multi-rounds like Many Jaws (which combines well with concentration trick from complete scoundrel) or Ball Lighting don't suck. |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 01:12 AM | Clerics tend to be better on fewer targets, but DMM Twinspell is pretty effective. That plus a max wand is 180 damage no save to two targets at level 15, not crippling in itself but combined with damage from the wizard and things die. Wizards like single targets too because of orbs, sound lance, disintigrate etc. but their damage doesn't drop using AEs as much as the opponent's HPs drop, so they do just fine on multiple targets. Things like Scorching Ray, Chain Lighting, or AEs like Meteor Swarm, or multi-rounds like Many Jaws (which combines well with concentration trick from complete scoundrel) or Ball Lighting don't suck. We don't have any clerics or druids in the game. No one in our group enjoys playing them. We had a sorcerer who gamed with us once every 2 months. |
| arcanejazz05-07-07, 02:43 AM | How would a party of 4 Druids deal with traps? Continuously cast Summon Nature's Ally 1 to summon badgers to trip traps? :heehee *raises hand* guilty XD ~<3 |
| Archangel6205-07-07, 04:04 AM | I have never made a single argument from a roleplaying perspective. I have continuously argued that fighters do not suck. I have said on many occasions that other classes may be able to fill the role better. I have also said that some of those classes are actually too powerful in my opinion. I have said more than once that how well a character performs in a setting has a lot to do with how the group functions. Your balloonworld example is actually a strawman attack against my argument. Since the DM is under no obligation to use balors, dragons, hydras, etc, and can still use the MM as written there is nothing wrong with the fighter. Why must the DM only use huge and larger creatures? Is there some rule I missed? Please cite source if you can find it. I didn't say you in particular but plenty of people argued from an RP perspective or equally inane position on the fighters ability. The problem is that from your perspective there is no baseline for classes, so I do wonder how you can say that the power of a class depends on group dynamics and yet that some classes are far too powerful for your liking. The balloon world example is this, a person can make a game or gameworld that, accidentally or on purpose, caters to the strengths of certain classes heavily and weaknesses of others. There are no rules listing 'required' monsters but the CRs show the higher CR creatures getting bigger and more powers unless you start throwing on templates and class levels. Also, there is nothing in the rules that states that I can't have orders of bounty hunters who all hate the PCs and constantly try to kill them at every turn or that I have to let the martial characters find anything they can use or let casters rest long enough to regain spells. But the game is built with an assumption that the gamut of the CR tables will be used and that in general the DM isn't going to actively screw over certain players or classes. I can ignore a huge chunk of available monsters and only throw things at the fighter that I know won't lock them down, that doesn't mean that the fighter is good. I can only throw things against the fighter that will cripple them, that doesn't make the fighter bad. The problem is that if we look at a class against a set of possible encounters, a single monster of appropriate CR at each level unmodified and ask what the class can legitimately do in each situation we can get a clearer idea of the feasability of that class. That was why I reccomended the gauntlet and even explained that the fighter could lose and die in each one but might still prove the fighter is useful if they can show me the fighter actually affecting the battle in a decent fashion without other players propping them up. Khan offered to take the challenge as did a couple others, most of the rest of you ignored it or said it was unrealistic, and used reasoning that showed you either hadn't read what I had written or willfully misinterpreted it. |
| Mesiolan05-07-07, 05:50 AM | To the first poster: Yes. To have fun, and to have a reliable tank in the party. Concerning to the usefulness of high level fighters, last session only the fighter saved the day in a long and challenging fight against many foes. The party is 13th level and consists of: Druid, Fighter, Monk, Rogue and Shdowdancer (Rog/Fig/ShD) Two henchmen (8th and 9th level Cleric and Sorcerer) to fill the caster roles. The druid is without animal companion (laws do not allow hulking dire beasts within city walls) They enter a huge room with only a few buff spells. They are caught by some area-attacks, which kill the Sor, and hurt the PCs w/o evasion seriously. The Dru and the Cle flee. The shadowdancer moves into the room and considers invisible, but is ganged by creatures with deadly sneak attacks. They deal some 90 HP and he flees. A bunch of CR 8-14 monsters, including an airwalking CR 13 cleric, approach. Fighter and Monk enter melee, the Rogue starts sniping. The rest of the party is dead or has left. Fighter tanks the main threats, back to a pillar to reduce probability of flanking, and fights defensively. He downs one foe every other round. The Rog is killed by a spell by the evil Cle (Fort saves suck), and the monk is flanked and downed. The fighter stands his ground. And holds. The five monsters simply fail to hit or deal massive damage for about five rounds, due to his very high AC. He is protected by a Shield Other, and the henchman Cle next room takes half of the incoming heat. After that time, the ShD and Dru return, somewhat healed. But then the work is almost done. Only two melee beasts and the evil Cle remain, who used one spell after the other on the Fig – with no results (Hold Person? Flame Strike? Destruction? Slay Living? Pah! Good Fort saves, Fire Resistance, and Freedom of Movement!). The evil cleric buffs for some rounds and enters melee against the fighter – only to be flanked by the ShD and annihilated in a single round. In the end, the fighter stood on a heap of fallen foes, and still had about 50% of his HP left. His AC was some 38 while on the defense, and the monsters needed 18+ to hit. IF the party had included a second full caster, the encounter would have been different. The players made mistakes when they entered the showdown room almost unprepared and without good knowledge of the opposition. Let’s not talk about a USELESS fighter. A tank is the anvil, on which the party crushes their foes. And a fighter can do the job very well. Even at Lv. 13. |
