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I don't understand where all the fighter hate comes from. The fighter is probably the single most versatile class out there because there are so many builds that one can make from a fighter. They be the common board and sword, two-weapon fighters, ranged type fighters, grapple experts, etc...
What's the problem?
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Your own post explains it.
Fighters are not versatile. Fighters are specialist-dependent. A Fighter cannot do all the things you listed well. A Fighter is not all that useful outside of his specialty, and also has few defenses other then armor to get him through the day.
It's not FIghter Hate, it's fighter analysis and acknowledgement. Most of us love the Fighter CONCEPT...it's the execution here which is lacking.
==Aelryinth
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We're unhappy with fighter again? I thought we moved onto monk; then rogue once Ultimate Combat came out.
I enjoy playing fighters quite a bit. Whether it's doing damage, tripping folks, or protecting my allies, I think it's a fun class. I don't mind being magic item dependent because to me, it kind of makes sense when you look at folktales about heroes slaying evil. I also do more than just Power Attack, like tripping and disarming. I'm not of the opinion that 'if you aren't full attacking every turn, you are worthless'. Sure, I may get hit by an attack of opportunity, but I always play a bit more gutsy with fighters and I don't mind. I like swinging swords and axes and other weapon.
Currently I am playing a polearm fighter that works less on damage and instead deals more battlefield control. My threat reach is fairly wide and it allows me to do more AoO, repositions, and keep threatening casters. I've had a blast with him, throwing people into flanking position for the rogue in the party or tripping people with my polearm. While I could never say no to little buffs here and there, I love this incarnation of the fighter quite a bit.
I was thinking, we could change weapon training to combat training, and change the types to wrestling, personal weapons, martial arts, and siege weapons. When they take one of them, they no longer (if ever) provoke attacks of opportunity with that weapon and gain a +1hit/damage (or defense for wrestling) for each rank in combat training. For example: a 20th level fighter could have +4hit/damage with personal weapons, +3hit/defense with wrestling, +2hit/damage with martial arts, and +1hit/damage with siege weapons.
I'd still give them a floating good save.
They are pretty much only good in combat, I want to see an out of combat niche for the fighter. I think fighters are plenty powerful in the combat role, when I first started playing I just didn't understand how good weapon/armor training actually were.
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It's just that and out-of-combat role for the fighter seems contradictory. It would be nice if he could provide boosts to his party through stuff like drills and stuff. Everybody travelling with the fighter gets some bonuses because he's making them get up and jog in the morning.
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Fighters fight.
That's all.
They sit out for much of the remaining game.
They need gear to count for anything in high level.
I cry for them. I don't hate them.
I dream of them being better one day.
Everybody travelling with the fighter gets some bonuses because he's making them get up and jog in the morning.
I love this imagery, lol.
I'd be cool if there was some crafting niche geared toward the fighter. Though he still won't be able to touch magical crafting, which doesn't really help.
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Everybody travelling with the fighter gets some bonuses because he's making them get up and jog in the morning.I love this imagery, lol.
I'd be cool if there was some crafting niche geared toward the fighter. Though he still won't be able to touch magical crafting, which doesn't really help.
1.Take master craftsman.
2.Make magic armor and weapons.3.????
4.Profit!
The only magic items a fighter can't craft are potions, spell-trigger items, or spell-completion items. All weapons, armor, and the majority of wonderous items can be crafted by fighters with the Master Craftsman feat, and an appropriate crafting skill. The DC to craft them will be higher than a spellcasters, but he can still do it.
The only magic items a fighter can't craft are potions, spell-trigger items, or spell-completion items. All weapons, armor, and the majority of wonderous items can be crafted by fighters with the Master Craftsman feat, and an appropriate crafting skill. The DC to craft them will be higher than a spellcasters, but he can still do it.
That is kinda the problem, he has to spend half of his class skill points just to be good at that. Although that option was exactly what I was thinking about, can't believe I looked past it.
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I actually think the Fighter's doing just fine.
People think he isn't versatile because they're so used to archetypes I'd guess. The normal fighter can fight up close, use a bow, fight unarmed and others better than most (multiple weapon groups instead of most archetypes only getting one.) Plus he can also do backflips in full plate due to armor training.
