Post/Author/DateTime	Post
_m_ 12-19-06, 11:41 PM	im am distressed by an enourmous ignorance. it seems that a discusion, an enture idea, is coming to a climax, and could potentially result in a disaster. a whole swarm of annoyingly hard headed individuals are trying to to druids nerfed an the basis that a straight druid beats a straight fighter in combat, and therfore, fighters are underpowered, and therfore, druids neerd nerfing. they refuse to listen to my hastily typed, boss avoiding (at work n all) reasoning that a straight fighter is NOT an optimised fighter. someone come over and help me! mommy, arvagor, copper, clannagh, im looking at YOU (and all your other friends around there, whos names i cant recall how to spell, but dont want to be embarrased.)
Britt 12-19-06, 11:55 PM	If a straight fighter is being beaten in melee by a straight druid, that is one poorly designed fighter. If you're talking about the animal companion, that's possible, but animal companions are broken.
_m_ 12-19-06, 11:56 PM	dont tell Me britt me dear, tell THEM. i already KNOW. also,. im going home now, so no more posts from me 2day.
ShinAkuma2 12-20-06, 12:02 AM	If fighters are underpowered, then fix the fighter, or fix the rest of the game. Don't weaken one other class. That accomplishes nothing, except that the fighter is still weak, and the druid is weaker. That's like when you wish to be the smartest person alive, and so everyone else gets dumber (or dies).
ranagrande 12-20-06, 12:48 AM	Yeah, this isn't evidence of druids being overpowered. (Druids are, in fact, overpowered, but this isn't an example of that.) Yes, a straight druid can beat a straight fighter in melee. So can a barbarian, or a cleric, or a favored soul, or a monk, or a rogue, or a sorceror, or a wizard. And those are just the ones it's easy for. The problem here is that people still think that fighter is a real class. It's not! Fighter is something that you can take one or two levels of if you need extra feats. That's all.
Lomiat 12-20-06, 01:25 AM	Think in terms of a race from zero buffs to one character is dead: Fighter vs. druid. Depends on a lot of things. Initiative, of course. Fighter has more feats to spend on things like Improved Initiative. Opening distance matters. A well built, straight fighter (*almost* a paradox) will focus on several different types of tactics and should have a balance between melee and ranged repetoires. In other words, this straight fighter should be able Quick Draw a composite bow and start firing arrows with Rapid Shot. A smart fighter might even ready to disrupt the druid's actions. A druid will, no doubt, have spells and can play havoc with the fighter's bad Will save, but that's obvious. Can the druid stand toe to toe with a fighter in melee? Not without buffs. Not even the animal companion. Without the contingent of spells the druid puts into place for herself and her animal companion, both are much, much squishier than the fighter who ought to be able to balance between attack and damage power and AC. I've seen a lot of effective fighter mutts, and they typically get various abilities that bump their strength (rage) or give them unique defenses (Occult Slayer's mind blank). However, the most effective things these characters did in melee was put their feat selection to good use. Since a fighter gets more feats than anyone else, the character just has more combat options that don't require rounds of prepartion to use. From the word GO, the fighter has all her tools at her ready.
Britt 12-20-06, 02:38 AM	As someone that played a Ftr16/Bbn2 character and was known as one of the best melee characters in the area, I greatly dispute that straight fighter is a bad idea.
Genghis Cohen 12-20-06, 02:58 AM	As someone that played a Ftr16/Bbn2 character and was known as one of the best melee characters in the area, I greatly dispute that straight fighter is a bad idea. Ftr16/Bbn2 is not a straight fighter. Rage is huge, especially when combined with Reckless Rage and Extra Rage.
Britt 12-20-06, 03:16 AM	The statement was that you wouldn't want fighter for more than a couple of levels. Fighter was my primary class and I did exceptionally well with it.