| Argaud05-07-07, 06:16 AM | Clerics tend to be better on fewer targets, but DMM Twinspell is pretty effective. That plus a max wand is 180 damage no save to two targets at level 15, not crippling in itself but combined with damage from the wizard and things die. Wizards like single targets too because of orbs, sound lance, disintigrate etc. but their damage doesn't drop using AEs as much as the opponent's HPs drop, so they do just fine on multiple targets. Things like Scorching Ray, Chain Lighting, or AEs like Meteor Swarm, or multi-rounds like Many Jaws (which combines well with concentration trick from complete scoundrel) or Ball Lighting don't suck. OMG, you are cuddling the casters, man! How is your monsters do not have spellturning running all the time? It is just a level 7 spell! Why do they have touch AC under 40... why? It is easy to raise it to 50 with a "variety of spells" (blank statement ftw!). Also, they should all use spells like silence and AMF with vicious frequency and astonishing precognitive skill. Not to mention you could also give all non-caster critters the 3 Mage Slayer feats so they ignore all defensive spells, and Spellcaster Harrier to those monsters with 21 or more HD, since they can take epic feats. Anything else: Cuddling the casters!!!!eleven!! You are playing Balloon World!! :D (Sorry, Flan, I couldn't resist, I am a weak man) |
| xkriolox05-07-07, 09:05 AM | fighters are better cause you don't have to choose between a zillion of spells, and read all of them over and over to make sure you don't forget a single restriction. It's also obvious that you WILL forget something about the spell |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 09:24 AM | I didn't say you in particular but plenty of people argued from an RP perspective or equally inane position on the fighters ability. The problem is that from your perspective there is no baseline for classes, so I do wonder how you can say that the power of a class depends on group dynamics and yet that some classes are far too powerful for your liking. The baseline changes from group to group. What one person sees as too powerful another sees as just fine. Personally, I think that the rogue is a good baseline class, but that's for the games we play in. Also, you have to admit that we can all agree what too powerful is (Planar Shepard). Extremes are easy to define. The other classes that I see as too powerful, like the cleric and druid, can be fixed easily. Too often it's the spell lists that make the class too powerful. Even the druid's animal companion wouldn't be so bad if the druid couldn't buff himself and his companion with a single spell that didn't have Mass in the title. The balloon world example is this, a person can make a game or gameworld that, accidentally or on purpose, caters to the strengths of certain classes heavily and weaknesses of others. You took it to an extreme. That is the problem I have with the example. How often are spellbooks considered part of the party treasure value? How often are wizards required to pay the 100 gold per page to scribe that spell into their spellbooks? By looking at the example spells that wizards seem to use, I assume that many people forget this little detail. We hear how crappy the fighter is, yet there are no corresponding threads about the rogue who has almost all the same actual problems. The rogue's only decent feature, comparitively, is his skills. There are no rules listing 'required' monsters but the CRs show the higher CR creatures getting bigger and more powers unless you start throwing on templates and class levels. Also, there is nothing in the rules that states that I can't have orders of bounty hunters who all hate the PCs and constantly try to kill them at every turn or that I have to let the martial characters find anything they can use or let casters rest long enough to regain spells. But the game is built with an assumption that the gamut of the CR tables will be used and that in general the DM isn't going to actively screw over certain players or classes. The rules only assume that I use appropriate encounters. By assuming that I should be using non-advanced monsters, you are building your own balloon world. You are creating a scenario where certain builds don't function well. If you only use the larger creatures, then you have accidently or by design built a world where tripping fighters can't function well. No matter what game you run, there is going to be something that some classes are going to be better at than others. This is part of the beauty of RPGs in general. I can ignore a huge chunk of available monsters and only throw things at the fighter that I know won't lock them down, that doesn't mean that the fighter is good. I can only throw things against the fighter that will cripple them, that doesn't make the fighter bad. The problem is that if we look at a class against a set of possible encounters, a single monster of appropriate CR at each level unmodified and ask what the class can legitimately do in each situation we can get a clearer idea of the feasability of that class. The problem here is that for every appropriate encounter you see, I see something different. With the probably millions of options available, I think it is going to be impossible to accomplish this. That was why I reccomended the gauntlet and even explained that the fighter could lose and die in each one but might still prove the fighter is useful if they can show me the fighter actually affecting the battle in a decent fashion without other players propping them up. Khan offered to take the challenge as did a couple others, most of the rest of you ignored it or said it was unrealistic, and used reasoning that showed you either hadn't read what I had written or willfully misinterpreted it. I was going to do this. I still have the list. I have run into some problems. First, I am getting bored with it (not something you would be able to address). Second, the Encounter Levels assume that, as a group, I should have more actions and more wealth than I am being allowed for this challenge. Third, I don't have all the books that the creatures lists are in. Fourth, I don't know exactly how to calculate how well my fighter is going to do against those creatures. One of the problems I see with the list is that what you assume to be appropriate and what someone else sees as appropriate are not going to be the same. It will also only demonstrate how the fighter fares against those 20 creatures. It shows nothing about the fighter's prowess against other creatures. |