Give him feats and he does more average damage than virtually anyone in the game, and give him some intelligence and the skill point favored class bonus and you've got skills to be effective outside of combat. If you don't think he's got enough, there's always the house rule I see a lot of people use where all classes get +2 skill points.
The fighter lends himself to specialization like anyone else does, but if you want to make him versatile there's very few other classes in the game that can multi-specialize and still remain relevant. I'd say the fighter's doing just fine.
Honestly ... we've normally got at least one fighter in a game, and the only real complaint is the low skill-points.
Fighters are weapon experts, combat specialists. No they can't create demi-planes or heal crowds of sickly orphans. What they can do is build two different feat trees at once to excellent effect, or build a single powerful feat tree and use their bonus feats to shore up their weak points.
Naturally once classes like the Wizard or Cleric reach mid-levels, the balance of power falls from Melee and is picked up by the Spellcasters. I don't care how good you are with a Sword, being able to warp minds and summon legions of celestial troops like popcorn will always surpass you. Yes the Barbarian's Rage Powers are awesomeness incarnate. I'd never say a Barbarian should be nerfed, they are incredibly fun to play, but the easiest way to nullify the Barbarian is to make them expend all those precious rage-rounds before the tougher fights. A Fighter trades being Epic for 2-3 minutes worth of rounds per day for being Great all the time.
They don't really balance with many of the spellcasting classes, classes that get so many special abilities now while often having good bab or being able to do what the fighter also does, or better. The magus can take focus and weapon spec, a spellcaster, he can take it when no other class but the fighter can. The barb can't take it, the ranger can't take it, but the magus can.
The alchemist has bombs, quick brew potions, and the bab to score many hits with the bombs. His hp is also good (even the former d4 hit die classes have better hp now). I've seen spellcasters perform the role of tanks.
So much was also given to the monk, their progression sped up, that they too overshadow the fighter. In 3.5 you could try and counter the monk with combat manoeuvres, but now they can really shut that down. Or the fighter could go two hander and win on damage. This is still possible but the monk of core is now on less flurry penalties with a faster increase in damage and ac.
Then there are the feats and the manoeuvres themselves, the fighter gets plenty of feats but now has to buy into trees for each technique. It takes a while to get the old trip for instance.
So a lot of what they had, has been taken away or diminished. To reverse this, and make the fighter a really attractive class I do the following.
The fighter is from beta, same with the barb. My group prefers that fighter.
Spellcasters, are from 3.5.
No magus, no alchemist, no oracle.
Combat manoeuvres are from 3.5, it is not so hard to remember or so complex a system. I've got it summarised down to one page.
Bam, balance and the fighter remains sexy.
Have a good one people.
A Fighter trades being Epic for 2-3 minutes worth of rounds per day for being Great all the time.
This is the problem. For the Fighter to shine he needs to have a long work day, which means his allies are used-up, underpowered, and boring.
The class is "broken" because it invites the PC's player to get satisfaction during those encounters the other players are having the least fun.
Fighter Awesomeness would be a party of all fighters who succeed in adventures by outsmarting and outlasting enemies who are great for a limited number of combat rounds. But no one authors those adventures.
Were I to GM when a player wanted to be a Fighter, I would do a few things...
(a) Old school dungeons usually had a fountain or statue or something that would bestow random, permanent effects. Similar is the "patron" who sends the heroes on a quest with an oddball usable-once item. I would use those types of gimmicks to allow the Fighter to completely repick combat feats at least once every two levels. The player could then try something totally new: specializing in a different combat maneuver, refocusing from melee to ranged, etc.
(b) Lots of "use them or lose them" healing items. Yes, it's cheesy to treat combat like a video game but many Fighter players love it. Glowing gems, magic fountains, benevolent underground moss--every dungeon should have some way to totally heal up in at least one room. Most players of Fighter (and their Cleric buddies) don't actually enjoy worrying about running out of cure spells. What the Fighter players often love is being able to go toe-to-toe with their great armor and hit points knowing that if they can survive the fight they'll be healthy again soon.