Lupo 12-20-06, 03:30 AM	im am distressed by an enourmous ignorance. it seems that a discusion, an enture idea, is coming to a climax, and could potentially result in a disaster. a whole swarm of annoyingly hard headed individuals are trying to to druids nerfed an the basis that a straight druid beats a straight fighter in combat, and therfore, fighters are underpowered, and therfore, druids neerd nerfing. they refuse to listen to my hastily typed, boss avoiding (at work n all) reasoning that a straight fighter is NOT an optimised fighter. someone come over and help me! mommy, arvagor, copper, clannagh, im looking at YOU (and all your other friends around there, whos names i cant recall how to spell, but dont want to be embarrased.) with the tendency of dms (and still some module writers) to actively nerf druids and especcially druid's companions i would expect some support for the POOR DRUIDS ;) it happens over and over: i play a module, dm tells me: no your animal is not allowed (yea some regions have LAWS against animals in towns :dragon:), . . . . . . no your animal companion won't; me: hey, i can pull off the necessary dc 25 handle animal check, . . . dm: no you can't, you have a zillion + x penalty on it. then i dm the module and there is NOTHING, it was just a biassed dm :( (no question i will avoid said dm and spread the word :rolleyes:) ok, back to the original: a LG druid plus his animal companion (due to special campaign inherit mechanisms . . . . can you say C R A F T I N G :P) can most probably stand against any straight LG fighter. a maxed-cheesed arcane hierophant/beastmaster just steps aside and let his animal do the dirty work :D fighters are a weak class, because everyone exploits the two fighter levels when in need for some feats (therefore nearly every mutt has at least those two levels and gives a fart for further fighter levels, as "weapon spec" isn't so important AND/OR can be gotten via other means easily) :smirk: in addition the fighter is the class for which the multi-base-classing system of D&D 3.x is most beneficial. and the prestige class system as well, as the fighter gets the needed feats for qualification so easily. and remember BAB stacks, whereas spellcasting classes and levels don't. see, D&D 3.x is all about multiclassing and prestigeclassing ;) a third point is that the authors of the splat books obviously are more interested in "cool" prestige classes and seldom try to beef up base classes, especcially the "overused" fighter:allalone:. i would love to have some of the very cool prestige class special feats and features being available as additional "semi-exclusive-fighter-feats" with something like "a fighter level x and above can select feature y as one of his fighter bonus feats" or taking away some of the steep prerequisites like "int 13" for "combat expertise" for fighters level 6 and above. and yea, nerfing the druid because someone is lazy in coming up with ways to beef up the fighter is the worst way to do it.:rolleyes: ciao martin m.
Puggle Halfwine 12-20-06, 10:16 AM	One word: Cynric. ... ... ... 's cat.
_m_ 12-20-06, 05:09 PM	One word: Cynric. ... ... ... 's cat. thats the best word i've seen today :D
Genghis Cohen 12-20-06, 05:41 PM	The statement was that you wouldn't want fighter for more than a couple of levels. Fighter was my primary class and I did exceptionally well with it.I'm sure that you did do well. Once you've got rage, all those fighter levels rack up a lot of feats. Most of the really cracked tanks that I've played with are 1 or 2 levels of barbarian, sometimes 1 level of EWM (uncanny blow,) and all of the rest are fighter.
Mommy was an Orc 12-20-06, 06:46 PM	Druids are a lot more powerful than Fighters in melee if they want to be. There's a real good reason why the Circle banned Bite of X just now. But that's the key word - want - Druids are probably the most powerful core class out there, but they need to want to do something well and they don't really have the number of feats necessary to do multiple things well. They also need to be good at telling players that they don't heal in combat, which doesn't go over very well when you're the only divine caster in the party. Pounce + Heedless Charge from Shock Trooper + GMF is omg broken if your target doesn't have Elusive Target. But that means starting out with a 13 Str and investing a lot of feats in the Power Attack chain. The real problem for Fighters is that while a pure Fighter build(or one with a couple of levels of Barbarian) might be okay, saves suck horribly throughout the build. Unless you get some kind of weird item, you're just one step away from getting dominated and killing half your party. Or having some Druid with Extraordinary Concentration and Quicken Spell casting Binding Winds on your Fighter, rooting him to the spot for the rest of the combat...(LG legal, btw...)