| snakebliskan05-07-07, 09:54 AM | The problem I see with most post's in this thread is that most are looking at it as individual character's when they should be looking at what is the best party, not what is the best character! For best party that would have to be my present one Fighter 5 (THF) Fighter 5 (THF) Wiz 5 (spec evoker) Cleric 5 (str,war domains) Rog 5 (Halfling thrower) Druid 5 (summoner lots and lots of nasty critters) |
| Clawhound05-07-07, 10:20 AM | Here is what I consider a standard mix of encounters: CL's: 8x CL-6 4x CL-4 2x CL-2 1x CL 1x CL+2 (rare) 1x CL+4 (rare with warning) Groupings: Single Creature Single Creature Group Multi-creature group Synergizing multi-creature group General Encounter Type Random creature Semi-intelligent creature Intelligent Creature NPC Set Piece Surprise: Surprised (them) Surprised (you) Surprised (both) Neither surprised Players prepped Opponents prepped Both sides prepped Range: Melee Close range Medium range Long range Environment: Small room Medium room Large room Outside Outside with weather Special Environment (underwater, flying, etc). |
| Flan05-07-07, 11:46 AM | OMG, you are cuddling the casters, man! How is your monsters do not have spellturning running all the time? It is just a level 7 spell! Why do they have touch AC under 40... why? It is easy to raise it to 50 with a "variety of spells" (blank statement ftw!). Most opponents aren't casters. One that was hit the party with a maxed spell and slew two party members right out, two more died from massive damage and the other two barely survived, got lucky on round one and managed to kill him. Also, they should all use spells like silence and AMF with vicious frequency and astonishing precognitive skill. Not to mention you could also give all non-caster critters the 3 Mage Slayer feats so they ignore all defensive spells, and Spellcaster Harrier to those monsters with 21 or more HD, since they can take epic feats. Having to make all opponents casters just highlights the problem, and for whatever odd reason published adventures haven't done it. Also sadly Mage Slayer only does so much, particularly if the mages are bright enough to be able to tumble or don't really care about taking an AoO since they're going to turn around and win the fight with the spell they're going to cast and the trivial damage they took from it is easily dealt with via wands of lesser vigor. |
| Flan05-07-07, 01:35 PM | AHAHAHA, just read the feats for Complete Champion. Why is it a feat for melee do something like... +2 damage while a feat for casters doubles their damage, or allows them to do infinite amounts of healing? :rolleyes: If Night Sticks aren't banned in your game already, heres a couple more feats which they make broken. |
| crashlogic05-07-07, 01:36 PM | There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. So far all I have seen is statistical arguments about why other classes are better than fighters. Judging by the descriptions of the fighter builds, these arguments are put forward by people who have never really played a fighter, but rather simply look at all the flash and trash of other classes and think "Oh fighter's are not that cool or formidable." It seems they have simply not spent enough time actually playing high level fighters in game terms. I conceed that a fighter needs magic items to be effective. But a properlry equipped fighter is a fearsome opponent even without spells cast on her. A naked fignter at 20th level witha club is a dangerous opponent too. Positioning, tactics, and terrain are all factors, as is the transition from ranged to Melee. Fighters have feats that allow them to shape and dominate the battlefied by closing off whole areas due to AoO. Fighter's don't have to tank, they can let the vaunted druid tank, because he has no mobility as a tank, and in the mean time the fighter can use feat chains like spring attack to make a flank attack on one creature and then move to another space to let the rogue get a flank attack, without magic or wings. More significantly, the fighter can afford to take the mage killer feat chain, even if its only usefull about ten percent of the time, because he can take different feat chain that is usefull at other times. Even with no feats backing him hup he still can get a lot of attacks, take a lot of damage, and dish out a lot of damage without having to burn spells, pick stances or refresh burned manuevers. You might not like the fighter, you might think casters are the be all and end all. So be it. But that does not mean there is no reason to take a fighter as written. |
| Minmaximus05-07-07, 01:43 PM | I am beginning to think the internet gaming community just can't be happy. Fighters are good if you make it good. It is not spelled out for in a linear list of abilities that has been play tested into the ground. It is very easy to make a crappy fighter. You have to be creative and think long term. The advantage to the F is that he is very customizable to YOUR game. He is the only class that can put a lot feats together quickly. And honestly I don't really think it is a 20 lvl class. It is very necessary to the game. Makes a great way to round out a character. When you see a character with multiple classes trying to munchkin, you will usually see "fighter" somewhere on the class line. |
| Alpha_Moose05-07-07, 02:21 PM | I'm going to just butt in here quickly. I'm not going to get dragged into this argument, I merely have a question for Khan. I remember on another thread that you were showing some Fighter builds (which were quite good). You admitted that the Fighter would be much weaker if you didn't allow certain books (such as PHII or CW). You said that you might make a core only Fighter build. I would like very much to see this. I'm not making a challenge, I'm just curious. |
| Flan05-07-07, 02:47 PM | You might not like the fighter, you might think casters are the be all and end all. So be it. But that does not mean there is no reason to take a fighter as written. Fighters are too powerful. Access to splatbooks and magic items makes them more than capable of destroying what the game had intended to be level-appropriate challenges. The problem is caster's power increases with levels far faster than non-casters and they are even at mid levels VASTLY more powerful than non-casters including the fighter. |