(c) Give Fighters a mystic ability to move a weapon's enchantment(s) from any weapon to the weapon they own and use, replacing any old enchantment(s). In AD&D the big advantage of being a Fighter was being able to use any weapon you find--and the most recent find was usually the most powerful. Recapture that advantage. Just found a +2 Vorpal Greataxe that no one can use well? The party's Fighter enters a trance and moves that "+2 Vorpal" to his sword. Problem solved. (Or maybe all Fighters have a special tattoo to which they can transfer any weapon enchantment, and then any weapon they pick up behaves as if it had that enchantment.)
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They are pretty much only good in combat, I want to see an out of combat niche for the fighter.
How about this...
Count how many even levels the campaign will include. The Fighter will eventually get that many bonus Combat Feats, right?
Now, consider all those General Feats that grant +2 in two related skills, which at least in my group are never used. (Acrobatic, Alertness, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Deceitful, etc.) Give the Fighter a bunch of those at first level to represent all the things he did as a young adult before his career focusing on martial training. As many as his eventual number of Combat Feats.
Whenever the Fighter gains a bonus Combat Feat it replaces one of those General Feats. Perhaps his hours of study and practice have enabled him to learn Greater Grapple but in past years those hours were spent with his pets and family horse, or practicing witty banter with his smooth-talking friends.
The Fighter would start the campaign as a skill monkey but loose that role as the adventures went on.
(c) Give Fighters a mystic ability to move a weapon's enchantment(s) from any weapon to the weapon they own and use, replacing any old enchantment(s). In AD&D the big advantage of being a Fighter was being able to use any weapon you find--and the most recent find was usually the most powerful. Recapture that advantage. Just found a +2 Vorpal Greataxe that no one can use well? The party's Fighter enters a trance and moves that "+2 Vorpal" to his sword. Problem solved. (Or maybe all Fighters have a special tattoo to which they can transfer any weapon enchantment, and then any weapon they pick up behaves as if it had that enchantment.)
This seems like an interesting option either for fighters or as a feat for martial characters. I don't know how I would write it up, but I really like this. I would like to point out that this is currently simulated by selling the item and making the new weapon with Master Craftsman. That's more complicated than what you are asking for though.
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It would be nice also if a Fighter could retrain his weapon focus and specialization at the start of every day, or after a week of training, or somesuch.
At low levels go longsword and heavy shield for the AC, training weapon focus and weapon specialization. At level 8 when you feel like you want a bit more damage, you can switch to a greatsword and after practising with it, you abandon your old longsword for your big new weapon.
Everybody travelling with the fighter gets some bonuses because he's making them get up and jog in the morning.I love this imagery, lol.
I'd be cool if there was some crafting niche geared toward the fighter. Though he still won't be able to touch magical crafting, which doesn't really help.
I like the idea of the Fighter as something of a skill monkey. It makes sense. A Fighter is a highly trained professional, and highly trained professionals learn useful skills. Fighters should have more class skills. All Knowledge skills would represent the Fighter's knack to learn about their enemies, Linguistics would reflect a professional mercenary or adventurer's desire to learn the languages of the areas they are providing their services in, Perception and Sense Motive reflects that a trained guard should not be a blind fool, and so on. Fighters should have plenty of class skills and 6 skill points per level so that they can afford them.
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I think that the fighter is great class to play when there's going to be a lot of opportunity to do what the fighter does best - combat.
If you are in a campaign with a heavy emphasis on role playing with a lot of skill use, and a *lowered* emphasis on combat, the fighter-playing PC might find himself a little bored.
But it doesn't need to be that way. The problem comes in when your fighter is a programmatically min-maxed, template-based, standard feat-tree based character. So don't do that.
Experiment!
1) If you are not into multi-classing there are a lot of archetypes in the APG and UC to choose from that could make your character more interesting.
2) If you are into multi-classing, a dip into spell-casting can liven things up, or a larger investment can lead to a PrC-based build. Just plan ahead with your stats. A fighter wizard with an 8 for INT is silly.
3) If you haven't dumped your Dex, think about a dip into rogue for the skill ranks and the (albeit small) sneak attack bonus. Melee fighters get a lot of flanking opportunities. It can also make your backstory and party contribution more varied.
4) Build a background for your fighter that truly makes him part of the world you're playing in. Give him color. Tie your physical attributes, feats and equipment choices into your backstory.