solbergb 12-20-06, 07:29 PM	Yeah..what he said. Druids can POTENTIALLY do many things. But they get so few feats and spell slots that they're rarely good at more than one or two things, and second or third best at other things. Melee is one thing they can be good at. The easiest way is to have a durable animal companion (high AC/hitpoints) and provide the offense yourself (via spells/summons or via wildshape+feats) but it's possible to do it the other way around. Melee though requires feats, and those feats require int, dex and/or strength and thus give MAD that a more generalist druid is going to spend on more wisdom/con, and also means feats you don't have for things like augment summon, rapid spell, crafting feats, blah blah. Like the melee cleric, you spend all your feats and many attribute points on being good at melee, and you'll find yourself unable to compete with the druids designed to do well at casting. A caster oriented cleric or druid can fill in as the party arcane caster and still do everything else expected of him, but will usuallly be somewhat medeocre at melee (the druid better than cleric). A melee oriented cleric or druid can fill tank (cleric) or light infantry (druid) role pretty well and do most other things expected of them but usually won't be able to turn undead worth a darn and will have few spell slots left for offensive casting. Just for fun, note what wanting to do grapple and trip really well does to a druid build. It's natural - you get such good strong forms in level 8+ to want to add +4 to their grapple/trip checks. But improved unarm strike, improved grapple, 13 dex, combat expertise and improved trip and 13 intelligence eat up all of your feats (assuming you also want natural spell) until level 12. Shock trooper's kind of similar. You want it by level 9, but to do it with natural spell, you have to be a human if you want any other feats. All the obvious melee-booster spells will also consume most of your spell slots. Druids are also probably the most complex class to run, and they can become rather awful if the player loses focus and has trouble managing all the actions of his wildshape form, his companion, his summons, correct spell preparation and timing of casting etc. A lot of time they don't hit their real potential in actual play. I've never in LG had my fighter types made to feel inferior by a druid who is taking a similar role. They're just funny looking fighters when they choose to go that route, better at some things, worse at others.
LGMoses 12-20-06, 11:33 PM	maybe i'm just naive as I haven't been playing Dnd for a year now and I'm running it as much or more (yeah definitely more) than I'm playing but I don't see how fighters are underpowered? You say their saves are no good but they can take feats to offset that. Iron Will, Great Fortitude, and Lightning Reflexes aren't fighter feats but the bonus feats a fighter gets free up regular spots for those feats if you feel insecure about your fighters will save. Also, with the fighter's bonus feats you can make a character thats more versatile than most other classes, literally having feats to blow. I started out with a fighter and man it made me mad when I went to other classes and realized how valuable those feats are. I haven't seen many druids played and noone in my group really wants to play one. The get some good stuff its obvious but they lack the feats to make them as versatile as a fighter. From a power gaming perspective the druid loses any advantage it gains on fighter through lack of versatility. Also, the druid has less hit dice so its tanking capacity is diminished. It isn't popular to play as a healing class due to its inability to spontaneously cast stuff. This is what my players tell me anyways. This is my argument on why things shouldn't be changed. The fighter and the druid are fine. Using the PHB you can customize your character any way you wish.
Lomiat 12-20-06, 11:52 PM	LGMoses, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen all the wicked tricks yet. Fighters are good, but Bbn2/Ftr4/Rgr3/Wildrunners are better. We've got a local wood-elf (admittedly, reincarnated from human for a good boost to STR and DEx) who rages and primal screams in every combat to get up to 32 STR unassisted by anything but his Belt of Giant Strength +4 (in other words, no spells). He moves at 50 ft base speed, and his raging AC, while wielding a greatsword, is around 27 (which isn't all that high, I understand, but is still very good for a cannonball). He full attacks for around 200 hp per round at 11th level. This is in line with the other munchkin mutts I've seen, one of whom had Close Quarters Combat, Elusive Target and Karmic Strike, along with the rage and Power Attack. He didn't get grappled by grapple monsters because the 40 or so hit points he dealt a monster each time it tried to grapple him applied as a bonus to his grapple check. He didn't get hit for too many hit points because all Power Attack damage was nerfed by Elusive Target, and then after the bad guy failed to slap all that damage on him, he turned it right back with Karmic Strike. Sure, his AC was HOOORRRRIBLE, but that was the point. He'd do something like 200 hps of damage on his round, and then, depending on how many attacks a bad guy foolishly took at him, he could do another 200 or so on the bad guy's turn. Silly. These are the things, by the way, that give the fighter the edge over the druid in combat. Sure, you can make a druid who, with his animal companion, can both pounce and power attack for full at 12th level, but that just means the above fighter kills one and badly wounds the other (assuming he runs out of AoOs somewhere in the middle of the druid's hit points). Or... then again, that same druid might just end up prone 10 feet away from the fighter, having charged and given up all its AC to offset the Power Attack penalty to hit, right before the fighter gets his full attack action....
Cynric 12-21-06, 03:59 AM	One word: Cynric. ... ... ... 's cat. The cat is only that bad because I have taken prestige calss and feat combos to get it that way. PLus my place style is to buff the hell out of it. People need to think of it as a secondary fighter with a cleric buffing it, Not a fighter. Besides, it's will save is worse than a fighter.
gomeztoo 12-21-06, 04:13 AM	The statement was that you wouldn't want fighter for more than a couple of levels. Fighter was my primary class and I did exceptionally well with it. Thog: "Thog only take two levels fighetr for feats. Thog not take third fighter level. Thog think third fighter level dumb. Roy: "Then let me introduce to you something you missed: Weapon Specialization!" You can make good fighters. You just have to pick the right combo of stats, feats, and equipment. I'm not good at making fighters, though my current fighter, Fat Dwarf, is doing quite well.