| Khan the Destroyer05-07-07, 05:52 PM | OMG, you are cuddling the casters, man! How is your monsters do not have spellturning running all the time? It is just a level 7 spell! Why do they have touch AC under 40... why? It is easy to raise it to 50 with a "variety of spells" (blank statement ftw!). Also, they should all use spells like silence and AMF with vicious frequency and astonishing precognitive skill. Not to mention you could also give all non-caster critters the 3 Mage Slayer feats so they ignore all defensive spells, and Spellcaster Harrier to those monsters with 21 or more HD, since they can take epic feats. Anything else: Cuddling the casters!!!!eleven!! You are playing Balloon World!! :D (Sorry, Flan, I couldn't resist, I am a weak man) :eek: :rofl: Most opponents aren't casters. And most aren't ginormous. Or mobile. Or supernatural monsters of doom. Or bipedal NPC's. Or kitchen sinks. One that was hit the party with a maxed spell and slew two party members right out, two more died from massive damage and the other two barely survived, got lucky on round one and managed to kill him. I can see the value of this if it is extremely rare. It reminds the players of danger and forces them to consider tactics and safety. But if this happens everytime they face a caster, I'd have to suspect how your world continues to turn without casters utterly dominating everything and warring over slave populations, continents, and other planes of existence. Casters of course do not have to be played this way. And non-casters can of course be just as deadly. Also sadly Mage Slayer only does so much, particularly if the mages are bright enough to be able to tumble How does that work? or don't really care about taking an AoO since they're going to turn around and win the fight with the spell they're going to cast and the trivial damage they took from it is easily dealt with via wands of lesser vigor. Hmm... trivial damage? What about Sunder staff/wand/rod/component pouch and cleave into wizard. Damage triggers knockdown, which provides another attack. Hit wizard again with either a light weapon or an improved unarmed strike to trigger Scorpion's Grasp, which initiates a grapple. Win the grapple check, and automatically deal unarmed damage again. Now, the Concentration check to cast that spell is 10 plus the damage from 3 different attacks. Further, the wizard is grappled, meaning he can only cast spells without somatic components. And if the fighter sundered the component pouch, that's even fewer available spells. Next round, pin the wizard and prevent him from speaking. I remember on another thread that you were showing some Fighter builds (which were quite good). You admitted that the Fighter would be much weaker if you didn't allow certain books (such as PHII or CW). You said that you might make a core only Fighter build. I would like very much to see this. I'm not making a challenge, I'm just curious. I'm still not sure on core-only builds. I have some ideas though. Right now, I'm working on a charisma-based fighter. I'll give the core-only build a shot after that. |
| Alpha_Moose05-07-07, 06:01 PM | And most aren't ginormous. Or mobile. Or supernatural monsters of doom. Or bipedal NPC's. Or kitchen sinks. Actually, an Animated Kitchen Sink would be pretty easy for a Fighter to beat I imagine. I'm still not sure on core-only builds. I have some ideas though. Right now, I'm working on a charisma-based fighter. I'll give the core-only build a shot after that. What do you mean by charisma-based? |
| Belgian Waffle05-07-07, 06:08 PM | The problem I see with most post's in this thread is that most are looking at it as individual character's when they should be looking at what is the best party, not what is the best character! For best party that would have to be my present one Fighter 5 (THF) Fighter 5 (THF) Wiz 5 (spec evoker) Cleric 5 (str,war domains) Rog 5 (Halfling thrower) Druid 5 (summoner lots and lots of nasty critters) Seriously, let's compare your group with this one : Crusader (LG S&B Tanker/Flanker) Crusader (CG Spiked Chain AoO Monster Guy) Rogue Cleric Druid Wizard The only thing I did was switch up the fighters with the crusaders. Which group do you think will do better in a general combat situation? |
| Jolly Josh05-07-07, 06:43 PM | Seriously, let's compare your group with this one : Crusader (LG S&B Tanker/Flanker) Crusader (CG Spiked Chain AoO Monster Guy) Rogue Cleric Druid Wizard The only thing I did was switch up the fighters with the crusaders. Which group do you think will do better in a general combat situation? My new group is the following: Crusader(S&B type) Barbarian/FB Rogue/Avenger Ranger Archivist This party is a melee fest... The Fighter role is being played by the Crusader, the barbarian even feels a little out of place next to the crusader but loves the heals, anyways, all the players are realizing the Fighter class has basically been replaced by new content. The Crusader, The Warblade, The Knight, The Duskblade, they are all suitable replacements in a party for a Fighter and they are more versatile. I would consider the Fighter dead or at least suitable for a 2 - 4 level dip for us Optimizers |
| crashlogic05-07-07, 06:54 PM | Let's see. Fighter on horse with bow. Warblade on foot. Fighter shoots warblade from 200 feet away, and then moves, warbalde follows. Fighter shoots warblade on foot from 200 feet away, warblade follows. Fighter shoots warbalde from 200 feet away, warblade follows.... You get the idea. |
| Archangel_yuki05-07-07, 07:17 PM | Of course, had it been a wizard instead of a monk, it would have killed the entire party. Of course. However, I am still humaine. I won't go that evil. Oh, and anyone who thinks that a good fighter can get a jump on wizard to beat him, i have 2 words: Greater celerity. |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 07:29 PM | The only thing I did was switch up the fighters with the crusaders. Which group do you think will do better in a general combat situation? The question isn't: which class is better? The question is: can the fighter do his job? With the party he is gaming with, are the fighters ineffective? He states that they are not. Since we are not in that game, we can only take him at his word. |
| Leo05-07-07, 07:33 PM | I would love to hear how your crusader got all the feats necessary for the uber chain build before the fighter. |