4) Do something different each time you play a fighter. Throw away that cookie cutter.
Experiment!
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I would also like to see Fighter feats stack like spells over time. For example Dogde instead of giving +1 would get better and give more benefits. A few feats you have to take because they are bread and butter feats and because of a feat tax. Weapon focus does nothing beyond give +1. Give it an extra feature at high level. The problme with building a non-standard fighter is yes you can make a skill money version of a fighter. The system imo does not reward you for it. The player with the vanilla fighter may not have as many skills but he is going to be hitting more often nad harder. I think the class needs more class features beyond feats and gitting stuff. A Barbrian can easily replace a Fighter while having more interesting options as a class.
I don't know why people always suggest ways to make fighters better at fighting - they're good at it already. The problem is that it's hard to make them good at anything else (like exploring, engineering, leading armies, talking to people, picking up the ladies, etc.)
This is completely false though. Not only are these all possible, these particular 4 can all be done with the same character. It's very easy, and can be done with 15 point buy to boot.
Exploring requires how many skills? Two? Climb and Survival? Maybe Swim. Each of these has set DCs so you can stop putting ranks in once you reach your goals.
Leading armies requires what? Honestly, there is not a single skill or feat that is required. This is purely roleplaying. If you must represent it, Leadership is the feat to pull it off. However, Paizo doesn't think it's necessary. There are plenty of fighters in Paizo products that are also leaders of armies and nations. Paizo says that this fighter can lead armies. Good enough for me. If you are expecting more, then you are placing restrictions that don't actually exist in the game.
Talking to people and picking up the ladies both would be simply Diplomacy checks. You could get buy on a higher Charisma, but it isn't necessary.
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I'm sorry, but the fighter is no longer the best at fighting. At mid-to-high levels the alchemist, synthesist, druid can all pull off fighting just as well if not better. Yes they can't do it "all day", but neither can the fighter. The fighter will run out of health if he doesn't have magical healing, and he can't even heal himself under most circumstances.
Leading armies requires what? Honestly, there is not a single skill or feat that is required. This is purely roleplaying. If you must represent it, Leadership is the feat to pull it off. However, Paizo doesn't think it's necessary. There are plenty of fighters in Paizo products that are also leaders of armies and nations. Paizo says that this fighter can lead armies. Good enough for me. If you are expecting more, then you are placing restrictions that don't actually exist in the game.
If you notice: he has 5 knowledge skils, no Cha/Wis bonus, Profession Soldier, terrible AC for his CR, etc.
I mean, any CR 10 has a 65% hit him; I mean he hits himself on a 4.
Fluff that he is a good general doesn't mean he is mechanically.
While I agree that the fighter has zero out of combat utility and a great deal of incredible in combat capability (no, he really does) I have yet to see anyone bring up a satisfactory alternative that would put him on par with say, a ranger, paladin, or cavalier in terms of doing things out of combat.
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This is completely false though. Not only are these all possible, these particular 4 can all be done with the same character. It's very easy, and can be done with 15 point buy to boot.
You must be talking about a Fighter in isolation, and/or a Fighter in a low, low level game.
Once level 4 is reached, the Fighter is already overshadowed by pretty much everyone else in any area besides combat. You're implying that fluff can cover everything, but the fact remains: Other classes have mechanics and the same DM fiat/fluff you are toting, leaving the Fighter as little more than background noise by comparison. The alternative is to tailor the game to let the Fighter feel useful... and that is evidence of failure right there.
As of late, I've concluded that this is one major flaw of the class design - complete neglect of all the facets of a game, and providing each class the means to meaningfully contribute, in many "scenes", in any game, at any level. Right now, the Fighter can "wing it" at low level, but as of mid level and up, can only meaningfully contribute in combat. In mid-to-high level intrigue/RP, the fighter is highly limited, restricted and/or sits out. In stealthy situations, the fighter is a liability and sits out. In contests or challenges of utility, the Fighter has almost nothing to offer, so he sits out. That's alot of time that a player has to sit out and wait for the next fight.
If you have to choose between playing the game a certain way (combat-focused or DM-fiat-coddling) or people sitting out, then there's a problem.