Lupo 12-21-06, 04:55 AM	Thog: "Thog only take two levels fighetr for feats. Thog not take third fighter level. Thog think third fighter level dumb. Roy: "Then let me introduce to you something you missed: Weapon Specialization!" You can make good fighters. You just have to pick the right combo of stats, feats, and equipment. I'm not good at making fighters, though my current fighter, Fat Dwarf, is doing quite well. yea, but again: a fighter gets a bonus feat at first level and one every even level thereafter, giving him a total of EIGHT extra feats, from a limited selection (ok, with the right mixing of "normal" feats and "bonus" feats normally there is no problem, but sometimes one would like to be able to throw in one of the feats NOT labeled as fighter bonus feats at a crucial point, especcially with the "third-level-rule" something that hits fighters, because of their first and second level bonus especcially hard). with the right combination of classes and prestige classes, i get nearly double the number of extra feats and features. ok i therefore have to really fine tune the character concept and progression, but it works even with full BAB. and the concept only has the infamous two fighter levels ;). fighter "exclusive" feats are rare and have been given as "goodies" out to several prestige classes :rolleyes:. never mind, a good fighter build is always welcomed to a table, he can't do to many WRONG things (although i have seen people do really silly things with their fighters :D). ciao martin m.
jhorred 12-23-06, 11:44 PM	I have a fighter 13 that has turned out to do quite well for himself. Like a previous poster there is a local mutt with Wildrunner/Barb/Ranger/Fighter/Pious Templar/Exotic Weapon Master that outclasses him in sheer damage output but my fighter is better in other ways. My AC is significantly higher than his and my character has developed a ranged aspect that deals a significant amount of damage. My character is more flexible.
LGMoses 12-24-06, 12:12 AM	LGMoses, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen all the wicked tricks yet. Fighters are good, but Bbn2/Ftr4/Rgr3/Wildrunners are better. We've got a local wood-elf (admittedly, reincarnated from human for a good boost to STR and DEx) who rages and primal screams in every combat to get up to 32 STR unassisted by anything but his Belt of Giant Strength +4 (in other words, no spells). He moves at 50 ft base speed, and his raging AC, while wielding a greatsword, is around 27 (which isn't all that high, I understand, but is still very good for a cannonball). He full attacks for around 200 hp per round at 11th level. This is in line with the other munchkin mutts I've seen, one of whom had Close Quarters Combat, Elusive Target and Karmic Strike, along with the rage and Power Attack. He didn't get grappled by grapple monsters because the 40 or so hit points he dealt a monster each time it tried to grapple him applied as a bonus to his grapple check. He didn't get hit for too many hit points because all Power Attack damage was nerfed by Elusive Target, and then after the bad guy failed to slap all that damage on him, he turned it right back with Karmic Strike. Sure, his AC was HOOORRRRIBLE, but that was the point. He'd do something like 200 hps of damage on his round, and then, depending on how many attacks a bad guy foolishly took at him, he could do another 200 or so on the bad guy's turn. Silly. These are the things, by the way, that give the fighter the edge over the druid in combat. Sure, you can make a druid who, with his animal companion, can both pounce and power attack for full at 12th level, but that just means the above fighter kills one and badly wounds the other (assuming he runs out of AoOs somewhere in the middle of the druid's hit points). Or... then again, that same druid might just end up prone 10 feet away from the fighter, having charged and given up all its AC to offset the Power Attack penalty to hit, right before the fighter gets his full attack action.... Thats crazy. Thats just where someone has cheezed (this seems to be the expression on this board) that build up. I hate it when people put all their effort into making these stupid builds. I just don't see how someone can get the full proper enjoyment out of their character if they've got him mapped and planned out. Theres no point in playing these mods cuz u already know where lifes taking ur character. But thats just me.