| aelryinth05-07-07, 07:49 PM | To the first poster: Yes. To have fun, and to have a reliable tank in the party. Concerning to the usefulness of high level fighters, last session only the fighter saved the day in a long and challenging fight against many foes. The party is 13th level and consists of: Druid, Fighter, Monk, Rogue and Shdowdancer (Rog/Fig/ShD) Two henchmen (8th and 9th level Cleric and Sorcerer) to fill the caster roles. The druid is without animal companion (laws do not allow hulking dire beasts within city walls) They enter a huge room with only a few buff spells. They are caught by some area-attacks, which kill the Sor, and hurt the PCs w/o evasion seriously. The Dru and the Cle flee. The shadowdancer moves into the room and considers invisible, but is ganged by creatures with deadly sneak attacks. They deal some 90 HP and he flees. A bunch of CR 8-14 monsters, including an airwalking CR 13 cleric, approach. Fighter and Monk enter melee, the Rogue starts sniping. The rest of the party is dead or has left. Fighter tanks the main threats, back to a pillar to reduce probability of flanking, and fights defensively. He downs one foe every other round. The Rog is killed by a spell by the evil Cle (Fort saves suck), and the monk is flanked and downed. The fighter stands his ground. And holds. The five monsters simply fail to hit or deal massive damage for about five rounds, due to his very high AC. He is protected by a Shield Other, and the henchman Cle next room takes half of the incoming heat. After that time, the ShD and Dru return, somewhat healed. But then the work is almost done. Only two melee beasts and the evil Cle remain, who used one spell after the other on the Fig – with no results (Hold Person? Flame Strike? Destruction? Slay Living? Pah! Good Fort saves, Fire Resistance, and Freedom of Movement!). The evil cleric buffs for some rounds and enters melee against the fighter – only to be flanked by the ShD and annihilated in a single round. In the end, the fighter stood on a heap of fallen foes, and still had about 50% of his HP left. His AC was some 38 while on the defense, and the monsters needed 18+ to hit. IF the party had included a second full caster, the encounter would have been different. The players made mistakes when they entered the showdown room almost unprepared and without good knowledge of the opposition. Let’s not talk about a USELESS fighter. A tank is the anvil, on which the party crushes their foes. And a fighter can do the job very well. Even at Lv. 13. Now, let's look at this example of why Fighters are cool. 1) Obviously, the Fighter wasn't so put off by the AoE's, and the shadowdancer lived through them. So did the cohort cleric and druid. Either somehow the Fighter made his save, or simply shrugged off the damage...and the sorceror was an idiot and didn't have a ton of hit points. Then there's the fact that this is an obvious ambush situation, as for some reason, the shadowdancer can't even hide in plain sight, his strongest class ability, and is beat on hard. Also, it should have been impossible to flank him effectively with uncanny dodge. All of this flows right into Great Thing for fighter...have Hit Points, will stand there. My query: Why didn't the others bother to have nice hit points too? Especially the caster with the cruddy hit die? He's the one who should have had Shield Other on him. 2) A bunch of monsters approach, and everyone enters melee. Really? You threw a monk into melee? Especially one who obviously didn't have a great AC? There was no spamming of SLA's? 3) The Rogue dies to a Fort save spell. That's nice, why is he in melee? Why isn't he holding fire and trying to disrupt the cleric's spells from back a ways? Why didn't the Monk fight back to back with the Fighter? Why was he in pure melee if he's obviously not a tank? The fighter downed something every other round. I presume with his AC that high he was using weapon and shield. If he was using a THW, would he have killed one every round? How did he get his AC so high? Buffs from the casters? Would the casters have survived if they'd bothered to throw some of those spell slots on themselves? at this point, everyone is now playing the Fighter's game. 4) For five rounds, a bunch of very stupid monsters beat on something they can't hit. they don't try to grapple him, which is a touch attack (and which would have confirmed the existence of the Free Action), nor do they aid another. They don't just run around him and go after the others who ran away, despite the fact they are still nearby. They actually sit there and throw themselves into the fighter's full attack cuisinart. They don't even try disarming him, tripping him, or a slew of other tactics. They just sit there and endure his full attacks, and of course they get chopped to peices. The cleric used spells with fort saves, and one with a will save, and somehow the Fighter afforded a ring of free action at his level and happened to have fire resistance going. Instead of being smart and, say, dispelling the free action, or being smarter and dropping a blade barriar, dispelling any buffs and the shield other that were obviously keeping the Fighter alive, we get a parade of spells that are almost bound to fail, and stupid tactics on the part of the monsters. 5) Only then, after the rest of the party has had time to buff, recover and heal, does the cleric try to handle the job himself. he's already lost the rest of 'his' party, and here comes the reinforcements he never bothered to track down, all buffed and ready for him. So buffed, in fact, that when his uninjured self drops down, one character kills him in one round, presumably with sneak attacks. ------------------- This Fighter has a 35 or 36 AC at level 13, which is an incredible acheivement in and of itself. That is what helped him win, nothing else. How he got it is his business, but he already blew 40k on his Ring of Freedom of Movement, or he had the perfect buffs for the job that the enemy never bothered to get rid of. The Fighter stayed alive because half his damage was being sucked away by a pet priest, even with this incredible AC. The fight ended with him at half hit points. On his own, he was dead...he was effectively getting healed the entire fight. ================ Smart Tactics: The fighter is surrounded and the monsters all full attack him...to pathetic results. he replies with a full attack action..that wounded monster drops out of the mix. The cleric tries a will save spell - hold person! it bounces...the Fighter doesn't even save. He tells the other monsters to aid one that has Improved Grab in grappling the fighter. when he slides free of what should be a lock and manages to unleash another full attack, the cleric decides enough is enough. He should at this point have unleashed a Dispel Magic to remove as many cast buffs as possible from the fighter, who, if he was profiting from magic vestment, GMW, and the like, would have suffered a precipitous drop in AC. Furthermore, his Shield Other would now be gone, and he'd start taking a lot of damage. Furthermore, he's level 13...where's his Blasphemy? If that STILL has little to no effect, then he should have ordered his minions to withdraw and go after the healers in the next room...that Shadowdancer isn't