Bearing in mind I love the fighter.... I think these are the issues many have with it
- The fighter does not have a lot of flavor. It is by it's nature a very "vanilla" class--you bring to it what you will. Compared to "raging berserker" or "duty-bound champion of the gods" or "impaired but mystically powerful voice of the powers that be"... "guy that hits things and is good in armor" doesn't have a lot of oomph.
Me, I'm okay with this. I think having a fairly modular, make your own flavor class or two is a good thing, because some players like that. But the player who look for a lot of "zip" in a class description get bored by the fighter.
- The fighter appears simple, but yet requires a lot of system mastery to make truly powerful.
The fighter looks attractive if you don't want a lot of complicated abilities to track. The fighter has bravery, armor training, weapon training, and bonus feats. That's it -- no spells, no slas, not a billion things that get added on every level. It's simple, but the abilities it has are solid for what it does.
However, the choices you have for bonus feats (not to mention archetypes) can be overwhelming. A single classed fighter gets a feat every level. This is cool and fun, but it can be tempting to dip one finger into every pie than specialize, and the game often (but, note, not always) tends to favor specialization over too-broad generalization.
And then there's feat trees that have a number of branches but should really probably scale instead (if you want to be good with Vital Strike for those times you can't get off a full attack, that ultimately takes up 3 feats, when maybe it ought to be one that scales with BAB, much like Power Attack does). So sometimes you end up NOT specializing when you should because specializing looks like a whole load of feat taxes---depending on what you want to do. But that's more of a flaw of the feat system itself, not the fighter. The fighter simply tends to be a common sufferer (but certainly isn't the only one).
In short, the fighter ends up requiring a lot more planning ahead than it first appears.
Note one caveat to the feat issue----one often overlooked fighter feature is that fighters can retrain their bonus feats every 4 levels. That means if they took Improved Disarm and then realized they really don't want a disarm build, they can replace that feat with another later on. So this is a cool feature that people often forget the Fighter has, when they complain about the fighter getting locked into a certain build.
- "Fighters are one-trick ponies." I disagree with this to an extent, but it's an argument often made, and it must be for a reason, right? There is a thread of truth by the pressure to specialize, as noted above.
Fighters actually do have some cool class skills. Intimidate, Knowledge Dungeoneering, Knowledge Engineering, Survival, amongst some of the more utilitarian skills. You can, even with the Fighter's limited skill ranks, build a well rounded fighter if you want to. I think fighters make good craftspersons myself, because they don't have a lot of "required skills" for their class (e.g., disable device or spellcraft).
Because Fighters also get a feat EVERY level, there IS an opportunity to branch out a little. It can depend on build, but you can afford getting Alertness of Skill Focus Basketweaving or something while still building up the Weapon Focus/Specialization tree or what have you. That said, in fairness to those who dislike the fighter, splats have actually kind of screwed that up. There are so many combat feats that seem like must-haves that there's less room for RP/utility/fun feats. You can also afford to, say, have a fighter be good with a weapon AND also a combat maneuver and so on (less so than many other classes) so he can have more versatility in weapon combat than others can have in weapon combat.
(That said, honestly? I don't think it would be game breaking to boost the fighter's skill points to 4 per level and add Acrobatics to his skill list--in 3.5 he had Jump and I think it was pointless to take it away from him. But it's not horrible as is)
But you can build a fighter to have more than one trick. It doesn't always look like it though.
-- The fighter is very gear reliant.
This argument could be made for every single class, mind. And in a way, I think the fighter is better off at least at low levels, because there's no equipment they HAVE to have to function (most casters needed their spellbooks/component pouches/holy symbols/alchemists' kits; trap disablers and lock pickers need thieves' tools; cavaliers need their banner, etc. etc.). But at some point they will need a way to bypass DR, they will strongly want enhancements to armor and weapons because monsters of a certain CR assume PCs have a certain bonus to such, and they may need to deal with unusual/magical forms of transit such as flying. More to the point, fighters can't fly or do other things many mid-high level PCs are expected to be able to do without magic gear. And the only way the fighter can provide that for themselves is with the Mastercrafter feat; otherwise they are reliant on their party for buffs and magic items crafted for them. Now, one would hope the wizard will make the fighter fly so the fighter will keep the wyvern from charging the wizard, because that's how it's supposed to work, but such "reliances" don't often figure into how folks determine class effectiveness.