ranagrande 12-24-06, 05:20 AM	Thats crazy. Thats just where someone has cheezed (this seems to be the expression on this board) that build up. I hate it when people put all their effort into making these stupid builds. I just don't see how someone can get the full proper enjoyment out of their character if they've got him mapped and planned out. Theres no point in playing these mods cuz u already know where lifes taking ur character. But thats just me. You have to understand that people play the game for different reasons, and they enjoy different aspects of it. For instance, you seem to prefer a more RP-driven character that is always a work in progress. That's great, but that isn't the way everyone wants to do it. I always plan out my characters completely. I like playing with statistics, and character creation is one of my favorite elements of the game. The fun for me while playing then comes from seeing that outline become a reality. I tend to prefer stranger characters anyway, and being able to roleplay them convincingly can be both challenging and fun. Also, just because I plan a character out ahead of time doesn't mean that it can't change. My monk recently got access to the Dread Pirate prestige class, and I'm tempted to take it even though I had planned for him to be a Reaping Mauler and later a Pious Templar.
Starfox_SFX 12-24-06, 01:43 PM	With one exception, all the fighter builds I have seen splash in that one or two levels of barbarian. That in and of itself seems to me to be indicitive of something either lacking in a straight fighter, or overpowered in the bbn (and I personally lean towards the latter) The issue is simply fighters don't get access to anything better than anyone else. But wait, what about the weapon specialization feats? Well, for two feats, weapon focus/weapon spec you end up with +1hit/+2 damage with a single weapon. At the same time, at level 1 a bbn gets +2 hit/+3 damage (inevitably using 2 hand weapon) and a con bonus with any weapon. While limited in number of uses per day, it is rarely a limiting factor and can be aleviated at lv 3 with one feat (extra rage). And, as pointed out by a previous poster, even though you get more "discretionary" feats where you choose what you want, a character with a specific concept can get as many or more feats from other classes on top of a few extra abilities that a fighter never has access to. Now, the PHBII does take steps to correct this, there are a nice selection of new feats that are only open to fighters due to the prerequisite of weapon specialization, and they have some nice looking special abilities. This won't end the reign of all the bbn2/ftrX builds, but it does give fighters something uniquely theirs to look forward to.
Britt 12-24-06, 01:46 PM	It's more that Bbn is front-loaded and it's hard to resist that +10 ft, rage, and evasion without much loss. And Weapon Spec isn't worth taking fighter, at least on a BDF. In 18 levels I never took Weapon Spec, as I got better ROI in other feats. For a BDF, Weapon Spec is only really worthwhile for the first couple of levels; after that, it would be better to have other feats.
jhorred 12-26-06, 03:33 AM	Mish mash of thoughts follow.... Character 'Development'.. My fighter I have no specific plan for, I tend to decide on my Feats when I gain levels, but he's turned out pretty good IMHO. While I don't really have specific plans with my Wizard, I do have more specific plans with my other two characters. I find myself a little frustrated with them as I know what I want them to be and they aren't there yet. I find the more free form development of my fighter to be more enjoyable. At the same time the lack of planning makes it hard to qualify for prestige classes. Unfortunately, Shadowbane Stalker and Dervish have a decent amount of planning required. That and the fact that my Scout 2 died and set my Dervish plan back about 4 mods. I honestly dislike the mutt builds with more than 3-4 classes as I see them as very min-maxed. To me they put the mechanics before the character. But like has been said before, everyone plays this game for a different reasons. I prefer more moderate/conservative builds that don't take advantage of weak spots in the rules/overly powerful combinations. (But that is me.) I don't feel that my characters do that, though my scout/dervish plan is likely my most 'abusive' build. Fighters.... There are oddities about this class. I wish the extra feats received were more in sync with the normal feats. Like at 12th I get 2 feats and none at 13th. Makes 13th level a dead level, I get a BAB and HP and that's it. Having a horde of feats is really cool and allows for some neat builds but I wish that there was more to set this class apart from the others, i.e. more fighter only stuff. I took weapon specialization twice, once for greatswords and once for javelins. I took the GS at 4th and the javelins at 12th. I took it for the GS for the extra damage at low level and for javelins to help with getting though DR.
CrystalBlue 12-27-06, 09:48 AM	Another big reason I've found for the insane cheese factories that do upwards of 100 points a swing is the difficulty of some mods. I know many people say this about thier own regions, but Highfolk has always been a killer region. We face things in Highfolk regional mods that seem to always be 2 levels higher then what it's intended for. We get slaughtered in Highfolk And because of that, I've seen lots of broken characters in year 5 and 6 come out, because players are sick of getting hosed. Not to mention, as well, that we're in the Iuz borderlands...and the Shieldlands is right next to us. Characters have adapted to the region. It's as simple as that.