hiding in shadows if he's getting healed! And then he should have dropped a blade barriar or wall of stone or some other containment device around the fighter and gone after his minions. The Fighter is now pinned in place with his high AC and full attack, and now has to remove himself from his predicament. Maybe he has a fly potion. maybe he sucks it up and charges through the barriar and takes the unavoidable damage. meanwhile, in the next room, the healers are surrounded and probably die in 1-2 rounds. maybe the cleric throws a spell on the Shadowdancer so he can't hide (will save! or fort save he didn't bother with on the Fighter), or maybe he lands a Harm spell on him and the ShD goes down to a passing blow from another monster. Now, the Fighter literally IS all alone...his buffs are gone...his Hit points are probably down...and the monsters and cleric can deal with him at their leisure. Maybe the cleric heals his faithful minions, who aid Another the attacks of the biggest and strongest of them who has the chance to hit the Fighter. Maybe the cleric dispels the Freedom ring, and they grapple him, swarm him, and he's done for. ======================== This is a great cinematic story, and the Fighter player probably felt like a king and god when it was all said and done, which meant he had great fun, the sorc is wondering why he's got no hit points and no dmg sponge priest Shielding him, and everyone else is wondering how they pulled it out of their ass. But everything went the Fighter's way. he had the untouchable AC...I've been there with a rogue build, and I know how frustrating and distracting that is to a DM, who can flank y ou with two bruisers and STILL not be able to hit you. I've been there with having tons of hit points and being able to soak it and soak it. And I've made the clutch will saves and kept on going against the illithid, and done lots of dmg to the stuff beating on me and distracted the rest of the party. but that doesn't change the fact that the tactics of these monsters were Dumb, and especially the cleric. With his minions down, wasted against the untouchable fighter, he THEN enters melee, just as reinforcements are charging back. Instead of having those buffs in place to beat the Fighter down WITH his minions. And he never, ever bothers to remove any of what were probably some substantial buffs the fighter had himself. he wasted Save or Dies against something with a massive fort save. yeah, that's good tactics. Dont' get me wrong...I like the story and it's a great fight scene and save from a TPK/Ambush scenario. At the same time, everything catered to the Fighter's strengths. That Fighter could have been a barbarian, a paladin, or a Crusader, and the image would not have changed much. It doesn't say anything for a Fighter class. it demonstrates how awesome and fun it can be to play a tank. =============== I had a halfling who just hit level 13 at the time we stopped play. Fighting defensively, he could also hit a 38 AC. With his High Dex, he also had the best TH roll in the party if someone flanked with him, because he had a short sword of subtlety. The primary Fighters in the group were actually envious of him, and would often DELIBRATELY not flank with him, because they didn't like to see me throwing that array of Sneak Attack dice. My AC was so high I'd run in on enemies without tumbling, JUST to provoke the one AoO they'd get so the fighters wouldn't have to (Mobility dealt with it...I never got hit). My con was high, so I had more hit points then anyone else in the party (113 or so when we stopped). When I did my pokey-pokey for SA, I was tossing out a whopping 4d6+10 dmg or so...my little fireball, I liked to call it. Class combo? Rogue6/Fighter2/Barb1/Ranger1/Duellist3. I was also the skill monkey, trap finder, disarmer, and sneak. And I was by far the best tank in the party. The half-dragon TWF with his 28 str could lay out the damage...but he took it, too, and I ended up using the CLW wands to get him back into shape. That was almost never a problem for me. Being a tank is great fun, but our party never really learned the true and awesome power of a tanking cleric...the one priest in the party was just starting to get to that point. And then all the 2E thinkers would have sat back and goggled as he tore through everything. Great fun, great memories...but so much of that campaign catered to the fighter mentality. The DM really went easy on us. ===Aelryinth |
| Archangel6205-07-07, 07:57 PM | Let's see. Fighter on horse with bow. Warblade on foot. Fighter shoots warblade from 200 feet away, and then moves, warbalde follows. Fighter shoots warblade on foot from 200 feet away, warblade follows. Fighter shoots warbalde from 200 feet away, warblade follows.... You get the idea. Yes, that a class can do well if you set it up in a favorable position against a foe who is in a comparatively unfavorable one. Something that most people already know. |
| aelryinth05-07-07, 07:59 PM | Let's see. Fighter on horse with bow. Warblade on foot. Fighter shoots warblade from 200 feet away, and then moves, warbalde follows. Fighter shoots warblade on foot from 200 feet away, warblade follows. Fighter shoots warbalde from 200 feet away, warblade follows.... You get the idea. let's see, Fighter on horse with bow, Warblade on foot. Warblade activates Winged boots. Races up and sunders bow. Or kills horse. Or flies away. Fighter is now on foot. Rest of unbalanced scenario plays out as normal. Or even better, Warblade with his extra skill points purchases a few ranks of Ride and also has a horse. While Fighter is using bow, Warblade is using Lance. Hilarity ensues when Ruby Nightmare blade combined with Lance Attack on a Charge hits home. ===Aelryinth |