Those are my observations. I think the fighter is better than some say but I think some of the above can be problematic as well. (But I can't think of a single class that someone doesn't find problematic somehow...)
Removed some completely unnecessary comments. Let's not snark on other editions (or people), please.
Leading armies requires what? Honestly, there is not a single skill or feat that is required. This is purely roleplaying. If you must represent it, Leadership is the feat to pull it off. However, Paizo doesn't think it's necessary. There are plenty of fighters in Paizo products that are also leaders of armies and nations. Paizo says that this fighter can lead armies. Good enough for me. If you are expecting more, then you are placing restrictions that don't actually exist in the game.If you notice: he has 5 knowledge skils, no Cha/Wis bonus, Profession Soldier, terrible AC for his CR, etc.
I mean, any CR 10 has a 65% hit him; I mean he hits himself on a 4.
Fluff that he is a good general doesn't mean he is mechanically.
A couple things:
1) Being a good general, according to how the rules are set up, is completely fluff. There have been d20 system fighters as generals since 2000. It's nothing new. You, and others, may not think that they fit the role but the people who wrote the game disagree. Since they are still making fighters as generals, it is obvious that your opinion on what a general needs is not the same as what the people who wrote the game think a general should need.
2) You do know that he is an NPC right? He has a low amount of gear compared to a PC. Also, as a general, he is probably not fighting a creature of equal CR. Generals lead armies. They tend to fight many lower challenge rating creatures. Adventurers tend to deal with the bigger and tougher creatures. Take a look at other soldiers and you will see that he is much better off than they are.
You are placing arbitrary restrictions on the character that do not exist in the game. There is not a single thing listed as a requirement to be a general. Soldiers follow orders. That's it. A bad general dies in combat. A good one lives long enough to lead more men into battle.
This is completely false though. Not only are these all possible, these particular 4 can all be done with the same character. It's very easy, and can be done with 15 point buy to boot.You must be talking about a Fighter in isolation, and/or a Fighter in a low, low level game.
No. I'm actually talking about a fighter straight out of the books. It only takes an understanding of how skills work, a GM that understands how skills work, and proper understanding of how to build a character. The problem is often that people expect the fighter to fill a role that it was never meant to fill.
Once level 4 is reached, the Fighter is already overshadowed by pretty much everyone else in any area besides combat. You're implying that fluff can cover everything, but the fact remains: Other classes have mechanics and the same DM fiat/fluff you are toting, leaving the Fighter as little more than background noise by comparison. The alternative is to tailor the game to let the Fighter feel useful... and that is evidence of failure right there.
Completely false. First off, drop the silliness of DM fiat/fluff. It's a cop out excuse for bad GMing. A good GM can challenge any character or group of characters. I know, I've been doing it for 30+ years now. The only times I have ever seen a fighter not be useful is when the players and/or the GM didn't know what they were doing.
As of late, I've concluded that this is one major flaw of the class design - complete neglect of all the facets of a game, and providing each class the means to meaningfully contribute, in many "scenes", in any game, at any level. Right now, the Fighter can "wing it" at low level, but as of mid level and up, can only meaningfully contribute in combat. In mid-to-high level intrigue/RP, the fighter is highly limited, restricted and/or sits out. In stealthy situations, the fighter is a liability and sits out. In contests or challenges of utility, the Fighter has almost nothing to offer, so he sits out. That's alot of time that a player has to sit out and wait for the next fight.
Then the GM failed and the player doesn't know how to play. It's honestly not that difficult. If a player can't figure out what to do outside of combat, then that isn't a fault of the class. It's a fault of the GM and player. I hear/read this falsehood a lot but the reality is that anyone can do things out of combat.
If you have to choose between playing the game a certain way (combat-focused or DM-fiat-coddling) or people sitting out, then there's a problem.
It is bad GMing that causes the fighter to not be useful. It is not fiat that allows a fighter to be successful. A good GM knows how to create challenges for the party and for each character.
I tire of seeing "fiat" thrown around so much. It's a complete falsehood that any class needs fiat to be good. It needs a GM that knows what they are doing. It also needs a player who knows how to build to what they want.