| Khan the Destroyer05-07-07, 09:49 PM | What do you mean by charisma-based? I mean one that utilizes his charisma in combat (and out of combat). Mostly... intimidate type stuff. There are feats like Kiai Shout and Intimidating Rage that give warriors an option to benefit from a high charisma. But I'm ignoring those options, because they are mostly sub-optimal. But a charisma-based warrior might use stuff like that, or Daunting Presence, or Battlefield Inspiration. I just recently started a thread on the CO Boards about a new feat in Drow of the Underdark, Imperious Command. When you demoralize a foe with Intimidate, you make them cowed instead of shaken :eek:. We optimized a little. Now, I'm trying to optimize it with just straight fighter levels, and it's coming around nicely. I just can't decide what combat style to pair it with. (Of course, there are actual charisma-based warriors like the Paladin, that get to add charisma to their saves, and even to attack and damage with Smite and Divine Might. BUt that's not what I mean here.) @ aelryinth: You mention that the enemy cleric was stupid for not dispelling. But... what would have happened to the PC cleric with all of his buffs that was standing in for a fighter? He would have been dispelled as well. And in a worse place as far as combat goes than the fighter. And if dispelling is such a logical choice to make, couldn't we assume that the PC's would do the same had the enemy cleric been uber-buffed himself? It seems kind of pointless. If dispel is so obvious, why bother with buffs at all? If we expect it to be prepared all of the time, it seems like a waste to cast a buff spell. Further, with the ENORMOUS amount of material available for people to use, to say that the DM played the enemies dumb because the cleric didn't have Dispel prepared at the time, or uber buff spells is silly. Why limit yourself to a handful of spells and tactics? And why limit yourself to the same mega-intelligent, super-powerful, undefeatable caster opponents? I'd imagine it would get old pretty quickly. 'Wow. The caster had the same mega spells prepared for this encounter as the last one we fought. And he totally pwned us too.' 'Sorry guys, but I like to play my casters intelligently. If you had access to such power, wouldn't you use it?' 'Sure. Whatever. I'm going to go rent a movie.' Oh, and anyone who thinks that a good fighter can get a jump on wizard to beat him, i have 2 words: Greater celerity. Here are 2 more words: Not Prepared. Is the argument really that no fighter can ever surprise a wizard because the wizard may know one spell out of thousands and may have it prepared that day? |
| Nadaka05-07-07, 10:19 PM | let's see, Fighter on horse with bow, Warblade on foot. Warblade activates Winged boots. Races up and sunders bow. Or kills horse. Or flies away. Fighter is now on foot. Rest of unbalanced scenario plays out as normal. Or even better, Warblade with his extra skill points purchases a few ranks of Ride and also has a horse. While Fighter is using bow, Warblade is using Lance. Hilarity ensues when Ruby Nightmare blade combined with Lance Attack on a Charge hits home. ===Aelryinth You can't actually use ruby nightmare blade on a charge, it is a standard action. |
| Otto the Bugbear05-07-07, 10:35 PM | The question isn't: which class is better? The question is: can the fighter do his job? The question is both, depending upon who is speaking. To some, the question is 'which class is better?' (Better at doing the "fighter job".) Many people feel that there are way too many classes that do the job better, rendering the fighter under powered. Leading to the question "any reason to have a fighter [when you can do the fighter job with a different class instead]?" Others feel that it's simply too easy to do the fighter's job, leading to ask the question "any reason to have [specifically] a fighter [for such an easy role]?" To others, the question is 'can the fighter do his job?' (Whatever that might be.) Of course he can. A commoner can do the fighter's job, albeit poorly. With the party he is gaming with, are the fighters ineffective? He states that they are not. Since we are not in that game, we can only take him at his word. :smirk: With the party he is gaming with, are the fighters effective? Bob Loblaw states that they are. Since we are not in that game, we can only take him at his word. Doesn't this bring us right back around to ignoring the "in my games" scenario in favor of only looking at the mechanics? |
| Nadaka05-07-07, 10:38 PM | Let's see. Fighter on horse with bow. Warblade on foot. Fighter shoots warblade from 200 feet away, and then moves, warbalde follows. Fighter shoots warblade on foot from 200 feet away, warblade follows. Fighter shoots warbalde from 200 feet away, warblade follows.... You get the idea. Or you could do a warblade archer build to deal 500+ damage to the fighter in the first round. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=12329956#post12329956 Its not 100% optimized, but it is an effective archer build capable of 14 attacks in the first round, plus i have 3 or so spare maneuvers to use for melee or other abilities. |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 10:40 PM | It doesn't say anything for a Fighter class. it demonstrates how awesome and fun it can be to play a tank. So now we are going to discount everything because this particular character was a fighter? Come on, admit it will you? The fighter held his own. The DM didn't play things the same way you would have, that certainly doesn't make the scenario stupid. It makes it different. Would I have done things the same way, probably not. I don't know anything about the Intelligence scores of the participants. Maybe they did what they felt was right. Not every encounter has to be run to the utmost of tactical superiority. |
| Otto the Bugbear05-07-07, 10:43 PM | Wealth doesn't cancel. Only two equal things cancel. In the abstract, two characters have the same wealth. In actual implementation, two characters have considerably different equipment. It is equivalent, but not equal. Put non-mithril Full Plate on a barbarian and a heavy shield on a barbarian. Will those work as well for a barbarian as well as for a fighter? No, they won't. The nature of each class pushes you towards different equipment, and this equipment pushes you towards different capabilities. Hooray for stupid specific examples that don't actually show anything! :cheer: The barbarian is as bad or worse off than the fighter, as I've said or agreed with time and again. There are a few things the barb does better, like built in flavor and having a few more hit points and having fast movement and having uncanny dodge. big whoop. Now replace the word "barbarian" with the word "cleric" or "paladin" or "warblade" or "knight". I dare say that using the exact items Khan chose for his great builds, but placing them instead on a cleric will yield a much more powerful character. This means that you must assess a class WITH its wealth, or your comparisons will be inaccurate. That's the difference between equality and equivalence. Or it means that you make comparisons using the same items among several classes, instead of only picking the one that supports your argument. |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 10:50 PM | To some, the question is 'which class is better?' (Better at doing the "fighter job".) Many people feel that there are way too many classes that do the job better, rendering the fighter under powered. Leading to the question "any reason to have a fighter [when you can do the fighter job with a different class instead]?" Others feel that it's simply too easy to do the fighter's job, leading to ask the question "any reason to have [specifically] a fighter [for such an easy role]?" So why isn't the question ever: Is this class that can replace the basic classes too powerful. A party of 4 clerics can fill the shoes of all 4 standard characters with plenty of power left over. Doesn't this seem wrong to anyone except me? To others, the question is 'can the fighter do his job?' (Whatever that might be.) Of course he can. A commoner can do the fighter's job, albeit poorly. Wow, what a strawman you've set up. I'll skip this comment because it's completely foolish. You will not be able to convince me that a commoner with no class abilities, poor base attack, all poor saves, d4 hit points, no proficiencies (one simple weapon), and wealth of an NPC will be able to fill the shoes of any PC class. 1st level you might be able to get an argument in, but that changes very quickly. With the party he is gaming with, are the fighters effective? Bob Loblaw states that they are. Since we are not in that game, we can only take him at his word. Doesn't this bring us right back around to ignoring the "in my games" scenario in favor of only looking at the mechanics? You must take into account the game the fighter is in. You can try to discount this important detail all you want, but since the DM must choose the encounters and books allowed, you must consider the DM. You and I can both use RAW and have two very different games. This concept seems to be a very difficult thing for many to understand. No two games need to be the same. No two games must use the exact same classes and encounters to have things remain balanced. The best part is that we can all use the same rules. DnD is not purely a numbers game. The DM has so much influence on what happens that you must take the role into account. |
| Bob Loblaw05-07-07, 11:05 PM | Or it means that you make comparisons using the same items among several classes, instead of only picking the one that supports your argument. So let's do this. Full adamantine plate mail +5, heavy fortification Dwarven Urgrosh +5 vorpal/+5 vicious, keen, throwing, mighty cleaving, merciful Tower Shield +5, Reflecting Amulet of Mighty Fists +4 Helm of Underwater Action That's all your money spent. Every copper. My dwarf has the throw anything feat and often fights things while at sea so underwater combat is not unheard of. What would your barbarian do? What about the bard? Druid? Monk? Ranger? Rogue? Sorcerer? Wizard? I skipped cleric and paladin because I know that both of those classes can do well with that gear. The gear should be tailored to the class. Any fighter that spends a fortune on his Staff of Necromancy is probably not thinking things through. |
| Belgian Waffle05-07-07, 11:37 PM | The question isn't: which class is better? The question is: can the fighter do his job? With the party he is gaming with, are the fighters ineffective? He states that they are not. Since we are not in that game, we can only take him at his word. Well, see, you're exactly wrong. This is just about which class is better. Sure, maybe the fighter Can do his job. That's just rad. The question is whether or not the Crusader could take his place and do his job better. If you look in the PHB, it pretty much says that the Fighter's role in the party is to get into melee and get hit while getting hit (I prefer the AXES TO FACES description personally). The Crusader does exactly the same thing except that it can do the getting hit thing a little bit better than the fighter can. Or even better, Warblade with his extra skill points purchases a few ranks of Ride and also has a horse. While Fighter is using bow, Warblade is using Lance. Hilarity ensues when Ruby Nightmare blade combined with Lance Attack on a Charge hits home. Alternatively, he just uses one of the WRT charge strikes. Extra damage and no AoO? Score! I would love to hear how your crusader got all the feats necessary for the uber chain build before the fighter. Well, all you really need is given to you in the first three levels. 1H) Exotic Weapon Prof (Spiked Chain) 1C) Combat Reflexes 3C) Weapon Finesse Then you just wait until level 8 when you get thicket of blades and you're good (waiting for the errata that'll synch up the stance progressions). Just gotta choose maneuvers that help with the whole tanking thing and you're set. Focus will probably be in Divine Spirit and Stone Dragon. Personally, if I wanted to specialize in Spiked chain, I'd probably go Psychic Warrior1/Crusader14/Warmind5. But that's that and this is this. So why isn't the question ever: Is this class that can replace the basic classes too powerful. A party of 4 clerics can fill the shoes of all 4 standard characters with plenty of power left over. Doesn't this seem wrong to anyone except me? Clerics Are stupidly ridiculous, though some people would argue otherwise (they're morons, btw). And while I'd like to Nerf the hell out of them, I would also like fighters to receive a boost. It's really two separate discussions. |
| Bob Loblaw05-08-07, 12:00 AM | Well, see, you're exactly wrong. This is just about which class is better. Sure, maybe the fighter Can do his job. That's just rad. The question is whether or not the Crusader could take his place and do his job better. That may be what you are arguing, but this thread has become about whether or not the fighter sucks. To suck, he must be unable to do his job. Can he do his job? If the answer is yes, then he does not suck (and you have already said that he can). I agree that the Crusader is a good class and can do his job well. Clerics Are stupidly ridiculous, though some people would argue otherwise (they're morons, btw). And while I'd like to Nerf the hell out of them, I would also like fighters to receive a boost. It's really two separate discussions. This I agree with 100%. Clerics and druids need to be toned down. Wizards need a little bit of a tone down and adherance to the wealth by level rules. Fighters, barbarians, and rangers need a boost. Rogues, bards, and paladins may also. |
| Kulthos05-08-07, 12:10 AM | Clerics Are stupidly ridiculous, though some people would argue otherwise (they're morons, btw). And while I'd like to Nerf the hell out of them, I would also like fighters to receive a boost. It's really two separate discussions. Clerics are the mightiest class few people want to play. Funny how that works. |
| WizO_Shadow05-12-07, 12:54 AM | Link to new thread: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=845718 WizO_Shadow |